Topic
Morality
About: Morality is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 22623 publications have been published within this topic receiving 545733 citations. The topic is also known as: moral & morals.
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TL;DR: The primal scene of morality is not one in which I do something to you or he does something to me as discussed by the authors, but a scene in which a group of people must make a decision together and their task is to find the reasons they can share.
Abstract: To later generations, much of the moral philosophy of the twentieth century will look like a struggle to escape from utilitarianism. We seem to succeed in disproving one utilitarian doctrine, only to find ourselves caught in the grip of another. I believe that this is because a basic feature of the consequentialist outlook still pervades and distorts our thinking: the view that the business of morality is to bring something about. Too often, the rest of us have pitched our protests as if we were merely objecting to the utilitarian account of what the moral agent ought to bring about or how he ought to do it. Deontological considerations have been characterized as “side constraints,” as if they were essentially restrictions on ways to realize ends. More importantly, moral philosophers have persistently assumed that the primal scene of morality is a scene in which someone does something to or for someone else. This is the same mistake that children make about another primal scene. The primal scene of morality, I will argue, is not one in which I do something to you or you do something to me, but one in which we do something together. The subject matter of morality is not what we should bring about, but how we should relate to one another. If only Rawls has succeeded in escaping utilitarianism, it is because only Rawls has fully grasped this point. His primal scene, the original position, is one in which a group of people must make a decision together. Their task is to find the reasons they can share.
125 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1986
TL;DR: This paper argued that people increasingly appeal to natural imperatives, instead of moral ones, to explain and justify their actions and those of others, and that "human nature" utterly and unalterably equates with the pursuit of self-interest.
Abstract: Out of the investigations and speculations of contemporary science, a challenging view of human behavior and society has emerged and gained strength. It is a view that equates "human nature" utterly and unalterably with the pursuit of self-interest. Influenced by this view, people increasingly appeal to natural imperatives, instead of moral ones, to explain and justify their actions and those of others.
125 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate the relationship between perceived motivational climate and moral functioning, moral atmosphere, and legitimizing sports acts among competitive youth football players, finding that perceived performance climate will be associated with lower moral functioning and less appropriate moral atmosphere perceptions, and a greater likelihood of legitimizing aggression in competitive football.
125 citations
Book•
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01 Jan 2005
TL;DR: The authors argued that blame is inseperable from morality itself and that any considerations that justify us in accepting a set of moral principles must also call for the condemnation of those who violate the principles.
Abstract: Blame is an unpopular and neglected notion: it goes against the grain of a therapeutically-oriented culture and has been far less discussed by philosophers than such related notions as responsibility and punishment. This book seeks to show that neither the opposition nor the neglect is justified. The book's most important conclusion is that blame is inseperable from morality itself - that any considerations that justify us in accepting a set of moral principles must also call for the condemnation of those who violate the principles. Properly understood, blame and morality must stand or fall together.
125 citations