Download or read book Moral Responsibility and the Boundaries of Community written by Marion Smiley and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-09-15 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The question of responsibility plays a critical role not only in our attempts to resolve social and political problems, but in our very conceptions of what those problems are. Who, for example, is to blame for apartheid in South Africa? Is the South African government responsible? What about multinational corporations that do business there? Will uncovering the "true facts of the matter" lead us to the right answer? In an argument both compelling and provocative, Marion Smiley demonstrates how attributions of blame—far from being based on an objective process of factual discovery—are instead judgments that we ourselves make on the basis of our own political and social points of view. She argues that our conception of responsibility is a singularly modern one that locates the source of blameworthiness in an individual's free will. After exploring the flaws inherent in this conception, she shows how our judgments of blame evolve out of our configuration of social roles, our conception of communal boundaries, and the distribution of power upon which both are based. The great strength of Smiley's study lies in the way in which it brings together both rigorous philosophical analysis and an appreciation of the dynamics of social and political practice. By developing a pragmatic conception of moral responsibility, this work illustrates both how moral philosophy can enhance our understanding of social and political practices and why reflection on these practices is necessary to the reconstruction of our moral concepts.
Download or read book Responsibility from the Margins written by David Shoemaker and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Shoemaker develops a novel pluralistic theory of responsibility, motivated by our ambivalence to cases of marginal agency--such as those caused by clinical depression or autism, for instance. He identifies three distinct types of responsibility, each with its own set of required capacities: attributability, answerability, and accountability.
Download or read book The Boundaries of the Moral and Legal Community written by Brian Leiter and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 27 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last 250 years both moral philosophy and ordinary moral opinion have witnessed a remarkable expansion of their conception of the 'moral' community, that is, the community of creatures that are thought entitled to basic moral (and ultimately legal) consideration - whatever the precise details of what such consideration requires. 'Being human' is what matters now in terms of membership in the moral community, not race, gender, religion, or, increasingly, sexual orientation. (Species membership - hence the 'being human' - remains a barrier to entry, however.) How to explain these developments? According to 'Whig Histories, ' this is really a story of expanding moral knowledge. Just as we discovered that the movement of mid-size physical objects is governed by the laws of Newtonian mechanics, and that those same laws do not describe the behavior of quantum particles, so too we have discovered that chattel slavery is a grave moral wrong and that women have as much moral claim on the electoral vote as men. I argue against the Whig Histories in favor of non-Whig Histories that explain the expanding moral community in terms of biological, psychological, and economic developments, not increased moral knowledge. If the non-Whig Histories are correct, should we expect the 'species barrier' to membership in the moral community to fall? I argue for a skeptical answer.
Download or read book Against Moral Responsibility written by Bruce N. Waller and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2011-10-14 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A vigorous attack on moral responsibility in all its forms argues that the abolition of moral responsibility will be liberating and beneficial. In Against Moral Responsibility, Bruce Waller launches a spirited attack on a system that is profoundly entrenched in our society and its institutions, deeply rooted in our emotions, and vigorously defended by philosophers from ancient times to the present. Waller argues that, despite the creative defenses of it by contemporary thinkers, moral responsibility cannot survive in our naturalistic-scientific system. The scientific understanding of human behavior and the causes that shape human character, he contends, leaves no room for moral responsibility. Waller argues that moral responsibility in all its forms—including criminal justice, distributive justice, and all claims of just deserts—is fundamentally unfair and harmful and that its abolition will be liberating and beneficial. What we really want—natural human free will, moral judgments, meaningful human relationships, creative abilities—would survive and flourish without moral responsibility. In the course of his argument, Waller examines the origins of the basic belief in moral responsibility, proposes a naturalistic understanding of free will, offers a detailed argument against moral responsibility and critiques arguments in favor of it, gives a general account of what a world without moral responsibility would look like, and examines the social and psychological aspects of abolishing moral responsibility. Waller not only mounts a vigorous, and philosophically rigorous, attack on the moral responsibility system, but also celebrates the benefits that would result from its total abolition.
Download or read book Moral Responsibility Oxford Bibliographies Online Research Guide written by Garrath Williams and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-06 with total page 37 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This ebook is a selective guide designed to help scholars and students of social work find reliable sources of information by directing them to the best available scholarly materials in whatever form or format they appear from books, chapters, and journal articles to online archives, electronic data sets, and blogs. Written by a leading international authority on the subject, the ebook provides bibliographic information supported by direct recommendations about which sources to consult and editorial commentary to make it clear how the cited sources are interrelated related. This ebook is a static version of an article from Oxford Bibliographies Online: Philosophy, a dynamic, continuously updated, online resource designed to provide authoritative guidance through scholarship and other materials relevant to the study Philosophy. Oxford Bibliographies Online covers most subject disciplines within the social science and humanities, for more information visit www.oxfordbibligraphies.com.
Download or read book Assessing the Boundaries of the Moral Community written by and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Responsibility and Christian Ethics written by William Schweiker and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1999-03-11 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Schweiker develops a powerful new theory of responsibility articulated in terms of Christian faith.
Download or read book Moral Responsibility and the Problem of Many Hands written by Ibo van de Poel and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-03-12 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When many people are involved in an activity, it is often difficult, if not impossible, to pinpoint who is morally responsible for what, a phenomenon known as the ‘problem of many hands.’ This term is increasingly used to describe problems with attributing individual responsibility in collective settings in such diverse areas as public administration, corporate management, law and regulation, technological development and innovation, healthcare, and finance. This volume provides an in-depth philosophical analysis of this problem, examining the notion of moral responsibility and distinguishing between different normative meanings of responsibility, both backward-looking (accountability, blameworthiness, and liability) and forward-looking (obligation, virtue). Drawing on the relevant philosophical literature, the authors develop a coherent conceptualization of the problem of many hands, taking into account the relationship, and possible tension, between individual and collective responsibility. This systematic inquiry into the problem of many hands pertains to discussions about moral responsibility in a variety of applied settings.
Download or read book Social Dimensions of Moral Responsibility written by Katrina Hutchison and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-14 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To what extent are we responsible for our actions? Philosophical theorizing about this question has recently taken a social turn, marking a shift in focus from traditional metaphysical concerns about free will and determinism. Recent theories have attended to the interpersonal dynamics at the heart of moral responsibility practices and the role of the moral environment in scaffolding agency. Yet, the implications of social inequality and the role of social power for our moral responsibility practices remains a surprisingly neglected topic. The conception of agency involved in current approaches to moral responsibility is overly idealized, assuming that our practices involve interactions between equally empowered and situated agents. In twelve new essays and a substantial introduction, this volume systematically challenges this assumption, exploring the impact of social factors such as power relationships and hierarchies, paternalism, socially constructed identities, race, gender and class on moral responsibility. Social factors have bearing on the circumstances in which agents act as well as on the person or people in the position to hold that agent accountable for his or her action. Additionally, social factors bear on the parties who pass judgment on the agent. Leading theorists of moral responsibility, including Michael McKenna, Marina Oshana, and Manuel Vargas, consider the implications of oppression and structural inequality for their respective theories. Neil Levy urges the need to refocus our analyses of the epistemic and control conditions for moral responsibility from individual to socially extended agents. Leading theorists of relational autonomy, including Catriona Mackenzie, Natalie Stoljar and Andrea Westlund develop new insights into the topic of moral responsibility. Other contributors bring debates about moral responsibility into dialogue with recent work in feminist philosophy, social epistemology and social psychology on topics such as epistemic injustice and implicit bias. Collectively, the essays in this volume reorient philosophical debates about moral responsibility in important new directions.
Download or read book Judging and Understanding written by Dr Pedro Alexis Tabensky and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2012-10-01 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection embodies a debate that explores what could be characterised as the tension between judging and understanding. It seems that after a particular threshold of understanding of the basic facts leading to a given moral transgression, the more we understand the context and motives leading to crime, the more likely we are to abstain from harsh retributive judgement. Martha Nussbaum’s essay ‘Equity and Mercy’, included in this collection, is the philosophical starting point of this debate, and Bernhard Schlink’s novel The Reader - a novel exploring the tension between judging and understanding, among other things - is used as a case study by most contributors. Some contributors, situated at one end of the spectrum of views represented in this collection, argue for the wholesale elimination of our practices of retribution in the light of the tension between judging and understanding, while contributors on the other side of the spectrum argue that the tension does not actually exist. A whole array of intermediate positions, including Nussbaum’s, are represented. This anthology is comprised of nearly all specially commissioned essays bringing together work dealing with the moral, metaphysical, epistemological and phenomenological issues required for properly understanding whether in fact there is a tension between judging and understanding and what the moral and legal implications may be of accepting or rejecting this tension.
Download or read book Sharing Responsibility written by Larry May and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1996-06 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are individuals responsible for the consequences of actions taken by their community? What about their community's inaction or its attitudes? In this innovative book, Larry May departs from the traditional Western view that moral responsibility is limited to the consequences of overt individual action. Drawing on the insights of Arendt, Jaspers, and Sartre, he argues that even when individuals are not direct participants, they share responsibility for various harms perpetrated by their communities.
Download or read book Applied Ethics written by Larry May and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 862 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This best-selling text continues to fill an existing gap in the literature taught in applied ethics courses. As a growing number of courses that include the perspectives of diverse cultures are being added to the university curriculum, texts are needed that represent more multicultural and diverse histories and backgrounds. This new edition enhances gender coverage, as nearly half of the pieces are now authored by women. The new edition also increases the percentage of pieces written by those who come from a non-Western background. It offers twelve up-to-date articles (not found in previous editions) on human rights, environmental ethics, poverty, war and violence, gender, race, euthanasia, and abortion; all of these topics are addressed from Western and non-Western perspectives.
Download or read book Communicating Moral Concern written by Elise Springer and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern moral theories have crystallized around the logic of individual choices, abstracted from social and historical context. Yet most action, including moral theorizing, can equally be understood as a response, conscious or otherwise, to the social world out of which it emerges. In this novel account of moral agency, Elise Springer accords central importance to how we intervene in activity around us. To notice and address what others are doing with their moral agency is to exercise what Springer calls critical responsiveness
Download or read book Thomas Szasz written by C. V. Haldipur and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-01-24 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thomas Szasz wrote over thirty books and several hundred articles, replete with mordant criticism of psychiatry, in both scientific and popular periodicals. His works made him arguably one of the world's most recognized psychiatrists, albeit one of the most controversial. These writings have been translated into several languages and have earned him a worldwide following. Szasz was a man of towering intellect, sweeping historical knowledge, and deep-rooted, mostly libertarian, philosophical beliefs. He wrote with a lucid and acerbic wit, but usually in a way that is accessible to general readers. His books cautioned against the indiscriminate power of psychiatry in courts and in society, and against the apparent rush to medicalize all human folly. They have spawned an eponymous ideology that has influenced, to various degrees, laws relating to mental health in several countries and states. This book critically examines the legacy of Thomas Szasz - a man who challenged the very concept of mental illness and questioned several practices of psychiatrists. The book surveys his many contributions including those in psychoanalysis, which are very often overlooked by his critics. While admiring his seminal contribution to the debate, the book will also point to some of his assertions that merit closer scrutiny. Contributors to the book are drawn from various disciplines, including Psychiatry, Philosophy and Law; and are from various countries including the United States, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Some contributors knew Thomas Szasz personally and spent many hours with him discussing issues he raised in his books and articles. The book will be fascinating reading for anyone interested in matters of mental health, human rights, and ethics.
Download or read book Collective Moral Responsibility written by Allyson Rudolph and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is collective moral responsibility? And why should you care? The answer to the former, like any good philosophical question, is largely unresolved. Although writing on collective responsibility has flourished, particularly in the wake of the Holocaust, and despite the existence of an increasingly consistent bibliography of essential writings in the field, there is no definitive authority on the subject. Unlike individual moral responsibility, however, there is little consensus among the ranks. Many theories disclaim the existence or the possibility of collective moral responsibility - a group is just not the sort of thing that can ever be considered a morally responsible agent. No one, they claim, can present a coherent theory of group action that would allow collectives to be admitted into the moral realm. And that is why you should care about collective responsibility. You interact with collectives every day. You are part of groups, you act cooperatively, and you exist within a community. If it is possible to define "group" in a morally coherent way, wouldn't you want to know? In this paper, I set out to do just that - define "group" in a way that allows for moral accountability. I begin by looking at moral responsibility broadly, setting out requisites for moral agency. In the first chapter, I will argue that moral responsibility requires causality, awareness, intention, and volition, and that moral responsibility may be meted out in degrees. Once the basic requirements for assigning moral responsibility are set out, I address three kinds of groups, and attempt to offer models for understanding the moral responsibility of each. I start with institutions - things like businesses and armies - and argue that an institution may be (and ought to be) considered a singular moral agent. From there I move to small groups of individuals united by a shared situation, which I call situational collections. Unable to construe situational collections as singular moral agents, I set out a model for understanding the actions of these groups in terms of shared cooperative activity and shared individual responsibility. Finally, I address issues like racism, in which group members are united by shared attitudes. I present a model for understanding these shared attitude communities in terms of blame: when blaming a shared attitude community, one is actually assessing the responsibility to the community itself, as well as the individual community members both because of the attitudes they hold and because of their complicity in creating an environment in which material harm or reasonable fear are likely. I conclude all of these discussions by arguing that there are actually a few models of collective responsibility that allow for groups to operate within the moral realm, but that the real ramification of admitting more members to the moral community is greater responsibility for individuals. Individuals within institutions ought to take responsibility for their own individual actions, and individuals outside of institutions should be vigilant in demanding that immoral institutions change their ways. Members of situational collections must consider their own individual moral responsibilities and work cooperatively to achieve a morally acceptable outcome. Persons who hold attitudes that contribute to harm must take responsibility for their beliefs in radical ways and engage in self-reflection and deep personal change. Each of the models of collective responsibility I present below is in many ways a call for personal reflection on individual interactions with groups and other moral actors.
Download or read book Accountability for Killing written by Neta C. Crawford and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-09-30 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The unintended deaths of civilians in war are too often dismissed as unavoidable, inevitable, and accidental. And despite the best efforts of the U.S. to avoid them, civilian casualties in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan have been a regular feature of the United States' wars after 9/11. In Accountability for Killing, Neta C. Crawford focuses on the causes of these many episodes of foreseeable collateral damage and the moral responsibility for them. The dominant paradigm of legal and moral responsibility in war today stresses both intention and individual accountability. Deliberate killing of civilians is outlawed and international law blames individual soldiers and commanders for such killing. An individual soldier may be sentenced life in prison or death for deliberately killing even a small number of civilians, but the large scale killing of dozens or even hundreds of civilians may be forgiven if it was unintentional--"incidental"--to a military operation. The very law that protects noncombatants from deliberate killing may allow many episodes of unintended killing. Under international law, civilian killing may be forgiven if it was unintended and incidental to a militarily necessary operation. Given the nature of contemporary war, where military organizations-training, and the choice of weapons, doctrine, and tactics-create the conditions for systemic collateral damage, Crawford contends that placing moral responsibility for systemic collateral damage on individuals is misplaced. She develops a new theory of organizational moral agency and responsibility, and shows how the US military exercised moral agency and moral responsibility to reduce the incidence of collateral damage in America's most recent wars. Indeed, when the U.S. military and its allies saw that the perception of collateral damage killing was causing it to lose support in the war zones, it moved to a "population centric" doctrine, putting civilian protection at the heart of its strategy. Trenchant, original, and ranging across security studies, international law, ethics, and international relations, Accountability for Killing will reshape our understanding of the ethics of contemporary war.
Download or read book Communities of Respect written by Bennett W. Helm and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bennett W. Helm presents a new approach to understanding persons as responsible, rational agents, by developing an account of communities of respect and our place within them. Through the interplay of reactive attitudes, community members are held responsible to norms which shape their identities, as essentially social creatures.
