Les Mains Sales Versus Le Sale Monde: A Metaethical Look at Dirty Hands

2009 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-105
Author(s):  
Kevin DeLapp ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Moral Realism ◽  
Moral Dilemmas ◽  
Ethical Consideration ◽  
Value Pluralism ◽  
Dirty Hands ◽  
Ought Implies Can ◽  
Moral Domain ◽  
Political Expediency

The phenomenon of “dirty hands” is typically framed as an issue for normative or applied ethical consideration—for example, in debates between consequentialism and nonconsequentialism, or in discussions of the morality of torture or political expediency. By contrast, this paper explores the metaethical dimensions of dirty-hands situations. First, empirically-informed arguments based on scenarios of moral dilemmas involving metaethical aspects of dirty hands are marshaled against the view that “ought implies can.” Second, a version of moral realism is conjoined with a version of value-pluralism that charitably accommodates and explains the central features of the phenomenology related to dirty hands. It is not simply that agents are or are not justified in getting their hands dirty (les mains sales); rather, in certain situations, it is the nature of the moral domain itself to be intractably messy (le sale monde), such that dirty hands are unavoidable. The paper concludes by considering some important normative and psychological implications of this view.

scholarly journals Kantian Dilemmas? Moral Conflict in Kant’s Ethical Theory

2013 ◽  
Vol 95 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Timmermann
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Moral Dilemmas ◽  
Moral Conflict ◽  
Ought Implies Can ◽  
Ethical Duty ◽  
Kant's Ethics ◽  
Explicit Discussion

Abstract: This paper explores the possibility of moral conflict in Kant’s ethics. An analysis of the only explicit discussion of the topic in his published writings confirms that there is no room for genuine moral dilemmas. Conflict is limited to nonconclusive ‘grounds’ of obligation. They arise only in the sphere of ethical duty and, though defeasible, ought to be construed as the result of valid arguments an agent correctly judges to apply in the situation at hand. While it is difficult to determine in theory what makes some of them stronger than others, these ‘grounds’ can account for practical residue in conflict cases and for a plausible form of agent regret. The principle that ‘ought implies can’ survives intact.

2. Natural law and morality

2020 ◽  
pp. 20-73
Author(s):  
Raymond Wacks
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Moral Realism ◽  
Moral Dilemmas ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
Law And Morality ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter discusses the relationship between the ancient classical theory of natural law and its application to contemporary moral questions. It considers the role of natural law in political philosophy, the decline of the theory of natural law, and its revival in the twentieth century. The principal focus is on John Finnis’s natural law theory based largely on the works of St Thomas Aquinas. The chapter posits a distinction between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ natural law, examines the notion of moral realism, and examines the tension between law and morality; and the subject of the moral dilemmas facing judges in unjust societies.

Moral dilemmas

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shyam Nair
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theory ◽  
Deontic Logic ◽  
Moral Dilemma ◽  
Moral Dilemmas ◽  
Careful Consideration ◽  
Moral Emotions ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ought Implies Can ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Course Of Action

A moral dilemma is a situation where an agent’s obligations conflict. Debate in this area focuses on the question of whether genuine moral dilemmas exist. This question involves considering not only the nature and significance of dilemmas, but also the connections between dilemmas, the logic of obligation and moral emotions. Certain cases involving difficult choices suggest that moral dilemmas exist. These cases also suggest that dilemmas are significant because they show that moral theory cannot help with these choices. If this is right, morality may be unimportant because it may be a system of inconsistent rules that cannot be used as a guide that tells us what to do. But this understanding of the cases is disputable. Perhaps the cases show that agents can be ignorant about what they ought to do. Or perhaps dilemmas are not significant because moral theory tells agents to do the most important of their obligations. On the other hand, principles from the logic of obligation or deontic logic can be used to argue against the existence of moral dilemmas. Principles of deontic logic such as the ‘ought’ implies ‘can’ principle and the agglomeration principle, which says that if you ought to do a and ought to do b, then you ought to do a and b, taken together with the assumption that moral dilemmas exist, turn out to entail a contradiction. This means that one of these principles must be given up, or else it must be the case that moral dilemmas do not exist. Careful consideration of the moral emotions has suggested that dilemmas do exist. It is appropriate for agents to feel guilt only if they ought to have done otherwise. In cases involving difficult choices, it is appropriate to feel guilt no matter what course of action is taken. This suggests that such cases involve genuine dilemmas.

Moral Dilemmas and Moral Injury

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-205
Author(s):  
Jennifer Mei Sze Ang ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ◽  
Traumatic Stress ◽  
Moral Dilemmas ◽  
War Trauma ◽  
Moral Injury ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress ◽  
Dirty Hands ◽  
Personal Morality ◽  
Shame And Guilt ◽  
Post Traumatic

Psychiatrists working with war veterans have, in recent years, constructed ‘moral injury’ as a separate manifestation of war trauma that is distinct from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This paper argues that for moral degradation to occur, it necessarily involves one’s commissions or omissions that transgresses one’s personal morality, and hence, distinguishes sufferers of moral injury from PTSD sufferers who were witnesses to traumatic and morally abhorrent events. To this end, it clarifies how some of the situations surrounding moral injury are misunderstood, by discussing the process of moral reasoning in the context of moral dilemmas, dirty hands, and moral blind alleys. Finally, it concludes that when we conceptualise moral injury as being caused by one’s commissions and omissions in moral dilemmas, we find that shame and guilt are situation-appropriate responses with a role to play in what ethics mean.

Two Conceptions of Moral Realism

2021 ◽  
pp. 129-144
Author(s):  
Jonathan Dancy
Keyword(s):  
Moral Realism ◽  
Moral Deliberation ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
Moral Domain ◽  
Wrong Action

This paper considers the comparative merits of two conceptions of real properties, as applied to the moral domain. On the weaker conception, real properties or facts are there anyway, independent of any experience. On the stronger conception, real properties are those not constituted by the availability of some response to them. The question is whether moral realists should restrict themselves to the weaker conception, allowing that a wrong action is one that is such as to elicit blame but not holding that this could constitute wrongness in the object. This paper argues that the weaker conception is inconsistent with the main argument for moral realism, which the author takes to appeal to the phenomenology of moral deliberation.

Good International Citizenship and Cosmopolitan Responsibilities to Protect

2019 ◽  
pp. 41-60
Author(s):  
Derek Edyvane ◽  
James Souter
Keyword(s):  
Value Pluralism ◽  
Dirty Hands ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Hard Cases ◽  
International Citizenship

This chapter examines a key question facing advocates of the cosmopolitan state: how can states best realize their cosmopolitan responsibilities to protect alongside their other responsibilities in cases where they conflict? It does so by focusing on a modest vision of cosmopolitan statehood—the notion of good international citizenship—and the idea that good international citizen states are faced with a continual need to ‘balance’ their potentially conflicting responsibilities. Drawing on the philosophy of value pluralism, the chapter interrogates this notion of ‘balance’ and makes two main claims. First, at times the plural responsibilities of good international citizenship can be successfully balanced through both contextual political decision and pragmatic action. Second, there are undoubtedly hard cases in which this balancing act is impossible, and good international citizens are faced with irresolvable dilemmas, in which ‘dirty hands’ are inevitable.

scholarly journals Disfluent fonts lead to more utilitarian decisions in moral dilemmas

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Spears ◽  
Inés Fernández-Linsenbarth ◽  
Yasmina Okan ◽  
María Ruz ◽  
Felisa González
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Moral Dilemmas ◽  
Processing Fluency ◽  
Improve Performance ◽  
Analytic Thinking ◽  
Cognitive Reflection ◽  
Moral Domain

AbstractPrevious research suggests that utilitarian decisions to moral dilemmas often stem from analytic, controlled cognitive processes. Furthermore, processing disfluency can trigger analytic thinking and improve performance on tasks that require logic and cognitive reflection. In the present study we investigated how processing fluency affects the readiness with which people give utilitarian responses to both personal and impersonal dilemmas. Participants were presented in two different experimental blocks with dilemmas written in both easy- (fluent) and hard-to-read (disfluent) fonts. We expected that dilemmas written in a disfluent font would be associated with more utilitarian responses. Results supported this prediction, albeit only when the disfluent dilemmas appeared first, showing that participants endorsed more utilitarian actions in the disfluent condition than in the fluent condition across dilemma types. These data suggest that increasing processing disfluency by manipulating the font affects decisions in the moral domain.

Moral Dilemmas are not a Local Issue

Philosophy ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 75 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Baltzly
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Moral Dilemmas ◽  
Moral Evaluation ◽  
Martha Nussbaum ◽  
Ought Implies Can ◽  
Convincing Case ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Kantian Principle ◽  
Rule Out

W. A. Hart argues that Martha Nussbaum does not make a convincing case there are genuine moral dilemmas to be found in Aeschylus' Agamemnon. Hart claims that the impossibility of moral dilemmas flows from the Kantian principle that ‘ought implies can’. A certain understanding of OIC does rule out the possibility of moral dilemmas. However, this particular formulation of the OIC principle does not fit well with the eudaimonist framework common to ancient moral philosophy. It emerges that there are trade offs to be made between the ancients' views on the point of moral evaluation and ours. Thus the possibility of moral dilemmas is an issue that in inextricably enmeshed in larger issues in moral philosophy.

scholarly journals The Moral Virtue of Doublemindedness

Philosophy ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 88 (3) ◽  
pp. 411-432
Author(s):  
Donald Beggs
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Moral Virtue ◽  
Moral Dilemmas ◽  
Dirty Hands

AbstractThe conscientious are morally conflicted when their moral dilemmas or incommensurabilities, real or apparent, have not been resolved. But such doublemindedness need not lead to ethical disintegration or moral insensitivity. For one may develop the moral virtue of doublemindedness, the settled power to deliberate and act well while morally conflicted. Such action will be accompanied by both moral loss (perhaps ‘dirty hands’) and ethical gain (salubrious agental stability). In explaining the virtue's moral psychology I show, among other things, its consistency with wholeheartedness and the unity of the virtues. To broaden its claim to recognition, I show the virtue's consistency with diverse models of practical reason. In conclusion, Michael Walzer's interpretation of Hamlet's attitude toward Gertrude exemplifies this virtue in a fragmentary but nonetheless praiseworthy form.

scholarly journals Is there a Good Moral Argument against Moral Realism?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camil Golub
Keyword(s):  
Moral Realism ◽  
Moral Discourse ◽  
Moral Fact ◽  
Moral Argument ◽  
Moral Domain

Abstract It has been argued that there is something morally objectionable about moral realism: for instance, according to realism, we are justified in believing that genocide is wrong only if a certain moral fact obtains, but it is objectionable to hold our moral commitments hostage to metaphysics in this way. In this paper, I argue that no version of this moral argument against realism is likely to succeed. More precisely, minimal realism―the kind of realism on which realist theses are understood as internal to moral discourse―is immune to this challenge, contrary to what some proponents of the moral argument have suggested, while robust non-naturalist realists might have good answers to all versions of the argument as well, at least if they adopt a certain stance on how to form metaphysical beliefs in the moral domain.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document