scholarly journals “Ethical Minefields” and the Voice of Common Sense: A Discussion with Julian Savulescu

Conatus ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 125
Author(s):  
Evangelos D. Protopapadakis
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Reflective Equilibrium ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Ethical Problems ◽  
Practical Ethics ◽  
The Voice

Theoretical ethics includes both metaethics (the meaning of moral terms) and normative ethics (ethical theories and principles). Practical ethics involves making decisions about every day real ethical problems, like decisions about euthanasia, what we should eat, climate change, treatment of animals, and how we should live. It utilizes ethical theories, like utilitarianism and Kantianism, and principles, but more broadly a process of reflective equilibrium and consistency to decide how to act and be.

Overview of Psychiatric Ethics V: Utilitarianism and the Ethics of Duty

2007 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 402-410 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Robertson ◽  
Kirsty Morris ◽  
Garry Walter
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Reflective Equilibrium ◽  
Categorical Imperative ◽  
Codes Of Ethics ◽  
Valuable Insight ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Ethical Problems ◽  
Instrumental Value ◽  
The Core ◽  
Kant's Ethics

Objective: The aim of this paper is to describe the ethical theories of utilitarianism and the ethics of duty (Kant's ethics) and to evaluate their value as theoretical bases of psychiatric ethics. Conclusions: Utilitarianism is a well-established moral philosophy and has significant instrumental value in dealing with common ethical problems faced by psychiatrists. Despite its capacity to generate solutions to ethical problems, utilitarianism requires a process of what Rawls described as ‘reflective equilibrium’ to avoid morally repugnant choices, based on utility. The criticisms of utilitarianism, such as the problems of quantifying utility and the responsibility for consequences, are very relevant for psychiatry. Singer's model of utilitarian thinking is particularly problematic for our profession. Kant's ethics provides the pretext for duty bound codes of ethics for psychiatrists, but suffers from problems of flawed claims to the universalizability prescribed by Kant's ‘categorical imperative’. Kant's valorization of reason as the core of the autonomy of persons is a valuable insight in understanding psychiatrists’ ethical obligations to their patients.

The Basis of Ethical Principles

2010 ◽  
pp. 45-58
Author(s):  
Robert A. Schultz
Keyword(s):  
Reflective Equilibrium ◽  
Ethical Concern ◽  
Ethical Principles ◽  
Ethical Development ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Ethical Problems ◽  
Ethical Judgments ◽  
Great Insight ◽  
Insight Into

My aim in Section 1 was to locate and describe areas of ethical concern in IT-enabled globalization. Yet in doing so, I was not ethically neutral in my judgements. The reader, especially the reader who disagreed with some of those judgements, may wonder how they are justified. In this section, Section 2, I will address precisely that question. I will begin by showing that ethical judgments can be justified. Then I will state a theory of ethical development which I think allows great insight into conflicts of ethical principles. Next I will describe a method for justifying ethical principles called reflective equilibrium. Finally, the rest of Section 2 will examine ethical theories relevant to ethical problems of globalization.

A Feminist Practical Ethics of Care

2018 ◽  
pp. 558-572
Author(s):  
Fiona Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Care Ethics ◽  
Ethics Of Care ◽  
Feminist Ethics ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Moral Framework ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
Practical Ethics ◽  
Women And Children ◽  
Care Practices ◽  
The Voice

This chapter builds a picture of a critical, feminist ethics of care as a feminist practical ethics for international relations. It focuses on care ethics as a moral framework for addressing the challenges of humanitarianism—in a manner that foregrounds human needs while not depoliticizing or taking for granted the category of “human.” A care ethics approach furthers the transformative aims of feminism, while refusing to cast “women-and-children” as vulnerable victims in need of protection. The ethics of care also offers a substantive focus for policy and practice around diverse and competing needs for care. Far from confining women to their roles as carers, this approach exposes patterns of gender inequality in care practices, while retaining a focus on the contribution of the voice and labour of care—in multiple and diverse forms—for all social groups and communities.

Incomplete Routes to Moral Objectivity: Four Variants of Naturalism

2001 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-217
Author(s):  
David Sidorsky
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
John Dewey ◽  
David Hume ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Moral Objectivity ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
History Of ◽  
Integrated Or

The search for moral objectivity has been constant throughout the history of philosophy, although interpretations of the nature and scope of objectivity have varied. One aim of the pursuit of moral objectivity has been the demonstration of what may be termed its epistemological thesis, that is, the claim that the truth of assertions of the goodness or rightness of moral acts is as legitimate, reliable, or valid as the truth of assertions involving other forms of human knowledge, such as common sense, practical expertise, science, or mathematics. Another aim of the quest for moral objectivity may be termed its pragmatic formulation; this refers to the development of a method or procedure that will mediate among conflicting moral views in order to realize a convergence or justified agreement about warranted or true moral conclusions. In the ethical theories of Aristotle, David Hume, and John Dewey, theories that represent three of the four variants of ethical naturalism (defined below) that are surveyed in this essay, the epistemological thesis and the pragmatic formulation are integrated or combined. The distinction between these two elements is significant for the present essay, however, since I want to show that linguistic naturalism, the fourth variant I shall examine, has provided a demonstration of the epistemological thesis about moral knowledge, even if the pragmatic formulation has not been successfully realized.

Cross-Cultural Feminist Technologies

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Payal Arora ◽  
Rumman Chowdhury
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Wealth Inequality ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Critical Pathways ◽  
Cultural Feminism

As our contemporary problems of climate change, pandemics, tech reform, and worldwide wealth inequality demand global solidarities, cooperation, and collective and empathetic imagination, we need approaches that can carve critical pathways for an inclusive technological future. Much as technology is created to transcend borders and cultures, this essay proposes that cross-cultural feminism can do the same. This essay pioneers a framework that enables us to strive for global solidarities while decolonizing the feminist “common sense” that is institutionalized into how technologies are shaped. We advocate for an approach grounded in the materiality (embodiments), mobility (social movements), and modality (codes and modes of design). We believe this three-pronged lens can inform practice and help set the tenor for how to build cross-cultural feminist technologies for an inclusive future.

當代生命倫理學危機的根源及解決方案——David Solomon文章評析

2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-130
Author(s):  
Ruipeng LEI
Keyword(s):  
Reflective Equilibrium ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Foundational Principle ◽  
Digital Commons

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract in English only.David Solomon proposes in his article that deep divisions in our culture, which are reflected in the variety and opposition of foundational normative theories, are key to understanding the contemporary crisis in bioethics. Solomon examines two recent attempts to respond to this crisis of authority in bioethics and suggest that both proposals make the situation worse. However, his criticism of principlism, which has been dominant in bioethics since the 1980s, seems implausible. As observed by Aristotle, the rationale of a principle-based approach lies in the tensions between generality, considered judgment and ethical deliberation. The principle-based approach to meta-ethics is characterized as a dialectic between moral principles and considered judgment, which is analogous to Rawls’s concept of reflective equilibrium. The four principles formulated by Beauchamp and Childress are prima-facie binding, but subject to specification and balancing. It is possible for us to overcome these deep foundational disagreements in normative ethics by emphasizing the foundational principle held by the ancient Greeks; that is, our natural desire to live a good life.DOWNLOAD HISTORY | This article has been downloaded 41 times in Digital Commons before migrating into this platform.

Parfit’s Final Arguments in Normative Ethics

2021 ◽  
pp. 213-232
Author(s):  
Brad Hooker
Keyword(s):  
Reflective Equilibrium ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Final Part ◽  
The Third ◽  
Rule Consequentialism ◽  
Final Volume ◽  
Act Consequentialism ◽  
What Matters

This paper starts by juxtaposing the normative ethics in the final part of Parfit’s final book, On What Matters, volume iii (2017), with the normative ethics in his earlier books, Reasons and Persons (1984) and On What Matters, volume i (2011). The paper then addresses three questions. The first is, where does the reflective-equilibrium methodology that Parfit endorsed in the first volume of On What Matters lead? The second is, is the Act-involving Act Consequentialism that Parfit considers in the final volume of On What Matters as plausible as Rossian deontology? The third is, how is the new argument that Parfit puts forward for Rule Consequentialism supposed to work?

Challenging Good-For Monism

2021 ◽  
pp. 50-71
Author(s):  
Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Final Value ◽  
Common Response ◽  
Good For ◽  
Core Issues ◽  
Evaluative Terms

‘Challenging Good-For Monism’ takes on the good-for monist, who maintains that both value dualism and Mooreanism get things wrong. For the good-for monist there is one fundamental final value, and it is final goodness-for. The first challenge to this kind of monism concerns value aggregation. It is showed why value dualism has an advantage over good-for monism when dualism explains why we should favour what common sense dictates in certain cases involving aggregation. A second challenge concerns good-for monism’s understanding of certain thick value concepts. The argument here is simple, but it nonetheless requires some unravelling. The point is that to be appropriately analysed, certain thick value concepts require impersonal goodness or at least impersonal normativity. Finally, the chapter considers whether good-for monism is able to avoid some of its problems by endorsing a popular subjectivist strategy for analysing good-for. This strategy fails, however. To conclude, good-for monism fails to provide us the tools with which to understand a common response to core issues in normative ethics. It also bars us from making some evaluations involving thick evaluative terms, which, in principle, we should be able to endorse or reject on substantive grounds.

Ethical Theories and Teaching Engineering Ethics

2015 ◽  
pp. 111-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael S. Pritchard ◽  
Elaine E. Englehardt
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Engineering Ethics ◽  
Engineering Practice ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Ethical Problems ◽  
Ethical Decisions ◽  
Theory To Practice ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Comprehensive Picture

As an area of academic study, engineering ethics focuses primarily on practical ethical issues. A primary aim of the study of practical ethics is to help students make good ethical decisions in whatever practical endeavors they may undertake, including in their chosen careers. The authors argue that reflection on the sorts of ethical problems that arise in engineering practice should be the starting point, with ethical theory coming into view primarily in this context. This is in contrast to a more “top-down” approach that tries to “apply” theory to practice only after laying out a spectrum of philosophically grounded theories, each of which attempts to give us a comprehensive picture of ethics, as such.

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