Hypocrisy, Change of Mind, and Weakness of Will: How to Do Moral Philosophy with Examples

What are the differences between hypocrisy, change of mind, and weakness of will? Each typically involves a gap between word and deed, yet they do not seem morally equivalent. Moreover, they are intuitively different concepts, even though the conceptual boundaries between them are fuzzy. This paper explores diverse examples, attempting to identify elements which may be distinctive of each concept, with special attention to hypocrisy. It also provides a discussion of the appropriateness of such use of examples in moral philosophy.     

Some Varieties of Particularism

Analytic particularism claims that judgments of moral wrongness are about particular acts rather than general principles. Metaphysical particularism claims that what makes true moral judgments true is not general principles but nonmoral properties of particular acts. Epistemological particularism claims that studying particular acts apart from general principles can justify beliefs in moral judgments. Methodological particularism claims that we will do better morally in everyday life if we look carefully at each particular decision as it arises and give up the search for a complete moral theory. This paper raises problems for each of these versions of particularism.     

On the Way to a Postmodern Curriculum Theory -- Moving from the Question of Unity to the Question of Difference

This article will examine the consequences of highlighting subject and difference in one of the curriculum theories that has been inspired by postmodernism. The term postmodernism is here first and foremost meant to signify the attempt to combine politics and morality with epistemology in accordance with Levinas, Lyotard and Bauman. The article will highlight some themes that need to be developed further for a postmodernism-inspired curriculum theory. A starting-point is a critique of the type of curriculum theory which has its base in the new sociology of education. From this critique, focused on universal claims, the Habermasian-inspired universalism is quickly and critically dropped and left behind, and another form of reasoning is embarked upon. The latter is inspired by a minotarian politics concept and tries to dissolve universalism as a prerequisite for critical conversations. With this background and with the help of Levinas, the article sets out to talk about difference without reduction to the Same and finally suggest a direction for a postmodern curriculum theory with a normative focus on knowledge.     

环境消费心理学

环境消费心理学是近年来发展起来的一个分支。生态既是人类生存的基础 ,又是人类消费的对象。人们对环境问题的认知和个人的消费行为有很大的距离。环境问题的认知是很难和实际经验相联系的抽象概念。个人即使有保护环境的意识 ,在实际消费行为中往往选择与保护环境的态度不一致的行动。这是态度、认知和行为没有一致的产生原因。本文对环境和消费问题从社会心理学的角度进行了分析。     

Rationale for Individualizing Interventions to Promote Adjustment to the Nursing Home

This study was designed to determine whether certain variables were predictors of nursing home residents' membership in groups representing qualitative categories of nursing home adjustment. Responses of 186 residents to an open-ended question about how they handled the change to nursing home life were coded as very good, fair, or poor; an adjustment variable was created on the basis of this classification. Analysis of variance of random samples from each adjustment group showed that affect and social support varied significantly with adjustment. However, when discriminant analysis was applied, the three groups could not be differentiated using measure of affect, life satisfaction, social support, participation in the decisions leading to admission, nursing home satisfaction, or health. Based on the conclusion that adjustment to the nursing home is a unique experience for each individual, strategies were proposed for individualizing interventions to enable adjustment.     

Ethics in Long-Term Care: Are the Principles Different?

It has become common in medical ethics to discuss difficult cases in terms of the principles of respect for autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. These moral concepts or principles serve as maxims that are suggestive of appropriate clinical behavior. Because this language evolved primarily in the acute care setting, I consider whether it is in need of supplementation in order to be useful in the long-term care setting. Through analysis of two typical cases involving residents of long-term care facilities, I argue for the additional principles of candor and responsibility for narrative integrity.     

Soft Libertarianism and Hard Compatibilism

In this paper I discuss two kinds of attempts to qualify incompatibilist and compatibilist conceptions of freedom to avoid what have been thought to be incredible commitments of these rival accounts. One attempt -- which I call soft libertarianism -- is represented by Robert Kane's work. It hopes to defend an incompatibilist conception of freedom without the apparently difficult metaphysical costs traditionally incurred by these views. On the other hand, in response to what I call the robot objection (that if compatibilism is true, human beings could be the products of design), some compatibilists are tempted to soften their position by placing restrictions on the origins of agency. I argue that both of these attempts are misguided. Hard libertarianism and hard compatibilism are the only theoretical options.     

Plato's Analogy of Soul and State

In Part I of this paper, I argue that the arguments Plato offers for the tripartition of the soul are founded upon an equivocation, and that each of the valid options by which Plato might remove the equivocation will not produce a tripartite soul. In Part II, I argue that Plato is not wholly committed to an analogy of soul and state that would require either a tripartite state or a tripartite soul for the analogy to hold. It follows that the heart of the analogy is not to be found in the comparison of the Kallipolis and its three parts to the soul conceived as tripartite, but rather must be supposed to reside in some other connection between the ways in which justice characterizes states and souls, and I will suggest what this other connection consists in.