1,720,995 research outputs found
Concern, respect, and cooperation
No full textThree things often recognized as central to morality are concern for others’ welfare, respect for their self-expression, and cooperation in worthwhile collective activity. When philosophers have proposed theories of the substance of morality, they have typically looked to one of these three sources to provide a single, fundamental principle of morality—or they have tried to formulate a master-principle for morality that combines these three ideas in some way. This book views them instead as three independently important foundations of morality. It sets out a plural-foundation moral theory with affinities to that of W. D. Ross. There are major differences: the account of the foundations of morality differs from Ross’s, and there is a more elaborate explanation of how the rest of morality derives from them. However, the overall aim is similar. This is to illuminate the structure of morality by showing how its complex content is generated from a relatively simple set of underlying elements—the complexity results from the various ways in which one part of morality can derive from another, and the various ways in which the derived parts of morality can interact. Plural-foundation moral theories are sometimes criticized for having nothing helpful to say about cases in which their fundamental norms conflict. Responding to this, the book concludes with three detailed applications of the theory: to the questions surrounding paternalism, the use of others as means, and our moral responsibilities as consumers
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Responsibility, compensation and accident law reform.
Get PDFThis thesis considers two allegations which conservatives often level at no-fault systems — namely, that responsibility is abnegated under no-fault systems, and that no-fault systems under- and over-compensate.
I argue that although each of these allegations can be satisfactorily met – the responsibility allegation rests on the mistaken assumption that to properly take responsibility for our actions we must accept liability for those losses for which we are causally responsible; and the compensation allegation rests on the mistaken assumption that tort law’s compensatory decisions provide a legitimate norm against which no-fault’s decisions can be compared and criticized – doing so leads in a direction which is at odds with accident law reform advocates’ typical recommendations.
On my account, accident law should not just be reformed in line with no-fault’s principles, but rather it should be completely abandoned since the principles that protect nofault systems from the conservatives’ two allegations are incompatible with retaining the category of accident law, they entail that no-fault systems are a form of social welfare and not accident law systems, and that under these systems serious deprivation – and to a lesser extent causal responsibility – should be conditions of eligibility to claim benefits.Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, 2007
Participatory Moral Reasons: Their Scope and Strength
Get PDFA familiar part of ordinary moral thought is this idea: when other people are doing something worthwhile together, there is a reason for you to join in on the same terms as them. Morality does not tell you that you must always do this; but it exerts some pressure on you to join in. Suppose we take this idea seriously: just how should it be developed and applied? More particularly, just which groups and which actions are the ones with respect to which you have participatory moral reasons? And just when is it wrong not to join in? I present answers to these questions, and discuss the implications—including for joint action on a very large scale, like global efforts to address climate change or fight a pandemic
Objectivity and Shared Experience: Art and Morality
No full textAt first glance, the impulse to objectivity in our responses to works of art and in our moral thought and practice have disparate sources. On the one hand, artistic practice is disciplined by a norm of communicative fidelity: the production of a work of art is a communicative act, and its execution is subject to the possibility of success or failure. Morality, on the other hand, requires us to treat each other in ways we can justify to each other; and here the pressure towards objectivity comes, at least in part, from the demand that we respect each other by (not just having, but) giving good reasons to others for the ways we treat them: a demand of answerability. I argue that a proper understanding of the relationship between objectivity in artistic and moral judgement and practice must accommodate this difference; but that it must also recognize three important connections between the two. First, successful art is a vehicle for shared experience, and a way of opening ourselves to a fuller range of human possibilities for engaging with the world. In this way, it supplements the relationships we create in following the most fundamental moral norms: relationships in which we share a recognition of the importance of others' welfare and dignity, and in which we share our agency, acting cooperatively together. Secondly, our shared experience of the value (and not just the content) of great works of art point us towards the practical reasons we all have to preserve and protect those objects – reasons that can themselves ground demands of unselfishness we can make of each other. And thirdly, this can lead us beyond a recognition of the plurality of valuable human experience, to the more tragic pluralism of Berlin: the recognition that we must make practical choices between competing values, and that all of the alternatives available to us involve some loss
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