This imaginative and unusual book explores the moral sensibilities and cultural assumptions that were at the heart of political debate in Victorian and early twentieth-century Britain. It focuses on the role of intellectuals as public moralists and suggests ways in which their more formal political theory rested upon habits of response and evaluation that were deeply embedded in wider social attitudes and aesthetic judgments. Collini examines the characteristic idioms and strategies of argument employed in periodical and polemical writing, and (...) reconstructs the sense of identity and of relation to an audience exhibited by social critics from John Stuart Mill and Matthew Arnold to J.M. Keynes and F.R. Leavis. (shrink)

Christian Smith has described the religious attitudes of American youth and many adults as Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. In this formulation the word “therapeutic” does much work, and is meant to indicate that the goal of life is to be happy, to which end religion is instrumental. Martha Nussbaum has argued that Hellenistic schools of philosophy were therapeutic and instrumental in much the same way, and that this is a possible mode of philosophy even today. Appealing to the historical (...) investigations of Pierre Hadot and Giovanni Reale, this paper shows that Neoplatonism was an even more successful form of therapeutic philosophy, a fact which Augustine recognized and to which he responded in his therapeutic masterpiece Confessions, through his depiction of his mother as a sage. This suggests that Catholicism can be powerful when presented therapeutically, which might be a more appropriate mode for evangelism in our therapeutic age. (shrink)

Although the fictional domain exhibits a prima facie freedom from real-world moral constraints, certain fictive imaginings seem to deserve moral criticism. Capturing both intuitions, this paper argues for double-standard moralism, the view that fictive imaginings are subject to different moral standards than their real-world counterparts. I show how no account has, thus far, offered compelling reasons to warrant the moral appropriateness of this discrepancy. I maintain that the normative discontinuity between fiction and the actual world is moderate, as opposed to (...) one that leaves fictive engagements wholly exempt from moral evaluations. I propose a way of addressing the gamer’s dilemma that is compatible with a moderate kind of discontinuity. Finally, I contend that the audience is justified in adopting deviant moral attitudes in fictional situations because their consequences largely differ from those that analogous real-world events would have. (shrink)

In a series of important papers, Justin D’Arms and Daniel Jacobson argue that all extant neo-sentimentalists are guilty of a conflation error that they call the moralistic fallacy. One commits the moralistic fallacy when one infers from the fact that it would be morally wrong to experience an affective attitude—e.g., it would be wrong to be amused—that the attitude does not fit its object—e.g., that it is not funny. Such inferences, they argue, conflate the appropriateness conditions of attitudinal (...) responses with the fittingness conditions of the associated evaluative properties. Further, they argue that moral considerations are irrelevant for determining if amusement fits its object. We agree that a strong moralizing of humor is wrongheaded and that jokes can be quite funny even in cases where we have a compelling moral reason to not be amused. However, we argue that pace D’Arms and Jacobson moral considerations can be relevant for property ascription. On our view, in order for a joke to be funny, a properly sensitive agent must take herself to have a contributory reason to be amused, and in some cases that she lacks such a reason is best explained by appeal to moral considerations. We use this constraint as the basis of what we call our modest proposal for a modest sentimentalism. (shrink)

ABSTRACTContemporary accounts of knowing one’s own mental states can be instructively supplemented by early modern accounts that understand self-knowledge as an important factor for flourishing human life. This article argues that in the early modern French moralists, one finds diverging conceptions of how knowing one’s own personal qualities could constitute a kind of human excellence: François de la Rochefoucauld argues that the value of knowing one’s own character faults could contribute to an attitude of self-acceptance that liberates one from the (...) effort of deceiving oneself and others. Madeleine de Scudéry argues that knowing one’s own character faults could be an incentive for self-cultivation that leads to the development of character traits that are naturally good. Anne-Thérèse de Lambert concurs with Scudéry’s insight and develops it further. According to Lambert, self-knowledge is crucial for developing character traits that give rise to the natural right of bei... (shrink)

Throughout his career Hutcheson praised the achievements of the pagan moral philosophers of classical antiquity, the Stoics in particular. In recent secondary literature his moral theory has been characterized as a synthesis of Christianity and Stoicism. Yet Hutcheson's attitude towards the ancient heathen moralists was more complex and ambivalent than this idea of ‘Christian Stoicism’ suggests. According to Hutcheson, pagans who did not believe in Christ and who had never even heard of him were capable of virtue, and even, he (...) asserted controversially, of salvation. Yet Hutcheson did not think that the virtue of pagans, let alone their salvation, was a result of their moral philosophical theories. Hutcheson's applause for pagan philosophy as an intellectual achievement did not indicate a commitment to it, but was based on a detached and cautious evaluation that involved significant reservations concerning the truth and usefulness of pagan ethical thought. (shrink)

I argue that penal philosophy should focus more on our attitudes towards offenders, since these attitudes can shed new light on theories or principles of punishment (of which they are often expressions) and also play a significant role in changing the face of criminal justice. Building on Strawson’s “Freedom and Resentment,” I define attitudes as certain ways of seeing human beings that logically include or exclude various emotional, behavioral, and linguistic responses, that can be more or less (...) natural, and over which we have some degree of voluntary control. I argue that, understood in this sense, there are broadly speaking six attitudes towards offenders: the retributive, the hostile, the moralistic, the paternalistic, the merciful, and the actuarial. After presenting each of these attitudes, I sum up my analysis by focusing on the Polanski sexual abuse case. I then introduce the concept of second-order attitudes, where egalitarianism is the attitude that consists of taking the same attitude towards all offenders, and particularism is the attitude that consists of adjusting your attitude to each offender. Finally, I briefly explain why a mix of the retributive and the merciful should be our default attitude. (shrink)

Protected values (PVs) are values protected from trade-offs with other values. They are absolute in this sense. People hold these values even when they do not necessarily abide by them in their behavior. I suggest that most of these values are a subset of deontological rules, defined by their absoluteness. Their origin may be understood by looking at the origin of deontological rules more generally, which includes religious (hence sacred) values among others. But PVs are usually maintained by lack of (...) reflection of the sort that would see counterexamples to their absoluteness. PVs often have other characteristics that would lead to classification into other types of values: they are often moralistic (imposed on others regardless of the willingness of others to accept them); they are about morality rather than convention and thus independent of authority or social consensus; and they often concern second-order preferences (values for values). Especially in combination with these other properties, PVs can be harmful in the domain of politics. Education in the sort of reflection that would lead people to question them could improve the political situation around the world. (shrink)

From the start, Americans were wrestling with the proper connections between "private and public felicity." On its face, the first line of the First Amendment to the Constitution seems to settle the issue: "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Thomas Jefferson declared that this provision "buil[t] a wall of separation between church and state." While the proscription against meddling with religion originally applied only to the national government, the Fourteenth Amendment (...) extended the Constitution—and, in theory, Jefferson's wall—to the state governments. But the Constitution is just the start of the story. America's boisterous, protean religious life sends waves of fervor breaking against Jefferson's wall. Religious fervor provokes moralistic attitudes that filter through American politics. This paper examines the reach of this moralizing effect with a glance at two very unlikely—that is, apparently secular—policy domains: health care and jails. (shrink)

Taking as its starting point that morality does not exist (moral error theory), this chapter tries to persuade the reader to eradicate it from her psyche as well (moral abolitionism). It is argued further that the most effective way to rid oneself (and society) of moralist attitudes would be to eliminate moralist vocabulary and manners of speaking and, indeed, to the greatest degree practicable, all normative vocabularies and manners of speaking. This is because moralism lies deep and pervasively in (...) the human psyche and hence requires a special effort to root it out. A particular problem is how to eradicate moralism from the abolitionist project itself. For the natural way to think about it is as advocating that we ought to be amoral or that being amoral would make this a better world. But these are themselves moralist ways of thinking. This chapter seeks to obviate this problem, as well as fill the void left by morality’s elimination, by defending a positive ethics of desire (desirism). (shrink)

Animal welfare is a complex matter that includes scientific, ethical, economic and other dimensions. Despite the existence of more comprehensive approaches to animal welfare and the obvious shortcomings of the ‘Five Freedoms’, for zoological gardens the freedoms still constitute the general guidelines to be followed. These guidelines reflect both, an ethical view and a science based approach. Analysis reveals that the potential ineptitude of the ‘Five Freedoms’ lies in the manifold perceptions that people have of other animals. These perceptions are (...) biased by our own umwelt, which is intertwined with different cultural attitudes towards other species. Perceptions of animals may be held simultaneously by different interest groups and may often be incompatible, thus often making it difficult to follow the ‘Five Freedoms’ in practice. We aim to recognise and consider the multiplicity of factors that, besides animal subjectivity, are relevant in understanding this hybrid environment. The moral value and practical applicability of the ‘Five Freedoms’ are sometimes undermined by prioritising some freedoms over others and by species bias. Both are characteristic phenomena of the zoo as a hybrid environment where other species are managed by humans. Given deficiencies are further amplified by humanistic and moralistic attitudes that people hold. (shrink)

I will argue that there are two pervasive and enduring Western attitudes towards warfare: one involves the romanticism of violent conflict, the other concerns moral justification for it. These stand in sharp contrast to the traditional Chinese attitude as put forward in the Chinese classic treatises on warfare, the Sun‐tzu and Sun Pin. I will reference similar concerns articulated in the Taoist and, to a lesser extent, Confucian classics both to confirm and clarify this position. Using the combination of (...) some of the most important and influential texts with the most relevant to our topic, I will attempt to identify and explicate what I will call “the traditional Chinese attitude toward warfare” as a critique of the two widespread Western attitudes. Finally, I will explore the implications of the West abandoning its romantic and moralistic attitudes. (shrink)

In 2016, the Five Stars Movement (5SM), one of the parties currently in power in Italy, launched the ‘Rousseau platform’. This is a platform meant to enhance direct democracy, transparency and the real participation of the people in the making of laws, policies and political proposals. Although ennobled with the name of Rousseau, the 5SM’s redemptive promise has been strongly criticised in the public sphere for being irresponsible and ideological. Political realism, I will argue, can perform both a diagnostic and (...) a corrective task, by providing some tools to unveil populist distortions and by offering more solid grounds for political opponents’ critique. Three aspects of realism, in particular, will be pointed out as remedies against populist drifts. First, anti-moralism, complemented by anti-utopianism and contextualism, criticises the populists’ moralistic picture of politics, its anti-pluralistic attitude and its rejection of the role of experts in politics. Second, the Weberian ethic of responsibility offers standards to assess politicians’ actions, instead of embracing the populist aversion towards any professional politician; besides, it contrasts the populist image of politics as a derogatory activity. Finally, realism as ideology critique unveils the distorting narratives underlying populist propaganda and fostering uncritical support. (shrink)

Comic moralism holds that some moral properties impact negatively on the funniness of certain items that possess them. Strong versions of the doctrine deem the impact to be devastating: the possession of such a property by one of these items ensures the item is not funny. Weak versions deem the impact merely damaging: any funniness one of the items possesses is diminished, but not destroyed, by its possession of the property. Various species of comic moralism hold, respectively, various moral properties (...) to impact negatively on funniness. For example, one species holds as much of the property “manifests attitudes that are morally wrong,” but other species hold as much of different moral properties. Comic moralism, or a species of it, can be unrestricted, or restricted, depending on whether it pertains to all the items that possess the negatively impacting moral property or properties, or to just a subset of these items. (shrink)

Much contemporary art seems morally out of control. Yet, philosophers seem to have trouble finding the right way to morally evaluate works of art. The debate between autonomists and moralists, I argue, has turned into a stalemate due to two mistaken assumptions. Against these assumptions, I argue that the moral nature of a work's contents does not transfer to the work and that, if we are to morally evaluate works we should try to conceive of them as moral agents. Ethical (...) autonomism holds that art's autonomy consists in its demand that art appreciators take up an artistic attitude. A work's agency then is in how it merits their audiences' attitudinal switch. Ethical autonomism allows for the moral assessment of art works without giving up their autonomy, by viewing artistic merit as a moral category and art-relevant moral evaluation as having the form of art criticism. (shrink)

The debate between autonomists and moralists, I argue, has turned into a stalemate due to two mistaken assumptions. Against these assumptions, I argue that the moral nature of a work's contents does not transfer to the work and that, if we are to morally evaluate works we should try to conceive of them as moral agents. Ethical autonomism holds that art's autonomy consists in its demand that art appreciators take up an artistic attitude. A work's agency then is in how (...) it merits their audiences' attitudinal switch. Ethical autonomism allows for the moral assessment of art works without giving up their autonomy, by viewing artistic merit as a moral category and art-relevant moral evaluation as having the form of art criticism. (shrink)

Political realists claim that politics should be regulated by a distinctive political normativity, one that does not rely on external, pre-political moral standards. It is in this sense that they distinguish political realism from ‘political moralism’, regarded as an approach that understands political theory as applied ethics. Importantly, realists’ anti-moralism is not motivated by the conviction that moral considerations do not play any role in the political realm. Rather, the target is the externalism of the normative resources on which moralist (...) theories typically ground their conceptions of legitimacy. In contrast to moralists, some realists have argued for the need to elaborate internal theories of legitimacy, ones that develop normativity internally – that is, from within the political context under evaluation. This commitment entails the effort to reconnect legitimacy to the beliefs and attitudes of people subjected to the political power. In these accounts of legitimacy, critique is typically exercised internally, by means of self-reflection and ideology critique. Contra some realists, I argue that some forms of externalism are desirable and compatible with internalist accounts of legitimacy, and I show how to accommodate them within internalist theories of legitimacy. They are desirable because they strengthen the emancipatory potential of internal reflection and, in some cases, even stimulate it, as when, because of political circumstances, internal critique cannot be exercised. In addition, they prevent internalist approaches from falling into descriptive accounts of de facto acceptance of power. These forms of external critique can be compatible with internalist accounts of legitimacy, provided that they do not contrast with what I call methodological and substantive internalism. Accordingly, in the article, I discuss which stances of external critique can and should be accommodated within internalist accounts of legitimacy, without renouncing to the realist character of the approach. (shrink)

Could the notion of compromise help us overcoming – or at least negotiating – the frequent tension, in normative political theory, between the realistic desideratum of peaceful coexistence and the idealistic desideratum of justice? That is to say, an analysis of compromise may help us moving beyond the contrast between two widespread contrasting attitudes in contemporary political philosophy: ‘fiat iustitia, pereat mundus’ on the one side, ‘salus populi suprema lex’ on the other side. More specifically, compromise may provide the (...) backbone of a conception of legitimacy that mediates between idealistic (or moralistic) and realistic (or pragmatic) desiderata of political theory, i.e. between the aspiration to peace and the aspiration to justice. In other words, this paper considers whether an account of compromise could feature in a viable realistic conception of political legitimacy, in much the same way in which consensus features in more idealistic conceptions of legitimacy (a move that may be attributed to some realist theorists, especially Bernard Williams). My conclusions, however, are largely sceptical: I argue that grounding legitimacy in any kind of normatively salient agreement does require the trappings of idealistic political philosophy, for better or – in my view – worse. (shrink)

This paper analyses managers'' moral decision-making, and studies the role of ethical theories in it by following the research tradition using the multidimensional ethics scale. The research question is: what kinds of ethical dimensions do Finnish business managers reveal when they are making moral decisions, and how have these dimensions changed in the 1990s? This question is answered by examining what kinds of factors emerge when the multidimensional ethics scale is used to analyse Finnish managers'' attitudes toward moral dilemmas. (...) The results show that Finnish managers'' decision-making reflects a variety of ethical theories. Teleological thinking is strongly emphasised by Finnish managers, and relativist thinking is used as well, but often combined with either deontology or justice thinking. In addition, a strong moralistic dimension emerged in Finnish managers'' decision-making. The analysis was carried out in two different surveys in years 1994 and 1999, and the results show that the ways of decision-making were more complex at the end of the 1990s than almost six years earlier. (shrink)

The book reconstructs the history of Western ethics. The approach chosen focuses the endless dialectic of moral codes, or different kinds of ethos, moral doctrines that are preached in order to bring about a reform of existing ethos, and ethical theories that have taken shape in the context of controversies about the ethos and moral doctrines as means of justifying or reforming moral doctrines. Such dialectic is what is meant here by the phrase ‘moral traditions’, taken as a name for (...) threads of moral discourse, made in turn of other interwoven threads, including transmission of shared codes, appeals to reform of prevailing custom, rational argument about the justification of some precept on the basis of some shared general teaching or principle, and rational argument about the ultimate basis for principles and justification of authoritative teaching. That is, the approach adopted to the reading of ethical texts depends on a firm belief in the fact that philosophers hardly created any ethical doctrine out of nothing. The main point this book tries to highlight is how different philosophical theories emerged and followed each other as a result of attempts at accounting for what was going on in the world of moral traditions. Changes were propelled by controversies between different schools, and highly abstract arguments were the unintended effects of moves made by controversialists forced to transform (and occasionally to turn upside down) their own doctrines in order to face the challenge posed by other arguments. This is the reason why the book examines not only texts that already enjoy pride of place in the history of philosophy (Aristotle, Kant, Hegel), but also other texts usually treated in the histories of religions (the Bible, the Talmud, the Quran), and others considered to be much less philosophical (Plutarchus, Pufendorf). -/- 1. Plato and a response to ethical scepticism. Two different traditions of morality in VI-V century Greece are described. The birth of philosophical questioning of traditional morality and temporal and spatial variation of custom is described within the context of the v century crisis, the demise of traditional aristocratic and tyrannical rule and the birth of democracy. Two conflicting answers to the challenge are reconstructed, namely conventionalist or immoralist theories formulated by the Sophists and the eudemonist and intellectualist Socratic theory. Plato’s own reformulation of Socrates answer to the Sophists is reconstructed. His psychological views, his classification of the four cardinal virtues and his political theory are described as parts of a unitary system, culminating in an extremely realist moral ontology identifying the idea of the good with the essence of the (moral and extra-moral) world itself. -/- 2. Aristotle and the invention of practical philosophy. Aristotle’s invention of practical philosophy as a field separated from first philosophy is shown to be an implication of his break with Plato moral ultra-realism. Aristotle’s agenda in his moral works is arguably dependent on a polemical intention, namely dismantling Socratic intellectualism. The semi-inductive or virtuously circular method of practical philosophy is illustrated, starting with the received opinions of the better and wiser individuals and trying dialectically to sift what is left of mistake and inconsistence in such opinions, finally trying to correct mistakes and make the overall practical science more consistent. The chapter illustrates then the relationship of individual ethics, or ‘monastics’, with the art and the science of the pater familias, or ‘economics’, and the science of the ruler and citizen, or politics. The nature of virtues, or better, excellences of character, is discussed, highlighting the basic role of hexis, or ‘disposition’. Prudence, or better practical wisdom, is the focus of the chapter. Its relationship with bouleusis or deliberation is examined, and its autonomous status vis-à-vis theoretical knowledge is stressed. -/- 3. Diogenes and philosophy as a way of life. The chapter provides an overview of Hellenistic ethics, which almost amounts to Hellenistic schools of philosophy, in so far as ‘philosophy’ became in these centuries primarily the name for a way of life. The typical character of the Cynical movement is highlighted, that of a school of life, not a school aimed at providing any kind of intellectual training was to be provided. -/- 4. Epicurus and ethics as self-care. The peculiar character of the Epicurean school is described, a combination of a science of well-being aiming, more than at pleasure as in the popular view, at reduction of useless suffering, of unnecessary needs, and at a balanced selection of pleasures of the best and most durable kind. -/- 5. Epictetus and ethics as therapy of the passions. The various phases of Stoicism are described, and the shifting place given to ethics in the Stoic system of idea, culminating in the paradoxical view of ethics, its impossibility in principle notwithstanding, as the only truly significant and necessary part of philosophy. Cicero is treated, showing how his own synthesis of various Hellenistic trends is as a truly philosophical enterprise, deserving serious consideration after one or two centuries when he was confined to the role of literate. Epictetus is chosen as the best example of what the Stoic tradition could yield, an art of living based on sophisticated introspection, in turn aimed at making a kind of cognitive therapy possible, dismantling obnoxious passions at their root by systematically correcting false representations. -/- 6. Philo and the reconciliation of Torah and Platonism. A reconstruction of basic ideas from a few books of the Hebrew Bible is provided, starting with the Prophetic tradition and the focus on God’s mercy as the source of motivation and standard for human behaviour. Then a comparative analysis is undertaken of a parallel tradition, namely the three codifications of the Torā (Law or, better, Instruction), highlighting how a core of moral ideas may be recognized as a basis and preamble of codification of civil law, cultural practice, and regulation of ritual purity. The importance of Leviticus is stressed as the turning point when emphasis mercy, typical of the Prophetic tradition, is combined with the legal tradition, yielding the change in sensibility of the Second Temple time. Philo of Alexandria is described as one of the three leading figures – together with Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Yeshua – at the apex the emergence of the mentioned new sensibility, gradually including mercy as an essential part of justice and establishing the starting point of both the Rabbinic and the Christian tradition. This consists precisely in the precept of one’s neighbour’s love or of the golden rule, two eventually identical precepts whose meaning is arguably more sober and sensible than the long-lasting Christian tradition deriving from John and Augustine has made us believe and no novelty vis-à-vis so-called Ancient-Testament teachings. -/- 7. Augustine and Christianity as Neo-Platonism. The first section examines the moral doctrines of so-called 'ethical Treaties' from the Talmud, a group of treaties, among which the best known is Pirqé Avot, that were left out of the six "orders" of the canon as they did not fit in any of the six groups of issues ritual or legal on which the division was based. According to Maimonides, their peculiar theme is provided by the Deòt, 'opinions', i.e., mental dispositions, that is, the translation of the Greek term hexeis and Arab akhlak (in turn providing in this language the name for ethics as such). The three topics I reconstruct are: i) the notion of Torah: The Torah is understood as the world order itself, or as the ‘Wisdom’ that existed even before creation and was ‘the tool by which the world was built’; however, the Torah is an earthly and human entity, as it was "received" by humans, and from that very moment belongs to them; ii) the relationship between love of God and love of neighbour; the treaties require us to study and practice the Torah ‘for its own sake’, that is, require us to act out of love, not out of fear or hope of reward; iii) the idea of sanctification of daily life: having disappeared with the destruction of the Temple the possibility of any conflict between liturgical service and everyday life, the latter is assumed to be in itself divine service: to give food to the poor has the same value as sacrifices in the Temple, and as an implication, the insistence become recurrent on the goodness of created things in themselves along with a polemic against ascetic currents. The conclusions drawn are: i) the moral teachings of the Talmud and those of Yeshua are, rather than similar, virtually identical; one may safely say that the precept of love and the golden rule are central ones for all Talmudic rabbis, that mercy plays an indispensable role alongside with justice, and the latter is not a different thing from one’s neighbour’s love; ii) a peculiarity of Talmud rabbis facing Yeshua is the idea of study as worship, and knowledge as a source of justice; but this is an idea of Judaism after the Temple's destruction that cannot be attributed to the Pharisees of Yeshua’s time; iii) the relation of study and practice in the Talmud parallels that between faith and deeds in Paul's epistles, that is, respectively faith or learning are a necessary and sufficient condition to be recognized as righteous , but deeds are the inevitable effect of either faith or learning. The sayings ascribed to Yeshua are examined first, yielding the conclusion that a close equivalent may be found for every saying in Talmudic literature and yet the whole is ascribed to one rabbi, with rather consistent stress on God’s mercy and unconditional forgiving as the mark of true imitation of God. Thus, Yeshua’s teaching is pure Judaism. The third section describes briefly the galaxy of Gnostic currents and Manichaeism, trying to sketch the profile of moral teachings resulting from an encounter of Asian spiritual traditions, Hellenistic lore and sparks of teachings from apocalyptic Jewish currents. The last section summarizes the turbulent history of several encounters between Christian currents and Hellenistic philosophical schools. The first one was with late Cynicism. Recent, rather controversial, literature discovered the jargon and a few topics from the Stoic-Cynical popular philosophy in a few books from the New Testament itself. This, far from proving that Rabbi Yeshua had been influenced by cynic preachers, is a proof of the necessity felt by Christian preachers to translate the original ‘Christian’ teaching into a Greek lexicon deeply impregnated with cynic terminology. The second was with Platonism, yielding the mild and temperate moral teaching of Clemens of Alexandria, teaching the sanctity of nature and the human body, the joy of moderate fruition of ‘natural’ kinds of pleasures, and the beauty of the marital life – in short, the opposite of the standard picture of Medieval Christianity. Ambrose of Milan brings about a different kind of synthesis, namely with Middle Platonism, where Stoic themes prevail. The most shocking case is Augustine, where an early Manichean education is overcome in a former phase by a synthesis of Plotinian Neo-Platonism and Christian preaching, yielding a sustained polemic with the Manicheans and rather optimistic views on life and Creation, the body and sexuality, and Hebrew-Judaic tradition not far from Clemens of Alexandria. In a later phase, occasioned by controversy on the opposite front, with such Christian currents as the Pelagians and Donatists, Augustine comes back to heavily anti-Judaic and world-denying ascetic attitudes where is earlier Manichean upbringing seems to emerge again. The tragedy of medieval Christianity will be the later Augustine’s overwhelming influence. A final section is dedicated to the monastic tradition where a curious mixture of world-denying asceticism with an astonishingly penetrating ‘science’ of introspection emerges. -/- 8. Al Farabi and the reconciliation of Islam and Platonism. The Qurān and the qadit, that is, collections of sayings ascribed to the prophet Muhammad contain a wealth of precepts and catalogues of virtues mirroring moral contents from the Jewish and the Christian traditions, among them the basic notion of imitation of the Deity, where mercy is assumed to be its basic trait. An important tradition within Islam, namely Sufism, stressed to the utmost degree the role of mercy, turning Islam into a mystic doctrine centred on retreat from the world, abandonment to God’s will, and a peaceful and fraternal attitude to our fellow-beings. A secular literary tradition originating in the Sassanid Empire, the literature of advice to the Prince had for a time a widespread influence in the newly constituted Arabic-Islamic commonwealth. In a later phase, the legacy of Hellenic philosophy made its way into the intellectual elite of the Islamic world. The first important legacy was Platonic, and the Republic became the main text for Islamic Platonism. Al-Farabi wrote an enjoyable remake of the Platonic Republic, arguing that the citizen’s virtues were the basis on which the political building needs to rest. The secular lawgiver is enlightened by the light of reason in his everyday practice of governance, but room is made for the Prophet as the voice of revealed truth that confirms and completes the rational truth that philosophy may afford. In a second phase also Aristotelian and Stoic influence were assimilated. Miskawayh’s treatise was the masterwork at the time Arabic philosophy reached its Zenith. It is a treatment of the soul’s diseases and their remedies, combining the Aristotelian doctrine of the golden mean with the Stoic doctrine of the passions and elements of Galenic medicine. Towards the eleventh-twelve centuries a war raged among theologians and philosophers, finally won by the former with disappearance of philosophy as such. The newly established mainstream, yet, was no kind of intolerant fanaticism. It drew from the work of mystic theologian Al-Ghazālī, the best heir of Sufism, teaching a tolerant and peaceful attitude to our fellow-beings and a passive attitude to destiny as an expression of the Divine will. -/- 9. Moshe ben Maimon and the reconciliation of Torah and Aristotelian ethics. The encounter between the Talmudic tradition and Hellenic philosophy had taken place a first time in Alexandria at the time of Philo but the two traditions had parted way again. In fact, the kind of Platonic Judaism founded by Philo survived only within Christianity, in the fourth Gospel and then in writings by Clemens of Alexandria. The Talmudic literature had absorbed just less striking traits from the Hellenic Philosophy, namely an idea of ethics as care of the self and a role for the education of character as propaedeutic to theoretical knowledge. In the Arabic-Islamic world, a second round started when Jewish authors writing in Arabic undertook the task to prove the full compatibility of the tradition deriving from Torah and Platonic philosophy. The culmination of this attempt is provided by Moshe ben Maimon who tried to use Aristotelian ethics as a language into which the teaching from the Pirké Avot could be translated. -/- 10. Thomas Aquinas and the reconciliation of Christian morality and Aristotelian ethics. In the first section the fresh start is described of philosophical ethics in Latin Europe at the turn of the Millennium. In a first phase, Anselm and Peter Abelard built on a Platonic and Augustinian legacy. In this phase. remarkable innovations are introduced, including Abelard’s claim of the obliging character of erring consciousness. In a second phase, the rediscovery of Nicomachean Ethics thanks to Latin translation of Arabic versions gives birth to a new wave of ethical studies, recovering the very idea of Aristotelian practical philosophy, with the potential implication of full legitimization of natural morality, i.e. ethics without Revelation. Aquinas’s ethics is a theological ethics out of which it would be vain to try to extract a self-contained philosophical ethics. His treatment of topics in philosophical ethics, yet, does not boil down to repetition of Aristotelian arguments but is rather a creative reshaping of such arguments. For example, he introduces also in the practical philosophy a first principle parallel to the principle of non-contradiction; and he also carries out a synthesis of Aristotelianism, Stoicism, and neo-Platonism. Even though it is essentially moral theology, Aquinas’s doctrine - unlike Augustine – grants full citizenship to "natural" morality, firstly by rejecting the claim that the corruption of human nature due to the original sin is so radical as to leave "pure nature" incapable of moral goodness. The doctrine is presented in a more sophisticated formulation in a few of the Quaestiones, such as De Malo and De Veritate, in the Summa contra Gentes and in the commentaries to Aristotle than in the famous Summa Theologica, but the latter work includes the only or the largest exposition of some decisive part of the theory. Thus, the Summa Theologica should be read for what it is more than criticized for not being what it was not meant to be. It was not meant to be the brilliant synthesis of all that Reason he had been able to produce with what Revelation had added about which the Neo-Thomists used to dream, but rather a manual for the training of preachers and confessors, where theoretical claims are not too demanding and a few serious tensions are left. Besides a jump between the Prima Secundae and the Secunda Secundae, being the former an essay in virtue theory and the latter a handbook for confessors, the most serious tension is perhaps the one between the ethics of right reason presented in most of Ia-IIae and the eudemonistic ethics developed in quaestiones 1-5 of the same part; the alternative ethical theory which also may be found in Augustine, the Stoic view of a cosmic reason eventually coincident with the moral law, was believed by Anselm (followed by John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham) to be incompatible with eudemonism. It is questionable whether Thomas could reduce the tension proving that it is just an apparent tension, in so far as the right reason and bliss derived from knowledge of God tend to coincide, but this is just a conjecture. Thomas’s ethics is a virtue ethic, not a law-based one, and moral judgment focuses on the virtues, particularly charity, not on the commandments and even less on absolute prohibitions; Thomas, however, would not have considered a drastic alternative between law and the virtues such as the one which has been advanced in late twentieth-century philosophy to be justified. Nonetheless, when it discusses ‘special’ virtues, it ceases to be an ethics of virtue and becomes a disappointing and often contradictory discussion of legal and illegal acts. Such a discussion takes most of the time ‘reasonable’ middle positions on controversial issues but not the alternative approach that Aristotelianism would have made possible; even when some occasional Aristotelian claim shows up, such as money’s barrenness as a reason against usury, this seems to be made by an author who apparently ignores the Aristotelian Thomas of the Prima Secundae. It is an ethic of human autonomy which recognizes the binding character of the individual conscience and, potentially, even a duty to disobey unjust laws. It is true that what Thomas writes in his discussion of death penalty and persecution of heretics is simply disgusting, and yet we should blame Thomas the man, not Thomist ethical theory. Finally, Thomas’s ethics is not ethical ‘absolutism’, as both traditionalist Catholic theologians and secularist enemies of dogmatic morality tend to believe. It is instead an ethic of prudential judgment. Exceptions to this approach – or better results of logical fallacies – are such claims as the absolute character of negative precepts and of the existence of "intrinsically evil acts", claims that simply cease to make sense in the light of Thomas’s own distinction between human act and natural act, carrying consequences Thomas did not live long enough to draw or was not consistent enough to dare to draw. -/- 11. Francisco de Vitoria and casuistry. The first topic illustrated is the discussion about the notion of pura natura, namely the human condition after the original sin and before divine revelation. The core notion was already there in Aquinas but was later developed by Caietanus (Thomas de Vio) with a number of interesting implications: firstly a view of human nature as such much more positive than Augustine’s and his followers’ view, including both Calvinists and Jansenists; secondly, the implication that the philosopher’s morality, as opposed to the Christian’s morality, is a quite respectable kind of morality; thirdly, that theocracy and prosecution of the unfaithful lacked justification, with more far-fetching consequences than Aquinas himself had dared to draw. The second topic is casuistry, a new name for a comparatively older way of thinking, which was already there in late Stoicism and Cicero as well as in the Talmudic literature. This is an approach aimed at yielding probable enough solutions for doubtful cases even in absence of completely safe staring points. The genre developed from medieval reference books for confessors and became by the sixteenth-century a sophisticated tool-box for dealing with various fields of applied ethics. Francisco Vitoria, the main authority of Baroque Scholasticism, was a controversial figure, among the proponents of the new discipline of casuistry and a consistent proponent of more separation between the religious and the civil authority, stricter limits to the legitimacy of war, innate rights of non-Christian nations in the New World based on the notion of pura natura, providing a standard of ‘natural’ goodness, previous to revelation, on which the Indian nations were judged to live in a naturally good condition, provided with the institutions of family, justice, and religion had accordingly a right to full respect by Christian sovereigns. Bartolomé de Las Casas, arguing along similar lines, was the leader of a historical battle in defence of the rights of the Indios. -/- 12. Michel de Montaigne and the art of living. A short description of one of the Renaissance Phyrronism, one of the classical philosophies revived in the fifteenth and sixteenth century. Montaigne combines the sceptical epistemology with an understanding of ethics – indeed of philosophy as a whole – in terms of an art of living inspired by two basic ideas, sagesse, that is, practical wisdom as the only kind of rationality available after theology, science, and tradition have declared bankrupt, and an aesthetic ideal of self-transformation through the art of writing and introspection. -/- 13. Pierre Nicole and neo-Augustinianism. The chapter illustrates first the vicissitudes of Augustinianism newly born after the late medieval triumph of Thomist Aristotelianism in the alternative Protestant and Catholic versions processed by the Calvinists and the Jansenists. Then it illustrates the doctrines of Pierre Nicole, Blaise Pascal’s best disciple, on the impossibility of introspection, on the ubiquity of self-deception, on the incurably evil character of the passion of love, and on the two moralities, the one of the man of the world, the morality of honesty which is indispensable for granting peace and order but devoid of any true value for eternal salvation, since the same external behaviour may be prompted by opposite motivations, and the morality of charity, the only true one but also useless to society. The third topic is Pierre Malebranche’s view of self-deception as a ubiquitous phenomenon accounting for human action and responsibility and his reformulated theory of self-love, no less ubiquitous than for Nicole and yet not as incurably evil, given the distinction between morally indifferent and even necessary amour de soi and vicious amour proper, a distinction on which the whole of Rousseau’s moral and political theory rests. -/- 14. Samuel von Pufendorf and the new science of morality. The chapter is dedicated to the discovery of the idea of a ‘new moral science’. Hugo Grotius is discussed first highlighting the real character of his project, much closer to the Thomist idea of a natural law accessible to non-corrupted human reason when human beings are living in a state of pura natura. Then Hobbes’s combination of scepticism, voluntarism, and conventionalism is described and both the continuity with Grotius’s new science, in the search for non-revealed rational morality, and the break with him, in the adoption of voluntarism and refusal of an intellectualist view of natural law, are illustrated. Pufendorf’s work is illustrated as a synthesis of the two previous attempts and the – up to Schneewind underestimated – paradigmatic example of the new science of morality. -/- 15. Richard Cumberland and consequentialist voluntarism. The chapter gives an overview of eighteenth-century Anglican ethics, noticing how the Cambridge tradition gave special weight to natural theology as opposed to positive or revealed theology – and how two Cambridge fellows, John Gay and Thomas Brown, elaborated on Cumberland’s (and Malebranche’s, as well as Leibniz’s) strategy for finding a third way between intellectualist view and voluntarist view of the laws of nature. The result of their elaboration was a kind of a rational-choice account of the origins of natural laws, where a law-giver God chooses among a number possible sets of laws on a maximizing criterion, and God’s maximandum is happiness for his creatures. The chapter notices also how such a solution aimed at solving at once the problem of evil and that of the foundation of moral obligation by proving how God’s choice was justified as far as it was the one minimising the amount of suffering in the world. 16. Richard Price and intuitionism. The chapter describes first the doctrines of the Cambridge Platonists, an example of hyper-rationalist reaction to Calvinism. Secondly it describes the sophisticated and universally ignored – from Sidgwick to Anscombe –version of what was later labelled ‘ethical intuitionism’ – showing how it escapes familiar objections and misrepresentations of intuitionism – from Mill to Rawls – in grounding its argument on transcendental arguments while carefully avoiding recourse to introspection and psychological evidence, which has been taken as a too easy target by critics of intuitionism. Thirdly, the chapter discusses Whewell’s ‘philosophy of morality’, as opposed to ‘systematic morality’, not unlike Kant’s distinction between a pure and an empirical moral philosophy. Whewell worked out a systematization of traditional normative ethics as a first step before its rational justification; he believed that the point in the philosophy of morality is justifying a few rational truths about the structure of morality such as to rule hedonism, eudemonism, and consequentialism; yet a system of positive morality cannot be derived solely from such rational truths but requires consideration of the ongoing dialectics between idea and fact in historically given moralities. Whewell’s intuitionism turns out closer to Kantian ethics than commentators have made us believe until now, and quite different from what Sidgwick meant by intuitionism. -/- 17. Adam Smith and the morality of role-switch. The chapter describes first, Hutcheson’s attempt at basing the ‘new science’ of natural law on different bedrock than Pufendorf and the English Platonists, namely a moral sense, a faculty whose existence is assumed to be proved on an empirical basis. The second step is a reconstruction of Hume’s rejoinder in terms of a new science of man including morality on an ‘experimental’ basis, that is, a ‘Newtonian’ hypothetical-deductive approach, distinguished from Hutcheson’s allegedly uncritical descriptive approach to human nature. The third step is a reconstruction of Adam Smith theory of morality understood as emerging from a spontaneous interplay of exchanges of situations (the most basic meaning of the word ‘sympathy’ as construed by this author). -/- 18. Jeremy Bentham and utilitarianism. The bulk of the chapter is dedicated to the doctrines of Jeremy Bentham. The Enlightenment spirit that suggested the idea of a new morality, free from religion, is illustrated. The notion of utility is illustrated as well as the subsequent formulations of the principle of utility. The idea of felicific calculus is discussed, showing how its inner difficulties prompted several reformulations of the principle of utility in order to avoid undesirable implications of proposed formulations. The role of the thesis of spontaneous convergence between interest and duty is discussed, showing how it left numberless questions open, and the distinction between the virtues of prudence, justice and beneficence is described as a way out of the deadlocks of classical utilitarianism. After Bentham, Mill’s reformed utilitarianism is reconstructed, showing how it is a kind of mixed system – as closer to common sense as it gives up Bentham’s claims to consistency and simplicity – resulting as unintended consequences from the controversies in which Mill was too keen to engage. The hidden agenda of the controversy between Utilitarianism and Intuitionism, going beyond the image of the battle between Prejudice and Reason, is described, showing how both competing philosophical outlooks turn out to be more research programs than self-contained doctrinal bodies, and such programs appear to be implemented, and indeed radically transformed while in progress thanks to their enemies no less than to their supporters. -/- 19. Immanuel Kant, practical reason and judgment. The chapter argues that Kant took from Moses Mendelssohn the idea of a distinction between geometry of morals and a practical ethic. He was drastically misunderstood by his followers precisely on this point. He had learned from the sceptics and the Jansenists the lesson that men are prompted to act by deceptive ends, and he was aware that human actions are also empirical phenomena, where laws like the laws of Nature may be detected. His practical ethics made room for judgment as a holistic procedure for assessing the saliency of relevant moral qualities in one given situation; this procedure yields the same results as the geometry of morals does for abstract cases but does so immediately and without balancing conflicting duties with each other, since what makes for the salient quality of a situation is perceived from the very beginning. Kant's practical philosophy is richer than the received image, making room for an ‘empirical moral philosophy’ or moral anthropology including treatment of commerce, needs, value and price, happiness and well-being; the overall social theory and philosophy of history is less different from Adam Smith's than the received image makes believe; the paradox of happiness is central to Kant's philosophy; a distinction between happiness and well-being is clearly drawn; the distinction plays a basic role in establishing a link between the economic and the moral life. -/- 20. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and the critique of abstract universalism. The chapter describes first the Romantic movement and the implications some of its concerns, rescuing passions, community, tradition, the individual as the bearer of a unique destiny, and the longing for organic unity between the individual, mankind and nature. Hegel’s contribution is discussed then, highlighting how, on the one hand, he shared a number of these concerns and on the other he had more rationalist leanings. The notion of morality is the pivotal point of the reconstruction, highlighting how Hegel construes this notion as a key to his own diagnosis of the malaise of modernity – the separation of individual and Gemeinschaft – and how his attack on Kant turns around this very idea. -/- 21. Friedrich Nietzsche against Christianity and the Enlightenment. The chapter illustrates first the idea of deconstruction of the back-world of values. Nietzsche claims to be legitimate heir of the French moralists, Leibniz, Kant and Hegel, in so far as he allegedly carries out to its deepest implications their discovery of what lies behind traditional naïve belief in the existence of an objective realm of values just waiting for description by the philosopher. The two exemplars form which genealogy draws inspiration are the classical philologist’s historical reconstructions of lost meanings and the chemist’s decomposition of elements. Then the genealogy of the notions of good and evil carried out in the first dissertation of Genealogy of morals is illustrated with its paradoxical conclusion that will to power is in fact the only ‘genuine’ kind of goodness. The third point illustrated is the dialectic of ascetism and self-realization with its ambiguous outcome. The suggested interpretation of such outcome is that Nietzsche’s normative ethics is a kind of virtue ethics taking an aesthetic ideal as a normative standard -/- 22. George Edward Moore and ideal utilitarianism. The chapter discusses the ideas of common sense and common-sense morality in Sidgwick. I argue that, far from aiming at overcoming common-sense morality, Sidgwick aimed purposely at grounding a consist code of morality by methods allegedly taken from the natural sciences to reach, also in ethics, the same kind of “mature” knowledge as in the natural sciences. His whole polemics with intuitionism was vitiated by the a priori assumption that the widespread ethos of the educated part of humankind, not the theories of the intuitionist philosophers, was what was worth considering as the expression of intuitionist ethics. In spite of a naïve positivist starting-point, Sidgwick was encouraged by his own approach in exploring the fruitfulness of coherentist methods for normative ethics. Thus, Sidgwick left an ambivalent legacy to twentieth-century ethics: the dogmatic idea of a “new” morality of a consequentialist kind, and the fruitful idea that we can argue rationally in normative ethics albeit without shared foundations. Then it reconstructs the background of ideas, concerns and intentions out of which Moore’s early essays, the preliminary version, and then the final version of Principia Ethica originated. I stress the role of religious concerns, as well as that of the Idealist legacy. I argue that PE is more a patchwork of rather diverging contributions than a unitary work, not to say the paradigm of a new school in Ethics. I add a comparison with Rashdall’s almost contemporary ethical work, suggesting that the latter defends the same general claims in a different way, one that manages to pave decisive objections in a more plausible way. I end by suggesting that the emergence of Analytic Ethics was a more ambiguous phenomenon than the received view would make us believe, and that the wheat (or some other gluten-free grain) of this tradition, that is, what logic can do for philosophy, should be separated from the chaff, that is, the confused and mutually incompatible legacies of Utilitarianism and Idealism. -/- 23. Edmund Husserl and the a-priori of action. The chapter illustrates first the idea of phenomenology and the Husserl’s project of a phenomenological ethic as illustrated in his 1908-1914 lectures. The key idea is dismissing psychology and trying to ground a new science of the a priori of action, within which a more restricted field of inquiry will be the science of right actions. Then the chapter illustrates the criticism of modern moral philosophy carried out in the 1920 lectures, where the main target is naturalism, understood in the Kantian meaning of primacy of common sense. The third point illustrate is Adolph Reinach’s theory of social acts as a key the grounding of norms, a view that basically sketches the very ideas ‘discovered’ later by Clarence I. Lewis, John Searle, Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas. A final section is dedicated to Nicolai Hartman, who always refused to define himself a phenomenologist and yet developed a more articulated and detailed theory of ‘values’ – with surprising affinities with George E. Moore - than philosophers such as Max Scheler who claimed to Husserl’s legitimate heirs. -/- 24. Bertrand Russell and non-cognitivism. The chapter reconstructs first the discussion after Moore. The naturalistic-fallacy argument was widely accepted but twisted to prove instead that the intuitive character of the definition of ‘good’, its non-cognitive meaning, in a first phase identified with ‘emotive’ meaning. Alfred Julius Ayer is indicated as a typical proponent of such non-cognitivist meta-ethics. More detailed discussion is dedicated to Bertrand Russell’s ethics, a more nuanced and sophisticated doctrine, arguing that non-cognitivism does not condemn morality to arbitrariness and that the project of a rational normative ethics is still possible, heading finally to the justification of a kind of non-hedonist utilitarianism. Stevenson’s theory, another moderate version of emotivism is discussed at some length, showing how the author comes close to the discovery of the role of a pragmatic dimension of language as a basis for ethical argument. Last of all, the discussion from the Forties about Hume’s law is described, mentioning Karl Popper’s argument and Richard Hare’s early non-cognitivist but non-emotivist doctrine named prescriptivism. -/- 25. Elizabeth Anscombe and the revival of virtue ethics. The chapter discusses the three theses defended by Anscombe in 'Modern Moral Philosophy'. I argue that: a) her answer to the question "why should I be moral?" requires a solution of the problem of theodicy, and ignores any attempts to save the moral point of view without recourse to divine retribution; b) her notion of divine law is an odd one more neo-Augustinian than Biblical or Scholastic; c) her image of Kantian ethics and intuitionism is the impoverished image manufactured by consequentialist opponents for polemical purposes and that she seems strangely accept it; d) the difficulty of identifying the "relevant descriptions" of acts is not an argument in favour of an ethics of virtue and against consequentialism or Kantian ethics, and indeed the role of judgment in the latter is a response to the difficulties raised by the case of judgment concerning future action. A short look at further developments in the neo-naturalist current is given trough a reconstruction of Philippa Foot’s and Peter Geach’s critiques to the naturalist-fallacy argument and Alasdair MacIntyre’s grand reconstruction of the origins and allegedly unavoidable failure of the Enlightenment project of an autonomous ethic. -/- 26. Richard Hare and neo-Utilitarianism. The chapter addresses the issue of the complex process of self-transformation Utilitarianism underwent after Sidgwick’s and Moore’s fatal criticism and the unexpected Phoenix-like process of rebirth of a doctrine definitely refuted. A glimpse at this uproarious process is given through two examples. The first is Roy Harrod Wittgensteinian transformation of Utilitarianism in pure normative ethics depurated from hedonism as well as from whatsoever theory of the good. This results in preference utilitarianism combined with a ‘Kantian’ version of rule utilitarianism. The second is Richard Hare’s two-level preference utilitarianism where act utilitarianism plays the function of eventual rational justification of moral judgments and rule-utilitarianism that of action-guiding practical device. -/- 27. Hans-Georg Gadamer and rehabilitation of practical philosophy. The post-war rediscovery of ethics by many German thinkers and its culmination in the Sixties in the movement named ‘Rehabilitation of practical philosophy’ is described. Among the actors of such rehabilitation there were a few of Heidegger’s most brilliant disciples, and Hans-Georg Gadamer is chosen as a paradigmatic example. His reading of Aristotle’s lesson I reconstructed, starting with Heidegger’s lesson but then subtly subverting its outcome thanks to the recovery of the central role of the notion of phronesis. -/- 28. Karl-Otto Apel and the revival of Kantian ethics. Parallel to the neo-Aristotelian trend, there was in the Rehabilitation of practical philosophy a Kantian current. This started, instead than the rehabilitation of prudence, with the discovery of the pragmatic dimension of language carried out by Charles Peirce and the Oxford linguistic philosophy. On this basis, Karl-Otto Apel singled out as the decisive proponent of the linguistic and Kantian turn in German-speaking ethics, worked out the performative-contradiction argument while claiming that this was able to provide a new rational and universal basis for normative ethics. An examination of his argument is some detail is offered, followed by a more cursory reconstruction of Jürgen Habermas’s elaboration on Apel’s theory. -/- 29. John Rawls and public ethics as applied ethics. Rawls’s distinction between a “political” and a “metaphysical” approach to one central part of ethical theory, namely the theory of justice, is interpreted as a formulation of the same basic idea at the root of both the principles approach and neo-casuistry, both discussed in the following chapter, namely that it is possible to reach an agreement concerning positive moral judgments even though the discussion is still open – and in Rawls’ view never will be close – on the basic criteria for judgment. -/- 30. Beauchamp and Childress and bioethics as applied ethics. The chapter presents the revolution of applied ethics while stressing its methodological novelty, exemplified primarily by Beauchamp and Childress principles approach and then by Jonsen and Toulmin’s new casuistry. -/- . (shrink)

ABSTRACT Both Constant and Spencer are moralists who want to encourage individual human perfection. But for Constant, politics has moral value even in a laissez-faire state, whereas for Spencer political participation has no moral value in itself. For Constant, from a moral perspective the historical change from an ancient to a modern conception of liberty is not absolute, and he wishes to retain, in a subordinate role, certain aspects of ancient liberty in modern societies. For Spencer, the historical evolution from (...) militant to industrial society involves the complete separation of politics from any positive moral good. In an industrial society, altruism has no connection with politics, and attempt to bring altruism into politics are not only doomed to failure but iare unjust and therefore immoral. Spencer is a leading figure in the separation of classical liberal thought from perfectionist morality that flourishes in the twentieth century. The separation between classical and modern liberalism that takes place in the fin de siècle is not just a matter of economics – as is shown by the fact that both Spencer and Constant are ardent apostles of laissez-faire – it is above all a question of different attitudes to morality. (shrink)

Casuistry is a process of reasoning that focuses upon specific cases or moral problems, as opposed to a general study of ethical theories. In this broad sense every moral philosopher may be regarded as a casuist in some form. The term also has a narrower meaning as it refers to a group of moralists who, in the 16th and 17th century, systematically adopted this method. Casuistry is now one of the options for those who, in the framework of the post-modern (...) anti-systematic attitude, still feel the importance of serious moral debate and reject easy-minded relativism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 27.1 (2003) 62-79 [Access article in PDF] Literature Itself:The New Criticism and Aesthetic Experience Daniel Green I AFTER ALMOST TWO DECADES of tumult and transformation in university departments that still claim literature as part of their disciplinary domain, what is most remarkable about literary study at the beginning of the twenty-first century is how similar it is to what passed for such study at the beginning (...) of the twentieth century. Like philology one hundred years ago, academic literary study today—at least at the most eminent universities and in the most prestigious journals—is a highly esoteric activity, unlikely to appeal to anyone outside its own "professional" boundaries, anyone whose foremost interest in works of literature is simply to read them. It is, therefore, an endeavor that could hardly exist outside the university's institutional protection, and it is most strikingly concerned not with the appreciation of the intrinsic qualities of literature but with the historical and cultural "knowledge" that can be acquired from works of literature through a special kind of analysis. The effort, chronicled by Gerald Graff in Professing Literature, to make "literature itself" the focus of academic study and to establish "aesthetic criticism" as the primary mode of literary study must surely be judged a failure, the current academic scene clearly dominated by the sort of scholars Graff terms "investigators." 1But of course the motives for rejecting the merely literary as a focus of study are quite different among current scholarly investigators as compared to the philologists of 1901. The attitude of the latter can probably be captured in the words of one of them quoted by Graff: "Why then waste time and brains in thrashing over again something which is after all only subjective opinion? Mere aesthetic theorizing [End Page 62] should be left to the magazine writer or to the really gifted critic" (p. 124). Such "researchers" did not deny the value of reading works of literature; they simply considered this value to be essentially "subjective," not an appropriate object of academic scrutiny. While these remarks do imply some condescension toward the "really gifted critic" and this critic's "mere aesthetic theorizing," they do not repudiate the very idea of an aesthetic approach to literature. The present generation of academics engaged in the investigation of literature, on the other hand, have repudiated the aesthetic approach, either explicitly, through the well-publicized critiques of the canon, of the very notion of the great work, or of the remaining approaches still associated with New Criticism, or implicitly through the gradual establishment of cultural investigation as the new norm for the professional training of graduate students and as the dominant mode of analysis in the influential journals. Moreover, the primary motive behind the renunciation of the aesthetic has more to do with politics than with methodology: for these scholars, the aesthetic is literally useless, quite irrelevant to the paramount goal of "intervening" in a continuing ideological struggle that is thought to be the main business of the university scholar.In the context of the history of modern literary criticism (as opposed to the history of the American university), the current situation mirrors that which prompted the emergence of The New Criticism in the 1930s. Although Vincent Leitch identifies "the evocative mode of Impressionist criticism, the moralism of Neo-Humanism, the anti-modernist cultural criticism of Mencken and Van Wyck Brooks," as well as the "sociologizing" of Marxist criticism" as the collective bêtes noires of the New Critics, it was clearly the latter they considered to be the most unwelcome. Not only had it effectively eclipsed the other practices, but it could be said to have exhibited most of those characteristics against which New Criticism expressed the deepest antipathy. 2 Compared to the close reading New Critics would espouse, Marxist criticism was superficial, willing to settle for the most readily available interpretation (according to the Marxists' own critical assumptions), moralistic, committed to the idea that the best literature was that which could be shown to be good for you, historicist, concerned to place works... (shrink)

Two experiments investigated whether moral evaluations of organ transplantation influence judgments of death and causation. Participants’ beliefs about whether an unconscious organ donor was dead and whether organ removal caused death in a hypothetical vignette varied depending on the moral valence of the vignette. Those who were randomly assigned to the good condition were more likely to believe that the donor was dead prior to organ removal and that organ removal did not cause death. Furthermore, attitudes toward euthanasia and (...) organ donation independently predicted judgments of death and causation, regardless of experimental condition. The results are discussed in light of the framework of motivated reasoning, in which motivation influences the selection of cognitive processes and representations applied to a given domain, as well as Knobe’s person-as-moralist model, in which many basic concepts are appropriately imbued with moral features. On either explanatory framework, these data cast doubt on the psychological legitimacy of the mainstream justification for vital organ procurement from heart-beating donors, which holds that neurological criteria for death are scientifically justified, independently of concerns about organ transplantation. These data suggest that, rather than concluding that organ removal is permissible because the donor is dead, people may believe that the donor is dead because they believe organ removal to be permissible. (shrink)

This paper starts by introducing a tripartite conception of responsibility for health consisting of a moral agent having moral responsibilities and being held responsible, that is blamed, for failing to meet them and proceeds to a brief discussion of the nature of the blame, noting difficulties in agency and obligation when the concept is applied to health‐threatening behaviours. Insights about the obligations that we hold people to and the extent of their moral agency are revealed by interrogating our blaming behavior, (...) and to facilitate this, my own blaming attitudes and actions are analysed in respect of an imagined adult son who seeks thrills by jumping from a pier into the sea, an activity common around coastlines and intended to be analogous in varying degrees to a range of health‐threatening behaviours. I consider my responses to this imagined act in relation to some features of moralism, the excess of morality, concluding that blame can be justified when it is proportionate and within interpersonal relationships. There is evidence that some nurses hold negative blaming attitudes towards groups of patients considered to have caused or contributed to their illness, but this is not justified, not only because of impaired agency, but also because if there is responsibility for health, associated obligations are owed to those who share our lives, and it is those people who are entitled to hold individuals responsible. Nurses who hold negative blaming attitudes towards groups of patients are invited to identify the status of moral agency, the precise natures of their (failed) obligations, and of the patient–nurse relationship. It is concluded that reflection on these matters and the difference between justified blame and moralism demonstrates that blaming behaviour in the context of professional health care is built on nothing stronger than prejudice. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Despite its excesses, sociobiology can make a useful contribution to ethics, if it is recognised that it need not impinge on free‐will, and if the ‘naturalistic fallacy’ can be avoided. This contribution is the central concept of evolutionary stability, and the implication which can be drawn from it, that concern for the future is a basic part of human nature. In stable societies, such concern is manifested as fear of change, or strict adherence to tradition, but modern ideas of (...) progress have engendered a cavalier attitude to the more distant future, and current ethical systems cannot get to grips with duties towards future generations. It is suggested that the popularity of sociobiology and the present‐day interest in conservation both reflect an aspect of human nature which has too long been neglected by moralists. (shrink)

To provide a possible interpretation of the passive attitude often exhibited by pupils in the context of school trips, the article does not follow the path of moralistic judgement, but starts from the essence of the teaching profession, which consists in showing the world to the students. The article adopts the thesis of the presence, in many school trips, of an excessive cognitive load and affirms the need to devote the same attention to teaching in these learning contexts as (...) in class work. Graduality is proposed as the key to a learning experience based on a motivation that arises from the discovery of reality. (shrink)

F. Skarbek's creative output and activity are most often an object of analyses performed by literature specialists, economists, penitentiarists, etc. This article is an attempt to show the entire social thought of Skarbek contained in publications, economic and non-economic works and having its origins in the Enlightenment reformatory tradition and creative reception of the greatest achievements in the field of the classical political economy. It proves that in Skarbek's creative output, there are consistently outlined the ideas of: the safe, organic (...) agricultural-industrial society; the free competitive economy, remaining within the sphere of influence of the protective state, which provides an appropriate socio-economic cover for the weakest participants of the economic community; an economical man restraining his aspirations, hardworking, industrious and, simultaneously, "kind-hearted". They correspond with a moderate criticism of the industrial society, with the liberal- utilitarian social ideology, with an attitude of a moralist and a social activist in the Kingdom of Poland. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Literature, Imagination, and Human RightsWillie van Peer“the poet’s function is to describe, not the thing that has happened, but a kind of thing that might happen”Aristotle: Poetics, 1451aAristotle’s dictum has been of vital importance to the development of literary theory, and its significance can still be felt today. It is the foundation of the distinction we make between journalism and literature, between history and fiction. Literature, Aristotle proposes, is (...) about things that could happen, not about things that have taken place in reality. Literature is thus inscribed in the realm of the imagination. However, imagination does not operate in an epistemological vacuum. A fictional text entertaining no relation with the world would have no meaning. Perhaps giants, dragons and witches do not really exist, and perhaps it is not really possible to cover seven miles with each step of those wonderful boots that Tom Thumb discovered. But we have no difficulty in imagining those things, precisely because they entertain an intimate relationship with forms and things, events and actions that happen in daily life. The details of the relationship between reality and fiction are less important for the present argument than the fact that fiction is embedded in our pragmatic attitudes. 1 Ernst Bloch has given this human tendency a name: The Hope Principle. Our desire for a better world expresses itself in hope, a distinctive feature of the species Homo Sapiens. The importance of the imagination in the project of humanity has received eloquent and systematic treatment in the philosophical work of Hans Vaihinger and Helmuth Plessner. 2 Imagination also gives impetus to history, because it drives us toward the realization of aims and plans that initially lived only in our hearts and minds: “Someone dreaming never remains in the same place.” 3 [End Page 276]Similar things have been asserted about literature, by Horace, Sidney, Matthew Arnold, and others. Reading is supposed to make us better humans, heightening our awareness, increasing our sensibility, and thus indirectly guiding our actions toward the establishment of a better world. Sometimes noble motives are associated with this function. Reading literature, it is then assumed, makes the reader more socially tolerant, more perceptive about other humans, and more politically conscious. This is the so-called Edification Hypothesis. Anthony Savile sums up this view when he submits the thesis that literature has a unique power to make us understand the thoughts and feelings of other human beings. This ethical perspective on literature has been expressed since Greek Antiquity. 4 It will be remembered that Plato condemned literature precisely for this reason: because it diverts our attention from the real world, itself already an imperfect reflection of Pure Ideas. Aristotle rejects this view and develops a theory squarely opposed to that of his teacher. According to him, literature contributes to the elevation of mankind, to paideia. By showing us that which is possible, and by involving us in the inescapable passage of tragic events, readers and spectators are drawn into emotions of fear and compassion, emotions that lead to katharsis, a process that purifies us of megalomania (hubris), safeguarding democratic government and protecting us from unrestrained tyranny. 5The Aristotelian view that literature has an edifying effect had been generally present in Western tradition till about 1800. Until then literature was viewed almost universally as an ethical category. Consider, for instance, the self-evident way in which Richardson prefaces Pamela: “If to divert and entertain, and at the same time to instruct and improve the minds of the YOUTH of both sexes: If to inculcate religion and morality in so easy and agreeable a manner, as shall render them equally delightful and profitable: If to set forth in the most exemplary lights, the parental, the filial, and the social duties....” 6The embarrassment a modern reader may feel when confronted with such overt claims to morality is largely a product of the nineteenth century, when literature came to be seen as a predominantly aesthetic category, eluding all attempts at moral categorization. This movement has resulted in a liberation of literature from moralism. At the same time, it has created nontrivial difficulties in thinking about ethical and political issues, so... (shrink)

The Montreal Declaration on Animal Exploitation, which has been endorsed by hundreds of influential academic ethicists, calls for establishing a vegan economy by banning what it refers to as all unnecessary animal suffering, including fishing. It does so by appeal to the moral principle of equal consideration of comparable interests. I argue that this principle is misapplied by discounting morally relevant cognitive capacities of self-conscious and volitional personhood as distinguished from merely sentient non-personhood. I describe it as a kind of (...) anthropomorphizing moralism which I call anthropomoralism, defined as the tendency to project morally relevant characteristics of personhood onto merely sentient non-persons by discounting their existing differences with actual persons. I show that this attitude can lend support to the resurgent attempt to treat fetal pain as equally morally considerable to that of childbearing persons they gestate within. I explain that the only sound way to apply the principle of equal consideration of comparable interests is to compare experiences of actual persons. Therefore, while supporting a vegan economy may be morally praiseworthy, it should not be deemed morally obligatory. (shrink)

Excerpt from Romantisme Et Religion On pourrait peut - être invoquer également, a l'appui des mêmes faits, d'abord l'attraction de plus en plus forte exercée sur les esprits par les philosophes; ensuite l'attitude nouvelle prise par le public a l'égard de la littérature. Il semble que le théâtre et le roman ne soient qu'un prétexte à discuter des problèmes moraux et sociaux. Ce qu'on recherche dans le naturalisme a travers l'exactitude des descriptions, ce n'est déjà plus la pure reproduction du (...) réel perçu, mais la con naissance des milieux les plus divers. On ne juge pas les oeuvres sur leur valeur d'art, mais sur les idées qu'elles expriment. On demande à l'écrivain d'être un penseur, qu'il soit sociologue ou philos0phe, moraliste ou politique. On aime que les auteurs défendent une thèse, c'est-à-dire, en définitive, qu'ils jouent vis - à - vis du public le rôle d'un directeur de conscience. De, plus en plus, à voir combien certaines règles de con duite, auparavant intangibles, sont discutées, combien d'autres sont formulées, affirmées avec force, on se convainct qu'une conscience ancienne disparaît, et qu'une nouvelle est en voie de formation. La crise dont nous souffrons présentement et les progrès de l'immoralité dont on se plaint à l'heure actuelle, viennent précisément de ce que la conscience nouvelle met plus de temps à se former que l'ancienne a se dissoudre. Les préoccupations nouvelles du public, comme les revendications populaires, semblent. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Literature, Imagination, and Human RightsWillie van Peer“the poet’s function is to describe, not the thing that has happened, but a kind of thing that might happen”Aristotle: Poetics, 1451aAristotle’s dictum has been of vital importance to the development of literary theory, and its significance can still be felt today. It is the foundation of the distinction we make between journalism and literature, between history and fiction. Literature, Aristotle proposes, is (...) about things that could happen, not about things that have taken place in reality. Literature is thus inscribed in the realm of the imagination. However, imagination does not operate in an epistemological vacuum. A fictional text entertaining no relation with the world would have no meaning. Perhaps giants, dragons and witches do not really exist, and perhaps it is not really possible to cover seven miles with each step of those wonderful boots that Tom Thumb discovered. But we have no difficulty in imagining those things, precisely because they entertain an intimate relationship with forms and things, events and actions that happen in daily life. The details of the relationship between reality and fiction are less important for the present argument than the fact that fiction is embedded in our pragmatic attitudes. 1 Ernst Bloch has given this human tendency a name: The Hope Principle. Our desire for a better world expresses itself in hope, a distinctive feature of the species Homo Sapiens. The importance of the imagination in the project of humanity has received eloquent and systematic treatment in the philosophical work of Hans Vaihinger and Helmuth Plessner. 2 Imagination also gives impetus to history, because it drives us toward the realization of aims and plans that initially lived only in our hearts and minds: “Someone dreaming never remains in the same place.” 3 [End Page 276]Similar things have been asserted about literature, by Horace, Sidney, Matthew Arnold, and others. Reading is supposed to make us better humans, heightening our awareness, increasing our sensibility, and thus indirectly guiding our actions toward the establishment of a better world. Sometimes noble motives are associated with this function. Reading literature, it is then assumed, makes the reader more socially tolerant, more perceptive about other humans, and more politically conscious. This is the so-called Edification Hypothesis. Anthony Savile sums up this view when he submits the thesis that literature has a unique power to make us understand the thoughts and feelings of other human beings. This ethical perspective on literature has been expressed since Greek Antiquity. 4 It will be remembered that Plato condemned literature precisely for this reason: because it diverts our attention from the real world, itself already an imperfect reflection of Pure Ideas. Aristotle rejects this view and develops a theory squarely opposed to that of his teacher. According to him, literature contributes to the elevation of mankind, to paideia. By showing us that which is possible, and by involving us in the inescapable passage of tragic events, readers and spectators are drawn into emotions of fear and compassion, emotions that lead to katharsis, a process that purifies us of megalomania (hubris), safeguarding democratic government and protecting us from unrestrained tyranny. 5The Aristotelian view that literature has an edifying effect had been generally present in Western tradition till about 1800. Until then literature was viewed almost universally as an ethical category. Consider, for instance, the self-evident way in which Richardson prefaces Pamela: “If to divert and entertain, and at the same time to instruct and improve the minds of the YOUTH of both sexes: If to inculcate religion and morality in so easy and agreeable a manner, as shall render them equally delightful and profitable: If to set forth in the most exemplary lights, the parental, the filial, and the social duties....” 6The embarrassment a modern reader may feel when confronted with such overt claims to morality is largely a product of the nineteenth century, when literature came to be seen as a predominantly aesthetic category, eluding all attempts at moral categorization. This movement has resulted in a liberation of literature from moralism. At the same time, it has created nontrivial difficulties in thinking about ethical and political issues, so... (shrink)

Duty and virtue are no longer the common coin of daily conversation. Both terms strike many of us as old-fashioned and heavy handed. Yet we incessantly talk about what ought and ought not to be done, and about the sorts of persons we admire or despise. As soon as we talk in these ways we discuss topics traditionally dealt with under the headings of duty and of virtue. If we no longer use these terms, it may be because we associate (...) them with heavily moralistic approaches to life, with obsolete codes and ideals, with ‘Victorian’ values and attitudes, rather than because the concerns our predecessors discussed in these terms have vanished from our lives. (shrink)

The first part of the present article is an essay to describe various interpretations relating to the conception of Weltanschauung. The author distinguishes the interpretation of Weitanschauung as a special kind of description of assumptions and conclusions presented by certain systems and tendencies of philosophy. In this meaning the Weltamschauung is a complex of general propositions reflecting attitudes of par.ticular doctrines – above all of those philosophical doctrines which, in consideration of multiformity of their resaerches and decisions, deserve to (...) be called universalistic conceptions. Within limits of just such universalistic sys.tems and tendencies, as their components or branches, ·conceptions of normative ethics are formed. The historical examples of the normative ethics are formed. The historical examples of the normative ethics, involved in mare wide contexts of philosophy, entitle to set up a problem of mutual relations of philosophy and ethics. The.author proposes a preliminary distinction of particular kinds of these relations. According to him conceptions and conclusions in ontology determine the range of ethical researches: materialism and idealism, as ontological attitudes, imply, e. g., distinict differences of ranges of normative ethics which arise in the sphere of these attitudes. In addition to the re1ation of such a general character, also other ones may be distinguished, e. g. influence of philosophical visions of the world upon the hierarchy of values and ethical norms, influence of philosophical solution of the problem of causality upon ethical decisions. Gnoseological attitudes, e. g. rationalism, empirism, intuitionism, are sometimes transferred from philosophy to ethics that determines involving of normative ethics into mare general patterns of systems and tendencies which are nowadays called metaethics. However, gnoseological relations between philosophy and ethics do not seem to have any palpable importance as a factor determining the ethical-normative researches. The relations between philosophy and normative ethics are likely to arise also in a form of influence of ethical ideas upon the tendency of philosophical researches as well as upon their results. This possibility is suggested by examples of extremely moralistic conceptions in which the ethical ideas and criteria are to be considered as universalistic way of thinking. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:SCRIPTURAL GROUNDS FOR CONCRETE MORAL NORMS 1. Is JJ1oral Theology Really Theology? 0 BE CHRISTIAN theology moral theology ought to be firmly grounded in the Bible as understood in the living tradition of the Church. Yet the moralist who asks help from the biblicist today is to be met with a host cf objections.1 I will mention eight I have encountered: l) Attempts to develop a biblical theology unified (...) by some central concept such as promise fulfillrnent, salvation history, or liberation have all broken down. The Bible contains many diverse, even contradictory, or at least dialectically opposed theologies and ethical To harmonize them is to distort them.2 1 See Charles E. Curran and Richard A. McCormick, S.J., eds., The Use of Scriptures in Moral Theology (Readings in Moral Theology No. 4. New York: Paulist, 1984) for a representative selection of essays, and Robert J. DaLy, S.J. in cooperation with.J. A. Fischer, C.M., T. J. Keegan, O.P., A..J. Tambasco, L. J. Topel, S.J., and F. E. Schuele, Christian Biblical Ethfos Ji'rorn Biblical Revelation to Contemporary Christian Praxis, Method and Content {New York: Paulist, 1984) for a more systematic argument.. In these notes these will be referred to as US and CBE. See also William C. Spohn, S.J., What Are '!'hey Saying About Bcriptiire a,nd Ethics? (New York: Paulist, 1983) ; David Kelsey, Uses of Scripture in Recent Theology (Philadelphia : Fortress, 1975); and Bruce C. Birch and Larry Rasmussen, Bible and Ethics in the Christian Life (l\finneapolis: Augsburg, 1976). Valuable hermeneutical suggestions ·will be found in Rudolf Schnackenburg, The Moral Teaching of the New Testarnent (New York: Seabury, 1973) and the two works of Pierre Grelot, Sens Oh1·etien de l'Ancien Testarnent 2nd ed. (Paris: Desclee, 1962) and Problemes de ilforale JJ'ondarnentale: Un eclairar1e biblique (Paris: Cerf, 1982) and the essa\)'s in :M:. Gilbert, J. L'Hour and,J. Scharbet, Morale et Ancien Testament, (Universite Catholique du Louvain, 1976). 2 See H. G. Reventlow, Problems of Old Testament Theology in the Twen· tieth Cent·ury (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985, pp. 44,65; 125-133, and 1 BENEDICT M. ASHLEY, O.P. 2) The predominant literary form of the Bible which holds it together is narrative. How then can we draw moral principles from such narratives? To treat them as cautionary tales with an obvious moral does great injustice to their psychological richness and moral ambiguity.3 3) The Bible primarily uses not a literal but a symbolic type of language appropriate to the mysteries it reveals. These symbols or images can mold ethical attitudes and affections but they cannot be reduced to literal concrete moral norms without danger of distortion.4 4) Granted that both Testaments contain many prescriptive statements, they are so embedded in their historical contexts and so related to situations that are now obsolete, that it is impossible to believe they oblige us today. Can we really believe that women must be veiled (I Cor 11: 10) or that slaves should obey their masters (Ti 2: 9)? 5 5) The early Church, and perhaps Jesus himself, expected the eschaton within a lifetime. Consequently, the New Testament provides only an " interim ethics " which is useless as a guide in a continuing sinful world.6 6) We read in Ephesians 2: 15 that Jesus "in his own flesh John H. Hayes and Frederick Prussner, Old Testament Theology: Its Nature and Development (Atlanta: John Knox, 1985), especially pp. 254-279 for a discussion of the search for a unifying concept for the Bible and its present status. s James A. Fischer, C.M., "Story and Image", CBE, pp. 156-169. 4 CBE, pp. 289-295. 5 Thus James M. Gustafson, in an influential article, "The Place of Scripture in Christian Ethics: A Methodological Study" (US, pp. 151-177) distinguishes the uses of Scripture as moral law, as moral ideal, as moral analogy, and finally what he calls its "loose" use to inspire reflection on current problems. He is especially critical of the first method and gives preference to the last. s" To put the matter most sharply, Jesus does not provide a valid ethics for today. His... (shrink)

It is from the mere announcement of the possibility of human cloning that moralists have formulated critical arguments against the permissibility of introducing this practice. A critical survey of these arguments, however, shows that they are not well founded, i.e. that frequently they are not such that they can be used as legitimate arguments in the debate about what is publicly permissible in a state, that they rely on mistaken premises, or that they are non coherent with permissions in relation (...) to other forms of human reproduction. Each argument in favor of the banning of human cloning is analyzed by at least one of these means: whether it is coherent with the fundamental principles of contemporary democracies , whether it relies on well-founded and widely accepted results of scientific researches, and whether it is coherent with the usual and widely shared moral attitudes related to other forms of human reproduction. The most important argument that is taken as a good foundation for the prohibition of human cloning is the moral duty not to harm future persons. The result of the rejection of traditional moral arguments against human cloning does not represent an overall justification of human cloning, it only shows that new, or more sophisticated, arguments must be found if human cloning is to be banned. (shrink)

Dès la simple annonce de la possibilité de cloner des humains, les moralistes ont formulé des argyuments contre l’introduction d’une telle pratique, la jugeant inadmissible. Or, un examen critique de ces arguments montre qu’il ne sont pas bien fondés, c’est-à-dire que, souvent, ils ne sont pas propres à être mis en avant en tant qu’arguments légitimes dans les débats sur ce qui est publiquement admissible, qu’ils reposent sur des prémisses erronées, ou qu’ils ne sont pas cohérents avec l’admissibilité d’autres formes (...) de reproduction humaine. Chacun des arguments en faveur de la proscription du clonage humain est analysé ici sous au moins l’un des aspects suivants : est-il en conformité avec les principes fondamentaux des démocraties modernes , est-il fondé sur les résultats incontestés et communément admis des recherches scientifiques, enfin, est-il cohérent avec l’attitude générale à l’égard d’autres formes de reproduction humaine. L’argument massue en faveur de la proscription du clonage humain est celui qui met en avant le devoir moral qui consiste à ne pas faire de tort à la future personne. Le résultat de cette réfutation des arguments éthiques traditionnels contre le clonage humain ne représentent pour autant pas une justification complète de ce dernier : elle montre tout simplement qu’il faudra trouver des arguments plus concluants si l’on veut faire interdire le clonage humain. (shrink)

Little attempt has been made to explore Machiavelli's attitude towards the psychological dimension of virtue. Yet such an exploration bears surprising fruit. Machiavelli proves to rely very heavily upon the psychological premises of his predecessors. In particular, he upholds the view that human action arises out of a set of personal characteristics which are firmly rooted and relatively insusceptible to variation or erasure. Thus, Machiavelli believes that how one behaves reflects the sort of psychological attributes with which one is endowed. (...) This position echoes the view maintained by the classical and Christian moralists of whom he is regarded as an implacable foe. To the extent that Machiavelli steps away from previous psychological teachings, he does so only in the political implications which he draws from the psychology of moral character. He concludes that psychology tends to favour republics over principalities: a republican regime is better prepared than a monarchy to cope with the limitations imposed by the fixed character traits of human beings. (shrink)

This dissertation had three purposes: present the system of natural law developed by Germain Grisez and John Finnis; display and examine their quarrel with that group of moralists they label "proportionalists;" adjudicate crucial areas of conflict to advance a person-centered fundamental morality. ;Chapter One presented the Grisez-Finnis system. It noted: their emphasis on intentionality, as opposed to metaphysical anthropology, as the ground of their theory of practical reason--morality; and their identification of objective principles for grounding moral absolutes. ;Chapter Two detailed (...) their critique of the "proportionalists," including Richard McCormick S.J. These are charged with: violating value incommensurability by trying to determine rightness by simple weighing; neglecting the way willing shapes an agent's basic dispositions--moral character, particularly in intending means; and, emphasizing emotional attitude as constituting moral character instead of recognizing attitude--character as one's "volitional self-disposition," to be ordered and constrained by rational principles. ;Chapter Three presented proportionalist responses to the critique. While some incompleteness and vagueness was observed, the fundamental charges of Grisez and Finnis seemed to be unconfirmed. ;Chapter Four further examined two crucial disputed areas: the possibilities of justifying actions by ordering values; the way intention--action impacts on moral character. Use was made of tools provided by the theorists already considered, with additional insights from: other natural law theorists, e.g. H. Veatch; R. Sokolowski's phenomenological perspective; and some elements of a nuanced noncognitivism. A person-centered point of view was established as key to valuing and justifying. ;I concluded that a person-centered morality did offer a higher good in light of which basic goods could be ordered, opening some possibility of "Doing Evil to Achieve Good", i.e. using harmful means for a proportionately good end. Personal moral goodness was identified in terms of one's basic commitments--basic volitional and emotionl self-dispositions. Actions and elements of actions are to be evaluated, as to effect on moral goodness, according to how they express and affect basic commitments. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:OBJECT AND INTENTION IN MORAL JUDGMENTS ACCORDING TO AQUINAS JOHN FINNIS U'flkueTBity Oollege Unwersity of Oa:ford INTENTION IS OF END, choice is of means. A human aict ~s specified by (and s? is co.rrect:ly describe~ in terms of) its end. A human act IS specified by (and so Is correctly described in terms of) its object. An a:ct which is bad by reason of its object cannot be justified (...) by its end (its: good intention ). A human a:ct is specified by (and so is correctly described in iterms of) its intention.... Such a sequence of statements of St. Thomas ought to leave an impression of confusion. That impression would be heightened by the traditional representation of his analysis of acting in a schema of 12 terms signifying a sequence of psychological acts involved in willing and doing something. For in this analysis, intention seems to precede ·deliberating, judging, and choosing, and so, as deliberating, judging, and choosing often present themselves to consciousness distinctly, intention is presented in this analysis as if it were a distinct content of consciousness. When intention is so conceived, iit becomes possible to imagine that one can, so to speak, choose to direct (an) intention to or withhold it from the various aspects of one's chosen behavior, e.g. it.hose consequences which one foresees and welcomes or those one chooses to bring about onJ.y with regret. To some contemporary moralists, such approving or regretting of consequences is precisely what engages or disengages one's will and thus one's responsibility; what Christians or Jews used to regard as immoral can be uprightly done if done merely as a means to good ends and only with reluctance, I JOHN FINNIS regret, disapproval, i.e. if in no way approved or adopted as an end, i.e. if not really intended.1 Other modern moralists deny that one's responsibility for consequences of deliberate behavior can be so dependent on an inner ruct of intending (as distinct from the choosing and doing) ; they judge one responsible for everything one deliberately and with foresight causes.2 So they too reject the " doctrine " of double effect which Christian moralists had articulated as a development or codification of the elements of St. Thomas's discussion of self-defense, a disoussion whose first premise is that a human ad is specified (i.e. identified for the purposes of moral assessment) by its intention. Today there are other moralists again who combine the two foregoing lines of thought: they reject the doctrine of double effect as giving exaggernted importance to choice (means) over intention (end); one should take into account alil foreseeable consequences of one's chorce and ensure that it is likely to have a greater proportion of good than of bad consequences, and one must never approve (intend) any bad consequences -one may never deliberately cause them as ends hut only as means, means which one deliberwtely causes, not for their own sake, hut only for the sake of those proportionately greater good (or less bad) consequences which one does intend.8 1 Cf., e.g., Richard McCormick, S.J., "Medicaid and.Abortion," Theological Studies 45 (1984): 716-717. 2 Cf. Bruno Schueller, "The Double Effect in Catholic Thought: A Re· evaluation," in McCormick and Ramsey, Doimg Evil to Achieve Good (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1978), 191: "... 'intend as a means' and 'permit', when referring to a non-moral evil, denote exactly the same mental attitude." Schueller, "La moraliM des moyens," Recherches de Science Religieuse 68 (1980) : 211 (causilng moral evil is never justified, causing non-moral evils is justified in pursuit of non-moral good of corresponding importance); 221· 2: "pour tous les biens dont la possession contribue au bien-etre de l'homme... [q]uoi que l'on choisisse... les consequences negatives qui resultent du choix sont un pur moyen en vue des consequences positives qui en resultent." s Cf. K.-H. Peschke, "Tragfaehigkeit und Grenzen des Prinzips der Doppelwirkung," Studia Moralia 26 (1988): 110-112, where Peschke states the "principle of double effect" (which he ascribes to Catholic theology and attacks ) in terms not of what is directly or... (shrink)

Excerpts: THIS book is an attempt to solve, in a way which any interested layman can understand, a problem which has been hotly debated throughout the centuries. Is Matter the only reality? Philosophers, theologians, scientists as well as others who can lay claim to no specialized knowledge, but whose concerns range beyond the petty tasks each day brings forth, have all said their say. And some of them have said yes, others no. Those who say yes are called materialists. Those (...) who say no have no collective name. They all believe that there are other things besides Matter, but they are not all interested in the same things. "Matter is not everything," say many philosophers. "There is also Mind. This can be proved to have a separate existence." "Matter is not everything," say the theologians. "There are also a God and the Souls of men. Those who do not realize this will fail to seek that spiritual guidance which alone can raise men above the level of brute creation." "Matter is not everything," say various idealists. Among them are teachers, moralists, poets. These insist on the non-material reality of "higher things," of beauty, truth and goodness. In the materialism of our age they see the risk that mankind may ignore those things which make life most worth living. Values disappear, or, at least, have but a precarious existence in materialistic doctrine, so that, to the idealist, it seems that the materialist says: "What harm if the temple be destroyed? The stones remain." "Yes, Matter is everything. Science proves it," says the materialist to this heterogeneous collection of opponents with their various interests, their various reasons for opposing him, their various ways of saying what they think. And always he feels a little contemptuous since they base their beliefs on considerations which he does not regard as valid. Their attitude seems to him to be due to ignorance and prejudice. For they fail to build as he does, or believe he does, "on the facts of science."... In this book we want to revive the old controversy and to do so in such a way as to secure the attention of both sides. We want to provide both with a common meeting ground or shall we call it a battleground? We want to put an end to the complacency with which those who hold tenaciously to their own opinions talk much and write much, but listen only to themselves or to those with whom they agree. At the same time we do not intend to seek a compromise. We shall take sides and offer our services (for what they may be worth) wholeheartedly to those who are opposed to materialism. (shrink)

Homosexuality is not easily accepted in the Catholic Church. There are at least three major schools concerning the attitude towards homosexuality based on their respective theological methodologies (scientia fidei). The first school is encapsulated in the Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons (1986), which rejects homosexual persons and same-sex sexual relationships. The second school is put forward by John J. McNeill (1993), a moralist who embraces homosexual persons and same-sex sexual relationships. (...) The last one is represented by the document of Amoris Laetitia (2016), which accepts homosexual persons but disapproves of same-sex sexual relationships. These three major schools refer to the interpretation of the document Persona Humana article 8 (1975). A survey of 566 respondents was conducted from the 8th to the 15th of November in 2022. The results show that 74.2% of respondents have a form of acceptance in accordance with Amoris Laetitia, 14.5% with the Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, and 5.5% with the thoughts of John J. McNeill. Our study concluded that accepting homosexual persons and rejecting homosexual acts is the reference for ad experimentum moral decisions in the context of the Archdiocese of Jakarta in 2022. Abstrak Homoseksualitas tidak begitu mudah diterima dalam Gereja Katolik. Setidaknya ada tiga aliran yang berbeda sikap terhadap homoseksualitas berdasarkan pandangan teologi (scientia fidei) masing-masing. Aliran pertama terwakili oleh dokumen Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons (1986) yang menolak pribadi homoseksual dan hubungan seksual sesama jenis. Aliran kedua diwakili oleh seorang moralis bernama John J. McNeill (1993) yang menerima pribadi homoseksual dan hubungan seksual sesama jenis. Aliran ketiga terwakili oleh dokumen Amoris Laetitia (2016) yang menerima pribadi homoseksual namun menolak hubungan seksual sesama jenis. Ketiga aliran besar ini mengacu pada penafsiran dokumen Persona Humana artikel 8 (1975). Sejak tanggal 8 sampai dengan 15 November 2022 kami melakukan survei terhadap 566 responden. Hasil survei menunjukkan sebanyak 74.2% responden memiliki bentuk penerimaan sesuai dengan Amoris Laetitia; sebanyak 14.5% responden memiliki bentuk penerimaan sesuai dengan dokumen Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons; dan sebanyak 5.5% responden memiliki bentuk penerimaan sesuai dengan pemikiran John J. McNeill. Kami menyimpulkan bahwa sikap menerima pribadi homoseksual dan menolak tindakan homoseksual merupakan rujukan keputusan moral ad experimentum dalam konteks Keuskupan Agung Jakarta di tahun 2022. Kata-kata Kunci: Homoseksualitas, Persona Humana, Amoris Laetitia, John J. McNeill, sensus fidei, scientia fidei. (shrink)

Since the mid-twentieth century, we have passed from a time where sexual frankness was actively obstructed by censorship and industry self-regulation to an age when pornography is circulated freely and is fairly ubiquitous on the Internet. Attitudes to sexually explicit material have accordingly changed a great deal in this time, but more at the level of the grounds on which it is objected to rather than through a general acceptance of it in the public sphere. Critical objections now tend (...) to be political or aesthetic in nature rather than moralistic. Commercial cinema still seems wary of a frank exploration of sexuality, preferring to address it tangentially in genres such as the erotic thriller. In Europe, an art house canon of sexually explicit movies has formed, starting with Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris and the French-produced In the Realm of the Senses. This article looks at the steps taken since the 1970s to challenge out-of-date taboos and yet at the same time differentiate the serious film about sex from both pornography and the exploitation film. After reviewing the art film’s relationship with both hard and soft core, two recent films, Intimacy and 9 Songs, are analyzed for their explicit content and for the way they articulate their ideas about sex through graphic depictions of sexual acts. Compulsive and/or claustrophobic unsimulated sexual behaviour is used as a way of asking probing questions of intimacy. This is shown to be a very different thing from the highly visual and staged satisfactions of pornography. (shrink)

Advocates of interactionism in the ethical criticism of art argue that ethical value impacts aesthetic value. The debate is concerned with “the intrinsic question”: the question of whether ethical flaws/merits in artworks’ manifested attitudes affect their aesthetic value (Gaut 2007: 9). This paper argues that the assumption that artworks have intrinsic ethical value is problematic at least in regards to a significant subset of works: fictional artworks. I argue that, insofar as their ethical value emerges only from attitudes (...) attributable to actual agents, fictional artworks only have extrinsic ethical value. I show that what is at stake for interactionism is whether ethical judgements concerning artists’ attitudes in a context, rather than manifested attitudes, are ever aesthetically relevant. I conclude that, without buying into extreme actual intentionalism, a still controversial theory of interpretation that ties artworks’ meaning to actual artists, interactionism fails to show that ethical flaws/merits are aesthetic flaws/merits. (shrink)

Methodologically, heterocentrism is the principal starting point of several recent Liebsch?s theoretical contributions, the meaning of which is simply to be taken as the protection of man. In one decisive sense, for him, keeping someone in a position of otherness already con?tains the germ of violence: making an other leads to alienating subordination. In this paper, we examine the sustainability of the author?s universal interpretive thesis that the history of our culture is a history of violence: it turns out to (...) be structurally unprovable and partly arbitrary. The starting point of such a generally negative attitude is what we call Liebsch?s conceptual moralism. Our research also re-examines Liebsch?s interrogation of the tradition of philosophy of culture as morally indifferent, as well as his criterion of acceptability of nor?matively impregnated culture in the form of the Derridean imperative of unconditional openness to the other as a guest. (shrink)

The political psychologists Hatemi, Crabtree and Smith accuse orthodox moral foundations theory of predicting what is already intrinsic to the theory, namely that moral beliefs influence political decision-making. The authors argue that, first, political psychology must start from a position which treats political and moral beliefs as equals so as to avoid self-justificatory theorising, and second, that such an analysis provides stronger evidence for political attitudes predicting moral attitudes than vice versa. I take this empirical result as a (...) starting point to intervene in a debate in contemporary normative political theory which has, to my mind, become largely unwieldy: the political realism controversy. I advise the realists to ‘downplay’ the (thus far) inconclusive debate over realism’s metanormative standing in favour of a non-metanormative inquiry. Hatemi, Crabtree and Smith’s study makes for an excellent backdrop. It affirms the realist hypothesis that politics is in some relevant sense – a causal, psychological sense – prior to morality. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:278 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY What a revolution the past century has made in both the general idea of morality andin the practical attitudes of "moral sense"l The political and moral earthquakes that have cracked the solid ground of Wayland's "moral law" and "didactic" complacency have blown us all into a space whose air may be purer but whose endless visibility into the dark void is less assuring. HERBERT (...) W. SCHNEIDER Claremont, California Le Pluralisme Dramatique de Georges Sorel. By Georges Goriely. (Paris: Marcel Rivi~re et Cie, 1962. 244 pp. Price not given.) Professor Georges Goriely of the Free University of Brussels has made one more valiant attempt to rescue Sorel the thinker from the reputation fastened upon him by the title of his Rdflexions sur la Violence in 1906. For most readers he has been the author of that one book, which is seldom read in the light of his other works. It is significant that Goriely reaches it only upon his page 199, barely twenty pages before his study terminates. Also worthy of note is the fact that of the over one hundred critical books and articles about Sorel which are listed in his bibliography, only two are in English: Richard Humphrey's Georges Sorel: Prophet Without Honor (1954) and James M. Meisel's The Genesis of Georges Sorel (1951). In European discussions Sorel frequently shares the company of such names as Croce, Bergson, and Nietzsche. But in the Anglo-Saxon world he has had in general a bad press, or none at all. A far-from-systematic philosopher, his writings, most of them originally articles composed in the heat of European controversies, have seemed remote from transatIantic concerns. He has been reputed "the father of syndicalism" in a country where the adjective most often applied to syndicalism is "criminal." When Mussolini proclaimed at one time that the R~flexions was his favorite bedside book, Sorel seemed to add the paternity of Fascism to his list. All that was needed to complete his damnation by labels was the dread word "anti-intellectual," and that has been freely applied to him. Nevertheless, Professor Goriely finds it possible to take Sorel's ideas seriously, quite apart from the political misuses which have been made of them. He sees that Sorel was primarily a pragmatic moralist immersed in his times and intent upon finding some way to bring about a European ricorso, a rejuvenation of classic republican ethics. At the turn of the century he saw only mediocrity and decadence: democracy had become demagogy, and industrial capitalism a mess of corruption. Sorel's great search was for a moral lever, for something dynamic, some source of energy in men which could be tapped in order to restore virtue and dignity and morale in the common man. Being imbued with historical relativism, and played upon by vigorous and contradictory influences (Vico, Marx, Bergson, Nietzsche, P~guy), Sorel steadily revised his views. It is that fact which gives his contradiction-filled philosophy the character of a "dramatic pluralism." Of one thing, however, Sorel was always convinced: intellect alone could not re-invigorate European ethics. The feelings must be stirred by something which, as early as 1894, he called a "myth." He had no use for rationally planned utopias operated by savants in the manner of Saint-Simon or Comte (whom he constantly attacked). He groped for a moving, even an "infinite" goal to be generated from history by the creative activity of men, such as the famous "general strike." A Norman like Alexis de Tocqueville, his roots were in a mixed liberal-republican aristocracy on the classic model, calling for large numbers of "social heroes" adapted to the industrial age. This r corps has nothing in common with the BOOK REVIEWS 279 shirted gangsters of the totalitarian regimes. Only gradually did Sorel come to seek his paragons of virtue among the proletariat, partly because of his disillusionment with Jean Jaur~s over the Dreyfus case. Sorel had been one of the first to champion Dreyfus, but felt that demagogues had transformed the latter's cause into a new dogmatism and a new establishment. Sorel was genuinely concerned about some of the... (shrink)

Humor is an indispensable element of George Santayana's philosophy. Santayana is, in many ways, philosophy's fool, poking fun at endeavors to obtain epistemological and moral mastery over existence. Moreover, he reminds us of the over-arching benefits of a humorous attitude, suggesting a humility by which we may put into relative perspective our otherwise totalizing aspirations and pursue a moral life without succumbing to moralism. Ultimately, a sense of humor reminds us that comedy is as honest a narrative as tragedy and (...) that the benefit in living is the fun of it. (shrink)

I examine Henry More’s engagement with Stoicism in general, and Marcus Aurelius in particular, in his Enchiridion Ethicum. More quotes from Marcus’ Meditations throughout the Enchiridion, leading one commentator to note that More ‘mined the Meditations’ when writing his book. Yet More’s general attitude towards Stoicism is more often than not critical, especially when it comes to the passions. I shall argue that while More was clearly an avid reader of the Meditations, he read Marcus not as a Stoic but (...) as a ‘non-denominational’ ancient moralist who confirms a range of doctrines that More finds elsewhere in ancient philosophy. In this sense More continues the Neoplatonic practice of downplaying doctrinal differences between ancient philosophers in order to construct a single ancient philosophical tradition. This is quite different from the approach of his contemporary and fellow Cambridge Platonist, Ralph Cudworth, who was keen to highlight doctrinal differences between ancient philosophers. (shrink)