This volume presents two closely related essays by Thomas Nagel: "Gut Feelings and Moral Knowledge," discusses the value of intuitions in understanding human rights and argues against subjectivist and reductionist accounts of morality of the kind offered by evolutionary psychology or based on brain scans. The second essay, "Moral Reality and Moral Progress," proposes an account of the historical development of moral truth, according to which it does not share the timelessness of scientific truth. This is because moral truth must be based on reasons that are accessible to the individuals to whom they apply, and such accessibility depends on historical developments. The result is that only some advances in moral knowledge are discoveries of what has been true all along.
"This book consists of two essays that are related to each other: "Gut Feelings and Moral Knowledge" and "Moral Reality and Moral Progress." The longer second essay has not been previously published. Both are concerned with moral epistemology and our means of access to moral truth; both are concerned with moral realism and with the resistance to subjectivist and reductionist accounts of morality; and both are concerned with the historical development of moral knowledge. The second essay also proposes an account of the historical development of moral truth, according to which it does not share the timelessness of scientific truth. This is because moral truth must be based on reasons that are accessible to the individuals to whom they apply, and such accessibility depends on historical developments"--
Moral Judgments, Moral Virtues, and Moral Norms The paper consists of two basic parts. In the first, contemporary approaches to moral judgments and their relations with moral virtues and moral norms are analyzed. The focus is on comparing the role of the emotions and reason, and conscious and unconscious processes in forming and/or justifying moral judgments. The second part examines views on the current broader socio-political situation in Western countries and points to the growing feelings of insecurity among people mainly due to the fact that traditional ways of life have been losing solid ground, settled (social) norms and ethical systems are weakening and at the same time the social trust in various state institutions and bureaucratic structures involved in power is decreasing. In conclusion the author argues for the potential of the ethic of autonomy that would lead to still greater cooperation in globalized ethic, primarily thanks to our moral emotions and moral judgments.
"This book argues there can be no theory of ethics and that any attempt at such a theory ends up distorting the moral phenomena that it is supposed to explain. It presents clear examples of moral thought outside moral theorising through literature and Wittgenstein's later philosophy. The book's precise target is moral theory understood as a theory of right action. The author begins by arguing against the assumption central to moral theory that moral judgments are universalizable; that what it is right for one agent to do in a given situation is what is right for any agent in that same situation. Rather, moral judgments are essentially first personal. The author's specific contention here is that our understanding of moral thought in literature provides grounds for rejecting the assumption that moral judgments are universalizable. The author then goes on to argue that there is some determinate and objective content to ethics connected to recognising another human being as a limit to our will. He presents several literary examples that have influenced his thinking about the nature of moral value. He combines these readings with insights from Wittgenstein's later writings to demonstrate the ways in which moral theorising fails to capture important aspects of moral thought. Moral Thought Outside Moral Theory will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in ethics and moral theory, literature and philosophy, and Wittgenstein"--
The crisis of neoliberal capitalism and liberal democracy has a genesis stretching back a decade or longer. Why is it that, until now, socialists and those on the left have struggled to articulate a coherent counter-hegemonic discourse? We argue that at least part of this failing comes from an ambivalence about making the moral argument for socialist transformation. Both a moral critique of the existing order and the articulation of socialist future grounded in a distinct moral order are necessary components of transformative change: they are able to fix substantive policy initiatives - whether a green new deal, universal basic income or the nationalisation of essential services - within a broader vision of how society and the state should function, and on whose behalf. Morals are important in the functioning of any socio-economic order - communicating meaning, providing rationale and generating expectations regarding the practices of ourselves and others. They construct and stabilise contingent social orders and hierarchies. The current social contract is characterised by increased individualisation, responsibilisation and the moral imperative towards competition and consumption. Morals are what allow people to tolerate current conditions. But as contemporary capitalism becomes increasingly uninhabitable, a moral critique - that is the ability to both unpick what stabilises the current conjuncture and offer an alternative - becomes all the more urgent. We look at a number of initiatives and movements, most but not all lodged in the anti-austerity protests of the past decade, for examples of such political strategies. In such movements we see how material criticisms of capitalism are grounded in concrete struggles for justice and emancipation but framed in a counter-hegemonic moral framework that explicitly challenges the status quo.
Morale can have a signif effect upon the utilization & development of the human resources of diplomacy. For some time, morale in the Dept of State & its Foreign Service has not been as good as it should be. A growing N of career officers have come to feel that proven ability & broad professional experience are at a discount as they see an increasing N of top jobs in Washington & appointments in the field going to pol'al appointees & noncareer individuals. Another major morale factor arises from confused & ever-changing patterns of management & admin. This has resulted, in part, from excessive turnover in the Dept's highest admin'ive position & from adoption of varying & sometimes contradictory recommendations made by many outside groups which have studied the Dept & the Foreign Service since 1945. Stronger career incentives are needed if morale is to be brought up to desirable levels. HA.
In any society influenced by a plurality of cultures, there will be widespread, systematic differences about at least some important values, including moral values. Many of these differences look like deep disagreements, difficult to resolve objectively if that is possible at all. One common response to the suspicion that these disagreementsareunsettleable has always been moral relativism. In the flurry of sympathetic treatments of this doctrine in the last two decades, attention has understandably focused on the simpler case in which one fairly self-contained and culturally homogeneous society confronts, at least in thought, the values of another; but most have taken relativism to have implications within a single pluralistic society as well. I am not among the sympathizers. That is partly because I am more optimistic than many about how many moral disagreements can be settled, but I shall say little about that here. For, even on the assumption that many disputes are unsettleable, I continue to find relativism a theoretically puzzling reaction to the problem of moral disagreement, and a troubling one in practice, especially when the practice involves regular interaction among those who disagree. This essay attempts to explain why.
The issue of whether historians should make moral judgments is always controversial. In recent years, there has been a division between those who argue that the primary aim of historians should be to understand the past & that moral judgments should be avoided, & those who maintain that moral judgments are still in a certain sense appropriate. The overall thrust of this article is to argue that these two tendencies in reality coincide: understanding & judgment cannot be abstractly separated. The article also explores the related, but further point that many historians are moral realists: they believe that certain moral facts are natural facts independently of whether people believe them to be true or not. This moral realism is rooted in a variety of worldviews, religious & secular. With particular reference to Nazism & Stalinism, & to such figures as Adolf Eichmann, Albert Speer, Nikolai Bukharin, & Richard Nixon, this article argues that there is a widespread assumption among historians that the moral state of societies & individuals is a legitimate aspect of historical enquiry. Herbert Butterfield & Hannah Arendt are among the many scholars whose work is discussed. The article concludes by saying that history is in a certain sense a moral discipline in that it requires of historians a high level of self-knowledge & self-discipline, if they are to write good history. Adapted from the source document.
Abstract In their recent book Buchanan and Powell claim that there is moral progress. Their analysis focuses on increasing inclusiveness, yet they also suggest other dimensions as possible indicators-improvements in the concept of morality and refinements in moral motivation. In the following I present empirical data on changes in moral understanding that occurred during the second half of the 20th century in Germany. These changes concern an increasing delimitation of the moral realm, the rise of an ethics of responsibility, the displacement of an orientation to super ego dictates by a more ego-syntonic type of moral motivation. This research largely follows the 'cognitivist' paradigm which I start off defending against Haidt's counter proposal of moral intuitionism. Feasible explanatory factors for the changes documented are put forward-processes of secularization and changes in socialization styles-and their interpretation as indicators of moral progress is discussed. The paper ends with brief speculations concerning possible reasons for current moral regressions.
