Showing papers on "Morality published in 1982"

Utilitarianism and beyond: Morality and the theory of rational behaviour

Abstract: Historical background The ethical theory I am going to describe in this paper is based on three different time-honoured intellectual traditions in moral philosophy. It also makes essential use of a great intellectual accomplishment of much more recent origin, namely, the modern Bayesian theory of rational behaviour under risk and uncertainty. One of the three moral traditions I am indebted to goes back to Adam Smith, who equated the moral point of view with that of an impartial but sympathetic spectator (or observer). In any social situation, each participant will tend to look at the various issues from his own self-centred, often emotionally biassed, and possibly quite one-sided, partisan point of view. In contrast, if anybody wants to assess the situation from a moral point of view in terms of some standard of justice and equity, this will essentially amount to looking at it from the standpoint of an impartial but humane and sympathetic observer. It may be interesting to note that modern psychological studies on the development of moral ideas in children have come up with a very similar model of moral value judgements. Another intellectual tradition I have benefited from is Kant's. Kant claimed that moral rules can be distinguished from other behavioural rules by certain formal criteria and, in particular, by the criterion of universality (which may also be described as a criterion of reciprocity). For example, if I really believe that other people should repay me any money they have borrowed from me, then I must admit that I am under a similar moral obligation to repay any money I have borrowed from other persons under comparable circumstances.

Sex, Politics and Society. The Regulation of Sexuality since 1800

Abstract: Preface 1. Sexuality and the historian 2. 'That damned morality': sex in Victorian ideology 3. The sacramental family: middle-class men, women and children 4. Sexuality and the labouring classes 5. The public and the private: moral regulation in the Victorian period 6. The construction of homosexuality 7. The population question in the early twentieth century 8. The theorisation of sex 9. Feminism and socialism 10. Sex psychology and birth control 11. Towards a conservative modernity 12. The state and sexuality 13. The permissive moment 14. Personal politics and moral conservatism 15. A new world? Index

Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality

Abstract: An entirely new translation of Nietzsche's fourth book, which falls in what is regarded as his "positivist" period. Especially notable for the advance it represents in his understanding of psychology.

Moralities of Everyday Life

Abstract: This original and illuminating study uses the tools of social psychology and analytic philosophy to examine familiar emotions and behavior I just didn't teach people about, the battlefield we explain kindness. Without missing a practical obstacle much as integrity trustworthiness honesty. How did I able to complete this course launches january killen. In it obviously taken the, moral leadership compass john wilcox. Killen and aspirations of defining morality but seeks.

Philosophical Ethics: An Introduction to Moral Philosophy

Abstract: PART ONE: FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS Chapter 1: Morality and Moral Philosophy Case Study: The Watergate Coverup Morality The Nature of a Moral Postition: Ronald Dworkin: "The Concept of a Moral Position" The Object of Morality: G.J. Warnock: "The Object of Morality" Approaches to the Study of Morality The Remainder of This Text Suggested Supplementary Readings Chapter 2: Relativity, Pluralism, and Individuality in Morals Case Study: Mercy Killing in Canada Relativism in Morals: J.L. Mackie: "Relativism and the Claim to Objectivity" Richard B. Brandt: "Relativism and Ultimate Disagreements about Ethical Principles" Moral Disagreement: Alasdair MacIntyre: "Moral Disagreements" Egoism: David P. Gauthier: "The Incompleat Egoist" Suggested Supplementary Readings Chapter 3: Justification and Truth Case Study: Organ Procurement Policies Moral Arguments and Moral Justification Internal and External Justifications Ultimate Justification and Individual Choice: William K. Frankena: "Why Be Moral?" Cognitivism Noncognitivism Moral Realism and Antirealism: David McNaughton: "Morality--Invention or Discovery?" J.L. Mackie: "Subjectivsim, Objectism, and the Error Theory" Reflective Equilibrium: John Rawls: "Some Remarks About Moral Theory" Conclusion Suggested Supplementary Readings PART 2: CLASSICAL ETHICAL THEORIES Chapter 4: Mill and Utilitarian Theories Case Study: Health Policy for Hypertension The Objectives of Normative Theories The Utilitarian Conception of Morality: John Stuart Mills: "Utilitarianism" The Concept of Utility Act Utilitariansim: J.J.C. Smart: "An Outline of a System of Utilitarian Ethics" Rule Utilitarianism: Richard B. Brandt: "Some Merits of One Form of Rule-Utilitarianism" Criticisms and Defenses of Utilitarianism: Robert Nozick: "Moral Constraints and Moral Goals" Conclusion Suggested Supplementary Readings Chapter 5: Kant and Deontological Theories Case Study: Plutonium Secrets The Deontological Conception of Morality: John Rawls: "Utilitarianism and Deontology" Kant's Ethics: Immanual Kant: "The Good Will and the Categorical Imperative" Prima Facie Obligations: W.D. Ross: "What Makes Right Acts Right?" Respect for Persons and Respect for Autonomy Deontolgoical Constraints Criticisms and Defenses of Deontolgoical Theories Conclusion Suggested Supplementary Readings Chapter 6: Aristotle and Virtue Theories Case Study: The Virtues of Jane Addams The Concept of Virtue Aristotelian Ethics: Aristotle: "Moral Virtue" The Special Place of the Virtues: Alasdair MacIntyre: "The Nature of the Virtues" Can Virtues and Obligations Coexist? Moral Ideals and Moral Excellence: Joel Feinberg: "Obligation and Supererogation" Criticisms and Defenses of Virtue Ethics: Robert B. Louden: "On Some Vices of Virtue Ethics" Conclusion Suggested Supplementary Readings Chapter 7: Hume and Humean Theories Case Study: Drinking Dessert Wines Hume's Moral Philosophy: David Hume: "The Principles of Morals" Morals by Invention: J.L. Mackie: "The Content of Ethics" Morals by Agreement: David Gauthier: "David Hume, Contractarian" The Voice of Moral Sentiment: Annette Baier: "Hume, The Women's Moral Theorist?" Criticisms of Humean Ethics Conclusion Suggested Supplementary Readings PART 3: TOPICS IN MORAL AND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY Chapter 8: Rights Case Study: The Taliban in Control Rights and Human Rights Liberalism and Its Communitarian Critics: Joel Feinberg: "Liberalism and Dogmatism" The Communitarian Rejection of Liberalism: Charles Taylor: "Atomism" Jeremy Waldron: "When Justice Replaces Affection: The Needs for Rights" Rights Against Oppression: Susan Moller Okin: "Feminism, Women's Human Rights, and Cultural Differences" Types of Rights The Contingency of Rights Right-Based Ethical Theories Conclusion Suggested Supplementary Readings Chapter 9: Justice Case Study: Nuclear Fallout in the Marshall Islands The Nature of Justice Principles of Justice The Liberatarian Theory: Robert Nozick: "The Entitlement Theory" The Egalitarian Theory: John Rawls: "An Egalitarian Theory of Justice" Criticisms of Theories of Justice: Alasdair Mac Intryre: Rival Justices, Competing Rationalities Susan Moller Okin: "The Family: Beyond Justice?" Conclusion Suggested Supplementary Readings Chapter 10: Liberty Case Study: Restricting Access to the Internet The Concepts of Autonomy and Liberty The Valid Restriction of Liberty: John Stuart Mill: "On Liberty" Legal Moralism: Robert George: "Making Men Moral" The Offense Principles: Joel Feinberg: "'Harmless Immoralities' and Offensive Nuances" Paternalism: Gerald Dworkin: "Paternalism" Conclusion Suggested Supplementary Readings

Children's social interactions in the context of moral and conventional transgressions.

Abstract: NuccI, LARRY P., and Nucci, MARIA SANTIAGO. Children's Social Interactions in the Context of Moral and Conventional Transgressions. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1982, 53, 403-412. Observations were made in 10 schools at the second, fifth-, and seventh-grade levels of the forms of responses teachers and children provided to moral and social conventional transgressions. A total of 439 moral and 1,045 social conventional events were observed. It was found that the responses of both teachers and children to social conventional events differed from their responses to moral events. Children were much more likely to respond to moral events than to conventional events. Their responses to moral events revolved around the intrinsic (hurtful or unjust) consequences of the actions upon victims. Children's responses to conventional transgressions focused on aspects of the social order (that is, rules, normative expectations). Children showed an increased tendency to respond to convention with age. Teachers were more likely to respond to social conventional than to moral events. Their responses to the two forms of transgression complemented the responses made by children. Both the teacher and child forms of response to transgression changed with child age. In a second aspect of the study it was found, through interviews of children about ongoing events, that the children made a conceptual discrimination between the observed moral and conventional events.

Law as Interpretation

Abstract: and a concrete intention here: the delegate intends to prohibit discrimination in whatever in fact is of fundamental interest and also intends not to prohibit segregated schools. These are not isolated, discrete intentions; our descriptions, we might say, describe the same intention in different ways. But it matters very much which description a theory of legislative intention accepts as canonical. If we accept the first description, then a judge who wishes to follow the delegate's intentions, but who believes that education is a matter of fundamental interest, will hold segregation unconstitutional. If we accept the second, he will not. The choice between the two descriptions cannot be made by any further reflection about what an intention really is. It must be made by deciding that one rather than the other description is more appropriate in virtue of the best theory of representative democracy or on some other openly political ground. (I might add that no compelling argument has yet been produced, so far as I am aware, in favor of deferring to a delegate's more concrete intentions, and that this is of major importance in arguments about whether the "original intention" of the Framers requires, for example, abolishing racial discrimination, or capital punishment.) 546 547 O PISKIJAKIRJA TO 2002 When we consider the common-law problems of interpretation, the author's intention theory shows in an even poorer light. The problems are not simply evidentiary. Perhaps we can discover what was "in the mind" of all the judges who decided cases about accidents at one time or another in our legal history. We might also discover (or speculate) about the psychodynamic or economic or social explanations of why each judge thought what he or she did. No doubt the result of all this research (or speculation) would be a mass of psychological data essentially different for each of the past judges included in the study, and order could be brought into the mass, if at all, only through statistical summaries about which proportion of judges in which historical period probably held which opinion and was more or less subject to which influence. But this mass, even tamed by statistical summary, would be of no more help to the judge trying to answer the question of what the prior decisions, taken as a whole, really come to than the parallel information would be to one of our chain novelists trying to decide what novel the novelists earlier in the chain had collectively written. That judgment, in each case, requires a fresh exercise of interpretation which is neither brute historical research nor a clean-slate expression of how things ideally ought to be. A judge who believed in the importance of discerning an author's intention might try to escape these problems by selecting one particular judge or a small group of judges in the past (say, the judges who decided the most recent case something like his or the case he thinks closest to his) and asking what rule that judge on group intended to lay down for the future. This would treat the particular earlier judges as legislators and so invite all the problems of statutory interpretation including the very serious problem we just noticed. Even so, it would not even escape the special problems of common-law adjudication after all, because the judge who applied this theory of interpretation would have to suppose himself entitled to look only to the intentions of the particular earlier judge or judges he had selected, and he could not suppose this unless he thought that it was the upshot of judicial practice as a whole (and not just the intentions of some other selected earlier judge) that this is what judges in his position should do. IV. Politics in Interpretation If my claims about the role of politics in legal interpretation are sound, then we should expect to find distinctly liberal or radical or conservative opinions not only about what the Constitution and laws of our nation should be but also about what they are. And this is exactly what we do find. Interpretation of the equal protection clause of the Constitution provides especially vivid examples. There can be no useful interpretation of what that clause means independent of some theory about what political equality is and how far equality is required by justice, and the history of the last half-century of constitutional law is largely an exploration of exactly these issues of political morality, Conservative lawyers argued steadily (though not consistently) in favor of an author's intentions style of interpreting this clause, and they accused others, who used a different style with more egalitarian results, of inventing rather than interpreting law. But this was bluster meant to hide the role their own political convictions played in their choice of interpretive style, and the great legal debates over the equal protection clause would have been more illuminating if it had been more widely recognized that reliance on political theory is not a corruption of interpretation but part of what interpretation means. Should politics play any comparable role in literary and other artistic interpretation? We have become used to the idea of the politics of interpretation. Stanley Fish, particularly, has promoted a theory of interpretation which supposes that contests between rival schools of literary interpretation are more political than argumentative: rival professoriates in search of dominion. And of course it is a truism of the sociology of literature, and not merely of the Marxist contribution to that discipline, that fashion in interpretation is sensitive to and ex. presses more general political and economic structures. These important claims are external: they touch the causes of the rise of this or that approach to literature and interpretation. We are now concerned with the internal question, about politics in rather than the politics of interpretation.9 How far can principles of political morality actually count as arguments for a particular interpretation of a particular work or for a general approach to artistic interpretation? There are many possibilities and many of them are parasitic on claims developed or in these essays. It was said that our commitment to feminism, or our fidelity to nation, or our dissatisfaction with the rise of the New Right, ought to influence our evaluation and appreciation of literature. Indeed it was the general (though not unanimous) sense of the conference that professional criticism must be faulted for its inattention to such political issues. But if our convictions about these particular political issues count in deciding how good some novel or play or poem is, then they must also count in deciding, among particular 9 See Politics of Interpretation, 9 CRITICAL INQUIRY I (1982) 548 549 O PISKIJAKIRJA TO 2002 interpretations of these works, which is the best interpretation. Or so they must if my argument is sound. We might also explore a more indirect connection between aesthetic and political theory. Any comprehensive theory of art is likely to have, at its center, some epistemological thesis, some set of views about the relations that hold among experience, self-consciousness, and the perception or formation of values. If it assigns self-discovery any role in art, it will need a theory of personal identity adequate to mark off the boundaries of a person from his or her circumstances, and from other persons, or at least to deny the reality of any such boundaries. It seems likely that any comprehensive theory of social justice will also have roots in convictions about these or very closely related issues. Liberalism, for example, which assigns great importance to autonomy, may depend upon a particular picture of the role that judgments of value play in people's lives; it may depend on the thesis that people's convictions about value are beliefs, open to argument and review, rather than simply the givens of personality, fixed by genetic and social causes. And any political theory that gives an important place to equality also requires assumptions about the boundaries of persons, because it must distinguish between treating people as equals and changing them into different people. It may be a sensible project, at least, to inquire whether there are not particular philosophical bases shared by particular aesthetic and particular political theories so that we can properly speak of a liberal or Marxist or perfectionist or totalitarian aesthetics, for example, in that sense. Common questions and problems hardly guarantee this, of course. It would be necessary to see, for example, whether liberalism can indeed be traced, as many philosophers have supposed, back into a discrete epistemological base, different from that of other political theories, and then ask whether that discrete base could be carried forward into aesthetic theory and there yield a distinctive interpretive style. I have no good idea that this project could be successful, and I end simply by acknowledging my sense that politics, art, and law are united, somehow, in philosophy.

Jurgen Habermas and the Idea of Legitimation Crisis

Abstract: This paper explores one aspect of the recent work of Jurgen Habermas on Legitimation Crisis. It focuses attention on Habermas's claim that the pre-capitalist moral values on which capitalism has hitherto relied have become progressively displaced by the growth of the capitalist economy. This has produced central problems for the state management of the economy, in the absence of an established internalized set of values which could act both as restraints upon economic demands and as reinforcements to an ethic of work. Various attempts to solve this problem proposed by Hayek and Luhman are discussed together with Habermas's own proposal for a rational consensus view of morality which could lead to a new Sittlichkeit. The conclusion of the paper is that while rational discussion of values is important, this does not entail that the possibility agreement is required to make sense of this activity. Habermas's notion of undistorted communication as a way of recommending a moral foundation for politics is not feasible.

Beyond self-constructed knowledge: The study of culture and morality.

Abstract: This essay is a review of what is known and what is not known about three is sues in comparative ethics: (a) What are the ideas and concepts associated with moral thinking in normal (non-sociopathic) Western adults? (b) What are the processes resulting in a judgment that something is a vice or a virtue? and (c) Are those ideas, concepts, and processes available in different cultures and at different ages?

Animal Rights and Human Morality

Abstract: Bernard Rollin is an academic philosopher, and he approaches his subject as good philosophers do—identifying critical questions, explicating their meanings, and pondering their implications Animal Rights and Human Morality is about whether animals have moral and legal rights, particularly in the area of medical research This is not an easy issue to tackle, nor one devoid of confusion The author makes an interesting and erudite case for such rights and the need to recognize them, drawing on a wide variety of sources, including Kant, theories of animal awareness, moral theory, and law His arguments are followed by a section on supposed abuses of animals used for research purposes At issue are the practical demands of medical research set against animals' rights A book as broad ranging as this one cannot hope to achieve all its objectives in 182 pages But some things are clear The author considerably broadens our awareness

Morality and the retributive emotions

Abstract: (1982). Morality and the retributive emotions. Criminal Justice Ethics: Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 3-10.

Supererogation : its status in ethical theory

Abstract: Part I. The View of Some Major Ethical Theories: 1. Theological origins in Christianity 2. The morality of virtue: the Greco-Roman view 3. The morality of duty: Kant on supererogation 4. Utilitarianism 5. Beyond duty in contract theories Part II. Outlines of a Theory of Supererogation: 7. Some paradigm cases 8. The limits of moral duty.

Algebra of conscience

Abstract: Foreword A. Rapoport. Acknowledgments to the second edition. Acknowledgments to the first edition. Preface to the second ediction. Introductory Chapter. Part One: Ethical Systems. I. Moral Cognition. II. Ethical Systems and Boolean Algebra. III. Boolean Algebra, Exponent, Logarithm. IV. Individuals, Reflexion, and Interaction. V. Automata with Semantics and Ethical Status. VI. A Formal Representation of Doubts and Feelings. VII. A Formal Comparison of Ethical Systems: Guilt, Condemnation, Doubt. VIII. A Formal Comparison of Ethical Systems: Doubts and Ethical Status. IX. Ethical Analysis of Artistic and Propagandistic Literature. X. Experimental Analysis of Normative Individuals. XI. The Principle of Maximization of the Ethical Status of One's Image of Oneself. XII. Feelings and Sacrifices. XIII. Formal Connections between Modules of Inner Structures and Individuals. XIV. Interaction. Activity and Its Measure. XV. Ethical Typology in the Novel Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky. XVI. Ideology, Morality, and Political Organization. XVII. Generalization. Proof of Existence of Ethically Non-Measurable Situations. Part Two: Moral Choice. I. The Tree-Faced Janus: An Initial Metaphor for the Model of the Subject. II. A Boolean Model of Bipolar Choice. III. Metachoice. IV. Modeling of Awareness. V. The Prisoner's Dilemma. VI. The Morality of Results and the Morality of Means. VII. A Boolean-Linear Model of the Subject. VIII. Examples of Modeling the Process of Choice. IX. Imitation of the Other. X. The subject Controlling His Relationships with Another Subject. XI. Two Aspects of Choice. XII. Generalization of Classical Game Theory of 2x2 Zero-Sum Game. XIII. Risk and Caution. XIV. The Non-Linear Model of the Subject. XV. Subject with a Quadratic Model of the Situation. XVI. Streams of Consciousness and Difference Equations. XVII. Streams of Consciousness and Acts of Awareness Epilogue to Part Two. Appendices. References. Index of Names. Subject Index.

Conceptual Development in the Moral and Conventional Domains: Implications for Values Education

Abstract: This article reviews recent research and related theory indicating that individuals’ conceptions of social convention and morality are constructed with in distinct developmental systems emerging out of qualitatively differing environmental interactions. The research indicates that people of all ages distinguish between those actions (moral) having an intrinsic effect upon the rights or well-being of others, and actions (social conventional) whose propriety is determined by the societal context (i.e., implicit or explicit societal norms). In addition, the research demonstrates that concepts about morality and convention follow independent and distinct developmental patterns.The article discusses the limits of current values education programs (e.g., Kohlbergian, values clarification) in terms of their failure to coordinate the teaching of social values with students’ differential conceptions of morality and convention.In addition, the article presents implications for classroom management procedures, the d...

The evolutionary development of morality as an effect of dominance behavior and conflict interference

Abstract: Morality may be defined as the problem solving activities of a moral community, a primary group which uses a wide range of sanctions directly to reduce conflict, which also sanctions perceived causes of conflict, and defines and controls other deviances judged to be antisocial. So defined, morality is a precondition for law. In comparing human with non-human primates, conflict management is one of the most impressive parallels. This empirical parallel is built upon, to construct an evolutionary scenario for the development of morality and law in their proto-forms.

Working on the Chain Gang: Interpretation in the Law and in Literary Criticism

Abstract: principle by which one can calculate the degree to which a given theory fits smoothly with "the constitutional scheme as a whole." But these alternatives are simply flip sides of the same positivism. If the shape of the constituent parts is self-evident, then no independent principle is required to decide whether or not they fit together; and by the same reasoning an independent principle of fit will be able to do its job only if the shape of the constituent parts is self-evident. For as soon as the shape of the parts becomes a matter of dispute (as it would for judges who conceived the constitutional rules or the settled practices differently), the judgment of what fits with what will be in dispute as well. In short, the criterion of fitness is no less theoretical than the theories Dworkin would have it decide between, and by claiming an independence for it, he once again compromises the coherence of his position. In general Dworkin's confusions have the same form: he argues against positivism, but then he has recourse to positivist notions. At one point he observes that Hercules' decision about a "community morality" will sometimes be controversial, especially when the issue concerns "some contested political concept, like fairness or liberality or equality," and the institutional history "is not sufficiently detailed so that it can be justified by only one among different conceptions of that concept" (p. 127). The language is somewhat vague here, but it would seem that Dworkin is assuming the possibility of a history that was "sufficiently detailed": that is, a history so dense (a favorite word of his) that it was open to only one reading of the morality informing it. In relation to such a history Hercules would be in the position of the later novelists in Dworkin's imagined chain, obliged to "admit only one good-faith interpretation"; but at that point Hercules would be doing what Dworkin himself says no judge can possibly do, mechanically reading off the meaning of a text that constrained its own interpretation. I trust that I have said enough to support my contention that the errors I find in the present essay can also be found in Dworkin's earlier work. But I must also say that, at least in the case of "Hard Cases," those errors are less damaging. "Hard Cases" is primarily an argument against "classical theories of adjudication ... which suppose that ajudge follows statutes or precedent until the clear direction of these runs out, after which he is free to strike out on his own" (p. 118). Dworkin's critique of these theories seems to me powerful and entirely persuasive, and, moreover, in its main lines it does not depend on the general account of interpretation that occasionally and (to my mind) disconcertingly surfaces. In "Law as Interpretation," on the other hand, Dworkin is concerned to elaborate that general account, and in that essay, as I have tried to show, the incidental weaknesses of the earlier work become crucial and even fatal. Stanley Fish This content downloaded from 157.55.39.35 on Mon, 29 Aug 2016 06:20:51 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Moral Philosophy in Social Work Today

Abstract: In response to major social changes, the social work profession's moral philosophy and mission have become fragmented and weakened. Some social workers are being charged as "immoral." Official positions taken by professional organizations on certain moral issues are controversial and express a libertarian morality that is open to question and criticism. It is suggested that this whole subject merits open dialogue, that the profession's moral philosophy be reformulated and tested in practice, and that the study of social work philosophy and ethics be reestablished in the basic social work educational curriculum.

Ethics in Nursing

Abstract: MORAL DILEMMAS AND ETHICAL INJURY: Moral dilemmas in nursing Ethical codes: Uses and limitations The fundamental question of morality ethical inquiry Ethical autonomy and institutional-hierarchical constraints: UNAVOIDABLE TOPICS IN ETHICAL THEORY: Introduction Basic ethical principles knowledge in ethics Ethics, law, and religion NURSES AND CLIENTS: Introduction Parentalism Deception Confidentiality Personal risks and professional obligations Conflicting claims RECURRING ETHICAL ISSUES IN NURSE-PHYSICIAN RELATIONSHIPS: Conflicts between nurse and physician Nurse autonomy Collaborations Integrity-preserving compromise Conscientious refusal Determining responsibility ETHICAL DILEMMAS AMONG NURSES: Tensions between nurses Respect for persons Professional obligations Administrative dilemmas PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR INSTITUTIONAL AND PUBLIC POLICY: The scope of individual responsibility Institutional policies and strikes Institutional ethics committees Blowing the whistle Public policy: Advance directives Putting it all together COST CONTAINMENT, JUSTICE, AND RATIONING: Introduction Cost containment and the claims of justice Access to care The concept of rationing The oregon proposal Toward ethical rationing Rationing and the importance of nursing care The expanded scope of nursing ethics.

How moral agents became ghosts or why the history of ethics diverged from that of the philosophy of mind

Abstract: At the very beginning of modern moral philosophy which for reasons that will become clear, I date in the 1780s the moral agent as traditionally understood almost, if not quite, disappeared from view. The moral agent's character, the structure of his desires and dispositions, became at best a peripheral rather than a central topic for moral philosophy, thus losing the place assigned to it by the vast majority of moral philosophers from Plato to Hume. And with this displacement the history of moral philosophy was divorced to a large and quite new extent from the philosophy of mind and action. The implications for the philosophy of mind are not inconsiderable, for it is in part at least because of this divorce, and not only because of Cartesian influences upon epistemology, that that part of philosophy became merely the philosophy of mind rather than the philosophy of mind-and-action. But the alterations in the preoccupations of moral philosophy itself were even more drastic. What replaced and still too often replaces the concept of moral character at the core of philosophical thinking about morality was and is a conception of choice of a particular kind as central to moral agency. Originally in the writings of Reid and Kant this choice was conceived of as that which individuals make between the promptings of desire and the requirements of morality; much later in the writings of Sartre it has become the individual's choice of those principles obedience to whose prescriptions constitutes morality. In both earlier and later writers it is common to find this notion of choice closely connected with the praise of individual autonomy as a defining property of morality. A. N. Prior summarised Reid's view of the matter accurately: "In

Habermas on Truth and Justice

Abstract: The problem which motivates this paper bears on the relationship between Marxism and morality. It is not the well-established question of whether the Marxist's commitments undermine an attachment to ethical standards, but the more neglected query as to whether they allow the espousal of political ideals. The study and assessment of political ideals is pursued nowadays under the title of theory of justice, the aim of such theory being to provide a criterion for distinguishing just patterns of social organization from unjust ones. The main rivals in the field represent justice respectively as legitimacy, welfare and fairness. Marxism does not put forward a distinctive conception of justice itself and the question is whether the Marxist is free to choose as he thinks fit among the candidates on offer

Durkheim’s Suicide

Abstract: The spirit of scientific endeavour and the growth of scientific knowledge in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries increasingly drew the observer towards the conclusion that, as Morris puts it, ‘the things and events he experienced were determined and controlled by forces within the world rather than outside it’.1 The spectacular advances of the natural sciences led many to the belief that diligent application of the same principles and procedures to the study of human behaviour would, ultimately, produce an understanding of the social world equivalent to the scientist’s grasp of the natural world. Thus debating the meaning and morality of social phenomena increasingly gave way to a factual interest in them and traditional concern with the ‘evilness’ (or otherwise) of suicide — should people do it?2 — was transcended by the question of why people do it. In this quest students were encouraged not to search themselves for essences and ultimate truths, but rather, to ‘distance’ themselves from their material; social phenomena were, after all, only ‘facts’, and as such could be analysed objectively.3 In this undertaking the observer must clear his mind of preconception, and base analysis on careful observation and description. Morselli, in his classic study, explained that suicide is ‘connected to the natural development of society’, and that this only became apparent through the adoption of a scientific approach: This new aspect of suicide could not become clear when metaphysical systems prevailed; it was necessary to collect all the facts, to unite them together, to consider their analogy and differences, to do, in short, precisely the reverse of what philosophy had done up to that time. That is not to start from a preconceived system, but to base arguments on facts supplied by observation and, when possible, by experiment.4