Moral Responsibility and the Moral Community: Is Moral Responsibility Essentially Interpersonal?

Many philosophers endorse the idea that there can be no moral responsibility without a moral community and thus hold that such responsibility is essentially interpersonal. In this paper, various interpretations of this idea are distinguished, and it is argued that no interpretation of it captures a significant truth. The popular view that moral responsibility consists in answerability is discussed and dismissed. The even more popular view that such responsibility consists in susceptibility to the reactive attitudes is also discussed, and it is argued that this view at best supports only an etiolated interpretation of the idea that moral responsibility is essentially interpersonal.     

Moral Machines?

Wendell Wallach and Colin Allen??s Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right From Wrong (Oxford University Press, 2009) explores efforts to develop machines that, not only can be employed for good or bad ends, but which themselves can be held morally accountable for what they do??artificial moral agents (AMAs). This essay is a critical response to Wallach and Allen??s conjectures. Although Wallach and Allen do not suggest that we are close to being able to create full-fledged AMAs, they do talk seriously about making incremental progress in the direction of creating them (even if we never fully succeed). However, there are important questions about the moral development of AMAs that Moral Machines does not address. Given the responsibilities entrusted to human moral agents, we take questions about their moral development very seriously. In the case of children, the hope is that eventually they will develop into full-fledged moral agents. How might we expect this to go with less than fully formed AMAs? Will there be a comparable story of moral development and moral education that we can tell?     

Is Kant a Moral Constructivist or a Moral Realist?

Abstract: The dominant interpretation of Kant as a moral constructivist has recently come under sustained philosophical attack by those defending a moral realist reading of Kant. In light of this, should we read Kant as endorsing moral constructivism or moral realism? In answering this question we encounter disagreement in regard to two key independence claims. First, the independence of the value of persons from the moral law (an independence that is rejected) and second, the independence of the content and authority of the moral law from actual acts of willing on behalf of those bound by that law (an independence that is upheld). The resulting position, which is called not ‘all the way down’ constructivism, is attributed to Kant.     

Role of Moral Identity and Moral Courage Characteristics in Adolescents’ Tendencies to Be a Moral Rebel

Extending prior research on the characteristics potentially associated with adolescents’ tendencies to be a moral rebel, the present study found that adolescents themselves, their peers, and their teachers agreed on adolescents’ tendencies to (a) possess a moral identity, (b) possess moral courage characteristics, and (c) be a moral rebel. Although moral identity (when considered independently and in combination with the moral courage characteristics) did not consistently predict the tendency to be a moral rebel, all indices of the adolescents’ moral courage characteristics positively predicted the tendency to be a moral rebel.     

Anne-Marie Søndergaard Christensen: Moral Philosophy and Moral Life

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice -     

Does Moral Disagreement Pose a Semantic Challenge to Moral Realism?

Philosophia - Many philosophers have argued that moral disagreement raises metaphysical and/or epistemological challenges for moral realism. In this paper, I consider whether widespread moral...     

Naturalistic Moral Realism and Moral Disagreement: David Copp’s Account

To enhance the plausibility of naturalistic moral realism, David Copp develops an argument from epistemic defeaters aiming to show that strongly a priori synthetic moral truths do not exist. In making a case for the non-naturalistic position, I locate Copp??s account within the wider literature on peer disagreement; I identify key points of divergence between Copp??s doctrine and conciliatorist doctrines; I introduce the notion of ??minimal moral competence??; I contend that some plausible benchmarks for minimal moral competence are grounded in substantive moral considerations; and I discuss two forms of spinelessness that Copp??s moral naturalism could result in.     

Walter Sinnott-Armstrong,Moral Psychology Volume 4： Free Will and Moral Responsibility

This book is the fourth volume of a series on moral psychology edited by philosopher Walter Sinnott-Armstrong. Each of these volumes is organized in debate format, with ten or so main essays each followed by responses from two critics, with an opportunity for the author of the main essay to make a final reply.The present volume takes on the question of free will and moral responsibility, and addresses the question of what implications recent discoveries in neuroscience and social psychology have for our traditional notions of moral and legal responsibility, as well as for popular and philosophical notions of free will. Given the constant barrage of media coverage of scientists declaring that science has now proven that free will is an illusion, and even that morality itself is an illusion, this volume covers a topic that is timely, relevant, and important.     

Strawson or Straw Man? More on Moral Responsibility and the Moral Community

In a recent article in this journal, I argued against the popular twofold Strawsonian claim that there can be no moral responsibility without a moral community and that, as a result, moral responsibility is essentially interpersonal. Benjamin De Mesel has offered a number of objections to my argument, including in particular the objection that I mischaracterized Strawson’s view. In this article, I respond to De Mesel’s criticisms.     

Moral black‐ and whitemail

‘Moral Black‐ and Whitemail’ is a study of those modes of action which involve what I propose to call ‘a raising of the moral stakes’. Illustration: A wants B to do X, and B wants to do Y; so A creates a situation in which doing Y would either be morally objectionable or more objectionable than it would have been but for A's intervention. Such modes of action include all the varieties of moral blackmail as well as such practices as those of returning good for evil, putting people on trust, and some kinds of non‐violent resistance. I try to expose the distinguishing marks of moral blackmail, why it is thought so objectionable, and how it is related to these other practices that also involve a raising of the moral stakes. The study as a whole is intended to underline the ambiguous nature of human action.     

Kant’s Moral Panentheism

Although Kant is often interpreted as an Enlightenment Deist, Kant scholars are increasingly recognizing aspects of his philosophy that are more amenable to theism. If Kant regarded himself as a theist, what kind of theist was he? The theological approach that best fits Kant’s model of God is panentheism, whereby God is viewed as a living being pervading the entire natural world, present ‘in’ every part of nature, yet going beyond the physical world. The purpose of Kant’s restrictions on our knowledge of God is not to cast doubt on God’s existence, but to preserve a mystery in God’s reality so that God is always more than the world as we experience it. The same God who is theoretically unknowable is also an aspect of the moral substratum of the physical world. Kant’s moral Trinity (God as righteous Lawgiver, benevolent Ruler, and just Judge) permeates everything, as the ultimate unifier of reason and nature. This Paper was delivered during the 2007 APA Pacific Mini-Conference on Models of God, together with papers published in Philosophia 35:3–4.     

Do ‘Objectivist’ Features of Moral Discourse and Thinking Support Moral Objectivism?

Many philosophers think that moral objectivism is supported by stable features of moral discourse and thinking. When engaged in moral reasoning and discourse, people behave ??as if?? objectivism were correct, and the seemingly most straightforward way of making sense of this is to assume that objectivism is correct; this is how we think that such behavior is explained in paradigmatically objectivist domains. By comparison, relativist, error-theoretic or non-cognitivist accounts of this behavior seem contrived and ad hoc. After explaining why this argument should be taken seriously (recent arguments notwithstanding), I argue that it is nevertheless undermined by considerations of moral disagreement. Even if the metaphysical, epistemic and semantic commitments of objectivism provide little or no evidence against it, and even if the alternative explanations of ??objectivist?? traits of moral discourse and thinking are speculative or contrived, objectivism is itself incapable of making straightforward sense of these traits. Deep and widespread moral disagreement or, rather, the mere appearance of such disagreement, strongly suggests that the explanations operative in paradigmatically objective discourse fail to carry over to the moral case. Since objectivism, no less than relativism, non-cognitivism and error-theories, needs non-trivial explanations of why we behave ??as if?? objectivism were correct, such behavior does not presently provide reason to accept objectivism.     

There’s Nothing Quasi About Quasi-Realism: Moral Realism as a Moral Doctrine

This paper seeks to clarify and defend the proposition that moral realism is best elaborated as a moral doctrine. I begin by upholding Ronald Dworkin’s anti-Archimedean critique of the error theory against some strictures by Michael Smith, and I then briefly suggest how a proponent of moral realism as a moral doctrine would respond to Smith’s defense of the Archimedeanism of expressivism. Thereafter, this paper moves to its chief endeavor. By differentiating clearly between expressivism and quasi-realism (or moral realism as a moral doctrine), the paper highlights both their distinctness and their compatibility. In so doing, it underscores the affinities between Blackburnian quasi-realism and moral realism as a moral doctrine. Finally, this paper contends—in line with my earlier work on these matters—that moral realism as a moral doctrine points to the need for some reorienting of meta-ethical enquiries rather than for the abandoning of them.     

Do We Gossip for Moral Reasons? The Intersection of Moral Foundations and Gossip

Gossip is comprised of evaluative talk about absent others. Although such evaluations may be moral or non-moral, moral judgments often precede the transmission of gossip. This work explored the salience of moral and non-moral motivations to transmit gossip-like information. Two studies explored the relationships between the general tendency to gossip, transmission of, and interest in gossip, five moral foundations (Harm/care, Fairness/reciprocity, Ingroup/loyalty, Authority/respect, Purity/sanctity), their sacredness in relational contexts, and moral and non-moral motives to gossip. Results from Studies 1 (negative gossip - infidelity) and 2 (positive gossip - fidelity) indicated that moral motives to gossip were more important than non-moral motives. The contribution of morality in perpetuating gossip was discussed.     

Is Moral Motivation Rationally Required?

The answer to the title question is “No.” The first section argues, using the example of Huckleberry Finn, that rational agents need not be motivated by their explicit judgments of rightness and wrongness. Section II rejects a plausible argument to the conclusion that rational agents must have some moral concerns. The third section clarifies the relevant concept of irrationality and argues that moral incoherence does not equate with this common relevant concept. Section IV questions a rational requirement for prudential concern and whether a requirement for moral concern would follow from it. Section V examines the rationality of amoralists and partial amoralists, and Sect. VI closes with speculation on why there might seem to be a rational requirement to be morally motivated.     

Does Integrity Require Moral Goodness?

Most accounts of integrity agree that the person of integrity must have a relatively stable sense of who he is, what is important to him, and the ability to stand by what is most important to him in the face of pressure to do otherwise. But does integrity place any constraints on the kind of principles that the person of integrity stands for? In response to several recent accounts of integrity, I argue that it is not enough that a person stand for what he believes in, nor even that he is committed to and stands for what, in his best judgement, is morally right. In our web of moral concepts integrity is internally related to a host of virtues which exclude weakness of will and dogmatism, and presuppose trustworthiness. Integrity requires that the principles stood for must be those that a morally good, morally trustworthy agent would stand for, and that the agent himself is morally trustworthy.     

What's Special about Moral Ignorance?

According to an influential view by Elizabeth Harman, moral ignorance, as opposed to factual ignorance, never excuses one from blame. In defense of this view, Harman appeals to the following considerations: (i) that moral ignorance always implies a lack of good will, and (ii) that moral truth is always accessible. In this paper, I clearly distinguish these considerations, and present challenges to both. If my arguments are successful, sometimes moral ignorance excuses.