Moral Phenomenology Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

This essay pursues the development of Charles Taylor’s ontological thought by comparing his – insightful yet neglected – early paper “Ontology” (1959) with his little known essay “Ethics and Ontology” (2003) and his most matured ontological position in Retrieving Realism (2015). It also puts a spotlight on Taylor’s unusual "interwoven" mode of argumentation in between ethics, phenomenology, and ontology. In so doing, I aim, first, to show Taylor’s remarkable consistency; second, to unravel his hybrid position in between ethics, phenomenology, and ontology; third, to argue for a tension between Taylor’s phenomenological approach to ethics and his claims about ontology; and, fourth, to highlight his ongoing hesitation with regard to ontological inquiry in general and issues of moral realism in particular.

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- Ontology, Ethics, Meta-Ethics, Phenomenology

This article defends and develops the categorization of Buddhist ethics as moral phenomenology. It first examines the use of the term in Western philosophical settings and compares it to how the term is employed in Buddhist settings. After concluding that Western ethical comportment and Buddhist moral phenomenology are commensurate terms, it explores how moral phenomenology has been understood in Buddhist contexts and considers the evidence scholars have used to make this interpretation. The article then looks to the Tibetan Buddhist tradition for further evidence of a moral phenomenological approach to Buddhist ethics and analyzes further proof of this interpretation. Finally, issues that emerge from a moral phenomenological approach to ethics are addressed from a Tibetan Buddhist perspective to strengthen this interpretation and offer moral phenomenology as a viable alternative ethical system.

- by Colin H Simonds
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- Buddhism, Ethics, Tibetan Studies, Buddhist Studies

Contemporary philosophy of moral motivation has much to say about the nature of moral beliefs and truths, but it has less to say about emancipation. By neglecting to discuss the emancipatory aspect of motivation, I argue, moral epistemology is neglecting a topic that should be central. Starting from Charles Taylor’s concern for the status of moral sources, the paper’s main points are (1) that moral motivation has a distinctive emancipatory dimension which has been largely neglected in mainstream debates; (2) that the issue of emancipation can only be adequately conceptualized at the intersection of normative ethics and metaethics; (3) that a full-blooded account of motivation must incorporate a phenomenology of motivational experience, which in turn requires (4) extending the concept of motivation beyond a narrow definition to include such notions as meaning, articulation, identity, and freedom, and (5) criticizing conceptions of motivation that are blind to or take for granted the quality of motivation; and thus (6) providing the resources for a thick conception of motivation that breaks new ground by overcoming the existing boundaries between normative ethics and metaethics.

- by Michiel Meijer
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- Normative Ethics, Emancipation, Metaethics, Charles Taylor

This article analyzes the moral-psychological stakes of Jay Garfield’s reading of Buddhist ethics as moral phenomenology and applies that thesis to the pedagogical mechanisms of the Tibetan Buddhist lojong (“Mind Training”) tradition. I argue that moral phenomenology requires that the practitioner work on a part of her subjectivity not ordinarily accessible to agential action: the phenomenological structures that condition experience. This makes moral phenomenology a highly ambitious ethical project. I turn to lojong as an example of a Buddhist practice that claims to accomplish this ambitious task. As a training toward the ethical ideal of bodhicitta (“awakening mind”), lojong utilizes practices of meditation and contemplation to disrupt the habitual, affective responses that arise from the conventional phenomenological orientation to the world, replacing them with imagined responses of radically compassionate altruism. This ultimately inculcates a transformation of the phenomenological structures that underlie both ethical action and conscious experience, fulfilling the aim of moral phenomenology.

In this paper, I argue that a close examination of Charles Taylor's central concept of "strong evaluation" brings out more clearly the continuing tensions in his writings as a whole. I trace back the origin of strong evaluation in Taylor’s earliest writings and continue by laying out the different philosophical themes that revolve around it. Next, the focus is on the separate arguments in which strong evaluation is central, uncovering certain methodological conflicts in Taylor’s strategies. Arguing against most of his commentators, I suggest that a distinction should be drawn between the philosophical-anthropological, ethical, and ontological implications of strong evaluation. As a result, the contribution of this paper is threefold. First, it clarifies the issue of strong evaluation by distinguishing the different arguments in which Taylor employs the concept. Second, it makes the case for multiple tensions within Taylor’s methods. Third, as a consequence, this analysis opens up the question of the metaphysical status of his ontological view.

- by Michiel Meijer
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- Metaphysics, Ontology, Ethics, Meta-Ethics

This paper critically discusses Charles Taylor’s ethical views in his little known paper “Ethics and Ontology” (2003) by confronting it with the moral phenomenology of Maurice Mandelbaum, as laid out in his (largely neglected) The Phenomenology of Moral Experience (1955). The aim of the paper is to explore the significance of Taylor’s views for the dispute between naturalists, non-naturalists, and quietists in contemporary metaethics. It is divided in six sections. In the first section, I examine Taylor’s critique of naturalism. I continue to discuss his moral phenomenology in more detail in the second and third sections, arguing that Taylor’s move from phenomenology to ontology is problematic. In the fourth section, I evaluate Taylor’s strategy by comparing it with Mandelbaum’s understanding of moral phenomenology, while also extending this comparison to the issue of how to locate the source of moral experience in the fifth section. Based on these discussions, I finally conclude in the sixth section that Taylor’s hermeneutical position, although ontologically incomplete and underdemonstrated, draws attention to a question to which current moral theory does not adequately respond.

- by Michiel Meijer
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- Ontology, Analytic Philosophy, Ethics, Hermeneutics

This book provides a comprehensive critical account of the philosophy of Charles Taylor. The author engages with the secondary literature on Taylor's work and suggests that some interpretations and criticisms have been based on... more

- by Michiel Meijer
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- Metaphysics, Ontology, Ethics, Meta-Ethics

In this article, I lay eco-phenomenological ground for a theory of eco-theology in accordance with Laudato si’, Summa theologiae, and other texts. First, I address the ecological and environmental crisis according to Laudato si’. I then explain what eco-phenomenology is. I also identify and discuss concerns relevant to it. Following this, I set out to discuss Aquinas’s distinction of the interior powers of imagination in Summa theologiae to arrive at the conceptual power at work in eco-phenomenology: the vis cogitativa. After thoroughly clarifying this cogitative power and findings relevant to it, I then proceed to two eco-phenomenological views for a theory of eco-theology: (1) the phantom animal and (2) emphatic realism. These two views, in relation to the vis cogitativa, compose an eco-phenomenology that arrives at the intentions of ecological concern and satisfies them. Having presented an eco-phenomenology, I conclude with relevant remarks.

- by Lance Gracy
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- Eco-Theology, Moral Phenomenology, Eco-Phenomenology, Summa Theologiae

Dilthey’s moral writings have received scant attention over the years, perhaps due to his apparent tendency toward relativism. This essay offers a unified look at Dilthey’s moral writings in the context of his Kantian-styled “Critique of Historical Reason.” I present the Dilthey of the moral writings as an observer of reason in the spirit of Kant, watching practical reason devolve into error when it applies itself beyond the bounds of possible experience. Drawing on moral writings from across Dilthey’s corpus, I retrace Dilthey’s argument that moral theories from Kantianism and utilitarianism to natural law theory suffer significant motivational problems because of the way they transcend the “synthesis” of moral perception. Dilthey’s argument suggests that abstract moral theory is always bound to seem unmotivating and unreal from the standpoint of lived experience, and perhaps that, to avoid this, moral philosophy should confine itself to more situated, case-specific judgments.

- by David Zoller
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- Ethics, Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, Wilhelm Dilthey

This paper explores the relation between metaethical reflection and value experience, and does so by focusing on robust realism. Robust realism is typically criticized for its ontological and epistemological commitments. In this paper, however, we hope to shed new critical light on the plausibility of the theory by using two concepts – reification and alienation – that have their origin in critical social theory. We use the concept of reification as an interpretative lens to look at robust realism and show that it is reifying in two respects: it turns values into things, and, correspondingly, turns human agents into disengaged observers of those things. This analysis is then used to argue that robust realism is alienating in the sense that it distances us from the world that presents itself to us in value experience, and that it separates us from what we call our engaged responsiveness. We also argue that its alienating effects give us good reason to reject the theory.

- by Michiel Meijer and +1
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- Ethics, Philosophical Anthropology, Values, Ethical Theory
- by Jessica Locke
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- Buddhist Philosophy, Whiteness Studies, Buddhist Ethics, Moral Phenomenology

The last decade has seen some rapprochement between the theory of emotion and the theory of value (cf. e.g. Roeser & Todd 2014). But there still seems to be considerable potential for exchange and dialogue if the situation is compared with their intimate relationship in central strands of early realist phenomenology. This paper discusses the core aspects of the phenomenological work of Dietrich von Hildebrand, who is most representative of this ecumenical approach. From the very early stages of his philosophical career, Hildebrand has developed one of the most original, comprehensive and nuanced accounts of emotions at whose core is a detailed examination of their connection to value. I reconstruct Hildebrand’s view of emotions with a particular focus on those aspects which represent his most distinctive contribution to this subject. These include the intentionality of emotion, Hildebrand's original taxomony of the axiological, and the moral value of emotion.

- by Jean Moritz Müller
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- Emotion, Axiology, Theory of Value, Moral Phenomenology

A vast range of our everyday experiences seem to involve an immediate consciousness of value. We hear the rudeness of someone making offensive comments. In seeing someone risking her life to save another, we recognize her bravery. When we witness a person shouting at an innocent child, we feel the unfairness of this action. If, in learning of a close friend’s success, envy arises in us, we experience our own emotional response as wrong. How are these values apprehended? The three most common answers provided by contemporary philosophy explain the consciousness of value in terms of judgment, emotion, or perception. An alternative view endorsed mainly by authors inspired by the phenomenological tradition argues that values are apprehended by an intentional feeling. In this model, it is by virtue of a feeling that objects are presented as being in different degrees and nuances fair or unfair, boring or funny, good or bad. This paper offers an account of this model of feeling and its basic features, and defends it over alternative models. To this end, the paper discusses different versions of the model circulating in current research which until now have developed in parallel rather than in mutual exchange. The paper also applies the proposed account to the moral domain and examines how a feeling of values is presupposed by several moral experiences.

- by Ingrid Vendrell-Ferran
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- Emotion, Values, Moral Phenomenology, Feelings

There has been considerable recent interest in the “collective moral autonomy” thesis (CMA), that is, the notion that we can predicate moral suc- cesses, failures, and duties of collectives even if there are no comparable suc- cesses, failures, and duties among members.1 One reason why this position looks appealing is because the opposing individualist position seems to have what we might call an accounting problem. Individualists maintain that only individuals can be subjects of moral success, failure, or duty; however, many reasonable judgments about collective actions include moral information on a scale and of a stringency that it does not seem possible to predicate even of the duties of members who have steering power in the actions of the collective. Here I offer a paradigm for thinking about responsibility judgments in organized collective cases to help individualism solve its accounting problem, and allow us to account within a strict individualist perspective for moral information that ostensibly favors CMA. I begin by presenting this problem of moral accounting in organized collectives, and the cases and arguments that favor CMA (§1).2 These arguments already weaken once we avoid potential misunderstandings of the prospective duties of steering members; I show that on a descriptively and normatively appropriate view, steering members must be thought to face reasons at the group scale very directly (§2). I then argue that retrospective evaluation cannot depart from the contents of those wide prospective member duties (§3). Finally, I offer a view of responsibility judgments in collective cases that binds retrospective and prospective responsibility in the required way (§4). This solves the accounting problem that individualism seems to have, signifi- cantly strengthens what might be required of steering-level group members in organized collectives, and neutralizes a core reason for favoring CMA over individualism.

Under a ‘dirty hands’ model of undercover policing, it inevitably involves situations where whatever the state agent does is morally problematic. Christopher Nathan argues against this model. Nathan’s criticism of the model is predicated on the contention that it entails the view, which he considers objectionable, that morally wrongful acts are central to undercover policing. We address this criticism, and some other aspects of Nathan’s discussion of the ‘dirty hands’ model, specifically in relation to state entrapment to commit a crime. Using János Kis’s work on political morality, we explain three dilemmatic versions of the ‘dirty hands’ model. We show that, while two of these are inapplicable to state entrapment, the third has better prospects. We then pursue our main aim, which is to argue that, since the third model precludes Nathan’s criticism, a viable ‘dirty hands’ model of state entrapment remains an open possibility. Finally, we generalize this result, showing that the case of state entrapment is not special: the result holds good for policing practices more generally, including such routine practices as arrest, detention, and restraint.

- by Stephen K McLeod and +1
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- Criminal Law, Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Police

In the following paper, both Max Scheler and Edgar Sheffield Brightman's rankings of value are compared. In so doing, Brightman's table of values is found wanting along the lines of Scheler's value rankings. The reason is, in part, that Scheler's ordering of preference and hierarchy of feelings more readily explain what Brightman's account presupposes: affective intentionality. What is more, we can apply Brightman's test of consistency to Scheler's account and find it more desirable than how Brightman defines what values are in his A Philosophy of Religion (1940). Between both thinkers an account will emerge that can help clarify the commensurability of values in experience-based accounts of value in both thinkers. In doing so, a blended account reaches three conclusions about how each personalist might adopt points the other would have suggested to him. (1) Love is the process of coalescement in rough outlines; (2) The ordo amoris should reflect the rational coherence of Brightman's more systematic laws; (3) And the demand of coherence means that phenomenology in Scheler becomes a system of idealistic metaphysics concerning values despite the fact that Brightman thinks the moral law system will hold phenomenologically regardless of which metaphysical interpretation of reality holds sway about values.

- by J. Edward Hackett
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- Ethics, Max Scheler, American Philosophy, Metaethics

This paper raises the question as to whether Charles Taylor can endorse the ethical naturalism of John McDowell and David Wiggins. It first tries to show how, despite recognizing that McDowell and Wiggins defend the reality of moral/ethical values in a manner congenial to his defence of moral phenomenology, Taylor fails to recognize how their understanding of naturalism is equally congenial to his objectives. The paper then turns to how the latter is true only up to a certain point: Taylor believes that an essential part of moral phenomenology is articulacy about values/goods, and this involves what he calls constitutive goods and moral sources. It is here where it appears Taylor must part ways with ethical naturalism. In this final version of the paper, there is now a section at the end that completes the discussion of those elements of Taylor's account of moral phenomenology which he believes are essential not to basic moral agency, but to the fullest, most robust agency we are capable of, namely constitutive goods and moral sources. It raises the question of the role of a transcendent moral source as the only adequate moral source.

- by Nigel DeSouza
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- Ethics, Meta-Ethics, Moral Psychology, Naturalistic Ethics

Wat betekent het om onze westerse moraal van vrijheid, democratie en mensenrechten te rechtvaardigen? Een veelvoorkomende strategie is om de overtuigingen achter die moraal te verklaren op een manier die tegelijk het fundament van die overtuigingen blootlegt. Maar daarmee is het probleem hoogstens verplaatst. Want wat betekent het eigenlijk om moraliteit te " verklaren? " Het thema dat ik tegen deze achtergrond wil uitlichten is het conflict tussen de wetenschappelijke verklaringen die onze wereld inzichtelijk maken en de morele beschrijvingen waarmee we onszelf en de wereld begrijpen. Begrijpen we de moraal werkelijk beter door dezelfde soort zekerheid en rechtvaardiging te eisen voor morele oordelen als voor empirische uitspraken, zoals de vergissingstheorie stelt? 1 Mijn poging deze vraag te beantwoorden bestaat uit vier delen. In het eerste deel plaats ik enkele kanttekeningen bij de kernideeën van de vergissingstheorie en laat ik zien dat morele oordelen zich moeilijk laten verklaren omdat ze zowel " subjectief " als " objectief " zijn. Op basis van deze analyse concludeer ik in een tweede deel dat morele oordelen een eigen soort objectiviteit veronderstellen die radicaal verschilt van het objectiviteitsideaal van de empirische wetenschappen. Vervolgens bespreek ik in een derde deel de spanning tussen moraal en wetenschap aan de hand van enkele teksten van de Canadese filosoof Charles Taylor. In een vierde deel ga ik in op de problemen die deze analyse oproept voor de verklaring van morele uitspraken, en de vraag wat dit ons uiteindelijk leert over de rechtvaardiging van moraal.

- by Michiel Meijer
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- Ethics, Hermeneutics, Ethical Theory, Metaethics
- by J. Edward Hackett
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- Ethics, Max Scheler, Continental Philosophy, Moral Phenomenology

This introduction explains the rationale for the speciale issue and describes the contributions.

- by Michiel Meijer
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- Normative Ethics, Ethical Theory, Metaethics, Moral Phenomenology

Agents' self-reports in cases of reactive heroism often deny the optionality, and hence the supererogatory status, of their actions, while conversely supporting a view of them in terms of nonselfsacrificial existential necessity. Taking these claims seriously thus makes it puzzling as to why such cases elicit strong approbation. To resolve this puzzle, I show how this necessity can be understood in the predispositional embodied terms of unreflective ethical expertise , such that the agent may be said literally to incarnate generally accepted norms of a shared ethical habitus. On this basis I argue that the object of the relevant approbation is the agent's embodied predispositionality itself-expressing a deep continuity with her social context, it is in virtue of this alone that her action can be both spontaneous and ethically outstanding. By way of conclusion I briefly discuss how this suggests an important categorial distinction between heroism and saintism.

- by Bryan Smyth
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- Embodiment, Phenomenology, Heroism, Ethical Theory
- by Joel Krueger
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- Nishida Kitarō, Kyoto School, Moral Phenomenology, Ethical Training
- by Petr Urban
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- Ethics, Phenomenology, Phenomenology of the body, Moral Phenomenology

In this paper, I defend the view that we can literally perceive the morally right and wrong, or something near enough. In defending this claim, I will try to meet three primary objectives: 1) to clarify how an investigation into moral phenomenology should proceed, 2) to respond to a number of misconceptions and objections that are most frequently raised against the very idea of moral perception, and 3) to provide a model for how some moral perception can be seen as literal perception. Because I take ‘moral perception’ to pick out a family of different experiences, I will limit myself (for the most part) to a discussion of the moral relevance of the emotions.

- by Jeremy Wisnewski
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- Ethics, Phenomenology, Value Theory, Moral Philosophy

This dissertation works to accomplish two goals. First, it defends Jay Garfield’s interpretation of Buddhist ethics as a moral phenomenology and develops this ethical system through the Tibetan framework of lta sgom spyod gsum. Second, it looks at how this interpretation of Buddhist ethics can be applied to the more-than-human world to create a novel Buddhist environmental ethic.
The first half defends a moral phenomenological interpretation of Buddhist ethics and develops this theory through the framework of lta sgom spyod gsum. To do so, it surveys prior interpretations of Buddhist ethics to provide a foil for the discussion before turning to the arguments for a moral phenomenological interpretation. It then defends this interpretation in the context of the Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna traditions of Tibet and both raises and responds to possible issues in a Buddhist moral
phenomenology. This dissertation then turns its attention to view, meditation, action as the framework for moral phenomenological praxis. It surveys the ways this framework has been employed in Tibetan contexts before applying this framework to moral phenomenology. It nuances this approach by asking what ‘view’ really means in this context and investigates how meditation and direct meditative experience function to bring a view into one’s default perceptual mode in order to inform one’s action.
Part two applies this theory and framework to contemporary issues facing the more-than-human world. It first surveys prior Buddhist environmental ethics before looking at how phenomenology has been given attention in environmental philosophy. It then articulates what an applied moral phenomenology would look like and what specific problems a moral phenomenological approach to environmental ethics can address. Finally, this dissertation proposes a moral phenomenological approach to environmental ethics by searching for an ecological view, analyzing how meditation functions in this context, and considering what the resultant action looks like. In doing so, it shows how moral phenomenology and its implementation through view, meditation, action can be applied to contemporary issues outside the specifics of the Buddhist tradition and can provide novel approaches to solving issues like climate change and the degradation of the more-than-human world.

- by Colin H Simonds
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- Buddhist Philosophy, Tibetan Studies, Animal Ethics, Environmental Ethics

This book provides a philosophical account of the normative status of killing in Buddhism. Its argument theorises on relevant Buddhist philosophical grounds the metaphysical, phenomenological and ethical dimensions of the distinct intentional classes of killing, in dialogue with some elements of Western philosophical thought. In doing so, it aims to provide a descriptive account of the causal bases of intentional killing, a global justification and elucidation of Buddhist norms regarding killing, and an intellectual response to and critique of alternative conceptions of such norms presented in recent Buddhist Studies scholarship. It examines early and classical Buddhist accounts of the evaluation of killing, systematising and rationally assessing these claims on both Buddhist and contemporary Western philosophical grounds. The book provides the conceptual foundation for the discussion, engaging original reconstructive philosophical analyses to both bolster and critique classical Indian Buddhist positions on killing and its evaluation, as well as contemporary Buddhist Studies scholarship concerning these positions. In doing so, it provides a systematic and critical account of the subject hitherto absent in the field. Engaging Buddhist philosophy from scholastic dogmatics to epistemology and metaphysics, this book is relevant to advanced students and scholars in philosophy and religious studies.

- by Martin Kovan
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- Terrorism, Euthanasia, Buddhist Ethics, Counter terrorism

Taking as my starting point that any objects of ethical concern must demonstrate some ethical property, I set to demonstrate the ethical property of ‘the animal soul’ as exhibited in the relationship between human and non-human animals through the activity of imagination. In doing so, I first explore two competing doctrines in the relationship between human and nonhuman animals: the metaleptical view and the mythical view, which demonstrate how the animal soul is worthy of ethical concern. I then go on to propose a renewed ethical theory, or what I term “imaginative care ethics of ‘the animal soul’,” which defends the concept that the animal soul is worthy of ethical concern in a two-fold way: in one aspect, the relationship between human and non-human animals is importantly related to experiences of happiness or suffering,
the human’s or non-human animals’ alike; and in another aspect, the relationship between human and non-human animals is of both high instrumental value and intrinsic value, thus a worthy object of ethical concern in itself. With regard to the activity of imagination as a proper object related to demonstrating ethical concern, I demonstrate that (1) it is the bridge for forming ethical concern about the relationship between human and non-human animals, and (2) an understanding of it is necessary for us to understand why certain common ethical concerns about human beings are applicable to non-human animals.

- by Lance Gracy
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- Animal Studies, Ethical Theory, Imagination, Moral Phenomenology
- by J. Edward Hackett
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- Max Scheler, Émmanuel Lévinas, Moral Phenomenology
- by Jamie Buckland
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- Virtue Ethics, Value Theory, Metaethics, Moral Philosophy
- by J. Edward Hackett
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- Max Scheler, Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, Martin Heidegger

Most self-reports of heroic action in both reactive and social (proactive) cases describe the experience as involving a kind of necessity. This seems intuitively sound, but it makes it unclear why heroism is accorded strong approbation.... more

- by Bryan Smyth
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- Philosophy of Agency, Phenomenology, Heroes, Heroism

In the European debate about science and technology, human rights are an inescapable reference point. Many ethical analyses of emerging technologies build on the principles and values expressed by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. The Chart represents a very flexible and effective tool for all that European ethical reflection, whose primary aim is to provide useful guidelines for regulating technology. This reference, though, poses several theoretical and methodological difficulties, starting from the gap between a declaration of principles and their actual fulfillment. On the one hand, the philosophical investigation on the principles and their meaning is missing; on the other hand, the ethical analysis remains superficial. Considering the example of robotics, this work discusses pro and contra of an ethical analyisis of emerging technologies which is centered on human rights. Furthermore, it argues for an integration of such approach with a phenomenological approach that takes into account the mutual interaction of values and social practices.