Moral Agency

Many researchers believe that the proper identification of psychology variables depends on using accurate tools that function beyond cultural, political and social attachments for measuring the psychological features in human societies. In this regard, the present study has been conducted to examine the psychometric properties and factor structure of Black’s Moral Agency Scale (2016) in Iranian population. This scale has 15 items with three subscales of responsibility, external attribution and group pressure that has been validated with a desirable validity and reliability in American-European society. In the present study, to use this scale first the Persian version was prepared using back translation and then it was distributed among a sample of 381 male and female students of the University of Mazandaran, who were selected through multi-stage cluster sampling to participate in this study. In the next step, the construct validity of the scale was examined by exploratory factor analysis method. The results showed that after removing 2 items due to loading onto a factor other than the main factor, the scale has a three-factorial structure such as the original version. Then, to examine the confirmatory factor analysis, the model's fit was evaluated using Amos software, which confirmed the results of the structure obtained from the exploratory factor analysis. Moreover, for further evaluation of the validity of the scale, the correlations between the factors and the total score was examined through Pearson's correlation, and results indicated a good correlation between the subscales with the total score of the scale. To assess the reliability of the scale, the Cronbach's alpha coefficient was adopted. The Cronbach's alpha for responsibility, group pressure, external attribution and total scale scores were 0.53, 0.57, 0.55, and 0.60, respectively. Finally, with due regard to the data obtained from this research, it can be said that the present scale has an acceptable reliability and validity and is suitable for use by Iranian researchers in future studies.

Questions of moral responsibility or legal liability are on the public, political and academic agenda, with the European Parliament calling for ‘electronic personhood’  for autonomous and artificially intelligent robots and with self-driving cars beginning to drive on US roads, but also with an on-going debate regarding corporate criminal liability in Germany,  to give only three examples. In the context of moral responsibility or legal liability, it is often (but not necessarily) presupposed that the entity in question has acted, or more generally that there was conduct of some kind. This is not obvious, however. Are non-human entities able to act for the purpose of moral responsibility or of legal liability?

In this paper, I want to focus on the topic of acts of non-human entities and sketch out why I consider this a relevant field of research for academics from law, philosophy, the social and the cognitive sciences in addition to the questions of responsibility that are already being asked. As such, this paper is meant to identify relevant research questions and to out a research agenda. It is not yet meant to answer these questions, only to provide impetus for future research.

The objective of this paper is to provide a critical analysis of the Kantian notion of freedom (especially  the  problem  of  the  third  antinomy  and  its  resolution  in  the  critique  of  pure reason); its significance in the contemporary debate on free-will and determinism, and the possibility  of  autonomy  of  artificial  agency  in  the  Kantian  paradigm  of  autonomy.  Kant's resolution  of  the  third  antinomy  by  positing  the  ground  in  the  noumenal  self  resolves  the problem of antinomies; however, invites an explanatory gap between phenomenality and the noumenal self; even if he has successfully established the compatibility of natural causality and non-natural causality through his transcendental argument. This paper is also devoted to establish the plausibility of the knowledge claim that Kantian reduction of phenomenality has served half of the purpose of the AI scientists on the possibility of Artificial Autonomous Agency.

It has become something of a scholarly truism that during the medieval period, gluttony was combatted simply by teaching and practicing abstinence. However, this dissertation presents a more nuanced view on the matter. Its aim is to examine the manner in which the moral discourse of dietary moderation in late medieval England captured
subtle nuances of bodily behavior and was used to explore the complex relationship between the individual and society. The works examined foreground the difficulty of differentiating bodily needs from gluttonous desire. They show that moderation cannot be practiced by simply refraining from food and drink. By refiguring the idea of moderation,
these works explore how the individual’s ability to exercise moral discretion and make better dietary choices can be improved. The introductory chapter provides an overview of how the idea of dietary moderation in late fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Middle
English didactic literature was influenced by the monastic and ascetic tradition and how late medieval authors revisited the issue of moderation and encouraged readers to reevaluate their eating and drinking habits and pursue lifestyle changes. The second chapter focuses on Langland’s discussion in Piers Plowman of the importance of dietary moderation as a supplementary virtue of charity in terms of creating a sustainable community. The third chapter examines Chaucer’s critique of the rhetoric of moderation in the speech of the Pardoner and the Friar John in the Summoner’s Tale, who attempted to assert their clerical superiority and cover up their gluttony by preaching moderation.
The fourth chapter discusses how late Middle English conduct literature, such as Lydgate’s Dietary, revaluates moderation as a social skill. The fifth chapter explores the issue of women’s capacity to control their appetite and achieve moderation in conduct books written for women. Collectively, the study illuminates how the idea of moderation
adopted and challenged traditional models of self-discipline regarding eating and drinking in order to improve the laity’s discretion and capacity to assess its own appetite and develop a healthy lifestyle for the community.

The aim of the present study was to examine to what degree different mechanisms of moral disengagement were related to age, gender, bullying, and defending among school children. Three hundred and seventy-two Swedish children ranging in age from 10 to 14 years completed a questionnaire. Findings revealed that boys expressed significantly higher levels of moral justification, euphemistic labeling, diffusion of responsibility, distorting consequences, and victim attribution, as compared with girls. Whereas boys bullied others significantly more often than girls, age was unrelated to bullying. Moral justification and victim attribution were the only dimensions of moral disengagement that significantly related to bullying. Furthermore, younger children and girls were more likely to defend victims. Diffusion of responsibility and victim attribution were significantly and negatively related to defending, while the other dimensions of moral disengagement were unrelated to defending.

The aim with the present study was to investigate bystander actions in bullying situations as well as reasons behind these actions as they are articulated by Swedish students from fourth to seventh grade. Forty-three semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with students. Qualitative analysis of data was performed by methods from grounded theory. The analysis of the student voices of being a bystander in bullying reveals a complexity in which different definition-of-situation processes are evoked (a) relations (friends and social hierarchy), (b) defining seriousness, (c) victim’s contribution to the situation, (d) social roles and intervention responsibilities, and (e) distressing emotions. There are often conflicted motives in how to act as a bystander, which could evoke moral distress among the students. Our analysis is unique in that it introduces the concept of moral distress as a process that has to be considered in order to better understand bystander actions among children The findings also indicate bystander reactions that could be associated with moral disengagement, such as not perceiving a moral obligation to intervene if the victim is defined as a non-friend (‘none of my business’), protecting the friendship with the bully, and blaming the victim.

Albert Bandura is the doyen of the psychology profession. He is well-known for his theory of social learning and self-efficacy. His new book on moral disengagement can be considered a breakthrough in moral psychology and ethics. It shows how the psychological mechanisms of moral disengagement work in business, politics and social life, and how these practices have implications for ethical conduct.

The themes of the Values and Leadership conferences over the past twelve years have shown an increasing interest in ethical and moral understanding of leadership behaviours in education decision-making.  One area where this has been experienced has been the increasing demands by governments and communities internationally for accountability, which have created tensions for school leaders to not only improve student learning, but also to be responsible for producing and influencing publically-reported evidence of student achievement.  These tensions about decisions and actions have created greater awareness of the need for leaders to be conscious of the discernment process influencing the morality of their decisions. This issue emerged from the authors’ research into leadership decisions involving the use of data on student achievement. Analysis of this research pointed to moral decision-making being influenced by discernment about the context of six interrelated purposes – moral, personal, professional, organisational, public and cultural.  The paper will present a model that proposes that moral discernment regarding the influence of these elements will give leaders better understandings of the process of their decision-making and actions.  The six purposes will be described and analysed as a basis for decision-making and the research on the use of student achievement data by leaders to improve learning will be used as a case study to examine the utility of the model.

The aim of the present study was to investigate how basic moral sensitivity in bullying, moral disengagement in bullying and defender self-efficacy were related to different bystander behaviors in bullying. Therefore, we examined pathways that linked students' basic moral sensitivity, moral disengagement, and defender self-efficacy to different bystander behaviors in bullying situations. Three hundred and forty-seven teenagers completed a bullying survey. Findings indicated that compared with boys, girls expressed higher basic moral sensitivity in bullying, lower defender self-efficacy and moral disengagement in bullying. Results from the SEM showed that basic moral sensitivity in bullying was negatively related to pro-bully behavior and positively related to outsider and defender behavior, mediated by moral disengagement in bullying, which in turn was positively related to pro-bully behavior and negatively related to outsider and defender behavior. What differed in the relations between outsider and defender behaviors was the degree of defender self-efficacy.

Abstract
Fethullah Gülen has been the subject of academic curiosity in many aspects;
however, his teachings about moral responsibility have not been comprehensively
studied. In this thesis, I aim to capture the missing element within current research on
theories of moral responsibility by bringing Gülen’s teachings together, studying his
theories systematically and critically analysing them. I argue that Gülen’s teachings
provide a coherent universalistic moral responsibility theory grounded in Islamic theology
with a strong contemporary applicability.
Responsibility debates are not new in Islamic discourse and have generated various
theological and jurisprudence schools. As a Maturidi/Hanafi scholar, Gülen defines moral
agency from a creationist perspective and this is central to his teachings about
responsibility. He believes that human beings are created with particular potentials such
as the spirit, reason, feelings, temptations, consciousness and free will which make them
morally responsible for their actions. These responsibilities are based on multiple
identities and require internal dialogue with the self and external dialogue with God, other
individuals, society and the environment. Gülen does not limit his argument to religion,
but believes that the potentials listed above give all human beings responsibilities that
extend beyond the self.
Gülen's thinking focuses on the moral agent and his/her free will, and on the
awareness and application of personal responsibilities starting from the individual and
gradually expanding to the global . Responsibility is towards everything, present and
future.
Gülen’s theories are based on mainstream Muslim theology but engage with modern
western discourse on responsibility. Individuals must strive continuously towards the
betterment of society to the best of their potential.
Although apparently idealist at first glance, it becomes clear that Gülen’s teachings
provide an inclusive platform for individuals to engage at every level with the modern
world. This applicability is why Gülen has been so successful in motivating his followers
into developing Hizmet as a transnational social movement. The ways in which his ideas
are put into practice are also explored in the thesis.

“debunk” (verb) – to expose the falseness or hollowness of (a myth, idea, or belief)

"re-bunk" (verb) -- to undo a debunking

Critics of corporate moral agency periodically claim to have "de-bunked" corporate moral agency – most notably Velzsquez, in his widely cited "Debunking Corporate Moral Responsibility" (2003), and Rönnegard in his recent The Fallacy of Corporal Moral Agency (2015). There are three steps to the debunking process: (1) adopt a distinctive interpretation of holist accounts, one which “dis-members” the corporate agent before evaluating its capacities; (2) derive the capacities necessary for moral agency from human paradigms rather than from an account; and as a direct result, (3) assume an unduly "phenomenalized" account of moral agency. I respond to each in turn.  First, I clarify the commitments of the holist position, drawing on my own account to demonstrate that the corporate agent is a entity and to explain the sense in which its intentionality is dependent on, but not therefore identical to, the intentionality of its members.  I then outline my concerns about arguing from a human paradigm rather than an account, and close by arguing that phenomenal consciousness is not necessary for agency.

Re-bunking achieved.

Does Kantian moral agency require phenomenal consciousness? More to the point, can firms (and other highly organized collectives) be Kantian moral agents – bound by Kantian obligations – in the absence of consciousness? After sketching the mechanics of my account of corporate agency, I consider three increasingly demanding accounts of Kantian moral agency, concluding that corporate agents can meet each successively higher threshold. They can (1) act on universalizable principles and treat humanity as an end in itself; (2) give such principles to themselves, treat their own " humanity " as an end itself, and act out of respect for the law; and (3) to the extent necessary, draw on empathically generated information and insights to inflect their performance, all in the absence of phenomenal consciousness. I close by rejecting two further arguments that phenomenal consciousness is nonetheless conceptually or practically necessary for Kantian moral agency.

The problem of the selfhas recently regained a wide interest in the philosophical panorama. The need to rethink the agent has then encouraged the rediscovery of Ancient Philosophy. Focusing on Aristotelian practical philosophy, this paper aims to demonstrate the intrinsic circularity existing between the agent and his context. To give evidence of this theory, it will be necessary to investigate the extensive concept of ethos, the meanings of which embrace both individual and collective dimension. Moreover, this itinerary through the Aristotelian thought will be the occasion for putting the rebirth of interest towards Ancient Philosophy into question.

The present article deals with Kierkegaard’s contributions to ethics by focusing on his relation to virtue ethics and deontology, his views of moral agency and the source of moral obligations. It is argued that Kierkegaard presents a critique of Kantian autonomy that favors moral realism and theological voluntarism and that he gives an account of human agency and selfhood in which morality is inescapable.

Across the world, militaries are racing to acquire and develop new capabilities based on the latest in machine learning, neural networks, and artificial intelligence (AI). In this article, I argue that the shift into military AI is shaping human behaviour in heretofore unacknowledged and morally significant ways. Following Anders, I argue that as the human becomes digitally co-machinistic (mitmaschinell), they are compelled to adopt a logic of speed and optimisation in their ethical reasoning. The consequence of this is a form a moral de-skilling, whereby military personnel working with digital infrastructures and interfaces become less able to act and decide as moral agents. This is an especially concerning development when it comes to the conduct of war, where the moral stakes could not be higher.

This paper investigates the social and ethical structures that are posited by societies and individuals to justify actions in the presentation of identity, sexual attraction and the acceptable boundaries of the sexual interface. The use of the word eth(n)ics is purposeful. In mathematics the letter n can equal any number and it is in this sense that I use the word eth(n)ics - a looking from multiple view-points rather than from a single point perspective.

The field of "machine ethics" has raised the issue of the moral agency and responsibility of artificial entities, like computers and robots under the heading of "artificial moral agents" (AMA). In this article, we work through philosophical assumptions, conceptual and logical variations, and identify methodological as well as conceptual problems based on an analysis of all sides in this debate. A main conclusion is that many of these problems can be better handled by moving the discussion into a more outright normative ethical territory. Rather than locking the issue to be about AMA, a more fruitfull way forward is to address to what extent both machines and human beings should be in different ways included in different (sometimes shared) practices of ascribing moral agency and responsibility.

-- This is a draft of my book manuscript, comments and feedback are very welcome! --
Here I claim that Kant did not only develop a theory of human nature, but also a meta-theory that determines how such a theory of human nature should look like. I also inquire into the intricate interrelation between humankind, our nature as a species, and humanity, our moral nature.

Hannah Arendt entiende que la condición humana está especialmente vinculada a la acción, cuyo carácter específico radica en que revela a su agente y es manifestación de su libertad. Requiere de un mundo  compartido, en el que se enlaza con otras acciones, formando una historia. En este marco toma importancia el juzgar, como capacidad política de quien actúa y facultad del espectador de la historia. Ejercer el
juicio permite lidiar con lo particular sin subsumirlo a reglas generales; requiere un pensar representativo que nos sitúe desde la perspectiva de los otros. En base a tal idea de acción, esta tesis sostiene que la forma de juicio que implica se relaciona con la capacidad de reflexión moral, siendo por tanto posible establecer conexiones entre la concepción política arendtiana de la acción y el juicio y una teoría ética de la agencia como la de Christine Korsgaard.
Según Korsgaard la función de la acción es la autoconstitución del agente. La acción es la forma del ser humano de estar en el mundo, por lo que no puede escapar a ella y, para poder actuar necesita estar unificado, pues la agencia lo implica como un todo. Actuando nos constituimos en quienes somos, evidenciamos qué principios nos
rigen. Estos principios nos los damos autónomamente, cuando buscamos razones para actuar, actividad mediante la que nos situamos en una perspectiva propia de la razón práctica. Observarnos desde allí nos obliga a evaluar y elegir, porque nos vemos como agentes libres y responsables. Se pretende demostrar cómo este ejercicio deliberativo propio de los cuestionamientos morales concuerda con la visión arendtiana del juicio.
Además, la concepción korsgaardiana de la acción aporta un elemento central para los fines de esta investigación: el vínculo entre la identidad del sujeto y su agencia. Mediante un concepto de la identidad como proceso narrativo que permite dar unidad a la historia de la propia vida, la presente tesis busca articular las propuestas de Arendt y Korsgaard, en el entendido de que construir narrativamente la identidad es un ejercicio autorreflexivo que implica la capacidad de juicio y es fundamental para la autonomía del sujeto, un requisito para su agencia.

Tesis de Maestría por la FACULTAD DE HUMANIDADES Y CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN- UNIDAD DE PROFUNDIZACIÓN, ESPECIALIZACIÓN Y
POSGRADO- MAESTRÍA EN CIENCIAS HUMANAS OPCIÓN FILOSOFÍA
CONTEMPORÁNEA

Political theory is rediscovering the colossus of public administration—the vast public service and regulatory bureaucracies and their countless employees and extensions that conduct the daily business of government. This review explains how something so visible could ever have fallen from view, and surveys four burgeoning areas of research. These pertain to the legitimacy of public administration, to the articulation of standards of good government distinct from good public policy, to the analysis of how the moral agency of bureaucrats is implicated and undermined by the everyday operation of bureaucratic agencies, and to how we should conceptualize the state when we apprehend it through the seemingly banal routines of administration. What emerges from this body of work is a picture of the executive bureaucracy as an object of normative, critical, and conceptual inquiry on a par with the other two branches of government, the legislature and the judiciary.

La noción de vulnerabilidad es una de las comprensiones teóricas más originales que atraviesa el proyecto filosófico de Martha Nussbaum. Inspirada en Aristóteles y en una relectura de las tragedias griegas, la filósofa norteamericana recupera un aspecto importante para la reflexión ética y política contemporánea: nuestra continua exposición a situaciones inesperadas, mudables o contingentes de la fortuna que pueden afectar considerablemente nuestra búsqueda de la vida buena, y las emociones altruistas como respuesta a esa esencial fragilidad que nos conforma. En este artículo se ofrece una reconstrucción de la idea de agente moral vulnerable como reflexión clave que permite articular en el pensamiento de la autora diversas concepciones sobre justicia social, dignidad humana y calidad de vida, con intuiciones acerca del cultivo y refinamiento de ciertas emociones morales que son relevantes para contrarrestar la frecuente incapacidad para ver al "otro diferente" como alguien plenamente humano.

It is uncontroversial that corporations are legal agents that may be attributed with legal responsibilities. However, can corporations also be moral agents that are the proper subjects of moral responsibility attributions? The concept of corporate moral agency entails that corporations can be the proper bearers of moral responsibilities in a manner that is distinct from their human members. The paper acknowledges the important work done by Velasquez in debunking the purported intention and action abilities for corporate moral agency, but suggests that a simpler debunking is possible by focusing on the moral agency ability of autonomy. Furthermore, a proper grasp of the autonomy ability provides a greater understanding for why corporations cannot have autonomous intentions nor perform autonomous actions. The autonomy ability demonstrates the fallacy of corporate moral agency because it shows the impossibility of establishing the corporation as the proper bearer of moral responsibility in a manner that is distinct from the corporate members.

In this article, I explore the (im)possibility of human control and question the presupposition that we can be morally adequately or meaningfully in control over AI-supported LAWS. Taking seriously Wiener's warning that "machines can and do transcend some of the limitations of their designers and that in doing so they may be both effective and dangerous," I argue that in the LAWS human-machine complex, technological features and the underlying logic of the AI system progressively close the spaces and limit the capacities required for human moral agency.

A debate has arisen over whether “the spirit of sport” is an appropriate criterion for determining whether a substance should be banned. In this paper, I argue that the criterion is crucial for Olympic sport because Olympism celebrates humanity, specifically human agency, so we need to preserve the degree to which athletes are personally and morally responsible for their performances. This emphasis on what I call “athlete agency” is reflected metaphysically in the structure of sport, which characteristically prescribes inefficiencies in order to create challenges, and seeks to reduce or eliminate the proportion of a performance outside an athlete’s control. Emphasizing athlete agency also prevents wealthier and more technologically developed countries from using their resources to gain an advantage in sport. Interpreted according to athlete agency, the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) “spirit of sport” can be clarified to imply that substances, techniques, and equipment that reduce...

This essay contributes to our understanding of the relation between the philosophies of Hegel and Sellars. While most treatments of this relation have focused on metaphysics or epistemology, I focus on ethics, and in particular on the formulation of moral agency. I argue that Hegel and Sellars arrive at a similar metaphilosophical rejection of individual moral agency in favor of conceptions of moral agency as the outcome of social mediation. To demonstrate this, I trace how Hegel and Sellars offer parallel resolutions of the 'Kantian paradox': the apparent problem that, in Kantian ethics, moral agents must both freely self-legislate the moral law unto themselves and stand in a dutiful relation to the moral law as a necessary function of practical reason. Drawing Hegel and Sellars together in this way casts new light on Sellars's understudied ethical theory and further evidences the contemporary relevance of Hegel's moral philosophy.

With the development of autonomous robots, one day probably capable of speaking, thinking and learning, self-reflecting, sharing emotions, in fact, with the raise of robots becoming artificial moral agents (AMAs) robot scientists like Abney, Veruggio and Petersen are already optimistic that sooner or later we need to call those robots “people” or rather “Artificial People” (AP). The paper rejects this forecast, due to its argument based on three metaphysical conflicting assumptions. Firstly, it is the idea that it is possible to precisely define persons and apply the definition to robots or use it to differentiate human beings from robots. Further, the argument of APs favors a position of non-reductive physicalism (second assumption) and materialism (third assumption), finally producing weird convictions about future robotics. Therefore, I will suggest to follow Christine Korsgaard’s defence of animals as ends in themselves with moral standing. I will show that her argument can be transmitted to robots, too, at least to robots which are capable of pursuing their own good (even if they are not rational). Korsgaard’s interpretation of Kant delivers an option that allows us to leave out complicated metaphysical notions like “person” or “subject” in the debate, without denying robots’ status as agents.

As a fundamental concept in human interactions, trust is important for understanding and mediating the social structures in schools. The instrumental work of cultivating, broker-ing, and maintaining trust in schools lies within the role of the school administrator. Our exploratory study examined theCanadian school principals' perceptions of their moral agency and trust-brokering roles in schools. Upon reviewing the literature on the imperative of trust in school settings, we offer a phenomenological analysis of selected research findings. These findings are based on the responses of Canadian school principals (N = 177) who had reflected on their lived experiences of the personal, relational, decisional, educational, organizational,and moral imperatives of trust for school leaders.

Doctoral dissertation on environmental philosophy and ethical theory.
https://helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/310831

This dissertation examines the idea of relationality as a feature of moral agency and analyses the implications of such an idea in ethical theories as frameworks for environmental ethics. The thesis fills the gap in academic philosophical discussion concerning the relationality of the operations of moral agency. The idea of relationality, although being quite used in characterising (human) nature in environmental philosophy, has not been scrutinised as constitutive for moral operations.

The thesis starts by analysing the concepts of moral agency in the three distinguished strategies of environmental ethics: the modernist one, which is used as the reference line, evolutionary naturalism and ecofeminist constructivism. The latter two take a critical stance towards the first, but from philosophically opposing directions. It is shown that these criticisms parallel each other and are directed towards a converging idea of ecologically relational agency. The thesis continues by constructing the idea of ecologically relational moral agency pointed to by the parallel lines of thought in evolutionary naturalism and ecofeminist constructivism as they are represented in environmental ethics. The concept is sketched through interdisciplinary support from the natural sciences, psychological and philosophical anthropology, epistemology, and philosophy of mind and action. It is argued that a currently plausible scientific notion of moral agency challenges the view widely presupposed by modern moral philosophy. According to the analysed sources, human mental processes, knowledge and value formation included, are extended to the environments of the individual mind, relationships providing knowledge, experience and intention are mutually interactive, and even intentional activity is mainly a non-individual issue. Research on these features refer to environmental relationality of mental operations.

Relational agency fulfils the environmentalist’s quest for a plausible notion of agency. However, to consider moral identity, as well as knowing, reasoning and acting as ecologically relational challenges common conceptions of moral autonomy and rationality. Question is raised whether this compromises the autonomy and authority of ethics. The philosophical implications of the conceptual relational shift are analysed in contexts of moral naturalism and moral constructivism in order to clarify the implications of relational moral agency for environmental ethics. Implications of ecologically relational notion of agency are considered in Humean naturalism, neo-Aristotelian naturalism (especially Martha Nussbaum) and neo-Kantian constructivism (especially Christine Korsgaard). Korsgaard’s theory is proposed to offer a mediating tool to reconcile relational explanation with normative authority. It is argued that the relational approach to ethics can survive also the environmentalists’ quests for moral realism, although it challenges the usual restrictions of metaethical categories and points towards a modest, relationally realist ethics. With regard to normative ethics, relationality implies that the material as well as social relationships can be normatively binding for the reasons derived from the nature of morality itself.

Keywords: relational agency, moral agency, ethics, environmental philosophy, philosophical anthropology, environmental ethics, naturalism and constructivism, relational realism

In the discussion of the evolution of human morality, the question has arisen about whether any other species enjoy properties of moral agency.  While some psychologists and biologists have argued that they do, some moral theorists worry that animals cannot be autonomous agents without a theory of mind, or the ability to understand acting for reasons, and there is no evidence that any nonhuman animal has this ability.  I argue that this concern should not lead one to conclude that great apes cannot be moral agents, even for those who think it unlikely that any other species has a theory of mind.  Rather, I argue that great apes have other cognitive capacities that can fulfill the same functions that are sometimes seen as requirements for moral agency, such as knowing the likely consequences of an action by predicting the participants’ behaviors and emotional responses.  Further, I present my arguments that a theory of mind evolved from an understanding of moral norms, so that humans were within the moral domain before they were able to consider their reasons for actions.

Using the concepts of thick and thin relationships as the basis for ethical behavior, this paper critiques the emphasis on discretion in the mainstream administrative ethics literature and argues that moral and other dilemmas facing public administrators provides a more useful frame. Two examples drawn from t he UK Hutton Investigation into the death of David Kelly are used to demonstrate the relevance and usefulness of this approach.

A presente Tese pretende verificar e assumir a possibilidade filosófica do surgimento de um agente moral artificial autêntico. Toma-se como pressuposto a plausibilidade da superação do Teste de Turing, da Sala Chinesa e do Teste de Ada Lovelace, bem como da possível emergência de um autêntico agente artificial moral, com deliberações intencionais em perspectiva de primeira pessoa. Assim, aceita-se a tese da possibilidade de um código computacional capaz de dar origem à emergência.
O problema principal deste estudo será investigar a possibilidade filosófica de uma ética artificial, como decorrente da vontade e racionalidade própria de um sujeito artificial, ou seja, da inteligência artificial como sujeito moral.

This paper proposes a methodological redirection of the philosophical debate on artificial moral agency (AMA) in view of increasingly pressing practical needs due to technological development. This “normative approach” suggests abandoning theoretical discussions about what conditions may hold for moral agency and to what extent these may be met by artifcial entities such as AI systems and robots. Instead, the debate should focus on how and to what extent such entities should be included
in human practices normally assuming moral agency and responsibility of participants. The proposal is backed up by an analysis of the AMA debate, which is found to be overly caught in the opposition between so-called standard and functionalist conceptions of moral agency, conceptually confused and practically inert. Additionally, we outline some main themes of research in need of attention in light of the suggested normative approach to AMA.

It is a common view in modern scholarship on Buddhist ethics that attachment to the self constitutes a hindrance to ethics, whereas rejecting this type of attachment is a necessary condition for acting morally. The present article argues that in Vasubandhu’s theory of agency, as formulated in the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya (Treasury of Metaphysics with Self-Commentary), a cognitive and psychological identification with a conventional, persisting self is a requisite for exercising moral agency. As such, this identification is essential for embracing the ethics of Buddhism and its way of life. The article delineates the method that Vasubandhu employs to account for the notion of a selfless moral agent, with particular emphasis on his strategies for dealing with one central aspect of agency, self-interested concern for the future.

The purpose of this study was to investigate and generate a grounded theory on how and why students behave as they do in school situations in which they witness another student in distress. Fieldwork and interviews were conducted in 2 Swedish elementary schools and guided by a grounded theory approach. The study resulted in a grounded theory of moral frames in bystander situations in school. In this study, 5 main moral frames of school have been identified: (a) the moral construction of the good student, (b) institutionalized moral disengagement, (c) tribe caring, (d) gentle caring-girl morality, and (e) social-hierarchy-dependent morality. The study highlights how moral action is generally inhibited by the conformity fostered in school settings and by moral dilemmas constructed by the moral frames. A revised model of bystander behavior adapted to the school context is also presented.

This paper proposes a methodological redirection of the philosophical debate on artificial moral agency (AMA) in view of increasingly pressing practical needs due to technological development. This “normative approach” suggests abandoning theoretical discussions about what conditions may hold for moral agency and to what extent these may be met by artificial entities such as AI systems and robots. Instead, the debate should focus on how and to what extent such entities should be included in human practices normally assuming moral agency and responsibility of participants. The proposal is backed up by an analysis of the AMA debate, which is found to be overly caught in the opposition between so-called standard and functionalist conceptions of moral agency, conceptually confused and practically inert. Additionally, we outline some main themes of research in need of attention in light of the suggested normative approach to AMA.

• Morality has a wide variety of biological components and has evolved in humans and other animals that live in social groups whose members stay together.
• Ethical questions include the welfare of animals and other sustainability issues.
• Whether or not nonhuman animals are thought of as being moral agents, they can be the subject of moral actions and so have moral value.
• Some of the qualities required to show moral behavior are also aspects of sentience.
• The concept of sentience has close parallels with those of psyche and soul.
• Contrary to the teachings of some religions, humans are animals, are similar to other animals and are not “special” in the sense of being more important.
• Modern doctrinal religions are a development of having a sophisticated moral code and are a structure to support it.
• All modern doctrinal religions have a moral code with a list of things to do or not do as a central aspect.
• Widespread empathy can be the basis for the concept of a spirit linking all sentient beings.
• We all have obligations, and we should describe the obligations of the actor rather than the rights of the actor. Arguments based on rights or on freedoms to act have sometimes been useful but can cause problems.
• Arguments that religion is a bad thing and that God is a delusion (Dawkins 2008) involve a misunderstanding of how natural selection has acted and are damaging to human societies.

Table of Contents

States are commonly blamed for wars, punished with sanctions, held liable for debts and reparations, and bound by treaties. But why do we assign some responsibilities to whole states rather than to individual leaders or citizens? And what does it mean to hold a state responsible—as opposed to a nation or a government—in the first place?

Taking Thomas Hobbes’s idea of state personality as its starting point, Leviathan on a Leash develops a theory of state responsibility for the modern world. The book addresses three longstanding problems: (1) attribution – what constitutes an act of state?; (2) identity – how can a state persist over time despite changes in its population, territory, and government?; and (3) distribution – how should the costs and burdens of a state’s responsibilities be distributed among its members? The central argument is that a ‘Hobbesian’ theory of state responsibility provides better solutions to all three of these problems than the available alternatives in Political Theory and International Law, such as the theory of corporate moral agency.

The second essay of the Genealogy of Morality (GM II) is proclaimed by Nietzsche to be the "long history of the origins of responsibility," but the immediate context in which this claim is made, coupled with GM II's broader aims and themes, makes interpreting this claim immensely difficult. For one thing, Nietzsche endorses an ideal of responsibility in relation to the sovereign individual, but the rest of the essay is concerned with providing an account of the origins of conscience, bad conscience, and guilt-that is, an account of moral capacities that most humans possess. More problematically, this account appears to be inconsistent with Nietzsche's persistent and emphatic denial of free will and moral responsibility throughout his other works. I first consider and critique two kinds of strategies employed in the literature for addressing these issues. I then propose a Strawsonian reading of GM II which I think does a better job of solving them. I contend that GM II analyzes the idea of "responsibility" naturalistically in terms of the practice of holding oneself and others responsible, as constituted by what Nietzsche calls the "reactive affects," namely guilt. As for P.F. Strawson, a consequence of this is that libertarian free will is not a condition of responsible agency.

The nature of ethical decision-making by educational leaders as moral agents has become a topic of increased attention in the field of educational administration. This article reports findings from a descriptive ethics study that allowed the participating Canadian school principals from the ten provinces and three territories (n=177) to express their own meanings and understandings with respect to the nature of ethical decision-making, types of ethical challenges, pressures and grounds for resolving ethical dilemmas. The research methodology consisted of self-report, open-ended questionnaires administered in both mail-out and on-line forms. Findings revealed that most often work-related ethical issues in their schools arose between school administration and teachers and staff. In their dealings with ethical dilemmas, participants experienced internal pressure of staying true to personal values and external pressure of stakeholder groups with different agendas. The concept of the best interests of students was regularly described as the core or center of ethical decision-making and the heart of educators' work. The greatest practical implication of this research is its potential for providing educational leaders with a better understanding of the nature of ethical decisionmaking such that they are, ultimately, better able to make the tough ethical choices with integrity.

The widespread embrace of virtue ethics in Catholic morality has not overcome sharp disagreement on particular moral issues. The authors argue that more attention be paid to developing the account of what a virtue is ("virtue theory") in order to connect virtues with individual acts. Building on Thomas Aquinas, the authors suggest social cognitive theory provides key insights into the mechanics of agents "acting from character" and offers an empirical program that can further our understanding of moral disagreement. https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tsj Theological Studies F o r P e e r R e v i e w 1 Catholic Moral Theology and the Virtues: Integrating Psychology in Models Abstract The widespread embrace of virtue ethics in Catholic morality has not overcome sharp disagreement on

Techno-ethics is the area in the philosophy of technology which deals with emerging robotic and digital AI technologies. In the last decade, a new techno-ethical challenge has emerged: Autonomous Weapon Systems (AWS), defensive and offensive (the article deals only with the latter). Such AI-operated lethal machines of various forms (aerial, marine, continental) raise substantial ethical concerns. Interestingly, the topic of AWS was almost not treated in Jewish law and its research. This article thus proposes an introductory ethical-halakhic perspective on AWS, in the Israeli context.
The article has seven sections. Section 1 defines AWS and the main ethical concerns it evokes, while providing elementary definitions and distinctions. §2 locates AWS within the realm of Jewish laws of war (hilkhot-ẓava), which recognize the right for self-defense, as well as the status of universally accepted moral norms. §3 unfolds pragmatic ethical premises of a humane techno-ethics, which are required for the identifying AWS as a moral question: I. Relationality; II. Technology is not (completely) neutral; III. The fallaciousness of transhumanism. It is argued that these premises are compatible with halakhic tradition. §4 investigates the question of the morality of AWS, within the field of military AI ethics. It is clarified why the standard categories of war-ethics (ad bello, in bellum) do not capture the singular ethical problem of AWS, which pertains to the operation of military means, rather than their human targets. It is argued that reductive perception of the human mind is misleading about the feasibility of ‘ethical robots’, capable of independent moral discretion.
To provide a thick examination of human agency from the perspective of Jewish tradition, §5 explores two stories from the biblical book of Samuel (the murder of Nob’s priests and of Uriah). The lessons about the significance of moral agency within the pubic-political military sphere are made explicit, as well as the possible costs resulting from the loss of human agency in the case of AWS. Given that realpolitik considerations are basic in halakhah, §6 considers some possible contemporary socio-political implications of the AWS, that may risk the sustainability of the democratic project. §7 concludes by pointing out humane contributions of Jewish law to contemporary techno-ethics.