Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy

According to Michael Smith’s practicality requirement, if an agent judges that there is reason for her to f in circumstances C, then either she is motivated to f in C or she is practically irrational. As a number of critics have noted, however, it is far from clear that this is correct, for if an agent’s normative judgments have often proven unreliable before, or seem otherwise suspect now, it is not always clear what practical rationality demands of her. I therefore begin by proposing a friendly amendment to Smith’s requirement, one that makes it much easier to defend. I then go on to argue that this requirement is actually much harder to satisfy than Smith thinks it is, and in fact that there is good reason to doubt that it could be satisfied if desires were nothing more than the purely functional states that Smith claims they are.

The confidentiality rule ensures lawyers not to reveal their client’s confidence that has been learnt through their professions. However sometimes confidentiality can involve to hide serious dangers. This is a small field work that searches theoretical basement of morality-centered or law-centered lawyers. The research question of this study is “the role of ethics/ethical norms in the breach of the confidentiality rule between the lawyer and her client”. In order to understand this, I have specified three sub-topics: Ethics, dilemma and the perception of profession. What does it mean ethics for lawyers, how do they act in ethical dilemmas and on what grounds they are breaching or they would breach the confidentiality rule were the relevant questions for my research question.

There is a teeth-biting debate between vegetarianism and non-vegetarianism on human obligations towards animals. Vegetarianism appeals for equal and ethical treatment for animals whereas non-vegetarianism simply denies any such treatments considering that animals do not have a sense of morality. Non-vegetarianism seems to be ignoring some obligatory duties towards animals and undermines ethical arguments for animal rights. It does not provide sound reason for why humans should deliberately kill animals, painlessly or with least harm, for their own sake. It also overlooks the world economic situation of global hunger in which the use of the total food resources and distribution in terms of nutrition would be much more equitable if everyone was a vegetarian. This paper argues against non-vegetarianism and defends vegetarianism by making a claim that we do have moral obligations of certain kinds towards animals same as we have moral obligations towards us in terms of natural right to survival.

The moral reasoning of Rawls tends to follow Kant in so far as Rawls assumes reason as the primary faculty which decides moral action of what to do and how to do it. By assuming reason as the primary faculty neglecting interests and inclinations which are not encompassed by the primary goods, Rawls searches for an impartial principles of justice to safeguard the priority of ‘right’ over ‘good’. While in Sen’s moral reasoning well-being takes the central place and somehow reason as a faculty is subsumed as an instrument of our wants. When wellbeing takes the primary attention in moral discourse it becomes difficult for Sen to evaluate and rank different alternatives, since wellbeing can be understood differently bsy different people and people value different lives. However, Rawls’ abstraction (as in the case of the hypothetical situation) from the actual situations of life seems to face theoretical as well as practical problems.

The paper is a critical analysis of minimalistic interpretations of the notion of moral obligation. The main grounds and arguments for this interpretation are the liberal understanding of justice and priority of negative rights and obligations over positive ones. To move to a more expansive morality we need to change the balance between negative and positive obligations by reconsidering the status of general and positive obligations. However, raising the status of positive obligations (from special to general) immediately leads to the problem of “moral overburden”. One possible way to overcoming moral minimalism could be based on treating positive obligations as a correlate of a set of rights that cannot be ignored. An important qualification is that the recognition of the right to a resource (material or moral) does not automatically mean placing an obligation on all persons satisfying some eligibility criteria. Instead, it could lead to a moral division of labor when different people take on the responsibility to meet positive moral obligations to those with a legitimate “natural right”. An additional consequence is that this approach helps to cope with the “moral overburden” of a moral agent.

A philosopher is typically linked to pure intellectual activity, aiming to give answers to epistemological, ontological, metaphysical or other abstract and theoretical questions. However, a fairly recent movement, under the name “experimental philosophy”, is calling for philosophers to “burn the armchair” and use methods from the social and cognitive sciences in order to interpret intuitions or even predict reactions under given circumstances. This paper recognizes the potential of “experimental” philosophy as a philosophical tool through ample historical examples, and applies it to the field of bioethics. More specifically, it tests people’s intuitions regarding three different versions of the ethical dilemma first expressed by George Annas: “In a burning clinic, we have the time to save a 5-year-old girl or a tray of 20 frozen embryos”. Using an online survey tool, 292 people answered 3 questions regarding the prioritization of a new born baby over 5 frozen embryos. In the first and “simplest” scenario, the respondent had to choose between saving the 5 frozen embryos or a newborn baby. In the second scenario, the newborn to be saved had only 5% chances to survive due to a serious illness, whereas in the third scenario, the newborn is healthy but the embryos belong to the respondent. The responses to all three scenarios verify the hypothesis of traditional philosophers who claim that the newborn will have priority over the embryos; however, the reasons for choosing the baby vary (feeling of pain, more advanced being, greater cost of loss for parents, closer emotional relationship with baby). The respondents, who chose the embryos in all three cases, followed Bentham’s utilitarian approach of saving five lives versus one. The statistical analysis showed no significant differences in responses due to gender, nationality or being a parent. These results do not provide answers for normative ethics and in most cases experimental philosophy cannot stand alone, but the data can be the basis for further philosophical explorations.

Geosciences have been increasingly interested in ethics due to the challenges thrown by advancements of studies and researches in the area of geosciences towards global community. This results in the emergence of a new discipline during the last decade of 20th century named ‘Geo-Ethics’. The great task assigned to this discipline is to provide an ethical face to geosciences so that these may be maximum useful to global community. Although it is very difficult to define any growing discipline and that is the case with geo-ethics, this paper aims to discuss the nature and core principles of this emerging discipline, an amalgamation of geosciences and ethics. Geo-ethics, an application of a value-system in the area of studies and researches of geosciences, is a part of applied ethics. Its proposed principles are: Refrain from superstitions and supernatural affairs, Interconnectedness, Rationality, Non-rigidness and Coherence, Non-maleficence, Beneficence, Justice.

In the first part of “Force of Law”, Jacques Derrida has creatively linked and analyzed (among other) the concepts of law, justice, force and the à-venir. What is surprising though, and is argued below, is that for the first time he introduces an undeconstructible concept which he also identifies and equates with deconstruction: justice. The aim of this paper is to prove that Derrida has attempted in this way to lead his ethical theory towards a more positive direction and utter a demand for a justice “to come”, something which philosophically would grant the possibility of “improvementability” - if I am granted permission for the neologism - in a political level. Finally, the non-deconstructible and “to come” aspect and characteristic of justice are criticized in the paper, as they oppose in a peculiar way the very concept of différance -on which deconstructive theory rests- inherently threatening Derrida’s syllogism.

Climate change induced uncertainties put forward important challenges to normative theory, as we cannot say that we harm future generations directly, but rather impose risks of harms on them by our actions. In the paper I will take up this challenge by outlining a risk-averse interpretation of intergenerational sufficientarianism. I will show that even though such an approach seems promising it gives rise to different problems. As an example I will refer to the Climate Engineering technique of stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI). Even though it seems realistic to assume due to the great uncertainties and the severe risks that a possible deployment of SAI would extend below the sufficiency threshold, we cannot exclude SAI as a possible legitimate option based on the permissibility of non-avoidable risk imposition, ‘worngless harmdoing‘, and distributive aspects of taking and imposing risks. This clearly indicates – or so I will argue – the need for developing a more complex account of a sufficientarian approach, one that allows the weighing of risks and to make trade-offs between losses and benefits.

This paper describes two concepts of virtue ethics. The first is tied to modern moral theory in that it is concerned to present a new way of deciding which actions are right and wrong. It depends on a conception of moral realism which sees the rightness of an action as an objective feature of it and on metaphysics of subjectivity that sees the self as a rational and self-aware deliberator. The second, contrasting conception of virtue ethics derives from Aristotle and focuses on the character of the agent. It relies on an expression theory of action and on a concept of normativity which is more akin to standards of honor and appropriateness than to the standard of moral rightness.

This paper examines moral authority and its relation with worldly power through a study of the uses and meanings of spirit in John Stuart Mill’s the Spirit of the Age for the purpose of further exploration of the ways in which spirit transformed into and became central in Mill’s later philosophy. Here spirit plays an important role in shaping, motivating, and empowering the minds historical agents who effect change. Spirit as a category of analysis structured Mill’s thought and gave 19th century liberalism, religion and utili-tarianism a new kind of coherence and power. Mill’s substantive argument in the Spirit of the Age focuses on the two states of morality as moral influence and moral authority that are correspond to conditions of worldly power in the two states of ages. Spirit used here is a self or self-control power that organizes both personalities and societies, infusing both with purpose and will. Mill’s opinions in the Spirit of the Age are challenged by some as diametrically op-posite to some of his later ideas. I attempt to show that there is coherence con-sidering the relation between individuality, that the spirit of the age fostered, and moral authority.

Business and commerce take place in a defined framework, defined by unwritten rules. Within the business arena, normal ethics is suspended. The aim of philosophy for business is to understand the rules that define the business framework, in other words, to grasp from an ethical perspective how business is possible. But if normal ethics is suspended then what are the consequences? But how fair is the business game, really? On the face of it, producers and consumers have a very different view. The marketplace is not a level playing field, and the chief culprit is advertising. The dream is not extraneous to the product. It is part of the complete package. The treasure that is the collected works of Plato has added to the value of philosophy, not just through novel arguments or its addition to the storehouse of human knowledge but through the sheer seductive power of Plato’s storytelling. Living and breathing the atmosphere of the dialogues we become more, we become better, we are enhanced. But is that also true out there in the commercial marketplace, where we barter out love of material goods, succumb to the dreams that advertisers sell?

Wang Yang-ming is the most prominent philosopher in Ming Dynasty. His system of Hsin Hsüeh (mind-study), which assembles the characteristics of his contemporary Neo-Confucianists, has rich connotations and a far-reaching influence. Le is a substantial part in the system. His philosophical dialectic blends with his hardship and ‘Le’, which is the further development of ‘Le’ from ancient Confucianists, and affected by his family’s inherence and is both the comprehension of sufferings and the concentration of his living wisdom. Wang Yang-ming said clearly that ‘Le’ is the noumenon of Hsin, thinking ‘Le’ is a natural state, which presents itself during living experiences as a reality. As a noumenon, it determines the state of ‘Le’ as a should-be existence. Thus, ‘Le’ is identical with noumenon, effect and spiritual realm, with the starting point of life, the pursuit of life and the final goal of life. These three dimensions is the basic theoretical frame to the study of ‘Le’. They are three dimensions in logic, but are homoousia in existence. ‘Le’ becomes the expression of Wang’s ideal state, which is the ultimate state with the experience of ‘Le’ as noumenon, ‘Le’ as effect.

The corporate social responsibilities (CSR) can neither be detached from the considerations of profit-making, nor only confined to that. Only if explained from an inner perspective of an enterprise, The CSR can be regarded as a moral one. The moral CSR means that an enterprise, having its ethical personality, is an ethical player in economic activities and also a player which fulfills social responsibilities. An enterprise’s ethical personality is incessantly and closely related with its economic activities, and represents the pursuit and manifestation of human nature herein. It is the ethical personality of the enterprise that keeps it sticking to the life principle and shared social responsibilities. The enterprise’s ethical personality can be built up only when it harmonizes its economic and social commitment and unifies its profit-oriented and ethical-personality-oriented activities.

Skepticism is a recurrent theme in the philosopher’s concern about knowledge, be it knowledge of the external world, other minds, the past, values, God and after life. It touches everything that one claims to know, but in different ways and with different effects. Within the broad scheme of skepticism I wish, in the first section of the paper, to distinguish between epistemological skepticism and moral skepticism. In the second part I proceed by sketching out moral skepticism. In the third part, I discuss the case of skepticism, with a special reference to J. L. Mackie. I close this discussion referring to the widespread suspicion that moral skepticism would have a pernicious influence on society. Paraphrasing Dostoyevsky, one might declare “If there is no moral truth, then everything is permitted”. There is the fear that moral skepticism will lead to moral anarchy.

The paper is devoted to the philosophical understanding of morality which is essentially different from any other way of cognition of moral phenomena and is able to reconstruct morality as the subjectness. Human being lives in the world of absolute determination, but, at the same time, acts on one’s own behalf and takes responsibility for the action and for the whole world created by this action, both in the past and the future. The one overcomes her subjectiveness by reaffirming her subjectness — as I sweep away the importance and influence over my responsibility for the world, all of my subjective motives, intentions, abilities to cognize and understand the world in general, as well as every particular situation where an action takes place.

Pour l’herméneutique philosophique de Hans-Georg Gadamer, la responsabilité est inséparable de l’expérience de la réalité vivante de la phronesis qui constitue le noyau de la vie éthique. À partir de la réhabilitation du concept de phronesis, Gadamer entend redonner à la philosophie pratique le contenu substantiel qui lui manque en raison de la domination de la raison technique dont l’idéal de la méthode fait l’économie de la responsabilité individuelle et sociale de l’homme. Néanmoins, comme le montre la critique convaincante de Jürgen Habermas, la réhabilitation de la phronesis comme source de la responsabilité ne prend pas en compte la différenciation transcendantale entre idéalité et réalité. En tant qu’elle se trouve fondée sur la communauté de sens que représente la phronesis, la philosophie éthique que développe l’herméneutique ne laisse aucune chance à une reconstruction véritablement philosophique et critique des présuppositions universelles de la responsabilité et de la conscience morale.

Im vierten Kapitel des ersten Teils der Allgemeinen Psychopathologie stellt Jaspers seine Analyse der sinnhaften objektiven Tatbestände vor. In diesem Abschnitt des Buches, der für die Ausgabe von 1946 stark erweitert wurde, konzentriert sich Jaspers auf die Analyse der Physiognomie, Mimik, Schreibanalyse und die Aspekte von (handwerklichen, literarischen, künstlerischen) Werken von psychisch Kranken. Er zeigt in diesem Zusammenhang, wie diese objektiven Ausdrucksformen hilfreich für das „Verstehen“ der subjektiven psychischen Phänomene sein können, unterstreicht aber auch die Grenzen dieser Methodik. In diesem Beitrag soll gezeigt werden, welche Bedeutung Jaspers in seinen methodischen Reflexionen über die körperlichen Ausdruckformen und deren Sinnhaftigkeit für das „Verstehen“ von psychischen Krankheiten zuspricht. Die sinnhaften, objektiven Tatbestände weisen für Jaspers auf die Komplexität der Konstitution der verschiedenen Beziehungen zur Welt hin, mit denen psychisch Kranke der Außenwelt begegnen.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) suffers a lack of ethical foundation. That’s why it’s subjected to a permanent reinterpretation. Some people have looked for that foundation in the ambit of the cultures and religions. In this paper we show the validity of the Natural Law as a base for an ethical foundation of Human Rights.

Thought and ethical actions in contemporary society are marked by uncertainty and paradox. It delineates a complex web of thought and social action that cannot visualize a defined and constituted ethical horizon, but paradoxically, makes of the uncertainty an opportunity to recognize the non-ethical predetermination, and therefore reconstitute its configuration from responsibility. The debate and current events in the ethical-political relationship, requires us, before insisting on the conditions and situations we live in, to point out some keys to building an ethical agenda that supports minimum conditions of democracy. All this is about rethinking and building an ethics like an open strategy without a closure, to re-discover the principles hidden in culture, society and history. We need to rethink the ethical-political relationship from an approach that takes responsibility of situations and processes that asks about the conditions of a realization of democracy, not to reduce the analysis to justificatory descriptivism, but to rethink political practices in light of the multidimensionality of human problems and assume their destiny and future.