Kantian Autonomy and Contemporary Ideas of Autonomy

Kant argued that autonomy of the will is a necessary presupposition of all morality. His idea of autonomy is abstract, foundational, normative, and a key to his defense of the rationality of moral commitment. In contemporary ethics philosophers often appeal to autonomy, more specifically, as a moral right to make one’s own decisions or as a psychological ideal of independence and rational self-control. Kantian and contemporary ideas of autonomy are not the same, but how are they related? Arguably, Kantian autonomy, when applied realistically to common human circumstances, tends to not only support but also limit the particular claims made in the name of autonomy. Kantian autonomy is a crucial part of the moral point of view from which specific principles can be assessed, not an ideal of living independently of others. Derivative principles must take into account ways in which various physical and social conditions inhibit the capacity for self-determination.

No Moral Wiggle Room in an Experimental Corruption Game

Recent experimental evidence reveals that information is often avoided by decision makers in order to create and exploit a so-called “moral wiggle room,” which reduces the psychological and moral costs associated with selfish behavior. Despite the relevance of this phenomenon for corrupt practices from both a legal and a moral point of view, it has hitherto never been examined in a corruption context. We test for information avoidance in a framed public procurement experiment, in which a public official receives bribes from two competing firms and often faces a tradeoff between maximizing bribes and citizen welfare. In a treatment where officials have the option to remain ignorant about the implications of their actions for citizens, we find practically no evidence of information avoidance. We discuss possible reasons for the absence of willful ignorance in our experiment.

Poetry?

This chapter gives an overview of how Byzantines conceptualized “poetry.” It argues that from the Byzantine point of view, poetry only differs from prose in a very formal way, namely that it is written in verse. Both prose and poetry belonged to the category of logoi, the only label that was very frequently used, in contrast to the term “poetry,” which was reserved for the ancient poetry studied at schools. Many authors considered (and exploited) the difference between their own prose texts and poems as a primarily formal one. Nevertheless, poetry did have some functions that set it apart from prose, even if these features are for us less expected. The quality of “bound speech” gained a spiritual dimension, since verse was seen as a restrained form of discourse, also from a moral point of view. Finally, the chapter gives a brief overview of the social contexts for which (learned) poetry was the medium of choice: as an inscription, as paratext in a wide sense, as a piece of personal introspection, as invective, as summaries (often of a didactic nature), and as highly public ceremonial pieces.

Strokes of Luck

Strokes of Luck offers a large-scale treatment of the role of luck in our judgements about blameworthiness and responsibility, in moral philosophy, and in principles of distributive justice, in political philosophy. It takes an ‘anti-anti-luckist’ stance on these matters, and is opposed to the influential ‘anti-luckist’ views which hold that judgements of blameworthiness, or distributive relations, should be adjusted to annul or neutralize differential luck. It provides a new reading of Bernard Williams’s famous essay ‘Moral Luck’ which emphasizes the dissimilarity of Williams’s aims from the aims of Thomas Nagel and his intellectual descendants. It contends that luck egalitarianism is a structurally flawed programme, and it argues for a revised understanding of John Rawls’s justice as fairness that interprets Rawls’s hostility to factors that are ‘arbitrary from a moral point of view’ in a novel way stationed more closely to his contractarian apparatus, and less closely to luck egalitarian concerns.

Introduction

This introductory chapter seeks a preliminary clarification of what prejudice is and why it is a cause of persistent normative concern. It then distinguishes between two normative vocabularies in which that concern can be framed: the moral and the epistemic. When we consider prejudice from a moral point of view, we are concerned with the harms suffered by people who are targeted by prejudiced beliefs, and the moral responsibilities incurred by those who hold these beliefs. When we consider prejudice from an epistemological point of view we are concerned with the cognitive processes by which people come to hold these beliefs. This book is primarily focused on the epistemology of prejudice: the first order of the day is to explain why we should not hope to ground our account of the moral wrongs flowing from prejudice in an account of the epistemic wrongs committed by those who hold these beliefs.

Moral Conviction

Moral conviction refers to the perception that one’s feelings about a given attitude object are based on one’s beliefs about right and wrong. Holding an attitude with moral conviction means that a person has attached moral significance to it. Some people hold an attitude based on their likes and dislikes, or their preferences. Other attitudes may be based more on norms and conventions in a society, such as what the law dictates or what close others believe. Still other attitudes are based on people’s beliefs about right and wrong, and thus are attitudes held with moral conviction. Unlike some of the other dominant ways of conceptualizing morality in moral psychology, research on moral conviction takes a bottom-up approach. Instead of assuming certain issues are moral, individuals are asked to evaluate different attitude objects and issues based on their beliefs about right and wrong with questions like, “To what extent is your position on X connected to your beliefs about fundamental right and wrong?” Attitudes held with strong moral conviction, also called “moral mandates,” have a number of important characteristics and consequences that set them apart from other strong, but nonmoral, attitudes. When an attitude is based on one’s sense of right and wrong, it is perceived to be more of an objective fact (e.g., it is the correct and factual position to have) that should be universally held. Morally convicted attitudes have a stronger emotional intensity than equally strong but nonmoral attitudes. These attitudes are more likely to have a motivational component to them, so people act in favor of their moral attitudes because they provide justification for the action and are seen as obligations. Moral convictions can also provide an internal guide for behavior, independent of authority or group influence (i.e., authority independence). Moral mandates have a variety of consequences, which can be seen in either a normatively positive or negative light. Moral conviction is, for example, associated with increased political engagement and volunteerism (generally seen as normative goods), but also predicts increased intolerance and unwillingness to compromise with those who do not share one’s moral point of view (generally seen as normative bads).