Research in moral psychology has recently raised questions about the impact of context and the environment on the way the human mind works. In a 2012 call to action, Paley wrote: “If some of the conclusions arrived at by moral psychologists are true, they are directly relevant to the way nurses think about moral problems, and present serious challenges to favoured concepts in nursing ethics, such as the ethics of care, virtue, and the unity of the person” (...) (p. 80). He urges nurse ethicists and scholars to evaluate the impact these findings may have for moral theory.In this paper, I review some of Paley's (Nursing Philosophy, 13, 2012, 80) critique, focusing on the argument that theories of nursing ethics have failed to account for the role of context; both in terms of its impact on the way nurses make moral judgements and in terms of the environment's influence on the way the mind works. I then examine nursing literature on moral agency, and focus on the role of the environment and context play within existing theory. I argue that theories of moral agency have often accounted for the role of context on the way nurses make decisions; however, less attention has been paid to its impact on the mind. With this background, I use insights from the fields of moral philosophy and moral psychology to refine the conceptualization of nurse moral agency in a way that is reflective of current cognitive, philosophical and nursing practice‐based science. (shrink)

Collective moral agents can cause their own moral incapacity. If an agent is morally incapacitated, then the agent is exempted from responsibility. Due to self-induced moral incapacity, corporate responsibility gaps resurface. To solve this problem, I first set out and defend a minimalist account of moral competence for group agents. After setting out how a collective agent can cause its own moral incapacity, I argue that self-induced temporary exempting conditions do not free an agent from (...) diachronic responsibility once the agent regains its moral faculties. For collective agents, any exempting condition is potentially temporary due to the ‘malleability’ of their constitution. Therefore, in cases of self-induced moral incapacity and subsequent wrongdoing, unlike individuals, every collective agent can be (made) morally responsible for its actions even though it did not qualify as a moral agent at the time of wrongdoing. Hence, this is no reason for skepticism concerning corporate responsibility. (shrink)

Recent work in behavioral economics and psychology provides valuable resources for religious ethicists. This book discussion examines contributions by Cass Sunstein, Daniel Kahneman, George Akerlof and Rachel Kranton, Uri Gneezy and John A. List, and Douglas Hough. This literature raises important questions about ethical decision-making, moral agency and responsibility, and the ethics of life in global capitalism. It also opens up promising areas for interdisciplinary dialogue between economics and religious studies. This book discussion concludes that religious ethicists have (...) much to contribute to the conversations about moral anthropology that are now being held in behavioral economic research, and to the broader political economic debates in which this research participates. (shrink)

International Journal of Machine Consciousness, Volume 06, Issue 02, Page 141-161, December 2014. This paper follows directly from an earlier paper where we discussed the requirements for an artifact to be a moral agent and concluded that the artifactual question is ultimately a red herring. As before, we take moral agency to be that condition in which an agent can appropriately be held responsible for her actions and their consequences. We set a number of stringent conditions on (...) moral agency. A moral agent must be embedded in a cultural and specifically moral context and embodied in a suitable physical form. It must be, in some substantive sense, alive. It must exhibit self-conscious awareness. It must exhibit sophisticated conceptual abilities, going well beyond what the likely majority of conceptual agents possess: not least that it must possess a well-developed moral space of reasons. Finally, it must be able to communicate its moral agency through some system of signs: A "private" moral world is not enough. After reviewing these conditions and pouring cold water on recent claims for having achieved "minimal" machine consciousness, we turn our attention to a number of existing and, in some cases, commonplace artifacts that lack moral agency yet nevertheless require one to take a moral stance toward them, as if they were moral agents. Finally, we address another class of agents raising a related set of issues: autonomous military robots. (shrink)

Some philosophers have argued that moral agency is characteristic of humans alone and that its absence from other animals justifies granting higher moral status to humans. However, human beings do not have a monopoly on moral agency, which admits of varying degrees and does not require mastery of moral principles. The view that all and only humans possess moral agency indicates our underestimation of the mental lives of other animals. Since many other (...) animals are moral agents (to varying degrees), they are also subject to (limited) moral obligations, examples of which are provided in this paper. But, while moral agency is sufficient for significant moral status, it is by no means necessary. (shrink)

It is often contended that certain enhancement technologies are acceptable, because they simply update traditional ways of pursuing the improvement of human capacities. This is not true with reference to moral bioenhancement, because of the radical difference between traditional and biotechnological ways of producing moral progress. These latter risk having serious negative effects on our moral agency, by causing a substantial loss of freedom and capacity of authentic moral behaviour, by affecting our moral identity (...) and by imposing a standard conception of moral personality. (shrink)

The origin of moral agency is a much-debated issue. While rationalists or Kantians have argued that moral agency is rooted in reason, sentimentalists or Humeans have ascribed its origin to empathic feelings. This debate between rationalists and sentimentalists still stands with respect to persons with mental disorders, such as individuals diagnosed with mild forms of Autism Spectrum Disorder, without intellectual impairment. Individuals with ASD are typically regarded as moral agents, however their ability for empathy remains (...) debated. The goal of this paper is to investigate the mechanisms of moral actions in people with ASD, by finding arguments for the origin of their moral actions, supporting either the sentimentalist or the rationalist view of the dispute. We propose to revisit the debate using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis to study the autobiographies of individuals with High-Functioning Autism and Asperger Syndrome. While conducting the systematic analysis of 10 autobiographies, we re-examined both the rationalist and the sentimentalist positions, considering the links between empathic feelings and moral agency. The investigation of the temporal dimensions of emotional experiences, an aspect overlooked by previous research, indicated that individuals with ASD empathize with others, but in different ways as compared to neurotypicals. A relationship between emotional experience and the type of moral agency exhibited by individuals with forms of ASD was established. As a consequence, our analyses support the sentimentalist stance on moral action. (shrink)

This paper draws upon a research study of accountants and HR specialists. The study eschewed hypothetical scenarios and focused upon those situations and scenarios that the interviewees defined as causing them ethical concerns. There are two distinct but related issues arising from the paper. The first is that the singular categorisations of moral reasoning attributed to individuals when faced with hypothetical scenarios by many who write on the issue of moral reasoning, did not correspond to the fluidity in (...) moral choices faced by the interviewees as they experienced their unfolding moral dilemmas. The second issue relates to the unwillingness of the interviewees to give voice to their concerns, not only externally, but also within their employing organisations. The tensions within the two cases featured were held in check only by the diminution of the autonomy of the two principal actors. As a consequence, the exercise of moral agency was denied. (shrink)

This paper draws upon a research study of accountants and HR specialists. The study eschewed hypothetical scenarios and focused upon those situations and scenarios that the interviewees defined as causing them ethical concerns. There are two distinct but related issues arising from the paper. The first is that the singular categorisations of moral reasoning attributed to individuals when faced with hypothetical scenarios by many who write on the issue of moral reasoning, did not correspond to the fluidity in (...) moral choices faced by the interviewees as they experienced their unfolding moral dilemmas. The second issue relates to the unwillingness of the interviewees to give voice to their concerns, not only externally, but also within their employing organisations. The tensions within the two cases featured were held in check only by the diminution of the autonomy of the two principal actors. As a consequence, the exercise of moral agency was denied. (shrink)

Recent empirical research results in the behavioral, cognitive, and neurosciences on the “adaptive unconscious” show that conscious control and deliberative awareness are not all-pervasive aspects of our everyday dealings with one another. Moral philosophers and other scientists have used these insights to put our moral agency to the test. The results of these tests are intriguing: apparently we are not always (or ever?) the moral agents we take ourselves to be. This paper argues in favor of (...) a refinement of our common perception of moral agency that can accommodate these results; however, it also argues against the suggestion that this refined concept is the result of a radical new understanding of our everyday moral practices. (shrink)

This paper discusses the philosophical issues pertaining to Kantian moral agency and artificial intelligence. Here, our objective is to offer a comprehensive analysis of Kantian ethics to elucidate the non-feasibility of Kantian machines. Meanwhile, the possibility of Kantian machines seems to contend with the genuine human Kantian agency. We argue that in machine morality, ‘duty’ should be performed with ‘freedom of will’ and ‘happiness’ because Kant narrated the human tendency of evaluating our ‘natural necessity’ through ‘happiness’ as (...) the end. Lastly, we argue that the Kantian ‘freedom of will’ and ‘faculty of choice’ do not belong to any deterministic model of ‘agency’ as these are sacrosanct systems. The conclusion narrates the non-feasibility of Kantian AI agents from the genuine Kantian ethical outset, offering a utility-based Kantian ethical performer instead. (shrink)

Liberal political philosophy presupposes a moral theory according to which the ability to assess and choose conceptions of the good from a universal and impartial moral standpoint is central to the individual's moral identity. This viewpoint is standardly understood by liberals as that of a rationalhuman(nottranscendental) agent. Such an agent is able to reflect on her ends and pursuits, including those she strongly identifies with, and to understand and take into account the basic interests of others. From (...) the perspective of liberalism as a political morality, the most important of these interests is the interest in maximum, equal liberty for each individual, and thus the most important moral principles are the principles of justice that protect individuals' rights to life and liberty.According to the communitarian critics of liberalism, however, the liberal picture of moral agency is unrealistically abstract. Communitarians object that moral agents in the real world neither choose their conceptions of the good nor occupy a universalistically impartial moral standpoint. Rather, their conceptions of the good are determined chiefly by the communities in which they find themselves, and these conceptions are largely “constitutive” of their particular moral identities. Moral agency is thus “situated” and “particularistic,” and an impartial reflection on the conception of the good that constitutes it is undesirable, if not impossible. Further, communitarians contend, the good is “prior” to the right in the sense that moral norms are derived from, and justified in terms of, the good. An adequate moral and political theory must reflect these facts about moral agency and moral norms. (shrink)

We review both the aspects of values-related research that complicate ideations of what we ought to do, as well as the psychological impediments to forming beliefs about the way things are. We find that more traditional moral theories are without solid empirical footing in the psychology of human values. Consequently, we revise the notion of values to align with their socially symbolic utility in self-affirmation and reformulate our understandings of moral agency to allow for the practicalities of (...) context, circumstance, and connectedness. We close by discussing the research and practical implications for these revisions. (shrink)

This paper discusses Confucian notions of moral autonomy and moral agency that do not follow strict and ideal notions of autonomy that one can find in many Western theories of moral philosophy. In Kantian deontology, for example, one's autonomy, specifically one's rational will to follow universal moral rules, is a necessary condition of moral agency and moral responsibility. In Confucian moral philosophy, however, this type of strict moral autonomy is rarely (...) observed. A Confucian moral agent is often depicted as a partially heteronomous individual who often accepts and follows others' moral authority and considers external contingencies in her moral deliberations. Yet active moral agency is maintained in Confucian philosophy. In this paper, I will explain and analyze a partially heteronomous but active form of moral agency in Confucian moral philosophy. First, I will survey different notions of moral autonomy and explore philosophical theories of partial autonomy and heteronomy. Second, I will discuss, on the basis of interactive, responsive, and situated notions of the self, how Confucian moral agency can be explained without strict standards of autonomy. In Confucianism, morality or virtuosity reflects the relational, responsive, and situated nature of human being that resonates with other human beings and their environmental contingencies. Mencius, for example, acknowledges and discusses interactive or relational nature of moral action and the dependency of the moral self on external conditions of life without giving up active moral effort and full moral responsibility. Third, based on my analysis of moral autonomy and responsibility in early Confucian philosophy, I will argue that Confucian moral philosophy provides a unique way of understanding moral agency, not through self-enclosed independency but through relational and interactive interdependency of communal agency. (shrink)

Can computer systems ever be considered moral agents? This paper considers two factors that are explored in the recent philosophical literature. First, there are the important domains in which computers are allowed to act, made possible by their greater functional capacities. Second, there is the claim that these functional capacities appear to embody relevant human abilities, such as autonomy and responsibility. I argue that neither the first (Domain-Function) factor nor the second (Simulacrum) factor gets at the central issue in (...) the case for computer moral agency: whether they can have the kinds of intentional states that cause their decisions and actions. I give an account that builds on traditional action theory and allows us to conceive of computers as genuine moral agents in virtue of their own causally efficacious intentional states. These states can cause harm or benefit to moral patients, but do not depend on computer consciousness or intelligence. (shrink)

"The main conclusion of this essay is that it is plausible to conclude that corporations are capable of exhibiting intentionality, and as a result that they may be properly understood as moral agents" (p. 281).

This paper argues that self-consciousness and moral agency depend crucially on both embodied and social aspects of human existence, and that the capacity for practical wisdom, phronesis, is central to moral personhood. The nature of practical wisdom is elucidated by drawing on rival analyses of expertise. Although ethical expertise and practical wisdom differ importantly, they are alike in that we can acquire them only in interaction with other persons and through habituation. The analysis of moral (...) class='Hi'>agency and practical wisdom is framed by Dennett's proposal that moral personhood requires satisfaction of six conditions, including self-consciousness. (shrink)

Philosophical and sociological approaches in technology have increasingly shifted toward describing AI (artificial intelligence) systems as ‘(moral) agents,’ while also attributing ‘agency’ to them. It is only in this way – so their principal argument goes – that the effects of technological components in a complex human-computer interaction can be understood sufficiently in phenomenological-descriptive and ethical-normative respects. By contrast, this article aims to demonstrate that an explanatory model only achieves a descriptively and normatively satisfactory result if the concepts (...) of ‘(moral) agent’ and ‘(moral) agency’ are exclusively related to human agents. Initially, the division between symbolic and sub-symbolic AI, the black box character of (deep) machine learning, and the complex relationship network in the provision and application of machine learning are outlined. Next, the ontological and action-theoretical basic assumptions of an ‘agency’ attribution regarding both the current teleology-naturalism debate and the explanatory model of actor network theory are examined. On this basis, the technical-philosophical approaches of Luciano Floridi, Deborah G. Johnson, and Peter-Paul Verbeek will all be critically discussed. Despite their different approaches, they tend to fully integrate computational behavior into their concept of ‘(moral) agency.’ By contrast, this essay recommends distinguishing conceptually between the different entities, causalities, and relationships in a human-computer interaction, arguing that this is the only way to do justice to both human responsibility and the moral significance and causality of computational behavior. (shrink)

All the world's a stage,/And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts.This piece, co-authored by a doctor and patient in dialogue with one another, points to the promise of prioritizing moral agency in clinical interactions and how this can promote recovery. This response will consider the broader social, philosophical and clinical context of madness in the United States. It will also signal the relevance (...) of this piece to the larger body of work about recovery and mental health services. Finally, it will indicate the implications of this piece for existing mental health services and best practices, especially shared decision-making.For the... (shrink)

Moral distress has been covered extensively in the nursing literature and increasingly in the literature of other health professions. Cases that cause nurses’ moral distress that are mentioned most frequently are those concerned with prolonging the dying process. Given the standard of aggressive treatment that is typical in intensive care units (ICUs), much of the existing moral distress research focuses on the experiences of critical care nurses. However, moral distress does not automatically occur in all end-of-life (...) circumstances, nor does every critical care nurse suffer its damaging effects. What are the practices of these nurses? What specifically do they do to navigate around or through the distressing situations? The nursing literature is lacking an answer to these questions. This article reports a study that used narrative analysis to explore the reported practices of experienced critical care nurses who are skilled at and comfortable working with families and physicians regarding the withdrawal of aggressive treatment. A major finding was that these nurses did not report experiencing the dam-Moral Agency, Moral Imagination, and Moral Community: Antidotes to Moral Distress Terri Traudt, Joan Liaschenko, and Cynthia Peden-McAlpine Terri Traudt, MBC, MA, is a Communications Consultant specializing in bioethics at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota, in Minneapolis. [email protected] Joan Liaschenko, PhD, RN, FAAN, is a Professor at the Center for Bioethics and Nursing at the University of Minnesota. Cynthia Peden-McAlpine, PhD, ACNS, BC, is an Associate Professor in the School of Nursing at the University of Minnesota. © 2016 by The Journal of Clinical Ethics. All rights reserved. aging effects of moral distress as described in the nursing literature. The verbal communication and stated practices relevant to this finding are organized under three major themes: (1) moral agency, (2) moral imagination, and (3) moral community. Further, a total of eight subthemes are identified. The practices that constitute these themes and subthemes are further detailed and discussed in this article. Understanding these practices can help mitigate critical care nurses’ moral distress. (shrink)

For centuries in the UK and elsewhere, charities have been widely regarded as admirable and virtuous organisations. Business corporations, by contrast, have been characterised in the popular imagination as entities that lack a capacity for moral judgement. Drawing on the philosophical literature on the moral agency of organisations, we examine how the law shapes the ability of charities and business corporations headquartered in England to exercise moral agency. Paradoxically, we find that charities are legally constrained (...) in exercising moral agency in ways in which business corporations are not. Implications for charities and business corporations are then explored. (shrink)

This paper investigates the process of moral agency development as a community-supported process. Based on a multimethod qualitative inquiry, including diaries, focus groups, and documentary analysis, we analyze the experiences of middle managers in two Norwegian hospitals during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that moral agency is developed through a community-embedded value inquiry, emerging in three partially overlapping steps. The first step is marked by moral reflex, an intuitive, value-driven, pre-reflective response (...) to a crisis situation. In the second step, the managers involved the community in value calibration, a collective-ethical sensemaking. In the third step, they took active stances to translate values into actions, with an increased awareness of values and an ability to explain and justify their actions. We label the steps, respectively: value inquiry-in-action, value inquiry-on-action and reflective enactment of value. An analysis of the process reveals two aspects critical for moral agency development: it happens through confrontation with uncertainty, and it is relational, that is, embedded in a community. While uncertainty forces an intuitive moral response, dialogical reflection in the community develops value awareness and relationships of mutual care and support. (shrink)

Arguably, one of the most exciting recent advances in moral philosophy is the ongoing scientific naturalization of normative ethics and metaethics, in particular moral psychology. A relatively neglected area in these improvements that is centrally important for developing a scientifically based naturalistic metaethics concerns the nature and acquisition of successful moral agency. In this paper I lay out two examples of how empirically based findings help us to understand and explain some cases of successful moral (...) agency. These are research in moral internalization and aggression management. Using these examples, I sketch some lessons for investigating successful moral learning and moral action. My proposal reflects a common theme in scientifically based philosophy generally: the shift from the armchair methods of analyzing concepts and finding a priori foundations, the enterprise of first philosophy, to an effort to study the phenomena themselves, using empirical findings and theories to answer philosophical questions about these phenomena, an endeavor recently characterized as second philosophy. (shrink)

Nomy Arpaly rejects the model of rationality used by most ethicists and action theorists. Both observation and psychology indicate that people act rationally without deliberation, and act irrationally with deliberation. By questioning the notion that our own minds are comprehensible to us--and therefore questioning much of the current work of action theorists and ethicists--Arpaly attempts to develop a more realistic conception of moral agency.

Ordinary moral practice suggests that our beliefs, themselves, can wrong. But when one moral subject wrongs another, it must be something that the first subject, herself, does or brings about which constitutes the wronging: wronging involves exercising moral agency. So, if we can wrong others simply by believing, then believing involves an exercise or expression of moral agency. Unfortunately, it is not at all obvious how our beliefs could manifest our moral agency. (...) After all, we are not capable of believing at will, and belief generally seems to be nonvoluntary. Indeed, believing is often nondeliberative, automatic, and reflexive. Belief is a kind of spontaneous and unchosen cognitive response to one’s circumstances; it is the doxastic output of cognitive processing that is often wholly unreflective and subconscious. This paper develops and defends a two-part explanation of how beliefs that are nonvoluntary, automatic, and reflexive can nevertheless manifest our moral agency in a way that can help vindicate the intuitively attractive idea that our beliefs, themselves, can wrong. (shrink)

It is a common view in modern scholarship on Buddhist ethics, that attachment to the self constitutes a hindrance to ethics, whereas rejecting this type of attachment is a necessary condition for acting morally. The present article argues that in Vasubandhu's theory of agency, as formulated in the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya (Treasury of Metaphysics with Self-Commentary), a cognitive and psychological identification with a conventional, persisting self is a requisite for exercising moral agency. As such, this identification is essential for (...) embracing the ethics of Buddhism and its way of life. The article delineates the method that Vasubandhu employs to account for the notion of a selfless moral agent, with particular emphasis on his strategies for dealing with one central aspect of agency, self-interested concern for the future. (shrink)

One antidote to moral distress is stronger moral agency—that is, an enhanced ability to act to bring about change. The Clinical Ethics Residency for Nurses, an educational program developed and run in two large northeastern academic medical centers with funding from the Health Resources and Services Administration, intended to strengthen nurses’ moral agency. Drawing on Improving Competencies in Clinical Ethics Consultation: An Education Guide, by the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, and on the goals (...) of the nursing profession, CERN sought to change attitudes, increase knowledge, and develop skills to act on one's knowledge. One of the key insights the faculty members brought to the design of this program is that knowledge of clinical ethics is not enough to develop moral agency. In addition to lecture‐style classes, CERN employed a variety of methods based in adult learning theory, such as active application of ethics knowledge to patient scenarios in classroom discussion, simulation, and the clinical practicum. Overwhelmingly, the feedback from the participants (sixty‐seven over three years of the program) indicated that CERN achieved transformative learning. (shrink)

The subject of this article is moral agency in nursing, studied by the use of an applied philosophical method. It draws upon nurses’ accounts of how they see intrinsic value in their work and believe that they make a difference to patients in terms that leave their patients feeling better. The analysis is based on the philosophy of Iris Murdoch to reveal how nurses’ accounts demonstrated that they hold a view of themselves and their professional practice that is (...) intrinsically linked to, and dependent upon, their capacity to see good in the work they do. (shrink)

The paper reconstructs in economic terms Friedman's theorem that the only social responsibility of firms is to increase their profits while staying within legal and ethical rules. A model of three levels of moral conduct is attributed to the firm: (1) self-interested engagement in the market process itself, which reflects according to classical and neoclassical economics an ethical ideal; (2) the obeying of the "rules of the game," largely legal ones; and (3) the creation of ethical capital, which allows (...) moral conduct to enter the market process beyond the rules of the game. Points (1) and (2) position the Friedman theorem in economic terms while point (3) develops an economic revision of the theorem, which was not seen by Friedman. Implications are spelled out for an instrumental stakeholder theory of the firm. (shrink)

This article identifies limitations in traditional approaches to engineering ethics pedagogy, reflected in an overreliance on disaster case studies. Researchers in the field have pointed out that these approaches tend to occlude ethically significant aspects of day-to-day engineering practice and thus reductively individualize and decontextualize ethical decision-making. Some have proposed, as a remedy for these defects, the use of research and theory from Science and Technology Studies to enrich our understanding of the ways in which technology and engineering practice are (...) intricated in social and institutional contexts. While endorsing this approach, this article also argues that STS scholarship may not sufficiently address the kinds of questions about normativity and agency that are essential to engineering ethics. It proposes making use of the growing body of research in a field called “postphenomenology,” an approach that combines STS research with the traditional phenomenological concern with the standpoint of lived-experience. Postphenomenology offers a method of inquiry that combines STS’s investigation into social and institutional dimensions of technology with phenomenological reflection on our lived experience of embodied engagement with technical objects and sociotechnical systems, particularly the ways in which these involvements affect our moral perception and agency. The aim in using this approach in engineering ethics is thus to illuminate moral dimensions of everyday professional life of which practitioners may not typically be aware. The article concludes with some concrete curricular interventions for engineering ethics classrooms. (shrink)

International regulations governing medical research, healthcare and medical practice, are, obviously, meant to be guidelines and not detailed procedural rules of thumb that can be applied unreflectively without any danger of doing moral wrong. Moreover, such regulations are meant to apply internationally, and no set of straight‐jacketed rules of thumb can conceivably apply to all societies and communities of the world, extremely diverse and differently situated as they are. The mark of a good international guideline or regulation, in my (...) view, is that it should provide a clear principle of action that applies equally to all global communities and societies without seeking to foist the particular or momentary moral dilemmas, quandaries, obsessions and preoccupations of some on all. In this paper, I propose to argue that, because moral obligations are obligations only from the point of view of a particular moral agent, we should avoid making the peculiar problems of any particular moral agent(s) the obsessive concern of all moral agents, and that we need, in particular, to make appropriate distinctions between the ethics of developed world research in the developing world, collaborative or cooperative research between the developed and developing worlds, developed world research in the developed world and developing world research in the developing world. A consequence of looking at things this way is that, while it should be clear that there are ethical concerns, imperatives and obligations at all levels, different standards may and, in fact, cannot but be applied in different contexts at different levels, without resorting to the use of double standards, which can never be morally justified. Finally, I venture to propose a formula for a solemn pledge of moral integrity and noble intent, from the perspective of the agent, that is to say, the investigator, sponsor and funder of any research, to complement and balance the widely accepted informed consent requirement, from the perspective of the patient, the subject of any biomedical research. (shrink)

Contemporary literature includes a wide variety of definitions of empathy. At the same time, the revival of sentimentalism has proposed that empathy serves as a necessary criterion of moral agency. The paper explores four common definitions in order to map out which of them best serves such agency. Historical figures are used as the backdrop against which contemporary literature is analysed. David Hume’s philosophy is linked to contemporary notions of affective and cognitive empathy, Adam Smith’s philosophy to (...) projective empathy, and Max Scheler’s account to embodied empathy. Whereas cognitive and projective empathy suffer from detachment and atomism, thereby providing poor support for the type of other-directedness and openness entailed by moral agency, embodied and affective empathy intrinsically facilitate these factors, and hence are viewed as fruitful candidates. However, the theory of affective empathy struggles to explain why the experience of empathy includes more than pure affective mimicry, whilst embodied empathy fails to take into account forms of empathy that do not include contextual, narrative information. In order to navigate through these difficulties, Edith Stein’s take on non-primordial experience is used as a base upon which a definition of affective empathy, inclusive of an embodied dimension, and founded on a movement between resonation and response, is sketched. It is argued that, of the four candidates, this new definition best facilitates moral agency. (shrink)

Communitarians reject the impartial and universal viewpoint of liberal morality in favor of the "situated" viewpoint of the agent's community, and elevate political community into the moral community. I show that the preeminence of political community in communitarian morality is incompatible with concern for people's lives in the partial communities of family, friends, or others. Ironically, it is also incompatible with the communitarian thesis about the situated nature of moral agency. Political community is preeminent in communitarianism because (...) of its unargued-for assumption that a good society is a morally unified society. I further argue that the ability to take the impartial standpoint is essential to the ability to make particular commitments that have an intrinsic human importance. (shrink)

Some have argued that the UN or the Security Council can exercise agency on behalf of IS, but in view of the "underinstitutionalization" of IS in the UN, groups of states may authorize themselves to act on the behalf of IS as "coalitions of the willing.".

A familiar feature of moral life is the distinctive anxiety that we feel in the face of a moral dilemma or moral conflict. Situations like these require us to take stands on controversial issues. But because we are unsure that we will make the correct decision, anxiety ensues. Despite the pervasiveness of this phenomenon, surprisingly little work has been done either to characterize this “ moral anxiety” or to explain the role that it plays in our (...) moral lives. This paper aims to address this deficiency by developing an empirically informed account of what moral anxiety is and what it does. (shrink)

This paper follows directly from an earlier paper where we discussed the requirements for an artifact to be a moral agent and concluded that the artifactual question is ultimately a red herring. As...

About the extent of moral agency in the animal kingdom, one view is that only humans are moral agents. Holding a different view, I argue that moral agency depends on the capacity for other-regard and the capacity to be attuned to significance—such that things matter to one. I derive a criterion where a creature is a moral agent if she performs an action that promotes others’ significant interests and brings great costs to herself where (...) she is aware of these significant interests and imposed costs. Failure to confirm that she has this awareness is a weakness of examples of moral agency in animals that writers provide, since she may be unaware of the significance of what she is doing. Since species of non-ape Primates and aquatic mammals satisfy the evidential criterion, moral agency is likely prevalent throughout much of Mammalia. I consider possible objections from Kant, Singer, and Korsgaard. (shrink)

Christian List and Philip Pettit have recently developed a model of group agency on which an autonomous group agent can be formed, by deductive inference, from the beliefs and preferences of the individual group members. In this paper I raise doubts as to whether this type of group agent is a moral agent. The sentimentalist approach to moral responsibility sees a constitutive role for moral emotions, such as blame, guilt, and indignation, in our practices of attributing (...) moral responsibility. These moral emotions are important for the alignment of moral understandings, and for valuing other members of the moral community. I argue that while the intentional objects of beliefs and preferences are propositions, the intentional objects of moral emotions are other agents. Because agents are not subject to rules of inference, we cannot generate group agent emotions—such as guilt—in the same way as we can generate group agent beliefs and preferences. And because the group agents lack moral emotions, we have reason to resist treating them as moral agents. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Feinberg's “methodological individualism” French and his critics Conclusion.

The debate concerning corporate moral agency is normally conducted through philosophical arguments in articles which argue from only one point of view. This paper summarises both the arguments for and against corporate moral agency and concludes from this that the arguments in favour have more weight. The paper also addresses the way in which the law in the U.K. and the U.S.A. currently views this issue and shows how it is supportive of the concept of corporate (...) moral agency. The paper concludes by considering the implications of the debate for business ethics in general, and stakeholder theory and virtue ethics in particular. (shrink)

It has been argued that organizational structures (the way tasks are defined, allocated, and coordinated) can influence moral agency in organizations. In particular, low values on different structural parameters (functional concentration, specialization, separation, and formalization) are said to foster an organizational context (allowing for relating to the goals and output of the organization, moral deliberation, and social connectedness) that is conducive to moral agency. In this paper, we investigate the relation between the organizational structure and (...) moral agency in the case of a.s.r. (a large Dutch insurance company). While our empirical results fit the thesis that low values on structural parameters positively relate to moral agency, they also refine our understanding of the influence of structural parameters. In particular, our data suggest that the influence of functional concentration not only depends on whether it is low, but also on the type of criterion used for identifying business units; they suggest that the specific organizational context may put a limit to lowering design parameters and points at several non-structural factors that have an influence on the relation between structure and moral agency. In all, the paper contributes to a more detailed understanding of the conditions conducive to moral agency in organizations. (shrink)

I analyze a well-known and moving passage from John Steinbeck''s novelThe Grapes of Wrath. This passage provides an excellent illustration of one of the central questions about corporate moral agency: Is corporate moral agency anything over and above the agency of individual human beings? The passage in question is a debate about whether or not the actions of a particular company are anything over and above the actions of individual human beings.

Against the Manichees, Augustine argued that sin must involve a free exercise of will. Otherwise it will not count as the agent's own act for which the agent is morally responsible. In the 390's, however, Augustine became convinced that only the first humans sinned by free exercise of will. This view faced him with the question: how is it that unambiguously good agents come to will the evil? Augustine found no satisfactory solution, and the first evil will appears, on his (...) reckoning, to be either a random outcome or due to a withholding of grace. Despite his best efforts, his account of moral agency in evil remains flawed. (shrink)

Xunzi is traditionally identified as the third philosopher in the Confucian tradition, after Confucius and Mencius. Unlike the work of his two predecessors, he wrote complete essays in which he defends his own interpretation of the Confucian position and attacks the positions of others. Within the early Chinese tradition, Xunzi's writings are arguably the most sophisticated and philosophically developed. This richness of philosophical content has led to a lively discussion of his philosophy among contemporary scholars. This volume collects some of (...) the most accessible and important contemporary essays on the thought of Xunzi, with an Introduction that provides historical background, philosophical context, and relates each of the selections to Xunzi's philosophy as a whole and to the themes of virtue, nature, and moral agency. These themes are also discussed in relation to Western philosophical concerns. (shrink)

Psychopaths have long been of interest to moral philosophers, since a careful examination of their peculiar deficiencies may reveal what features are normally critical to the development of moral agency. What underlies the psychopath's amoralism? A common and plausible answer to this question is that the psychopath lacks empathy. Lack of empathy is also claimed to be a critical impairment in autism, yet it is not at all clear that autistic individuals share the psychopath's amoralism. How is (...) empathy characterized in the literature, and how crucial is empathy, so described, to moral understanding and agency? I argue that an examination of moral thinking in high-functioning autistic people supports a Kantian rather than a Humean account of moral agency. (shrink)

The rapid pace of technological development often outstrips the ability of legislators and regulators to establish proper guardrails on emerging technologies. A solution is for those who develop, deploy, and use these technologies to develop themselves as moral agents—i.e., as agents capable of steering the course of emerging technologies in a direction that will benefit humanity. However, there is a dearth of literature discussing how to foster moral agency in computer science courses, and little if any research (...) on the effectiveness of such courses in computer science. This paper addresses this gap by providing an overview of an undergraduate course on technology ethics. It then shares and discusses a subset of data collected from a mixed-methods study using a pre-post design that sought to examine the course’s effectiveness in developing students’ moral, intellectual, and civic virtues, as well as related dispositions. (shrink)

Constitutivists believe that we can derive universally and unconditionally authoritative norms from the conditions of agency. Thus if c is a condition of agency, then you ought to live in conformity with c no matter what your particular ends, projects, or station. Much has been said about the validity of the inference, but that’s not my topic here. I want to assume it is valid and talk about what I take to be the highest ambition of constitutivism: the (...) prospect of grounding moral requirements in the conditions of agency. If this can be done, then we can show that everyone is bound by the demands of morality, and we can do so without the customary entanglements—queer normative entities, an implausibly powerful moral sense, or divine lawgivers. (shrink)

Two clusters of essays in this issue of The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy provide a critical gaze through which to explore central moral, phenomenological, ontological, and political concerns regarding human moral agency and personal responsibility. The first cluster challenges common assumptions in bioethics regarding the voluntariness of human actions. The second set turns the debate towards morally responsible choice within the requirements of distributive justice. The force of their collective analysis leaves us with a well-founded basis (...) critically to approach any account of bioethics or health policy that is insufficiently attentive to the central challenges of human freedom and responsible free choice. (shrink)