scholarly journals Three interpretations of the Anthropocene

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 133-153
Author(s):  
Darrel Moellendorf
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Final Part ◽  
Theoretical Reason ◽  
Short Introduction

After a short introduction into the recent discourse on the Anthropocene, I will discuss three different interpretations of the Anthropocene: the Anthropocene as promethean, as destruction and as inegalitarian. These interpretations cannot simply be settled by the facts since they concern the direction in which things might develop. Therefore, I will argue, they are not mere predictions based on theoretical reason. Because of the very fact that they are bound up with fundamental human interests and human moral concerns, they involve prospection based on practical reason and prospection is itself deeply associated with hope. The final part of my paper aims to show that we are justified to hold hope in the epoch of the Anthropocene.

Kant on Judging and the Will

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jill Vance Buroker
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Theoretical Reason ◽  
Critical Philosophy ◽  
Voluntary Activity ◽  
The Will ◽  
Direct Use

Kant’s Critical philosophy depends on the distinction between theoretical and practical reason, which he borrowed from Aristotle. But unlike Aristotle Kant claims that theoretical reason is subordinate to practical reason. This raises the possibility that theoretical judging could be a voluntary activity. This chapter investigates Kant’s view of the relation between theoretical judgments and the will. Based on Andrew Chignell’s recent work, it is argued that Kant recognizes the legitimate direct use of the will only in judgments he labels Belief (Glaube). With respect to Knowledge, his position is identical to Descartes’s position on clear and distinct perception. An analysis of Kant’s voluntarism regarding the activities of theoretical reason provides a model for subordinating theoretical reason to practical reason.

scholarly journals Homoseksualiteit: Die kerk, die tradisie en die Bybel – homofobie en sarkofobie en die evangelie

2004 ◽  
Vol 60 (1/2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yolanda Dreyer
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Theoretical Reason ◽  
Psychological Phenomena ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Social ◽  
Dialectical Perspective ◽  
The Church ◽  
Church Tradition

Homosexuality: Church, tradition, and the Bible – homophobia, sarcophobia, and the gospelThe article demonstrates a trend in the current debate on the church’s attitude towards homosexuality, namely that exegetical results supersede authentic faith experiences of gays. It shows that this trend causes an untenable tension between the dialectical notions sola fidei and sola Scriptura. Such an unacceptable tension contributes to the social psychological phenomena of homophobia and sarcophobia. The article investigates this empirical approach (theoretical reason) to homo-sexuality from the dialectical perspective of a theological approach (practical reason). The latter includes an investigation of the epistemological processes behind exegetes’ diverse use of Scripture. The article aims to show that homophobia in society and church, and the sarcophobia of homosexuals can be challenged and healed if the church holds on to the dialectic between sola fidei and sola Scriptura and the dialectic between pastoral concerns and the engagement with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Practical reason and ethics

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Onora O'Neill
Keyword(s):  
Human Activity ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Ethical Judgment ◽  
Direct Methods ◽  
Direct Access ◽  
Theoretical Reason ◽  
Plausible Account ◽  
Instrumental Reasoning ◽  
Working Out

Practical reason is reasoning which is used to guide action, and is contrasted with theoretical reason, which is used to guide thinking. Sometimes ‘practical reason’ refers to any way of working out what to do; more usually it refers to proper or authoritative, hence reasoned, ways of working out what to do. On many accounts practical reasoning is solely instrumental: it identifies ways of reaching certain results or ends, but has nothing to say about which ends should be pursued or which types of action are good or bad, obligatory or forbidden. Instrumental reasoning is important not only for ethics and politics, but for all activities, for example, in working out how to travel to a given destination. Other accounts of practical reason insist that it is more than instrumental reasoning: it is concerned not only with working out how to achieve given ends, but with identifying the ethically important ends of human activity, or the ethically important norms or principles for human lives, and provides the basis for all ethical judgment. No account of objective ethical values can be established without showing how we can come to know them, that is, without showing that some form of ethical cognitivism is true. However, ethical cognitivism is not easy to establish. Either we must show that some sort of intuition or perception provides direct access to a realm of values; or we must show that practical reasoning provides less direct methods by which objective ethical claims can be established. So anybody who thinks that there are directly objective values, but doubts whether we can intuit them directly, must view a plausible account of practical reason as fundamental to philosophical ethics.

Practical Reason and the Status of Moral Obligation

2007 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 197-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Audi
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Moral Obligation ◽  
External World ◽  
Moral Action ◽  
Adequate Account ◽  
Theoretical Reason ◽  
Moral Skepticism ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Status ◽  
Moral Claims

The power of skepticism depends on the apparent possibility of rationally asking, for virtually any kind of proposition commonly thought to be known, how it is known or what justifies believing it. Moral claims are among those commonly subjected to skeptical challenges and doubts, even on the part of some people who are not skeptical about ordinary claims regarding the external world. There may be even more skepticism about the possibility of justifying moral actions, particularly if they are against the agent's self-interest. Both problems-how to justify moral claims and how to justify moral action - come within the scope of the troubling question “Why be moral?” Even a brief response to moral skepticism should consider both kinds of targets of justification, cognitive and behavioural, and should indicate some important relations between the two types of skeptical challenge. I will begin with the cognitive case- with skepticism about the scope of theoretical reason in ethics - proceed to practical skepticism, which concerns the scope of practical reason, and then show how an adequate account of rationality may enable us to respond to moral skepticism.

scholarly journals El principio de universalización y la razón práctica (2a. parte)

1989 ◽  
Vol 21 (61) ◽  
pp. 3-41
Author(s):  
Osvaldo Guariglia
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Theoretical Study ◽  
Logical Structure ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Main Role ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Theoretical Reason ◽  
Logical Scheme ◽  
Peculiar Form ◽  
Moral Judgements

There is no doubt that one of the issues which have been more discussed about in the contemporary ethics bibliography is that of the universalization principIe and its applications to specific cases, applications which involve sorne universalizability criteria. On discussing the problems for contemporary philosophy derived from this principie, there has been a tendency to intermingle, if not to mix up, the principle itselfwith the universalizability criteria which each author proposes to satisfy it, Opposed to this tendency, we propose to clearly separate the universalization principle from the said criteria, considering that the former provides a logical scheme which constitutes the support, the ultimate warrant, for particular moral judgements. With this procedure we intend to study the structure of such a principIe and the elements that are involved in its forrnulation; only after this examination can we have a more precise idea about what is needed in an universalizability criterion in order to use it without been exposed to strong counterexamples. In this paper I show, first, (I) a scheme of the universalization principIe in order to clarify not only its logical structure but the different concepts that must be specified in each case so that the principIe can be applied significantly. The analysis of all the elements involved in moral discourse —human individuals, different kinds of properties, aetions, obligations and prohibitions— will show to which extent the significative application of the universalization scheme presupposes a dense weave of previous semantic, pragmatic and logico-practic rules, that constitute the first level from which moral judgement afterwards arises. This analysis once completed, I will examine (II) the function of the principle in the field of moral judgements and its main role as ultimate rule of practical reason to which it grants its peculiar form of objectivity. For one concept that has been submerged in a deep crisis within contemporary philosophy is, undoubtedly, the concept of "practical reason". Indeed, while logic and epistemology were contributing with a certain model, in fact more and more discussed but still persistent, of "theoretical reason", what had been considered the traditional field of practical reason: human action, ethics and politics, remained imprisoned within the dilemma of either finding its place again as an object of theoretical study or being thrown forever to the realm of the unpredictable, the arbitrary, in short, the irrational. Briefly, on evaporating, together with the last remainders of philosophy of conscience,the architectural work of the three Critiques, the challenge offered by Hume when he denied all intervention of reason on moral was renewed by quite different courses. The reconstruction of a practical reason , undergone also from different positions and with propositions not always compatible, gathers together, with equal zeal, kantian heritage and its attempt to bring it at Ieast to the same level ofvalidity as reason in its theoretical use. The present paper tries to offer an examination of the irreplaceable contribution of the universalization principle to a reconstructive notion of practical reason as ultimate reason for valid moral judgements.

scholarly journals Człowiek sprawiedliwy a człowiek bezbożny w świetle Ps 37

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-34
Author(s):  
Mykhaylyna Kľusková
Keyword(s):  
Main Topic ◽  
Final Part ◽  
Actual Situation ◽  
Short Introduction ◽  
The Third ◽  
Fourth Part ◽  
Key Terms

Psalm 37 is one of the most typical wisdom texts in the Book of Psalms. In comparison to other psalms it contains a high number of information on the righteous and the wicked person. The paper aims to present and analyse in detail all contexts in which mentions of the righteous and the wicked appear in order to answer the question what function these information have. The paper is divided into five parts. In the first one is given a short introduction into psalm’s genre and its main topic. The second one reflects all mentions of the righteous and the wicked in Ps 37, such containing the key terms as qyDic' and [v'r' but also those which are thematically connected with them. In the third and fourth part of the paper the information about the righteous and the wicked are analysed in detail and the main contexts of their using are defined. The righteous as supported by God are mainly viewed as existential winners in contrast to the wicked presented as life losers. The final part of the article explains the role of the information on the righteous and the wicked in the psalm taking into account the actual situation of the psalm’s addressee.

Schopenhauer, Kant and Compassion

2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 403-429 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Guyer
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Theoretical Reason ◽  
Realistic Theory ◽  
Moral Feeling ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Insight Into

AbstractSchopenhauer presents his moral philosophy as diametrically opposed to that of Kant: for him, pure practical reason is an illusion and morality can arise only from the feeling of compassion, while for Kant it cannot be based on such a feeling and can be based only on pure practical reason. But the difference is not as great as Schopenhauer makes it seem, because for him compassion is supposed to arise from metaphysical insight into the unity of all being, thus from pure if theoretical reason, while for Kant pure practical reason works only by effecting a feeling of respect (in the ‘Critical’ works) or by cultivating, i.e. affecting, natural dispositions to moral feeling (in the ‘post-Critical’ works). I argue that Kant's is the more realistic theory on this point.

Kant’s Standpoint Distinction

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-255
Author(s):  
Markus Kohl
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Theoretical Reason

AbstractI examine what Kant means when he appeals to different standpoints. I argue that Kant seeks to contrast an empirical, anthropocentric standpoint with a normative, more than human standpoint. Against common interpretations, I argue that the normative standpoint is not confined to practical reason, since theoretical reason is concerned with what ought to be as well. Finally, I defend the coherence of Kant’s distinction against important objections.

scholarly journals A atualidade da ética husserliana

2006 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcelo Fabri
Keyword(s):  
Key Words ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Theoretical Reason ◽  
Main Hypothesis ◽  
Phenomenological Reflection ◽  
The Way

O artigo argumenta em favor da atualidade da ética husserliana a partir de três eixos temáticos, que se complementam: a relação entre razão teórica e razão prática no interior da fenomenologia, o conceito de humanidade autêntica e, finalmente, a reflexão fenomenológica sobre a esfera do estrangeiro. Parte-se do pressuposto segundo o qual o pensamento de Husserl abre caminho para uma superação de duas atitudes éticas radicais: o ceticismo de caráter biológico e o universalismo abstrato. PALAVRAS-CHAVE – Ética fenomenológica. Ceticismo biológico. Universalismo abstrato. ABSTRACT The paper argues for today’s relevance of Husserl’s phenomenological ethics, by three complementary thematic points. The first one is the relation between theoretical reason and practical reason on phenomenology; the second, the concept of an authentic humanity; finally, the phenomenological reflection on the alien. The main hypothesis is: Husserl does pave the way for the overcoming of two radical attitudes in ethics, namely, biological skepticism and abstract universalism. KEY WORDS – Phenomenological ethics. Biological skepticism. Abstract universalism.

scholarly journals From Fiat to Crypto: The Present and Future of Money

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Marcus M. Dapp
Keyword(s):  
Public Debate ◽  
Entry Point ◽  
First Century ◽  
Final Part ◽  
Power Relationship ◽  
Short Introduction ◽  
The Public ◽  
Fiat Money ◽  
Basic Functions ◽  
Sustainable Behavior

AbstractThis chapter aims to offer readers an entry point to the deep discussion of this volume and the rationale for the “Finance 4.0” system described in later chapters. What is money, why is it designed this way, and what could it become in the crypto age? The chapter contains three parts. The first part describes in rough strokes the basic functions of money and how today’s fiat money system implements them. The second part offers a modest critique of the fiat money system, arguing that many problems take root in the intimate power relationship between “money and state.” The final part presents two cases that address some of the shortcomings. The first is Bitcoin that infamously pursues a state-independent, decentralized conception of money. The second is Finance 4.0, a system that proposes a participatory multi-dimensional money system with built-in incentives for sustainable behavior. If more readers feel empowered to enter the public debate for a better money system in the twenty-first century, this short introduction achieved its aim.

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