Running risks morally

I defend normative externalism from the objection that it cannot account for the wrongfulness of moral recklessness. The defence is fairly simple—there is no wrong of moral recklessness. There is an intuitive argument by analogy that there should be a wrong of moral recklessness, and the bulk of the paper consists of a response to this analogy. A central part of my response is that if people were motivated to avoid moral recklessness, they would have to have an unpleasant sort of motivation, what Michael Smith calls “moral fetishism”.     

Two Strawsonian strategies for accounting for morally responsible agency

It is common for theorists, drawing on P. F. Strawson, to account for morally responsible agency in terms of the nature of the emotions and feelings that characterize our responsibility practices, in terms of the nature of the so-called “reactive attitudes.” Here, I argue against this attitude-based Strawsonian strategy, and I argue in favor of an alternative, which I call the “concern-based Strawsonian strategy.” On this alternative, rather than account for morally responsible agency in terms of the nature of the reactive attitudes, one accounts for such agency in terms of the concern that leaves us susceptible to those attitudes in the first place. This, I believe, is a more promising way to develop the Strawsonian approach than the attitude-based strategy. The concern-based strategy allows us to better countenance the number and variety of the reactive attitudes that characterize our responsibility practices; it shares the attitude-based strategy’s virtues; and it seems to position us to better understand the distinctive social and moral significance associated with being and being regarded as a morally responsible agent.

     

Is revolution ever morally justified?

The Journal of Value Inquiry -     

Non-ideal theory and the application of cautionary precepts

This paper discusses non-ideal theory as guidance for making bad situations better by morally permissible means. It distinguishes constructive theorizing, which suggests ways of improving specific kinds of bad situation, from cautionary theory, which concerns moral risks of actions under bad conditions. Reflective moral judgment yields cautionary precepts, identifying presumptively unjustifiable modes of action. The paper illustrates the application of precepts cautioning about coercion and the exposure of others to significant risks, by considering the 1955–1956 bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, and the ‘Children’s Crusade’ of the 1963 Birmingham desegregation campaign. All such campaigns involve coercive elements, but the paper argues that coercion was not a morally significant factor in either case. Endangerment is another matter: given the violent, sometimes lethal, reactions to civil rights actions under Jim Crow, those two campaigns’ endangerment of innocent persons must be taken very seriously, especially as it concerns Birmingham. And, in fact, potentially lethal anti-reform violence occurred during each campaign. Relevant factors include the preparation and understanding of young participants and the difference in risk that is assumed by engaging in peaceful, nonviolent public actions.     

Rule prescriptions for initial male-female interaction

This study concerns aspects of initial interaction between male-female student peers and aimed to uncover the social rules which prescribe how such interactions should be conducted. The study demonstrated that the respondents' (n=50) common stock of knowledge contains a set of precise rules for initial male-female interaction that are organized according to the actor's interest in the situation. In addition the study demonstrated that the rules held by participants prescribe actions that are consonant with patterns of male and female behavior observed in previous social psychology studies of social interaction.     

Experimental ethics,intuitions, and morally irrelevant factors

Philosophical Studies -     

Feasibility beyond Non-ideal Theory: a Realist Proposal

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - Some realists in political theory deny that the notion of feasibility has any place in realist theory, while others claim that feasibility constraints are...     

Making the morally relevant features explicit: a response to Carson Strong

Carson Strong criticizes the application of my moral theory to bioethics cases. Some of his criticisms are due to my failure to make explicit that both the irrationality or rationality of a decision and the irrationality or rationality of the ranking of evils are part of morally relevant feature 3. Other criticisms are the result of his not using the two-step procedure in a sufficiently rigorous way. His claim that I come up with a wrong answer depends upon his incorrectly regarding a weakly justified violation as one that all impartial rational persons would agree was permitted, rather than as one about which rational persons disagree.     

香港青松观访问团参访北京白云观

一、葱自粥 组成：葱白３０克，粳米６０克，食盐少许。 制法：将粳米淘净，入沸水中，熬成粥，投入洗净的葱白和食盐，混匀即可。 服法：早晚皆可，温服。 作用：发汁解毒。 二、泻肺粥 组成：葶苈１０克，大枣１５克，粳米６０克。 制法：１．将大枣、葶苈洗净后用纱布包裹。２．将大枣、葶苈粳米同入沸水锅中，用文火熬煮成粥。 服法：早晚餐食服。 作用：泻肺逐痰。 适应症：肺气肿、肺心病之咳嗽、气喘、咳吐泡沫清痰，胸胁满闷而痛，苔浊腻等痰浊阴肺之症。 （以上二方见安浚等编著，科学技术出版社出版《季节性疾病的食疗》） 三、强…     

Aesthetic Distance and the Spiritual Journey: Educating for spiritually and morally significant experiences across the art and literature curriculum

A central thesis of this paper is that the aesthetic travelled by learners, when they respond aesthetically to literary and visual works of art, can be the territory across which spiritual journeys are made. Examples are, therefore, given of literary and visual works of art that can provide such spiritually significant distance. The potential for children's everyday experiences, in literature and art lessons, to be of spiritual and moral worth is examined with reference to the role of the teacher, teaching methods, language and subject ideology. The complexity of the relation between the spiritual and the aesthetic is itself explored.     

Blessed are the uncertain,for they will experience excess

In this paper I look at the possibility that uncertainty may not merely be a stage in the research process, but an outcome in itself. Exploring how university education and scholarship collided with my own personal experiences and identity I discuss how a combination of poststructural theory and my encounters with peace, conflict and religion enabled me to value uncertainty, and I make the case that uncertainty can open up the future to the gift of chance. By intertwining discussions of both lived experience and academic work, the organisation of the paper reflects how the two became inextricably linked, continuously folding into each other, so that my sense of self influenced my research, and conversely, my research influenced my sense of self. The outcome is a discussion of how I incorporated uncertainty into my research and personal life, which I explore using the example of religion, and how I lost and gained my faith, rejecting my previous Christianity while reconstructing a kind of faith found in uncertainty, a sense of place and ethical space to come.