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Ethical Theory
Ethical Theory
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About this topic
Ethical Theory is the systematic study of principles and concepts that govern moral judgments and behavior. It explores the nature of right and wrong, the justification of moral beliefs, and the implications of ethical frameworks, including consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics, to guide individual and societal conduct.
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Ethical Theory is the systematic study of principles and concepts that govern moral judgments and behavior. It explores the nature of right and wrong, the justification of moral beliefs, and the implications of ethical frameworks, including consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics, to guide individual and societal conduct.
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The History and Reality of the Market Failures Approach to Business Ethics
by
Kara Zhang
2026
This paper surveys and critiques the current market failures approach (MFA) to business ethics, beginning with the concept of market inefficiencies as introduced by Coasian transaction costs and progressing to the concept of market...
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This paper surveys and critiques the current market failures approach (MFA) to business ethics, beginning with the concept of market inefficiencies as introduced by Coasian transaction costs and progressing to the concept of market failures as discussed in Arrowvian information costs. The second section outlines contemporary constructions of MFA. At the macroscopic level, MFA is justified with Pareto efficiency, generating its characteristic efficiency imperatives and their derivative implications of metavoluntarism. The third section outlines the use of agency theory and professionalism norms within microeconomics to evidence MFA’s attractiveness. The final section advances a critique of MFA based on the general theory of second best, finding MFA irrelevant, because its fundamental premises do not obtain in a dynamic capitalist economy, and unreasonable in its expectations of individual human behavior.
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Principles for the Justification of Public Health Intervention
by
Ross Upshur
2026, Canadian Journal of Public Health-revue Canadienne De Sante Publique
Objectives: The objective of this paper is to discuss principles relevant to ethical deliberation in public health. : Conceptual analysis and literature review. Results: Four principles are identified: The Harm Principle, The Principle of...
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Objectives: The objective of this paper is to discuss principles relevant to ethical deliberation in public health. : Conceptual analysis and literature review. Results: Four principles are identified: The Harm Principle, The Principle of Least Restrictive Means, The Reciprocity Principle, and The Transparency Principle. Two examples of how the principles are applied in practice are provided. The paper illustrates how clinical ethics is not an appropriate model for public health ethics and argues that the type of reasoning involved in public health ethics may be at potential variance from that of empirical science. Further research and debate on the appropriate ethics for public health are required.
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Responsive evaluation A complementary approach to theory-based evaluation methods
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ANDREW ANGUKO
2026, Article
Theory-based evaluation has grown in popularity because it clearly defines an evaluation’s purpose, program theory, performance indicators, evaluation questions, resources, and the procedures for data collection and analysis. However, it...
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Theory-based evaluation has grown in popularity because it clearly defines an evaluation’s purpose, program theory, performance indicators, evaluation questions, resources, and the procedures for data collection and analysis. However, it often fails to adequately consider stakeholders’ concerns and priorities. Responsive evaluation, in contrast, recognizes
that social reality is complex and that clear cause–effect relationships between interventions and outcomes are difficult to determine. It focuses on stakeholders’ issues and perspectives—especially those of the target group— engaging them as informants whose concerns, themes, questions, methods, and outcomes guide the evaluation. When combined with theory-based evaluation, it can produce credible, objective, and inclusive evidence that improves the usefulness of evaluations and supports better policy decisions
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Consequentialism Fittingness FINAL
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Brad Hooker
2026
Some beliefs, positive and negative attitudes, and desires fit their objects. Others do not. This paper considers whether consequentialist ethics can plausibly be reconciled with the fittingness of beliefs, positive and negative...
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Some beliefs, positive and negative attitudes, and desires fit their objects. Others do not. This paper considers whether consequentialist ethics can plausibly be reconciled with the fittingness of beliefs, positive and negative attitudes, and desires. Then the paper turns to what consequentialist ethics can consistently say about the fittingness of acts.
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Consequentialism Fittingness FINAL
by
Brad Hooker
2026, Ratio
Some beliefs, positive and negative attitudes, and desires fit their objects. Others do not. This paper considers whether consequentialist ethics can plausibly be reconciled with the fittingness of beliefs, positive and negative...
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Some beliefs, positive and negative attitudes, and desires fit their objects. Others do not. This paper considers whether consequentialist ethics can plausibly be reconciled with the fittingness of beliefs, positive and negative attitudes, and desires. Then the paper turns to what consequentialist ethics can consistently say about the fittingness of acts.
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Free Will and Determinism Reframed: Agency as Navigation Within Constraint
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Andre Sarkis
2026
The debate between free will and determinism has persisted for centuries without resolution, largely because it is structured as a binary opposition between mutually exclusive positions. This paper argues that the persistence of the...
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The debate between free will and determinism has persisted for centuries without resolution, largely because it is structured as a binary opposition between mutually exclusive positions. This paper argues that the persistence of the debate reflects a misframing rather than a lack of evidence or conceptual clarity. It proposes an alternative account in which determinism is understood as the structure within which action occurs, and free will as the capacity to navigate within that structure. On this view, agency is neither the absence of causation nor reducible to it but emerges from participation in constrained decision-making processes. This reframing allows for a reconstruction of responsibility, a reorientation of ethical reasoning as the navigation of competing values, and a clarification of the limits of artificial intelligence as a nonagentive system. The paper concludes by situating this account within a broader "Four Poles" framework.
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O argumento moral: o fundamento divino do realismo moral | Revista Teologia em Questão
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Felipe Forti
2026, TQ - Teologia em Questão
FORTI. Felipe. O argumento moral: o fundamento divino do realismo moral. TQ - Teologia em Questão. [s. l]. n. 42. 2025. pp. 314-356. Resumo: O artigo a seguir visa ser uma apresentação e breve defesa de conceitos básicos do argumento...
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FORTI. Felipe. O argumento moral: o fundamento divino do realismo moral. TQ - Teologia em Questão. [s. l]. n. 42. 2025. pp. 314-356.
Resumo: O artigo a seguir visa ser uma apresentação e breve defesa de conceitos básicos do argumento moral a favor da existência de Deus. Esse é um argumento filosófico a favor do teísmo que foi e é discutido no meio acadêmico. A lógica do argumento pode ser colocada da seguinte maneira: os valores e deveres morais, se objetivos, precisam de um fundamento transcendente para existirem. Ora, se esse é o caso, então Deus é a melhor explicação para sua existência. Por conseguinte, se for assumido o realismo moral, então Deus deve existir. O argumento moral, portanto, busca fundamentar a realidade.
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Orthodox Christian bioethics and technoethics: An approach to the contribution of H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr.
by
Ioannis Ladas
2026, Bioethics in a plural world: Contemporary challenges in medical and technological ethics
H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. (1941–2018) undertook, on the one hand, the most systematic effort to revise bioethics in light of Orthodox Christian theology, and, on the other, offered a clear depiction of the condition in which ethics and...
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H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. (1941–2018) undertook, on the one hand, the most systematic effort to revise bioethics in light of Orthodox Christian theology, and, on the other, offered a clear depiction of the condition in which ethics and bioethics find themselves in the “post-God” era. This distinguished philosopher and bioethicist lo- cates the Truth—sought as a means of transcending the confines of secularism—in the Christianity of the first ten centuries, the continuity of which is embodied today in the Orthodox Christian Church. In this spirit, the present article seeks, first, to highlight the contribution of H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr., and second, to underscore the significance of Orthodox Christian bioethics in the twenty-first century. Within this context, it highlights the significant horizons opening for the formation of a distinctly Orthodox Christian Tech- noethics, given that the rapid advancement of technologies—most notably artificial intelligence, robotics, and genetic engineering— has generated new challenges that transcend the traditional bound- aries of religion and science.
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Triune Ethics Theory and Moral Personality
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Darcia Narvaez
2026, Personality, Identity, and Character
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Reflections on Therapeutic Action and the Origins of Psychic Life
by
Howard Levine
2026, Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association
Psychoanalysis has seen a shift in emphasis regarding therapeutic action and technique. A predominant focus on the uncovering or reintegrating of repressed, disguised, or split-off contents has moved to include the intersubjective...
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Psychoanalysis has seen a shift in emphasis regarding therapeutic action and technique. A predominant focus on the uncovering or reintegrating of repressed, disguised, or split-off contents has moved to include the intersubjective creation, development, and strengthening of psychic processes and capabilities. The analyst’s role in this process has been analogized to that of the primary maternal object in the origins of psychic life. This metaphor illuminates the movement from unrepresented to represented psychic states in treatment, as seen in a clinical example from the analysis of a particularly withdrawn young adult.
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FROM BECCARIA TO MANZONI: A HISTORICAL ANALISYS OF CRIME, JUSTICE AND JUDICIAL ERROR
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Cecilia Persico
2026, FROM BECCARIA TO MANZONI: A HISTORICAL ANALISYS OF CRIME, JUSTICE AND JUDICIAL ERROR
This paper explores Cesare Beccaria's ideas on his masterpeace "Dei delitti e delle pene (On crime and punishment), drawing connections with Alessandro Manzoni's composition "La colonna infame" (The infamous column). The essay highlights...
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This paper explores Cesare Beccaria's ideas on his masterpeace "Dei delitti e delle pene (On crime and punishment), drawing connections with Alessandro Manzoni's composition "La colonna infame" (The infamous column). The essay highlights how historical perspectives on justice and judicial errors remain relevant today.
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The Alignment Discourse and the Locus of Responsibility
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Edervaldo J . S . Melo
2026
Contemporary discussions of AI alignment frequently employ normative language that attributes to technical systems properties commonly associated with moral agency, such as values, intentions, or goals. This paper argues that such usage,...
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Contemporary discussions of AI alignment frequently employ normative language that attributes to technical systems properties commonly associated with moral agency, such as values, intentions, or goals. This paper argues that such usage, in some cases, involves a misattribution of moral agency and a corresponding mislocation of responsibility. By treating systems as the primary bearers of normative obligations, parts of the alignment discourse risk obscuring the human and institutional responsibility involved in the design, deployment, and use of these artifacts. The paper offers a strictly conceptual clarification: it outlines minimal criteria for moral agency, distinguishes instruments, systems, and agents, and examines how a shift from functional to moral vocabulary contributes to a displacement of responsibility. The central claim is modest: clarifying the locus of responsibility improves the coherence of ethical discussions surrounding accountability, governance, and responsible use of AI systems.
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Reorientation in Moral Thinking
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Carla Bagnoli
2026, The Sovereignty of the Good: 55 years after, ed. by C. Bagnoli and B. Cokelet Eds., Cambridge University Press, under contract
This chapter offers a critical assessment of Murdoch’s account of moral progress by comparing it with Kant’s conception of reorientation in moral thinking. It first reconstructs Murdoch’s account of the obstacles to morality and explains...
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This chapter offers a critical assessment of Murdoch’s account of moral progress by comparing it with Kant’s conception of reorientation in moral thinking. It first reconstructs Murdoch’s account of the obstacles to morality and explains why moral progress takes the form of self-discipline. It then examines her critique of the willpower model of agency and identifies a qualified convergence with Kant’s defense of practical reason, thereby opening the way for a reassessment of her position. In contrast to Kant’s dialogical conception of reorientation, organized around universal and public reason, Murdoch defends an individualist conception grounded in privacy. While Murdoch’s conception captures some dimension of personal improvement, the appeal to publicity brings into view those forms of moral progress that require engagement with, and responsiveness to, the claims of others as a matter of justice. By forgoing publicity, Murdoch obscures the constitutive role of mutual recognition in moral progress. The result is not only diminished explanatory power, but also a failure to vindicate the moral worth of individuals and their capacity for shared rational agency.
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Philosophie der frühen Neuzeit
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Armin G . Wildfeuer
2026, In: Fuchs, M. (eds) Handbuch Alter und Altern. J.B. Metzler, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Die Philosophie der frühen Neuzeit (ca. 1450–1700) war davon geprägt, im hohen Alter und im Altern ein Problem zu sehen. Euphorisiert dagegen waren Humanismus und Renaissance von der Lebenskraft und Schönheit der Jugend. Den...
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Die Philosophie der frühen Neuzeit (ca. 1450–1700) war davon geprägt, im hohen Alter und im Altern ein Problem zu sehen. Euphorisiert dagegen waren Humanismus und Renaissance von der Lebenskraft und Schönheit der Jugend. Den Beschwernissen des Alters trat die Zeit einerseits mit der Hoffnung entgegen, eines Tages mithilfe der Fortschritte der Wissenschaft das Alter verjüngen, zumindest aber hinauszögern und damit das Leben verlängern zu können. Andererseits versuchte die frühneuzeitliche Moralistik, dem Problem des Alterns nicht technisch-wissenschaftlich, sondern moralisch mit lebensklugen Verhaltensregeln zu begegnen. The period of early modern philosophy (approximately 1450–1700) was characterised by the view that old age and the process of ageing were problematic. By contrast, humanism and the Renaissance were marked by an enthusiasm for the vitality and aesthetic appeal of youth. The challenges associated with advanced age were addressed in two distinct ways. Firstly, there was the hope that scientific progress would enable the rejuvenation of old age, or at the very least, delay its onset, thereby extending life expectancy. Secondly, early modern moralists sought to tackle the issue of ageing not through technical and scientific solutions, but through the moral framework of judicious principles for conduct.
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Response to Garrett ("At the Cradle of Consequentialism")
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Rudolf Schuessler
2026
Aaron Garrett's comments on my article "At the Cradle of onsequentialism" are largely positive and even generous, so there would seem to be little need for a response. However, some of the deeper issues he raises merit further discussion....
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Aaron Garrett's comments on my article "At the Cradle of onsequentialism" are largely positive and even generous, so there would seem to be little need for a response. However, some of the deeper issues he raises merit further discussion. These concern (a) the question of when a theory may properly be called consequentialist or utilitarian, and (b) the historiographical implications of such classifications.
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Response to Garrett ("At the Cradle of Consequentialism")
by
Rudolf Schuessler
2026
Aaron Garrett's comments on my article "At the Cradle of onsequentialism" are largely positive and even generous, so there would seem to be little need for a response. However, some of the deeper issues he raises merit further discussion....
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Aaron Garrett's comments on my article "At the Cradle of onsequentialism" are largely positive and even generous, so there would seem to be little need for a response. However, some of the deeper issues he raises merit further discussion. These concern (a) the question of when a theory may properly be called consequentialist or utilitarian, and (b) the historiographical implications of such classifications.
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Public relations professionals' role in managing conflict: A cross-country contingency theory perspective
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Banu Bıçakçı
2026, Public Relations Review
This comparative study examines how public relations professionals in Türkiye, South Africa, and Uruguay approach conflict management, exploring the culturally contingent nature of public relations practice across these diverse settings....
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This comparative study examines how public relations professionals in Türkiye, South Africa, and Uruguay approach conflict management, exploring the culturally contingent nature of public relations practice across these diverse settings. Drawing on qualitative data from a Delphi study, the research investigates the reasons public relations practice may lead to conflicts, how professionals frame and justify their conflict management decisions, their stance on the advocacy-accommodation continuum, and their roles and responsibilities via thematic analysis. Findings: reveal that conflicts often arise from communication approaches/structures within organizations and organizational power dynamics. Accordingly, the practitioner's organizational standing and perceived power influence public relations professionals' decisions. In conflicting situations, the organizational stance is often clustered near the accommodation end, emphasizing the social dimension. Key roles of public relations professionals include environmental scanning, stakeholder engagement, and mediation. The study highlights the importance of contingency theory in understanding conflict management in public relations.The findings suggest the absence of universally applicable conflict management rules, emphasizing the necessity for context-specific and flexible approaches. While a stakeholder perspective, social orientation, and accommodation tendencies are evident across the studied countries, public relations professionals face diverse challenges rooted in cultural differences and the distinct conceptualizations and practices of public relations within each country.
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Artificial moral characters: constitutional AI and the challenge of alignment
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Joerg Noller
2026, AI and Ethics
This paper examines Constitutional AI through the lens of Aristotelian virtue ethics and 4E cognition in order to clarify how moral practice is transformed under conditions of AI-mediated action. It argues that while constitutionally...
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This paper examines Constitutional AI through the lens of Aristotelian virtue ethics and 4E cognition in order to clarify how moral practice is transformed under conditions of AI-mediated action. It argues that while constitutionally trained language models exhibit stable, norm-guided behavioral patterns, these regularities do not constitute virtue or moral character in the Aristotelian sense. Virtue remains bound to embodied agency, affectivity, and practical judgment. The concept of Artificial Moral Character is therefore introduced as a heuristic tool for analyzing how human moral commitments are externalized and stabilized within technical systems through design, alignment, and governance. Drawing on 4E cognition, the paper develops an account of Extended Morality that shifts ethical attention from character attribution to the relational configuration of moral technological environments. Thereby, alignment is reframed as an ongoing practice of mediated responsibility rather than a property of artificial agents, highlighting the ethical significance of socio-technical infrastructures in shaping human judgment and accountability.
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Empirical Ethics, Context-Sensitivity, and Contextualism
by
AW Musschenga
2026, Journal of Medicine and Philosophy
In medical ethics, business ethics, and some branches of political philosophy (multi-culturalism, issues of just allocation, and equitable distribution) the literature increasingly combines insights from ethics and the social sciences....
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In medical ethics, business ethics, and some branches of political philosophy (multi-culturalism, issues of just allocation, and equitable distribution) the literature increasingly combines insights from ethics and the social sciences. Some authors in medical ethics even speak of a new phase in the history of ethics, hailing "empirical ethics" as a logical next step in the development of practical ethics after the turn to "applied ethics." The name empirical ethics is ill-chosen because of its associations with "descriptive ethics." Unlike descriptive ethics, however, empirical ethics aims to be both descriptive and normative. The first question on which I focus is what kind of empirical research is used by empirical ethics and for which purposes. I argue that the ultimate aim of all empirical ethics is to improve the contextsensitivity of ethics. The second question is whether empirical ethics is essentially connected with specific positions in meta-ethics. I show that in some kinds of meta-ethical theories, which I categorize as broad contextualist theories, there is an intrinsic need for connecting normative ethics with empirical social research. But context-sensitivity is a goal that can be aimed for from any meta-ethical position.
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Empirical Ethics, Context-Sensitivity, and Contextualism
by
AW Musschenga
2026, The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy
In medical ethics, business ethics, and some branches of political philosophy (multi-culturalism, issues of just allocation, and equitable distribution) the literature increasingly combines insights from ethics and the social sciences....
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In medical ethics, business ethics, and some branches of political philosophy (multi-culturalism, issues of just allocation, and equitable distribution) the literature increasingly combines insights from ethics and the social sciences. Some authors in medical ethics even speak of a new phase in the history of ethics, hailing "empirical ethics" as a logical next step in the development of practical ethics after the turn to "applied ethics." The name empirical ethics is ill-chosen because of its associations with "descriptive ethics." Unlike descriptive ethics, however, empirical ethics aims to be both descriptive and normative. The first question on which I focus is what kind of empirical research is used by empirical ethics and for which purposes. I argue that the ultimate aim of all empirical ethics is to improve the contextsensitivity of ethics. The second question is whether empirical ethics is essentially connected with specific positions in meta-ethics. I show that in some kinds of meta-ethical theories, which I categorize as broad contextualist theories, there is an intrinsic need for connecting normative ethics with empirical social research. But context-sensitivity is a goal that can be aimed for from any meta-ethical position.
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For What We Do, and Fail To Do
by
Tihamer Toth-Fejel
2026, American Journal of Bioethics
To understand how our brain evolved and what it is for, we are in urgent need of knowledge about the cognitive skills of a large variety of animal species and individuals, and their relationships to rapidly disappearing social and...
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To understand how our brain evolved and what it is for, we are in urgent need of knowledge about the cognitive skills of a large variety of animal species and individuals, and their relationships to rapidly disappearing social and ecological conditions. But how do we obtain this knowledge? Studying cognition in the wild is a challenge. Field researchers (and their study subjects) face many factors that can easily interfere with their variables of interest. Although field studies of cognition present unique challenges, they are still invaluable for understanding the evolutionary drivers of cognition. In this review, I discuss the advantages and urgency of field-based studies on animal cognition and introduce a novel observational approach for field research that is guided by three questions: (a) what do animals fail to find?, (b) what do they not do?, and (c) what do they only do when certain conditions are met? My goal is to provide guidance to future field researchers examining primate cognition.
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書評:詹尼弗.赫特,《承擔責任:狂喜的幸福主義與好生活的呼召》
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qiumei zhang
2026, Universitas-Monthly Review of Philosophy and Culture
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Liberty as the Invariant Basis of Moral Truth Subsuming Scanlon’s Contractualism, Parfit’s Moral Objectivism, Berlin’s Two Concepts of Liberty, and the Sen–Nussbaum Capabilities Approach
by
Orion C Simerl
2026
Contemporary moral philosophy frequently appeals to objective reasons said to hold independently of desire. Yet when such reasons conflict, no non-arbitrary criterion exists for determining which should prevail. This article introduces...
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Contemporary moral philosophy frequently appeals to objective reasons said to hold independently of desire. Yet when such reasons conflict, no non-arbitrary criterion exists for determining which should prevail. This article introduces Objective Morality, a liberty-based framework grounded in the invariant structure of conscious agency. Because conscious awareness necessarily involves preferred orientation, desire is a constitutive feature of consciousness, and liberty understood as non-imposition emerges as the necessary condition for action. On this basis, the article demonstrates how this structure subsumes influential moral frameworks by resolving their foundational tensions. It shows that Scanlon’s reasonable rejection reduces to the rejection of liberty-imposing principles ; it provides the missing criterion to resolve Parfit’s conflicting objective reasons ; it identifies why Berlin’s positive liberty collapses into unjustified coercion ; and it reframes the Capabilities Approach as a derivative function of adequate opportunities to acquire time, money, and know-how. By situating liberty as a structural precondition rather than a contingent value, the paper provides a unified normative framework capable of grounding moral judgment without contradiction.
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O CIDADÃO DE BEM E A FILOSOFIA MORAL DE KANT THE GOOD CITIZEN AND THE MORAL PHILOSOPHY OF KANT
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Hans Magno Alves Ramos
2026
Este artigo pretende cotejar a figura do "cidadão de bem" presente em vários discursos na atualidade com a filosofia moral de Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) a fim de provocar uma reflexão sobre sua consistência. Ao fazer isso, aborda o...
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Este artigo pretende cotejar a figura do "cidadão de bem" presente em vários discursos na atualidade com a filosofia moral de Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) a fim de provocar uma reflexão sobre sua consistência. Ao fazer isso, aborda o significado da moralidade enquanto dever, os problemas da maldade humana e do autoconhecimento moral. Enquanto dever, a moral representa uma tensão entre o que espontaneamente deseja o sujeito e o que exige a razão prática pura, de modo que a bondade moral humana ganha a forma de virtude, a qual seria o esforço e a valentia de cada indivíduo em combater suas propensões egoístas a fim de fazer valer a lei moral (a dignidade e autonomia humanas) na realidade; nesse sentido a práxis moral é um caminho de tentações jamais extirpáveis, uma vez que, amiúde, nela se confrontam a necessidade de obter satisfação na vida e a exigência de ser correto. Nesse contexto, a maldade representa o fracasso do indivíduo em fazer da lei moral o motivo supremo de sua conduta, sua queda na sedução do egoísmo que o leva a conduzir sua vida centrada nos seus desejos e interesses privados, só levando em consideração as exigências éticas como estratégia ou aparência que beneficiariam a esses interesses. Em seguida, menciona-se como esse egoísmo irrestrito pode se disfarçar até mesmo para o próprio sujeito, inclusive através dos bons costumes, evitando assim que a maldade seja reconhecida com esse nome. A partir dessas observações, aduz-se como problemática a figura do "cidadão de bem" sob uma perspectiva kantiana, uma vez que se mostra como categoria de significado indecidível na prática e cuja arrogância é moralmente insalutar.
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Introduction to Symposium on Hope in a Secular Age
by
Devin Singh
2026, Contending Modernities
In this introductory post, Devin Singh and Rick Elgendy introduce the main themes of David Newheiser's Hope in a Secular Age and summarize the interventions of each contributor to the symposium.
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O assassinato de Charlie Kirk
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claudio W wandley ferreira bizarria
2026
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Class presentation: THE LIFE AND CONTRIBUTION OF RENE DESCARTES TO RELIGION OF PHILOPHY poulandi chawang
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Poulandi Chawang
2026
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Stefano Bacin, Rediscovering a Twentieth-Century Philosophical Classic: The New Italian Translation of Moore's Principia Ethica
by
Sergio Cremaschi
2026, Rivista di storia della filosofia
Stefano Bacin's review opens by recalling the historical importance of Moore's Principia Ethica (1903), widely regarded as one of the foundational texts of twentieth-century ethics and a landmark in the emergence of analytic philosophy....
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Stefano Bacin's review opens by recalling the historical importance of Moore's Principia Ethica (1903), widely regarded as one of the foundational texts of twentieth-century ethics and a landmark in the emergence of analytic philosophy. Despite this canonical status, the work had long been inaccessible to Italian readers in any adequate form.
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A History of the Philosophers - Islamic Philosophy - Arabic Ethical Literature
by
Geoffrey Saxby
2026
During the formative years of philosophy in the Islamic world, several authors in the Abbasid empire were writing their own self-help manuals with titles like On Dispelling Sadness, Benefits for Bodies and Souls, Refinement of Character...
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During the formative years of philosophy in the Islamic world, several authors in the Abbasid empire were writing their own self-help manuals with titles like On Dispelling Sadness, Benefits for Bodies and Souls, Refinement of Character and the telling title, Spiritual Medicine, a harmless, if somewhat badgering, collection of ethical advice. It was written as a companion to one of al-Rāzī’s large medical treatises, The Book for al-Mansur, the patron for whom both texts were dedicated. The Book for al-Mansur tells everything you need to know to have a healthy body, and Spiritual Medicine informs you of how to have a healthy soul. This may seem familiar in that we routinely talk about physical and mental health. Less familiar though is the idea that ethics may be considered some kind of medicine.
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Judgement and the role of the metaphysics of values in medical ethics
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Tim Thornton
2026, Journal of Medical Ethics
Despite its authors' intentions, the four principles approach to medical ethics can become crudely algorithmic in practice. The first section sets out the bare bones of the four principles approach drawing out those aspects of Beauchamp...
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Despite its authors' intentions, the four principles approach to medical ethics can become crudely algorithmic in practice. The first section sets out the bare bones of the four principles approach drawing out those aspects of Beauchamp and Childress's Principles of biomedical ethics that encourage this misreading. The second section argues that if the emphasis on the guidance of moral judgement is augmented by a particularist account of what disciplines it, then the danger can be reduced. In the third section, I consider how much the resultant picture diverges from Beauchamp and Childress's actual position.
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La fin justifie les moyans
by
Laurence Hansen-Love
2026, hansen-love Laurence
À propos de la maxime « La fin justifie les moyens » « Qui veut la fin veut aussi (en tant que la raison a sur les actions une influence décisive,) les moyens d'y arriver qui sont indispensablement nécessaires, et qui sont en son pouvoir...
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À propos de la maxime « La fin justifie les moyens »
« Qui veut la fin veut aussi (en tant que la raison a sur les actions une influence décisive,) les moyens d'y arriver qui sont indispensablement nécessaires, et qui sont en son pouvoir »  Emmanuel  Kant  Fondements de la métaphysique des mœurs 2.
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The Future of Moral Theories: Reflecting on Torbjörn Tännsjö’s Book “Setting Health-Care Priorities”
by
Nataliia Boichenko
2026
Torbjörn Tännsjö’s monograph “Setting Health-Care Priorities” clearly demonstrates its position in finest details involving case studies. It seems to be an especially valuable assistance, not least for study purposes, for those who are...
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Torbjörn Tännsjö’s monograph “Setting Health-Care Priorities” clearly demonstrates its position in finest details involving case studies. It seems to be an especially valuable assistance, not least for study purposes, for those who are interested in a comprehensive review of plausible moral theories and the practice of fair resource distribution in the field of healthcare. The author’s approach suggests engagement of the most applicable moral theories attempting to solve the important problem of sharing scarce and deficit resources in the healthcare. The book doesn’t aim for developing a single correct and effective moral theory for fair resource sharing, it rather discusses reaching a consensus regarding distribution decisions based on thoroughly reviewed theories. The appeal to Population Ethics in the present paper emphasizes the difference between patient-centered approach in the situation of limited medical resources and distribution of resources among the population in general...
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Medisophy: Defining an Integrative Epistemic Framework for Clinical Understanding, Moral Judgment, and Human Wellbeing
by
Abhijeet Shinde
2026
Modern medicine has achieved unprecedented explanatory power and technical precision; yet everyday clinical care remains conceptually fragmented. Biomedical mechanisms, psychological experience, ethical judgment, existential meaning,...
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Modern medicine has achieved unprecedented explanatory power and technical precision; yet everyday clinical care remains conceptually fragmented. Biomedical mechanisms, psychological experience, ethical judgment, existential meaning, social determinants, and reflective awareness are frequently treated as parallel add-ons rather than constitutive elements of clinical understanding. Established fields-philosophy of medicine and the medical humanities-address aspects of this terrain, while the biopsychosocial model offers a corrective to reductionism; however, a stable, clinician-facing framework that integrates these domains into a unified account of health, suffering, and clinical judgment remains under-specified in routine practice. This paper introduces Medisophy, a neologism proposed as an integrative epistemic framework that situates biomedical knowledge within (i) psychological interiority, (ii) ethical reasoning, (iii) existential meaning, (iv) social embeddedness, and (v) reflective awareness. Medisophy is defined with explicit scope conditions and exclusions, differentiated from adjacent constructs (philosophy of medicine, medical humanities, biopsychosocial model, narrative medicine, and evidence-based medicine), and operationalized through a six-domain architecture and a brief bedside tool (Medisophy Review). The central claim is not that medicine should become less scientific, but that scientific excellence requires conceptual completeness: clinical knowing is irreducibly biological, interpretive, moral, meaning-laden, and socially situated.
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Aggregationsskepsis
by
Adriano Mannino
2026, Handbuch Utilitarismus (hg. Andrić & Gesang)
Der Utilitarismus ist eine aggregative Moraltheorie. Aggregative Moraltheorien rechnen individuelle Interessen beziehungsweise entsprechende Werte, Ansprüche oder Gründe über Individuengrenzen hinweg auf. Den stärksten Einwänden sehen...
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Der Utilitarismus ist eine aggregative Moraltheorie. Aggregative Moraltheorien rechnen individuelle Interessen beziehungsweise entsprechende Werte, Ansprüche oder Gründe über Individuengrenzen hinweg auf. Den stärksten Einwänden sehen sich solche Theorien dann ausgesetzt, wenn sie unbegrenzt aufrechnen, das heißt hinreichend viele individuell geringfügige Interessen ein individuell schwerwiegendes Interesse überwiegen lassen. Auch die intuitiv plausiblere Aggregation individuell gleich gewichtiger Interessen lässt sich theoretisch jedoch nicht leicht begründen.
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Self-Regulate Learning and Al-Ghazali's Theory of Education
by
Faisal Irfan
2026, Self-Regulate Learning and Al-Ghazali’s Theory of Education
Al-Ghazali, the famous Muslim scholar from the 5 th century presented the Theory of Education in which he defines the major goal of the mankind is to implement the shari'a which can result in the development of the best human society. The...
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Al-Ghazali, the famous Muslim scholar from the 5 th century presented the Theory of Education in which he defines the major goal of the mankind is to implement the shari'a which can result in the development of the best human society. The impact of society on the learning behavior of the pupil is also advocated by the Self-Regulated Learning process. This process involves the phases of observation, planning, execution and the evaluation. Zimmerman, the major contributors to the Self-Regulated Learning presented a number of shared features that were found to be already stated and asserted by Al-Ghazali. Winne & Hadwin's Information Process Model for moving the facts from one's temporary to the permanent memory is also the way suggested by Al-Ghazali for memorizing the Holy Quran. Like the proponent of the Self-Regulated Learning, Al-Ghazali also believes that the flair of knowing the facts needs a motivation. He asserts that the knowledge is always kept within the human soul and the cognitive abilities play a substantial role in granting a substantial level of inspiration and motivation for self-learning. It is better to incorporate Al-Ghazali's contribution like the division of curriculum, categorization of knowledge, code of ethics for students, and the notion of ikhlaq in the learning process of the students for harvesting the best of results.
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Francesco Chiabotti La demande de bénédiction pour le Prophète selon Ibn al-ʿArabī (al-ṣalāt ʿalā Muḥammad) : le chapitre 540 des Futūḥāt al-makkiyya
by
Francesco Chiabotti
2026, Sainteté et héritage prophétique en Islam Études sur Ibn al-ʿArabī et l’histoire de la sainteté dédiées à la mémoire de Michel Chodkiewicz Sous la direction de Denis Gril Avec la collaboration de Francesco Chiabotti
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To know the value of everything—a critical commentary on B Björkman and S O Hansson’s “Bodily rights and property rights”
by
LARA RISSATTO COSTA DE FARIA
2026, Journal of Medical Ethics
Though the authors of this commentary have deep felt doubts about the fruitfulness of Bjorkman and Hansson’s analysis of bodily rights, they do not doubt their capacity to develop both creative and provocative thoughts It is always...
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Though the authors of this commentary have deep felt doubts about the fruitfulness of Bjorkman and Hansson’s analysis of bodily rights, they do not doubt their capacity to develop both creative and provocative thoughts It is always welcoming to be confronted with thoughts that, even though one wholeheartedly disagrees with them, have the effect of stimulating one’s own reflections on matters, which without such confrontations, would have been less distinct, less critical—and we would gladly admit, less polemical. Thus it is thanks to Barbro Bjorkman and Sven Ove Hansson’s article, “Bodily rights and property rights”, that we have been able to set our present course into these murky waters. The issue they want to address is by no means of a kind that lends itself easily to theoretical speculation. This has, perhaps, as much to do with the inherent intricacy of the issue itself as with the controversy it has managed to arouse. The issue is: is it possible to have ownership over one’s ...
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The Inexplicability of Kant’s Naturzweck: Kant on Teleology, Explanation and Biology
by
James Kreines
2026
Kant’s position on teleology and biology is neither inconsistent nor obsolete; his arguments have some surprising and enduring philosophical strengths. But Kant’s account will appear weak if we muddy the waters by reading him as aiming to...
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Kant’s position on teleology and biology is neither inconsistent nor obsolete; his arguments have some surprising and enduring philosophical strengths. But Kant’s account will appear weak if we muddy the waters by reading him as aiming to defend teleology by appealing to considerations popular in contemporary philosophy. Kant argues for very different conclusions: we can neither know teleological judgments of living beings to be true, nor legitimately explain living beings in teleological terms; such teleological judgment is justified only as a “problematic” guideline in our search for mechanistic explanations. These conclusions are well supported by Kant’s defense of his demanding analysis, according to which teleological judgment literally applies to a complex whole only where teleology truly explains the presence of its parts.
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Person — a Key Concept for Ethics
by
Kevin Doran
2026, The Linacre Quarterly
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Relational Consciousness and the Role of AI (Part II): Relational Mediation and the Reconstruction of Human Meaning
by
Daedo Jun
2026, Preprint (Academia.edu)
This paper presents Part II of a research series on relational consciousness and the role of artificial intelligence. While artificial intelligence is not treated as a conscious subject, this study argues that it can nevertheless...
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This paper presents Part II of a research series on relational consciousness and
the role of artificial intelligence. While artificial intelligence is not treated as a
conscious subject, this study argues that it can nevertheless participate struc
turally and deeply in human meaning formation when examined from temporal
and relational perspectives. Whereas Part I proposed a relational framework of
meaning formation, the present paper investigates how sustained human–AI in
teraction gradually reorganizes internal interpretive structures, judgment rhythms,
and modes of meaning organization within human cognition.
This study does not regard artificial intelligence as a generator of meaning.
Instead, AI is positioned as a relational mediating structure through which human
thought is externalized, reorganized, and stabilized across repeated interaction.
From this perspective, AI does not produce meaning, but functions as a mediator
that shapes the pathways through which humans construct meaning and delineates
the space of interpretive possibility.
In particular, this paper examines how relational mediation alters human thought
trajectories and explores the philosophical implications of these changes for human
autonomy and interpretive structure. Moving beyond debates on machine con
sciousness, the study clarifies the structural impact of human–AI interaction on
internal human meaning systems and offers a philosophical foundation for rethink
ing human autonomy within hybrid cognitive environments.
Keywords: relational consciousness; artificial intelligence; relational mediation; recon
struction of human meaning; structural transformation; human autonomy; temporal
meaning formation; hybrid cognition
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The Role of Ethical Environment in Reducing Escalation of Commitment Bias
by
Yusnaini Yusnaini
2026, Sriwijaya International Journal of Dynamic Economics and Business
Several empirical studies have shown that decision makers tend to experience an escalation of commitment bias, namely a tendency to continue investment projects that are less profitable, even though there is information of the less...
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Several empirical studies have shown that decision makers tend to experience an escalation of commitment bias, namely a tendency to continue investment projects that are less profitable, even though there is information of the less profitable project performance and that other available alternative investment opportunities are more profitable in the future. This study aims to improve the manager's decision making behavior model by considering the ethical environment as one of the factors that influence investment project evaluation decisions. More specifically, this study empirically examines the ethical environment as a strategy to reduce the tendency for escalation of commitment behavior. This study uses a laboratory experimental method with a 2 x 2 factorial experimental design between subject with adverse selection (present/absent) and ethical environment (strong/weak). The research sample consisted of 246 undergraduate and postgraduate students in Accounting and Management who acted as investment project managers. Based on ANOVA analysis results, it shows that managers who experience adverse selection conditions tend to continue unfavorable projects (conduct escalation of commitment). In addition, the results of this study also show that the tendency of managers to end investment projects that are not profitable for managers who are in a condition of a strong ethical environment will be greater when they experience adverse selection conditions compared to when they do not experience it.
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Epistemic Limits and the Inaccessibility of Trauma in Dying City
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English Literature and Culture Journal JCRELC
2026, Journal of Creative Research in English Literature and Culture
This paper analyzes Christopher Shinn's Dying City as a depiction of trauma that evades typical frameworks of loss, grief, and psychological paralysis. Reading it from the perspectives of contemporary trauma theory, the paper argues that...
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This paper analyzes Christopher Shinn's Dying City as a depiction of trauma that evades typical frameworks of loss, grief, and psychological paralysis. Reading it from the perspectives of contemporary trauma theory, the paper argues that the play presents trauma as an epistemic and moral standstill rather than an accessible and healable wound. Using core arguments of trauma theorists such as Cathy Caruth and Dominick LaCapra, the paper finds that the play dramatizes trauma as an unclaimed experience which is resistant to closure and remains inaccessible to the talking cure. The protagonist's disillusionment with the cherished ideals behind a war he once believed in leads to a crisis of the self, primarily due to a shattering realization of his own complicity in the atrocities committed in the name of justice. Through emphatic stage devices such as pauses, fragmented narration, non-linear timeframe, and doubling of roles, the play skillfully employs the theatrical medium to stage the limits of knowing such incidents. The play also showcases how trauma moves beyond the individual to involve the survivors left behind in intimate domestic spaces. Their continuous struggle with the uncertainty of events relates to the core claim of the inaccessibility of trauma for those who survive. By exploring trauma as an ethical crisis alongside its psycho-social dimensions, this paper extends the implications of trauma in existing research on post-9/11 literature and adds a new dimension to debates around the morality of modern warfare, cultural trauma, and collective responsibility.
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Toward Understanding Aspects of the Precautionary Principle
by
Carl Cranor
2026, Journal of Medicine and Philosophy
The idea of a precautionary principle (or precautionary principles) is beginning to come to the wider attention of the environmental community, governmental agencies, regulatory agencies, and the regulated community. Different...
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The idea of a precautionary principle (or precautionary principles) is beginning to come to the wider attention of the environmental community, governmental agencies, regulatory agencies, and the regulated community. Different precautionary principles have not been specified in detail, and, of course, this is difficult to do. Yet some specification must be done in order to understand it better and, if it is to be used for specific action-guidance, to implement it. Moreover, it is important to understand more about the principle, its background assumptions and its comparison with other principles to which we might subscribe. This paper explores aspects of the PP and its background assumptions and presuppositions, comparing them with those for risk assessment and other statements of the PP. It also briefly indicates how it resembles legal principles in addressing problems of uncertainty. Finally, it recapitulates two possible versions of the PP and suggests an application of it for an emerging threat to the environment and public health. This review suggests the PP has plausible applications and is not the radical principle some have suggested.
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Problems of Teaching History to Students with Learning Disabilities
by
Katalin Mező
2026, Štúdie zo Špeciálnej Pedagogiky/Studies in Special Education
In the Hungarian public education system, the teaching of history appears among the subjects of the upper grades of primary school (National Core Curriculum, 2020), and therefore it is also included among the instructional expectations...
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In the Hungarian public education system, the teaching of history appears among the subjects of the upper grades of primary school (National Core Curriculum, 2020), and therefore it is also included among the instructional expectations for students with learning disabilities with special educational needs. However, the teaching of history to students with learning disabilities is hindered and influenced by numerous factors, which require the application of differentiated knowledge and methods on the part of history teachers and/or special education teachers responsible for teaching history. The aim of this study is to present the main factors that impede and influence the learning of history among students with learning disabilities. In addition, a questionnaire survey conducted among teachers who teach history (n = 80) is presented, in which we analysed teachers’ opinions regarding three themes about teaching history from the aspect of students with learning disabilities: 1) Understanding of curriculum content, 2. Usefulness of curriculum content, and 3. Usefulness of learning aids. The data were processed using the SPSS software, applying descriptive statistics and the Chi-square test. The 58,75% of the teachers doubt whether their students with learning disabilities have understood the body of curricular knowledge communicated within history education. Teachers' 92,5%  think that students with learning disabilities will not use the content of the subject history in their later lives. There is high (more than 90%) agreement among teachers regarding the usefulness of interactive whiteboards and educational games in the context of teaching history to students with learning disabilities.
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Holding in the Collapse: Interpretation, Trauma, and the Cycles of the Third Space
by
Dimitris Seferiadis
2026
This article explores the creation, collapse, and potential reestablishment of the Third Space as a prerequisite for analytic transformation, with an emphasis on its connection to trauma. The Third Space-an intermediate psychic field...
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This article explores the creation, collapse, and potential reestablishment of the Third Space as a prerequisite for analytic transformation, with an emphasis on its connection to trauma. The Third Space-an intermediate psychic field enabling reciprocity and transition-is not guaranteed; it requires a minimal fantasy of the Other as resilient and available. In cases of primary, unrepresentable trauma, this potential is radically absent. Analytic encounters do not reactivate trauma through representation but through repetition, leading to the collapse of the analytic scene and the emergence of a pseudo-Third Space. Interpretation, within this frame, is not a technical intervention but an embodied act of endurance. The analyst does not respond with defense or insight but remains within the inertia of psychic disorganization. The reappearance of the Third Space is not a restoration but a creation through the tolerance of traumatic conditions. The theoretical framework draws on the work of Winnicott, Green, Ogden, Benjamin, Bion, Ferro, and Eigen to argue that interpretation functions as a form-giving act toward the unspeakable-not to explain, but to dwell within what cannot yet be grasped. The Third Space re-emerges not as a solution, but as a shared rhythm of being.
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A Social Disruptiveness-Based Approach to AI Governance: Complementing the Risk-Based Approach of the AI Act
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Samuela Marchiori
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Anna Puzio
2026
The AI Act advances a risk-based approach to the legal regulation of AI systems in the European Union. While we support this development, we argue that adequate AI governance requires paying attention to the broader implications of AI...
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The AI Act advances a risk-based approach to the legal regulation of AI systems in the European Union. While we support this development, we argue that adequate AI governance requires paying attention to the broader implications of AI systems on the socio-technical landscape in which they are designed, developed, and used. In addition to risk-based impact assessments, this involves coming to terms with the socially disruptive implications of AI, which should be governed and guided in a dynamic ecosystem of regulation, law, ethics, and evolving human practice. In this paper, we outline a 'social disruptiveness-based' approach to AI governance aimed at addressing disruptions by AI that are not easily captured by legal regulation, but that are nonetheless of great societal and ethical concern. We argue that integrating the AI Act risk-based approach with a social disruptiveness-based approach can offer a more nuanced understanding of the dimensions of impact of AI systems on society at large, thus enhancing the governance of AI and other socially disruptive technologies.
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Vida Ética: os melhores ensaios do mais polêmico filósofo da atualidade
by
Natan Monsores
2026, Revista Brasileira de Bioética
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‘Utilitarian’ judgments in sacrificial moral dilemmas do not reflect impartial concern for the greater good
by
Julian Savulescu
2026, Cognition
A growing body of research has focused on so-called 'utilitarian' judgments in moral dilemmas in which participants have to choose whether to sacrifice one person in order to save the lives of a greater number. However, the relation...
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A growing body of research has focused on so-called 'utilitarian' judgments in moral dilemmas in which participants have to choose whether to sacrifice one person in order to save the lives of a greater number. However, the relation between such 'utilitarian' judgments and genuine utilitarian impartial concern for the greater good remains unclear. Across four studies, we investigated the relationship between 'utilitarian' judgment in such sacrificial dilemmas and a range of traits, attitudes, judgments and behaviors that either reflect or reject an impartial concern for the greater good of all. In Study 1, we found that rates of 'utilitarian' judgment were associated with a broadly immoral outlook concerning clear ethical transgressions in a business context, as well as with sub-clinical psychopathy. In Study 2, we found that 'utilitarian' judgment was associated with greater endorsement of rational egoism, less donation of money to a charity, and less identification with the whole of humanity, a core feature of classical utilitarianism. In Studies 3 and 4, we found no association between 'utilitarian' judgments in sacrificial dilemmas and characteristic utilitarian judgments relating to assistance to distant people in need, self-sacrifice and impartiality, even when the utilitarian justification for these judgments was made explicit and unequivocal. This lack of association remained even when we controlled for the antisocial element in 'utilitarian' judgment. Taken together, these results suggest that there is very little relation between sacrificial judgments in the hypothetical dilemmas that dominate current research, and a genuine utilitarian approach to ethics.
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‘Utilitarian’ judgments in sacrificial moral dilemmas do not reflect impartial concern for the greater good
by
Julian Savulescu
2026, Cognition
A growing body of research has focused on so-called 'utilitarian' judgments in moral dilemmas in which participants have to choose whether to sacrifice one person in order to save the lives of a greater number. However, the relation...
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A growing body of research has focused on so-called 'utilitarian' judgments in moral dilemmas in which participants have to choose whether to sacrifice one person in order to save the lives of a greater number. However, the relation between such 'utilitarian' judgments and genuine utilitarian impartial concern for the greater good remains unclear. Across four studies, we investigated the relationship between 'utilitarian' judgment in such sacrificial dilemmas and a range of traits, attitudes, judgments and behaviors that either reflect or reject an impartial concern for the greater good of all. In Study 1, we found that rates of 'utilitarian' judgment were associated with a broadly immoral outlook concerning clear ethical transgressions in a business context, as well as with sub-clinical psychopathy. In Study 2, we found that 'utilitarian' judgment was associated with greater endorsement of rational egoism, less donation of money to a charity, and less identification with the whole of humanity, a core feature of classical utilitarianism. In Studies 3 and 4, we found no association between 'utilitarian' judgments in sacrificial dilemmas and characteristic utilitarian judgments relating to assistance to distant people in need, self-sacrifice and impartiality, even when the utilitarian justification for these judgments was made explicit and unequivocal. This lack of association remained even when we controlled for the antisocial element in 'utilitarian' judgment. Taken together, these results suggest that there is very little relation between sacrificial judgments in the hypothetical dilemmas that dominate current research, and a genuine utilitarian approach to ethics.
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Cold or calculating? Reduced activity in the subgenual cingulate cortex reflects decreased emotional aversion to harming in counterintuitive utilitarian judgment
by
Julian Savulescu
2026, Cognition
Recent research on moral decision-making has suggested that many common moral judgments are based on immediate intuitions. However, some individuals arrive at highly counterintuitive utilitarian conclusions about when it is permissible to...
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Recent research on moral decision-making has suggested that many common moral judgments are based on immediate intuitions. However, some individuals arrive at highly counterintuitive utilitarian conclusions about when it is permissible to harm other individuals. Such utilitarian judgments have been attributed to effortful reasoning that has overcome our natural emotional aversion to harming others. Recent studies, however, suggest that such utilitarian judgments might also result from a decreased aversion to harming others, due to a deficit in empathic concern and social emotion. The present study investigated the neural basis of such indifference to harming using functional neuroimaging during engagement in moral dilemmas. A tendency to counterintuitive utilitarian judgment was associated both with 'psychoticism', a trait associated with a lack of empathic concern and antisocial tendencies, and with 'need for cognition', a trait reflecting preference for effortful cognition. Importantly, only psychoticism was also negatively correlated with activation in the subgenual cingulate cortex (SCC), a brain area implicated in empathic concern and social emotions such as guilt, during counterintuitive utilitarian judgments. Our findings suggest that when individuals reach highly counterintuitive utilitarian conclusions, this need not reflect greater engagement in explicit moral deliberation. It may rather reflect a lack of empathic concern, and diminished aversion to harming others.
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Related Topics
Normative Ethics
Meta-Ethics
Ethics
Moral Philosophy
Applied Ethics
Moral Psychology
Virtue Ethics
Philosophy
Practical Reasoning
Political Philosophy
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