scholarly journals Charting Moral Psychology’s Significance for Bioethics: Routes to Bioethical Progress, its Limits, and Lessons from Moral Philosophy

Diametros ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (64) ◽  
pp. 36-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Klenk
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Decision Situation ◽  
Moral Concepts ◽  
Moral Framework ◽  
Moral Frameworks ◽  
Radical Revision

Empirical moral psychology is sometimes dismissed as normatively insignificant because it plays no decisive role in settling ethical disputes. But that conclusion, even if it is valid for normative ethics, does not extend to bioethics. First, in contrast to normative ethics, bioethics can legitimately proceed from a presupposed moral framework. Within that framework, moral psychology can be shown to play four significant roles: it can improve bioethicists’ understanding of (1) the decision situation, (2) the origin and legitimacy of their moral concepts, (3) efficient options for implementing (legitimate) decisions, and (4) how to change and improve some parts of their moral framework. Second, metaethical considerations suggest that moral psychology may lead to the radical revision of entire moral frameworks and thus prompt the radical revision of entire moral frameworks in bioethics. However, I show that bioethics must either relinquish these radical implications of moral psychology and accept that there are limits to progress in bioethics based on moral psychology or establish an epistemic framework that guides radical revision.

Nietzsche and Contemporary Ethics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Robertson
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Value Theory ◽  
Critical Assessment ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
Normative Authority ◽  
Moral Theories ◽  
Principal Parts

Nietzsche is one of the most subversive ethical thinkers of the Western canon. This book offers a critical assessment of his ethical thought and its significance for contemporary moral philosophy. It develops a charitable but critical reading of his thought, pushing some claims and arguments as far as seems fruitful while rejecting others. But it also uses Nietzsche in dialogue with, so to contribute to, a range of long-standing issues within normative ethics, metaethics, value theory, practical reason, and moral psychology. The book is divided into three principal parts. Part I examines Nietzsche’s critique of morality, arguing that it raises well-motivated challenges to morality’s normative authority and value: his error theory about morality’s categoricity is in a better position than many contemporary versions; and his critique of moral values has bite even against undemanding moral theories, with significant implications not just for rarefied excellent types but also us. Part II turns to moral psychology, attributing to Nietzsche and defending a sentimentalist explanation of action and motivation. Part III considers his non-moral perfectionism, developing models of value and practical normativity that avoid difficulties facing many contemporary accounts and that may therefore be of wider interest. The discussion concludes by considering Nietzsche’s broader significance: as well as calling into question many of moral philosophy’s deepest assumptions, he challenges our usual views of what ethics itself is—and what it, and we, should be doing.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Simon Robertson
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Value Theory ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
Ethical Project

This opening chapter explains the book’s overarching aims, themes, structure, and approach. The book’s aim is to critically assess Nietzsche’s ethical thought and its significance for contemporary (broadly analytic) moral philosophy. It does this in two main ways: by developing a charitable but critical reconstruction of his ethics; and by using Nietzsche to contribute to a range of longstanding issues within normative ethics, metaethics, value theory, practical reason, and moral psychology. The chapter locates Nietzsche’s ethical project in his ‘revaluation of all values’, outlining a variety of interpretive and philosophical puzzles this raises. It then gives a chapter-by-chapter overview of the book’s topics and direction, and addresses some methodological matters bearing on its interpretive and philosophical ambitions.

Communicating moral reasoning in medicine as an expression of respect for patients and integrity among professionals

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauris Christopher Kaldjian
Keyword(s):  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Moral Reasons ◽  
Moral Pluralism ◽  
Moral Integrity ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Moral Framework ◽  
Beliefs And Values ◽  
Moral Frameworks ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Do So

The communication of moral reasoning in medicine can be understood as a means of showing respect for patients and colleagues through the giving of moral reasons for actions. This communication is especially important when disagreements arise. While moral reasoning should strive for impartiality, it also needs to acknowledge the individual moral beliefs and values that distinguish each person (moral particularity) and give rise to the challenge of contrasting moral frameworks (moral pluralism). Efforts to communicate moral reasoning should move beyond common approaches to principles-based reasoning in medical ethics by addressing the underlying beliefs and values that define our moral frameworks and guide our interpretations and applications of principles. Communicating about underlying beliefs and values requires a willingness to grapple with challenges of accessibility (the degree to which particular beliefs and values are intelligible between persons) and translatability (the degree to which particular beliefs and values can be transposed from one moral framework to another) as words and concepts are used to communicate beliefs and values. Moral dialogues between professionals and patients and among professionals themselves need to be handled carefully, and sometimes these dialogues invite reference to underlying beliefs and values. When professionals choose to articulate such beliefs and values, they can do so as an expression of respectful patient care and collaboration and as a means of promoting their own moral integrity by signalling the need for consistency between their own beliefs, words and actions.

scholarly journals The Moral Philosophy of Maria Montessori

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
PATRICK FRIERSON
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Moral Virtue ◽  
Social Solidarity ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Moral Concepts ◽  
Maria Montessori ◽  
Individual Character ◽  
Individual Self ◽  
Shared Agency

Abstract This paper lays out the moral theory of philosopher and educator Maria Montessori (1870–1952). Based on a moral epistemology wherein moral concepts are grounded in a well-cultivated moral sense, Montessori develops a threefold account of moral life. She starts with an account of character as an ideal of individual self-perfection through concentrated attention on effortful work. She shows how respect for others grows from and supplements individual character, and she further develops a notion of social solidarity that goes beyond cooperation toward shared agency. Partly because she attends to children's ethical lives, Montessori highlights how character, respect, and solidarity all appear first as prereflective, embodied orientations of agency. Full moral virtue takes up prereflective orientations reflectively and extends them through moral concepts. Overall, Montessori's ethic improves on features similar to some in Nietzschean, Kantian, Hegelian, or Aristotelian ethical theories while situating these within a developmental and perfectionist ethics.

scholarly journals The Experimental Psychology of Moral Enhancement: We Should If We Could, But We Can't

2018 ◽  
Vol 83 ◽  
pp. 313-328
Author(s):  
Sylvia Terbeck ◽  
Kathryn B. Francis
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Psychological Assessment ◽  
Experimental Psychology ◽  
Human Enhancement ◽  
Moral Enhancement ◽  
Moral Concepts ◽  
Problems And Solutions ◽  
Moral Behaviour ◽  
Experimental Findings

AbstractIn this chapter we will review experimental evidence related to pharmacological moral enhancement. Firstly, we will present our recent study in which we found that a drug called propranolol could change moral judgements. Further research, which also investigated this, found similar results. Secondly, we will discuss the limitations of such approaches, when it comes to the idea of general “human enhancement”. Whilst promising effects on certain moral concepts might be beneficial to the development of theoretical moral psychology, enhancement of human moral behaviour in general – to our current understanding – has more side-effects than intended effects, making it potentially harmful. We give an overview of misconceptions when taking experimental findings beyond the laboratory and discuss the problems and solutions associated with the psychological assessment of moral behaviour. Indeed, how is morality “measured” in psychology, and are those measures reliable?

The Philosophy of Moral Development

2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-86
Author(s):  
Anna Abram
Keyword(s):  
Moral Development ◽  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Philosophy Of Education ◽  
Moral Failure ◽  
Personal Interaction ◽  
Interdisciplinary Study

This article presents a view of moral development based on the interdisciplinary study of moral psychology and virtue ethics. It suggests that a successful account of moral development has to go beyond what the developmental psychology and virtue ethics advocate and find ways of incorporating ideas, such as “moral failure” and “unpredictability of life.” It proposes to recognize the concept of moral development as an essential concept for ethics, moral philosophy and philosophy of education, and as a useful tool for anyone who wants to engage constructively in dialogues of religions, cultures and personal interaction.

The Development of Kant’s Conception of Divine Freedom

2021 ◽  
pp. 295-319
Author(s):  
Patrick Kain
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Philosophical Theology ◽  
Alternative Possibilities ◽  
Divine Nature ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
Lecture Notes ◽  
Divine Freedom ◽  
Perfect World

While several scholars have suggested that Kant’s early engagement with Leibniz’s philosophical theology led Kant to a conception of the divine will that helped to motivate many of the distinctive features of Kant’s mature moral psychology and moral philosophy, commentators have nevertheless neglected and failed to understand Kant’s account of divine freedom and how it functions in his rejection of substance monism, fatalism, and threats to divine self-sufficiency. This chapter examines the development of Kant’s position in a variety of his early and later published works and in his drafts, Reflexionen, and lecture notes. God is conceived of as the ens realissimum, possessing or exemplifying all fundamental realities or perfections, and it is God’s cognition of his own goodness that gives rise to his volition to create the most perfect world. Divine freedom is understood as a rational and autonomous expression of the divine nature itself, without requiring alternative possibilities.

The Moral Psychology of AI and the Ethical Opt-Out Problem

2020 ◽  
pp. 109-126
Author(s):  
Jean-François Bonnefon ◽  
Azim Shariff ◽  
Iyad Rahwan
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Public Perception ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Psychological Science ◽  
Opt Out ◽  
Moral Domains ◽  
Self Driving Cars

This chapter discusses the limits of normative ethics in new moral domains linked to the development of AI. In these new domains, people have the possibility to opt out of using a machine if they do not approve of the ethics that the machine is programmed to follow. In other words, even if normative ethics could determine the best moral programs, these programs would not be adopted (and thus have no positive impact) if they clashed with users’ preferences—a phenomenon that can be called “ethical opt-out.” The chapter then explores various ways in which the field of moral psychology can illuminate public perception of moral AI and inform the regulations of such AI. The chapter’s main focus is on self-driving cars, but it also explores the role of psychological science for the study of other moral algorithms.

Butler's Theory of Moral Judgment

1978 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 199-225
Author(s):  
Roger A. Shiner
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Moral Epistemology ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Main Interest

It is something of a commonplace of Butlerian interpretation that the main interest and achievements of Butler's moral philosophy are in normative ethics, and not metaethics. He wishes to bring moral enlightenment to citizens and not, to philosophers, epistemological enlightenment. Nonetheless for that he makes a number of remarks which, if we were collecting for some bizarre purpose metaethical forms of words, we would note down and include in our collection. Thus he makes some progress towards the development of a moral epistemology, a theory of moral judgment. My purpose here is to assess those steps, and to see how far the structure which results can be called a theory. I have the impression that much of the reluctance among scholars to allow that Butler does have a theory of moral judgment is caused by the metaethical blinkers that they themselves wear; what is in fact the beginnings of an unfashionable and unconventional theory is seen as unsophisticated confusion. But I shall not overdo praise of Butler. I shall suggest that Aristotle does a somewhat better job of developing this type of theory.

A Dictionary of Ethics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terence Cuneo
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Applied Ethics ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Key Terms

This authoritative dictionary contains clear, concise definitions of key terms from ethical theory and touches upon a variety of relevant subfields including metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. A Dictionary of Ethics is a valuable reference resource for academics, practitioners, and students of moral philosophy, applied ethics, and public policy. It will also be of interest to readers looking to familiarize themselves with ethical terms and the concepts they express.

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