scholarly journals Review EssayExemplarist Moral Theory

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 755-768
Author(s):  
Lani Watson ◽  
Alan T. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Moral Development ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Review Essay ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
Practical Guide ◽  
The Way

This review essay provides a critical discussion of Linda Zagzebski’s (2017) Exemplarist Moral Theory (emt). We agree that emt is a book of impressive scope that will be of interest to ethical theorists, as well as epistemologists, philosophers of language, and philosophers of religion. Throughout the critical discussion we argue that exemplarism faces a number of important challenges, firstly, in dealing with the fallibility of admiration, which plays a central role in the theoretical framework, and secondly, in serving as a practical guide for moral development. Despite this, we maintain that emt points the way for significant future theoretical and empirical research into some of the most well-established questions in ethical theory.

Exploring an Institutionalist and Post-Desert Theoretical Approach to Multiple-Offense Sentencing

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Bottoms
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
The Way

This chapter begins with a discussion of Neil MacCormick’s institutionalist approach to legal phenomena, and argues that this theoretical framework has value as a way to study multiple offense sentencing (MOS). The most thorough completed empirical research into MOS, by Austin Lovegrove in Victoria, Australia, is then considered, alongside the leading Victorian case of Azzopardi v. R. Congruently with the expectations of institutionalism, this analysis uncovers several separate normative principles used by judges in MOS practice. These results are discussed through the lens of what can be described as “post-desert theory.” Overall, the analyses in the chapter are intended to pave the way for the development of a more coherent answer to the question: “what principles should optimally guide sentencers when dealing with cases involving multiple offenses?”

Setting the Stage

2019 ◽  
pp. 133-140
Author(s):  
Harry Brighouse
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Education System ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Careful Consideration ◽  
Educational Opportunities ◽  
Market Reforms ◽  
Theoretical Argument ◽  
The Way

Chapter 1 will set out the assumptions behind the argument, and the theoretical framework within which it is made. Chapter 2 will set out and argue for a set of aims for an education system. Chapter 3 will outline the extent to which markets already, and unavoidably, play a role in the way educational opportunities are created and allocated. Chapter 4 provides first a theoretical argument that a fully marketized system is unlikely to further the aims outlined in chapter 2, and then an argument, grounded in careful consideration of the existing empirical research, that recent market reforms have not, in fact, furthered those aims. Chapter 5 outlines a sketch of some more promising reforms.

scholarly journals Scanlon’s contractualism: A review essay

2017 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 68-84
Author(s):  
Anton Markoc
Keyword(s):  
Review Essay ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Secondary Literature ◽  
Normative Ethical Theory ◽  
Thomas Scanlon

The purpose of this essay is to give a succinct summary of contractualism, an influential moral theory of American philosopher Thomas Scanlon. Scanlon introduced contractualism in his essay ?Contractualism and Utilitarianism? from 1982 and developed it in his book What We Owe to Each Other from 1998. The essay begins by situating Scanlon?s contractualism in the tradition of contract theories of morality. It then examines its peculiarities as a metaethical and a normative ethical theory. Finally, it discusses the most important objections to contractualism, ending with recommended secondary literature for subsequent researchers.

scholarly journals Definition: A practical guide to constructing and evaluating definitions of terms

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Hitchcock
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
General Application ◽  
Practical Guide ◽  
The Way

This book proposes guidelines for constructing and evaluating definitions of terms, i.e. words or phrases of general application. The guidelines extend to adoption of nomenclature. The book is meant to be a practical guide for people who find themselves in their daily lives or their employment producing or evaluating definitions of terms. It can be consulted rather than being read through. The book’s theoretical framework is a distinction, due to Robert H. Ennis, of three dimensions of definitions: the act of the definer, the content of the definition, and its form. The act of a definer is what the definer does in defining a term; the book distinguishes, following Ennis, three basic acts of defining: reporting, stipulating, and advocating. The content of a definition is in one sense the information that the definition conveys and in another sense the words in its defining part. The form of a definition is the way it is expressed, for example as a definition by genus and differentia.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul D. Webb ◽  
Thomas Poguntke ◽  
Susan E. Scarrow
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Ideal Type ◽  
Representative Democracy ◽  
Party Organization ◽  
Ideal Types ◽  
Practical Guide ◽  
Organizational Patterns ◽  
Key Dimensions ◽  
Analytical Frameworks ◽  
The Ideal

This chapter briefly recaps the findings of this volume, then addresses more general questions concerning the types of organizational patterns that researchers should expect to find, and the most fruitful approaches to understanding the origins and implications of those patterns. The authors review the PPDB data in order to assess the empirical applicability of various well-known ideal-types of parties. They find that only a minority of the cases in the dataset fit into one of these ideal-type categories—even when the bar is set low for such classification. It is argued that the ideal-type approach, while it has its merits, is less useful as a practical guide for empirical research than analytical frameworks based on the key dimensions of party organization—resources, structures, and representational strategies. The chapter closes by emphasizing the very real consequences that the organizational choices made by parties can have for representative democracy.

On What Matters

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek Parfit
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Previous Treatment ◽  
Moral Discourse ◽  
Wide Sense ◽  
Normative Naturalism ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Way ◽  
What Matters

This third volume of this series develops further previous treatment of reasons, normativity, the meaning of moral discourse, and the status of morality. It engages with critics, and shows the way to resolution of their differences. This volume is partly about what it is for things to matter, in the sense that we all have reasons to care about these things. Much of the book discusses three of the main kinds of meta-ethical theory: normative naturalism, quasi-realist expressivism, and non-metaphysical non-naturalism, which this book refers to as non-realist cognitivism. This third theory claims that, if we use the word ‘reality’ in an ontologically weighty sense, irreducibly normative truths have no mysterious or incredible ontological implications. If instead we use ‘reality’ in a wide sense, according to which all truths are truths about reality, this theory claims that some non-empirically discoverable truths — such as logical, mathematical, modal, and some normative truths — raise no difficult ontological questions. This book discusses these theories partly by commenting on the views of some of the contributors to Peter Singer's collection Does Anything Really Matter? Parfit on Objectivity.

Beyond Self-Interest

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua May
Keyword(s):  
Moral Development ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Helping Behavior ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
Concern For Others ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Christian Love ◽  
The Right ◽  
Conceptual Difficulties

This chapter introduces the long-standing idea that inappropriate motives, such as self-interest, can militate against virtuous motivation (acting for the right reasons). Some theorists have tried to show that we are universally egoistic by appeal to empirical research, particularly evolutionary theory, moral development, and the neuroscience of learning. However, these efforts fail and instead decades of experiments on helping behavior provide powerful evidence that we are capable of genuine altruism. We can be motivated ultimately by a concern for others for their own sake, especially when empathizing with them. The evidence does not show that empathy blurs the distinction between self and other in a way that makes helping behavior truly egoistic or non-altruistic. Whether grounded in Christian love (agape) or the Buddhist notion of no-self (anātman), such self-other merging proposals run into empirical and conceptual difficulties.

Genetics, Parenting, and Moral Development

2019 ◽  
pp. 106-128
Author(s):  
Dana Vertsberger ◽  
Salomon Israel ◽  
Ariel Knafo-Noam
Keyword(s):  
Moral Development ◽  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Prosocial Behavior ◽  
Dopaminergic System ◽  
Molecular Genetic ◽  
Parental Influences ◽  
Serotonergic System ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Gene Environment ◽  
The Way

This chapter reviews findings regarding genetic and parental influences on moral development, and is organized according to three morally relevant components: cognitive, affective, and behavioral. The cognitive component refers to the conceptualization of right and wrong, and specifically moral reasoning and values. The affective component refers to feelings related to reactions to social situations and evaluations of chosen actions, focusing on emotions such as empathy, guilt, and pride. The behavioral component refers to the way individuals choose to behave, and specifically to prosocial behavior. We review relevant quantitative and molecular genetic designs, and particularly four neurobiological systems: the dopaminergic system, the oxytocinergic and vasopressinergic systems, and the serotonergic system, which have been found to be associated with moral development. In addition, we review parents’ influences on moral development, in the context of gene-environment interactions and correlations.

Beyond Onto-theology and Metaphysics: the Cases of Heidegger and Nietzsche

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 329-345
Author(s):  
Vinod Acharya
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Review Essay ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Philosophical Critique ◽  
Evaluative Study ◽  
Common Criticism ◽  
Global Age ◽  
Uncritical Acceptance ◽  
Critique Of Religion

AbstractTwo recent works will be considered that discuss Heidegger and Nietzsche in the context of the problem of overcoming metaphysics and the onto-theological tradition. A common criticism will be that these works in their attempt to retrieve a conception of religion, politics or faith beyond onto-theology and metaphysics tend to justify or idealize particular historically and culturally conditioned perspectives, which are not immune from further philosophical critique. Simon Oliai’s approach to countering the burgeoning fundamentalisms in our global age is ultimately not very convincing, representing as it does, a Western, liberal, Eurocentric worldview. The author’s use of Nietzsche or Heidegger for this purpose is also not very compelling. The remainder of this review essay appraises the volume edited by Cimino and van der Heiden, which attempts to rethink faith beyond onto-theology in several interesting ways. Although meant to be a comparative study, several contributions subscribe to a general Heideggerian (or Heidegger-inspired phenomenological-hermeneutical) theoretical framework, which itself is not rigorously scrutinized. A problematic implication is that Nietzsche’s own critical and constructive views of philosophy, his critique of religion and history, and his positive appraisal of faith and divinity are not seriously considered on their own terms: they are either mostly ignored, or they are selectively interpreted through a Heideggerian lens, with the result that this volume puts forward a mostly unfavorable view of Nietzsche. Some of the conceptual moves credited to Heidegger in the volume have their equivalents in Nietzsche’s philosophy, which a comparative and evaluative study such as this one must seriously take into account by resisting the uncritical acceptance of Heidegger’s own view of Nietzsche.

EMPOWERING ENTREPRENEURSHIP THROUGH FORESIGHT AND INNOVATION: DEVELOPING A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK FOR EMPOWERMENT IN ENTERPRISE PROGRAMS

2006 ◽  
Vol 11 (03) ◽  
pp. 207-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALLAN O'CONNOR ◽  
JOSE M. RAMOS
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
New Venture ◽  
Education Design ◽  
Education And Development ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
The Way

This study explores how education and development in the skills and knowledge of foresight, innovation and enterprise (FI and E) relate to the empowerment of young individuals with respect to creating a new venture. In 2003, three groups of young persons aged between 13 and 18 years participated in a program designed for empowerment. An evaluation was conducted nine months later that provided useful insight into the impact of the education design, content and delivery. This research provides deeper insight into the way FI and E education can be used to create empowerment through the derivation of a framework that addresses entry, process and agency factors.

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