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This paper discusses the relationship between moral philosophy and political
philosophy. It holds that political philosophy in some way is part of moral
philosophy as the former deals with the content of moral standards governing
the relations between individuals and institutions. That would be the purpose
of the ?morality of institutions?, while the so-called "individual morality"
would inform the standards applicable to individuals. On the basis of a
conception of individual morality as it relates to contractualism and a
discussion of the morality of institutions that closely follows John Rawls?
theory of justice, the paper addresses the question of the foundations of the
obligation to comply with institution-defined standards that are directed
towards individuals. At the end, it focuses in particular on the difficulty
of rationalizing that obligation in the case of unjust institutions.

Discusses "the morality of fear," revisiting & revising the general understanding of the concept of morality & its foundation in intrinsic & universal value. The morality of fear is produced by the privileging of vulnerability & thus security over other interests as the structural bases of society. The morality of fear has been endorsed as a mode of morality by such social philosophers as Hobbes & Gracian, a partial & dysfunctional mode that should be countered by other interests such as honesty, courage, & self-actualization. K. Coddon

AbstractIt is commonly believed that the moral norms of "everyday" or "traditional" morality apply uniformly in all business contexts. However, Joseph Heath has recently argued that this is not the case. According to Heath, the norms of everyday morality apply with respect to "administered" transactions but not "market" transactions. Market transactions are, he argues, governed by a distinct, "adversarial" morality. In this article, I argue that Heath's attempt to show that competitive contexts are governed by a distinct, adversarial morality does not succeed. I then undertake the task of showing that, contrary to what is commonly thought, competitive actions can be reconciled with the norms of traditional morality.

(Originally published in the Zeitschrift fur sozialforschung [1933, 2, 2, 162-195]). An examination of the relationship between materialism, as developed by Karl Marx, & morality, as developed by Immanuel Kant, in recent philosophical discourse. Attention is given specifically to the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche, Henri Bergson, & Sigmund Freud. Materialism sees morality in terms not of transcendant authority but of the lives of concrete individuals affected by it. In the present age, moral sentiments take two main forms: compassion & politics. While neither is obligatory, both are productive forces historically related to bourgeois morality. These forms do not emerge, however, from free subjects, but from subjects historically conditioned by particular life circumstances. W. H. Stoddard

Data on att's toward morality as they have appeared in regularly published polls since 1936 are assembled. A few questions from foreign countries are included when they were parallel to items asked in the US. All other figures are taken from nationwide US cross-sections. Opinions polled pertained to questions on general morality, sexual morality, marital morality, premarital morality, decency in women's clothing, & miscellaneous, eg, paperback books, the possibility of immoral relations between businessmen & their secretaries, & diff's in pol'al or professional as well as soc behavior. M. Maxfield.

Implicit in feminist and other critiques of ideal theorizing is a particular view of what normative theory should be like. Although I agree with the rejection of ideal theorizing that oppression theorists (and other theorists of justice) have advocated, the proposed alternative of nonideal theorizing is also problematic. Nonideal theorizing permits one to address oppression by first describing (nonideal) oppressive conditions, and then prescribing the best action that is possible or feasible given the conditions. Borrowing an insight from the "moral dilemmas debate"—namely that moral wrongdoing or failure can be unavoidable—I suggest that offering (only) action-guidance under nonideal conditions obscures the presence and significance of unavoidable moral failure. An adequate normative theory should be able to issue a further, non-action-guiding evaluative claim, namely that the best that is possible under oppressive conditions is not good enough, and may constitute a moral failure. I find exclusively action-guiding nonideal theory to be both insufficiently nonidealizing (because it idealizes the moral agent by falsely characterizing the agent as always able to avoid moral wrongdoing) and meanwhile too strongly adapted to the nonideal (because normative expectations are lowered and detrimentally adapted to options that, while the best possible, are still unacceptable).