scholarly journals Moral blame and rational criticism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caj Strandberg
Keyword(s):  
Moral Blame ◽  
Rational Criticism

Mechanical Choices

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael S. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Legal Punishment ◽  
Common Causes ◽  
Moral Blame ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Common Sense Psychology

This book assays how the remarkable discoveries of contemporary neuroscience impact our conception of ourselves and our responsibility for our choices and our actions. Dramatic (and indeed revolutionary) changes in how we think of ourselves as agents and as persons are commonly taken to be the implications of those discoveries of neuroscience. Indeed, the very notions of responsibility and of deserved punishment are thought to be threatened by these discoveries. Such threats are collected into four groupings: (1) the threat from determinism, that neurosciences shows us that all of our choices and actions are caused by events in the brain that precede choice; (2) the threat from epiphenomenalism, that our choices are shown by experiment not to cause the actions that are the objects of such choice but are rather mere epiphenomena, co-effects of common causes in the brain; (3) the threat from reductionist mechanism, that we and everything we value is nothing but a bunch of two-valued switches going off in our brains; and (4) the threat from fallibilism, that we are not masters in our own house because we lack the privileged knowledge of our own minds needed to be such masters. The book seeks to blunt such radical challenges while nonetheless detailing how law, morality, and common-sense psychology can harness the insights of an advancing neuroscience to more accurately assign moral blame and legal punishment to the truly deserving.

scholarly journals Psychopaths and Symmetry: A Reply to Nelkin

Philosophia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Talbert
Keyword(s):  
Moral Competence ◽  
Moral Understanding ◽  
Symmetry Argument ◽  
Moral Blame

AbstractAn agent is morally competent if she can respond to moral considerations. There is a debate about whether agents are open to moral blame only if they are morally competent, and Dana Nelkin’s “Psychopaths, Incorrigible Racists, and the Faces of Responsibility” is an important contribution to this debate. Like others involved in this dispute, Nelkin takes the case of the psychopath to be instructive. This is because psychopaths are similar to responsible agents insofar as they act deliberately and on judgments about reasons, and yet psychopaths lack moral competence. Nelkin argues that, because of their moral incompetence, vices such as cruelty are not attributable to psychopaths. It follows that psychopaths are not open to moral blame since their behavior is only seemingly vicious. I have three aims in this reply to Nelkin. First, I respond to her claim that psychopaths are not capable of cruelty. Second, I respond to the related proposal—embedded in Nelkin’s “symmetry argument”—that a “pro-social psychopath” would not be capable of kindness. My responses to these claims are unified: even if the psychopath is not capable of “cruelty,” and the pro-social psychopath is not capable of “kindness,” the actions of these agents can have a significance for us that properly engages our blaming and praising practices. Finally, I argue that Nelkin’s strategy for showing that moral competence is required for cruelty supports a stronger conclusion than she anticipates: it supports the conclusion that blameworthiness requires not just moral competence, but actual moral understanding.

Rational Criticism and the Text of the New Testament

Theology ◽  
1972 ◽  
Vol 75 (625) ◽  
pp. 338-343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Elliott
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Rational Criticism

Some Problems about Rationality

1967 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Lukes
Keyword(s):  
Prima Facie ◽  
Philosophical Problem ◽  
Critical Attitude ◽  
Rational Criticism

In what follows I shall discuss a philosophical problem arising out of the practice of anthropologists and sociologists which may be stated, in a general and unanalysed form, as follows: when I come across a set of beliefs which appear prima facie irrational, what should be my attitude towards them? Should I adopt a critical attitude, taking it as a fact about the beliefs that they are irrational, and seek to explain how they came to be held, how they manage to survive unprofaned by rational criticism, what their consequences are, etc? Or should I treat such beliefs charitably: should I begin from the assumption that what appears to me to be irrational may be interpreted as rational when fully understood in its context? More briefly, the problem comes down to whether or not there are alternative standards of rationality.

scholarly journals Relationship between moral responsibility for zoonotic pandemics outbreaks and industrial animal farms

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 695-713
Author(s):  
Josip Guc
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Collective Responsibility ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
Weakest Link ◽  
Animal Farms ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Livestock Health ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Moral Blame ◽  
Do So

The responsibility for the COVID-19 pandemic was first ascribed to persons associated with the Huanan Seafood Market. However, many scientists suggest that this pandemic is actually a consequence of human intrusion into nature. This opens up a whole new perspective for an examination of direct and indirect, individual and collective responsibility concerning this particular pandemic, but also zoonotic pandemics as such. In this context, one of the key issues are the consequences of factory-farming of animals, which contributes to circumstances in which zoonotic pandemics emerge. Moreover, it is part of a larger economic system, global capitalism, whose logic implies certain coercion toward its participants to keep it essentially unchanged and therefore to make sure that livestock health remains ?the weakest link in our global health chain? (FAO). However, even though the precise answer to the issue of moral responsibility for zoonotic pandemics outbreaks in general and the COVID-19 pandemic in particular cannot be given, it is possible to list certain indicators and make a framework helpful in ascribing moral responsibility to certain persons. The paper intends to do so by examining the notion of responsibility and by applying it to the issues mentioned. The results of this analysis show that it is misleading to place moral blame on people involved in actions that directly caused the animal-to-human transmission of a certain virus or on humanity as a whole.

An Introduction to the Moral Agency Scale

2016 ◽  
Vol 47 (6) ◽  
pp. 295-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica E. Black
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Moral Agency ◽  
Moral Disengagement ◽  
Factorial Invariance ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Moral Choices ◽  
Moral Blame

Abstract. The purpose of this research was to develop a psychometric measure of moral agency and explore its relationship with related moral constructs. Although our legal system, daily interactions with others, and most theories about moral psychology assume moral agency, few researchers have studied it, and there is no instrument devised to specifically measure it. Here, we present the Moral Agency Scale (MAS), a self-report instrument designed to assess the extent to which participants feel control over their moral choices. In Study 1, the MAS demonstrated strict factorial invariance; validity is further supported by its relations to similar constructs and reported volunteering behavior. In Study 2, MAS scores were associated with free will beliefs, moral disengagement, and judgments of moral blame. Results are discussed with reference to theory and future directions for research.

Rational Criticism, Ideological Sustainability and Intellectual Leadership in the Digital Public Sphere

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-90
Author(s):  
Dounia Mahlouly
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Digital Divide ◽  
Natural Process ◽  
Public Deliberation ◽  
Communication Devices ◽  
Digital Environments ◽  
Main Components ◽  
Rational Criticism ◽  
General Influence

This review postulates that today's digital environments unveil an era of connectivity, in which digital communication devices exercise a general influence on social interactions and public deliberation. From this perspective, it argues that connective practices are likely to affect two main components of the normative public sphere, namely rational criticism and ideological sustainability. Drawing on the case of the 2011 Arab revolutions, in which social media proved to have a strategic function, this paper illustrates the ideological heterogeneity of social networks. Additionally, this article considers how issues of rational criticism and ideological sustainability could be improved by regulating online interactions and proposes that the digital divide could act as a natural process of regulation for today's connective and transnational public sphere.

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