scholarly journals Towards construction of the richer concept of justice and the effective concept of care

Impact ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (4) ◽  
pp. 35-37
Author(s):  
Tetsuhiko Shinagawa
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Ethic Of Care ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Ethical Norms ◽  
Justice And Care ◽  
Modern Orthodox ◽  
The Needy

Professor Tetsuhiko Shinagawa is a professor of philosophy and ethics at the Faculty of Letters, Kansai University, Japan, who is interested in the foundations of ethics. He believes that modern orthodox ethical theories such as liberalism and deontology are founded on justice and right. But he sees flaws in these theories as they presuppose that society consists of equal and self-sufficient members, which is not the case. He is interested in ethical theories that are founded on norms other than justice and can be applied to relation with asymmetry of power, specifically Carol Gilligan's ethic of care and Hans Jonas' principle of responsibility. The former is a normative ethical theory that stems from the interconnected nature of the human condition and surrounds the need for responsiveness to the vulnerability of human beings, while the latter posits that human survival is dependent on our ability to care for the planet as the home of future generations, with our actions having a direct impact on the Earth's future. Shinagawa is investigating how the ethical norms of justice and care can be applied to social issues and aid vulnerable members of society. The two ethical norms are contrasted but mutually supplementing and Shinagawa is interested in how they can lead to overlapping guidelines for aiding the needy as an actual social issue, transforming their respective conceptions. This research is looking to overcome limitations associated with the two social norms and combine the two norms in order to arrive at a richer concept of justice and an effective concept of care.

Robert Nozick’s Evolutionist Turn in Ethics

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-122
Author(s):  
Radu Uszkai ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Moral Motivation ◽  
Robert Nozick ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Philosophical Framework ◽  
Ethical Norms ◽  
Moral Philosophers

The purpose of the present study is that of examining what I call Robert Nozick’s “evolutionist turn” in ethics. More specifically, my aim is to provide an answer to the following question: what type of ethical theory does Robert Nozick sketch in his last book, Invariances? My first objective will be that of delineating the philosophical framework which will accommodate my future discussion, highlighting the distinction between the metaphysical and scientific approaches to ethics as proposed by Ken Binmore, but also Emanuel Socaciu's taxonomy of ethical theories, which stems from the particular way in which moral philosophers tackle the nature of ethical norms and moral motivation. I then set forth to show that, in the philosophical framework previously described, Robert Nozick's approach from Anarchy, State, and Utopia should be seen as a metaphysical one. The last and most important part of my study aims to show how Nozick's “evolutionist turn” took place and developed, from his perspective on rationality in The Nature of Rationality, to his ethical theory advanced in Invariances.

Atonement

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleonore Stump
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Mind Reading ◽  
Shared Attention ◽  
History Of Interpretation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Eleonore Stump

The doctrine that Christ has saved human beings from their sins, with all that that salvation entails, is the distinctive doctrine of Christianity. Over the course of many centuries of reflection on the doctrine, highly diverse understandings have been proposed, many of which have also raised strong positive or negative emotions in those who have reflected on them. In this book, in the context of this history of interpretation, Eleonore Stump considers this theological doctrine with philosophical care. The central question of the book is the nature of the atonement. That is, what is it that is accomplished by the passion and death of Christ (or the life, passion, and death, of Christ)? Whatever exactly it is, it is supposed to include a solution to the problem of the post-Fall human condition, with its guilt and shame. This volume canvasses major interpretations of the doctrine of the atonement that attempt to explain this solution, and it argues that all of them have serious shortcomings. In their place, Stump employs an extension of a Thomistic account of love and forgiveness to argue for a relatively novel interpretation of the doctrine, which she calls ‘the Marian interpretation.’ Stump argues that this Marian interpretation makes better sense of the doctrine of the atonement than other interpretations do, including Anselm’s well-known theory. In the process of constructing the Marian interpretation, she also discusses love, union, guilt, shame, forgiveness, retribution, punishment, shared attention, mind-reading, empathy, and various other issues in moral psychology and ethics.

On the Harm of Genocide

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-49
Author(s):  
Paul Kucharski
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
The State ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Community Or ◽  
The World ◽  
Scholarly Discussion ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Individual Human ◽  
The Human Condition

My aim in this essay is to advance the state of scholarly discussion on the harms of genocide. The most obvious harms inflicted by every genocide are readily evident: the physical harm inflicted upon the victims of genocide and the moral harm that the perpetrators of genocide inflict upon themselves. Instead, I will focus on a kind of harm inflicted upon those who are neither victims nor perpetrators, on those who are outside observers, so to speak. My thesis will be that when a whole community or culture is eliminated, or even deeply wounded, the world loses an avenue for insight into the human condition. My argument is as follows. In order to understand human nature, and that which promotes its flourishing, we must certainly study individual human beings. But since human beings as rational and linguistic animals are in part constituted by the communities in which they live, the study of human nature should also involve the study of communities and cultures—both those that are well ordered and those that are not. No one community or culture has expressed all that can be said about the human way of existing and flourishing. And given that the unity and wholeness of human nature can only be glimpsed in a variety of communities and cultures, then part of the harm of genocide consists in the removal of a valuable avenue for human beings to better understand themselves.

scholarly journals Anthropological contributions for thinking and acting in the health area and its ethical dilemas

2008 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 329-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Cecília de Souza Minayo
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Health Sector ◽  
Ethics Committees ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Health Area ◽  
Health Council ◽  
Mandatory Requirement

This paper attempts to analyze the way in which the issue of ethics in social research is dealt by institutional commissions based in biomedicine criteria. This discussion is particularly important for Social Sciences in Health, as our projects must necessarily be presented to Committees for assessment. In actual fact, Resolution Nº 196/1996 issued by the National Health Council establishes this mandatory requirement for all social areas. However, there is a question among researchers working with social issues, arguing that the health sector is moving outside its field when attempting to regulate actions in other fields of investigation. Grounded on philosophical anthropology, this paper is divided into three parts: (1) elements of anthropological foundations of ethics; (2) contributions of Anthropology to thinking about ethics and human rights in health; (3) internal and external questioning about anthropological practice. I conclude that if the ethical issue that involves human beings cannot be reduced to the procedures established by Ethics Committees, discussions in greater depth are required among social scientists on the construction of a practice based on and guided by respect for the intersubjectivity of all the players engaged in a research project.

scholarly journals Ubuntu feminism: Tentative reflections

2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Drucilla Cornell ◽  
Karin Van Marle
Keyword(s):  
Ethic Of Care ◽  
The United States ◽  
Western Cape ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Spatial Justice ◽  
Western Idea ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Social Belonging ◽  
History Of ◽  
Critical Intervention

The starting-point for the article is to provide a brief background on the Ubuntu Project that Prof. Drucilla Cornell convened in 2003; most notably the interviews conducted in Khayamandi, the support of a sewing collective, and the continued search to launch an Ubuntu Women�s Centre. The article will reflect on some of the philosophical underpinnings of ubuntu, whereafter debates in Western feminism will be revisited. Ubuntu feminism is suggested as a possible response to these types of feminisms. The authors support an understanding of ubuntu as critique and ubuntu feminism accordingly as a critical intervention that recalls a politics of refusal. The article ends by raising the importance of thinking about spatiality through ubuntu, and vice versa. It may seem strange to title an article Ubuntu feminism when feminism itself has often been identified as a European or Western idea. But, this article will argue that ubuntu offers conceptions of transindividuality and ways of social belonging that could respond in a meaningful way to some of European feminism�s own dilemmas and contradictions. Famously, one of the most intense debates in feminism was between those who defended an ethic of care in a relational view of the self, on one side, and those feminists who held on to more traditional conceptions of justice, placing an emphasis on individuality and autonomy, on the other side. The authors will suggest that ubuntu could address this tension in feminism. Thus, in this article the focus will not simply be on ubuntu, in order to recognise that there are other intellectual heritages worthy of consideration, other than those in Europe and the United States. It will also take a next step in arguing that ubuntu may be a better standpoint entirely from which to continue thinking about what it means to be a human being, as well as how to conceive of the integral interconnection human beings all have with one another. This connection through ubuntu is always sought ethically, and for the authors it underscores what we have both endorsed as ethical feminism. In this essay it is considered how ubuntu feminism could refuse the demands of patriarchy, as well as the confines of liberal feminism. The authors are interested in thinking about ubuntu in general as critique, as a critical response to the pervasiveness of a liberal legal order. Their aim is also to explore tentatively ubuntu and spatiality � how could one understand ubuntu in spatial terms, and more pertinently, how could ubuntu and ubuntu feminism relate to spatial justice? Before turning to the theoretical discussion, some of the on-the-ground history of the Ubuntu Project will be reviewed, including the Project�s attempt to build an Ubuntu Women�s Centre in Khayamandi in the Western Cape, South Africa.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Fedyk
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Psychological Organization ◽  
Different Levels

This chapter rearticulates many of the major ideas and arguments in the proceeding chapters. But it also connects one of the primary conclusions of the book up with a debate in ethics over what the structure and form of ethical theories should look like. The proceeding chapters show that one possible form that an ethical theory can take is a loose confederacies of different models and frameworks that apply to different levels of social and psychological organization.

Leonard Woolf’s Fear and Politics: A Debate at the Zoo: Satirical Heritage as Apocalyptic Prophecy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vara Neverow
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Closing Time ◽  
Genetic Elements ◽  
Zoo Animals ◽  
Leonard Woolf ◽  
Animal Farm ◽  
The Human Condition

Leonard Woolf, in his 24-page satirical pamphlet, Fear and Politics: A Debate at the Zoo, was published in 1925 and was the seventh work in the first series of Hogarth Essays. In the work, Woolf explores the inherent attributes of the human condition from a highly ironic viewpoint, presenting his argument through the discourse of animals. Victoria Glendinning (Leonard Woolf: A Biography) categorizes the work as a “satirical squib” and describes how “the supercivilized zoo animals hold a debate after closing time to discuss Man.” The elephant, all too familiar with human nature, states emphatically that, “Human beings delude themselves that a League of Nations or Protection or armies and navies are going to give them security and civilization in their jungle.” Glendinning not only aligns the heritage of Woolf’s essay with the caustic social critiques of Swift and Kipling but also observes that Fear and Politics “casts a beam ahead toward Orwell’s Animal Farm” (Glendinning 240-41). By situating the essay in the context of its hereditary, genetic elements, Glendinning highlights how Woolf’s work is also passed on to another heir.

We the People

We the Gamers ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 3-18
Author(s):  
Karen Schrier
Keyword(s):  
Health Economic ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
Card Games ◽  
The People ◽  
Competitive Games ◽  
We The People

Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the main arguments of the book We the Gamers. It provides an overview of why ethics and civics matter, why games matter in the practice of ethics and civics, and why these types of skills need to be taught at this particular moment in our lifetimes. The chapter provides the necessary context for the book—including the COVID-19 pandemic and concomitant health, economic, and social issues. To help solve these systemic, complex problems it is necessary to connect, civically engage, and ethically evaluate and deliberate. People need to not only learn these skills themselves, but teach their neighbors, community members, and leaders. This chapter reveals how games and gamers are already engaging in civics and ethics. Games are communities and public spheres where people come together to play, practice, deliberate, solve problems, and repair our world. The chapter also reviews the variety of games that may enable the practice of these skills, from in-person card games to big-budget console games, and from classroom-based collaborative games to livestreamed competitive games. Finally, this chapter introduces the concept of practicing as a citizen, which is to grapple with the complexity of humanity and governance. How do individuals “citizen” together and play with, critique, and redesign systems? How do games help people to overcome the unnecessary obstacles and unjust inequities of our world? How do people help one another to flourish as human beings?

What Is Diversity?

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Mona Sue Weissmark
Keyword(s):  
Social Issues ◽  
Brain Size ◽  
Single Species ◽  
Classification Systems ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Tower Of Babel ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
The Bible ◽  
History Of ◽  
Physical Attributes

This introductory chapter traces the history of ideas about race and human classification systems, from the bible to the Classical period and on to the first “scientific” attempts to rank differences and ascribe characteristics to races. Starting with the view from the Tower of Babel came the notion that linguistic and cultural diversity was the Supreme Being’s punitive response to such human hubris of reaching for heaven on earth. Following that came a litany of scholars, scientists, and doctors, who established hierarchies that left white Europeans on the top of the intellectual period, and other races lagging behind. Among these was Hippocrates, who wrote that the forms and dispositions of human beings corresponded with the nature of the country, their region’s climate and topography. Meanwhile, the French physician Francois Bernier developed the first post-Classical racial classification system, basing it on physical attributes. Johann Friedrich Blumenbach was the first phrenologist, and although he also classified race, he asserted that all races belonged to a single species. Physician George Morton measured cranial size and then estimated brain size in an effort to rank humans based on intelligence. The chapter then looks at more modern concepts, such as Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution; scientific rejection of the notion that races were biologically different; and UNESCO’s statement that social issues give rise to racism.

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