人的脆弱性、依赖性与“正义的慷慨” ——麦金太尔正义思想的新维度

人的脆弱性和依赖性是人的一生无法逃避的命运,因此社会性和共同体是每个人的必然的基础本体,正义理论必须处理这个问题。麦金太尔把人的脆弱性和依赖性作为正义的起点,提出"正义的慷慨"的正义理论,这是他原先的社群主义和德性正义观的进一步发展,开辟了关于正义的新论域和新议题。在此基础上,当代西方道德哲学家也越来越关注人的脆弱性和依赖性问题。森和纳斯鲍姆关注那些具有严重能力缺陷的人,并进而提出能力进路的正义理论。     

培养德性:在孟子与阿奎那之间

"培养"一词意涵丰富,原指农作物的培植,但被孟子和阿奎那用于描述德性修养的复杂过程。他们都认为,人的德性之端或种子受之于天或上帝,是人性的一部分,只有通过培养才能发展它们。只有培养德性,才能实现人性,并最终实现人的天命或终极目的。对二人来说,乐于为善行德,才是德性的真谛。尽管二人在人性、德性以及德性的培养等问题上有很多相似之处,但彼此侧重点还是有所不同。孟子认为人性本善,但人之为人需要培养德性之端,而在德性培养中心志情感、人伦关系和成长环境等尤为重要。阿奎那则区分了自然之德与神学之德,发展了潜能与实现等概念,强调培养德性就是培养习惯,突出理性的地位,从而较好地应对德性培养中的成功与失败问题。     

重视脆弱性的老龄关怀

伦理学关注如何过一种好的生活,自然包括如何过一种好的老年生活。西方主流伦理学缺乏讨论该问题的资源,因为它们预设了理性、自足的道德主体,忽视了人的脆弱性。关怀伦理学对人的脆弱性有清醒的认识,关怀涉及人类不可避免的依赖性和脆弱性,它是一种以满足他人的基本需求、促进他人的发展、帮助他们避免伤害和减少痛苦为目标的实践。从关怀伦理的视角出发,可以借鉴能力理论的方法,探讨维护人类尊严的老龄关怀方案。重视脆弱性的老龄关怀,向个人、家庭、社会和国家分别提出了不同的伦理要求,强调通过有利的社会条件来支持具体层面的关怀活动的展开。这带来了一种老龄文明的转型,它不再将老龄化视为人口结构的负面事实,而是将其作为社会文明形态的建构因素来思考一个和谐正义的社会能够为老龄化提供何种支持条件,它从老年人的需求和能力出发重构了什么是好生活的完整答案。     

儒家政治伦理化的人性论根基及其启示

儒家的政治伦理化意指政治以伦理为基础、方法和目标,其人性论根基是性善论。在天人合一前提下,人之性善首先是人对天、人应然德性的价值选择,这对政治的要求即君主禀赋德性教化百姓、施行仁政以获民意。人之性善更是人对人、天实然德性的情感自明,这可推动家族伦理延伸形成政治秩序。政治伦理化提示政治的终极目标在于人性的自我完善。儒家这一独特理念对未来人类发展方向极具启示。     

康德伦理学中作为自制的德性概念

在康德看来,德性意味着基于内在自由原则的自我强制,意味着与人性中无法根除的根本恶做斗争而遵从义务法则时的意志的力量。因此,按照亚里士多德和当代德性伦理学对德性与自制的区分,康德所谓的德性只能是自制。但是,这一点并不构成康德伦理学的问题;相反,由于人的德性总是体现在一个不断的自制过程中,并通过自制而得到培养,因而康德作为自制的德性概念更符合人类现实的道德境况,对人道德上的完善具有更重要的指导意义。     

从个人德性到社会和谐

"德性"是指人的品质和品性,德性的诉求体现了人类建设一种理想的社会状态的努力.人类社会之所以需要德性,其根本的原因就在于现实的个人相对于自己的关系的非自足性.这种非自足性通过人与自然、人与人和人与自己的精神的关系等方面表现出来.     

论人的发展的制度中介

发展是人类的永恒主题。人的存在的社会性使制度成为其自身发展的基本中介,由此内化为人的一部分。制度的人为性、属人性、为人性,客观上要求制度的建构以人的生存和发展为出发点,并随着社会的发展进行改革与重构,从而使人的发展得到有力的制度保障。一、制度的人为性、为人性与中介性从某种意义上说,人类的文明史是制度文明的进化史或演进史。制度之所以成为人类文明演进的标志,源于人的存在与发展对制度产生的固有依赖。人是社会的存在,人际间的互相依赖性决定了个体人只有生活在一定的社会关系中、成为社会的一员、借助人际互动,他的利益…     

论荀子的德性教化思想

荀子从人性趋恶角度构建了自己的德性教化理论.恶在礼仪法度的制约下不仅可以改变,而且必须改变,经过教化"涂之人可以为禹".德性教化实乃"化性起伪",而伪是针对情的,只有对情进行矫正,才能对人性教化,情为教化之基;礼为教化之则,道德教化是个人遵守礼仪规范及人自身德性的自我迁化的过程,以心对礼以治情,从而以人的智识促进德性的提升;养为教化之方,以礼乐养情,陶冶、涵养人之德性,促进人的道德自觉.荀子的德性教化思想对我们今天的思想道德教育具有重要的启发意义.     

孟子与基督教人性/道德论之比较

人性本善还是本恶,孔子没有明言。孟子则明确地举起“人性本善”的旗帜。在孟子那里,人性其实就是指人的德性。基督教的《圣经》中也没有明确提到人性本善还是本恶,但从圣经和神学家们的论述中,我们仍可得到基督教对于人性的大致看法,即人性实质上就是人的罪性。对人性是德性或罪性的不同看法,导致了以孟子为代表的儒家伦理和基督教神     

德性论与规范论比较研究——目的与手段的视角

德性论和规范论是思想史中两种重要的伦理学理论类型,也是人类日常生活中两条重要的道德评价标准.它们之间存在分歧,但是也存在融合.人类生活中既需要德性,又需要规范,化规范为德性,化德性为德行;落实到教育层面,道德教育始于规范,成于德性.     

“Group Rights” and Racial Affirmative Action

This article argues against the view that affirmative action is wrong because it involves assigning group rights. First, affirmative action does not have to proceed by assigning rights at all. Second, there are, in fact, legitimate “group rights” both legal and moral; there are collective rights—which are exercised by groups—and membership rights—which are rights people have in virtue of group membership. Third, there are continuing harms that people suffer as blacks and claims to remediation for these harms can fairly treat the (social) property of being black as tracking the victims of those harms. Affirmative action motivated in this way aims to respond to individual wrongs; wrongs that individuals suffer, as it happens, in virtue of their membership in groups. Finally, the main right we have when we are being considered for jobs and places at colleges is that we be treated according to procedures that are morally defensible. Morally acceptable procedures sometimes take account of the fact that a person is a member of a certain social group.     

Need There be a Defence of Equality? Winner of the 2010 Postgraduate Essay Prize

There is an apparent problem in identifying a basis for equality. This problem vanishes if what I call the ‘intuited response’ is successful. According to this response, there is no further explanation of the significance of the feature in virtue of which an individual matters, beyond the bare fact that it is the feature in virtue of which an individual matters. I argue against this claim, and conclude that if the problem of identifying a basis for equality is to be resolved, it is necessary to defend a substantive account of the independent significance of some feature.     

How to Think About Virtue and Right

Abstract

Robert Johnson argues that virtue ethical accounts of right action fail because they cannot take account of the fact that there are things we ought to do precisely because we do not possess virtuous character traits. Self-improving actions are his paradigm case and it would indeed be a problem if virtue ethics could not make sense of the propriety of self-improvement. To solve this serious problem, I propose that virtue ethics ought to define right action in terms of the virtuous agent's reasons for action instead of defining right action in terms of the actions that the virtuous agent performs. I argue that this revised definition of right action makes sense of the Tightness of self-improving actions and that it can be given a genuinely virtue ethical interpretation.     

Agent-neutral deontology

According to the “Textbook View,” there is an extensional dispute between consequentialists and deontologists, in virtue of the fact that only the latter defend “agent-relative” principles—principles that require an agent to have a special concern with making sure that she does not perform certain types of action. I argue that, contra the Textbook View, there are agent-neutral versions of deontology. I also argue that there need be no extensional disagreement between the deontologist and consequentialist, as characterized by the Textbook View.     

Self-Knowledge and Rationality

There have been several recent attempts to account for the special authority of self-knowledge by grounding it in a constitutive relation between an agent's intentional states and her judgments about those intentional states. This constitutive relation is said to hold in virtue of the rationality of the subject. I argue, however, that there are two ways in which we have self-knowledge without there being such a constitutive relation between first-order intentional states and the second-order judgments about them. Recognition of this fact thus represents a significant challenge to the rational agency view.     

The Virtuous Arguer: One Person,Four Roles

When evaluating the arguer instead of the argument, we soon find ourselves confronted with a puzzling situation: what seems to be a virtue in one argumentative situation could very well be called a vice in another. This paper will present the idea that there are in fact two sets of virtues an arguer has to master—and with them four sometimes very different roles.     

VIRTUE, EMOTION, AND ATTENTION

Abstract: The perceptual model of emotions maintains that emotions involve, or are at least analogous to, perceptions of value. On this account, emotions purport to tell us about the evaluative realm, in much the same way that sensory perceptions inform us about the sensible world. An important development of this position, prominent in recent work by Peter Goldie amongst others, concerns the essential role that virtuous habits of attention play in enabling us to gain perceptual and evaluative knowledge. I think that there are good reasons to be sceptical about this picture of virtue. In this essay I set out these reasons, and explain the consequences this scepticism has for our understanding of the relation between virtue, emotion, and attention. In particular, I argue that our primary capacity for recognizing value is in fact a non-emotional capacity.     

Virtue Ethics and Situationist Personality Psychology

In this paper I examine and reply to a deflationary challenge brought against virtue ethics. The challenge comes from critics who are impressed by recent psychological evidence suggesting that much of what we take to be virtuous conduct is in fact elicited by narrowly specific social settings, as opposed to being the manifestation of robust individual character. In answer to the challenge, I suggest a conception of virtue that openly acknowledges the likelihood of its deep, ongoing dependence upon particular social relationships and settings. I argue that holding this conception will indeed cause problems for some important strands of thought in virtue ethics, most notably in the tradition of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. But an approach to virtue ethics modeled on David Hume's treatment of virtue and character in A Treatise of Human Nature promises to escape these problems.     

Mercy as a Public Virtue

James F. Keenan defines mercy as “the willingness to enter the chaos of another.” Mercy thus defined, he argues, is the distinctive characteristic of Christian morality. This essay asserts that mercy is, in fact, a public virtue, one that can be affirmed across a broad range of religious and moral traditions. As a public virtue, mercy ought to shape both affective and effective responses to the Syrian refugee crisis in the United States.     

The Role of Virtue in Xunzi’s 荀子 Political Philosophy

Although there has been a resurgence of interest in virtue ethics, there has been little work done on how this translates into the political sphere. This essay demonstrates that the Confucian thinker Xunzi offers a model of virtue politics that is both interesting in its own right and potentially useful for scholars attempting to develop virtue ethics into virtue politics more generally. I present Xunzi’s version of virtue politics and discuss challenges to this version of virtue politics that are raised by the Legalist thinker Han Fei. I show that not only is Xunzi’s virtue politics capable of surviving the challenges raised by his contemporary, he offers an account that is in many ways both attractive and plausible, one that may usefully be brought into conversation with contemporary visions of virtue politics.