Is There an Identity Crisis in Environmental Ethics?

Environmental ethics is both a moral philosophy and an applied ethics.This duality has led some people to feel confused about environmental ethics' identity and to cast doubts on its legitimacy.This paper,by distinguishing and exploding environmental ethics' two patterns of inquiry (the moral philosophy pattern and the applied ethics pattern) and their characteristics,tries to resolve the discipline's identity crisis and to argue for its legitimacy.     

Interpreting Ecofeminist Environmentalism in African Communitarian Philosophy and Ubuntu: An Alternative to Anthropocentrism

Abstract

The question of what an African ecofeminist environmental ethical view ought to look like remains unanswered in much of philosophical writing on African environmental ethics. I consider what an African ecofeminist environmental ethics ought to look like if values salient in African communitarian philosophy and ubuntu are seriously considered. After considering how African communitarian philosophy and ubuntu foster communitarian living, relational living, harmonious living, interrelatedness and interdependence between human beings and various aspects of nature, I reveal how African communitarian philosophy and ubuntu could be interpreted from an ecofeminist environmental perspective. I suggest that this underexplored ecofeminist environmental ethical view in African philosophical thinking might be reasonably taken as an alternative to anthropocentric environmentalism. I urge other ethical theorists on African environmentalism not to neglect this non-anthropocentric African environmentalism that is salient in African ecofeminist environmentalism.     

The Failure of Traditional Environmental Philosophy

Res Publica - A notable feature of recent philosophical work on climate ethics is that it makes practically no reference to ‘traditional’ environmental philosophy (of the sort that has...     

Agrarian Philosophy and Ecological Ethics

Mainstream environmental ethics grew out of an approach to value that was rooted in a particular conception of rationality and rational choice. As weaknesses in this approach have become more evident, environmental philosophers have experimented with both virtue ethics and with pragmatism as alternative starting points for developing a more truly ecological orientation to environmental philosophy. However, it is possible to see both virtue ethics and pragmatism as emerging from older philosophical traditions that are here characterized as “agrarian.” Agrarian philosophy stresses the role of nature, soil and climate in the formation of moral character as well as social and political institutions. As such, reaching back to the agrarian tradition may provide a way to move forward with both virtue oriented themes as well as pragmatist themes in developing ecological ethics.     

Is “Latin American Thought” Philosophy?

Abstract: A durable question in Latin American thought is whether it could amount to a characteristically Latin American philosophy. I argue that if, as is now widely conceded, there is a role for philosophical analysis in thinking about problems that arise in applied subjects, such as bioethics, environmental ethics, and feminism, then why not also in Latin American thought? After all, the focus of Hispanic thinkers has often been upon the issues that arise in their own experiences of the world, and they make up a diverse group of peoples related by very idiosyncratic ethnic and historical connections. I believe that, given some appropriate criteria, the existing corpus of works by Latin American thinkers is a part of a distinctive philosophy.     

环境伦理学中的"生态化"人生观

从其实践要求和理论品性来看,一种完整的环境伦理学理论必然包含着一种关于人生观的理解。本文主要探讨罗尔斯顿环境伦理理论和深生态学关于人生观的主张和见解,从而指出环境伦理学理论包含着一种“生态化”人生观。相对于现代社会盛行的人生观来说,“生态化”人生观是基于人生之生命层面的,尊重自然的,后物质主义的人生观。它作为一种新的人生观理论具有重要现实意义。     

Medical ethics' appropriation of moral philosophy: the case of the sympathetic and the unsympathetic physician

Philosophy textbooks typically treat bioethics as a form of "applied ethics"-i.e., an attempt to apply a moral theory, like utilitarianism, to controversial ethical issues in biology and medicine. Historians, however, can find virtually no cases in which applied philosophical moral theory influenced ethical practice in biology or medicine. In light of the absence of historical evidence, the authors of this paper advance an alternative model of the historical relationship between philosophical ethics and medical ethics, the appropriation model. They offer two historical case studies to illustrate the ways in which physicians have "appropriated" concepts and theory fragments from philosophers, and demonstrate how appropriated moral philosophy profoundly influenced the way medical morality was conceived and practiced.     

History and theory in "applied ethics"

Robert Baker and Laurence McCullough argue that the "applied ethics model" is deficient and in need of a replacement model. However, they supply no clear meaning to "applied ethics" and miss most of what is important in the literature on methodology that treats this question. The Baker-McCullough account of medical and applied ethics is a straw man that has had no influence in these fields or in philosophical ethics. The authors are also on shaky historical grounds in dealing with two problems: (1) the historical source of the notion of "practical ethics" and (2) the historical source of and the assimilation of the term "autonomy" into applied philosophy and professional ethics. They mistakenly hold (1) that the expression "practical ethics" was first used in a publication by Thomas Percival and (2) that Kant is the primary historical source of the notion of autonomy as that notion is used in contemporary applied ethics.     

Toward an Horizon in Design Ethics

This paper suggests that design ethics can be enriched by considering ethics beyond the traditional approaches of deontology, teleology, and virtue ethics. Design practice and design ethics literature tend to frame ethics in design according to these approaches. The paper argues that a fundamental and concrete ethical understanding of design ethics can also be found in Sartrean Existentialism, a philosophy centered on the individual and his/her absolute freedom. Through the analysis of four core concepts of Sartrean Existentialism that define a specific ethics, the paper illustrates why such philosophical approach is relevant to design ethics. The paper also shows how Sartrean Existentialism and its ethics apply to critical issues of professional practice in design such as professional engagement and design decision-making. The paper finally argues that Sartre’s philosophy and ethics is a perspective that offers the designer in design practice a solid ground to engage his/her ethical dilemma.     

What’s philosophically interesting about engineering ethics?

What makes a subject philosophically interesting is hard-to-resolve confusion about fundamental concepts. Engineering ethics suffers from at least three such fundamental confusions. First, there is confusion about what the “ethics” in engineering ethics is (ordinary morality, philosophical ethics, special standards, or something else?) Second, there is confusion about what the profession of engineering is (a function, discipline, occupation, kind of organization, or something else?) Third, there is confusion about what the discipline of engineering is. These fundamental confusions in engineering ethics connect with philosophically interesting work in moral theory, political philosophy, and philosophy of science. Work in these areas may help with the philosophical problems of engineering ethics. But, equally important, work in engineering ethics may help with the philosophical problems in these others fields.     

ANCIENT CHINESE THEORIES OF LANGUAGE

It is a commonplace hope of much modern philosophy that philosophy be understood as intimately related to language. The bridge between philosophical doctrines and language is typically erected by explaining various substantive views in e.g. ontology, logic, epistemology, ethics, etc., as presupposing a certain view of language, its function, its significance, etc. Insofar as this view is helpful, understanding Chinese philosophy should be no exception. Behind some of the ethical, metaphysical or epistemo-logical doctrines, we should be able to find views about language which themselves can be explained by certain general features of Chinese language and accepted philosophical practice. These, naturally, would be most interesting and informative where they provide a contrast with the views which historically were dominant in Western philosophy.     

Xunzi: A Paradigm of Rationalistic Virtue Ethics in Early Confucianism

Against the background of modern academic study, this article consciously uses Aristotle’s virtue ethics as a tool to theoretically analyze Xunzi’s ethical philosophy. This article tries to briefly analyze the basic structure of Xunzi’s moral philosophy and to reveal its unique rationalist theoretical character by exploring the following three topics: “the understanding of human beings,” “the establishment of a moral foundation,” and “the accomplishment of virtue in practice.” From the perspective of comparative philosophy, this article can also be viewed as a model for bringing about communication and synthesis between two philosophical traditions, namely Confucian ethics and Western virtue ethics.     

Science, Human Nature, and a New Paradigm for Ethics Education

For centuries, religion and philosophy have been the primary basis for efforts to guide humans to be more ethical. However, training in ethics and religion and imparting positive values and morality tests such as those emanating from the categorical imperative and the Golden Rule have not been enough to protect humankind from its bad behaviors. To improve ethics education educators must better understand aspects of human nature such as those that lead to ??self-deception?? and ??personal bias.?? Through rationalizations, faulty reasoning and hidden bias, individuals trick themselves into believing there is little wrong with their own unethical behavior. The application of science to human nature offers the possibility of improving ethics education through better self-knowledge. The author recommends a new paradigm for ethics education in contemporary modern society. This includes the creation of a new field called ??applied evolutionary neuro-ethics?? which integrates science and social sciences to improve ethics education. The paradigm can merge traditional thinking about ethics from religious and philosophical perspectives with new ideas from applied evolutionary neuro-ethics.     

Introduction: education and migration

ABSTRACT

This introduction expounds educational problems that arise from transnational migration. It argues that it is high time to critically analyze normative issues of and in education under conditions of globalization because dominant approaches in normative philosophy of education tend to suffer from both a nationalist bias and a sedentary bias. The contributions to this special issue address normative problems pertaining to migration-related education from a variety of ethical and philosophical perspectives, including analytic applied ethics, continental philosophy, care ethics, Hegelian philosophy, the capability approach and theories of distributive justice. They discuss the education of both citizens and migrants in the receiving society as well as in the country of origin, focusing on ethical issues pertaining to access to education as well as to the content of educational programs.     

How has Philosophical Applied Ethics Progressed in the Past Fifty Years?

Applied ethics is relatively new on the philosophical scene, having grown out of the various civil rights movements of the 1950s and 1960s, as well as the student demand that college courses be relevant. Even today, there are those who think that there are no philosophically interesting practical ethical questions, and that applied ethics is not a branch of philosophy at all. This article rejects that view, both because some of the most interesting and respectable philosophers in the world have worked in applied ethics and because applied ethics has been the source of many difficult conceptual questions in theoretical ethics and even metaphysics. These include the grounds for moral status, human identity, how to conceive rights in general and the right to life in particular, the question whether existence itself can be a harm (the nonidentity problem), and the nature of moral principles.     

Introduction

This article introduces the papers from two video conferences recently held between philosophers at Moscow State University and the University at Albany, State University of New York. The overarching theme is philosophical progress in the past fifty years, but the conferences were designed also to illustrate the range of work now being done by American analytic philosophers and by Russian thinkers. The Albany essays focus on philosophy of science, philosophical logic, Kantian studies, applied ethics, and ethical and political theory. The Russian essays concern philosophy of culture, philosophy of mind, phenomenology, social philosophy, feminism, and postmodernism. This introductory essay notes similarities and differences that exist among American and Russian approaches to philosophy and the prospects for the convergence (or not) of these approaches. It also indicates ways in which contemporary Russian thinkers are striking out in new directions while seeking to recover those parts of their past that were silenced during much of the twentieth century.     

The social individual in clinical ethics

Except for several provocative final sentences, Sigrid Fry-Revere's "A Libertarian Critique of H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr.'s The Foundations of Bioethics" is not a libertarian so much as it is a philosophical critique. Engelhardt's work has been widely reviewed, and its arguments have been discussed in Fry-Revere's article and elsewhere. Although it would be impractical in this context to undertake the development of a full-scale, philosophical alternative to libertarianism in bioethics, some recent work in philosophy and clinical ethics bears strongly on the challenge that Engelhardt's work represents. In this commentary I will focus on the implications of a certain alternative philosophy -- and by comparison the limitations of Engelhardt's libertarianism -- for one important aspect of clinical ethics: our understanding of the nature of individuality, with special reference to the situation of the patient. I write as an admiring critic of Engelhardt's work, from which I have learned and drawn inspiration....     

Persistent bias in expert judgments about free will and moral responsibility: a test of the expertise defense

Many philosophers appeal to intuitions to support some philosophical views. However, there is reason to be concerned about this practice as scientific evidence has documented systematic bias in philosophically relevant intuitions as a function of seemingly irrelevant features (e.g., personality). One popular defense used to insulate philosophers from these concerns holds that philosophical expertise eliminates the influence of these extraneous factors. Here, we test this assumption. We present data suggesting that verifiable philosophical expertise in the free will debate—as measured by a reliable and validated test of expert knowledge—does not eliminate the influence of one important extraneous feature (i.e., the heritable personality trait extraversion) on judgments concerning freedom and moral responsibility. These results suggest that, in at least some important cases, the expertise defense fails. Implications for the practice of philosophy, experimental philosophy, and applied ethics are discussed.