Situational ethics

About: Situational ethics is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 4023 publications have been published within this topic receiving 145379 citations.

Sustaining Non-Rationalized Practices: Body-Mind, Power, and Situational Ethics. An Interview with Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus

Abstract: Concepts like the body, power and ethics have occupied a central place in Hubert Dreyfus' work, for instance on Foucault, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty Yet, I’ve been struck by the virtual absence of these concepts in your work on learning Let’s talk about the body first You have given the most comprehensive account of your five-stage model of learning in your book Mind Over Machine In the title of the book and in the book’s general statements about learning ‘mind’ is emphasized It seems to me, however, that many of the examples you provide depend on bodily learning, even if you don’t explicitly state it as such There is a budding discussion these years about the role of the body in philosophy and social thinking How does the body enter into your model of learning and how does this relate to the old split between body and mind in Western thinking? – This is the first question of many posed by Bent Flyvbjerg to Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus in a penetrating interview about their workDen danske version af denne artikel kan findes pa: http://ssrncom/abstract=2278464

Accurate interpersonal perception: Many traditions, one topic.

Abstract: Research on people's accuracy in perceiving other people's states, traits, and social attributes has existed for over 100 years. In the past few decades, however, it has exploded into a vibrant, interdisciplinary, and international pursuit with relevance to all areas of social, interpersonal, and intrapersonal life. However, researchers typically work within narrowly defined traditions within the field. The present volume brings these areas together to describe method, theory, and findings for seven content domains (judging emotions, thoughts and feelings, truth versus lie, personality, social attributes, others’ views of self, and group attitudes). Correlates at the group, individual, and situational levels are discussed, as well as the basic question: how accurate are people in judging other people? The strengths, weaknesses, and gaps in this field are discussed, and directions for future research are offered.

Attributed freedom and personal causation

Abstract: An experiment was performed to test the thesis that an actor's freedom inferred from his act by an observer is a function of the degree to which the act is attributed to the actor's person. Subjects received information about a target person's predispositions and about his behavior in a specific situation and answered questions as to this person's perceived freedom and attributed responsibility for the behavior depicted. Consistent with the hypothesis above it was found that: (a) Greater freedom and responsibility were attributed to the target person when the act was consistent with his presumed predispositions; (b) when the act was inconsistent with the target person's predispositions, greater freedom was assumed when it was also incongruent with the situational demands. In addition, manipulated rationality of the act did not affect perceived freedom but was positively related to attributed responsibility. Discussion of the findings included a distinction between perceived freedom and attributed responsibility based on the difference between the observer's assuming a "subjective" versus "objective" perspective vis-a-vis the actor. The issue of freedom has been of perennial interest to the students of man. The ontological debate between the proponents of the free-will doctrine versus that of determinism has been resounding for many a century on the grounds of philosophical dispute. More recent is the existentialist fascination with the phenomenology underlying subjective freedom. To the student of ethics, of paramount importance is the role of assumed freedom in mediating moral judgments, the interrelation of assumed freedom and attributed responsibility, and others. Within scientific psychology, the concept of freedom has appeared on various occasions in the works of social and personality theorists. Thus a great deal of interest has centered around the topic of independence as a dimension of individual differences (e.g., Kagan & Moss, 1960). Similarly, the alleged need of freedom and the consequences of its frustration figured importantly in Brehm's (1966) work on psychological reactance. Also, investigators concerned with the phenomena of cognitive dissonance (especially Brehm & Cohen, 1962) stressed the importance of subjectively experienced choice, or volition, as a necessary condition for the

Situational Action Theory: A General, Dynamic and Mechanism-Based Theory of Crime and Its Causes

Abstract: The core argument of Situational Action Theory (SAT) is that people ultimately commit acts of crime because they find them viable and acceptable in the circumstance (and there is no relevant and strong enough deterrent) or because they fail to act in accordance with their own personal morals (i.e., fail to exercise self-control) in circumstances when externally pressurised to act otherwise. Situational Action Theory is a general, dynamic and mechanism-based theory of crime and its causes that analyzes crime as moral actions. It proposes to explain all kinds of crime and rule-breaking more broadly (hence general), stresses the importance of the person-environment interaction and its changes (hence dynamic), and focuses on identifying key basic explanatory processes involved in crime causation (hence mechanistic). This chapter gives an overview of the basic assumptions, central concepts and key explanatory propositions of Situational Action Theory.