Download or read book Understanding Moral Obligation written by Robert Stern and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-12-15 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In many histories of modern ethics, Kant is supposed to have ushered in an anti-realist or constructivist turn by holding that unless we ourselves 'author' or lay down moral norms and values for ourselves, our autonomy as agents will be threatened. In this book, Robert Stern challenges the cogency of this 'argument from autonomy', and claims that Kant never subscribed to it. Rather, it is not value realism but the apparent obligatoriness of morality that really poses a challenge to our autonomy: how can this be accounted for without taking away our freedom? The debate the book focuses on therefore concerns whether this obligatoriness should be located in ourselves (Kant), in others (Hegel) or in God (Kierkegaard). Stern traces the historical dialectic that drove the development of these respective theories, and clearly and sympathetically considers their merits and disadvantages; he concludes by arguing that the choice between them remains open.
Download or read book God and Moral Obligation written by C. Stephen Evans and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-02-28 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: C. Stephen Evans defends the claim that moral obligations are best understood as divine commands or requirements; hence an important part of morality depends on God. God's requirements are communicated in a variety of ways, including conscience, and that natural law ethics and virtue ethics provide complementary perspectives to this view.
Download or read book Ignorance and Moral Obligation written by Michael J. Zimmerman and published by . This book was released on 2014-03 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michael J. Zimmerman explores whether and how our ignorance about ourselves and our circumstances affects what our moral obligations and moral rights are. He rejects objective and subjective views of the nature of moral obligation, and presents a new case for a 'prospective' view.
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 The Concept of Moral Obligation written by Michael J. Zimmerman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1996-03-29 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The principal aim of this book is to develop and defend an analysis of the concept of moral obligation. What it seeks to do is generate new solutions to a range of philosophical problems concerning obligation and its application. Amongst these problems are deontic paradoxes, the supersession of obligation, conditional obligation, actualism and possibilism, dilemmas, supererogation, and cooperation. By virtue of its normative neutrality, the analysis provides a theoretical framework within which competing theories of obligation can be developed and assessed.
Download or read book The Limits of Moral Obligation written by Marcel van Ackeren and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-09-16 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume responds to the growing interest in finding explanations for why moral claims may lose their validity based on what they ask of their addressees. Two main ideas relate to that question: the moral demandingness objection and the principle "ought implies can." Though both of these ideas can be understood to provide an answer to the same question, they have usually been discussed separately in the philosophical literature. The aim of this collection is to provide a focused and comprehensive discussion of these two ideas and the ways in which they relate to one another, and to take a closer look at the consequences for the limits of moral normativity in general. Chapters engage with contemporary discussions surrounding "ought implies can" as well as current debates on moral demandingness, and argue that applying the moral demandingness objection to the entire range of normative ethical theories also calls for an analysis of its (metaethical) presuppositions. The contributions to this volume are at the leading edge of ethical theory, and have implications for moral theorists, philosophers of action, and those working in metaethics, theoretical ethics and applied ethics.
Download or read book Perspectives on Moral Responsibility written by John Martin Fischer and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-05 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores aspects of responsibility, including moral accountability; hierarchy, rationality, and the real self; and ethical responsibility and alternative possibilities.
Download or read book Foundations of Moral Obligation written by Joseph Gerard Brennan and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Professor Joseph Brennan has a gift for bringing philosophy to life, making it a practical tool for evaluating day-to-day decisions as well as the great issues of our times. Morality and ethics have never been more necessary than in our brave, new world order of downsizing, intolerance, corruption, sexism, racism and all other "isms"." "About the Stockdale Course: Shot down over North Vietnam, U.S. Navy pilot James Stockdale spent seven and a half years as a prisoner of the communists. Although he was systematically tortured and brainwashed, Stockdale resisted his captors, led and sustained his fellow prisoners, and remained loyal to the principles he had joined the navy to defend. That incredible moral strength in adversity earned him the Medal of Honor. He found the inspiration to go on by recalling the teachings of Epictetus, an ancient Roman Stoic philosopher whom he had studied in college. After his release from captivity, Stockdale became president of the Naval War College, where he established and team-taught a course with Professor Brennan on ethics. The class was extremely popular because it made philosophy relevant to the needs of professional military men and women. Professor Brennan's lectures ultimately became the basis for this book."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Download or read book The Second Person Standpoint written by Stephen Darwall and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-09-30 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why should we avoid doing moral wrong? The inability of philosophy to answer this question in a compelling manner—along with the moral skepticism and ethical confusion that ensue—result, Stephen Darwall argues, from our failure to appreciate the essentially interpersonal character of moral obligation. After showing how attempts to vindicate morality have tended to change the subject—falling back on non-moral values or practical, first-person considerations—Darwall elaborates the interpersonal nature of moral obligations: their inherent link to our responsibilities to one another as members of the moral community. As Darwall defines it, the concept of moral obligation has an irreducibly second-person aspect; it presupposes our authority to make claims and demands on one another. And so too do many other central notions, including those of rights, the dignity of and respect for persons, and the very concept of person itself. The result is nothing less than a fundamental reorientation of moral theory that enables it at last to account for morality’s supreme authority—an account that Darwall carries from the realm of theory to the practical world of second-person attitudes, emotions, and actions.
Download or read book The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent written by Lionel Trilling and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2001-10-17 with total page 753 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A landmark reissue of a great teacher's finest work Lionel Trilling was, during his lifetime, generally acknowledged to be one of the finest essayists in the English language, the heir of Hazlitt and the peer of Orwell. Since his death in 1974, his work has been discussed and hotly debated, yet today, when writers and critics claim to be "for" or "against" his interpretations, they can hardly be well acquainted with them, for his work has been largely out of print for years. With this re-publication of Trilling's finest essays, Leon Wieseltier offers readers of many new generations a rich overview of Trilling's achievement. The essays collected here include justly celebrated masterpieces--on Mansfield Park and on "Why We Read Jane Austen"; on Twain, Dos Passos, Hemingway, Isaac Babel; on Keats, Wordsworth, Eliot, Frost; on "Art and Neurosis"; and the famous Preface to Trilling's book The Liberal Imagination. This exhilarating work has much to teach readers who may have been encouraged to adopt simpler systems of meaning, or were taught to exchange the ideals of reason and individuality for those of enthusiasm and the false romance of group identity. Trilling's remarkable essays show a critic who was philosophically motivated and textually responsible, alive to history but not in thrall to it, exercised by art but not worshipful of it, consecrated to ideas but suspicious of theory.
Download or read book Moral Responsibility written by Christopher Cowley and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-10-20 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How and to what degree are we responsible for our characters, our lives, our misfortunes, our relationships and our children? This question is at the heart of "Moral Responsibility". The book explores accusations and denials of moral responsibility for particular acts, responsibility for character, and the role of luck and fate in ethics. Moral responsibility as the grounds for a retributivist theory of punishment is examined, alongside discussions of forgiveness, parental responsibility, and responsibility before God. The book also discusses collective responsibility, bringing in notions of complicity and membership, and drawing on the seminal contemporary discussion of collective agency and responsibility: the Nuremberg trials.
Download or read book Mountains Beyond Mountains written by Tracy Kidder and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2009-08-25 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “[A] masterpiece . . . an astonishing book that will leave you questioning your own life and political views.”—USA Today “If any one person can be given credit for transforming the medical establishment’s thinking about health care for the destitute, it is Paul Farmer. . . . [Mountains Beyond Mountains] inspires, discomforts, and provokes.”—The New York Times (Best Books of the Year) In medical school, Paul Farmer found his life’s calling: to cure infectious diseases and to bring the lifesaving tools of modern medicine to those who need them most. Tracy Kidder’s magnificent account shows how one person can make a difference in solving global health problems through a clear-eyed understanding of the interaction of politics, wealth, social systems, and disease. Profound and powerful, Mountains Beyond Mountains takes us from Harvard to Haiti, Peru, Cuba, and Russia as Farmer changes people’s minds through his dedication to the philosophy that “the only real nation is humanity.” WINNER OF THE LETTRE ULYSSES AWARD FOR THE ART OF REPORTAGE This deluxe paperback edition includes a new Epilogue by the author
Download or read book Free Will and Moral Responsibility written by Justin Caouette and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2013-10-03 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Determinism is, roughly, the thesis that facts about the past and the laws of nature entail all truths. A venerable, age-old dilemma concerning responsibility distils to this: if either determinism is true or it is not true, we lack “responsibility-grounding” control. Either determinism is true or it is not true. So, we lack responsibility-grounding control. Deprived of such control, no one is ever morally responsible for anything. A number of the freshly-minted essays in this collection address aspects of this dilemma. Responding to the horn that determinism undermines the freedom that responsibility (or moral obligation) requires, the freedom to do otherwise, some papers in this collection debate the merits of Frankfurt-style examples that purport to show that one can be responsible despite lacking alternatives. Responding to the horn that indeterminism implies luck or randomness, other papers discuss the strengths or shortcomings of libertarian free will or control. Also included in this collection are essays on the freedom requirements of moral obligation, forgiveness and free will, a “desert-free” conception of free will, and vicarious legal and moral responsibility. The authors of the essays in this volume are philosophers who have made significant contributions to debates in free will, moral responsibility, moral obligation, the reactive attitudes, philosophy of action, and philosophical psychology, and include John Martin Fischer, Robert Kane, Michael McKenna, Alfred Mele, and Derk Pereboom.
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 Getting Our Act Together written by Anne Schwenkenbecher and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-12-30 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Together we can often achieve things that are impossible to do on our own. We can prevent something bad from happening, or we can produce something good, even if none of us could do it by ourselves. But when are we morally required to do something of moral importance together with others? This book develops an original theory of collective moral obligations. These are obligations that individual moral agents hold jointly but not as unified collective agents. The theory does not stipulate a new type of moral obligation but rather suggests that to think of some of our obligations as joint or collective is the best way of making sense of our intuitions regarding collective moral action problems. Where we have reason to believe that our efforts are most efficient as part of a collective endeavor, we may incur collective obligations together with others who are similarly placed as long as we are able to establish compossible individual contributory strategies towards that goal. The book concludes with a discussion of 'massively shared obligations' to major-scale moral problems such as global poverty. Getting Out Act Together: A Theory of Collective Moral Obligations will appeal to researchers and advanced students working in moral, political and social philosophy, philosophy of action, social epistemology and philosophy of social science.
Download or read book Moral Responsibility written by Matthew Talbert and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-01-21 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most people would agree that a small child, or a cognitively impaired adult, is less responsible for their actions, good or bad, than an unimpaired adult. But how do we explain that difference, and how far can anyone be praised or blamed for what they have done? In this fascinating introduction, Matthew Talbert explores some of the key questions shaping current debates about moral responsibility, including: What is free will, and is it required for moral responsibility? Are we responsible for the unforeseen consequences of our actions? Is it fair to blame people for doing what they believe is right? And are psychopaths open to blame? As Talbert argues, we are morally responsible for our actions when they are related to us in particular ways: when our actions express our true selves, for example, or when we exercise certain kinds of control over them. It is because we bear these relationships to our actions that we are open to praise and blame. Moral Responsibility will be an important resource for students and researchers in ethics, moral psychology, and philosophy of agency and of great interest to all those wishing to understand an important aspect of our moral practices.
Download or read book Consciousness and Moral Responsibility written by Neil Levy and published by Oxford University Press (UK). This book was released on 2014-03 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Neil Levy presents a new theory of freedom and responsibility. He defends a particular account of consciousness—the global workspace view—and argues that consciousness plays an especially important role in action. There are good reasons to think that the naïve assumption, that consciousness is needed for moral responsibility, is in fact true.
