从道德模范说起

这些年来,社会道德建设问题不仅引起了社会各界的严重关切,也引起了学术界的严重关切。然而如何建设良好的社会道德?却有着不同的答案。其中为我们大家所熟知、又     

论唐君毅的道德观——读《道德自我之建立》

唐君毅是中国现代史上著名的哲学家,也是现代新儒家的代表人物之一。其道德观是建立在其心本体论哲学之基础上的,他对道德生活本质、道德自我在宇宙中的地位、现实世界之物质是精神之体现的论述,以及希望建立一个充满高尚理想与道德价值的社会的思想,对于我们当今构建和谐社会无疑具有积极的启迪意义。     

On human needs and moral appraisals

For a large and important range of cases the connection between ‘X needs y’ and ‘X ought to have y’, though not an entailment, is still non‐contingent. Sentences in which ‘needs’ occurs have several uses) one of which is normative; when such sentences are used to make statements, the statements constitute a good reason for asserting that what is needed ought to be done. It must, however, be recognized that such a reason may not be a sufficient reason for the moral appraisal that what is needed ought to be done. It is not self‐contradictory to assert ‘He needs it but he ought not to have it’, though in moral contexts if it is stated that someone needs something or that something is needed we are entitled to infer that, everything else being equal, he should have it or that it should be done. But often there are countervailing considerations which defeat that initial presumption. I attempt to support these contentions by 1) describing several key uses of “need sentences” and 2) by elucidating the relations between the uses of such sentences and moral judgments.     

On a neglected feature of moral agency

Two conditions have been thought necessary and sufficient for a person to be morally responsible. The first is a control condition: an agent must control the actions for which she is held responsible. The second is an epistemic condition: an agent must know, or have the right kind of cognitive relationship to, the relevant features of what she is doing. Debate about moral responsibility among contemporary philosophers can be neatly divided into two circles, with each circle attending narrowly to one of these two conditions. I argue that these separate debates should not be had so separately. The two conditions on moral responsibility interact in a way that has been neglected. An agent's possession of knowledge, and her capacity to attain knowledge, increase that agent's control in a sense relevant to the control condition on moral responsibility. Conversely, an agent's control of her actions can be used to acquire knowledge in a sense relevant to the epistemic condition on moral responsibility. It is in this way that a sort of feedback loop arises between the epistemic condition and the control condition—each is capable of augmenting the degree to which their possessor satisfies the other. I argue that this interaction has important implications for each debate.     

On the moral significance of contribution to poverty

In a paper from 2005, Gerhard Overland defends the thesis that one's responsibility to render assistance is not affected by having contributed to the situation by causing harm. Overland applies this thesis to the issue of what duties relatively well-off people have in terms of rendering assistance to the global poor and argues for the sub-conclusion that contribution carries little momentum when assessing our duty to assist people in severe need if we can do so at a little cost. In this paper, I discuss Overland's argument in favor of the sub-conclusion and try to show that it is not sound.     

On epistemic and moral certainty: A wittgensteinian approach

Abstract

Epistemic and moral certainities like ‘This is a hand’ or ‘Killing people is evil’ will be interpreted as constitutive rules of language games, such that they are unjustifiable, undeniable and serving as obliging standards of truth, goodness and rationality for members of a community engaging in the respective practices.     

The dual moral self: moral centrality and internal moral motivation

In this study, the relationship between two aspects of the moral self, moral centrality and internal moral motivation, was analyzed. It is argued that these 2 aspects are conceptually distinct but nonetheless empirically related. Based on a cross-sectional study of 205 adolescents (M age = 14.83 years, SD = 2.21 years) it was found that moral centrality and internal moral motivation, even though substantially correlated, interacted in predicting moral emotion expectancies. Even though moral centrality was unrelated to adolescents' age it predicted a longitudinal increase in internal moral motivation over a 1-year interval. Overall, the findings call for a differentiation of moral centrality and internal moral motivation as 2 distinct but interrelated aspects of moral self-development that follow different developmental trajectories and are differentially related to age. At the same time, the study points out that adolescence may be less important for the development of the moral self than commonly assumed.     

On the alleged connection between moral evil and human freedom

Those who advance the traditional argument from human freedom presume that human freedom provides an adequate explanation of moral evil. I argue that this presumption is erroneous. An adequate explanation of our capacity to make choices that produce moral evil must be distinguished from an adequate explanation of the actuality of such choices. Human freedom may account for our ability to make choices that issue in moral evil. It cannot, by itself, account for our actually making such choices. Something more than our potential for choices that produce moral evil is required to adequately explain the profusion of moral evil that we actually find in the world.     

Personal moral philosophies and moral choice

The moral choices and post-transgression reactions of individuals who adopted varying personal moral philosophies were examined in an experimental setting that permitted the manipulation of the salience of moral norms and the nature of the consequences of one's actions. As predicted, the two situational variables had a strong impact on moral action; only 50.0% of the subjects chose to violate a moral norm when that norm was salient and they would personally benefit by their actions; this percentage increased to 76.2% in the other conditions. Personal ethical philosophies also influenced moral choices and post-transgression reactions, for more of the idealistic subjects chose to act immorally relative to the low idealists (91.66% vs 70.83%), and subjects who were low in both idealism and relativism were less likely to transgress a moral norm if they personally would benefit. The results lend support to the proposed interpersonal model of morality, particularly as applied to post-transgression reactions.