scholarly journals Meriting Concern and Meriting Respect

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Garthoff
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theory ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Moral Standing ◽  
Unified Theory ◽  
Reasons For Action ◽  
Kantian View ◽  
Kantian Theory ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Conscious Animals ◽  
Do So

Recently there has been a somewhat surprising interest among Kantian theorists in the moral standing of animals, coupled with a no less surprising optimism among these theorists about the prospect of incorporating animal moral standing into Kantian theory without contorting its other attractive features. These theorists contend in particular that animal standing can be incorporated into Kantian moral theory without abandoning its logocentrism: the claim that everything that is valuable depends for its value on its relation to rationality. In this essay I raise doubts about the prospects for accommodating animal moral standing within a logocentric Kantianism. I argue instead that the best way to incorporate animal moral standing into Kantian theory is to admit more radical departures from Kant’s position by maintaining that consciousness is a locus of moral standing independent from rationality.I propose that we should attribute moral standing to all conscious animals because the capacity of consciousness is the criterion distinguishing individuals whose well-being generates reasons from individuals whose well-being fails to do so. We need such a criterion because we speak of the well-being of things, such as artifacts and meteorological phenomena, which clearly lack moral standing. Having already argued against the Kantian view that the criterion of moral standing is rationality, I proceed to argue that consciousness is also superior to its other principal rival for the criterion of moral standing: life.On the view that emerges from this discussion, we have obligations to show concern for conscious individuals by treating their well-being as providing us with reasons for action; the view thus endorses the criterion of moral standing typically advanced by utilitarians. On this view we also have a distinct class of obligations to show respect for conscious rational individuals; the view thus endorses the Kantian claim that persons have a distinctive (and a higher) moral status in virtue of their possession of rational capacities. In this essay thus begin to show how a principal insight of each leading approach to modern moral theory may be captured in a unified theory.

The Anti-Inflammatory Basis of Equality

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grant J. Rozeboom
Keyword(s):  
Social Practice ◽  
Moral Standing ◽  
Moral Equality ◽  
Anti Inflammatory ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Do So

We are moral equals, but in virtue of what? The most plausible answers to this question have pointed to our higher agential capacities, but we vary in the degrees to which we possess those capacities. How could they ground our equal moral standing, then? This chapter argues that they do so only indirectly. Our moral equality is most directly grounded in a social practice of equality, a practice that serves the purpose of mitigating our tendencies toward control and domination that interpreters of Rousseau call “inflamed amour-propre.” We qualify as participants in this practice of equality by possessing certain agential capacities, but it is our participation in the practice, and not the capacities themselves, that makes us moral equals. Thus, in contrast with recent accounts that simply posit a threshold above which capacity-variations are ignored, this chapter proposes moving from a capacity-based to a practice-based view of moral equality.

Teleological Reasons

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas W. Portmore
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reasons ◽  
Epistemic Reasons ◽  
Reasons For Action ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Do So

A teleological reason to φ is a reason to φ in virtue of the fact that φ-ing would either itself promote a certain end or is appropriately related to something else that would promote that end. And teleological reasons divide into direct and the indirect kinds, depending on whether the first or second of these two disjuncts applies. Thus, supposing that our end is to maximize utility, the fact that my killing one to save two would maximize utility is a direct teleological reason for me to do so, whereas the fact that my killing one to save two is prohibited by the code of rules whose universal acceptance would maximize utility is an indirect teleological reason for me to refrain from doing so. This chapter discusses various types of reasons, such as epistemic reasons (that is, reasons to believe), and whether all, some, or none of them are teleological. The chapter pays particularly close attention to the issue of whether all practical reasons (that is, reasons for action) are teleological.

scholarly journals Eliminating Prudential Reasons

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Worsnip
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Reasons For Action ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
The Way

This chapter argues, contrary to the consensus of most contemporary Western ethics, that there are no (distinctively, fundamentally) prudential reasons for action. That is to say: there is no class of reasons for action that is distinctively and fundamentally about the promotion of the agent’s own well-being. Considerations to do with the agent’s well-being can supply the agent with reasons only in virtue of her well-being mattering morally or in virtue of her caring about her own well-being. In both of these cases, the way that such prudential considerations supply reasons for action is a way that the well-being of others can supply reasons for action too.

Kantian Perspectives on Private Law

2020 ◽  
pp. 68-84
Author(s):  
Arthur Ripstein
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Private Law ◽  
Legal Institutions ◽  
Naive Theory ◽  
Private Rights ◽  
Kantian View ◽  
Moral Structure ◽  
The Right ◽  
In Virtue Of

This chapter articulates the Kantian approach to private law. It begins by explaining the aims and ambitions of Kantian legal philosophy more generally and, in particular, introducing the Kantian idea that a particular form of thought is appropriate to a particular domain of inquiry or conduct. The chapter situates the Kantian view within a broad natural law tradition. For the part of that tradition that Immanuel Kant develops, the moral structure of natural law is animated by a conception of personal interaction that is so familiar as to be almost invisible. Despite its centrality to both morality and law, in the absence of legal institutions, this natural law is inadequate to its own principles. It requires legal institutions to render it fully determinate in its application consistent with everyone’s independence. It also requires public institutions of adjudication. The chapter further looks at Kant’s “division” of private rights, distinguishing first between the innate right that everyone has simply in virtue of being human and acquired rights that require an affirmative act to establish them. It then goes through the Kantian division of the titles of private right, situating them in relation to the distinction between persons and things. Finally, the chapter articulates the Kantian account of what might be called the naïve theory of remedies—that is, that the remedy is an imperfect continuation of the right that was violated.

Tort’s Indifference: Conformity, Compliance, and Civil Recourse

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Ahson Azmat
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Tort Law ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Reasons For Action ◽  
Internal Point ◽  
Loss Allocation ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Normative Force ◽  
Extensional Structure ◽  
Do So

AbstractLeading accounts of tort law split cleanly into two seams. Some trace its foundations to a deontic form of morality; others to an instrumental, policy-oriented system of efficient loss allocation. An increasingly prominent alternative to both seams, Civil Recourse Theory (CRT) resists this binary by arguing that tort comprises a basic legal category, and that its directives constitute reasons for action with robust normative force. Using the familiar question whether tort’s directives are guidance rules or liability rules as a lens, or prism, this essay shows how considerations of practical reasoning undermine one of CRT’s core commitments. If tort directives exert robust normative force, we must account for its grounds—for where it comes from, and why it obtains. CRT tries to do so by co-opting H.L.A. Hart’s notion of the internal point of view, but this leveraging strategy cannot succeed: while the internal point of view sees legal directives as guides to action, tort law merely demands conformity. To be guided by a directive is to comply with it, not conform to it, so tort’s structure blocks the shortcut to normativity CRT attempts to navigate. Given the fine-grained distinctions the theory makes, and with the connection between its claims and tort’s requirements thus severed, CRT faces a dilemma: it’s either unresponsive to tort’s normative grounds, or it’s inattentive to tort’s extensional structure.

tenet of ubuntu in South (African) ethics

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vhumani Magezi ◽  
Clement Khlopa
Keyword(s):  
Pastoral Care ◽  
South African ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
African Philosophy ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
African Ethics ◽  
Contemporary Christian ◽  
African Worldview

The notion of ubuntu as a moral theory in the South African and African contexts presents attractive norms of an African worldview that can be articulated and applied to contemporary Christian ethics. The proponents of ubuntu perceive it as an African philosophy based on the maxim, “a person is a person through other persons”, whereby the community prevails over individual considerations. It is not merely an empirical claim that our survival or well-being is causally dependent on others but is in essence capturing a normative account of what we ought to be as human beings. However, ubuntu has shortcomings that make it an impractical notion. Despite its shortcomings, ubuntu has natural ethic potential that enforces and engenders hospitality, neighbourliness, and care for all humanity. This article contributes to further conceptualisation and understanding of the notion of ubuntu and its relationship with hospitality in order to retrieve some principles that can be applied to effective and meaningful pastoral care. The principles drawn from ubuntu are juxtaposed with Christian principles and pastoral care to encourage embodiment of God by pastoral caregivers.

scholarly journals Toward a Unified Grammar of Reference

2005 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Giuseppe Longobardi
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Science ◽  
Unified Theory ◽  
Present Account ◽  
Syntactic Theory ◽  
Topological Mapping ◽  
Mapping Theory ◽  
Do So

AbstractThe unification of traditionally distinct and apparently unrelated objects of inquiry under common more abstract principles is one of the most welcome results of empirical science. This article proposes to draw together some insights of Longobardi (1994, 1996, 2001) into a unified theory of object- and kind-reference viewed as a single grammatical phenomenon, though crosslinguistically parametrized. The present account aims to improve both in accuracy and explanatory force over those outlined in the articles just cited. To do so, the combined leading intuitions of such works are first spelt out, in section 6, into a deeper generalization about the form/meaning relation in nominals and later deduced from a more principled mapping theory, proposing that a syntactically specified position, traditionally labeled D, is responsible in many languages for one of human fundamental linguistic abilities, reference to individuals (Topological Mapping Theory). After the unification of the syntactic mechanisms available for reference to individuals, virtually all other distinctions simply follow precisely from that between the two varieties of such entities (kinds and objects) previewed in Carlson’s (1977a) ontology, indirectly confirming its continuing heuristic power, and from widely accepted economy conditions of recent syntactic theory.

scholarly journals METODE INTERAKSI PARENTING: UPAYA MENGOPTIMALKAN PENDIDIKAN SISWA SEJAK DINI

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (02) ◽  
Author(s):  
Moh Rifai
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Elementary Students ◽  
Key Words ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Good Schools ◽  
Children Education ◽  
First Time ◽  
Do So ◽  
The Way

<p>Parents are obliged to take care of their children’s future, especially by rendering sufficient education. Children are believed to bring about happiness every now and then, who generate family’s pride up to the almighty judication. Some people are save and some are not in that court, where children will give sigificant contribution in it. That’s why the children’s well being has become the parents obligation. To bring about children’s well being, parents should also render the good treatments during the life cycle of their children. The main duties of parents for their children are giving them the good names, sending them to the good schools where they can learn religion, and marry them to their good spouses. Psychologically, when children are sent to school for the first time, they will feel that they are put apart from parents’ care, so that may of them have to go difficult phase of adjustment. The adjustment includes that of education so as to run as naturally as possible. To get the naturality of the education delegation, teachers and educators are obliged to be able to nurture any value to students as naturally as possible. Parenting model of teaching serves the requirements of teaching children just the way the parrents do, so that it is assumptively effective in teaching elementary students by taking consideration on the psychologial aspect of children.</p><p> </p><p>Key words:   Parenting Model of teaching, children education optimalization</p>

scholarly journals Trust predicts COVID-19 prescribed and discretionary behavioral intentions in 23 countries

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. e0248334
Author(s):  
Stefano Pagliaro ◽  
Simona Sacchi ◽  
Maria Giuseppina Pacilli ◽  
Marco Brambilla ◽  
Francesca Lionetti ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Behavioral Intentions ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Behavioral Changes ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Country Level ◽  
Psychological Differences ◽  
Discretionary Behaviors ◽  
Health Experts ◽  
Do So

The worldwide spread of a new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) since December 2019 has posed a severe threat to individuals’ well-being. While the world at large is waiting that the released vaccines immunize most citizens, public health experts suggest that, in the meantime, it is only through behavior change that the spread of COVID-19 can be controlled. Importantly, the required behaviors are aimed not only at safeguarding one’s own health. Instead, individuals are asked to adapt their behaviors to protect the community at large. This raises the question of which social concerns and moral principles make people willing to do so. We considered in 23 countries (N = 6948) individuals’ willingness to engage in prescribed and discretionary behaviors, as well as country-level and individual-level factors that might drive such behavioral intentions. Results from multilevel multiple regressions, with country as the nesting variable, showed that publicized number of infections were not significantly related to individual intentions to comply with the prescribed measures and intentions to engage in discretionary prosocial behaviors. Instead, psychological differences in terms of trust in government, citizens, and in particular toward science predicted individuals’ behavioral intentions across countries. The more people endorsed moral principles of fairness and care (vs. loyalty and authority), the more they were inclined to report trust in science, which, in turn, statistically predicted prescribed and discretionary behavioral intentions. Results have implications for the type of intervention and public communication strategies that should be most effective to induce the behavioral changes that are needed to control the COVID-19 outbreak.

scholarly journals If, Why, and When Subjective Well-Being Influences Health, and Future Needed Research

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Francis Diener
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Subjective Well Being ◽  
Research Issues ◽  
Area Of Interest ◽  
Methodological Approaches ◽  
Open Question ◽  
Do So

We review evidence on whether subjective well-being (SWB) can influence health, why it might do so, and what we know about the conditions where this is more or less likely to occur. This review also explores how various methodological approaches inform the study of the connections between subjective well-being and health and longevity outcomes. Our review of this growing literature indicates areas where data are substantial and where much more research is needed. We conclude that SWB can sometimes influence health, and review a number of reasons why it does so. A key open question is when it does and does not do so – in terms of populations likely to be affected, types of SWB that are most influential (including which might be harmful), and types of health and illnesses that are most likely to be affected. We also describe additional types of research that are now much needed in this burgeoning area of interest, for example, cross-cultural studies, animal research, and experimental interventions designed to raise long-term SWB and assess the effects on physical health. This research area is characterized both by potentially extremely important findings, and also by pivotal research issues and questions.

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