Public concerns about violent video games are moral concerns—How moral threat can make pacifists susceptible to scientific and political claims against violent video games

Public discussions about the harmfulness of violent media are often held in the aftermath of violent felony. At the same time, we know little about whether and how experiencing real‐life violence impacts the way laypersons perceive and evaluate debates about virtual violence. In Study 1, we provided data indicating that both real‐life violence and violent video games are perceived as morally threatening by people who regard nonviolence to be an important moral value (i.e., pacifists). In Study 2, we hypothesized and found that when pacifists perceive threat from the presence of real‐life violence, they are especially susceptible to scientific and political claims indicating that violent video games are harmful. Our findings are in line with the value protection model and research on the psychological consequences of threat. Implications of the present findings are discussed with regard to a better understanding of the violent video games debate in the general public.     

How individual was conscience in the early-modern period? Observations on the development of Catholic moral theology

This article investigates how the notion of individual conscience has to be understood within the early-modern development of Catholic moral theology. It highlights that 16th-century Catholic theologians continued to understand conscience mainly in Thomist terms as a rational judgment. Yet they also came to investigate more deeply questions of intention and individual circumstances that might interfere with the perfect execution of moral reasoning. Particular emphasis is given to the question of probabilism and whether this new method of analyzing moral agency provided a stepping stone towards a more individualized conception of conscience, as some intellectual historians have contended. The article argues that whilst probabilism sharpened the awareness for problems of conscience, this development cannot be disconnected from the culture of counsel of conscience, inscribed into the fundamentally Thomist definition of it.     

Affect in Ethical Decision Making: Mood Matters

Ethical decision-making research has centered on Rest’s (1986) framework that represents a rational, nonaffective model for ethical decision making. However, research in human cognition suggesting a “dual-processing” framework, composed of both rational and affective components, has been relatively ignored in the ethical decision-making literature. Examining dual-processing literature, it seems affect might be an important factor in decision making when a person’s mood is congruent with the task or situational context frame. Given that ethical decisions are serious and complex tasks, it is proposed here that inducing a negative affective state might produce mood congruence, reinforce the salience of emotion for ethical decision makers, and lead to differences in decision processing. Evidence is presented documenting differences in the decisions made by ethical decision makers in a negative affective state as compared to those in either a positive or neutral affective state.     

Poison-drinking in obedience to the faith: a phenomenological study of the experience

In Appalachia, there are certain Christian sects who handle venomous serpents in their church services. Although their serpent handling has received some attention, another of their practices, poison-drinking, has all but escaped the concern of investigators. Addressing this issue, this study included phenomenological interviews with seven believers who ingested strychnine at church. A hermeneutic analysis of their transcribed interviews discovered four major themes that emerged across all protocols to describe the structure of meaning in the experience of poison-drinking: (1) Desire to Drink; (2) “God Moving on Me” (in terms of Anointing and “Insurance” against Harm); (3) Already “Snake Bit”; and (4) “Victory”/“Devil Troubling My Mind”. These interdependent themes are discussed in relation to the existential grounds of body, others, time, and world.     

What is the Problem with Fundamental Moral Error?

Quasi-realists argue that meta-ethical expressivism is fully compatible with the central assumptions underlying ordinary moral practice. In a recent paper, Andy Egan has developed a vexing challenge for this project, arguing that expressivism is incompatible with central assumptions about error in moral judgments. In response, Simon Blackburn has argued that Egan's challenge fails, because Egan reads the expressivist as giving an account of moral error, rather than an account of judgments about moral error. In this paper I argue that the challenge can be reinstated, even if we focus only on the expressivist's account of judgments about moral error.     

重大传染病感染患者的道德创伤隐患研究

重大传染病疫情背景下,病原体的不断变异、疫苗保护效力的不确定性以及诸多后遗症会导致疫情难以控制,并且造成一个数量极其庞大的特殊弱势群体—感染患者。在感染患者从疑似患病到康复的期间,影响他人工作生活、恶化疫情防控形势、感染他人、亲友的抛弃、传染病污名化、医疗资源分配不均以及社会的歧视与排挤等潜在的道德创伤源会对其内心原本的道德体系产生巨大的冲击,甚至改变其原有的道德认知并击溃其积极的道德情感,从而产生道德创伤。在此基础上,感染患者会因此产生一系列社会问题、信任问题、精神问题、生存问题以及诸多消极观念。

     

论西方主流伦理理论的前提错误——兼论道德无力症与冷漠症对医疗的影响

从“畏死的恐惧”出发重塑扎根生命的道德基础,即道德行为和“生-生”式的道德关系是人的本真需要,道德权威性的根据是人类生命共同体这一“内在永恒大我”和人的本真存在方式的需要。这拯救了道德相对主义,也使个体作为潜在的人类生命共同体而能以“与永恒相关的生命意义”推开恐惧。进而,道德行为是出于内在自由而达于实在的自由的。道德主体应具备的道德实践能力包括独立能力、通达能力和勇气。生存性境况中的原子式个体不具备道德实践能力,生命境况中的“超个体的个体”才有此能力。由此,人类道德无力症和道德冷漠症的根源是西方主流伦理理论的前提错误,即以原子式个体充任道德主体。它是医疗纠纷和暴力频发的原因。     

身体知觉方式及其对临床的意义

身体承载着人生物、心理和社会功能的全部,亦是感知、行动的工具。概述了西方身体现象学研究取向的基本特点,深入分析了五种不同处境下,人对身体的不同知觉方式,剖析了患者和医生对身体知觉和理解的不同方式,阐述了西方身体现象学和身体知觉方式的研究可能对临床工作带来的积极影响,呼吁医护人员要高度关注患者躯体体验的表达和意义问题,引导患者可以通过改变身体知觉叙述的策略减轻病患带来的痛苦,为医患沟通架起平等对话的桥梁,改善临床医学中的非人性化和医患沟通不良的现象。     

ICU护士伦理气氛认知与道德困境的相关性研究

采用量性研究方法对ICU护士进行调查分析,了解ICU护士道德困境和伦理气氛认知的现状,并探讨两者之间的相关性。结果显示,ICU护士道德困境总分为43.00分(24.00, 67.00),伦理气氛认知得分为(3.44±0.38)分。相关性分析结果显示：道德困境总分与关怀型伦理气氛呈负相关(r=-0.131,P＜0.05),与功利型伦理气氛呈正相关(r=0.297,P＜0.01)。护理管理者在临床工作中可采取积极有效的措施塑造关怀型伦理气氛,避免或削弱功利型伦理气氛的形成, 从而降低道德困境的发生。

     

Merit,fit, and basic desert

Basic desert is central to the dispute between compatibilists and incompatibilists over the four-case manipulation argument. I argue that there are two distinct ways of understanding the desert salient to moral responsibility; moral desert can be understood as a claim about fitting responses to an agent or as a claim about the merit of the agent. Failing to recognize this distinction has contributed to a stalemate between both sides. I suggest that recognizing these distinct approaches to moral desert will help clarify a central source of disagreement between compatibilists and incompatibilists and assist both sides in resolving the current stalemate.