THE RATCHETING‐UP EFFECT

I argue for the existence of a ‘ratcheting‐up effect’: the behavior of moral saints serves to increase the level of moral obligation the rest of us face. What we are morally obligated to do is constrained by what it would be reasonable for us to believe we are morally obligated to do. Moral saints provide us with a special kind of evidence that bears on what we can reasonably believe about our obligations. They do this by modeling the level of sacrifice a person can realistically bear. Exposure to moral saints thus ‘ratchets‐up’ our obligations by combating a type of ignorance that would otherwise defeat those obligations.     

Saintliness and the Moral Life

Drawing on the work of Raimond Gaita, the paper considers the role that may be played by the lives of the saints, both in alerting us to the moral standing of other human beings, and in helping us to articulate the concept of “humanity” understood in a morally rich sense. The paper considers whether Gaita's treatment of these themes presents something like a natural law ethic, in the sense of supplying arguments which favour broadly Christian conclusions without depending upon explicitly Christian premises. It also considers whether Gaita's view, contrary to his own belief, invites extrapolation in the direction of a more religiously engaged stance. In these ways, the paper aims to address the question of the relationship between religious and moral understanding in terms that are arguably more fruitful than those suggested by the dominant ethical theories.     

SAINTLY SACRIFICE: THE TRADITIONAL TRANSMISSION OF MORAL ELEVATION

Abstract This paper combines the social psychology concept of moral elevation with the evolutionary concept of traditions as descendant‐leaving strategies to produce a new explanation of the role of saints in Christianity. Moral elevation refers to the ability of prosocial acts to inspire people to engage in their own acts of charity and kindness. When morally elevating stories and visual depictions become traditional by being passed from one generation to the next, they can produce prosocial behavior advantageous to survival and reproduction among many generations of descendants. Traditions that increase the number of descendants in future generations can be seen as descendant‐leaving strategies. Stories and visual depictions of the sacrifices of saints appear to be designed to produce states of moral elevation, and they have been transmitted from one generation to the next for many centuries. We propose that this ability of sacrificing saints to inspire future generations to engage in prosocial acts has contributed to the continuation and spread of Christianity.     

Holy Fools: A Religious Phenomenon of Extreme Behaviour

Monks in Byzantine times (330–1453 AD) often expressed their faith with extreme manifestations of behaviour, such as living on a high column (stylites), on a tree (dendrites) or in crowded urban centres of the empire pretending to be fools for Christ’s sake. These Holy Fools exposed themselves to the ridicule and the mistreatment of the citizens, being protected, however, by their state of insanity to mock and violate moral codes and social conventions. The official Church barely tolerated these religious attitudes as promoting deviations from standard orthodoxy, and the Quinisext Ecumenical Council (592 AD) judged them as dangerous and formally denounced the phenomenon. The two most famous of them in Byzantium were Symeon of Emesa and Andrew of Constantinople, whose lives constitute unique testimonies to insanity and the simulation thereof. The survival and transplantation of the Holy Fools in Russia, called “yurodivye”, where they met widespread acceptance, confirm their appeal in specific geographic areas and their endurance over time. We attempt to approach the symbolism of holy lunacy and to analyse the personality trends of these “eccentric” saints.     

Asymmetric population axiology: deliberative neutrality delivered

Two related asymmetries have been discussed in relation to the ethics of creating new lives: First, we seem to have strong moral reason to avoid creating lives that are not worth living, but no moral reason to create lives that are worth living. Second, we seem to have strong moral reason to improve the wellbeing of existing lives, but, again, no moral reason to create lives that are worth living. Both asymmetries have proven very difficult to account for in any coherent moral framework. I propose an impersonal population axiology to underpin the asymmetries, which sidesteps the problematic issue of whether or not people can be harmed or benefited by creation or non-creation. This axiology yields perfect asymmetry from a deliberative perspective, in terms of expected value. The axiology also yields substantial asymmetry for large and realistic populations in terms of their actual value, beyond deliberative relevance.     

Using Stars for Moral Navigation: An Ethical Exploration into Celebrity

What role do celebrities play in our moral lives? Philosophers have explored the potential for celebrities to function as moral exemplars and role models. We argue that there are more ways in which celebrities play a role in helping us navigate our moral lives. First, gossiping about celebrities helps us negotiate our moral norms and identify competing styles of life. Second, fandom for celebrities serves as the basis for the development of distinct moral communities and identities. Third, celebrities possess high levels of epistemic power which can be used to help change and adapt our moral norms. We will then investigate two kinds of problems that arise from using celebrities in this way. Firstly, harm is done to celebrities because they are used in the ways explained in the first part of the article; secondly, celebrity life has a distinctive nature that can affect the moral agency of celebrities. Fame, we suggest, might lead to a morally unhealthy asymmetry in human relationships. We end by discussing the ethical implications of our analysis and conclude that when using stars for moral navigation, we should take into account the harm this does to them and the distinctive nature of their lives.     

Moral Principles or Consumer Preferences? Alternative Framings of the Trolley Problem

We created paired moral dilemmas with minimal contrasts in wording, a research strategy that has been advocated as a way to empirically establish principles operative in a domain-specific moral psychology. However, the candidate "principles" we tested were not derived from work in moral philosophy, but rather from work in the areas of consumer choice and risk perception. Participants were paradoxically less likely to choose an action that sacrifices one life to save others when they were asked to provide more reasons for doing so (Experiment 1), and their willingness to sacrifice lives depended not only on how many lives would be saved, but on the number of lives at risk (Experiment 2). The latter effect was also found in a within-subjects design (Experiment 3). These findings suggest caution in the use of artificial dilemmas as a key testbed for revealing principled bases for moral judgment.     

A Kantian moral duty for the soon-to-be demented to commit suicide

It has been argued that, on Kantian grounds, pedophiles, rapists and murderers are morally obligated to take their own lives prior to committing a violent action that will end their moral agency. That is, to avoid destroying the agent's moral life by performing a morally suicidal action, the agent, while he still is a moral agent, should end his body's life. Although the cases of dementia and the morally reprehensible are vastly different, this Kantian interpretation might be useful in the debate on the permissibility of suicide for those facing dementia's effects. If moral agents have a duty to act as moral agents, then those who will lose their moral identity as moral agents have an obligation to themselves to end their physical lives prior to losing their dignity as persons.     

A Kantian Moral Duty for the Soon-to-be Demented to Commit Suicide

It has been argued that, on Kantian grounds, pedophiles, rapists and murderers are morally obligated to take their own lives prior to committing a violent action that will end their moral agency. That is, to avoid destroying the agent's moral life by performing a morally suicidal action, the agent, while he still is a moral agent, should end his body's life. Although the cases of dementia and the morally reprehensible are vastly different, this Kantian interpretation might be useful in the debate on the permissibility of suicide for those facing dementia's effects. If moral agents have a duty to act as moral agents, then those who will lose their moral identity as moral agents have an obligation to themselves to end their physical lives prior to losing their dignity as persons.     

Moral community and animal research in medicine

The invocation of moral rights in moral/social debate today is a recipe for deadlock in our consideration of substantive issues. How we treat animals and humans in part should derive from the value of their lives, which is a function of the quality of their lives, which in turn is a function of the richness of their lives. Consistency in argument requires that humans with a low quality of life should be chosen as experimental subjects over animals with a higher quality of life.     

Rethinking the Asymmetry

According to the Asymmetry, we’ve strong moral reason to prevent miserable lives from coming into existence, but no moral reason to bring happy lives into existence. This procreative asymmetry is often thought to be part of commonsense morality, however theoretically puzzling it might prove to be. I argue that this is a mistake. The Asymmetry is merely prima facie intuitive, and loses its appeal on further reflection. Mature commonsense morality recognizes no fundamental procreative asymmetry. It may recognize some superficially similar theses, but we will see that they derive from more familiar principles, and are compatible with there being moral reason to bring happy lives into existence.     

ECOLOGICAL SAINTS: ADOPTING A GREEN GAZE OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF SAINT MARGUERITE BOURGEOYS

During this time of ecological crisis, spiritual guides are needed to provide inspiration and impel action. In the Roman Catholic tradition, saints act as role models and are associated with particular causes, locations, or professions. Who, then, are the ecological saints, whose witness can inspire hope and action in support of the environment? This article explores that question in two ways. First the writings and accounts of saints who are traditionally connected to the environment are examined to produce six indicators of the beliefs, characteristics, and actions of ecological saints. Second, a green gaze is applied to Saint Marguerite Bourgeoys, a seventeenth-century educator who lived in what would become Montreal, Canada, by comparing her writings and accounts of her life to the six indicators of an ecological saint. Identifying more ecological saints can promote environmental responsibility, and the six indicators of an ecological saint can be the lens through which beloved saints are re-examined.     

I. Kant after Virtue 1

Maclntyre's refurbishing of Aristotelian ethics aims to restore both intelligibility and rationality to moral discourse. In After Virtue he concentrates on showing how intelligible action requires that lives be led within institutional and cultural traditions. But he does not offer a developed account of practical reason which could provide grounds for seeking some rather than other intelligible continuations of lives and traditions. Despite Maclntyre's criticisms of Kant's ethics, a Kantian account of practical reasoning may complement his account of intelligibility. An appropriate interpretation of Kantian ethics is outlined, which escapes Maclntyre's criticisms, allows both for the universal character of basic moral principles and for the historical variability of intelligible action, and which makes moral worth or virtue the centre of the moral life. The refurbishing of Aristotelian ethics may be achieved by a Kantian completion.     

Comparing Lives: Rush Rhees on Humans and Animals

In several posthumously published writings about the differences between humans and animals, Rush Rhees criticises the view that human lives are more important than (or superior to) animal lives. Rhees' views may seem to be in sympathy with more recent critiques of “speciesism.” However, the most commonly discussed anti‐speciesist moral frameworks – which take the capacity of sentience as the criterion of moral considerability – are inadequate. Rhees' remark that both humans and animals can be loved points towards a different way of accounting for the moral considerability of humans and animals that avoid the problems of the capacity‐based approaches.     

Empathy and Its Role in Morality

In this paper, I will argue, contra Prinz, that empathy is a crucial component of our moral lives. In particular, I argue that empathy is sometimes epistemologically necessary for identifying the right action; that empathy is sometimes psychologically necessary for motivating the agent to perform the right action; and that empathy is sometimes necessary for the agent to be most morally praiseworthy for an action. I begin by explaining what I take empathy to be. I then discuss some alleged problems for empathy and explain why some argue that empathy is unnecessary and sometimes even problematic in the moral domain. Next, I criticize a prominent alternative to an empathy‐based morality. Finally, I argue that that empathy is sometimes epistemologically and psychologically necessary for doing the right thing and is sometimes necessary for moral worth. I conclude with a discussion of the important role of empathy in our everyday lives.     

Moral Agency in Other Animals

Some philosophers have argued that moral agency is characteristic of humans alone and that its absence from other animals justifies granting higher moral status to humans. However, human beings do not have a monopoly on moral agency, which admits of varying degrees and does not require mastery of moral principles. The view that all and only humans possess moral agency indicates our underestimation of the mental lives of other animals. Since many other animals are moral agents (to varying degrees), they are also subject to (limited) moral obligations, examples of which are provided in this paper. But, while moral agency is sufficient for significant moral status, it is by no means necessary.     

Saints as the ‘Living Gospel’: Von Balthasar's Revealers of the Revealer,Rahner's Mediators of the Mediator

The theologies of the saints of Hans Urs Von Balthasar and Karl Rahner are grounded in the theologians' distinct articulations of the relationship between nature and grace, Rahner's shaped by his response to the Nouvelle Théologie and Von Balthasar's influenced by his engagement with Henri De Lubac and Karl Barth. It is a generalization, but one useful for drawing contrasts, that for Rahner the saints are mediators of the Mediator and that for Von Balthasar they are revealers of the Revealer. While the theologies can be reconciled, a richer understanding of the function of saints can emerge by maintaining the contrasts. The symbolic capacity of saints in Rahner's thought and the saints' exemplary abandonment to personal mission in Von Balthasar's thought are each an emphasis valuable in communicating saints' instructional and efficacious presence for others in the ecclesial Body.     

The Minister and Mental Illness

Focusing on what I present to students on the first day of a seminary class on mental illness, this article cites six reasons why seminary students should learn about mental illness. In addition to noting that they are likely to have many experiences in their ministries of persons who are suffering from a mental illness, I also note the likelihood that some members of the class have experienced mental or emotional illnesses in their lives. These introductory comments emphasize the role that ministers may play in the prevention of mental illness and in supporting persons in the process of rehabilitation. The various roles that pastors may play in relation to mental illness are noted. Finally, I point out that, in the official roster of patron saints, mental illnesses are vastly underrepresented among the illnesses to which human beings are susceptible.     

Individual differences in the explicit power motive predict “utilitarian” choices in moral dilemmas,especially when this choice is self-beneficial

We all face moral decisions, whether we are judges, politicians, or just riding the bus. The most well studied of these involve concerns of harming or caring for other people, which have often been researched by employing hypothetical moral dilemmas. This study investigated how the explicit power motive, more precisely the hope to gain power (h_Power), predicts decisions for these types of problems. We found that h_Power was positively related to deciding that it was morally acceptable to kill one person to save multiple others (i.e., making a utilitarian choice). In an exploratory analysis, we found that the probability of making such choices as a function of h_Power was even higher when participants’ own lives were at stake as compared to only the lives of others. These findings complement previous research showing that personality variables as well as situational factors predict moral decision making. Finding biases in moral decision making is important, as only when we know these biases we can consciously counteract them.     

A Synthetic Approach to Bioethical Inquiry

This paper attempts to sort out some of the current tensions and ambiguities inherent in the field of bioethics as it continues to mature. In particular it focuses on the question of the methodological relevance of theory or ethical principles to the domain of clinical ethics. I offer an approach to reasoning about moral conflict that combines the insights of contemporary moral theorists, the philosophy of American pragmatism, and the skills of rhetorical deliberation. This synthetic approach locates a proper role for moral theory in the practice of clinical ethics, thus linking abstract philosophical ideas about morality, humanity, suffering, and health to specific deeds, actions, and decisions in the concrete lives of particular individuals. The aim of this synthetic approach of bioethical inquiry is a rapprochement between theoretical knowledge in moral philosophy and the contextualized, relational, and practical understanding of what morality demands of us in our daily lives. I argue for a conception of bioethical inquiry that takes morality to be a study of certain practical, socially embedded concerns about matters of right and wrong, good and evil, as well as a study of the moral theories by which these actual concerns can be explored and critically evaluated.