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Moral Obligation (moral + obligation)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	70%
Medical Sciences	17%

Selected Abstracts

III,Moral Obligation: Form and Substance

PROCEEDINGS OF THE ARISTOTELIAN SOCIETY (HARDBACK), Issue 1pt1 2010
Stephen Darwall
Beginning from an analysis of moral obligation's form that I defend in The Second-Person Standpoint as what we are answerable for as beings with the necessary capacities to enter into relations of mutual accountability, I argue that this analysis has implications for moral obligation's substance. Given what it is to take responsibility for oneself and hold oneself answerable, I argue, it follows that if there are any moral obligations at all, then there must exist a basic pro tanto obligation not to undermine one another's moral autonomy. [source]

Rethinking Care Theory: The Practice of Caring and the Obligation to Care

HYPATIA, Issue 3 2005
Daniel Engster
Care theorists have made significant gains over the past twenty-five years in establishing caring as a viable moral and political concept. Nonetheless, the concept of caring remains underdeveloped as a basis for a moral and political philosophy, and there is no fully developed account of our moral obligation to care. This article advances thinking about caring by developing a definition of caring and a theory of obligation to care sufficient to ground a general moral and political philosophy. [source]

Responsibilities of Criminal Justice Officials

JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHILOSOPHY, Issue 2 2010
KIMBERLEY BROWNLEE
abstract In recent years, political philosophers have hotly debated whether ordinary citizens have a general pro tanto moral obligation to follow the law. Contemporary philosophers have had less to say about the same question when applied to public officials. In this paper, I consider the latter question in the morally complex context of criminal justice. I argue that criminal justice officials have no general pro tanto moral obligation to adhere to the legal dictates and lawful rules of their offices. My claim diverges not only from the commonsense view about such officials, but also from the positions standardly taken in legal theory and political science debates, which presume there is some general obligation that must arise from legal norms and be reconciled with political realities. I defend my claim by highlighting the conceptual gap between the rigid, generalised, codified rules that define a criminal justice office and the special moral responsibilities of the various moral roles that may underpin that office (such as guard, guardian, healer, educator, mediator, counsellor, advocate, and carer). After addressing four objections to my view, I consider specific contexts in which criminal justice officials are obligated not to adhere to the demands of their offices. Amongst other things, the arguments advanced in this paper raise questions about both the distribution of formal discretion in the criminal justice system and the normative validity of some of the offices that presently exist in criminal justice systems. [source]

Personal Responsibility for Tornado Preparedness: Commitment or Choice?,

JOURNAL OF APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 8 2001
JOHN-PAUL MULILIS
A review of the literature reveals that personal responsibility assumed for one's behavior clearly affects behavioral outcomes for a variety of situations, and that personal responsibility is in turn affected by a wide variety of variables. However, limited research has been conducted to determine exactly what personal responsibility fundamentally entails. While duty, moral obligation, choice, and commitment have been suggested as being integral to the concept of responsibility, few investigations have systematically varied more than one of these variables in a single experiment. The present study was conducted to investigate the effects of both choice and commitment on personal responsibility assumed for and behavioral intentions to engage in tornado preparedness. Results indicate that both choice and commitment were required to generate personal responsibility for and subsequent intentions to engage in tornado preparedness. Implications of these results are discussed. [source]

The challenge of caring for patients in pain: from the nurse's perspective

JOURNAL OF CLINICAL NURSING, Issue 20 2009
Katrin Blondal
Aim., To increase understanding of what it is like for nurses to care for patients in pain. Background., Hospitalised patients are still suffering from pain despite increased knowledge, new technology and a wealth of research. Since nurses are key figures in successful pain management and research findings indicate that caring for suffering patients is a stressful and demanding experience where conflict often arises in nurses' relations with patients and doctors, it may be fruitful to study nurses' experience of caring for patients in pain to increase understanding of the above problem. Design., A phenomenological study involved 20 dialogues with 10 experienced nurses. Results., The findings indicate that caring for a patient in pain is a ,challenging journey' for the nurse. The nurse seems to have a ,strong motivation to ease the pain' through moral obligation, knowledge, personal experience and conviction. The main challenges that face the nurse are ,reading the patient', ,dealing with inner conflict of moral dilemmas', ,dealing with gatekeepers' (physicians) and ,organisational hindrances'. Depending upon the outcome, pain management can have positive or negative effects on the patient and the nurse. Conclusions., Nurses need various coexisting patterns of knowledge, as well as a favourable organisational environment, if they are to be capable of performing in accord with their moral and professional obligations regarding pain relief. Nurses' knowledge in this respect may hitherto have been too narrowly defined. Relevance to clinical practice., The findings can stimulate nurses to reflect critically on their current pain management practice. By identifying their strengths as well as their limitations, they can improve their knowledge and performance on their own, or else request more education, training and support. Since nurses' clinical decisions are constantly moulded and stimulated by multiple patterns of knowledge, educators in pain management should focus not only on theoretical but also on personal and ethical knowledge. [source]

Everyday objects of learning about health and healing and implications for science education

JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING, Issue 2 2006
Wanja Gitari
The role of science education in rural development is of great interest to science educators. In this study I investigated how residents of rural Kirumi, Kenya, approach health and healing, through discussions and semistructured and in-depth interviews with 150 residents, 3 local herbalists, and 2 medical researchers over a period of 6 months. I constructed objects of learning by looking for similarities and differences within interpretive themes. Objects of learning found comprise four types of personal learning tools, three types of relational learning tools, three genres of moral obligation, and five genres of knowledge guarding. Findings show that rural people use (among other learning tools) inner sensing to engage thought processes that lead to health and healing knowledge. The sociocultural context is also an important component in learning. Inner sensing and residents' sociocultural context are not presently emphasized in Kenyan science teaching. I discuss the potential use of rural objects of learning in school science, with specific reference to a health topic in the Kenyan science curriculum. In addition, the findings add to the literature in the Science, Technology, Society, and Environment (STSE) approach to science education, and cross-cultural and global science education. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 43: 172,193, 2006 [source]

Refuting patients' obligations to clinical training: a critical analysis of the arguments for an obligation of patients to participate in the clinical education of medical students

MEDICAL EDUCATION, Issue 3 2001
Jude T Waterbury
Context The clinical teaching of medical students is essential to the continuation of medicine, but it has a major impact on the patient's health care and autonomy. Some people believe that there is a moral obligation for patients to participate in this training. Such an obligation, real or perceived, may endanger patients' autonomy. Objectives The author makes a critical analysis of the main arguments he encounters supporting such an obligation. These arguments are: (1) the furthering of medical education; (2) compensation when uninsured or unable to pay; (3) an equitable return for the care received in a teaching hospital, and (4) fulfilment of a student's need for (and some say right to) clinical training. Methods Related literature is reviewed in search of evidence and/or support for such arguments. Conclusions The review reveals that these arguments either cannot be verified or do not necessarily place any obligations on the patient. It is argued that, while a medical student may have a right to clinical education, the obligation to fulfil this right rests with the medical university and not on the patients of its teaching hospitals. Solutions Several proposals are made about how to satisfy this need without infringing on the patient's right to refuse participation, explaining the patient's rights and role in clinical teaching, and the use of standardized patients where necessary. [source]

Deontological Restrictions and the Self/Other Asymmetry

NOUS, Issue 4 2008
David Alm
ABSTRACT This paper offers a partial justification of so-called "deontological restrictions." Specifically it defends the "self/other asymmetry," that we are morally obligated to treat our own agency, and thus its results, as specially important. The argument rests on a picture of moral obligation of a broadly Kantian sort. In particular, it rests on the basic normative assumption that our fundamental obligations are determined by the principles which a rational being as such would follow. These include principles which it is not essential for rational beings to accept, but acceptance of which we could non-arbitrarily attribute to them simply in their capacity as rational. Among these principles is the asymmetry mentioned above. [source]

Duty in a Time of Disaster: A Concept Analysis

NURSING FORUM, Issue 2 2007
Christine Kane-Urrabazo MSN
TOPIC.,The concept of "duty" is explored particularly as it applies to disaster nursing. PURPOSE.,To identify the contributing factors to a nurse's sense of duty and the resulting consequences of such. Nursing implications of duty in a time of disaster are also discussed. SOURCES OF INFORMATION.,Professional literature, electronic resources, and nursing textbooks were used. The analysis was done using Walker and Avant's (1995) process. CONCLUSION.,The concept of duty has always been prevalent in nursing. As long as nurses have a sense of duty to their communities, nurse administrators will also have a moral obligation to protect their staff, especially in a time of disaster when nurses are compelled by a heightened sense of duty. [source]

FOREKNOWLEDGE, FREEDOM, AND OBLIGATION

PACIFIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2005
ISHTIYAQUE HAJI
A recent, noteworthy challenge to this presupposition invokes a "Divine Frankfurt-type example": God's foreknowledge of one's future actions prevents one from doing otherwise without having any responsibility-undermining effect on one's actions. First, I explain why features of God's omniscience cast doubt on this Frankfurtian response. Second, even if this appraisal is mistaken, I argue that divine foreknowledge is irreconcilable with moral obligation if such foreknowledge eliminates alternatives. [source]

I CAN'T MAKE YOU WORSHIP ME

RATIO, Issue 2 2005
Campbell Brown
This paper argues that Divine Command Theory is inconsistent with the view, held by many theists, that we have a moral obligation to worship God. [source]

Making a difference: ethical consumption and the everyday

THE BRITISH JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, Issue 2 2010
Matthew Adams
Abstract Our everyday shopping practices are increasingly marketed as opportunities to ,make a difference' via our ethical consumption choices. In response to a growing body of work detailing the ways in which specific alignments of ,ethics' and ,consumption' are mediated, we explore how ,ethical' opportunities such as the consumption of Fairtrade products are recognized, experienced and taken-up in the everyday. The ,everyday' is approached here via a specially commissioned Mass Observation directive, a volunteer panel of correspondents in the UK. Our on-going thematic analysis of their autobiographical accounts aims to explore a complex unevenness in the ways ,ordinary' people experience and negotiate calls to enact their ethical agency through consumption. Situating ethical consumption, moral obligation and choice in the everyday is, we argue, important if we are to avoid both over-exaggerating the reflexive and self-conscious sensibilities involved in ethical consumption, and, adhering to a reductive understanding of ethical self-expression. [source]

Front and Back Covers, Volume 25, Number 3.

ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY, Issue 3 2009
June 200
Front & back cover caption, volume 25 issue 3 Front & back cover HERITAGE PROTECTION Created in the aftermath of World War II, UNESCO was mandated to engage in a worldwide educational campaign aimed at establishing the conditions for lasting peace. This involved working out and disseminating a new world view based on a revised conception of human diversity. The founders of UNESCO argued that prejudice relating to human diversity is the main cause of war, and hoped that a radical modification of the existing vision of that diversity would help to guarantee of peace. Over the 60 years of its history UNESCO's doctrine has been subject to numerous modifications. Initially, cultural diversity was often described in terms of unequal economic progress and presented as an obstacle to be overcome. But in the 1960s ,progress', and the resulting cultural homogenization, began to be considered a major threat to human diversity, particularly diversity of culture. Co-ordinated by UNESCO, the international salvage of the Abu Simbel temples, threatened with submersion in Lake Nasser, became a symbol of a new moral obligation, incumbent upon all humans, to safeguard a common ,world heritage' (exemplified in the images on the back and front covers of this issue). Over the last decade, the notion of common heritage of humanity has been extended to all expressions of cultural traditions, thought to be endangered by the deleterious effects of globalization. UNESCO has chosen to put its support behind local identities and the right of the minorities to conserve their traditional differences. Alongside the principle of the equality of individuals, UNESCO now also upholds the equality of cultures, suggesting that the charter of human rights needs to be supplemented by a charter of cultural rights. The major challenge to UNESCO's current ideology is the compatibility of universal human rights with particular cultural rights. If all traditions deserve to be protected, should this privilege be bestowed equally on masterpieces of the past as on traditional practices. Wearing the burqa need not be controversial, but what about practices like genital mutilation or ,honour killings'? As Wiktor Stoczkowski argues in his article, such issues are intensely anthropological challenges deserving our attention. [source]

GENETIC ENGINEERING TO AVOID GENETIC NEGLECT: FROM CHANCE TO RESPONSIBILITY

BIOETHICS, Issue 4 2010
JESSICA HAMMOND
ABSTRACT Currently our assessment of whether someone is a good parent depends on the environmental inputs (or lack of such inputs) they give their children. But new genetic intervention technologies, to which we may soon have access, mean that how good a parent is will depend also on the genetic inputs they give their children. Each new piece of available technology threatens to open up another way that we can neglect our children. Our obligations to our children and our susceptibilities to corresponding legal and moral sanctions may be about to explosively increase. In this paper I argue that we should treat conventional neglect and ,genetic neglect', failing to use genetic intervention technologies to prevent serious diseases and disabilities , morally consistently. I conclude that in a range of cases parents will have a moral obligation to use genetic treatments to prevent serious disabilities in their children. My particular focus is on prenatal interventions and their impact of the bodily integrity of expectant mothers. I conclude that although bodily integrity constrains moral obligations, it is outweighed in a range of cases. [source]

Practical Identities and Autonomy: Korsgaard's Reformation of Kan's Moral Philosophy

PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH, Issue 3 2002
CHRISTOPHER W. GOWANS
Kant has long been taxed with an inability to explain the detailed normative content of our lives by making universalizability the sole arbiter of our values. Korsgaard addresses one form of this critique by defending a Kantian theory amended by a seemingly attractive conception of practical identities. Identities are dependent on the contingent circumstances of each person's world. Hence, obligations issuing from them differ from Kantian moral obligations in not applying to all persons. Still, Korsgaard takes Kantian autonomy to mean the normativity of all obligations is rooted in universalizability. The wealth of values informing our lives is thus said to be accommodated within a Kantian framework. After briefly explaining Korsgaard's understanding of practical identities and their role in her reformation of Kant's moral philosophy, I argue that she gives an inadequate explanation of how the obligations that arise from a person's practical identities derive their authority from the person's will. I then consider how her position might be developed to meet this objection in accordance with her allegiance to "constructivism" and I argue that the epistemic commitments of people's actual identities makes it unlikely that such a development could preserve Kantian autonomy as she interprets it. [source]