Normative Virtue Theory in Theological Ethics
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Psychology and the Aims of Normative Ethics”
Regina A. Rini (forthcoming). “Psychology and the Aims of Normative Ethics”. To appear in Springer Handbook of Neuroethics (ed. J. Clausen and N. Levy). Psychology and the Aims of Normative Ethics Regina A. Rini University of Oxford [email protected] Abstract: This chapter discusses the philosophical relevance of empirical research on moral cognition. It distinguishes three central aims of normative ethical theory: understanding the nature of moral agency, identifying morally right actions, and determining the justification of moral beliefs. For each of these aims, the chapter considers and rejects arguments against employing cognitive scientific research in normative inquiry. It concludes by suggesting that, whichever of the central aims one begins from, normative ethics is improved by engaging with the science of moral cognition. Key words: is/ought gap, moral agency, moral intuition, moral philosophy, ought-implies- can I. Three Central Questions of Normative Ethics It is undeniable that the field of empirical moral psychology has grown dramatically in the last decade, with new experimental techniques allowing us unprecedented understanding of the causal and computational structures of the human moral faculty. Or, at least, it is undeniable that this research contributes to a descriptive project, one of better understanding the facts about who we are and how we think.1 But what might be denied is that these investigations have much to offer to normative ethics, a distinctively prescriptive sort of inquiry.2 The purpose of this chapter is to show why normative ethics - the study of 1 Although this chapter discusses quite a range of psychological findings, it is not intended to be a comprehensive overview of the empirical literature. -
Social Norms and Social Influence Mcdonald and Crandall 149
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect Social norms and social influence Rachel I McDonald and Christian S Crandall Psychology has a long history of demonstrating the power and and their imitation is not enough to implicate social reach of social norms; they can hardly be overestimated. To norms. Imitation is common enough in many forms of demonstrate their enduring influence on a broad range of social life — what creates the foundation for culture and society phenomena, we describe two fields where research continues is not the imitation, but the expectation of others for when to highlight the power of social norms: prejudice and energy imitation is appropriate, and when it is not. use. The prejudices that people report map almost perfectly onto what is socially appropriate, likewise, people adjust their A social norm is an expectation about appropriate behav- energy use to be more in line with their neighbors. We review ior that occurs in a group context. Sherif and Sherif [8] say new approaches examining the effects of norms stemming that social norms are ‘formed in group situations and from multiple groups, and utilizing normative referents to shift subsequently serve as standards for the individual’s per- behaviors in social networks. Though the focus of less research ception and judgment when he [sic] is not in the group in recent years, our review highlights the fundamental influence situation. The individual’s major social attitudes are of social norms on social behavior. formed in relation to group norms (pp. 202–203).’ Social norms, or group norms, are ‘regularities in attitudes and Address behavior that characterize a social group and differentiate Department of Psychology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045, it from other social groups’ [9 ] (p. -
What Normative Terms Mean and Why It Matters for Ethical Eory
What Normative Terms Mean and Why It Matters for Ethical eory* Alex Silk University of Birmingham [email protected] Forthcoming in M. Timmons (Ed.), Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, Vol. Abstract is paper investigates how inquiry into normative language can improve substantive normative theorizing. First I examine two dimensions along which normative language differs: “strength” and “subjectivity.” Next I show how greater sensitivity to these features of the meaning and use of normative lan- guage can illuminate debates about three issues in ethics: the coherence of moral dilemmas, the possibility of supererogatory acts, and the connection between making a normative judgment and being motivated to act accord- ingly. e paper concludes with several brief reections on the theoretical utility of the distinction — at least so-called — between “normative” and “non- normative” language and judgment. e discussions of these specic linguistic and normative issues can be seen as case studies illustrating the fruitfulness of utilizing resources from philosophy of language for normative theory. Get- ting clearer on the language we use in normative conversation and theorizing can help us diagnose problems with bad arguments and formulate better mo- tivated questions. is can lead to clearer answers and bring into relief new theoretical possibilities and avenues to explore. *anks to Eric Swanson and the audience at the Fih Annual Arizona Normative Ethics Work- shop for discussion, and to two anonymous referees for comments. Contents Introduction Weak and strong necessity Endorsing and non-endorsing uses Dilemmas Supererogation Judgment internalism and “the normative” Conclusion Introduction e strategy of clarifying philosophical questions by investigating the language we use to express them is familiar. -
Consequentialism and Moral Responsibility
Consequentialism and Moral Responsibility Draft of September 2015 Elinor Mason For Christian Seidel (ed.) Consequentialism: new directions, new problems? OUP, forthcoming. There are two different ways of thinking about the relationship between consequentialism and moral responsibility. First, we might think that consequentialism can give us an account of responsibility. I discuss this possibility briefly, and then set it aside. The other way of thinking about the relationship is the focus of this paper. The question that concerns me, is, to what extent is a normative theory, consequentialism in particular, constrained by requirements that stem from concerns about responsibility? 1. Consequentialist Accounts of Moral Responsibility J.J.C. Smart suggests that we can extend consequentialist reasoning about morality to reasoning about responsibility. One of the attractions of consequentialism is that it provides such a straightforward and attractive account of justification for our moral practices. Why do we pay our taxes, treat each other with respect, look after each other and so on? Because doing so has good consequences. However, this sort of justification, though very appealing when considering moral practice, becomes extremely counterintuitive in other sorts of case. For example, it seems obvious that justification for beliefs cannot be consequentialist. Beliefs must be justified in some way that relates to their truth, though of course there is disagreement about exactly what makes a belief justified. Similarly, so a familiar line of thought goes, whether or not someone is responsible for an act, or for anything else, cannot be determined by looking at the consequences of holding them responsible. The claim that 1 responsibility can be understood in a consequentialist way seems like a category mistake.1 Smart’s view might be correct that, insofar as praising and blaming are actions, consequentialists should take the value of the consequences of performing those acts as the relevant factor in deciding whether or not to perform them. -
I-Ii, Question 55, Article 4
Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-16578-6 — Commentary on Thomas Aquinas's Virtue Ethics J. Budziszewski Excerpt More Information i-ii, question 55, article 4 Whether Virtue Is Suitably Dei ned? TEXT PARAPHRASE [1] Whether virtue is suitably dei ned? Is the traditional dei nition of virtue i tting? “Virtue is a good quality of the mind that enables us to live in an upright way and cannot be employed badly – one which God brings about in us, with- out us.” St. Thomas respectfully begins with this widely accepted dei nition because it would be arrogant to dismiss the result of generations of inquiry without examination. The ultimate source of the view which it encapsulates is St. Augustine of Hippo, but Augustine did not use precisely this wording. His more diffuse remarks had been condensed into a formula by Peter Lombard, 2 and the formula was then further sharpened by the Lombard’s disciples. Although St. Thomas begins with the tradition, he does not rest with it – he goes on to consider whether the received dei nition is actually correct. The i rst two Objections protest calling virtue a good quality. The third protests calling it a quality of the mind . The fourth objects to the phrase that it enables us to live rightly and the i fth to the phrase that it cannot be employed badly . Finally, the sixth protests the statement that God brings it about in us, without us . Although, in the end, St. Thomas accepts the dei nition, he does not accept it quite in the sense in which some of his predecessors did. -
Epistemic Justification, Normative Guidance, and Knowledge
13 Epistemic Justication, Normative Guidance, and Knowledge ∗ ARTURS LOGINS Abstract. Recently, Pascal Engel has defended a version of a compatibilist view in epistemology that combines both an element of externalism and an element of internalism (Engel 2007, 2012). According to this position exter- nalism has to be adopted about knowledge, whereas internalism has to be endorsed concerning epistemic justification. In this paper I argue that consi- derations that, allegedly, motivates Engel’s internalism about epistemic justi- fication, can be explained equally well, or, indeed, even better by a knowledge based externalist account of epistemic justification. ∗This paper is dedicated to Pascal Engel. I would like to express my gratefulness to Pascal for his teaching and support. His work has made an important impact on me. In particular his Engel 2000, and his Engel 2007 contributed largely to my initiation to analytic philosophy and contem- porary epistemology, respectively. The research work that lead to this article was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) grant number 100015_131794 (project Knowledge, Evidence, and Practice). 169 170 ARTURS LOGINS 1. Introduction Recently, Pascal Engel has defended a version of a compatibilist view in epis- temology that combines both an element of externalism and an element of internalism (Engel 2007, 2012). In short, according to this view, knowledge has to be characterized in externalist terms, whereas epistemic justification and ra- tionality has to be characterized in internalist terms. The externalist view about knowledge that Engel favours integrates a ver- sion of safety account of knowledge that requires that knowledge is safe belief and does not require that a subject has a reflective access top in order for the subject to know thatp (see Engel 2012 : 8). -
Rosalind Hursthouse, on Virtue Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999
Rosalind Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. x, 275. Reviewed by Gilbert Harman, Department of Philosophy, Princeton Univer- sity Virtue ethics is atype of ethicaltheory in which the notion of virtue or good character plays a central role. This splendid new book describes a “program” for the development of a particular (“Aristotelian”) form of virtue ethics. The book is intended to be used as a textbook, but should be read by anyone interested in moral philosophy. Hursthouse has been a major contributor to the development of virtue ethics and the program she describes, while making use of the many contributions of others, is very much her program, with numerous new ideas and insights. The book has three parts. The first dispels common misunderstandings and explains how virtue ethics applies to complex moral issues. The sec- ond discusses moral motivation, especially the motivation involved in doing something because it is right. The third explains how questions about the objectivity of ethics are to be approached within virtue ethics. Structure Hursthouse’s virtue ethics takes as central the conception of a human be- ing who possesses all ethical virtues of character and no vices or defects of character—”human being” rather than “person” because the relevant char- acter traits are “natural” to the species. To a first approximation, virtue ethics says that a right action is an action among those available that a perfectly virtuous human being would charac- teristically do under the circumstances. This is only a first approximation because of complications required in order accurately to describe certain moral dilemmas. -
Hartian Positivism and Normative Facts: How Facts Make Law II
UCLA UCLA Public Law & Legal Theory Series Title Hartian Positivism and Normative Facts: How Facts Make Law II Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/81q9p7hk Author Greenberg, Mark Publication Date 2006-03-03 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Hartian Positivism and Normative Facts: How Facts Make Law II Mark Greenberg UCLA School of Law and Department of Philosophy I. Introduction In How Facts Make Law and other recent papers,1 I argue that a full constitutive account of the content of the law – of legal facts – must appeal to normative facts. The project of HFML is to defend this position without assuming that legal facts are themselves normative facts. The argument’s engine is a requirement that a constitutive account of legal facts must meet. According to this rational-relation requirement,2 it is not enough for a constitutive account of legal facts to specify non-legal facts that modally determine the legal facts. The constitutive determinants of legal facts must provide reasons for the obtaining of the legal facts (in a sense of “reason” that I develop). In HFML,3 I argue that non-normative, contingent facts – descriptive facts, for short – do not provide such reasons without normative facts.4 In the present paper, I focus on the rational-relation requirement. I deploy it in three related projects. First, I respond to a family of objections that challenge me to explain why normative facts and descriptive facts together are better placed to provide 1 Mark Greenberg, How Facts Make Law, <INSERT CITE FOR HFML IN THIS VOLUME HERE 2006> [hereinafter HFML]. -
Normative Surrender
Michigan Journal of International Law Volume 9 Issue 1 1988 Normative Surrender Jerome B. Elkind University of Wyoming, College of Law Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjil Part of the Human Rights Law Commons, International Law Commons, and the Public Law and Legal Theory Commons Recommended Citation Jerome B. Elkind, Normative Surrender, 9 MICH. J. INT'L L. 263 (1988). Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjil/vol9/iss1/9 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Michigan Journal of International Law at University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Michigan Journal of International Law by an authorized editor of University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Normative Surrender Jerome B. Elkind* INTRODUCTION In the published papers of a recent colloquium on the life and works of Hugo Grotius, the observation was made that Grotius attempted to steer a path between "Utopian idealism which had no chance of exercising any influence on the actual behavior of States, and Machiavellian realism which would have amounted to total surrender to their will and whim."' Concern for the distinction between idealism and realism, an issue even at the dawn of the era of power politics, is very much a current issue. In the world of modem international law doctrine there is no greater scorn than that reserved by self-professed "realists" for those whom they choose to regard as "idealists." In the cynical atmosphere of the late twentieth century, it is fashionable to be a realist. -
Normative and Descriptive Aspects of Management Education: Differentiation and Integration
Journal of Educational Issues ISSN 2377-2263 2015, Vol. 1, No. 1 Normative and Descriptive Aspects of Management Education: Differentiation and Integration Gavriel Meirovich (Corresponding author) Department of Management, Bertolon School of Business, Salem State University 352 Lafayette Street, Salem, MA 01930, United States Tel: 978-543-6948 Fax: 978-542-6027 E-mail: [email protected] Received: April 7, 2015 Accepted: May 27, 2015 Published: June 3, 2015 doi:10.5296/jei.v1i1.7395 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5296/jei.v1i1.7395 Abstract This study advocates strongly for clear differentiation and synthesis of descriptive and normative approaches in management education. There is a certain isolation of normative and descriptive theoretical frameworks presented in management courses. Normative frameworks in management explain how organizations should be managed, while descriptive frameworks show how they actually are managed. Significant portions of what we teach in the business curriculum are predominantly descriptive; other parts are mostly normative, or prescriptive. If these domains are not sufficiently connected, the relevance of both approaches diminishes. When one piece of material explains only the current reality without providing tools to improve it, while another piece prescribes steps for improvement that are not grounded in a particular context, students lose interest in both. The paper presents various modes of differentiation and integration between two realms and pertinent ways to recalibrate management courses. Keywords: Normative and descriptive framework, Differentiation, Integration 1. Introduction The purpose of business education is preparing future business professionals for successful careers and meaningful lives. The continued rise of its cost poses difficult questions about the relevance of contemporary business education in general and management education in particular. -
Normative Ethics
Normative ethics From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Normative ethics is the new "it" branch of philosophical ethics concerned with Ethics classifying actions as right and wrong. Theoretical Normative ethics attempts to develop a set of rules governing human conduct, Meta-ethics or a set of norms for action. It deals with what people should believe to be right Normative · Descriptive Consequentialism and wrong, as distinct from descriptive ethics, which deals with what people do Deontology believe to be right and wrong. Hence, normative ethics is sometimes said to be Virtue ethics prescriptive, rather than descriptive. Ethics of care Good and evil · Morality Moreover, because it examines standards for the rightness and wrongness of actions, normative ethics is distinct from meta-ethics, which studies the nature Applied of moral statements, and from applied ethics, which places normative rules in practical contexts. Bioethics · Medical Engineering · Environmental Human rights · Animal rights Normative ethical theories Legal · Media Business · Marketing Consequentialism (Teleology) argues that the morality of an action is Religion · War contingent on the action's outcome or result. Some consequentialist theories include: Core issues Utilitarianism, which holds that an action is right if it leads to the most value for the greatest number of people (Maximizes value for Justice · Value all people). Right · Duty · Virtue Egoism, the belief that the moral person is the self-interested Equality · Freedom · Trust person, holds that an action is right if it maximizes good for the Free will · Consent self. Moral responsibility Deontology argues that decisions should be made considering the factors Key thinkers of one's duties and other's rights. -
CHV 319: Normative Ethics Fall Semester 2014/15
PHI 319/ CHV 319: Normative Ethics Fall semester 2014/15 Instructor: Johann Frick Office: 203 Marx Hall Office Hours: Wednesdays 10am-noon. Phone: 8-9494 Email: [email protected] Course Description Normative ethics is the systematic study of what is morally right or wrong, good or bad, just or unjust, and why. In Part 1 of this course, we will closely examine a number of rival moral theories that provide answers to these questions. We will contrast utilitarian or, more broadly, consequentialist moral theories with various non-consequentialist alternatives, such as contractualism and Kantian ethics, and investigate their respective strengths and weaknesses. Amongst the issues we will discuss are: • Obligations to the distant needy and the demandingness of consequentialism • Ideal vs non-ideal moral theories • Theories of wellbeing • Moral aggregation and the ‘Numbers Problem’ • Intentions and permissibility and the ‘Doctrine of Double Effect’ • Killing vs letting die and the ‘Trolley Problem’ • Negative responsibility, complicity with evil, and the problem of ‘dirty hands’ • Moral maxims and Kant’s Categorical Imperative. In Part 2 of the course, we will look at a number of concrete issues in normative ethics, often connected to the broader theoretical debates examined in Part 1. These will include: • Liberty and paternalism • Moral limits on markets: objections from commodification and exploitation • The value of distributive equality • The ethics of risk imposition • ‘Moral luck’ • Suicide • Abortion • The moral status of future persons and the ‘Non-Identity Problem’. Course Requirements Lectures are Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:00 to 11:50 am, in McCosh 2. The location and timing of precepts will be determined after the second class.