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 Personal Morality and Its Social Implications

Joel J. Kupperman

in Ethics and Qualities of Life

This chapter connects the two poles of conscious moral choice: the personal felt quality and conceptual implications. This continues the work of the previous chapters and further undermines the ... More

This chapter connects the two poles of conscious moral choice: the personal felt quality and conceptual implications. This continues the work of the previous chapters and further undermines the seductive image of ethics as centering on lone individuals making decisions for decontextualized cases that can be considered in isolation from those they would make in any other cases. It is shown that any morality, no matter how idiosyncratic, is implicitly a social morality; and that this has further implications. It requires that morality should apply irrespective of persons. It also requires a central role for general rules.Less

The Two Kingdoms in Concert 1783–1799

Jonathan D. Sassi

in A Republic of Righteousness: The Public Christianity of the Post-Revolutionary New England Clergy

Along with their providential interpretations, Congregational ministers during the last two decades of the eighteenth century offered their prescriptions for how to build a righteous social order and ... More

Along with their providential interpretations, Congregational ministers during the last two decades of the eighteenth century offered their prescriptions for how to build a righteous social order and safeguard the republican experiment. They called for the elite leadership of magistrate and minister, or “Moses and Aaron,” in order to shield society from moral breakdown, the decay of virtue, and divine chastisement. In this symbiotic arrangement, civil rulers would prosecute sinfulness, exemplify godliness, and support the religious establishment, while clergymen were to sow Christian piety, urge repentance from sin, and instruct the people in obedience to those in power. Although they shared the Congregationalists’ concern for social morality and a strong belief in Providence, religious minorities led by the Baptists dissented from the standing order's social vision on practical, ideological, and theological grounds, and instead they called for a strict separation of church and state. By the second half of the 1790s, both the French Revolution and the rise of domestic political contentions led standing‐order ministers to issue a conservative call for renewed allegiance to religion and government which allied them with the Federalist party.Less

Moral Foundations

Tom L. Beauchamp

in Ethics and Epidemiology

This chapter seeks to provide an understanding of philosophical ethics sufficient for reading other chapters and for appreciating the relevance of philosophical investigations for epidemiologic ... More

This chapter seeks to provide an understanding of philosophical ethics sufficient for reading other chapters and for appreciating the relevance of philosophical investigations for epidemiologic ethics. Some central concepts and methods of biomedical ethics are explained. In the section on Social Morality and Professional Morality, several questions about the nature of morality and moral responsibility are discussed. In the Section on Problems and Methods in Moral Philosophy, several problems and methods in moral philosophy are discussed, and, in the final section, some ethical theories of importance for biomedical ethics are investigated.Less

Introduction

Cheshire Calhoun

in Moral Aims: Essays on the Importance of Getting It Right and Practicing Morality with Others

This chapter explores two moral aims connected to two different conceptions of morality: (1) the aim of getting it right by identify correct moral norms (2) the aim of practicing morality with others ... More

This chapter explores two moral aims connected to two different conceptions of morality: (1) the aim of getting it right by identify correct moral norms (2) the aim of practicing morality with others within an actual social morality. The first aim requires adopting a critical, reflective point of view and thinking about the correct, but hypothetical, social practice of morality would look like. The second aim requires employing the shared moral understandings of an actual social practice of morality. The chapter argues that normative moral theorists need to use both conceptions of morality.Less

I'll Be Doing the Giving: The Traffic in Women and Men in Gubijinsō

in An Age of Melodrama: Family, Gender, and Social Hierarchy in the Turn-of-the-Century Japanese Novel

This chapter examines the treatment of the issues of marriage and family succession in Natsume Sōseki's Gubijinsō. It explains that this novel focused on themes rooted in contemporary social ... More

This chapter examines the treatment of the issues of marriage and family succession in Natsume Sōseki's Gubijinsō. It explains that this novel focused on themes rooted in contemporary social morality, particularly the conflict between female desire and patriarchal succession and it also highlighted the fascination of Meiji melodrama for homosocial alliances and heterosexual relations. This chapter contends that the moral exemplar of the novel is brute as can be seen in the final confrontation scene and argues that the ie-seido was not restored through faith but force.Less

Introduction

Michael Moehler

in Minimal Morality: A Multilevel Social Contract Theory

In this chapter the author discusses the core concepts that underlie the two-level contractarian theory developed in this book, in particular the concepts of deep moral pluralism, traditional ... More

In this chapter the author discusses the core concepts that underlie the two-level contractarian theory developed in this book, in particular the concepts of deep moral pluralism, traditional morality, and pure instrumental morality. Further, the chapter provides a brief synopsis of the main argument presented in this book and clarifies its theoretical and practical relevance. Finally, the chapter addresses some of the methodological considerations, such as the debate concerning ideal and nonideal theory, the application of rational choice theory to moral philosophy, and the scope of social morality, that are essential for understanding the nature and architecture of the two-level contractarian theory.Less

Overcoming Polarization: The New Social Morality

Daniel Yankelovich (ed.)

in Uniting America: Restoring the Vital Center to American Democracy

Today's political discourse is dominated by the red/blue theory, which argues that the United States has evolved into a 50–50 nation of liberals and conservatives. According to the red/blue ... More

Today's political discourse is dominated by the red/blue theory, which argues that the United States has evolved into a 50–50 nation of liberals and conservatives. According to the red/blue polarization thesis, the nation is turning from unity to divisiveness, from pragmatism to ideology, from comity to bitter partisanship. Politicians are showing unyielding rigidity instead of willingness to compromise. To a certain extent, the polarization in Congress reflects a historical trend that has been going on for more than four decades, dating back to the time of President Lyndon B. Johnson. This chapter considers the emergence of a “new social morality,” a cluster of shared values that seem to unite strong majorities of Americans. These values range from patriotism and individualism to self-confidence, child-centeredness, religious beliefs, pragmatism and compromise, acceptance of diversity, support for community and charity, and willingness to cooperate with other countries. After a brief overview of the polarization idea, the chapter argues that this “new social morality” would enable policymakers to come up with practical solutions that unite rather than divide the country.Less

Raz on Gaps—the Surprising Part

TIMOTHY A. O. ENDICOTT

in Rights, Culture and the Law: Themes from the Legal and Political Philosophy of Joseph Raz

In English law, there are various ways in which contracts can be invalid or unenforceable because they are immoral — and yet English lawyers know that many contracts are conclusively binding. The ... More

In English law, there are various ways in which contracts can be invalid or unenforceable because they are immoral — and yet English lawyers know that many contracts are conclusively binding. The first two sources of legal gaps that Joseph Raz identifies do not seem so surprising. Vagueness in the sources of law leads to gaps in borderline cases, and there is a gap if the law includes inconsistent rules, with no way of deciding which is effective. In those situations it seems right to say that the law does not tell people where they stand, so that people may need a court to make a decision. But if Raz is right about the third source of gaps, then judges have discretion whenever the law appeals to moral considerations. This chapter discusses the sources thesis, moral considerations, judicial discretion, the social morality of judges, and contract law.Less

Literary Intimacies

Wenqing Kang

in Obsession: Male Same-Sex Relations in China, 1900-1950

Literary works of both major and minor writers such as Yu Dafu, Ye Dingluo, Guo Moruo, Huang Shenzhi, and Ye Lingfend represent intimate relations between men during the 1920s and the 1930s. ... More

Literary works of both major and minor writers such as Yu Dafu, Ye Dingluo, Guo Moruo, Huang Shenzhi, and Ye Lingfend represent intimate relations between men during the 1920s and the 1930s. Historians and literary critics from China and the United States have largely ignored writings on male same-sex relations. It is, however, important that these writings be restored since these account for a period in modern Chinese history in which male same-sex love encouraged different social ideas and enabled the development of different meanings of homosexuality. Along with the protest against arranged marriage, male same-sex love challenged sexual and social morality constraints. These concepts were either viewed as a foundation for a utopian vision, or as an evil practice. Literary writers were also able to express their sadness towards the Chinese empire's decline through male same-sex love's ephemeral quality.Less

An Apology for Moral Shame

Cheshire Calhoun

in Moral Aims: Essays on the Importance of Getting It Right and Practicing Morality with Others

Making a place for shame in the mature moral agent’s psychology would seem to depend on reconciling the agent’s vulnerability to shame with her capacity for autonomous judgment. The standard strategy ... More

Making a place for shame in the mature moral agent’s psychology would seem to depend on reconciling the agent’s vulnerability to shame with her capacity for autonomous judgment. The standard strategy is to argue that mature agents are only shamed before themselves or before those whose evaluative judgments mirror their own. Because this strategy forces us to discount as irrational or immature many everyday experiences of shame, including the shame felt by members of subordinate groups, this chapter argues that shame does not depend on endorsing the shamer’s criticism. Moral criticism has “practical weight” for us and the power to shame when it is seen as issuing from those who are to be taken seriously because they are co-participants with us in a shared social practice of morality. Thus shame is a social emotion.Less

Moral Universes of Torturers and Murderers

Martha K. Hugginsv, Mika Haritos-Fatouros, and Philip G. Zimbardo

in Violence Workers: Police Torturers and Murderers Reconstruct Brazilian Atrocities

This chapter focuses on violence workers' retrospective social control moralities about their work. It explains that the moral universes of these workers were shaped during the military period by ... More

This chapter focuses on violence workers' retrospective social control moralities about their work. It explains that the moral universes of these workers were shaped during the military period by national security ideologies and then nurtured by occupational insularity and personal isolation. Thus, their moral universes have been restructured in the present to render atrocity justifications compatible with Brazil's postmilitary sociopolitical climate. The chapter identifies the strategies of violence workers for explaining and excusing atrocity. These include diffusing responsibility, blaming individuals, citing a just cause, and asserting that professionalism had correctly guided their and other's violence.Less

Moral Failure

Cheshire Calhoun

in Moral Aims: Essays on the Importance of Getting It Right and Practicing Morality with Others

This chapter suggests there are two moral ideals for what lives should look like: (1) the familiar ideal of “getting it right” by choosing justifiable principles and acting on them; (2) the ideal of ... More

This chapter suggests there are two moral ideals for what lives should look like: (1) the familiar ideal of “getting it right” by choosing justifiable principles and acting on them; (2) the ideal of participating in a social practice of morality that provides a scheme of social cooperation. Moral revolutionaries achieve the ideal of correct action by repudiating the shared but mistaken moral understandings of their social world. The moral character of their choices is thus often illegible to others, and thus their lives fail the second ideal of living in a shared moral world.Less

Respect for Persons and Public Justification

Gerald Gaus

in Respect: Philosophical Essays

Gerald Gaus argues that respect for persons is not an independent ground for requiring that social morality must be publicly justified. Instead, respect is built into the structure of social ... More

Gerald Gaus argues that respect for persons is not an independent ground for requiring that social morality must be publicly justified. Instead, respect is built into the structure of social morality, because social morality involves recognizing one another as sources of a moral summons to follow rules. So mutual respect for persons is a social achievement, not a requirement underlying morality. The authority of rules of social morality derives from this structural nature of social morality. But because one may face a gap between one’s individual moral reasoning and social morality, no particular rule of social morality, including rules about whether coercion is justified, necessarily overrides one’s own moral conclusions.Less

The Science of Agape

Ralph M. Leck

in Vita Sexualis: Karl Ulrichs and the Origins of Sexual Science

This chapter examines the second European Renaissance: the reintroduction of Greek sexual philosophy into European cultural life. The pivot of this second Renaissance was the reintroduction of the ... More

This chapter examines the second European Renaissance: the reintroduction of Greek sexual philosophy into European cultural life. The pivot of this second Renaissance was the reintroduction of the Agape–Eros binary, particularly, the science of Agape, which revolutionized the study of sexuality. Sex was no longer merely an erotic or physiological matter best understood via natural science. The concept of Agape revealed that the study of sexuality must also be understood as a moral science. As Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison point out, scientific categories of analysis are not morally neutral. They carry within themselves prescriptive civic and moral codes. These codes can reproduce existing laws and dominant social patterns; or, as was the case with the reintroduction of agapeic science, a new lens of analysis can revolutionize science and social morality alike.Less

Dealing with Diversity, 1965–2012

David J. Howlett

in Kirtland Temple: The Biography of a Shared Mormon Sacred Space

This chapter focuses on religious diversity. Whatever their political or social outlook, religious groups in late twentieth-century America positioned themselves as arbiters of social morality ... More

This chapter focuses on religious diversity. Whatever their political or social outlook, religious groups in late twentieth-century America positioned themselves as arbiters of social morality related to race, gender, and sexuality. Perhaps unsurprisingly, some temple visitors look at the Kirtland temple as a place of encounter where social questions can be explored, questioned, and argued. This is not totally without precedent. Before 1965, the social morality discussed at the temple dealt almost exclusively with nineteenth-century Mormon polygamy. By 2012, the issues were still about sexuality, but they had changed. The primary social issues that drew visitors' attention were the Community of Christ's position on same-sex relationships and gender roles. Ultimately, the Kirtland Temple was and is a platform for reinforcing the identities of various religious groups as well as a place where they can momentarily transcend their differences.Less

Introduction

in Uniting America: Restoring the Vital Center to American Democracy

The period after 9/11 has been characterized by the disappearance of the center from American politics as Republicans and Democrats remain divided on crucial policy issues. The polarization in ... More

The period after 9/11 has been characterized by the disappearance of the center from American politics as Republicans and Democrats remain divided on crucial policy issues. The polarization in Congress is mirrored in the increasingly fragmented and politicized media and exacerbated by the rise of “advocacy” think tanks and well-funded activist groups on both the right and the left. Yet amid all the chatter about partisanship, there is evidence that Americans have a strong desire for political compromise. This book offers centrist solutions, rooted in core American democratic values, for the restoration of the vital center to democracy. It describes a “new social morality” that would enable policymakers to come up with practical solutions that unite rather than divide the country. It also outlines a practical bipartisan compromise to save the Social Security system and proposes an innovative scheme for fixing Medicare; explores the impact of religion, diversity, and immigration on the Americans' sense of national unity; and analyzes the impact of the country's approach to the war on terrorism both abroad and at home.Less

“Becoming Visible”: Italian Women and Their Male Co-Citizens in the Liberal State

Sabina Donati (ed.)

in A Political History of National Citizenship and Identity in Italy, 1861-1950

“Becoming Visible”: Italian Women and Their Male Co-Citizens in the Liberal State

Conclusion

in True to Her Word: The Faithful Maiden Cult in Late Imperial China

The story of the faithful maiden constitutes a rich case for historical inquiry into young women's lives and subjectivity, and the history and culture that their actions shaped. Some of faithful ... More

The story of the faithful maiden constitutes a rich case for historical inquiry into young women's lives and subjectivity, and the history and culture that their actions shaped. Some of faithful maidens framed their choices in terms of the grave responsibility of upholding social morality, and others, in personal terms of honor-bound duty. The faithful maiden cult was a social phenomenon produced and primarily driven by young women, but it was by no means of young women's sole making. It is shown that at times of political crisis, putting faithful maidens in the national spotlight constituted an important political experience for the literati. In the new age of the twentieth century, idealism, morality, and emotion were all given new meanings, and many young women devoted their lives to reform or to revolutionary causes.Less