Knowing that, knowing how, and knowing to do

Ryle’s distinction between knowing that and knowing how has recently been challenged. The paper first briefly defends the distinction and then proceeds to address the question of classifying moral knowledge. Moral knowledge is special in that it is practical, that is, it is essentially a motive. Hence the way we understand moral knowledge crucially depends on the way we understand motivation. The Humean theory of motivation is wrong in saying that reason cannot be a motive, but right in saying that desire is essential for motivating us. The right response to the Humean theory of motivation is to see that moral knowledge is desire-related rationality or thought-related desire. Moral knowledge is neither knowing that nor knowing how but rather a third species of knowledge which we may call “knowing to do.” Knowing to do is to be rationally disposed to do the right thing. This understanding of moral knowledge is exactly what we can learn from Aristotle’s ethics.     

Dialectics of Individual Life and Moral Law: On Adorno’s Non-Identical Moral Philosophy

The article aims to discuss the theme of Adorno’s non-identical moral philosophy, particularly the primacy of individual life over moral laws, as based mainly on his key works like Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life, On Subject and Object, Problems of Moral Philosophy, and Negative Dialectics. The claim here is that the primacy of individual life is made through negative dialectics (“non-idealist dialectics”) dealing with the antithesis between object and subject, particular and universal, individual and society under the theoretical horizon of non-identical philosophy. Meanwhile, as a private ethics, this non-identical moral philosophy based on individual life stands as a kind of negativism, which is focused on negative guidance towards the possibility of right life.     

Sound intuitions on Moral Twin Earth

A number of philosophers defend naturalistic moral realism by appeal to an externalist semantics for moral predicates. The application of semantic externalism to moral predicates has been attacked by Terence Horgan and Mark Timmons in a series of papers that make use of their “Moral Twin Earth” thought experiment. In response, several defenders of naturalistic moral realism have claimed that the Moral Twin Earth thought experiment is misleading and yields distorted and inaccurate semantic intuitions. If they are right, the intuitions generated by Moral Twin Earth cannot be appealed to in arguments against externalist moral semantics. The most developed case against the Moral Twin Earth argument that follows this strategy is found in a paper by Stephen Laurence, Eric Margolis and Angus Dawson. Here I argue that their attack on the Moral Twin Earth thought experiment fails. Laurence, Margolis and Dawson have not shown that we have reason to distrust the semantic intuitions it generates

Ethics Beyond Moral Theory

I develop an anti‐theory view of ethics. Moral theory (Kantian, utilitarian, virtue ethical, etc.) is the dominant approach to ethics among academic philosophers. But moral theory's hunt for a single Master Factor (utility, universalisability, virtue . . .) is implausibly systematising and reductionist. Perhaps scientism drives the approach? But good science always insists on respect for the data, even messy data: I criticise Singer's remarks on infanticide as a clear instance of moral theory failing to respect the data of moral perceptions and moral intuitions. Moral theory also fails to provide a coherent basis for real‐world motivation, justification, explanation, and prediction of good and bad, right and wrong. Consider for instance the marginal place of love in moral theory, compared with its central place in people's actual ethical outlooks and decision making. Hence, moral theory typically fails to ground any adequate ethical outlook. I propose that it is the notion of an ethical outlook that philosophical ethicists should pursue, not the unfruitful and distorting notion of a moral theory.     

Semantic and Moral Luck

The similarities between the philosophical debates surrounding assessment sensitivity and moral luck run so deep that one can easily adapt almost any argument from one debate, change some terms, adapt the examples, and end up with an argument relevant to the other. This article takes Brian Rosebury's strategy for resisting moral luck in “Moral Responsibility and ‘Moral Luck' ” (1995) and turns it into a strategy for resisting assessment sensitivity. The article shows that one of Bernard Williams's examples motivating moral luck is very similar to one of the examples John MacFarlane uses to motivate the assessment sensitivity of epistemic modals, and in particular the assessment sensitivity of the auxiliary verb “might.” This means that, if Rosebury is right and we do not actually need moral luck to explain Williams's example, we may not need assessment sensitivity to account for the semantic behaviour of the epistemic modal verb “might” either.     

HIV Testing and Pregnancy: A Case of Cultural Moral Equivocation

The concept of “moral equivocation” may be defined in the context of an ethical framework for moral judgment. This framework comprises two universal principles of right: the Dependency Principle, found (but not endorsed) in Plato's Republic, and the Democracy Principle. Moral equivocation is evident in a violation of either of these two principles. At the cultural level, coping with moral equivocation often requires moral compromise, as is evident in applying the Dependency-Democracy Principles Ethical Framework to the issue of HIV testing for pregnant women.     

A Fundamental Failure of Frankfurt’s Agentic Counterfactual Intervention: No Agency

Philosophia - Frankfurt’s “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility” (1969) made an important intervention into the literature on moral responsibility via a classical...     

Moral chronicity and social information processing: Tests of a social cognitive approach to the moral personality

Following Higgins, King, and Mavin (1982) chronicity paradigm, we examined the effects of chronically accessed moral constructs for prototypic moral character using two different research paradigms, spontaneous trait inferencing and lexical decision. Study 1 presented target sentences in a deliberate or spontaneous processing condition. Recall was cued with either a dispositional or semantic cue. Moral chronics made more spontaneous trait inferences with dispositional cues than semantic cues. In Study 2, participants read stories about characters who did or did not help. Moral chronics were faster responding to probes reflecting negative evaluations of story characters who did not help when requested (e.g., “disloyal”). Findings support claims that the moral personality is usefully conceptualized in terms of the chronic accessibility of moral knowledge structures.     

Winch on Moral Dilemmas and Moral Modality

Peter Winch's famous argument in “The Universalizability of Moral Judgments” that moral judgments are not always universalizable is widely thought to involve an essentially sceptical claim about the limitations of moral theories and moral theorising more generally. In this paper I argue that responses to Winch have generally missed the central positive idea upon which Winch's argument is founded: that what is right for a particular agent to do in a given situation may depend on what is and is not morally possible for them. I then defend the existence of certain genuine moral necessities and impossibilities in order to show how certain first‐person moral judgements may be essentially personal.     

Moral (dis)engagement with anthropogenic climate change in online comments on newspaper articles

Anthropogenic climate change (ACC) is widely acknowledged to be morally significant, but little is known about everyday moralising around ACC. We addressed this gap via quantified thematic analysis of 300 online comments to British newspaper articles on ACC, drawing on Bandura's moral disengagement theory. Moral disengagement through denial of ACC was widespread. Other disengagement strategies, such as palliative comparison and diminishing agency, occurred less often. There was also some moral engagement, most often through assertions of the existence of ACC and/or its harmful effects. Moral disengagement was significantly more common in comments on right wing than left wing newspapers, whereas the opposite was true of moral engagement. Although Bandura's framework provided a useful starting point to make sense of ACC moralising, it did not capture moral concerns that extended beyond its “harm/care” remit. In particular, many “denial” comments included a “dishonesty” discourse, whereby ACC proponents were accused of deception for ulterior motives. To classify this discourse as moral disengagement obscures its engagement with a different set of moral issues around trust and honesty. We suggest that Bandura's theory represents one possible “moral landscape” around ACC and could be extended to encompass a broader range of moral concerns.     

What we say and what we do: the relationship between real and hypothetical moral choices

Moral ideals are strongly ingrained within society and individuals alike, but actual moral choices are profoundly influenced by tangible rewards and consequences. Across two studies we show that real moral decisions can dramatically contradict moral choices made in hypothetical scenarios (Study 1). However, by systematically enhancing the contextual information available to subjects when addressing a hypothetical moral problem-thereby reducing the opportunity for mental simulation-we were able to incrementally bring subjects' responses in line with their moral behaviour in real situations (Study 2). These results imply that previous work relying mainly on decontextualized hypothetical scenarios may not accurately reflect moral decisions in everyday life. The findings also shed light on contextual factors that can alter how moral decisions are made, such as the salience of a personal gain.     

审美境界与道德境界

审美境界和道德境界分属美学和伦理学两个学科领域,但又都是人生的正面价值体现,也是人生的一种理想状态。二者之间不应混淆,却又有着内在的相通之处。审美境界不是纯然客观的形态,而是主体在审美对象召唤下产生的整体性心灵状态,其中包含着道德情感,古人称之为“胸襟”。人的审美活动之所之能臻于“境界”,恰恰是由于有道德价值的介入,否则无法达到境界;道德境界体现了最高的道德价值,以“至善”为其核心价值,儒家的“仁”或“诚”等都是达到了至高的道德境界。道德境界不是外在的约束而致,而是以内心的自觉来践行来达到,其中包含着精神的幸福感和悦畅感,同时,也有审美的因素在其中。     

Two kinds of potentiality: a critique of McGinn on the ethics of abortion

In Moral Literacy, or How to Do the Right Thing , Colin McGinn proposes a consequentialist solution to the abortion dilemma. McGinn interprets moral rights and moral interests as attributable only to actually sentient beings by virtue of their ability to experience pleasure or pain. McGinn argues against the moral rights of potentially conscious human fetuses, on the grounds that the unjoined ova and spermatazoa of any fertile men and women are also potentially sentient, but we do not generally suppose that unjoined human genetic germ plasm has moral rights. I argue that McGinn's reply equivocates between two different senses of 'potential sentience'. I distinguish between strong and weak potentiality, or between naturally probable potentiality and merely logically possible potentiality . I agree that it is reasonable to deny that a weak or merely logically possible potentially sentient fetus that would result from any unjoined ovum and sperm has a moral right to life. But I claim that this fact does not diminish the plausibility of extending a moral right or potential moral right to life to a naturally probable potentially sentient fetus, which we have good reason to believe will actually become sentient in the natural course of things if nothing is done to prevent its normal development. I conclude that it is not merely the potentiality, but the strong potentiality of a healthy, normally developing fetus that is soon to acquire sentience, moral interests, and, on McGinn's own terms, a moral right to life, that continues to sustain the abortion contro-versy, even among those who also want respect a woman's moral right to reproductive self-determination.     

The relation of moral judgment development and educational experience to recall of moral narratives and expository texts

Moral text processing was used as an ecologically valid method for assessing implicit and explicit moral understanding and development. The authors tested undergraduates, seminarians, and graduate students in political science and philosophy for recall of moral narratives and moral expository texts. Multivariate analyses of covariance using educational experience as an independent variable, age and moral judgment score as covariates, and recall of embedded moral arguments as a dependent variable revealed a relation between education and level of moral arguments recalled. Lower stage moral reasoning was best recalled by undergraduates, whereas higher stage reasoning was best recalled by graduate students, with seminarians intermediate for both types of text. Moral judgment score was related to recall of the highest level moral arguments even when age and educational experience were controlled. Moral judgment development appeared to be particularly helpful in recall of expository compared with narrative texts.     

Moral Response-dependence, Ideal Observers, and the Motive of Duty: Responding to Zangwill

Moral response-dependent metaethical theories characterize moral properties in terms of the reactions of certain classes of individuals. Nick Zangwill has argued that such theories are flawed: they are unable to accommodate the motive of duty. That is, they are unable to provide a suitable reason for anyone to perform morally right actions simply because they are morally right. I argue that Zangwill ignores significant differences between various approvals, and various individuals, and that moral response-dependent theories can accommodate the motive of duty.     

道德推脱与大学生亲社会行为：道德认同的调节效应

运用问卷调查的方法,以550名大学生为研究对象,探讨了道德认同在道德推脱影响大学生亲社会行为过程中的调节效应。采用潜变量调节效应模型的无约束估计方法研究发现：(1)道德推脱会对大学生的亲社会行为产生显著的负向影响,道德认同会对大学生的亲社会行为产生显著的正向影响,并且道德认同会对道德推脱与亲社会行为之间的关系产生显著的调节作用;(2)在高道德认同水平下,大学生的亲社会行为会随着道德推脱水平的升高而显著地减少,而在低道德认同水平下,大学生的亲社会行为并无明显的变化。     

Psychometric Properties of a Chinese Version of the Moral Attentiveness Scale

This study focuses on the reliability and validation of the Chinese version of the Moral Attentiveness Scale. Factor analysis confirmed that the scale includes two factors: perceptual moral attentiveness and reflective moral attentiveness. Moral attentiveness is negatively correlated with normlessness and positively associated with internalization and symbolization, moral identity, and other academic dishonesty behaviors. Reflective moral attentiveness moderated the relationship between formalism and unethical decision making. All results showed that the Chinese version of the Moral Attentiveness Scale has satisfactory psychometric properties and is a valid and reliable measurement of moral attentiveness in the Chinese population.     

Moral Foundations Theory and the Psychology of Charitable Giving

Moral foundations theory proposes that intuitions about what is morally right or wrong rest upon a set of universal foundations. Although this theory has generated a recent surge of research, few studies have investigated the real-world moral consequences of the postulated moral intuitions. We show that they are predictably associated with an important type of moral behaviour. Stronger individualizing intuitions (fairness and harm prevention) and weaker binding intuitions (loyalty, authority, and sanctity) were associated with the willingness to comply with a request to volunteer for charity and with the amount of self-reported donations to charity organizations. Among participants who complied with the request, individualizing intuitions predicted the allocation of donations to causes that benefit out-groups, whereas binding intuitions predicted the allocation of donations to causes that benefit the in-group. The associations between moral foundations and self-report measures of allocations in a hypothetical dilemma and concern with helping in-group and out-group victims were similar. Moral foundations predicted charitable giving over and above effects of political ideology, religiosity, and demographics, although variables within these categories also exhibited unique effects on charitable giving and accounted for a portion of the relationship between moral foundations and charitable giving. © 2020 The Authors. European Journal of Personality published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Association of Personality Psychology     

The Idea of Moral Progress

This paper shows that moral progress is a substantive and plausible idea. Moral progress in belief involves deepening our grasp of existing moral concepts, while moral progress in practices involves realizing deepened moral understandings in behavior or social institutions. Moral insights could not be assimilated or widely disseminated if they involved devising and applying totally new moral concepts. Thus, it is argued, moral failures of past societies cannot be explained by appeal to ignorance of new moral ideas, but must be understood as resulting from refusals to subject social practices to critical scrutiny. Moral philosophy is not the main vehicle for disseminating morally progressive insights, though it has an important role in processes that lead to moral progress. Yet we have grounds for cautious optimism, since progressive moral insights can be disseminated and can, sometimes, have constructive social effects.     

The Influence of Multiple Group Identities on Moral Foundations

Moral foundations theory provides a theoretical framework for understanding the universal and societal aspects of morality. The focus thus far has been on understanding the influence of group categories on moral foundations by controlling for relevant factors and then examining the unique contribution of a single factor. Although this type of analysis was critical to demonstrate the efficacy of the Moral Foundations Theory and Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ), the current study examines moral responses from the intersection of culture, ethnic identity and gender group membership in the United States and India. Significant results suggest that moral foundations are better understood through a multiple group identity perspective and that the MFQ is equipped to capture differences in moral foundations within subgroups.