Marrying in a single moment: Zimbabwean Baptist ethics and the management of kin relations

Scholarship about Southern Africa registers a persistent tension between the prospect of relations created in a processual manner over time and the role of discrete ritual or lifecycle events. Marriage is one of the sites where this tension becomes particularly evident, not only in bridewealth transactions but also in an increasing prominence given to European-style ‘white weddings’. For Baptist Christians living in urban Zimbabwe, the tension raises a host of ethical considerations. This group of Christians seeks to establish and maintain social relations that they value for cultural and for religious reasons, while also facing the ethical task of moderating the degree of obligation that these relations can exert over them. They do so in order to maintain the moral autonomy necessary to live ethical Baptist lives, and attempt to achieve this goal by creating marriages according to a model of immediate transformation, rather than one of gradual unfolding. I suggest that drawing from recent discussions in the anthropological study of ethics offers a way to discuss choice and evaluation in marriage practice in ways not reducible to class interest or social and material expediency alone.

Ethics and Values in the Digital Environment: by the Example of Parody Videos on TikTok

The ethics of the comic is a relatively new interdisciplinary field of knowledge that is gaining new relevance with the development of a variety of social media. The purpose of this article is to review the existing research and show by examples how ethics and values are closely related to the specific functions of social media, such as distributing parody content and commenting on it. The main focus of our study is a parody which can be defined as communicative behavior in the form of a text, movement, or even a song, imitating the characteristics or behavior of the object being ridiculed. Unlike a literal quotation, a parody reproduces the original in a distorted form for the purpose of mockery. Within this article modern ethical approaches to the evaluation of parody as well as the main functions of parody in the digital environment are considered. Based on the examples of parody videos on TikTok the particular ways of expressing social problems and cultural traumas by using the comic strategies are identified. Furthermore, the issues of algorithmic censorship concerning such videos as well as the problem of the moral autonomy of users are discussed.

Sources of Learning: Zhu Xi’s Theory of Moral Development

As moral philosopher Zhu Xi (1130–1200) sought to nurture the autonomous moral self. In his pedagogical scheme, one ought to cultivate the innate goodness of the heart, investigate principles in things, and embody ethical standards in daily life. In Zhu Xi’s view, the ability to exercise moral autonomy is obtained through a long period of moral and ethical training under the close surveillance of one’s immediate surroundings since early childhood. For this reason, Zhu Xi emphasized the practice of social norms as well as the performance of mundane rituals as the preconditions for the development of the autonomous moral self. By combining the Lesser Learning (xiaoxue 小學) with the Great Learning (daxue 大學), Zhu Xi articulated an integrated vision of moral development from the heteronomous performing of ethical duties to the autonomous embodiment of moral principles.

Secularism at schools as a tool for social integration: the approach of the European Court of Human Rights

When examining the cases on freedom of religion in the field of education, the European Court of Human Rights increasingly adopts the conception of hard or republican secularism. This approach has far-reaching implications for the Court’s understanding of social integration as a legitimate ground for the restriction on individual’s freedom. The judgement in Osmanoğlu and Kocabaş v. Switzerland and the cases on wearing of religious attire at school demonstrate that despite its claim to neutrality, the republican conception of secularism has its inherent presuppositions about what society should look like and which values such a society should embrace. In consequence, the application of this conception results in standardisation and homogenisation of the society according to secular and thus non-neutral ethos. This outcome is difficult to reconcile not only with equal respect for individual freedom of religion and moral autonomy, but also with general principles underlying its axiological structure, such as pluralism, tolerance, and broadmindedness.

Attic Philosophy Versus Stoicism: The Problem of the Boundaries of a Citizen's Moral Autonomy (to the Question of Relevance of Classical Theory of Ethics)

Topical at the beginning of the third decade of the 21st century the problem of the degree of moral independence - and therefore responsibility! - of an individual from society/state in the article is considered "through the prism" of the ancient heritage. More precisely, through two prisms: classical Athenian philosophy and the teachings of the Stoics; The duality generated by this, the conflict of assessments of the situation is perceived by us positively, and moreover, it is used as an argument in favor of the need for students (including the technical university) to study the classical ethical heritage. After all, any of the teachings included in the latter contains an element of "relative truth", the assimilation of which will help to approach the "absolute truth" in deciding the question of the boundaries of our own moral autonomy.

The Apocalypse and the Politics of the Impossible

This article outlines various concepts of the Apocalypse and their relationship to such political ideas of modernity as socialism, liberalism and conservatism. Eschatology is based on the idea that time is striving to elaborate itself and fulfil its own meaning and is therefore directly related to the concept of history as the link between the present, past and future. Different versions of the Apocalypse have become the basis for certain political perspectives: the aspiration to eradicate the old world and establish the Kingdom of God is related to the ambitions of emancipatory and revolutionary movements, while liberalism derives its coherence from a Kantian ethics in which the eschatological assumption provides the foundation for personal moral autonomy. However, the attempts of revolutionaries to realize the meaning of history and the eschatological “fulfilment of time” have become a key element in the criticism of emancipatory movements by conservatives. Contrary to the widespread idea that eschatological expectation and politics are opposed, the author argues that the very notion of politics is impossible without addressing certain concepts from the Apocalypse. The similarity of their eschatological tropes should not be taken as a suggestion that socialist, conservative or liberal ideas (which continue to be in a state of fundamental conflict) may possibly converge; but it does indicate a deep connection between politics as such and the notion of the end of time. These foundations of the political are now threatened by a post-politics associated with the disappearance of the experience of time — an “eternal present” in which the multitude of catastrophes we constantly experience devalues each of them as a unique event and inscribes the idea of the Apocalypse in the reproduction of the existing order of things.

Kant über Spontaneität und Selbstbestimmung im Denken

The concept of autonomy and its relation to the idea of freedom are among the most important and most frequently discussed topics in the research on Kantian philosophy. In contrast, there has been relatively little appreciation of the fact that Kant conceives of man as a free, self-determined being not only in his practical-moral but also in his theoretical cognitive relation to the world. This disproportion is probably also due to the fact that this thesis has neither been methodically elaborated by Kant, nor is it a philosophically innocuous one. The author undertakes a systematic location of the idea of epistemic self-determination in Kant's conception of human cognition and, on this basis, explores the structural relationship between epistemic self-determination and moral autonomy. The analysis clearly highlights the parallels and differences between the two domains and identifies autonomy as a general formal principle of reason that characterizes both cognition and action.

Aristotle on Shame and Learning to Be Good

This book presents a novel interpretation of Aristotle’s account of how shame instils virtue, and defends its philosophical import. Despite shame’s bad reputation as a potential obstacle to the development of moral autonomy, shame is for Aristotle the proto-virtue of those learning to be good, since it is the emotion that equips them with the seeds of virtue. Other emotions such as friendliness, righteous indignation, emulation, hope, and even spiritedness may play important roles on the road to virtue. However, shame is the only one that Aristotle repeatedly associates with moral progress. The reason is that shame can move young agents to perform good actions and avoid bad ones in ways that appropriately resemble not only the external behavior but also the orientation and receptivity to moral value characteristic of virtuous people. By turning their attention to considerations about the perceived nobility and praiseworthiness of their own actions and character, shame places young people in the path to becoming good. Although they are not yet virtuous, learners with a sense of shame can appreciate the value of the noble and guide their actions by a true interest in doing the right thing. Shame, thus, enables learners to perform virtuous actions in the right way before they have practical wisdom or stable dispositions of character. This proposal solves a long-debated problem concerning Aristotle’s notion of habituation by showing that shame provides motivational continuity between the actions of the learners and the virtuous dispositions that they will eventually acquire.