Ethical Theories in Applied Ethics

We paraphrase Descartes’ famous dictum in the area of AI ethics where the “I doubt and therefore I am” is suggested as a necessary aspect of morality. Therefore AI, which cannot doubt itself, cannot possess moral agency. Of course, this is not the end of the story. We explore various aspects of the human mind that substantially differ from AI, which includes the sensory grounding of our knowing, the act of understanding, and the significance of being able to doubt ourselves. (...) The foundation of our argument is the discipline of ethics, one of the oldest and largest knowledge projects of human history, yet, we seem only to be beginning to get a grasp of it. After a couple of thousand years of studying the ethics of humans, we (humans) arrived at a point where moral psychology suggests that our moral decisions are intuitive, and all the models from ethics become relevant only when we explain ourselves. This recognition has a major impact on what and how we can do regarding AI ethics. We do not offer a solution, we explore some ideas and leave the problem open, but we hope somewhat better understood than before our study. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the ethics of performance-enhancing drugs in professional baseball from the perspective of ethical theories: Kantianism, libertarianism, and utilitarianism. It argues that none of these theories can explain why performance-enhancing drugs should be prohibited. The paper argues that virtue ethics is the best moral framework for understanding the ethical problem of performance-enhancing drugs and why their use should be prohibited.

Default positions, predetermined starting points that aid in complex decision-making, are common in clinical medicine. In this article, we identify and critically examine common default positions in clinical ethics practice. Whether default positions ought to be held is an important normative question, but here we are primarily interested in the descriptive, rather than normative, properties of default positions. We argue that default positions in clinical ethics function to protect and promote important values in medicine—respect for persons, utility, and justice. Further, (...) default positions in clinical ethics may also guard against harm. Where default positions exist, there are epistemic burdens to overturn them. The person wishing to reject the default position, rather than the person endorsing it, bears this burden. The person who bears the burden of meeting the epistemic requirements must provide evidence proportional to the degree of harm the default position protects against. Default positions that protect against significant harm impose significant epistemic requirements to overturn. This asymmetry not only makes medical decision-making more economical but also serves to promote and protect certain values. The identification and analysis of common and recognizable default positions can help to identify other default positions and the conditions under which their associated epistemic requirements are met. The article concludes with considerations of potential problems with the use of default positions in clinical ethics. (shrink)

In this paper, I counter arguments to the effect that pacifism must be irrational which cite hypothetical situations in which violence is necessary to prevent a far greater evil. I argue that for persons similar to myself, for whom such scenarios are extremely unlikely, promoting in oneself the disposition to avoid violence in any circumstances is more likely to lead to better results than not cultivating such a disposition just for the sake of such unlikely eventualities.

_The Applied Ethics Primer_ offers a concise introduction to both basic argumentation and normative ethical theory. The concepts discussed reflect the ethical theories that currently ground most professional ethics codes and debates in applied ethics. More inclusive than many similar resources, this primer gives students a sense of the truly global history of ethics, while remaining squarely focused on providing practical tools for ethical decision-making. -/- Also available as an open educational resource (see link below). -/- (Don't buy it from (...) Amazon, they're charging twice the publisher's price.). (shrink)

This chapter argues that the Covid-19 pandemic has exposed the limits of the mainstream individualistic notion of resilience and, in light of these limits, it advances a new, relational notion of the concept of resilience that contributes to the individuals’ well-being and takes into consideration the role of systemic inequality. The first half of the paper argues that the individualistic notion is flawed in two ways: i) it can foster ill-being because it is cognitively taxing, and ii) it discounts systemic (...) inequality because it transfers the responsibility of any achievement and failure onto the single individual without regard for conditions of oppression. The second half of the paper reconceptualizes the concept of resilience as a relational notion that takes into account structural support as well as conditions of oppression and marginalization. According to this latter notion of resilience, the chapter argues that oppression, lack of material conditions, or lack of structural support are elements that can impact the appropriateness of calls to be resilient. A relational notion of resilience fosters well-being because it puts the collective community at the center (instead of the individual) and it takes into consideration material conditions and structural injustices. (shrink)

This is a paper about the methodology of normative ethics. I claim that much work in normative ethics can be interpreted as modelling, the form of inquiry familiar from science, involving idealised representations. I begin with the anti-theory debate in ethics, and note that the debate utilises the vocabulary of scientific theories without recognising the role models play in science. I characterise modelling, and show that work with these characteristics is common in ethics. This establishes the plausibility of my interpretation. (...) Taking methodological inspiration from modelling in science gives us new tools for managing idealisations, and a new perspective on pluralism. I demonstrate why this interpretation is a fruitful way of interpreting ethics, by looking at three case studies. First, I return to the anti-theory debate and argue that modelling opens up a new middle ground. Second, I argue that a modelling lens offers a new way of understanding impossibility theorems in population ethics, and their bearing on ethics as a whole. Finally, I show how viewing our work as modelling can be deployed in debates within ethics, using the debate over prioritarianism as an example. I close with further methodological suggestions for those who choose to see themselves as modellers. I discuss the role of counterexamples, our responses to moral disagreement, and the training of new ethicists. (shrink)

The ethicist who insisted that humans are inherently interconnected.

Medical ethics would be better if people were taught to think more clearly about well-being or the concept of what is good for a person. Yet for a variety of reasons, bioethicists have generally paid little attention to this concept. Here, I argue, first, that focusing on general theories of welfare is not useful for practical medical ethics. I argue, second, for what I call the “theory-without-theories approach” to welfare in practical contexts. The first element of this approach is a (...) focus on examining important and relatively uncontroversial constituents of welfare as opposed to general theories. The second key element is a framework for thinking about choice in relation to welfare, a framework I refer to as “the mild objectivity framework.” I conclude with illustrations of the way in which the “theory without theories approach” can improve thinking in medicine. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

The COVID-19 pandemic has coincided with the proliferation of ethical guidance documents to assist public health authorities, health care providers, practitioners and staff with responding to ethical challenges posed by the pandemic. Like ethical guidelines relating to infectious disease that have preceded them, what unites many COVID-19 guidance documents is their dependency on an under-developed approach to bioethical principlism, a normative framework that attempts to guide actions based on a list of prima facie, unranked ethical principles. By situating them in (...) relation to the key philosophical debates concerning bioethical principlism, we aim to explore the limits and limitations of pandemic ethical guidance documents as, specifically, ethics documents – documents that fulfil the functions of ethics as a fundamentally normative discipline. This means not only determining whether such ethical guidance documents can, in principle, provide adequate action guidance and action justification, but also, more importantly where pandemics are concerned, determining whether they support consistent decision making and transparent processes of justification. Having highlighted the problems with merely furnishing ethical guidelines with substantive ethical content in terms of principles and values, we argue that organizations that develop these documents should, instead, focus on the procedural dimensions of action guidance and action justification, which extend to questions regarding the make-up of the committees, panels and groups that develop such guidelines, the public transparency of justifications for specific pandemic-related advice or interventions and the development of explicit procedures for transparent and consistent decision making. (shrink)

This article presents two related challenges to the idea that, to ensure policy evaluation is comprehensive, all costs and benefits should be aggregated into a single, equity-weighted wellbeing metric. The first is to point out how, even allowing for equity-weighting, the use of a single metric limits the extent to which we can take distributional concerns into account. The second challenge starts from the observation that in this and many other ways, aggregating diverse effects into a single metric of evaluation (...) necessarily involves settling many moral questions that reasonable people disagree about. This raises serious questions as to what role such a method of policy evaluation can and should play in informing policy-making in liberal democracies. Ultimately, to ensure comprehensiveness of policy evaluation in a wider sense, namely, that all the diverse effects that reasonable people might think matter are kept score of, we need multiple metrics as inputs to public deliberation. (shrink)

În cele ce urmează vom prezenta pe scurt zona de cercetare a eticii aplicate și locul ei în cadrul disciplinei filosofiei. Vom discuta apoi despre ce fac filosofii când fac etică aplicată. Vom trece în revistă câteva concepte importante din etica aplicată, cum ar fi deontologie, virtute, grijă sau drepturi. Apoi vom încerca să oferim un răspuns la întrebarea din titlul introducerii: de ce avem nevoie de etica aplicată? Vom povesti pe scurt despre istoria eticii aplicate în România, iar la (...) final vom rezuma capitolele incluse în volum. (shrink)

This chapter describes how philosophical theorizing about justice can be connected with empirical research in the social sciences. We begin by drawing on some received distinctions between ideal and non-ideal approaches to theorizing justice along several different dimensions, showing how non-ideal approaches are needed to address normative aspects of real-world problems and to provide practical guidance. We argue that there are advantages to a transitional approach to justice focusing on manifest injustices, including the fact that it enables us to set (...) aside some reasonable disagreements about justice. The ‘bottom-up’ approach we advocate, for which we borrow Wolff’s term ‘real-world political philosophy’, is an empirically-informed normative analysis that attends to specific, identifiable injustices, and thus is partial, though not isolationist. We illustrate our approach by considering how different models of the nature of disability suggest different kinds of remedy for injustices faced by persons living with disabilities. We reflect on the nature and significance of vulnerabilities, and we assess the role of public opinion in normative theorizing, suggesting a particular significance for the opinions and experiences of marginalized groups. We finally reflect on the relevance of European legal and institutional frameworks for theorizing justice in Europe. (shrink)

The most plausible line of anti-doping argumentation starts with the fact that performance enhancing substances are harmful and put at considerable risk the health and the life of those who indulge in the overwhelming promises these substances hold. From a liberal point of view, however, this is not a strong reason neither to morally reject doping altogether, nor to put a blanket ban on it; on the contrary, allowing adult, competent and informed athletes to have access to performance enhancement drugs (...) is often showcased as a liberty-related right of noninterference. In this article I will first discuss doping from the liberal point of view, especially in the light of the harm principle as it was introduced by Mill and elaborated by his successors, most notably by Joel Feinberg. Then I will examine whether – and to what degree – one’s decision to receive performance enhancement drugs would mean to use humanity in one’s own person only as a means, which would be self-defeating in the light of Kantian ethics. From this I will move one step backwards to what I consider as the core question concerning the ethics of doping, the one that is logically prior to any other in my view, and concerns the consistency of the thesis that doping may be compatible with sport. I will argue that there is an inherent logical antinomy between doing sport and using performance enhancement drugs, one that presents any argumentation in favor of doping as essentially self-contradictory. (shrink)

This article considers how successfully Watson and Hartley achieve the two main aims of their excellent book, Equal Citizenship and Public Reason: first, developing and defending a distinctive version of political liberalism and, second, showing that this is a feminist political liberalism. I challenge both their general defence of their view and the arguments regarding feminism. Both discussions raise questions about the conceptualisation of reasonable disagreement, so I finish with some further comments about ways in which reasonable disagreement about justice (...) creates internal tensions within Watson and Hartley’s theory. (shrink)

How should we proceed when searching for justified answers to normative questions? A prominent proposal is to use the method of reflective equilibrium (RE). Its basic Idea—that we should start from our existing judgments about relevant cases and bring them into equilibrium with systematic principles—is readily recited, but beyond that, conceptions of RE often stay sketchy. RE is seldom explicitly implemented, which makes it difficult to critically evaluate the method and to assess its potential. In my dissertation, I present the (...) first explicit and detailed case study for an application of RE, using it to develop and defend a precautionary principle. -/- The dissertation is divided in two parts, a theoretical and an applied part. In part I, I introduce and operationalize a specific conception of RE. I first describe the central elements of RE by drawing on the most elaborate and fleshed-out conceptions of RE that can be found in the literature. Then, I survey and analyze previous applications of RE in order to both learn from them and identify desiderata for my own case study. Based on a small-scale, exploratory case study, the method is further concretized and operationalized for the implementation in my main case study on the justification of a precautionary principle. -/- In part II, this operationalization is tested in a complex case study that aims at justifying a precautionary principle which is applicable to problems arising from global climate change. In order to be able to select relevant commitments about central problems concerning precautionary principles (PPs), I start with a literature survey. The survey gives an overview on existing proposals for PPs, on which grounds they are defended, and the main objections against them. On this basis, I develop and describe the initial setup for the case study, which is conducted in three main steps and allows to examine different aspects of a RE-application. Thereby, I show that RE can be applied successfully to real problems. I go on to discuss a number of points that are not given sufficient attention in the RE literature so far. With respect to precautionary principles, I show how the commonly discussed principles fail to do justice to ethical considerations, and argue that the application of such principles should instead be triggered by threats of rights violations. (shrink)

What is reality? It is postmodern or poststructuralist philosophers like Roland Barthes, who realized that it only seems that the media present reality in the form of facts, because they actually spread myths. Accordingly, Jacques Derrida made it clear that communication via media is not based on logic, but is characterized by a significant “différance” between a “marque” (trace) of the past and the expectations of the future. Both agreed, that the initial misunderstanding of the concept of reality must be (...) uncovered or "deconstructed". This is more than necessary for them, because media, be it pictures or language, in truth convey values that are culturally and socially significant. They ‘iterate’ these values subliminally, because what shows up are only placeholders and thus mere forms (“structures of graphematic”) that are superficially realised as facts (“stereotypes”). In this way, according to Barthes, we all accept without question the values hidden behind them, so that they can gain a normative power that unconsciously guides our thinking, our decisions and our actions. Afterwards, it is Judith Butler who critically asked: How can we ever escape from this? Given the power of the subliminal dominant discourses, she saw the only effective solution “im Umdeuten” (in reinterpretation) of their subliminal values. In order to finally escape this “parasitic existence at the ritual”, the media philosopher Walter Benjamin already suggested to trigger "Chockwirkungen” (shock effects) in the viewer. It is the German painter Karin Kneffel, so it shall be shown, who has realized this with her series Fruits and Interiors in the most beautiful photorealistic strategy. (shrink)

In recent years, aggressive and conservative nationalistic forces have been growing stronger worldwide (Rydgren 2018). Increased random terrorist attacks are now occurring in sites previously thoug...

Many prominent proponents of Old and New Natural Law morally condemn sexual acts between people of the same sex because those acts are incapable of reproduction; they each offer a distinct set of supporting reasons. While some New Natural Law philosophers have begun to distance themselves from this moral condemnation, there are not many similarly ameliorative efforts within Old Natural Law. I argue for the bold conclusion that Old Natural Law philosophers can accept the basic premises of Old Natural Law (...) without also being committed to morally condemning sexual activity between people of the same sex. I develop an argument from analogy that shows how we can draw metaphysically distinct sub‐categories based on someone's capacity to experience the unitive goods of sex. This unitive capacity constitutes the sub‐category and provides a distinct principle for evaluating how members of that sub‐category (X) act as members of that sub‐category, rather than as acting as defective members of another category (Y). Even though my argument is ‘internal’ to Old Natural Law, I conclude by showing how these conclusions can also address some of the objections to same‐sex sex in New Natural Law. (shrink)

This paper develops some foundations for an Aristotelian ethics of the built environment by combining the formal elements of Aristotelian justice with the design theory of Christopher Alexander. The resulting ordered set of human actions and their corresponding built environments require social deliberation about the integration of activities. This deliberation is required at all levels of human action, is characterized by local and step-wise decision making, and in important ways makes it possible for us to know if and how we (...) are harming others. On the political level this is embodied in the “public square,” whose essential purpose as integrative and moral-epistemological has deep and provocative implications for our built environment. For example, walkable human communities should be the default ethical choice for our built environment. I conclude by discussing a two-fold challenge to the New Urbanism movement for the light this sheds on the overall argument. (shrink)

In The Imperative of Responsibility, published in German in 1979 and in English five years later, Hans Jonas introduced a new moral imperative for the technological age that runs as follows : «Act so that the effects of your action are compatible with the permanence of genuine human life». This article has two objectives: firstly to clarify what it means to live, in Jonas’ sense, a genuine human life, and secondly whether we can still live such a life if we (...) radically enhance ourselves the way transhumanists tell us we should. We use two concepts from Jonas’ thought to flesh out the notion of genuine humanity — the human condition and the idea of Man — and argue that human enhancement could indeed compromise both: a prospect to be avoided. (shrink)

In her recent book Private Government, Elizabeth Anderson makes a powerful but pragmatic case against the abuses experienced by employees in conventional corporations. The purpose of this review-essay is to contrast Anderson’s pragmatic critique of many abuses in the employment relation with a principled critique of the employment relationship itself. This principled critique is based on the theory of inalienable rights that descends from the Reformation doctrine of the inalienability of conscience down through the Enlightenment in the abolitionist, democratic, and (...) feminist movements. That theory was the basis for the abolition of the voluntary slavery or self-sale contract, the voluntary non-democratic constitution (pactum subjectionis), and the voluntary coverture marriage contract in today’s democratic countries. When understood in modern terms, that same theory applies as well against the voluntary self-rental or employment contract that is the basis for our current economic system. (shrink)

In this chapter I seek to provide a theoretical defense of workplace democracy that is independent from and outside the lineage of Marxist and communist theory. Common to the council movements, anarcho- syndicalism and many other forms of libertarian socialism was the idea “that workers’ self- management was central.” Yet the idea of workers’ control has not been subject to the same theoretical development as Marx’s theory, not to mention capitalist economic theory. This chapter aims to contribute at a theoretical (...) level by providing a justification and defense of self- managed workplaces that is independent of the particular historical tradition of the council movements. There is a clear and definitive case for workplace democracy based on first principles that descends to modern times through the Reformation and Enlightenment in the abolitionist, democratic and feminist movements. By the twentieth century, the arguments had been scattered and lost – like the bones of some ancient beast scattered in a desert – partly due to misconceptions, mental blocks and misinterpretations embodied in Marxism, liberalism and economic theory. When one has worked through some of these intellectual roadblocks, then one may be better able to reassemble the case for workplace democracy from well- known first principles developed in the abolitionist, democratic and feminist movements. (shrink)

I discuss this collection of published and unpublished essays on religion and ethics by GEM Anscombe edited by Mary Geach and Luke Gormally. My main doubt concerns the criteria on which papers have been included in this volume. I argue that, while part of the material included typically belongs to a discussion between believers, some of these are good examples of applied ethics with no direct link with the Christian faith and addressed to a universal audience of reasonable partners of (...) conversation. (shrink)

The current “exemplarist turn” within virtue ethics is increasingly shedding light on the importance of exemplars both as enabling one to identify the virtues and for the importance they bear for orienting one’s conduct, as well as for educating the novice. However, even if categorizations of exemplars have already been proposed, there seems to be a lack of discussion on the kind of imitation different exemplars are supposed to elicit. In order to offer a preliminary answer to this question, in (...) this paper I present three paths to flourishing via imitation of exemplary individuals: The Platonic, the Stoic, and the Aristotelian. Then, I sketch an attempt to reconcile these models. In conclusion, I suggest that, when it comes to education, this reconciliation becomes necessary. Along these lines, I recommend that a multi-step educational program is elaborated. (shrink)

Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar. – Trotz ihrer prominenten Rolle im Grundgesetz und in vielen anderen Dokumenten nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg hat sich die moderne Philosophie lange Zeit nur wenig um die Menschenwürde gekümmert. Erst als um die Jahrtausendwende herum die Würde von Embryonen zur Diskussion stand, zeigte es sich, wie spannend und schwierig es ist, ein angemessenes philosophisches Verständnis der Menschenwürde zu finden. Dieses Buch basiert auf drei Grundgedanken: dass die Menschenwürde aus ihren Verletzungen heraus verstanden werden muss, (...) dass wir sie in ihrem historischen Kontext betrachten sollten und dass es vor allen Dingen wichtig ist, ihre vielfältige Verwendung in unterschiedlichen Feldern der Angewandten Ethik zu untersuchen. Entsprechend vereint das Buch theoretische philosophische Überlegungen mit konkreten Untersuchungen zu öffentlich vieldiskutierten Themen wie Hirntod, assistiertem Suizid, Todesstrafe und Ehrenmord. Reflexionen zur Würde des Kindes, des Alters und des Sterbens bilden den Abschluss des Buches. Dabei erweist es sich, dass der Menschenwürde eine unverzichtbare Rolle in der Ethik zukommt, weil sie die Bedeutung eines für jedermann geltenden Schutzes vor Erniedrigungen ausdrückt, und damit für uns alle einen – vielleicht sogar den – Kern unseres moralischen Status formuliert. (shrink)

In this paper, I introduce what I call relational virtue and defend it as an important subcategory of virtue. In particular, I argue that it offers a valuable resource for answering questions concerning the value of intimate relationships such as parent-child relationship or friendship. After briefly sketching what I mean by relational virtue, I show why it is a virtue and in what sense we can meaningfully distinguish it from other sorts of virtue. I then describe some distinctive features of (...) relational virtue in more detail and discuss their implications. Next, I present filial piety as the paradigmatic example of relational virtue. I argue that a child s being filial should be understood as an appropriate response to her parent s being virtuous as a parent. I conclude by showing how my relational virtue theory of filial piety can avoid the difficulties faced by previous theories of filial piety such as gratitude theory and friendship theory. (shrink)

In Aristotelian virtue theories, phronesis is foundational to being good, but to date accounts of how this particularly important virtue can emerge are sketchy. This article plumbs recent thinking in Aristotelian virtue ethics and developmental theorizing to explore how far its emergence can be understood developmentally, i.e., in terms of the growth in ordinary conditions of underlying psychological capacities, dispositions, and the like. The purpose is not to explicate Aristotle, nor to assimilate Aristotelian ideas to cognitive developmental moral theorizing, but (...) to draw on both to build an independently plausible theory of practical intelligence and its development. It is argued that one fruitful direction attends to the psychology of virtues Aristotle associates with practical intelligence, including comprehension, understanding, sense, and cleverness, instead of Aristotle’s remarks distinguishing fully virtuous persons from the continent, incontinent and the many. (shrink)

Wisdom, long a topic of interest to moral philosophers, is increasingly the focus of social science research. Philosophers have historically been concerned to develop a rationally defensible account of the nature of wisdom and its role in the moral life, often inspired in various ways by virtue theoretical accounts of practical wisdom (phronesis). Wisdom scientists seek to, among other things, define wisdom and its components so that we can measure them. Are the measures used by wisdom scientists actually measuring what (...) philosophers have in mind when they discuss practical wisdom? I argue that they are not. Contemporary measures of wisdom and its components may pick out some necessary prerequisites of practical wisdom, but they do not measure a philosophically plausible practical wisdom or its components. After explaining the argument and defending it against objections, I consider its implications. Should wisdom scientists ignore the philosophical conception of practical wisdom in favor of other conceptions, revise their methods to try to measure it, or continue the interdisciplinary study of practical wisdom without expecting to measure it? I make a preliminary argument for the third option. (shrink)

This essay introduces the present special issue on wisdom and moral education, which draws on a conference held in Oxford in 2017. Some of the seven contributions (by Sanderse; Ferkany; and Hatchimonji et al.) make use of the Aristotelian concept of phronesis, or practical wisdom, while others focus more on the wisdom concept as it has developed in contemporary psychology (Huynh and Grossman; Ardelt; and Brocato, Hix and Jayawickreme). One (by Swartwood) straddles the distinction between the two. All the contributions, (...) however, address in different ways practical questions about how wisdom can be evaluated and how it relates to issues of moral development and education. (shrink)

There is a fixed limit on the greenhouse gas emissions that the atmosphere can absorb before triggering dangerous climate changes. One of the debates in climate ethics concerns how the available emissions should be divided between people. One popular answer, sometimes called “Emissions Egalitarianism” (EE), proposes a distribution of emissions permits that gives everyone an equal per capita share of the atmospheric absorptive capacity. However, several debaters have objected to EE. First, it has been argued that there is no principled (...) reason to accept EE, since it cannot be justified on the basis of any moral theory. Second, it has been argued that there is neither any pragmatic reason to accept EE, since it is impracticable, politically unfeasible, and fails to reach its goal. This paper defends EE against these objections. First, it shows that EE can be justified on libertarian, utilitarian, and fairness grounds, respectively. Second, it shows that EE is neither more impracticable, nor more politically unfeasible, than its rivals. It also argues that EE does not fail to reach its goal. Consequently, there is a case to be made for EE. (shrink)

Australian universities are grappling with the challenge of plagiarism among students, particularly international students, with a reliance on software such as Turnitin. Measuring plagiarism in this way has limitations, with consequences for the internalisation of academic integrity by international students. An appraisal of such software demonstrates how its purported aims may differ substantially from pragmatic applicability. While academics are reluctant to encourage student obsession with Turnitin similarity percentages to the detriment of genuine academic engagement, higher education providers increasingly view clear-cut (...) metrics as attractive solutions to a deeply complex and widespread phenomenon. Teachers operating in a pathway program for international students raise serious questions about the effectiveness of Turnitin to achieve the desired pedagogical outcomes when they see students expending time and effort in mastering avoidance techniques while remaining immune to the essence of academic scholarly integrity. This paper addresses these concerns and presents alternative and/or complementary recommendations. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAs neo-Aristotelian character education approaches have become more popular, the list of objections has increased too. This paper focuses on the objection that while character education proponents claim to be ‘progressive’ and ‘reformative’ they seem to maintain the educational status quo. This paper examines what happens to neo-Aristotelian character education approaches when they are implemented in schools. First, a range of authors is consulted that has critically followed character education approaches, in particular the one advocated by the Jubilee Centre for (...) Character and Virtues. Second, the Bildung tradition is discussed, which was also intended as a progressive and cosmopolitan project, but was used by German governments in the 19th century to fashion the nation state. Finally, a comparison between the two approaches is made, raising the question whether it is possible for states to run an education system that does not distort ideals of what it means to be human. (shrink)