Recent advancements in AI have prompted a large number of AI ethics guidelines published by governments and nonprofits. While many of these papers propose concrete or seemingly applicable ideas, few philosophically sound proposals are made. In particular, we observe that the line of questioning has often not been examined critically and underlying conceptual problems not always dealt with at the root. In this paper, we investigate the nature of ethical AI systems and what their moral status might be by first (...) turning to the notions of moral agency and patience. We find that their explication would come at a too high cost which is why we, second, articulate a different approach that avoids vague and ambiguous concepts or the problem of other minds. Third, we explore the impact of our philosophical and conceptual analysis on the regulatory landscape, make this link explicit, and finally propose a set of promising policy steps. (shrink)

Economics is often believed to be a `value-free' discipline, and even an `a-moral' one. My aim is to demonstrate that homo œconomicus can recover his ethical nature if the philosophical roots of contemporary economics are laid bare. This, however, requires us to look for an alternative foundation for the idea of `social order,' a foundation which economics is ill-equipped to provide because of its exclusive focus on calculative rationality. But a new ethical perspective on homo œconomicus and on the manner (...) in which he chooses his actions is possible. My aim here is to make this new perspective explicit.Two claims lie at the heart of this paper. The first claim is that economics as practised nowadays — that is, as a discipline concerned with the analysis of the interactions between individual decisions and the collective effects of these interactions — is a particular form of metaphysics, based on a particular articulation between self-centredness and other-centredness. The second claim is that, unbeknownst to the vast majority of economists, the basic principle of individual optimization contains the seed of a radical reformulation of what the emergence of `social order' is all about. More specifically, economics will be claimed to be a specific metaphysical discipline based on the monadological worldview inherited from Leibniz and re-arranged to fit the empiricist bias of 18th-century thinkers, and the principle of individual optimization will be claimed to be compatible with a very different metaphysical view of the human subject, a view which `turns subjectivity inside out', so to speak, and treats optimizing calculation as a response rather than as an initiative.The first claim is rather general, and not completely new — it has been hinted at, for example, by Jon Elster in an early book written in French, but it has received precious little attention among economists so far, with the result that economics has become increasingly blind to the philosophical roots of its most fundamental views on individual decision and on social order. The second claim applies to economics and homo œconomicus a general suggestion coming from Alain Renaut, that we ought to make good use of the accusations of incoherence voiced against the monadological scheme in order to re-think the way in which human subjectivity works. Renaut, however, remains at the level of the history of the philosophical concept of subjectivity. Although he does, in passing, make some mention of possible implications for the social sciences, he never goes into the full analysis of what the critique of monadological metaphysics implies for modern theories of society, and for economics in particular. One of my main goals here is to fill this gap.Let me now be more specific about the steps of my analysis. Defending my two claims will require, first of all, a rigorous understanding of the basic methodological stance adopted by economics, namely the idea that social order `emanates' from a bunch of self-centred subjectivities making separate optimizing decisions. Accordingly, in Section 2, I will trace out the analogy that exists between Leibnizian monadology and modern-day economics. The aim there will be to show that economics, unwittingly but for nevertheless deep ethical reasons, has remained `stuck' in a very specific metaphysical position which virtually no contemporary philosophy of subjectivity any longer acknowledges. Section 3, then, will show how the combination of monadology and empiricism which still prevails in contemporary economics can be overcome by entering an altogether distinct philosophical domain characterized by the primacy of Other over Self.While this alternative philosophical stance has experienced a surge of interest in recent decades, it has left the social sciences, and particularly economics, completely untouched. The reason is, I will claim, that this strand of philosophy adopts a form of methodological altruism which stands in contrast both to the methodological individualism of economics and to the methodological holism of various strands of post-Durkheimian sociology. In Section 4, then, I analyze some of the far-reaching consequences for economics which would flow from taking into account `non-I' motives which are not `We' motives, i.e., motives for action which are neither mere holist pastings onto individualism nor mere individualist mitigations of holism.The principle of choice of action through individual optimization will appear as the `hinge' between two worlds: although initially anchored within a worldview where social coexistence is a by-product of individual calculations, the idea of optimization will be seen to be compatible with a very different, and indeed almost reversed worldview, one where individual calculations emerge as by-products of social coexistence — the term `social' being itself radically re-thought in a non-holistic direction.The aim of my analysis, ultimately, is to formulate a challenge for contemporary economics and its implicit view of the interaction between individual and society: Can the combination of monadological and empiricist thinking so strongly ingrained in economics be overcome in the direction of a radically `other-oriented' view of the human subject? Many economists will doubtless believe it cannot; however, they will now, at least, have to explain why they hold to the older view and hence they will have to uncover their often hidden ethical and metaphysical presuppositions. I view this not as an undue disturbance or as mere conceptual hair-splitting, but as a timely opportunity to clarify some deep philosophical issues which haunt economics. (shrink)

Many types of `other-regarding' acts and beliefs cannotbe accounted for satisfactorilyas instances of sophisticated selfishness, altruism,team-reasoning, Kantian duty, kinselection etc. This paper argues in favour ofre-inventing the notion of solidarity as ananalytical category capable of shedding importantnew light on hitherto under-explainedaspects of human motivation. Unlike altruism andnatural sympathy (which turn theinterests of specific others into one's own), orteam-reasoning (which applies exclusivelyto members of some team), or Kantian duty (whichdemands universalisable principlesof action), the essence of solidarity lies in thehypothesis (...) that people are capable ofresponding sympathetically to (or empathising with)a condition afflicting ‘others’,irrespectively of who those others are or whetherone cares for them personally. Andwhen that condition is a social artefact, we argue,solidarity turns radical. (shrink)

In today’s ‘age of protest’, people have the right to publically resist what they perceive to be unjust and abusive. Sometimes, public protest is non-violent, but often it becomes destructive. People get hurt and property is damaged. Those who have the least are often affected most. This article explores the potential of the centuries old ethics of the Jesus tradition coupled with recent insights from psychology on empathy, for effective and necessary resistance against injustice and power abuse, but without the (...) futility of the violence and destruction. This way of love resists all evil, oppression and injustice, and has the power to break the spiral of violence. (shrink)

I first summarize the central issues in the debate about the empirical adequacy of virtue ethics, and then examine the role that social psychologists claim positive and negative mood have in influencing compassionate helping behavior. I argue that this psychological research is compatible with the claim that many people might instantiate certain character traits after all which allow them to help others in a wide variety of circumstances. Unfortunately for the virtue ethicist, however, it turns out that these helping traits (...) fall well short of exhibiting certain central features of compassion. (shrink)

This collection moves from COVID to Kairos, engaged with the legacy of Paul Tillich. Liminal spaces reflect ambiguous transitional moments in human consciousness and culture. In early 2020, cultures and states turned inward for protection, exacerbating intertwined health, political, racial justice, and economic crises. Tillich would have understood these overlapping challenges to be heralding a kairotic moment, reflecting simultaneous crises and opportunities. The collected essays reflect on the intersections of COVID and Kairos. Authors engage numerous ethical challenges precipitated by the (...) current Kairos moment, thinking through and with Tillich. Other essays offer reflections on our cultural moment, engaging topics from public health to video games to hate speech. Reflecting on the cultural moment, this collection offers unique insight into the Tillichian legacy for the present and future. (shrink)

The virtue of honesty has been stunningly neglected in contemporary philosophy, with only two papers appearing in the last 40 years. The first half of this paper is a conceptual exploration of one aspect of the virtue, namely the honest person’s motivational profile. I argue that egoistic motives for telling the truth or not cheating are incompatible with honest motivation. At the same time, there is no one specific motive that is required for a person to be motivated in a (...) virtuously honest way. Instead I advance a pluralistic theory of honest motivation, which allows for motives of caring, fairness, and virtue, among others. The second half of the paper then turns briefly to the empirical literature in psychology and behavioral economics on cheating, to see to what extent honest motives appear to be operative. The upshot is that we have good preliminary evidence for the claim that most people are not virtuously honest. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Bonhoeffer and King: Their Legacies and Import for Christian Social ThoughtCharles W. ChristianBonhoeffer and King: Their Legacies and Import for Christian Social Thought Edited by Willis Jenkins and Jennifer M. McBride Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010. 304 pp. $25.00Countless books have been written about Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King Jr., assessing their individual leadership in the areas of social justice and theology in the twentieth century. (...) Relatively few works have brought these two individuals together in comparative analysis. This book, edited by Willis [End Page 216] Jenkins (assistant professor of social ethics at Yale Divinity School) and Jennifer M. McBride (visiting lecturer at Candler Divinity School), seeks to do that; it brings together a wide array of scholars in the fields of ethics, theology, pastoral ministry, political theory, African American studies, and feminist theology.As McBride points out in her introduction, the “significant differences in their historic, sociopolitical contexts” can present challenges in comparing the work of these two men and in seeking to contemporize them (8). However, the thought and life of both martyrs “demand[s] action”; in other words, the “thought” of both Bonhoeffer and King remains incomplete without “courageous, constructive, redemptive social engagement” (3). It is in this spirit that the book unfolds.The book is divided into four parts. The first four chapters compose part 1 (titled “Critical Distance”), which takes a broader look at the legacies, key concepts, and limitations or critiques of the thought of Bonhoeffer and King. For example, the second chapter by Stephen R. Haynes (“King and Bonhoeffer as Protestant Saints”) reminds us of the perils of the larger-than-life legacies of both these individuals. When noteworthy persons become personalities or cultural heroes, key aspects of their legacies can be minimized or overlooked. This is particularly important in contemporary American settings where politicians and commentators tend to reduce the legacies of both Bonhoeffer and King to fit their own political agendas.Part 2 pays specific attention to the influence of Bonhoeffer and King on matters related to social justice, such as poverty, racism, and violence. Among the notable contributions in this section is the chapter by Craig J. Slane that deals with the “unexpected turn toward violence” (112) for Bonhoeffer during his involvement in the plot to assassinate Hitler during World War II. Part 3 looks at the ways in which the lives and teaching (and especially preaching, in King’s life in particular) of Bonhoeffer and King are instruments of social redemption. In addition to noting the influence of Niebuhr’s emphasis on social sin and social redemption on King’s preaching and leadership, it points out that both Bonhoeffer and King were deeply influenced by the economic and social upheavals of their time; their preaching, teaching, and writing sought to address, in concrete ways, the racial, economic, and political realities of their contexts. In part 4, “Peacemaking,” four authors highlight the contributions King and Bonhoeffer have made to peacemaking and the influence these contributions continue to have. They discuss both men’s commitment to nonviolence and pacifism and the particular challenges this commitment created for them (especially for Bonhoeffer, given his participation in a plot to overthrow Hitler).The essays in this book do not present these two martyrs as unblemished. The book contains rich discussions that honestly assess their personal struggles [End Page 217] of conscience as well as their contextual struggles with such issues as the role of women. Furthermore, the reader will find a solid introduction to the lives and thought of both men while at the same time sitting in on a diverse conversation about how their influential interpretations of the Christian faith can continue to be fleshed out. May this kind of conversation (and action) continue!Charles W. ChristianMount Vernon Nazarene UniversityCopyright © 2012 The Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

The central question of this conference is whether the media can contribute to high quality social dialogue. The prospects for resolving that question positively in the “sound and fury” depend on recovering the idea of truth. At present the news media are lurching along from one crisis to another with an empty centre. We need to articulate a believable concept of truth as communication's master principle. As the norm of healing is to medicine, justice to politics, critical thinking to education, (...) craftsmanship to engineering, and stewardship to business, so truth-telling is the news profession's occupational norm. Truth-telling is the ethical framework that fundamentally reorders the media's professional culture and enables them to enrich social dialogue rather than undermine it.Historically the mainstream press has defined itself in terms of an objectivist worldview. Centred on human rationality and armed with the scientific method, the facts in news have been said to mirror reality. The aim has been true and incontrovertible accounts of a domain separate from human consciousness. In Bertrand Russell's formula, “truth consists in some form of correspondence between belief and fact” . In the received view, truth is defined in elementary epistemological terms as accurate representation. News corresponds to context-free neutral algorithms, and ethics is equated with impartiality.The attacks on this misguided view of human knowledge had already originated in Giambattista Vico's fantasia and Wilhelm Dilthey's verstehen in the counter-Enlightenment of the 18th century. They have continued with hermeneutics, critical theory in the Frankfurt School, American pragmatism, Wittgenstein's linguistic philosophy, Gramsci, and in their own way, Lyotard's denial of master narratives and Derrida's sliding signifiers; until the anti-foundationalism of our own day indicates a crisis in correspondence views of truth. Institutional structures remain Enlightenment-driven, but in principle the tide has turned currently toward restricting objectivism to the territory of mathematics, physics, and the natural sciences. In reporting, objectivity has become increasingly controversial as the working press' professional standard, though it will remain entrenched in our ordinary practices of news production and dissemination until an alternative mission for the press is convincingly formulated.The demise of correspondence views of truth has created a predicament for the notion of truth altogether. However, instead of appealing to coherence versions or abandoning the concept, truth needs to be relocated in the moral sphere. Truth is a problem of axiology rather than epistemology. With the dominant scheme no longer tenable, truth should become the province of ethicists who can reconstruct it as the news media's contribution to social dialogue.When truth is articulated in terms of a moral framework, we can mold its richly textured meaning around the Hebrew emeth , the Greek aletheia . In Serbo-Croatian the true is justified as with plumbline in carpentry. In the powerful wheel imagery of the Buddhist tradition, truth is the immovable axle. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa presumes that sufferings from apartheid can be healed through truthful testimony. In Ghandhi's “satyagrapha,” the power of truth through the human spirit eventually wins over force . Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Ethics contends correctly that a truthful account lays hold of the context, motives, and presuppositions involved .Telling the truth depends on the quality of discernment so that penultimates do not gain ultimacy. Truth means, in other words, to strike gold, to get at “the core, the essence, the nub, the heart of the matter” . For Henry David Thoreau – though addressing a different issue – when we are truthful, we attempt to “drive life into a corner and¼if it proves to be mean, why then to get the genuine meanness out of it and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by personal experience and be able to give a true account of the encounter” . For the former secretary general of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjold, “the most dangerous of all moral dilemmas is when we are obliged to conceal truth in order to help the truth be victorious” . In the Talmud, the liar's punishment is that no one believes him.Augustine , professor of rhetoric at Milan and later Bishop of Hippo, illustrates a non-correspondence view of truth. His rhetorical theory is a major contribution to the philosophy of communication, contradicting the highly secular and linear view of the ancient Greeks. As with Aristotle, rhetoric entails reasoned judgement for Augustine; however, he “break[s] away from Graeco-Roman rhetoric, moving instead toward ¼rhetoric as aletheiac act” . Rhetoric for him is not knowledge-producing or opinion-producing but truth-producing . The Epistolae Doctrina Christiana scourges the value-neutral, technical language of “word merchants” without wisdom.Truth is not fundamentally a prescriptive statement. The aletheiac act in Augustine “tends to be more relational than propositional, a dialogically interpersonal, sacramentally charitable act rather than a statement¼taking into account and being motivated by [the cardinal virtues] faith, hope, and charity” . The truth for him does not merely make things clear, but motivates us to belief and action. In truthful communication for Augustine, “it is not enough to seek to move men's minds, merely for the sake of power; instead, the power to move is to be used to lead men to truth”. (shrink)

Résumé — Bien que le « social » ne soit pas un thème central du néokantisme de Bade, il est néanmoins l’occasion de développer, dans le contexte de ce courant philosophique, ce qu’on appelle aujourd’hui une ontologie sociale, qui peut être élaborée de manière exemplaire dans la perspective de Rickert. La conception fondamentale de la philosophie de l’histoire, que j’analyse, offre chez Rickert la clef d’une détermination formelle de l’ontologie sociale. En outre, Rickert offre une base systématique qui permet de (...) définir le « social ». Les tenants de l’école de Bade, tels Windelband, Bauch, Cohn, voient, comme Rickert, dans le « social » la condition de la réalisation de la culture ; mais à la différence de ce dernier, cette sphère revêt chez eux une coloration éthique.— Although the « social » is not a core concept of the Southwest school of Neo-Kantianism, this philosophy offers beginnings for the development of what is nowadays called social ontology. I develop this point by presenting an analysis of Rickert’s concept of the philosophy of history. He turns out to be the key for a formal determination of a social ontology. Moreover, Rickert also offers a systematic beginning as far as the content of the social is concerned. Like Rickert also other thinkers of the Southwest school conceive the social as a condition for realizing values, but unlike Rickert in their model the sphere of realization has an « ethical » flavour. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 42.1 (2004) 105-107 [Access article in PDF] Richard H. Popkin. The History of Scepticism: From Savonarola to Bayle. Revised and Expanded Edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xxiv + 415. Cloth, $74.00. Paper, $24.95. Richard Popkin tells the story that once a long time ago when he asked a question at a conference that made reference to late-eighteenth-century skeptics like Maimon (...) and Platner, Myles Burnyeat turned to the audience and asked, "Does anyone else read these people that Popkin reads?" The answer, by the time we get to this, the fourth edition of a book that first appeared in 1960, is that lots of people are reading the people that Popkin reads. Now [End Page 105] Myles Burnyeat is quoted on the cover of this volume for graciously saying "I regard it as one of the seminal books in the history of ideas." In one of the three Festschriften that have been published in Popkin's honor, David Katz even reports that some of those who work in areas Popkin pioneered refer to themselves as "Popkinites" (James E. Force and David S. Katz, eds., Everything Connects [Leiden and Boston: Brill, 1999], ix).Popkin was also founding editor of this journal, and his name has been footnoted in numerous articles over the years, so it will not be unknown to many. But readers will want to know what is new in this latest version of the classic work. For openers, it is roughly fifty percent longer, now 18 chapters instead of the 12 chapters of the last version. The original book was subtitled "From Erasmus to Descartes" and the later California edition subtitle became "From Erasmus to Spinoza." This edition pushes the envelope in both directions: back to Savonarola and forward to Pierre Bayle.The Savonarola connection comes from the unlikely discovery that the famous monk collected manuscripts of Sextus Empiricus and was planning to have them translated as tools for use against pagan philosophy and in favor of revealed religion. This brings out one of Popkin's favorite points: that what we think of as philosophical skepticism was part and parcel of religious debate early on. Among other new findings in this edition, Popkin finds clues that Leone Ebreo (Judah Abravanel) may have helped Gianfrancesco Pico read anti-Aristotelian Hebrew texts. Jews could use this sort of skepticism against the dogmatic Christians who tried to refute them.The religious connection is fundamental throughout the text. In his new introduction, Popkin admits that "I am more in sympathy with those who used the sceptical and fideist views of the nouveaux pyrrhoniens for religious rather than secular purposes" (p. xxiii). He has developed this sympathy into research on millenarianism in volumes such as Popkin and David S. Katz, Messianic Revolution: Radical Religious Politics to the End of the Second Millennium (New York: Hill and Wang, 1998) and Popkin, et al., eds., Millenarianism and Messianism in Early Modern European Culture, 4 vols. (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2001).Other new materials follow the discussion of Descartes with a chapter on Henry More, Pascal, and the Quietists and another one on Hobbes's political and practical answer to skepticism. There are new chapters on Wilkins, Boyle, and Glanvill of the Royal Society, and on late seventeenth-century metaphysics. New material on Simon Foucher and Pierre-Daniel Huet is followed by the concluding chapter on Pierre Bayle as a "super sceptic."The book has never been uncontroversial. Although they could follow the skeptical undercutting of the Bible in Spinoza, many scholars could not see how the master of the geometrical method in ethics could be anything but a dogmatist in the final analysis. (Popkin has an answer.) The same doubt will now apply to the treatment of Pierre Bayle in this version. To Popkin, as we have seen, Bayle is a "super sceptic" who "carried scepticism to its ultimate extreme" (300); to Gianluca Mori (Bayle philosophe, Paris: Champion, 1999) and others, he is a dogmatic philosophical atheist as well as moral rigorist. To his credit... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Reading BayleJohn Christian LaursenThomas M. Lennon. Reading Bayle. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999. Pp. xi + 202. Cloth, $60.00. Paper, $19.95.One of the more philosophically interesting things about Pierre Bayle is the difficulty of interpreting his work. A myriad of interpretations have been advanced, but "the whole is [still] a riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mystery"—to apply David Hume's famous judgment about religion to Bayle's work. (...) This book proposes a Bakhtinian reading of Bayle's philosophical activity, which means that Bayle is understood as letting his interlocutors speak for themselves in an ongoing dialogue over which he does not have full control and in which no one "wins." Bakhtin thought that Dostoevsky was the first major author to do this, but Lennon shows that he was anticipated by Bayle.The discussion is broken up into sections on Bayle's views of integrity, authority, toleration, idolatry, and providence. Integrity turns out to be largely a matter of honesty and fairness in dialogue, and at times it sounds like Bayle is prefiguring Habermas and discourse ethics or recent Anglo-American theories of deliberative democracy.Bayle's view of authority emerges from his analysis of the fact/law (fait/droit) distinction. [End Page 278] This was part of larger debates among Jansenists, Jesuits, and other philosophers such as Arnauld and Malebranche. Here, Lennon's intimate knowledge of seventeenth-century philosophy is put to good use. He shows that in Bayle's hands the distinction cannot hold up, as questions of fact and law are always mutually dependent and each can undermine the other. The upshot is that in the absence of truths of fact or law, dialogue is all that we have. That is good, because history cannot be used as a tool of oppression or homogenization if dialogue must go on forever.Some of the claims about Bayle that are advanced here are debatable. That Bayle "treated everyone with dignity" (44) is simply not true of his treatment of millenarians and others that he thought were fanatics. Rather than extending "toleration almost without limit" (74), he was downright intolerant of such folks. Lennon suggests that Bayle may not have fully thought through the question of the conscientious persecutor (85n.). It would have been appropriate to mention Bayle's reflections on this matter in his last work, the Réponse aux questions d'un provincial.The book contains valuable accounts of aspects of Bayle's debates with Pierre Jurieu, in which it often emerges that there was no great gulf of principle between the two arch-enemies. Disagreements with Ruth Whelan and Elisabeth Labrousse add to the interest of Lennon's discussion.Idolatry is one of Bayle's chief targets, and he finds it above all in the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. Lennon nicely shows how this amounts to Spinozism, which in turn explains Bayle's hostility to both Spinoza and Rome. Both stifle Bakhtinian dialogue.One very interesting section of the book is on lotteries, which have important theological and philosophical significance. Often-forgotten authors like Barbeyrac, Ricotier, and Leti are discussed on this issue. Insights here include the observation that "it is hard to imagine Bayle praying" (146). Indeed it is. Mention of work by I. Hont, T. Hochstrasser, and others on Barbeyrac would have made Lennon's case stronger.One major conclusion is that Bayle's notion of providence and the problem of evil comes down to dialogue as well: evil emerges because God prefers to engage in open-ended dialogue with his creatures, which allows evil even if that is not God's intention (167). On this reading, we have a Kantian Bayle: autonomy is Bayle's most cherished value (182).Lennon's final evaluation of Bayle's fideism is that it is philosophically unsatisfactory. Blind and nonrational reliance on Scripture is, to say the least, undermined by Bayle's inability to establish that God is its author or to found his own beliefs in any way other than education. But if anybody still thinks that Pierre Bayle was merely a compiler and not a philosopher in his own right, this book and a lot of the other recent... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Reading BayleJohn Christian LaursenThomas M. Lennon. Reading Bayle. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999. Pp. xi + 202. Cloth, $60.00. Paper, $19.95.One of the more philosophically interesting things about Pierre Bayle is the difficulty of interpreting his work. A myriad of interpretations have been advanced, but "the whole is [still] a riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mystery"—to apply David Hume's famous judgment about religion to Bayle's work. (...) This book proposes a Bakhtinian reading of Bayle's philosophical activity, which means that Bayle is understood as letting his interlocutors speak for themselves in an ongoing dialogue over which he does not have full control and in which no one "wins." Bakhtin thought that Dostoevsky was the first major author to do this, but Lennon shows that he was anticipated by Bayle.The discussion is broken up into sections on Bayle's views of integrity, authority, toleration, idolatry, and providence. Integrity turns out to be largely a matter of honesty and fairness in dialogue, and at times it sounds like Bayle is prefiguring Habermas and discourse ethics or recent Anglo-American theories of deliberative democracy.Bayle's view of authority emerges from his analysis of the fact/law (fait/droit) distinction. [End Page 278] This was part of larger debates among Jansenists, Jesuits, and other philosophers such as Arnauld and Malebranche. Here, Lennon's intimate knowledge of seventeenth-century philosophy is put to good use. He shows that in Bayle's hands the distinction cannot hold up, as questions of fact and law are always mutually dependent and each can undermine the other. The upshot is that in the absence of truths of fact or law, dialogue is all that we have. That is good, because history cannot be used as a tool of oppression or homogenization if dialogue must go on forever.Some of the claims about Bayle that are advanced here are debatable. That Bayle "treated everyone with dignity" (44) is simply not true of his treatment of millenarians and others that he thought were fanatics. Rather than extending "toleration almost without limit" (74), he was downright intolerant of such folks. Lennon suggests that Bayle may not have fully thought through the question of the conscientious persecutor (85n.). It would have been appropriate to mention Bayle's reflections on this matter in his last work, the Réponse aux questions d'un provincial.The book contains valuable accounts of aspects of Bayle's debates with Pierre Jurieu, in which it often emerges that there was no great gulf of principle between the two arch-enemies. Disagreements with Ruth Whelan and Elisabeth Labrousse add to the interest of Lennon's discussion.Idolatry is one of Bayle's chief targets, and he finds it above all in the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. Lennon nicely shows how this amounts to Spinozism, which in turn explains Bayle's hostility to both Spinoza and Rome. Both stifle Bakhtinian dialogue.One very interesting section of the book is on lotteries, which have important theological and philosophical significance. Often-forgotten authors like Barbeyrac, Ricotier, and Leti are discussed on this issue. Insights here include the observation that "it is hard to imagine Bayle praying" (146). Indeed it is. Mention of work by I. Hont, T. Hochstrasser, and others on Barbeyrac would have made Lennon's case stronger.One major conclusion is that Bayle's notion of providence and the problem of evil comes down to dialogue as well: evil emerges because God prefers to engage in open-ended dialogue with his creatures, which allows evil even if that is not God's intention (167). On this reading, we have a Kantian Bayle: autonomy is Bayle's most cherished value (182).Lennon's final evaluation of Bayle's fideism is that it is philosophically unsatisfactory. Blind and nonrational reliance on Scripture is, to say the least, undermined by Bayle's inability to establish that God is its author or to found his own beliefs in any way other than education. But if anybody still thinks that Pierre Bayle was merely a compiler and not a philosopher in his own right, this book and a lot of the other recent... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Good Work: Christian Ethics in the Workplace by Esther D. ReedWilton BunchGood Work: Christian Ethics in the Workplace Esther D. Reed Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2010. 132pp. $18.96Work has become a political football. There are laws defining who can work and who cannot. And there are laws that stipulate who can receive and who is eliminated from what were formerly standard benefits. There are even (...) laws, as in the state of Alabama, that define what work ministers can do for the poor, the needy, and those who are ill. Given the many issues affecting what occurs in workplaces—where most working people spend most of their time—there is a need for an integrated perspective on work. Esther Reed’s Good Work provides just that: a broader context for understanding the significance of our work.Many people understand “work” to be the energy they expend in order to receive something they can then spend. Such an understanding of work, Reed observes, reflects the assumptions of a capitalist society in which people are valued in terms of what they do and how much money they make. From this standpoint, cardiac surgeons are valued much more highly than garbage collectors, even though societies could not function without garbage removal but did, in fact, survive for centuries before cardiac surgeons. In a similar vein, in the supposedly egalitarian halls of academe, the grossly underpaid adjunct professor is dismissed and discounted even though she spends much more time with students than does her tenured counterpart. [End Page 196]Yet there are other ways of defining work. Reed reminds us that the same Hebrew word translated as “hard work” (‘abad) can also mean priestly service in the Tabernacle (12). The work (or liturgy) of tabernacle worship was understood to be service to God. Likewise, Jesus described his ministry as work and even spoke of the Father as still working: “My Father is still working, and I also am working (Greek ergazetai/ergazomai; John 5:17)” (13). The work of Jesus and his Father had to do with salvation and blessing for human beings. From this standpoint, work clearly has a spiritual dimension.The framework Reed develops for establishing a Christian ethic of work is rooted in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. What we say about work, she contends, will depend on what we say about the resurrection. Indeed, she argues, reflection on the resurrection can orient (or reorient) the working lives of Christian in important ways (2). An understanding of work rooted in the resurrection, Reed argues, is cultivated by participating in the liturgy of a worshipping community. Many Christian liturgies begin with praise to God for the salvation that comes through Jesus Christ. By beginning worship in this way, the community is able to concentrate on a kind of work that enables them to go beyond their individual lives and become part of something larger—a community in praise of God. In turn, the bread and wine that is blessed during the Eucharistic celebration contains not only the fruits of creation but also the fruits of human labor. As the Spirit of God infuses the bread and wine with the presence of Jesus Christ, crucified and raised from the dead, it also sanctifies our labor. And as we receive the bread and wine, and as we meditate on Christ’s passion and resurrection, we become hungry for enacting justice and mercy in all realms of our lives—including the realm of work. Indeed, through this encounter with the Triune God and with one another in worship, we gain a renewed appreciation of who we are as human beings. More profoundly, we become those who can, in fact, not only work and love but also—through the Spirit’s power—renew everything we do and encounter, including the curse of work.Central to Reed’s argument is the claim that work entails a dimension of justice. Persons have rights to work and to rest because they are created in the image of God, which means they have intrinsic worth. Such rights, she argues, must be closely linked with liberties that are understood not merely negatively... (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Need for Certainty Indifference to the Goods of This World A Cause of Violence The Hope of the World?

This chapter contains sections titled: Setting the Task Constructing the Christ Setting the Boundaries: Christian and/or Jew? The Third Race: Christians as In‐Group Putting on Christ: Christianity's Signals of Commitment Loving Your Neighbor and Turning the Other Cheek.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Christian-Buddhist Dialogue on Loving the EnemyWioleta PolinskaWe are taught to think that we need a foreign enemy. Governments work hard to get us to be afraid and to hate so we will rally behind them. If we do not have an enemy, they will invent one in order to mobilize us. Yet they are also victims.1—Thich Nhat HanhWe are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, (...) for the victims of our nation, and for those it calls enemy, for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.2—Martin Luther King Jr.Literally speaking, Ahimsa means "non-killing."... To one who follows this doctrine there is no room for an enemy.3—M. K. GandhiIn his autobiography, Martin Luther King Jr. comments that he initially considered Jesus's commands such as "turn the other cheek" or "love your enemies" as limited to individual relationships. Only after reading Gandhi in the late 1940s did he conclude that the love ethic had a much broader scope. Love became to him an effective principle applied to racial groups and nations in conflict and was "a potent instrument for social and collective transformation."4 Some years later, King was influenced by another Asian religious thinker, the Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. Under Nhat Hanh's influence, King repudiated the war in Vietnam by addressing the similarity between the Vietnamese Buddhist peace movement and the American civil rights movement.5Nhat Hanh and King were both inspired by Gandhi's peaceful approach to social conflicts. All three are exemplary models of love and nonviolence in their respective Buddhist, Christian, and Hindu traditions. Whether ahimsa (or harmlessness) in Hinduism, compassion for all beings in Buddhism, or "love of enemy" [End Page 89] in Christianity, unconditional love signifies the principal concern of these spiritual thinkers. All three men display an uncompromising commitment to the cause of the oppressed and downtrodden, but, at the same time, they refuse to vilify the opponents. In fact, all three speak of the "love of enemy" as the only sure way to ensure peaceful solution to any social crisis. Recent military conflicts prompted by the tragedy of September 11 offer a challenge for rethinking the most effective ways of dealing with international terrorism and other forms of social struggles. In what follows, I will suggest that, like Martin Luther King Jr., Christians can benefit from engaging in a dialogue with Eastern thought. Specifically, by focusing on the writings of Thich Nhat Hanh, I will engage Christian liberation theologies to offer a possible corrective to a theological reflection on social conflict. In conversation with sociological reflection on war, political theorists, and artists, this article will present a fresh reexamination of a nondualistic, nonviolent approach to military and social conflicts.Social exploitation, injustice, and oppression are focal points of many contemporary Christian theologies that are indebted to Latin American liberation theology. Recognizing the suffering of the poor and the failure of the historical Christian church to address the systemic injustice against them, liberation theologians affirm solidarity with the poor. Because of oppression and poverty, the poor have privileged access to the meaning of the Gospel (hermeneutic privilege) and the church needs to commit to a "preferential option for the poor." That is, those "who are privileged must identify with the poor and the oppressed not only because they need us but also because, from their experience of poverty and oppression, they are in a better position to understand the Gospel."6 Learning from the poor implies interpreting Christian faith out of the suffering of the poor; it implies seeing God as the God of the poor and the oppressed. The poor are seen as "the favorites of God"7 because they receive continuous divine attention to their struggle. The liberation of the Israelites from Egypt, Jesus's solidarity with the poor by becoming one of them, as well as his preaching the good news to them, are all examples of God's love for the poor. God's solidarity with the victims of social oppression reaches its zenith in the resurrection of Jesus when God is "doing Justice... (shrink)

Decision-making under normative uncertainty requires an agent to aggregate the assessments of options given by rival normative theories into a single assessment that tells her what to do in light of her uncertainty. But what if the assessments of rival theories differ not just in their content but in their structure -- e.g., some are merely ordinal while others are cardinal? This paper describes and evaluates three general approaches to this "problem of structural diversity": structural enrichment, structural depletion, and multi-stage (...) aggregation. All three approaches have notable drawbacks, but I tentatively defend multi-stage aggregation as least bad of the three. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Good Work: Christian Ethics in the Workplace by Esther D. ReedWilton BunchGood Work: Christian Ethics in the Workplace Esther D. Reed Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2010. 132pp. $18.96Work has become a political football. There are laws defining who can work and who cannot. And there are laws that stipulate who can receive and who is eliminated from what were formerly standard benefits. There are even (...) laws, as in the state of Alabama, that define what work ministers can do for the poor, the needy, and those who are ill. Given the many issues affecting what occurs in workplaces—where most working people spend most of their time—there is a need for an integrated perspective on work. Esther Reed’s Good Work provides just that: a broader context for understanding the significance of our work.Many people understand “work” to be the energy they expend in order to receive something they can then spend. Such an understanding of work, Reed observes, reflects the assumptions of a capitalist society in which people are valued in terms of what they do and how much money they make. From this standpoint, cardiac surgeons are valued much more highly than garbage collectors, even though societies could not function without garbage removal but did, in fact, survive for centuries before cardiac surgeons. In a similar vein, in the supposedly egalitarian halls of academe, the grossly underpaid adjunct professor is dismissed and discounted even though she spends much more time with students than does her tenured counterpart. [End Page 196]Yet there are other ways of defining work. Reed reminds us that the same Hebrew word translated as “hard work” (‘abad) can also mean priestly service in the Tabernacle (12). The work (or liturgy) of tabernacle worship was understood to be service to God. Likewise, Jesus described his ministry as work and even spoke of the Father as still working: “My Father is still working, and I also am working (Greek ergazetai/ergazomai; John 5:17)” (13). The work of Jesus and his Father had to do with salvation and blessing for human beings. From this standpoint, work clearly has a spiritual dimension.The framework Reed develops for establishing a Christian ethic of work is rooted in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. What we say about work, she contends, will depend on what we say about the resurrection. Indeed, she argues, reflection on the resurrection can orient (or reorient) the working lives of Christian in important ways (2). An understanding of work rooted in the resurrection, Reed argues, is cultivated by participating in the liturgy of a worshipping community. Many Christian liturgies begin with praise to God for the salvation that comes through Jesus Christ. By beginning worship in this way, the community is able to concentrate on a kind of work that enables them to go beyond their individual lives and become part of something larger—a community in praise of God. In turn, the bread and wine that is blessed during the Eucharistic celebration contains not only the fruits of creation but also the fruits of human labor. As the Spirit of God infuses the bread and wine with the presence of Jesus Christ, crucified and raised from the dead, it also sanctifies our labor. And as we receive the bread and wine, and as we meditate on Christ’s passion and resurrection, we become hungry for enacting justice and mercy in all realms of our lives—including the realm of work. Indeed, through this encounter with the Triune God and with one another in worship, we gain a renewed appreciation of who we are as human beings. More profoundly, we become those who can, in fact, not only work and love but also—through the Spirit’s power—renew everything we do and encounter, including the curse of work.Central to Reed’s argument is the claim that work entails a dimension of justice. Persons have rights to work and to rest because they are created in the image of God, which means they have intrinsic worth. Such rights, she argues, must be closely linked with liberties that are understood not merely negatively... (shrink)

When are we responsible for addressing the acute deprivations of others beyond state borders? One widely held view is that we are responsible for addressing or preventing acute deprivations insofar as we have contributed to them or are contributing to bringing them about. But how should agents who endorse this “contribution principle” of allocating responsibility yet are uncertain whether or how much they have contributed to some problem conceive of their responsibilities with respect to it? Legal systems adopt formal norms (...) that set the burden of proof, the standard of proof, and the constraints on admissible evidence, which help courts to apply liability rules in cases where there are significant evidential uncertainties. Applying principles for determining ethical responsibilities, too, require such norms. Their content, however, should be much different from that found in criminal and even civil legal settings, where the moral costs of falsely holding those responsible for bringing about some harm are more worrisome. Instead of demanding that an agent be shown to have contributed to some deprivation “beyond a reasonable doubt,” we should express a willingness to err in favor of the acutely deprived subjects, demanding that even those agents who merely suspect that they may have substantially contributed to these deprivations undertake efforts to address them. (shrink)

In this chapter we will use the case of beaver reintroduction in southern Scandinavia to illuminate the philosophical issues underlying the value of biodiversity. First, we rehearse some of the main types of argument relating to the practice of ecological restoration. This is followed by a description of the case study, and by a summary of what we take to be the main positions in the ongoing debate over reintroduction of beavers. We then interpret these different positions, asking in each (...) case how ‘biodiversity’ is being understood. In this way, we try to establish the causes of the disagreement. It is important to distinguish between disagreements caused by conflicting interests and disagreements caused by conflicting values. We shall focus on a special type of disagreement where there seems to be a genuine conflict of values pertaining to biodiversity. Finally, we show how the claim that biodiversity should be protected is made by several participants in the debate and taken to have remarkably different implications: the need to protect biodiversity has been invoked both in attacks on, and defenses of, reintroduction and other forms of ecological restoration. (shrink)

Suppose you perform two actions. The first imposes a risk of harm that, on its own, would be excessive; but the second reduces the risk of harm by a corresponding amount. By pairing the two actions together to form a set of actions that is risk-neutral, can you thereby make your overall course of conduct permissible? This question is theoretically interesting, because the answer is apparently: sometimes Yes, sometimes No. It is also practically important, because it bears on the moral (...) status of practices such as offsetting personal greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In this article we propose a criterion for distinguishing between cases where pairing risk-increasing and risk-reducing actions makes each action permissible, and those where it does not: the Principle of Aggregate Risk-Imposition. We work towards this by considering a range of examples that illustrate various illegitimate ways of pairing risk-increasing actions with risk-reducing ones, and asking what goes wrong in each case. We then use this criterion to evaluate GHG offsetting. Is offsetting a legitimate way of removing the risk-imposition associated with GHG emissions, or not? Controversially, we argue that this turns out to depend on the form that the offsetting takes. (shrink)

Christian ethics is a most perplexing subject. This Guide takes the reader through the most fundamental issues surrounding the question of Ethics from a Christian perspective: Is ethics a meaningful topic of discourse and can there be such a thing as an ethical argument or ethical persuasion? What is the meaning of the adjective in Christian Ethics?Could right behavior be different for Christians than it is for others? Can we turn to the Bible for help? Does (...) the Bible tell us what to do, or give us insight into the good we should aim to achieve, or give us a narrative by which to live? Is it best to think of ethics as a matter of duty, or good, or excellence? If we take the virtue line and say that ethics is about human excellence, doing well as a human being or succeeding at being a good human being then what will we say about humans who cannot achieve excellence? The virtue approach leads us to place friendship as the goal of ethics. (shrink)

We propose a principle of sustainability to complement established principles used for justifying healthcare resource allocation. We argue that the application of established principles of equal treatment, need, prognosis and cost-effectiveness gives rise to what we call negative dynamics: a gradual depletion of the value possible to generate through healthcare. These principles should therefore be complemented by a sustainability principle, making the prospect of negative dynamics a further factor to consider, and possibly outweigh considerations highlighted by the other principles. (...) We demonstrate how this principle may take different forms, and show that a commitment to sustainability is supported by considerations internal to the ethical principles already guiding healthcare resource allocation. We also consider two objections. The first of these, we argue, is either based on implausible assumptions or begs the question, whereas the second can be adequately accommodated by the principle we propose. (shrink)

In A History of Philosophy in the Twentieth Century , Christian Delacampagne reviews the discipline's divergent and dramatic course and shows that its greatest figures, even the most unworldly among them, were deeply affected by events of their time. From Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose famous Tractatus was actually composed in the trenches during World War I, to Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger -- one who found himself barred from public life with Hitler's coming to power, the other a member (...) of the Nazi party who later refused to repudiate German war crimes. From Bertrand Russell, whose lifelong pacifism led him to turn from logic and mathematics to social and moral questions, and Jean-Paul Sartre, who made philosophy an occasion for direct and personal political engagement, to Rudolf Carnap, a committed socialist, and Karl Popper, a resolute opponent of Communism. From the Vienna Circle and the Frankfurt School to the contemporary work of philosophers as variously minded as Jacques Derrida, Jürgen Habermas, and Hilary Putnam. The thinking of these philosophers, and scores of others, cannot be understood without being placed in the context of the times in which they lived. (shrink)

Is the overall value of a world just the sum of values contributed by each value-bearing entity in that world? Additively separable axiologies (like total utilitarianism, prioritarianism, and critical level views) say 'yes', but non-additive axiologies (like average utilitarianism, rank-discounted utilitarianism, and variable value views) say 'no'. This distinction appears to be practically important: among other things, additive axiologies generally assign great importance to large changes in population size, and therefore tend to strongly prioritize the long-term survival of humanity (...) over the interests of the present generation. Non-additive axiologies, on the other hand, need not assign great importance to large changes in population size. We show, however, that when there is a large enough `background population' unaffected by our choices, a wide range of non-additive axiologies converge in their implications with additive axiologies—for instance, average utilitarianism converges with critical-level utilitarianism and various egalitarian theories converge with prioritarianism. We further argue that real-world background populations may be large enough to make these limit results practically significant. This means that arguments from the scale of potential future populations for the astronomical importance of avoiding existential catastrophe, and other arguments in practical ethics that seem to presuppose additive separability, may succeed in practice whether or not we accept additive separability as a basic axiological principle. (shrink)

Introduction to business ethics : approach and subject matter -- Ethical theory and its application to business contexts -- Conceptions of the economy and business : ethical aspects -- Organizational ethics : ethics of corporations, companies, and other business organizations -- Individuals in the world of business : ethical aspects of specific roles and professions -- Global business ethics -- Economic and ethical challenges of the 21st century : sustainability -- Conclusion--Index.

Utilitarianism has dominated media ethics for a century. For Mill, individual autonomy and neutrality are the foundations of his On Liberty and System of Logic, as well as his Utilitarianism. These concepts fit naturally with media ethics theory and professional practice in a democratic society. However, the weaknesses in utilitarianism articulated by Ross and others direct us at this stage to a dialogic ethics of duty instead. Habermas's discourse ethics, feminist ethics, and communitarian ethics are examples of duty ethics rooted (...) in the dialogic relation that enable us to start over intellectually. (shrink)

One of the most common assumptions about the moral virtues is that they are traits, or more specifically, traits of character. But what are character traits, and what character traits do we actually possess today? This chapter will take up each of these questions in turn. First it will consider the metaphysics of character traits, and distinguish between three competing views. Then it will turn to the empirical issue of whether most people actually have character traits, and if (...) so, what they tend to look like. Throughout, the main focus will be on presenting leading views, rather than on trying to argue for any one view in particular. The focus will also be on the moral character traits, rather than the epistemic, prudential, aesthetic, or other kinds of traits. (shrink)

This article is an attempt to understand “Bounds of Ethics in a Globalized World”, the hiatus between principles, norms and values and how they are codified on the one hand and the risks that follow when the actualisations of regulative principles fail in political reality on the other hand. Considering the political, economic and social reality, it is frequently diagnosed that reality is lagging far behind the potential of constitutionally guaranteed rights and duties. A variety of constitutionally guaranteed values (...) suffers from devaluation. Taking examples from Bavaria in Germany, questions concerning whether the Bavarian society is at the borders of ethical capacities, or whether the limits of possible ethical regulation have been reached are dealt with. Important parallels in the genesis of the Bavarian and the Indian constitution are highlighted in this context. Through an understanding of the ideas of Ludwig Erhard, a pragmatic approach and an innovative model is proposed for cultivating values in a sustainable way. The importance of values of virtues is discussed and an emphasis is put on the importance of practiced virtues. (shrink)

Our aim in this brief essay is not to defend a particular policy or attitude toward lockdown measures in the United States or elsewhere, but to consider the scope and limits of different types of arguments that can be offered for them. Understanding the complexity of these issues will, we hope, go some way to helping us understand each other and our attitudes toward state responses to the pandemic.

In this article, I demonstrate that the term ‘ubuntu’ has frequently appeared in writing since at least 1846. I also analyse changes in how ubuntu has been defined in written sources in the period 1846 to 2011. The analysis shows that in written sources published prior to 1950, it appears that ubuntu is always defined as a human quality. At different stages during the second half of the 1900s, some authors began to define ubuntu more broadly: definitions included ubuntu as (...) African humanism, a philosophy, an ethic, and as a worldview. Furthermore, my findings indicate that it was during the period from 1993 to 1995 that the Nguni proverb ‘umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu’ (often translated as ‘a person is a person through other persons’) was used for the first time to describe what ubuntu is. Most authors today refer to the proverb when describing ubuntu, irrespective of whether they consider ubuntu to be a human quality, African humanism, a philosophy, an ethic, or a worldview. (shrink)

This book assesses the ethical implications of using armed unmanned aerial vehicles in contemporary conflicts. The American way of war is trending away from the heroic and towards the post-heroic, driven by a political preference for air-powered management of strategic risks and the reduction of physical risk to US personnel. The recent use of drones in the War on Terror has demonstrated the power of this technology to transcend time and space, but there has been relatively little debate in the (...) United States and elsewhere over the embrace of what might be regarded as politically desirable and yet morally worrisome: risk-free killing. Arguably, the absence of a relationship of mutual risk between putative combatants poses a fundamental challenge to the status of war as something morally distinguishable from other forms of violence, and it also undermines the professional virtue of the warrior as a courageous risk-taker. This book considers the use of armed drones in the light of ethical principles that are intended to guard against unjust increases in the incidence and lethality of armed conflict. The evidence and arguments presented indicate that, in some respects, the use of armed drones is to be welcomed as an ethically superior mode of warfare. Over time, however, their continued and increased use is likely to generate more challenges than solutions, and perhaps do more harm than good. This book will be of much interest to students of the ethics of war, airpower, counter-terrorism, strategic studies and security studies in general. (shrink)

Can economics, which is based on the notion of individual optimization, really model individuals who have a sense of exteriority? This question, derived both from Marcel Mauss's sociological analysis of the social norm of gift-giving and from Emmanuel Levinas's phenomenological analysis of the idea of 'otherness,' leads to the problem of whether it is possible to model altruism with the tool of optimization. By investigating the ways in which economic theory can address this challenge, and by introducing a postulate of (...) methodological altruism following Levinas's theory of the constitution of subjectivity through otherness, this paper uncovers an alternative foundation for the very notion of optimizing calculation - no longer as a self-centered initiative, but rather as an other-centered response. This makes it possible to clarify the implicit content of usual economic individualism, and to see on the basis of which ethical arguments the economic method of optimization may be upheld. The paper studies the consequences of this renewed foundation of optimization for the organization of a fair and efficient interaction between altruists. (shrink)

This paper argues that the question of the compatibility between competition and solidarity needs to be clarified by distinguishing a variety of possible normative frameworks. Using a core metaphor of a race between runners hired by stadiums, I develop and discuss three ethical frameworks: the emergentist perspective, which considers that competition is in itself the locus of solidarity; the social-democratic perspective, which views solidarity as the main counterweight to the abrasive effects of competition – without, however, calling into question the (...) system that generates this competition; and the oppositional perspective, which considers solidarity as an implication of the desire to assist the victims of asymmetrical social power, unfairly distributed through competition, and therefore sees ‘genuine’ solidarity as a means to subvert competitive logic itself. In each case, I deconstruct the fundamental ‘axioms’ that underlie the approach, and I gradually demonstrate why there are compelling ethical arguments for a radical subversion of the logic of competition within a framework of ‘genuine’ solidarity. Thus, while the social-democratic perspective trumps the emergentist perspective, it is in turn trumped by the oppositional perspective. The basic idea is that competition which is statically fair, tends to become dynamically unfair, revealing a deep-lying source of structural alienation. This requires a renewed view of the nature of agents’ rationality, however, and an abandonment of some cherished beliefs and prejudices concerning the alleged fairness of competition in market economies. (shrink)

In this paper, we challenge the usual argument which says that competition is a fair mechanism because it ranks individuals according to their relative preferences between effort and leisure. This argument, we claim, is very insufficient as a justification of fairness in competition, and we show that it does not stand up to scrutiny once various dynamic aspects of competition are taken into account. Once the sequential unfolding of competition is taken into account, competition turns out to be unfair even (...) if the usual fairness argument is upheld. We distinguish between two notions of fairness, which we call U-fairness, where ‘U’ stands for the ‘usual’ fairness notion, and S-fairness, where ‘S’ stands for the ‘sequential’ aspect of competition. The sequential unfairness of competition, we argue, comprises two usually neglected aspects connected with losses of freedom: first of all, there is an ‘eclipse’ of preferences in the sense that even perfectly calculating competitors do not carry out a trade-off between effort and ranking; and second, competitive dynamics leads to single-mindedness because the constraints on the competitors’ choices always operate in the sense of increased competitiveness and, therefore, in the direction of an increased effort requirements. We argue (1) that competition is S-unfair even if it is U-fair, (2) that as S-unfairness increases, the ethical relevance of U-fairness itself vanishes, so that (3) by focusing as they usually do on U-fairness alone, economists neglect a deeper aspect of unfairness. (shrink)

The human relationship to trees is arguably as complex as human experience itself. We cohabitate intimately with them as they regulate the systems that sustain us. We use them instrumentally to tra...

In this paper, we challenge the usual argument which says that competition is a fair mechanism because it ranks individuals according to their relative preferences between effort and leisure. This argument, we claim, is very insufficient as a justification of fairness in competition, and we show that it does not stand up to scrutiny once various dynamic aspects of competition are taken into account. Once the sequential unfolding of competition is taken into account, competition turns out to be unfair even (...) if the usual fairness argument is upheld. We distinguish between two notions of fairness, which we call U-fairness, where 'U' stands for the 'usual' fairness notion, and S-fairness, where 'S' stands for the 'sequential' aspect of competition. The sequential unfairness of competition, we argue, comprises two usually neglected aspects connected with losses of freedom: first of all, there is an 'eclipse' of preferences in the sense that even perfectly calculating competitors do not carry out a trade-off between effort and ranking; and second, competitive dynamics leads to single-mindedness because the constraints on the competitors' choices always operate in the sense of increased competitiveness and, therefore, in the direction of an increased effort requirements. We argue (1) that competition is S-unfair even if it is U-fair, (2) that as S-unfairness increases, the ethical relevance of U-fairness itself vanishes, so that (3) by focusing as they usually do on U-fairness alone, economists neglect a deeper aspect of unfairness. (shrink)

Christiane Bailey | : Distinguant deux sens de « communauté morale », cet article soutient que certains animaux appartiennent à la communauté morale dans les deux sens : ils sont des patients moraux dignes de considération morale directe et équivalente, mais également des agents moraux au sens où ils sont capables de reconnaître, d’assumer et d’adresser aux autres des exigences minimales de bonne conduite et de savoir-vivre. Au moyen de la notion d’« attitudes réactives » développée par Peter F. Strawson, (...) je soutiens que les animaux sociaux qui sont à la fois objets et sujets d’attitudes réactives forment des communautés morales au second sens, dans la mesure où ils se traitent mutuellement comme des individus ayant des obligations et tenus à des exigences de bonne volonté minimale dans leurs interactions interpersonnelles. Distinguant l’agentivité morale du raisonnement moral, je soutiens que la capacité de raisonner abstraitement sur les principes et les conséquences de nos actions nous imposent plus de responsabilités que n’en ont d’autres animaux, mais que cela ne fait pas nécessairement de nous des agents moraux plus compétents que d’autres animaux sociaux. Je termine en donnant un aperçu de quelques implications de ce changement de perspective en éthique animale. | : This article draws the distinction between two meanings of “moral community” and maintains that certain animals belong to moral communities in both senses of the term: these animals are moral patients worthy of direct and equivalent moral consideration, but also moral agents in the sense that they are capable of recognizing and respecting minimal requirements of good conduct and manners as well as expecting and demanding the same from other members of their community. By way of the notion of “reactive attitudes” developed by Peter F. Strawson, I maintain that social animals who are at once objects and subjects of reactive attitudes constitute moral communities in the second sense of the term, in that they treat each other as individuals who have obligations and who are bound by the demand for a minimum of good-will in their interpersonal interactions. Distinguishing between moral agency and moral reasoning, I maintain that the capacity to reason abstractly about the principles and consequences of our actions gives us more responsibilities than other animals have, but that this does not necessarily make us more competent moral agents than other social animals. I conclude with an overview of some of the implications that this change in perspective has for animal ethics. (shrink)

While phenomenologists claim to have overcome solipsism, most have not pushed beyond the boundaries of individual human intersubjectivity to that of individuals of other species. Yet Husserl recognizes the existence of an interspecific intersubjectivity, an intersubjectivity beyond the limits of the species. He even goes so far as to say that we sometimes understand a companion animal better than a foreign human. However, even if he admits that many animals are capable of a life of subjective consciousness and live (...) in a world of shared meaning, he does not consider them to be “persons” according to his strict conception that associates personhood with rationality, maturity, normality and historicity. Being a “person” in its most primordial sense – and its most decisive as the basis for political, legal and ethical conceptions – simply means being the subject of a surrounding world, of a common world and a biographical existence. Distinguishing two meanings of the concept of person allows us to recognize that animals share transcendentality; they are not simply alive but have a life that is both biographical and communal, even if they are not able to reflect on their own conscious life in order to consider their place in the chain of generations and to adopt what Husserl calls a “vocation”. The Husserlian phenomenology of anomalies allows us to recognize that animals truly come under the figure of the other, that they are alter ego subjects of a conscious life, and as such they participate fully, just as do children, the insane, and foreigners, in the co-constitution of the spiritual world. (shrink)

American society has a history of turning to physicians during times of extreme need, from plagues in the past to recent outbreaks of communicable diseases. This public instinct comes from a deep seated trust in physician duty that has been earned over the centuries through dedicated and selfless care, often in the face of personal risks. As dangers facing our communities include terroristic events physicians must be adequately prepared to respond, both medically and ethically. While the ethical principles that govern (...) physician behavior—beneficence, nonmaleficence, autonomy, and social justice—are unchanging, fundamental doctrines must change with the new risks inherent to terroristic events. Responding to mass casualty disasters caused by terrorists, natural calamities, and combat continue to be challenging frontiers in medicine. Preparing physicians to deal with the consequences of a terroristic disease must include understanding the ethical challenges that can occur. (shrink)

The fact that Ludwik Fleck drew his inspiration from medicine has been largely overlooked, with the exception of a few scholars. Although Fleck considered his ideas applicable to all sciences, he always insisted on the specificity of medicine. To illustrate the usefulness of Fleck’s concepts for the history of medicine, three main ideas developed by Fleck are applied to the historical study of diabetes mellitus : first, that different and often divergent pictures of disease coexist within a given culture; second, (...) that scientific ideas circulate between ‘esoteric’ and ‘exoteric’ circles; and third, that scientific concepts are often incommensurable. The author also suggests that Fleck’s epistemology, like other scholars’, is loaded with ethical and political consequences. However, the link between an ‘open’ epistemology and political or ethical questions is more explicit in Georges Canguilhem’s pioneering work on the normal and the pathological . Indeed, Canguilhem and Fleck’s conceptions of disease have much in common, so that we can use Canguilhem’s work to bring out the hidden ethical and political issues in Fleck’s work. (shrink)

Preliminary assessment of Aristotle’s treatment of justice suggests that he would consider unjust Jesus’s injunction to turn your other cheek to one who has unjustly struck you. Further consideration, however, shows that obeying such an injunction would qualify, even by Aristotle’s criteria, as a more just response than reciprocating the blow. Turning one’s cheek provides the assailant an opportunity to make a choice that could improve his character, which improvement is crucial to the political good that (...) is the primary concern of justice in the full sense. Remaining concerns about rectification are obviated by considering how the megalopsukhos navigates honor. (shrink)

What does it mean to live and build up the Kingdom of God? In this book, professor and priest Alberto de Mingo Kaminouchi introduces the contemporary reader to Christian ethics by examining the New Testament through the three key concepts of Aristotle’s ethics: happiness, virtue, and love. In turn, the three affirmations orient this reflection through the Gospel. First, when the triune God appears on the horizon, it becomes easier to understand that existence has a purpose: namely, participating (...) with the entire human family in this project of happiness called the Kingdom of God. Second, happiness is not something outside of us; it consists in the practice of the virtues that bring about a personal transformation. Third, the project of the Kingdom leads us to live in love with others. De Mingo Kaminouchi shows the reader a real model of this in the community we call the church, the “field hospital” for all those in need of hope. This book is accessibly written for readers not already well-versed in Christian ethics. (shrink)

In this brief article, I will raise some challenges to each of Pablo Gilabert’s arguments for a human right to democracy (HRD). First, I will question whether the instrumental case for affirming a HRD is as strong as Gilabert and others have suggested. I will then call into question the argument from moral risk, arguing that, for any particular country, we should not operate with a strong presumption that they should pursue further democratization as a high-priority goal. Finally, I will (...) consider the strength of our intuitive support for a stringent human right to democracy. As Gilabert points out, there could be a genuine HRD, even if it did not always provide us with an overriding reason to call for the implementation of democracy. I will explore how much normative priority claims to respect democratic decisions have by considering what we have reason to do when democratic decisions would lead to violations of other, noncontroversial human rights. (shrink)

This paper presents a systematic account of ethical issues actualised in different areas, as well as at different levels and stages of health care, by introducing organisational and other procedures that embody a shift towards person centred care and shared decision-making (PCC/SDM). The analysis builds on general ethical theory and earlier work on aspects of PCC/SDM relevant from an ethics perspective. This account leads up to a number of theoretical as well as empirical and practice oriented issues that, in (...) view of broad advancements towards PCC/SDM, need to be considered by health care ethics researchers. Given a PCC/SDM-based reorientation of health care practice, such ethics research is essential from a quality assurance perspective. (shrink)

I first summarize the main line of argument used by Harman and Doris against Aristotelian virtue ethics in particular. In section two I present what seems to me to be the most promising response to their argument. Finally in section three I briefly review and assess the other leading responses in the now sizable literature that has developed in this area.

Many studies have emphasized the importance of medical, insurance, and workplace systems treating individuals fairly in work disability prevention and return-to-work. However, ethical theories and perspectives from these different systems are rarely discussed in relation to each other, even though in practice these systems constantly interact. This paper explores ethical theories and perspectives that may apply to the WDP–RTW field, and discusses these in relation to perspectives attributed to dominant stakeholders in this field, and to potential differences in different (...) jurisdictional contexts. Literature was sought primarily in biomedical ethics, business ethics, and public administration ethics. In biomedical ethics, four ethical principles are dominant: autonomy, beneficence, nonmalevolence, and justice. Business ethics involve theories on Corporate Social Responsibility, social contracts, and organizational justice. Public administration ethics focus on constitutional theory, citizenship, social equity, virtue, and public interest. Several concepts were identified as relevant for ethical analyses in the WDP–RTW field, including justice; individual autonomy; nonmalevolence; economic and social responsibility; and social contracts. These concepts provide a vocabulary that may be used to analyze stakeholders’ actions and interactions in RTW processes. It was also noted how the power balance between stakeholders will influence which ethical perspectives will influence RTW. Jurisdictional differences that influence RTW processes with regard to stakeholder responsibilities were identified, as well as varying beliefs as to who is the client in different compensation systems. A social contractual approach may inform an analysis of cultural and legal differences. (shrink)

Scholars disagree about the proper justification of human rights and which rights qualify as human rights. While some argue for a very limited set of human rights, others defend more comprehensive accounts. In this paper I suggest that a defence of a comprehensive set of human rights can be strengthened by combining constructivist deontological and well-being based teleological justifications. To this end, I discuss two prominent proponents of constructivism and the well-being approach: Rainer Forst and Simon Caney. Forst criticises teleological (...) justifications for grounding human rights in non-universalizable conceptions of the good, such as autonomy, that can reasonably be rejected by others. Constructivism, in contrast, does not rest on any particular idea of the good life and thus allows for greater ethical plurality. I reject this specific criticism, arguing that Caney’s approach ultimately allows for the same plurality. I also highlight that constructivism on its own cannot justify rights of people who are not (yet) able to reason. The well-being approach provides substantive arguments for the rights of these individuals. However, these arguments are made with the framework provided by constructivism. I hold, contra Caney, that Forst’s right to justification is primary in that it is the unavoidable basis from which justice issues can be dealt with in a reasonable way and that the main function of human rights is to protect the equal moral status of persons. I conclude that Forst’s constructivist and Caney’s well-being approach are complementary rather than rivalrous: when combined they provide a more robust justification for a comprehensive set of human rights than considered separately. (shrink)