Ableist microaggressions are common experiences in the daily lives of people with disabilities. Research in this area enables us to deepen our understanding of ableism as a system of oppression towards those whose embodied differences do not follow corporeal standards and productivity demands. Previous inquiries into these phenomena have categorized the most frequently experienced microaggressions: “minimization” being the most common. This article shows the results obtained in the Survey on Ableist Microaggressions involving the minimization of specific needs, disability, or the (...) severity of discrimination. It confirms minimization as the most reported microaggression and suggests that the frequency with which they are experienced entails variables such as having more than one disability, the visibility of the disability, and the degree of disability. (shrink)

In this article I examine the proposition that severe cognitive disability is an impediment to moral personhood. Moral personhood, as I understand it here, is articulated in the work of Jeff McMahan as that which confers a special moral status on a person. I rehearse the metaphysical arguments about the nature of personhood that ground McMahan’s claims regarding the moral status of the “congenitally severely mentally retarded” (CSMR for short). These claims, I argue, rest on the view that only intrinsic (...) psychological capacities are relevant to moral personhood: that is, that relational properties are generally not relevant. In addition, McMahan depends on an argument that species membership is irrelevant for moral consideration and a contention that privileging species membership is equivalent to a virulent nationalism (these will be discussed below). In consequence, the CSMR are excluded from moral personhood and their deaths are less significant as their killing is less wrong than that of persons. To throw doubt on McMahan’s conclusions about the moral status and wrongness of killing the CSMR I question the exclusive use of intrinsic properties in the metaphysics of personhood, the dismissal of the moral importance of species membership, and the example of virulent nationalism as an apt analogy. I also have a lot to say about McMahan’s empirical assumptions about the CSMR. (shrink)

This article examines Kant’s understanding of moral progress, especially in his Religion where he argues that religion and, more importantly, the foundation of an ethical community are necessary to promote moral progress. However, it is less the identification of any factual moral progress but rather the idea of moral progress as an action guiding principle that Kant identifies as central. The conclusion shows how Kant’s insights are in accordance with the argument that we should not look for comprehensive moral progress (...) in history but adhere to the idea of possible future moral progress. (shrink)

Moral distress is defined as the inability to act according to one’s own core values. During the COVID-19 pandemic, moral distress in medical personnel has gained attention, related to the impact of pandemic-associated factors, such as the uncertainty of treatment options for the virus and the accelerated pace of deaths. Measures to provide aid and mitigate the long-term pandemic effect on providers are starting to be designed. Yet, little has been said about the moral distress experienced by patients and the (...) relational and additive effect on provider moral distress. Pandemic-associated factors affecting moral distress in patients include the constraining effects of isolation on spiritual and religious traditions as well as the intentional separation of patients from their families. This paper will explore the idea that patients are suffering their own moral distress and further how this impacts the intensity of moral distress experienced by the providers—nurses and physicians. The paucity of research in this area with the implications on patient’s distress, decision making, and distress experienced by providers compels further investigation and analysis. (shrink)

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If one of the most important aims of education on military ethics is to strengthen moral competence, we argue that it is important to base ethics education on virtue ethics, the Socratic attitude and the process of ?living learning?. This article illustrates this position by means of the example of a ?train the trainer? course on military ethics for Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs), which is developed at the Netherlands Defence Academy, and uses a number of examples both from its structure and (...) from experiences from its actual use. (shrink)

Arlie Hochschild glosses the practice of women migrants in poor nations who leave their families behind for extended periods of time to do carework in other wealthier countries as a “global heart transplant” from poor to wealthy nations. Thus she signals the idea of an injustice between nations and a moral harm for the individuals in the practice. Yet the nature of the harm needs a clear articulation. When we posit a sufficiently nuanced “right to care,” we locate the harm (...) to central relationships of the migrant women. The “right to (give and receive) care” we develop uses a concept of a relational self drawn from an ethics of care. The harm is situated in the broken relationships, which in turn have a serious impact on a person’s sense of equal dignity and self-respect, particularly since the sacrifice of central relationships of the migrant woman allows others (mostly women) to maintain these same relationships. The paper ends with a brief discussion of some of the solutions we need to consider. (shrink)

In this article I examine the proposition that severe cognitive disability is an impediment to moral personhood. Moral personhood, as I understand it here, is articulated in the work of Jeff McMahan as that which confers a special moral status on a person. I rehearse the metaphysical arguments about the nature of personhood that ground McMahan’s claims regarding the moral status of the “congenitally severely mentally retarded” (CSMR for short). These claims, I argue, rest on the view that only intrinsic (...) psychological capacities are relevant to moral personhood: that is, that relational properties are generally not relevant. In addition, McMahan depends on an argument that species membership is irrelevant for moral consideration and a contention that privileging species membership is equivalent to a virulent nationalism (these will be discussed below). In consequence, the CSMR are excluded from moral personhood and their deaths are less significant as their killing is less wrong than that of persons. To throw doubt on McMahan’s conclusions about the moral status and wrongness of killing the CSMR I question the exclusive use of intrinsic properties in the metaphysics of personhood, the dismissal of the moral importance of species membership, and the example of virulent nationalism as an apt analogy. I also have a lot to say about McMahan’s empirical assumptions about the CSMR. (shrink)

En este artículo mostraremos, en primer lugar, la inadecuación de las críticas esgrimidas contra la filosofía heideggeriana en términos de «antropocentrismo», para en segundo lugar, defender que en el pensamiento heideggeriano existen evidencias que permiten introducir a los entes vivos y la naturaleza en la reflexión moral. Dialogaremos con las aludidas críticas y detectaremos que se hallan atravesadas por una confusión entre el plano ontológico y el moral. Para enmendar tal confusión, clarificaremos el único término que permitió al filósofo vincular (...) la reflexión ontológica con la moral: la mismidad [Selbstheit] del Dasein entendida como por-mor-de-sí [worumwillen]. Acudiremos a Los conceptos fundamentales de la metafísica, donde Heidegger advierte de los riesgos de entender a los entes vivos como útiles, y les reconoce una forma de mismidad: la peculiaridad [Eigentümlichkeit]. En virtud de tal reconocimiento, concluiremos que la filosofía heideggeriana, lejos de legitimar la instrumentalización de los entes vivos o la naturaleza, posibilita su consideración moral. (shrink)

Since the middle of the 20th century, suicidology, as a group of disciplines working to understand and prevent suicide, has reinforced the long-held view that suicide is caused first and foremost b...

As moral decision making in financial markets incorporates moral considerations into investment decisions, some rational decision theorists argue that moral considerations would introduce inefficiency to investment decisions. However, market demand for socially responsible investment is increasing, suggesting that investment decisions are influenced by both financial and moral considerations. Several models can be applied to explain moral behavior. We test the suitability of (a) multiple attribute utility theory (MAUT), (b) theory of planned behavior, and (c) issue-contingent model of ethical decision making (...) in organizations. In an experimental setting, 141 participants traded company shares in a computerized asset market. Over 12 periods, companies varied in morality (i.e., treatment of employees) and in profitability (i.e., expected dividends per share). Participants’ bids and asks for shares were recorded. Results indicate that moral considerations influence investment decisions, controlling for profit. Differences between the three models are discussed. (shrink)

SummaryThis introductory article sketches out the evolution of the concept of sociability in moral and political debates from Grotius to the German Romantics, so as to elucidate the range and scope of the contributions to this special issue. The article argues that the concept of sociability serves as a bridge between moral theory, domestic politics and international relations, just as it also connects the jurisprudential mode of enquiry to subsequent Enlightenment enquiries into political economy, aesthetics, individual and collective moral psychology, (...) forms of government and philosophical history. Particular attention is paid to sociability's relationship to moral scepticism, and to its position between morality and anthropology. The article highlights the central role of Rousseau in radically reformulating the debate and in sparking new controversies up to the nineteenth century. (shrink)

Post- and decolonial theory have contested the idea of historical progress as a Eurocentric, hegemonic, or neocolonialist misconception. Does this imply that we should give up any idea of moral progress? This paper critically examines Allen Buchanan’s and Russell Powell’s book The Evolution of Moral Progress and their claim that there is still a need for a theory of moral progress. For Buchanan and Powell, such theory should allow and guide a better understanding of what moral progress consists of. Even (...) though they do not claim to already provide us with such a comprehensive theory of moral progress they aim to work out whether and how certain types of moral progress are possible and assess their limits. In doing so they mainly focus on improvements in terms of social participation as an uncontroversial type of moral progress. In the following, I will first discuss the characteristics of the authors’ notion of progress and then raise some critical concerns about the example they have chosen of the history of human rights as a history of progress and, particularly, about the history of the rights of people with disabilities. (shrink)

The topic of this article is morality among pre-school children.Two different theories of morality, morality as lived and morality asrationality of thought, are analyzed with a special view to exploringtheir respective consequences for doing research on small children'smorality. Children's lived morality is then interpreted and discussed interms of rights.

Through a series of essays contributed by clinicians, medical historians, and prominent moral philosophers, Cognitive Disability and Its Challenge to Moral ...

O propósito deste artigo é o de examinar o ceticismo sobre a moral e as leis tal como abordado e respondido por Guy de Brués nos seus Diálogos contra os Novos Acadêmicos (1557). Proponho que, para uma apreciação adequada desse tema, é preciso distinguir dois níveis em que essa filosofia se apresenta na obra: aquele em que ela é exposta na fala dos personagens incumbidos de defendê-la (sustentando diferentes versões da tese de que “tudo é opinião”) e aquele que é (...) discernível através de alguns pontos de acordo ao longo das discussões, no qual revela-se antes uma afinidade entre os interlocutores com a Nova Academia. Esta situação aparentemente paradoxal pode ser melhor compreendida se cotejamos os Diálogos com a declamatio paradoxal ou o diálogo filosófico de matriz ciceroniana. De modo mais geral, sugerimos que o papel da filosofia da Nova Academia, especialmente em sua dimensão moral e política, é maior do que usualmenre reconhecido na redescoberta do ceticismo na França do século XVI. (shrink)

Contingent valuation surveys generally elicit stated preferences by asking how much a respondent would be willing to pay for an environmental improvement. By drawing on linguistic theory, we propose that the modal phrasing of this question establishes a particular type of commitment towards a hypothetical payment, namely a subjective want or desire. Based on the idea that beyond subjective desires, considerations about what is morally adequate may guide expressed values and that elicitation of these can be linguistically facilitated, we employ (...) an experimental framework to investigate the effects of different modals ( willing, should and appropriate) in the elicitation question on stated preferences. We find that elicited amounts with appropriate are higher than those elicited with willing and should for environmental improvements more associated with use values, while differences are non-significant for environmental improvements more associated with non-use values. We discuss the implications of our findings for stated preference studies, as well as the potential broader theoretical implications that our study entails regarding linguistic representations of the moral entrenchment of environmental values. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 26.1 (2002) 143-156 [Access article in PDF] The Vicious Habits of Entirely Fictitious People: Hume on the Moral Evaluation of Art Eva M. Dadlez DAVID HUME'S ESSAY, "Of the Standard of Taste," identifies aesthetic merits and defects of narrative works of art. 1 There is a passage toward the end of this essay that has aroused considerable interest among philosophers. In it, Hume writes of cases (...) in which "vicious manners are described, without being marked with the proper characters of blame and disapprobation" ("ST," p. 246). He maintains that works which include such descriptions are aesthetically flawed, adding that we neither can nor should enter into their writers' sentiments or "bear an affection to characters, which we plainly discover to be blameable" ("ST," p. 246).There is no reason to ascribe to Hume a Platonic moralism that condemns art's disinhibition of emotion. Neither does Hume advocate some extravagant form of political correctness that evaluates art by looking to the propriety of its subject matter. As later examples in the quoted essay make clear, Hume is speaking of cases in which fiction not only depicts vicious manners, but endorses them. I will argue that such endorsements are stigmatized neither because a low estimation of depicted behavior infects the estimation of a work's merit nor because we take the endorsement to be mistaken or unwarranted. Fictional endorsements of conduct otherwise regarded as vicious constitute defects because they curtail the aesthetic experience. Hume's claim, then, is as much about human psychology as it is about morality. We cannot divorce morality from narrative art because, for Hume, morality finds its basis in the very sentiments such art is intended to arouse. The content of the works under fire is objectionable because it prompts the [End Page 143] imaginative disengagement of the reader or viewer just when engagement and emotional participation are necessary for full appreciation. As Noël Carroll maintains in his objection to autonomism, a moral defect "will count as an aesthetic defect when it actually deters a response to which a work aspires." 2 This is a view for which I will endeavor to offer an explanation based on Hume's philosophy, and that I will attempt to defend against typical objections. I It would be a mistake to associate the position ventured above with some of those appearing in the recent critical literature. There, a work is sometimes taken to endorse any character's behavior which is not explicitly condemned or which is accompanied by some depiction of positive traits. Thus Nabokov's Lolita is suspected of subtle endorsement of Humbert's behavior mainly because Humbert is described as urbane and intelligent. There is a clear mistake here about what it is that can be taken to constitute an endorsement on the part of a work of fiction. To suggest that Lolita endorses child molesting because we are occasionally allowed to glimpse a sympathetic side of the molester is on a par with claiming that Shakespeare's Macbeth endorses killing for personal gain because we are allowed to glimpse a sympathetic side of the title character. Our reactions to complex characters can be, and usually are, correspondingly complex. We can admire one trait and deplore another without being forced into the kind of all-or-nothing evaluation that writers of serious fiction seldom want to elicit. In any case, it seems clear that the endorsement of a character in toto would probably involve a good deal more than the depiction of a few attractive traits. The grim undoing of the two characters under consideration, coupled with their misery and hopelessness, hardly suggests endorsement. Similarly, an aesthetically pleasing depiction of an event we consider tragic should not be taken as an endorsement of that event. Aesthetic and distressed responses are not mutually exclusive. They can constitute distinct responses to distinct aspects of the same state of affairs. The graceful arrangement of the bodies of Romeo and Juliet is surely not an endorsement of their tragic death or their suicide... (shrink)

In a previous article, we unpacked the so-called “ethics first premise”—the idea that ethics is “prior” to politics when theorizing political legitimacy— that is denied by political realists. We defended a “justificatory” reading of this premise, according to which political justification is irreducibly moral in the sense that moral values are among the values that ground political legitimacy. We called this the “necessity thesis.” In this paper we respond to two challenges that Robert Jubb and Enzo Rossi raise against our (...) proposal. Their first claim is that our argument for the necessity thesis is question begging, since we assume rather than show that freedom and equality are moral values. The second claim is that Bernard Williams’s Basic Legitimacy Demand demonstrates the possibility of giving political legitimacy a non-moral foundation, since it allows for a distinction to be made between politics and sheer domination. We refute both claims. (shrink)

Being understanding is a moral virtue. But what exactly is it that an understanding person does excellently? And what exactly makes it a moral virtue, rather than an intellectual one? Stephen Grimm suggests that an understanding person judges other people’s moral failings accurately without being too permissive or too judgemental. I argue against this view and develop an alternative one. First I demonstrate that judging other people’s failures accurately is neither necessary nor sufficient for being understanding and that Grimm leaves (...) the moral nature of being understanding underexplored. I then draw on a related discussion on the moral virtue of open-mindedness and argue that a virtue is a moral one when it is a corrective to selfish and other weak inclinations that pull us away from feeling and acting as the situation demands. In order to fill in what this means in the case of being understanding, I turn to Iris Murdoch’s notion of attention. Being understanding, I argue, is the virtue of appropriately attending to others who are in a difficult situation. (shrink)

Moral bioenhancement, nudge-designed environments, and ambient persuasive technologies may help people behave more consistently with their deeply held moral convictions. Alternatively, they may aid people in overcoming cognitive and affective limitations that prevent them from appreciating a situation’s moral dimensions. Or they may simply make it easier for them to make the morally right choice by helping them to overcome sources of weakness of will. This paper makes two assumptions. First, technologies to improve people’s moral capacities are realizable. Second, such (...) technologies will actually help people get morality right and behave more consistently with whatever the ‘real’ right thing to do turns out to be. The paper then considers whether or not humanity loses anything valuable, particularly opportunities for moral progress, when being moral is made much easier by eliminating difficult moral deliberation and internal moral struggle. Ultimately, the worry that moral struggle has value as a catalyst for moral progress is rejected. Moral progress is understood here as the discovery and application of new values or sensitization to new sources of harm. (shrink)

Does life have meaning? What is flourishing? How do we attain the good life? Philosophers, and many others of us, have explored these questions for centuries. As Eva Feder Kittay points out, however, there is a flaw in the essential premise of these questions: they seem oblivious to the very nature of the ways in which humans live, omitting a world of co-dependency, and of the fact that we live in and through our bodies, whether they are fully abled or (...) disabled. Our dependent, vulnerable, messy, changeable, and embodied experience colors everything about our lives both on the surface and when it comes to deeper concepts, but we tend to leave aside the body for the mind when it comes to philosophical matters. Disability offers a powerful challenge to long-held philosophical views about the nature of the good life, what provides meaning in our lives, and the centrality of reason, as well as questions of justice, dignity, and personhood. These concepts need not be distant and idealized; the answers are right before us, in the way humans interact with one another, care for one another, and need one another--whether they possess full mental capacities or have cognitive limitations. We need to revise our concepts of things like dignity and personhood in light of this important correction, Kittay argues. This is the first of two books in which Kittay will grapple with just how we need to revisit core philosophical ideas in light of disabled people's experience and way of being in the world. Kittay, an award-winning philosopher who is also the mother to a multiply-disabled daughter, interweaves the personal voice with the philosophical as a critical method of philosophical investigation. Here, she addresses why cognitive disability can reorient us to what truly matters, and questions the centrality of normalcy as part of a good life. With profound sensitivity and insight, Kittay examines other difficult topics: How can we look at the ethical questions regarding prenatal testing in light of a new appreciation of the personhood of disabled people? What do new possibilities in genetic testing imply for understanding disability, the family, and bioethics? How can we reconsider the importance of care, and how does it work best? In the process of pursuing these questions, Kittay articulates an ethic of care, which is the ethical theory most useful for claiming full rights for disabled people and providing the opportunities for everyone to live joyful and fulfilling lives. She applies the lessons of care to the controversial alteration of severely cognitively disabled children known as the Ashley Treatment, whereby a child's growth is halted with extensive estrogen treatment and related bodily interventions are justified. This book both imparts lessons that advocate on behalf of those with significant disabilities, and constructs a moral theory grounded on our ability to give, receive, and share care and love. Above all, it aims to adjust social attitudes and misconceptions about life with disability. (shrink)

This text reconstructs the Kohlberg/Gilligan controversy between a male ethics of justice and a female ethics of care. Using Karl-Otto Apel's transcendental pragmatics, the author argues for a mediation between both models in terms of a reciprocal co-responsibility. Against this backdrop, she defends the circular procedure of an exclusively argumentative-reflexive justification of a normative ethics. From this it follows for feminist ethics that it cannot do without either of the two types of ethics. The goal is to assure the evaluative (...) variety of different types of an ethics of the good without endangering the normative boundaries of a deontological discourse ethics. (shrink)

In der moralphilosophischen Literatur existieren verschiedene Auffassungen darüber, worauf die Autorität moralischer Normen basiert. Einige Moralphilosophen führen das moralische Sollen auf die Vernunft, das Wohlwollen oder auch auf die Wahrnehmung moralischer Tatsachen zurück; andere dagegen meinen, dass das moralische Sollen auf äußeren Sanktionen wie sozialem Ausschluss oder inneren Sanktionen wie Schuldgefühlen beruht. Die sowohl in der Geschichte der Philosophie als auch in der gegenwärtigen Auseinandersetzung häufig vertretene Meinung, dass moralische Verpflichtung notwendig an Sanktionierung geknüpft ist, wird aus verschiedenen Perspektiven kritisch (...) untersucht. (shrink)

I argue that the claim that merely being born of two human beings in a condition that supports life is sufficient for full moral status. Not only ought we not to exclude any human being from full moral status because they lack the possession of what some have deemed to be morally relevant properties, we don’t have a full grasp of what is morally relevant unless we include the many different possible lives humans live in their diverse bodies and minds. (...) Our understanding of how we ought to treat nonhuman beings is not of lesser importance, but it necessarily depends on how we understand what is morally significant in human lives. (shrink)

In Moral Failure, Lisa Tessman argues against two principles of moral theory, that ought implies can and that normative theory must be action-guiding. Although Tessman provides a trenchant account of how we are thrust into the misfortune of moral failure, often by our very efforts to act morally, and although she shows, through a discussion well-informed by the latest theorizing in ethics, neuroethics, and psychology, how much more moral theory can do than provide action-guiding principles, I argue that the two (...) theses of moral theory that she disputes remain indispensable for ethical theory. (shrink)

Having encountered landmines in offering a critique of philosophy based on my experience as the mother of a cognitively disabled daughter, I ask, “Should I continue?” I defend the idea that pursuing this project is of a piece with the invisible care labor that is done by people with disabilities and their families. The value of attempting to influence philosophical conceptions of cognitive disability by virtue of this experience is justified by an inextricable relationship between the personal, the political, and (...) the philosophical. If one grants that the “special relationship” between mother and child requires moral recognition, then I need first to make vivid the case that this relationship in the case of a child who lacks some “normal capacities” is indistinguishable from any mother‐child relationship. If this is so, then I believe I can make a case that has as its conclusion that the moral personhood of even the severely cognitively disabled must be granted. Moreover, such recognition, I argue, necessitates the recognition of others who bear no special relationships to the child. (shrink)

The solutions to moral problems offered by contemporary moral theories largely depend on how they understand pluralism. This article compares two different kinds of universal moral theories, liberal impartiality theory and discourse ethics. It defends the twofold thesis that (1) a dialogical theory such as discourse ethics is better equipped to give an account of pluralism than impartiality theory due to a more correct understanding of the nature of conflict, but that (2) discourse ethics cannot, contrary to what Jürgen Habermas (...) claims, embrace the notion of impartiality connected to agent-neutrality. The article argues that pluralism reflects conflicts among values not only between but also within people and that discourse ethics can include both these dimensions since it recognizes the constitutive connection between deliberation and (moral) conflict. Thus, unlike impartiality theory, it can elucidate the transformative aspects of pluralism. (shrink)

This article is about young children’s morality and their concern for others’ wellbeing. Questions of what the value of others’ wellbeing can signify, how this value becomes visible to children and how it is expressed in their interaction will be posed. In this analysis, children’s commitment to others’ wellbeing is discussed in terms of two theories, namely the philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s theory of intersubjectivity and the psychologist Martin Hoffman’s theory of empathy. The interaction between children and adults in pre-school, drawn (...) from different studies of morality, constitutes the empirical basis. In the discussion, it is claimed that children’s care for others’ wellbeing can be understood in a fruitful way as experiences of, approaches to and ways of being involved in the other’s life-world rather than as expressions of empathy. (shrink)

This study explored how women with a diagnosis of cancer (lymphoma) deal with moral concerns related to their responsibility as parents. Ten women with cancer and who had children living at home were interviewed. The interviews were analysed according to the constant comparative method used in grounded theory. In order to provide a focus for the analysis, the ethics of care and the concept of mothering were used as sensitizing concepts. The core concept ‘experience of dealing with moral responsibility of (...) being a parent with cancer by redefining oneself as a mother’ was identified. The processes involved were: interrupted mothering; facing the life-threatening illness and children’s reactions; striving to be a good mother; attempting to deal with moral responsibility; and coming to terms with being a mother. (shrink)

Advocates of moral enhancement through pharmacological, genetic, or other direct interventions sometimes explicitly argue, or assume without argument, that traditional moral education and development is insufficient to bring about moral enhancement. Traditional moral education grounded in a Kohlbergian theory of moral development is indeed unsuitable for that task; however, the psychology of moral development and education has come a long way since then. Recent studies support the view that moral cognition is a higher-order process, unified at a functional level, and (...) that a specific moral faculty does not exist. It is more likely that moral cognition involves a number of different mechanisms, each connected to other cognitive and affective processes. Taking this evidence into account, we propose a novel, empirically informed approach to moral development and education, in children and adults, which is based on a cognitive-affective approach to moral dispositions. This is an interpretative approach that derives from the cognitive-affective personality system (Mischel and Shoda, 1995). This conception individuates moral dispositions by reference to the cognitive and affective processes that realise them. Conceived of in this way, moral dispositions influence an agent's behaviour when they interact with situational factors, such as mood or social context. Understanding moral dispositions in this way lays the groundwork for proposing a range of indirect methods of moral enhancement, techniques that promise similar results as direct interventions whilst posing fewer risks. (shrink)

White Ignorance and Complicit Responsibility addresses the problem of white denial. Rejecting punitive moralities that reproduce white innocence and encourage absolution, Eva Boodman makes the case for a transformative whiteness that dismantles the moral, racial, political, and affective constructs that keep racial capitalism in place.

This paper explores the possible impact of the recent legal developments on organizational whistleblowing on the autonomy and responsibility of whistleblowers. In the past thirty years numerous pieces of legislation have been passed to offer protection to whistleblowers from retaliation for disclosing organisational wrongdoing. An area that remains uncertain in relation to whistleblowing and its related policies in organisations, is whether these policies actually increase the individualisation of work, allowing employees to behave in accordance with their conscience and in line (...) with societal expectations or whether they are another management tool to control employees and protect organisations from them. The assumptions of whistleblower protection with regard to moral autonomy are examined in order to clarify the purpose of whistleblower protection at work. The two extreme positions in the discourse of whistleblowing are that whistleblowing legislation and policies either aim to enable individual responsibility and moral autonomy at work, or they aim to protect organisations by allowing them to control employees and make them liable for ethics at work. (shrink)

Philosophical aesthetics is an area in which many strands of contemporary philosophical thinking meet. The contributors to this volume are aware of the wider logical, epistemological, moral and metaphysical implications raised by conceptual problems specific to aesthetics. Three themes recur and are taken up from different angles in several of the papers: pleasure – its nature and role in the experience of art and beauty; preference – figuring prominently in aesthetic appraising, appreciating and judging; and value – aesthetic value in (...) particular, and the status of value in general. As these themes interweave, the complexities of aesthetics bring into focus some of the central issues in the philosophy of mind. The authors argue their cases with professional expertise and perceptive understanding of the arts, making significant and original contributions. This book should be of interest not only to philosophers but also to the readers who know, care and theorise about the arts. All the essays were commissioned for this volume, which is part of an informal series of books emerging from meetings sponsored by the Thyssen Foundation. (shrink)