Politicalcommitmentstoresistoppressionplayacentralroleinthemoral lives of many people. Such commi... more Politicalcommitmentstoresistoppressionplayacentralroleinthemoral lives of many people. Such commitments are also a source of ethical reasons. They influence and organize ethical beliefs, emotions and reasons in an ongoing way. Political commitments to address oppression often contain a concern for the dignity and well-being of others and the objects of political commitments often have value, according to ideal moral theories, such as Kantian and utilitarian theory. However, ideal moral theories do not fully explain the ethical reasons political commitments engender. First, ideal moral theories do not explain the normative priority that agents give to politically committed ethical reasons. Their profound effect on a politically committed agent's ethical deliberation and choice and the precedence they are given over other ends cannot be wholly understood through the moral obligations within ideal theories. Second, although politically committed reasons are valuable in ideal theory for the benefits they bring to others, they are not fungible with other reasons ideal theory would regard as having equal ethical value. A person might substitute another beneficial humanitarian aim for that to which she is politically committed and nevertheless regard herself as having done a morally wrong thing for failing or betraying her commitment. Politically committed ethical reasons are also motivated and informed by the social location of agents and their relationship to structures of oppression. Although there are universal ethical reasons to oppose oppression, this means that some of a person's actual ethical reasons will be irreducibly particular.
When a person gives up an end of crucial importance to her in order to promote a moral aim, we re... more When a person gives up an end of crucial importance to her in order to promote a moral aim, we regard her as having made a moral sacrifice. The paper analyzes these sacrifices in light of some of Bernard Williams' objections to Kantian and Utilitarian accounts of them. Williams argues that an implausible consequence of these theories is that that we are expected to sacrifice projects that make our lives worth living and contribute to our integrity. Williams' arguments about integrity and meaning are shown to be unconvincing when the content of projects is left open. However, a look at his later arguments suggests a reason to be concerned about defensible ethical projects as understood through what he refers to as "the morality system". The problem for theories of this type turns out to be not merely conflicts between ethical projects and moral demands but making sense of some of the ethically relevant features of these projects. Accommodations to moral theories that leave room for ethical projects may be insufficient to explain such features, for example in cases where agents demand more of themselves than the theories require. Making the theories more demanding is also problematic. Williams' view about the role ethics plays in our conception of the life we want to lead provides a better account of these cases.
Are individual citizens of imperfect democracies morally responsible for unjust wars waged by the... more Are individual citizens of imperfect democracies morally responsible for unjust wars waged by their state? Moral responsibility for unjust wars involves both retrospective and social responsibility. Citizens of imperfect democracies are retrospectively responsible when they choose to vote for a leader they know will wage an unjust war. This situation may occur very rarely. For example, US citizens did not have this political option at the outset of the Vietnam and Iraq Wars. However, even when citizens are not retrospectively responsible they have the social responsibility to engage in collective action to address the harms unjust war causes.
1 Questions about the proper motive for benefi cence are raised in Michael Stocker, "Th e Schizop... more 1 Questions about the proper motive for benefi cence are raised in Michael Stocker, "Th e Schizophrenia of Modern
Canadian Philosophical Review Revue canadienne de philosophie
Articles Quel Arri��re-plan pour l'esprit? PIERRE STEINER 419 Philippa Foot's V... more Articles Quel Arri��re-plan pour l'esprit? PIERRE STEINER 419 Philippa Foot's Virtue Ethics Has an Achilles' Heel SCOTT WOODCOCK 445 Individualisme et responsabilit�� selon Emmanuel L��vinas ��TIENNE HACH�� et MATTHIEU DUBOST 469 Departmental Boundaries within the Corporate Body of Theory: Quine on the Holistic Foundations of Logic DAVID M. GODDEN 505 ... Intervention/Discussion On Davidson's Semantic Anti-Sceptical Argument BYEONG D. LEE 529 ... Book Symposium/Tribune du livre Aging, Death, and Human Longevity: A ...
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