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Individual Morality (individual + morality)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	75%

Selected Abstracts

Historians and Moral Evaluations

HISTORY AND THEORY, Issue 4 2004
RICHARD T. VANN
In dem Gebiet der Geschichte liegt die ganze moralische Welt. ,Schiller ABSTRACT The reappearance of the question of moral judgments by historians makes a reappraisal of the issues timely. Almost all that has been written on the subject addresses only the propriety of moral judgments (or morally charged language) in the written texts historians produce. However, historians have to make moral choices when selecting a subject upon which to write; and they make a tacit moral commitment to write and teach honestly. Historians usually dislike making explicit moral evaluations, and have little or no training in how to do so. They can argue it's not their job; they are only finders of fact. Historians holding a determinist view of actions do not think it appropriate to blame people for doing what they couldn't help doing; for those believing there is an overall pattern to history, individual morality is beside the point. Finally, since earlier cultures had values different from ours, it seems unjust to hold them to contemporary standards. This essay modifies or rejects these arguments. Some historians have manifested ambivalence, acknowledging it is difficult or impossible to avoid making moral evaluations (and sometimes appropriate to make them). Ordinary-language philosophers, noting that historiography has no specialized vocabulary, see it as saturated by the values inherent in everyday speech and thought. I argue that the historicist argument about the inevitably time-bound limitation of all values is exaggerated. Historians who believe in the religious grounding of values (like Lord Acton) obviously disagree with it; but even on a secular level, morals are often confused with mores. If historians inevitably make moral evaluations, they should examine what philosophical ethicists,virtue ethicists, deontologists, and consequentialists,have said about how to make them; and even if they find no satisfactory grounding for their own moral attitudes, it is a brute fact that they have them. I end with an argument for "strong evaluations",neither treating them as a troublesome residue in historiography nor, having despaired of finding a solid philosophical ground for moral evaluations, concluding that they are merely matters of taste. I believe historians should embrace the role of moral commentators, but that they should be aware that their evaluations are, like all historical judgments, subject to the criticisms of their colleagues and readers. Historians run little risk of being censorious and self-righteous; the far greater danger is acquiescing in or contributing to moral confusion and timidity. [source]

How Much of What Matters Can We Redistribute?

HYPATIA, Issue 4 2009
Justice
By meeting needs for individualized love and relatedness, the care we receive deeply shapes our social and economic chances and therefore represents a form of luck. Hence, distributive justice requires a fair distribution of care in society. I look at different ways of ensuring this and argue that full redistribution of care is beyond our reach. I conclude that a strong individual morality informed by an ethics of care is a necessary complement of well-designed institutions. [source]

Covers, volume 26, Number 1, 2010

ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY, Issue 1 2010
Article first published online: 2 FEB 2010
Front and back cover caption, volume 26 issue 1 POST-SOVIET RUSSIAN ORTHODOXY The last 20 years have seen a striking revitalization of Orthodoxy in Russia. This is remarkable considering that for more than 70 years following the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 the Soviet regime imposed ,scientific atheism' on its citizens. Russian Orthodoxy, institutionally dominated by the Russian Orthodox Church, has emerged as a crucial source of morality and identity. The personal dimension is intertwined with politics and the co-operation between the Church and the Russian state has strong symbolic implications. The close association between religion and the army is evident in this religious procession. For millions of Russians of different social backgrounds and ages, the fall of the Soviet state still leaves a bitter taste, stemming from the feeling of loss of territory and of superpower status. The Russian Orthodox Church offers an avenue for retrieving a sense of power and moral righteousness. However, the prominence of the Church and its symbols does not necessarily mean that young soldiers acquire religious knowledge and observe the rules of the Church in their everyday behaviour. Soldiers are no different from teachers, businessmen, or impoverished urban residents in general who, in the face of post-socialist uncertainties, turn to Orthodoxy for healing, protection and as an insurance against an unclear future. Orthodoxy also contributes to the construction of a harmonious and idealized narrative about the recent past, obscuring the memory of violence of the state against Orthodox believers under the Soviet regime. An anthropology of the Russian case , and religion in the postsocialist world generally , can shed new light on debates about religion in the public realm, secularization, individual morality and identity in the contemporary world. [source]

Ethical and economic evaluations of consumption in contemporary China

BUSINESS ETHICS: A EUROPEAN REVIEW, Issue 2 2001
Zhou Zhongzhi
Consumption is one of the important components in the social reproduction circle, which also includes production, distribution, and exchange. Consumer activities should be examined in the social context as well as in the context of the production process. Especially important are impacts of social ethics and individual morality on consumer activities. This paper describes a dialectical relation between ethical and economic evaluations of consumption, presents evidence on Chinese attitudes to borrowing, and proposes a reasonable proportionality between consumption and frugality as a general guideline for consumer activities in contemporary China. [source]