Colonialism in Africa, Culturally Induced Moral Ignorance, and the Scope of Responsibility

This paper analyzes colonialism in Africa to show a plausible connection between culture and human agency and to highlight the conceptual problem of ascribing responsibility in the context of the notion of culturally induced moral ignorance. It argues for the plausibility of the inability thesis, which states that people can be rendered morally ignorant by their culture, using as a backdrop, Moody-Adams' account of the connection between culture and agency. It shows that Moody-Adams' account, and her criteria for ascribing responsibility, cannot handle the problem identified with the colonial situation or culture in Africa, with respect to responsibility of corrupt African leaders. Her arguments do not fully appreciate the real force of the inability thesis and the substantial problem of delimiting the scope of responsibility, which is involved in ascribing responsibility in the context of cultural impediments. This paper does not draw any specific practical conclusion with respect to the responsibility of African leaders. It leaves such a practical conclusion open. However, given the analysis of the colonial situation, the nature and complexity of the problem, it suggests that it is conceptually problematic to blame entirely, without qualification, the specter of corruption in Africa on African leaders.     

Kuhn's impossibility proof and the moral element in scientific explanations

Thomas S. Kuhn and others have arrived at the conclusion that at certain stages of investigation scientists cannot have recourse to criteria by which to justify their choices and actions. From this they have inferred that the choices made at these stages cannot be justified, leaving the impression that scientists may not be responsible for acting in some (sound, right, correct) as opposed to other (wrong, unsound, incorrect) ways in those circumstances. Kuhn's judgment is that in the last analysis it is so called subjective aesthetic considerations that will determine the actions taken.In this paper I argue that Kuhn fails to consider criteria of justification not provided by some field of science itself. He appears even to reject the possibility of invoking such field-invariant (S. Toulmin's term) criteria. He also seems to reject recourse to metaphysical first principles, without even giving these a polite perusal. Finally he does not allow for any possible moral element within these types of human activities - i.e., people faced with dilemmas in or out of science.I end by indicating how we might approach the Kuhnean type of choices and actions from within a moral perspective. The notion of acting as guided by moral rules is rejected since in stress cases the same problems occur here as do with paradigm selections namely we are left without rules. I suggest that the moral element consists, broadly, in exerting the effort needed to find solutions, in moral integrity, conscientiousness or the like. Mainly, however, I argue that how this moral element is to be characterized (identified) will in such cases have to await the occurrence of the dilemma and its solution. That is its uniqueness. But it does not exclude the possibility that once these cases have emerged, they should be discovered to require a given approach, not another. This, in turn, allows that the actions to be taken be justifiable and even that those who face the situation are responsible to discover how to act under the circumstances.     

Moral distress among social workers: The role of insufficient resources

The present study examined moral distress among Finnish social workers and the role of perceived resource insufficiencies in explaining it. The aim was to shed light on this understudied phenomenon in the field of social welfare. The study focused on work‐related moral distress, defined as impaired wellbeing that is connected to the continual inability to implement actions that one considers morally appropriate. The survey data were collected with an electronic questionnaire between the years 2011 and 2012. The respondents (n = 817) were social workers in the public social welfare services and the overall response rate was 46.5 per cent. Nearly 11 per cent of the respondents reported experiencing moral distress and perceived resource insufficiencies strongly explained this experience. Moreover, social workers with moral distress reported that they were less willing to continue in their post, were more frequently on sick leave and had positive work‐related experiences less often than their colleagues who did not experience moral distress. Key Practitioner Message: ● The concept of moral distress is useful in describing the experiences of social welfare workers when they are unable to practise their profession according to their moral code and the emotional burden related to this inability; ● Perceived resource insufficiencies are strongly associated with experiences of moral distress among frontline social workers; ● Social workers experiencing moral distress are less willing to continue in their work, take sick leave more often and less frequently have positive experiences related to their work.     

Rule utilitarianism,rights, obligations and the theory of rational behavior

The paper first summarizes the author's decision-theoretical model of moral behavior, in order to compare the moral implications of the act-utilitarian and of the rule-utilitarian versions of utilitarian theory. This model is then applied to three voting examples. It is argued that the moral behavior of act-utilitarian individuals will have the nature of a noncooperative game, played in the extensive mode, and involving action-by-action maximization of social utility by each player. In contrast, the moral behavior of rule-utilitarian individuals will have the nature of a cooperative game, played in the normal mode, and involving a firm commitment by each player to a specific moral strategy (viz. to the strategy selected by the rule-utilitarian choice criterion) — even if some individual actions prescribed by this strategy, when considered in isolation, should fail to maximize social utility.The most important advantage that rule utilitarianism as an ethical theory has over act utilitarianism lies in its ability to give full recognition to the moral and social importance of individual rights and personal obligations. It is easy to verify that action-by-action maximization of social utility, as required by act utilitarianism, would destroy these rights and obligations. In contrast, rule utilitarianism can fully recognize the moral validity of these rights and obligations precisely because of its commitment to an overall moral strategy, independent of action-by-action social-utility maximization.The paper ends with a discussion of the voter's paradox problem. The conventional theory of rational behavior cannot avoid the paradoxical conclusion that, in any large electorate, voting is always an irrational activity because one's own individual vote is extremely unlikely to make any difference to the outcome of any election. But it can be shown that, by using the principles of rule-utilitarian theory, this paradox can easily be resolved and that, in actual fact, voting, even in large electorates, may be perfectly rational action. More generally, the example of rule utilitarianism shows what an important role the concept of a rational commitment can play in the analysis of rational behavior.     

Empowering Battered Women by Validating Their Decision-Making Skills

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate levels of moral reasoning among a sample of battered women and compare them with a national normative sample.

Method: The study involved collecting Defining Issues Test (DIT) data from 50 women (age, M = 33, SD = 10) beginning their stay at a shelter for battered women. Unlike the original method of assessing moral reasoning involving a lengthy interview, the DIT is a multiple-choice test. Consequently, it is easy to administer and score and, over the last 20 years, it has become the most widely used instrument for assessing moral reasoning.

Results: Analysis indicated that the battered women comprising the sample were employing levels of moral reasoning comparable with the national normative sample.

Conclusion: Implications of the findings for countering arguments that battered women are morally immature in the way in which they approach the stay/leave decision were explored and discussed.     

On the Very Idea of "Negative Emotions"

As attention has shifted towards the emotions in general, the notion of so-called negative emotions has come in for renewed interest. The author explores this notion and argues that its invocation cannot be done without cost to our understanding since it obscures all sorts of relevant complexities. There are thus no emotions around to which we can helpfully refer collectively as "negative," although there are of course painful emotions, emotions that negatively evaluate states of affairs, emotions that are negatively morally evaluated, and so forth. Furthermore, while attempts are under way to reappraise various (commonly) negatively evaluated emotions, those attempts involve different kinds of argument which cannot and should not be collected together as "defenses of negative emotions."     

Expectations and Practice in Social Citizenship: Some Insights from an Attitude Survey in a Chinese Society

This paper draws on empirical evidence from an attitude survey in a Chinese society to show that the universal ideals of social citizenship have strong appeal among the Chinese in Hong Kong, even though the latter are conventionally seen as having low expectations in the area of social rights. It is also shown that high expectations of social responsibilities do not imply low expectations of social citizenship. However, this does not mean that cultural context or tradition does not matter. Findings of strong support for the responsibility of parents to care for children, but in a westernized and modern context, suggest that cultural variations in beliefs about social citizenship and practice continue, but framed by an understanding of, and moral commitment to, more universal values of social citizenship.     

Uncertainty in moral theory: An epistemic defense of rule-utilitarian liberties

The purpose of this essay is to defend utilitarianism from the popular objection that it makes moral theory depend improperly upon uncertain factual information and calculations which may produce violations of individual rights or liberties. This objection is a more subtle variant of the general Kantian complaint that utilitarianism makes morality improperly contingent upon empirical facts about historical, socioeconomic circumstances, the consequences of actions, institutions, etc., thereby allowing individual liberties to be sacrificed in order to maximize the collective welfare. Three main arguments connected with the uncertainty-objection are delineated in Rawls' work, and are seen to be fallacious. It is concluded that a suitably sophisticated form of rule-utilitarianism need not base liberty on any impermissible kind of uncertainty in moral theory. This analysis is contrary not only to what Rawlsians and other Kantians nowadays typically argue or assume in criticizing utilitarianism, but also to what some of the leading critics of Rawls have said about his anti-utilitarian stance.     

The Third Way and Social Welfare: The Myth of Post-emotionalism

The “passive” welfare state was accused of promoting a dependency culture. “Active” welfare and the “what works?” approach of Britain's New Labour government is allegedly implicated in an age of post‐emotionalism, in which people are largely indifferent to the needs of others and committed primarily to their personal well‐being. This article, first, seeks to extend recent debates about agency and motivation in social policy and relate them to the notion of post‐emotionalism. Second, it draws on a recent empirical study of popular and welfare provider discourses, which suggests that popular opinion can accommodate an appreciation of human interdependency, while welfare providers remain committed to a public service ethos. None the less, Third Way thinking is associated with a narrowing of solidaristic responsibilities. The problem for the future of health, social care and state welfare policies lies not with the imagined consequences of post‐emotionalism, so much as with an ideological context that perpetuates a distorted ethic of responsibility.     

The Dark Side of Moral Conviction

Moral conviction forms the foundation for strong, morally vested attitudes and beliefs (i.e., "moral mandates") that have high action potential because they are "oughts" and "shoulds." Although moral mandates may sometimes lead people to engage in prosocial behaviors, they can also lead people to disregard procedural safeguards. This article briefly reviews research that indicates that people become very unconcerned with how moral mandates are achieved, so long as they are achieved. In short, we find that commitments to procedural safeguards that generally protect civil society become psychologically eroded when people are pursuing a morally mandated end. Understanding the "dark side" of moral conviction may provide some insight into the motivational underpinnings of engaging in extreme acts like terrorism, as well as people's willingness to forego civil liberties in their pursuit of those who do.     

Autonomous Agency in Anti-Dualistic Social Ontologies: A Compatibilist Notion

Anti-dualistic social ontologies, those highlighting the intrinsic interdependency of agency and structure as two sides of the same coin, are sometimes criticized for failing to provide a satisfactory account of autonomous – capable and free – agency, or even denying the reality of such agency. This paper contests these claims, arguing that anti-dualistic ontologies only conflict with autonomous agency when the latter is understood in a highly voluntaristic sense, whose ideational roots go to what philosophers of free will call “incompatibilist” intuitions of freedom. Those intuitions suggest that actions (intentions, decisions) ultimately determined by extrinsic causes lack the kind of freedom presupposed by moral responsibility, so when agentive autonomy is presumed to involve such freedom, it does indeed cohere poorly with the anti-dualistic picture of intrinsically structured agency. Herein, however, an alternative, “compatibilist” notion of autonomy is advanced, such that does not conflict with extrinsic determination and is therefore congruent with anti-dualistic social ontologies.     

Bidirectional relations among empathy‐related traits,prosocial moral reasoning,and prosocial behaviors

This study examined the longitudinal links among empathic concern, perspective taking, prosocial moral reasoning, and prosocial behaviors. Four hundred and seventeen adolescents (225 girls; M_age = 14.70 years) from public schools in Spain completed measures of those constructs in three successive years. Path analyses showed support for the notion that empathic concern and prosocial moral reasoning accounted for the relations between perspective taking in earlier adolescence and later altruistic and public forms of helping. Moreover, there was support for a reverse causal model such that empathic concern and prosocial moral reasoning mediated the relations between altruistic (but not public) helping behaviors in earlier adolescence and later perspective taking. The implications for cognitive developmental and social cognitive theories of prosocial development were discussed.     

The Ethical Implications of Current Theoretical Developments in Social Work

Correspondence to Dr Mel Gray, Department of Social Work, University of Natal, King George V Ave, Durban 4001, South Africa. Summary The paper examines the ethical implications of current theoreticaldevelopments in social work and discusses important ways inwhich efforts at understanding within social work can be guidedby moral values. At the present time, there are a variety oftheories through which the world of social work can be understood.In attempting to achieve as accurate an understanding of socialwork reality as possible, it is suggested that social work needsto move beyond empirical rigidity, technological approachesand ideological dogma to a critical, reflective epistemologicalstance which takes account of the profession's worthwhile ideals.To this end, the paper discusses the notion of the autonomousmoral self and examines the implications of critical and constructivistthinking on this notion of selfhood. It considers what it meansto develop an adequate understanding of social work realityand re-examines the meaning of objectivity. Finally, it highlightsthe need for reflection on, and an appreciation of, the allencompassing nature of morality.     

Equality,responsibility, and justice as seen from a utilitarian perspective

A liberal democratic society must find a proper balance between respect for the basic equality of all human beings and respect for individual differences, including respect for individual excellence. Excessively equalitarian attitudes can be a major obstacle in accomplishing this. I first discuss the highly detrimental effects that such attitudes have had on American primary and secondary education. Then I discuss Rawls's suggestion to replace the traditional common-sense conception of justice, which he calls thesystem of liberal equality, with a much more equalitarian conception, which he calls thesystem of democratic equality. I argue that Rawls's conception of justice would be highly detrimental to society because it would needlessly discourage talented people from using their talents for the benefit of society.In my view, some of Rawls's arguments are based on misconceptions about the nature of free will and of moral responsibility. To clarify these issues, I am proposing a new conception of free will and of moral responsibility, which I call thebearer's responsibility view.Finally, I argue against the high priority that Rawls assigns to justice (or to fairness) over other social values, and against the even higher priority that Kant assigns to morality over other values of human life.     

Recent developments in ‘children's rights’: liberation for whom?

This article reviews some developments in'children's rights' in the 1980s and 1990s. It explores the notion of'children's rights' itself and considers how far an emphasis on children's rights is reflected in different areas of recent government policy relating to children in four different respects. First, the significance of the Children Act 1989 for children's rights is examined. Secondly, there are a number of other areas of policy which may be seen to reinforce childrens's rights. These include changes in the treatment of child witnesses and the gradual prohibition of physical punishment. Thirdly, the Child Support Act 1991 is considered - here, in contrast to other policies, children's rights barely figure at all. Fourthly, the article notes how government policies have tended to exacerbate child poverty, which is also in conflict with children's rights. The article then discusses the ambiguous direction of government policy in relation to children's rights. Two different themes are identified: first, greater autonomy for the child plus protection of child welfare; and secondly, liberation for the state from responsibility for children.     

Welfare Mothers' Reflections on Personal Responsibility

This article discusses personal responsibility, fulfilling one's moral and social obligations as a purposeful and self-reliant agent, from the viewpoint of 20 White welfare mothers completing a community college program. In their stories, the participants revealed that they behaved in responsible ways under difficult conditions. Their accounts demonstrated that the most responsible decision for a single mother in many cases may be welfare, rather than a paying job and unstable employment. The women described a new type of personal responsibility in the context of community college: setting and working toward long-term goals rather than focusing purely on survival. Personal responsibility did not seem to reside in the individual, but was the result of the interaction between individual agency and context, an interpersonal responsibility.     

Deterrence,utility, and rational choice

The nuclear balance of terror is examined from the perspective of utilitarian ethics. A superpower's decision about whether or not to practice nuclear deterrence against its rival is analyzed as a choice, under conditions of uncertainty, between (i) a smaller risk of bringing about a graver disaster for mankind (i.e., nuclear war), and (ii) a greater risk of bringing about a lesser disaster for mankind (i.e., domination by the rival superpower). It is argued that the expected utility and maximin principles cannot very plausibly be applied to problems with this structure, but that a novel principle of rational choice can be. This principle is defended, and is used to reach the conclusion that nuclear deterrence is, from the utilitarian viewpoint, permissible.A remote ancestor of this paper was presented to the Jacob Marschak Interdisciplinary Colloquium on Mathematics in the Behavioral Sciences, at UCLA, in the spring of 1976. I am grateful to the members of that group, and to Robert M. Adams, for their helpful comments. My work was partly supported by a Regent's Faculty Research Fellowship from the University of California.     

A note on the decidability of de Finetti's coherence

To check the de Finetti coherence of a putative probability assigned to a classA of events, we must know the possible combinations of truth values (constituents) of any finite class of events inA. Even for a very simple, finite,A this can be impossible. In this case the notion of DF coherence cannot be applied to some or all the putative probabilities on this class of events.     

Euthanasia and persistent vegetative state individuals: the role and moral status of autonomy

This paper offers a philosophical consideration and evaluation of several different criteria of moral standing, and discusses their implications for persistent vegetative state (PVS) individuals who were once competent. It is argued that the only criterion PVS individuals meet is that of being human, which is not the best test of moral standing. Accordingly it is, in principle, morally acceptable to perform passive or active euthanasia on PVS individuals or to use their bodies for research or for organ harvest. Nevertheless, the autonomous choices made by the persons the PVS individuals used to be can still impose moral obligations. Indeed, it is argued that the capacity for autonomy is a particularly appealing criterion of moral standing, and that the implications of this standard for PVS individuals confirm that appeal.