Moral Dilemmas, Identity, and Our Moral Condition PDF Download

Author: Michael Shaw Perry
Publisher: Algora Publishing
ISBN: 1628940751
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
For readers engaged in intellectual struggle, ethical thinking, and trying to figure out how to live a purposeful, fulfilling life, here is a critical and accessible approach to ethics. Moral dilemmas challenge us to think through sticky situations and lead us to look for moral grounding. Following Cicero and other ancient philosophers, the author views ethics in terms of the question of who and what sort of person one ought to be, without relying on religion or any other prescriptions.

Author: Ovadia Ezra
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402041055
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 205

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Book Description
Moral Dilemmas in Real Life purports to supply ways of thinking of, perhaps even dealing with, the ins and outs of ethical argument. The world today presents both individuals and communities with situations, which demand moral and ethical deliberations. From the more general issues of universal globalization to the very specific problems of every-day existence encountered by active agents, contemporary life is replete with moral and ethical conundrums. Any thinking person is required, so it seems, to be concerned, involved, or – at the very least – conversant with these issues and this book supplies the wherewithal needed. Applied ethics is that intellectual locale where theory meets praxis. Moral Dilemmas in Real Life is designed to make that meeting point explicit, by presenting a series of issues in well-grounded philosophical formulations. The book begins with the general relation between the individual and society – instilling ethical tension, and even clashes, between the private and the public in our discourse. Going on, from general to specific, it gradually narrows the ethical playing field to touch on medical ethics, the family, and the practice of punishment. In all cases, the book addresses both consensual and conventional social institutions and distortions thereof.

Author: Daniel Statman
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004495959
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 185

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Book Description
Moral dilemmas set a challenge for ethical theory. They are situations where agents seem to be under an obligation both to do, and to refrain from doing, a specific act. Are such situations possible? What is their exact nature? These are the questions that Moral Dilemmas tries to answer. The book argues that moral theories should not allow for the possibility of irresolvable dilemmas, for situations in which no right answer exists. To this end, arguments seeking to prove the existence of irresolvable dilemmas, especially the argument from the incommensurability of values, are discussed at length and refuted. The book shows that though on the normative level dilemmas are resolved, they typically involve a high moral cost for which there is no adequate compensation. This moral cost is the source of the regret and pain suffered by agents in moral dilemmas. Thus, moral dilemmas do not point to any inconsistency in our moral reasoning or theory, but to a problematic aspect of the human condition; at times (probably less often than is usually believed), human beings are justified, and even required, to dirty their hands by behaving in ways that in ordinary situations would be strictly forbidden and condemned.

Author: David Shoemaker
Publisher: Broadview Press
ISBN: 1551118823
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
The relationship between personal identity and ethics remains on of the most intriguing yet vexing issues in philosophy. It is commonplace to hold that moral responsibility for past actions requires that the responsible agent is in some respect identical to the agent who performed the action. Is this true? On the other hand, can ethics constrain our account of personal identity? Do the practical requirements of moral theory commit us to the view that persons do remain identical over time? For example, does the moral status of abortion or stem cell research depend on whether personal identity is based on psychological or biological properties? Or is it the case that personal identity is not, in fact, relevant to ethics? Personal Identity and Ethics provides the first comprehensive examination of these issues. Topics include personal identity and prudential rationality; personal identity’s significance for moral responsibility and ethical theory; and the practical consequences of accounts of personal identity for issues such as abortion, stem cell research, cloning, advance directives, population ethics, multiple personality disorder, and the definition of death.

Author: Kwame Anthony Appiah
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400826195
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 379

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Book Description
Race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, sexuality: in the past couple of decades, a great deal of attention has been paid to such collective identities. They clamor for recognition and respect, sometimes at the expense of other things we value. But to what extent do "identities" constrain our freedom, our ability to make an individual life, and to what extent do they enable our individuality? In this beautifully written work, renowned philosopher and African Studies scholar Kwame Anthony Appiah draws on thinkers through the ages and across the globe to explore such questions. The Ethics of Identity takes seriously both the claims of individuality—the task of making a life—and the claims of identity, these large and often abstract social categories through which we define ourselves. What sort of life one should lead is a subject that has preoccupied moral and political thinkers from Aristotle to Mill. Here, Appiah develops an account of ethics, in just this venerable sense—but an account that connects moral obligations with collective allegiances, our individuality with our identities. As he observes, the question who we are has always been linked to the question what we are. Adopting a broadly interdisciplinary perspective, Appiah takes aim at the clichés and received ideas amid which talk of identity so often founders. Is "culture" a good? For that matter, does the concept of culture really explain anything? Is diversity of value in itself? Are moral obligations the only kind there are? Has the rhetoric of "human rights" been overstretched? In the end, Appiah's arguments make it harder to think of the world as divided between the West and the Rest; between locals and cosmopolitans; between Us and Them. The result is a new vision of liberal humanism—one that can accommodate the vagaries and variety that make us human.

Author: Jeff McMahan
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195169829
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 564

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Book Description
Drawing on philosophical notions of personal identity and the immorality of killing, Jeff McMahan looks at various issues, including abortion, infanticide, the killing of animals, assisted suicide, and euthanasia.

Author: Philippa Foot
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780191597411
Category : Decision making
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
In this collection - essays from the late 1970s to the '90s - Professor Foot develops further her critique of the dominant ethical theories of the second half of the 20th century including discussion of the nature of moral judgement, practical rationality and the conflict of virtue with desire.

Author: A.W. Musschenga
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9781402007644
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
This volume is the result of an interdisciplinary exchange between philosophers of identity, moral philosophers, philosophers of education, moral psychologists, and post-modern deconstructivists on the subject of personal and moral identity. This interdisciplinary character makes the book special, compared to other publications on the subject. The contributions to the first part of the book reflect on the implications of discussions in philosophy of identity for moral theory and the view of moral identity. In the second part the focus shifts to the philosophical and psychological perspectives on the concepts of self, personal and moral identity and their interrelation. It is argued that both perspectives are needed for giving an account of the emergence of moral identity as part of someone's development into a mature person. The contributions to the third part absorb the criticism of (de)constructivist theories on essentialist conceptions of personal and social identity. This book will be of interest for philosophers and psychologists active in research on identity, self, (moral) development, and related areas.

Author: David Morley
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134865317
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Examines the ways in which collective cultural identities are being reshaped under conditions of a postmodern geography and a communications environment of cable and satellite broadcasting. Looks at Europe, America, Islam and the Orient.

Author: Adriana Seda
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Moral identity, moral personality, and moral emotion have all been suggested to influence moral behavior individually, however, the results have been mixed and contradictory. Furthermore, they have never been tested together to determine their relative contribution in predicting moral decision-making. An anonymous online survey was administered to undergraduate students (N = 432). Moral Reasoning was assessed by a series of six hypothetical moral dilemmas. Participants were asked which of two choices they would prefer, one being a more deontological choice, in other words, follow a principle such as “tell the truth”, and the other being a more utilitarian choice, such as “lie to spare a person’s feelings”. In addition, participants were asked how confident they felt that they made the right choice in each dilemma. Other measures in the survey battery included Moral Identity which has two subscales, one for Moral Importance, or the degree to which they feel being a moral person is important, and one for Moral Expression, or the degree to which they try to behave consistently with their moral values; a survey of Moral Emotion with subscales for Shame and Guilt; and a measure of Moral Personality variables otherwise known as the dark tetrad: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, Sadism, and Psychopathy. Age and moral expression were the only significant predictors of utilitarian choices on hypothetical moral dilemmas. Although guilt was also correlated with utilitarianism, it failed to be a significant factor when all variables were combined into one regression equation. The degree of confidence participants expressed in their decisions on the hypothetical moral dilemmas was correlated with shame and moral importance, however, none of the morality variables was a significant predictor of confidence ratings when entered together into a regression equation. Possible reasons for the lack of significant results are explored and suggestions for future studies are suggested.