Late in 1990, the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions at Illinois Institute of Technology (lIT) received a grant of more than $200,000 from the National Science Foundation to try a campus-wide approach to integrating professional ethics into its technical curriculum.! Enough has now been accomplished to draw some tentative conclusions. I am the grant's principal investigator. In this paper, I shall describe what we at lIT did, what we learned, and what others, especially philosophers, can learn (...) from us. We set out to develop an approach that others could profitably adopt. I believe that we succeeded. (shrink)

Moral sensitivity affects whether and how we see others, note moral concerns, respond with delicacy, and navigate complex social interactions. Scholars from a variety of fields explore the concept of moral sensitivity and how it develops, beginning with a natural moral capacity for sensitivity towards others that is shaped in a variety of ways through relationships, forms of teaching, and social institutions. Each of these influences alters the capacity as well as one’s responses in complex ways. The concept of moral (...) sensitivity deepens as progressive chapters demonstrate its increasing complexity through development within individuals, over time, as they mature, and as their relationships and social contexts expand. The chapters integrate research from philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, literature, education, and media and technology studies, with key chapters by Darcia Narváez, Nancy E. Snow, Michael S. Pritchard, and Stephen J. Thoma and a Foreword by Owen Flanagan. It is the only comprehensive presentation of interdisciplinary work on moral sensitivity that integrates a theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical analysis. This highly interdisciplinary approach provides a new way of thinking about the relationship of individuals to society and moral sensitivity as a social phenomenon, extending current research in ethics, moral psychology, and psychology toward situated, embodied, and contextual analyses. (shrink)

Francis Hutcheson (1694-1745) Francis Hutcheson was an eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher whose meticulous writings and activities influenced life in Scotland, Great Britain, Europe, and even the newly formed North American colonies. For historians and political scientists, the emphasis has been on his theories of liberalism and political rights; for philosophers and psychologists, Hutcheson’s importance comes from […].

Bernard Mandeville (1670-1733) Bernard Mandeville is primarily remembered for his impact on discussions of morality and economic theory in the early eighteenth century. His most noteworthy and notorious work is The Fable of the Bees, which triggered immense public criticism at the time. He had a particular influence on philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment, most […].

Looking closely at Adam Smith’s account of the spectator perspective – along with the compatible spectator accounts in Hutcheson and Hume – is especiallyhelpful to understanding one of the main themes of the Scottish Enlightenment. The Scots in response to Hobbesian egoism described a morality that does not need to overcome a human nature that pits individuals against each other. Rather each of the three Scots describes the empirical formation of our humanity and our moral sentiments in the context of (...) relating to and observing others. The three spectator accounts of Smith, Hutcheson, and Hume clearly describe this involvement of others in the formation of morality. Adam Smith explicitly gives an accounting of the importance and, in fact, necessity of others in the formulating of not only our moral evaluations but also the very possibility of understanding one’s humanity and having an idea of morality at all. In this paper, I explain Smith’s account specifically along with its similarity to Hutcheson’s and Hume’s and argue that these empiricists ground moral sentiments in person to person relationships. For the three Scots, being human and developing a morality is begun in interactions with others. We formulate who it is we are and can be and determine acceptable ways to interact in the company of others. (shrink)