Showing papers on "Morality published in 1979"

Lectures on Ethics

Abstract: Introduction J. B. Schneedwind Part I. Kant's Practical Philosophy: 1. Herder's lecture notes (selections) Part II. Moral Philosophy: 2. Collins's lecture notes Part III. Morality According to Professor Kant: 3. Mrongovius's second set of lecture notes (selections) Part IV. Kant on the Metaphyscics of Morals: 4. Vigilantius's lecture notes.

Moral Issues in Business

Abstract: One of the most popular business ethics texts ever published, MORAL ISSUES IN BUSINESS guides students in thinking deeply about important moral issues that frequently arise in business situations and helps them develop the reasoning and analytical skills to resolve them. Combining insightful and accessible textbook chapters by the authors, cases that highlight the real world poignancy of the matters addressed in this book, and reading selections from the most influential voices in contemporary ethical debates, this book-the standard for today's business ethics books-provides a comprehensive, flexible, and pedagogically proven course of study exploring the intersections of commerce and ethics. William H. Shaw and Vincent Barry offer a one-stop combination of text, readings, and cases to guide students' understanding of the nature of morality, individual integrity and responsibility, economic justice, the nature of capitalism, and the role of corporations in our society, including their responsibilities to consumers and to the environment, and the real-world moral issues that arise in the workplace.

The nature of morality : an introduction to ethics

Abstract: Gilbert Harman, Princeton University. D This introductory ethics text opens with an examination of a central problem about ethics-its apparent immunity from observational testing. In an informal yet precise style, Professor Harman considers possible responses to this problem, such as extreme nihilism, ethical naturalism, emotivism, and the Ideal Observer Theory. He also relates the way morality appears to involve some sort of moral law, incorporating Kant's theory, then Hare's and Sartre's in his discussion, and asks how this is to be understood. Then the possibility of a social source of moral law is explored. The discussion moves on to a consideration of how moral principles can be said to give one reasons to do things, in which the author offers a naturalistic theory of reasons. Finally, he introduces egoism and utilitarianism as views about the nature of reasons.

Between Utility and Rights

Abstract: I do not think than anyone familiar with what has been published in the last ten years, in England and the United States, on the philosophy of government can doubt that this subject, which is the meeting point of moral, political and legal philosophy, is undergoing a major change. We are currently witnessing, I think, the progress of a transition from a once widely accepted old faith that some form of utilitarianism, if only we could discover the right form, must capture the essence of political morality. The new faith is that the truth must lie not with a doctrine that takes the maximisation of aggregate or average general welfare for its goal, but with a doctrine of basic human rights, protecting specific basic liberties and interests of individuals, if only we could find some sufficiently firm foundation for such rights to meet some long familiar objections. Whereas not so long ago great energy and much ingenuity of many philosophers were devoted to making some form of utilitarianism work, latterly such energies and ingenuity have been devoted to the articulation of theories of basic rights. As often with such changes of faith or redirection of philosophical energies and attention, the new insights which are currently offered us seem to dazzle at least as much as they illuminate. Certainly, as I shall try to show by reference to the work of two now influential contemporary writers, the new faith has been presented in forms which are, in spite of much brillance, in the end unconvincing. My two examples, both American, are taken respectively from the Conservative Right and the Liberal Left of the political spectrum; and while the former, the Conservative, builds a theory of rights on the moral importance of the separateness or distinctness of human persons which utilitarianism is said to ignore, the latter, the Liberal Left, seeks to erect such a theory on their moral title to equal concern and respect which, it is said, unreconstructed utilitarianism implicitly denies. So while the first theory is dominated by the duty of governments to respect the separateness of persons, the second is dominated by the duty of governments to treat their subjects as equals, with equal concern and respect.

Marxism and Retribution

Abstract: Philosophers have written at great length about the moral problems involved in punishing the innocent — particularly as these problems raise obstacles to an acceptance of the moral theory of Utilitarianism. Punishment of an innocent man in order to bring about good social consequences is, at the very least, not always clearly wrong on utilitarian principles. This being so, utilitarian principles are then to be condemned by any morality that may be called Kantian in character. For punishing an innocent man, in Kantian language, involves using that man as a mere means or instrument to some social good and is thus not to treat him as an end in himself, in accord with his dignity or worth as a person.

Bounded morality: justice and the state in world politics

Abstract: Surveying the tradition of international political theory, Martin Wight commented that it is marked "not only by paucity but also by intellectual and moral poverty."'I That judgment is an exaggeration, but only slightly so. The few works of real philosophical interest about international relations (e.g., Kant's Perpetual Peace, some essays and fragments of Rousseau) stand out in a tradition that alternates between the scholastic and the utopian. Until recently, Wight's judgment might have been passed with equal validity on contemporary philosophical thought about international relations. Certainly the attention that moral and political philosophers have paid to international problems is a minute fraction of that paid to domestic ones. In the past ten years, however, there has been a growth of interest in philosophical problems of international relations, and a literature of generally high quality has begun to appear. 2

Kant's Theory of Morals

Abstract: Written for the general reader and the student of moral philosophy, this book provides a clear and unified treatment of Kant's theory of morals. Bruce Aune takes into account all of Kant's principal writings on morality and presents them in a contemporary idiom.Originally published in 1980.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Morality and medical science: Concepts of narcotic addiction in Britain, 1820–1926

Abstract: This paper examines the evolution of ideas about narcotic addiction. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, addiction was not viewed as a medical condition, but as a ‘bad habit’. The con...

Preface to the philosophy of education

Abstract: Part 1: Education 1. The Words and Enterprise 2. Mistakes and Methodology Part 2: Learning 3. The Implications of Learning 4. What There is to Learn Part 3: Education and Human Nature 5. Happiness and Learning 6. Seriousness and Fantasy 7. Love and Morality

Evolution, Animals, and the basis of morality

Abstract: Some have supposed that morality has its basis in altruistic emotions implanted in accordance with the standard principles of natural selection. It is argued, to the contrary, that the falsity of group selection theory precludes founding genuine altruism on such a basis, and that the correct theory of evolution renders morality possible only if a cognitivist conception of moral psychology is accepted. Some independent reasons are given for favouring that conception over its noncognitivist rival. Morality is then claimed to be a necessary corollary of advanced intelligence, so that morality cannot easily be selected against. Finally, the bearing of the foregoing considerations on the normative contention commonly labelled ‘species‐ism’ is assessed; it is concluded that a proper view of morality suggests the inclusion of (other) animals within its domain of concern.

The relation between the ethics of personal conscience-social responsibility and principled moral reasoning.

Abstract: Three samples of college students were tested on Hogan's Survey of Ethical Attitudes (SEA) and Rest's Defining Issues Test (DIT), a test of moral reasoning ability in the Kohlbergian tradition. In addition, one of the samples took Collins's revision of Rotter's Internal-External Scale (I-E) while another sample took Snyder's Self-Monitoring Scale. There was a small but reliable tendency for subjects who endorsed the “ethics of personal conscience,” as measured by the SEA, to show greater maturity in moral reasoning, as assessed by the DIT. This result was seen as raising some interesting questions about the relation between liberalism-conservatism and moral maturity. The subjects who advocated the ethics of social responsibility tended to show more internal locus of control as measured by the I-E scale. There also was a tendency for subjects who preferred the morality of conventional role-conformity, as measured by the DIT, to have high scores on the Self-Monitoring Scale. The correlations between personal conscience and mature moral reasoning, while significant, were small enough to make it seem that people of various social and political attitudes are likely to achieve maturity in moral reasoning.

The Will of God

Abstract: ‘Doing the will of God’, or seeking to do it, is a notion close to the centre of, at any rate, Christian, Jewish and Moslem religion. So too is the notion of accepting happenings as God’s Will—Fiat voluntas tua. In the latter notion, God’s Will is something to be accepted rather than accomplished. Where the Will of God is something to be sought and accomplished, then it may be given as a final reason for doing what is believed to be in accord with it. Is it then connected necessarily or contingently with morality? If necessarily, then what is added to ‘This is right’ by saying ‘This is the Will of God’, at least as far as the content of the action goes? If the connection is contingent, then the moral judgement that this is right could conflict with the religious judgement that this is in accordance with the Will of God, and if both can be given as finalising reasons we could be faced with two conflicting ultimate demands. If there is a divergence, and the moral demand is said to be subordinate to the religious demand, this would be a claim that religion should in such cases supersede morality.

The Place of Ethics in the Theory of Production

Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter discusses ethics in production theory and patterns. In a model of production in which information is costless and agreements are enforced with an accompanying cost, there is no place for ethics or other dispositional attributes of the persons who own the instruments. The marginal private product of ethical conduct, while positive, is less than the marginal social product, and important institutions of training and socialization are designed to overcome this gap. The loss of reputation (as a good credit risk) results in having to pay more so as to borrow a given sum for a given period. This loss of reputation can lead to a loss of wealth. Morality is not always conducive to social welfare but only that it fosters production. The usefulness of this concept of morality is conditional upon the cooperative activity of individuals having negligible (adverse) impact upon others. The incentives to imperfectly moral conduct and the precautions that are prompted by awareness of them are very similar to the incentives to commit crimes and to the self-protective activities thereby inspired. The common purpose of defaulting on a contract maybe is to profit by failure to fulfill an expectation of performance that one has created. In all these cases, morality consists in refusing to profit and/or bearing loss rather than permitting the nonfulfillment of an expectation that one has created. Subsequently, the economic loss from imperfectly moral conduct arises from the misinformation to which it gives rise.

Reason and the Basis of Morality in Burke

Abstract: I. THE CONTINUING INTEREST in the moral and political ideas of Edmund Burke is testimony to more than the excellence of his eighteenth-century prose. Burke remains significant because he focused on a problem that persists in modern political theory and ethics, namely, reconciling the claims of a relativizing historical understanding with the need for stable ethical principles. What Burke offers us is an argument that appears to harmonize historical and moral understanding by demonstrating that binding moral principles are to be found precisely in the midst of the flux of dynamic historical processes. What emerges seems to combine the best of two worlds, a view that is fully sensitive both to the realities of historical change and to the requirement for an ethics that is free in its essentials from the corrosions of temporality. He advances a hardheaded, pragmatic politics that, precisely through being fully prudent and utilitarian, is informed by timeless moral law. Burke's way of proceeding can be briefly illustrated through a consideration of his view of the virtue of prudence, which he considered \"no t only the first in rank of the virtues political and moral, b u t . . , the director, the regulator, the standard of them al l .\" ' According to Burke, to be prudent means to follow the dictates of the whole of human nature, to accept the prescriptive basis of the legitimacy of government, to bow before the inherited wisdom of the past as it is embodied in the customs and institutions of the nation, and to reform the body politic as cautiously as possible. The primacy of prudence would, then, seem to mean that the ultimate political principle should be a utilitarianism that is informed as fully as possible by an understanding of the interrelations of human nature and public policy in history. Prudence, in short, is a rule derived from history and pragmatically validated. But Burke did not leave it at that. He also commended prudence on the basis that it was the means through which God has chosen to direct the affairs of our temporal life and to which we are thus obliged to conform. Prudence is not merely secular caution. Rather, its rules \"are formed upon the known march of the ordinary providence of God. ''2 Prudence is enjoined upon us as a matter of historical wisdom and of pious obedience. These arguments in favor of prudence are not autonomous and independent of one another. In Burke's thought they are continually interwoven, creating a scene in which history is not amoral and morality is not ahistorical. Scholars writing in the past twenty years have been able to show that Burke's statements about the existence of a divine, immutable moral order, far from being

Contemporary Issues in Biomedical Ethics

Abstract: I. Rights and Moral Decisions.- 1 Legalism and Medical Ethics.- I. General Remarks on Legalism.- II. The Spell of Legalism.- III. The Utility of Legalism.- IV. The Language of Rights.- V. Morality and the Ethics of Rights.- VI. Another Model: Moral Relationships and Duties.- VII. Responsibilities.- VIII. A Comparison of the Two Models.- IX. The Vindication of Rights.- X. Integrity, Autonomy, and Rights.- 2 Comments on "Legalism and Medical Ethics".- 3 The Moral Rights of the Terminally I11.- I. Killing and Letting Die.- II. Patients' Rights Regarding Medical Treatment.- III. Patients' Rights to Information About Their Condition.- IV. Some Legal Implications.- 4 Comments on "The Moral Rights of the Terminally I11".- II. Issues in Genetics.- 5 On Getting "Genetic" Out of "Genetic Disease".- I. Introduction.- II. Etymology of "Genetic Disease": Some Shifts in Meaning.- III. Criteria for Applying "Genetic Disease": Some Valua- tional Dimensions.- IV. Uses of "Genetic Disease": Some Policy Implications.- 6 Protecting the Unconceived.- 7 Comments on "Protecting the Unconceived": Butchers, Bakers, & Candlestick Makers.- 8 Sterilization, Privacy, and the Value of Reproduction.- I. Introduction.- II. The Importance of Procreation.- III. Procreation and the Right to Privacy.- IV. Sterilization and Possible People.- Acknowledgements.- 9 Comments on "Sterilization, Privacy, and the Value of Reproduction".- 10 Reply to Buckner.- III. The Role of the Physician.- 11 Hippocrates Lost, A Professional Ethic Regained: Reflections on the Death of the Hippocratic Tradition.- I. The Hippocratic Tradition and the Obligation of Secrecy.- II. Science and Authority.- III. Responsibility in Medicine.- IV. Conclusion.- 12 Comments on "Hippocrates Lost, A Professional Ethic Regained: Reflections on the Death of the Hippocratic Tradition".- 13 Physicians as Body Mechanics.- I. Why See a Mechanic?.- II. Why Trust a Mechanic?.- 14 Physician as Body Mechanic-Patient as Scrap Metal: What's Wrong with the Analogy.- I..- II..- 15 Internal or External Physician-Patient Relationships, A Response to Clements.- IV. Informed Consent and Paternalism.- 16 The Ethical Content of Legally Informed Consent.- I. Introduction.- II. The Legal Dynamics of Informed Consent.- III. The Elements of Informed Consent.- IV. The Standard of Informed Consent.- V. The Functions of Informed Consent.- VI. The Effect of Informed Consent.- VII. Dilemmas of Informed Consent.- 17 Comments on "The Ethical Content of Legally Informed Consent".- I. Perennial Paradox: "The Ethical Nature of the Legal".- II. Information for Consent: Judging the Doctor's Judgement.- III. Surrogate Consent: Process and Substance.- 18 Involuntary Commitment of the Mentally 111: Some Moral Issues.- 19 Comments on Brock's "Involuntary Commitment of the Mentally 111: Some Moral Issues".- 20 On Paternalism and Health Care.- I. What is Paternalism?.- II. Paternalism in Health Care.- III. The Case Against Paternalism.- IV. The Limits of Autonomy.- 21 Comments on "Paternalism and Health Care".- I. Defining Paternalism.- II. Justifying Paternalism.- V. Professional Responsibility.- 22 Teaching Compassion: Professional Education for Humane Care.- I. The Nature and Scope of Compassion.- II. Conclusion.- 23 Accountability in Health Care Practice: Ethical Implications for Nurses.- 24 Biomedical Developments and The Public Responsibility of Philosophy.- I. The Argument: An Overview.- II. Biomedicine, Values, and the Reconstruction of Human Nature.- III. Particular Issues as Challenges to Philosophical Reflection.- IV. The Foundation of Ethics as the Public Responsibility of Philosophy.- V. An Ethics Grounded in the Nature of Things.- VI. A Critical Question.- VII. Transcendental Analysis, the a Priori of Communication and the Foundations of a Global Ethics.- VIII. The Paradox.- IX. The Opening Question.- X. The Transformation of Philosophy.- XI. Transcendental Analysis and the Moral Norms Presupposed by Scientific Discourse.- XII. Two Principles as a Foundation for a Global Ethics.- XIII. Conclusion.

Medical Responsibility: Paternalism, Informed Consent, and Euthanasia

Abstract: As our powerful medical technology continues rapidly to develop, we seem to be confronted by fresh bioethical dilemmas at an ever increasing rate. This volume provides an introduction to modern thinking on these issues, concentrating particularly on paternalism, informed consent and euthanasia. By developing in-depth philosophical perspectives on the common moral concerns underlying these apparently diverse problems, the contributors provide an account of the very fundamentals of medical ethics. Throughout, they endeavour to clarify key concepts, to examine basic assumptions and values, and to address normative issues raised in bioethical contexts, often illuminating their ideas with schematic or actual case histories, including treatments of: the justification of paternalism; ethics of human experimentation; morality of nontherapeutic fetal experimentation; euthanasia, killing, and letting die; morality and medical experimentation; catch-22 paternalism; mandatory genetic screening; informed consent; justice in foetal experimentation; active and passive euthanasia; medical agency and negative acts; and experimentation on prisoners.

Population policy and public goods.

Abstract: Focus in this essay is on the conditions under which individuals will be motivated to voluntarily limit the size of their families. Approached within the framework of an abstract model of rational and moral choice attention is specifically on the society of Mexico where the recent adoption of a new policy of population control raises immediate questions about the prospects for voluntary limitation of family size. The relevant literature in economics policitcal theory decision theory and moral philosophy is used as a basis for considering what rationality and morality require in t erms of the forms of social cooperation necessary for the provision of public goods in general and with respect to voluntary limitation of family size in particular. The conclusions fail to support the widespread belief that the almost universal failure of population programs is to be understood primarily in terms of the ignorance and irrationality of the uneducated public. The analysis instead suggests that those responsible for the continuing population explosion are given the circumstances in which they find themselves acting rationally and morally. To understand this apparent paradox it is argued is to understand the need for stronger forms of social intervention than are usually undertaken in the processes which determine whether individuals will avail themselves of available methods of fertility control. In 1973 the Mexican govenrment reversed its pronatalist policy and adopted a major program of population planning. The new policy is taking shape in many programs and activities including an educational campaign for "responsible parenthood." The prospects for this policys success depend on a complex set of economic social and cultural variables as well as some fundamental considerations about the rationality and morality of voluntary limitation of family size.

Morality: Religious and Secular: The Dilemma of the Traditional Conscience

Abstract: This book analyzes the moral confusion of contemporary society, relating rival conceptions of morality with a wide variety of views about the nature and predicament of man. Mitchell argues that many secular thinkers possess a traditional "Christian" conscience which they find hard to defend in terms of an entirely secular world-view, but which is more in line with a Christian understanding of man.

Testing durkheim: some theoretical considerations

Abstract: Empirical tests of Durkheim's legal theories can neither confirm nor refute their central hypotheses. Rather than serving to substantiate or refute theoretical propositions, empirical evidence is best conceptualized as providing for the specification and elaboration of a research program. In the case of Durkheim's legal theories, the programmatic effort is to use social science to help resolve the major social, moral, and legal tensions characteristic of modern society. In this light, Durkheim's legal theories are viewed as comparative and contextual, containing insights into the relationship between law and the social constitution of morality. Empirical tests of holistic social theories can only be partial. While the evidence generated by empirical tests may serve as the observational basis for substantiating or refuting particular hypotheses associated with a holistic theory, tests in themselves are unable to assess the relationship between particular hypotheses and their underlying theories. This feature of testing is not a fault, but it is a limitation. Empirical tests are to be faulted and criticized, however, when seemingly disconfirming evidence is used to evaluate a theory apart from an effort to interpret the facts from the perspective of the holistic framework. The gulf between the concreteness of empirical findings and the explanatory power of theory is itself a problem that requires elaboration and judgment. Indeed, a number of writers have argued that the image of science as an effort to test and disconfirm hypotheses is not only over-simplistic, but also an interpretation which seriously distorts the actual practice of science.1