scholarly journals A Unified Moral Terrain?

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-39
Author(s):  
Stephen Everson
Keyword(s):  
Proper Part ◽  
Moral Landscape ◽  
Moral Constraint ◽  
Thomas Scanlon

In his book What We Owe to Each Other, Thomas Scanlon proposes what he calls a ‘contractualist’ explanation of what he describes as ‘a central part of the territory called morality’, i.e. our duties to other rational creatures. If Scanlon is right, the fact that another creature is rational generates a particular kind of moral constraint on how we may act towards it: one should ‘treat rational creatures only in ways that would be allowed by principles that they could not reasonably reject insofar as they too were seeking principles of mutual governance which other rational creatures could not reasonably reject’. This is then used to explain what makes actions right, at least within his central moral area. Such actions will be right because they are permitted by principles that cannot reasonably be rejected. In this essay, I question both whether Scanlon succeeds in identifying a proper part of the moral terrain as a subject for his account and also what, if any, is the contractualist content of that account. I argue that he equivocates between two distinct and incompatible conceptions of the justifiability of principles. According to the first, justifiability is a relation between principles and people, whilst according to the second, for a principle to be justifiable is for it to be justified. For his explanation of morality to have any contractualist force, justifiability needs to be understood as a relation, but for that explanation to have any plausibility, justifiability must be understood nonrelationally. Because of this, the account is unstable and fails to describe any part of the moral landscape.

Refugees and Other Necessitous Migrants

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Song
Keyword(s):  
Immigration Policy ◽  
Duty To Protect ◽  
Moral Constraint

Chapter 7 considers the substance of immigration policy. It argues that the duty to protect refugees and other forcibly displaced migrants is a moral constraint on the state’s right to control immigration. The chapter examines the grounds of the obligation toward refugees, who should be regarded as a refugee, what the duty to assist refugees entails, how the duty should be shared among states, and what the limits on the duty to refugees might be. It concludes by considering some implications for contemporary policy toward refugees.

Opting for the Best

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas W. Portmore
Keyword(s):  
Proper Part ◽  
The World ◽  
Normative Principle

The book concerns what is, perhaps, the least controversial normative principle concerning action: you ought to perform your best option—best, that is, in terms of whatever ultimately matters. The book sets aside the question of what ultimately matters so as to focus on the following questions. What are our options? Which options do we assess directly in terms of their own goodness and which do we assess in terms of the goodness of the more encompassing options of which they’re a proper part? What do we hold fixed when assessing how good an option is? Do we, for instance, hold fixed the agent’s present beliefs, desires, and intentions? And do we hold fixed the agent’s predictable future misbehavior? The book argues that addressing these sorts of questions is the key to solving certain puzzles concerning what we ought to do, including those involving supererogation, indeterminate outcomes, overdetermined outcomes, and predictable future misbehavior. One of the book’s more controversial theses is that we have obligations not only to voluntarily perform certain actions, but also to nonvoluntarily form certain reasons-responsive attitudes (e.g., desires, beliefs, and intentions). This is important because what effect an act will have on the world depends not only on which acts the agent will simultaneously and subsequently be performing but also on which attitudes she will simultaneously and subsequently be forming.

Neurointerventions, Morality, and Children

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Clayton ◽  
Andres Moles
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Moral Enhancement ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Moral Conduct ◽  
Moral Behaviour ◽  
Moral Constraint ◽  
The Ideal ◽  
Moral Limits

Is the political community morally permitted to use neurointerventions to improve the moral conduct of children? Putting aside difficult questions concerning the institutionalization of moral enhancement, the authors address this question, first, by arguing that is not, in itself, always morally impermissible for the community to impose neurointerventions on adults. Although certain ideals, such as the ideal of individual autonomy, limit the permissible employment of neurointerventions, they do not generate a moral constraint that always forbids their use. Thereafter, they argue that because young children lack certain moral capacities that adults possess, the moral limits that pertain to the use of neurointerventions to improve their moral behaviour are, in principle, less restrictive than they are for adults.

The Power to be Ethical: Controlling Moral Assemblages in Border Militias

2021 ◽  
pp. 089124162110218
Author(s):  
John R. Parsons
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Recent Interest ◽  
Ethical Conflicts ◽  
Moral Landscape ◽  
The Government ◽  
Moral Certainty ◽  
The Right ◽  
Ethical Response

Every year, hundreds of U.S. citizens patrol the Mexican border dressed in camouflage and armed with pistols and assault rifles. Unsanctioned by the government, these militias aim to stop the movement of narcotics into the United States. Recent interest in the anthropology of ethics has focused on how individuals cultivate themselves toward a notion of the ethical. In contrast, within the militias, ethical self-cultivation was absent. I argue the volunteers derived the power to be ethical from the control of the dominant moral assemblage and the construction of an immoral “Other” which provided them the power to define a moral landscape that limited the potential for ethical conflicts. In the article, I discuss two instances Border Watch and its volunteers dismissed disruptions to their moral certainty and confirmed to themselves that their actions were not only the “right” thing to do, but the only ethical response available.

Symposium on Amartya Sen's philosophy: 4 Reply

2001 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amaryta Sen
Keyword(s):  
Martha Nussbaum ◽  
Related Literature ◽  
Philip Pettit ◽  
Elizabeth Anderson ◽  
Thomas Scanlon

I am most grateful to Elizabeth Anderson (2000), Philip Pettit (2000) and Thomas Scanlon (2000) for making such insightful and penetrating comments on my work and the related literature. I have reason enough to be happy, having been powerfully defended in some respects and engagingly challenged in others. I must also take this opportunity of thanking Martha Nussbaum, for not only chairing the session in which these papers were presented followed by a splendid discussion (which she led), but also for taking the initiative, in the first place, to arrange the session.

Konceptualizowanie uczuć jako specyfika opisu przeżyć w tekstach uczniowskich

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 163-183
Author(s):  
Barbara Szczerbińska
Keyword(s):  
Primary School ◽  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
Proper Part ◽  
Primary School Students ◽  
School Students ◽  
Contrast Technique ◽  
Linguistic Activity ◽  
The Given ◽  
Time Sequences

The aim of the article is to analyze the development of the description of experiences and the conceptualisation of feelings in the school essays. The author analyzes the proper part of the description of experiences prepared by primary school students; the interpretation consists of both treating the text as a product – the effect of using technology in the process of linguistic activity – as well as introducing the students’ textual abilities and skills. The analyzed texts include the authors’ own interpretations of their experiences, starting from the presentation of stimuli that triggered the given feelings, through describing the accompanying and emotional reactions, and ending with the description of the results derived from the experienced emotions. The essence of the description of experiences is the conceptualization of feelings, for the development of which students use three different schemas: simple time sequences, the contrast technique and the “kaleidoscope technique”.

On Satisfaction of the Fifth Necessary Condition of Proper Part Surface Generation in Design of Plunge Shaving Cutter for Finishing of Precision Involute Gears

2006 ◽  
Vol 129 (9) ◽  
pp. 969-980 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen P. Radzevich
Keyword(s):  
Gear Tooth ◽  
Numerical Control ◽  
Proper Part ◽  
Surface Generation ◽  
Tooth Surface ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Analytical Mechanics ◽  
Part Surface ◽  
Involute Gears ◽  
Novel Design

In this paper, a novel modified scheme and effective computer representation for design of a plunge shaving cutter is presented. The paper aims to develop a novel design of shaving cutter for plunge shaving of precision involute gears. The study is carried out on the premise of satisfaction of the fifth necessary condition of proper part surface generation (PSG) when designing the plunge shaving cutter. In the current study, the author’s earlier developed DG/K method of surface generation is used together with the principal elements of analytical mechanics of gears. (The DG/K method is based on fundamental results obtained in differential geometry of surfaces, and on kinematics of multi-parametric motion of a rigid body in the E3 space. The interested reader may wish to go for details to the monograph: Radzevich, S.P., Fundamentals of Surface Generation, Monograph, Kiev, Rastan, 2001, 592 pp., and to: Radzevich, S.P., Sculptured Surface Machining on Multi-Axis NC Machine, Monograph, Kiev, Vishcha Schola, 1991, 192 pp.) In the particular case under consideration, the method employs (a) an analytical description of the gear tooth surface to be machined, (b) configuration of the plunge shaving cutter relative to the involute gear, (c) analytical representation of the coordinate systems transformations, and (d) the fifth condition of proper PSG that is adapted to finishing of precision involute gears. The fifth condition of proper PSG is investigated in the paper. On the premise of the obtained results of the investigation, a novel design of plunge shaving cutter for finishing of precision involute gears is proposed. The developed novel design of plunge shaving cutter can be used on shaving machines available on the market, e.g. on Gleason’s new Genesis™ 130SV computer numerical control (CNC) shaving machine.

The Ethical Limits of Global Democracy

2018 ◽  
pp. 413-426
Author(s):  
Eva Erman
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Global Democracy ◽  
International Political Theory ◽  
Moral Constraint

This chapter discusses the ethical limits of global democracy, which are here understood as the conditions under which global democracy should be construed (formulated and justified) and promoted in real politics. The aim is not to develop and defend a substantive account of global democracy, but to bring up some basic concerns that are essential to address when analysing the limits of global democracy as well as to suggest some fruitful ways to approach them. The chapter focuses on two types of moral constraint on construing and promoting global democracy. The first type of constraint is set by empirical concerns, which highlights central methodological discussions of the role of ideal and non-ideal theorizing in International Political Theory (IPT). The second type of constraint is set by normative concerns, which highlights questions about the role of principles of democratic legitimacy and their applicability.

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