The book illustrates the concept of action in three different contexts - the justification of actions, people's life history, and pragmatism.Because of ...

Ernst Fehr’s experimental research on altruistic behaviour aims at superseding the classical homo oeconomicus in micro-economic behaviour theory. This essay discusses Fehr’s results from two points of view: first, in regard to the understanding of social action associated with the term “altruism”; second, in regard to the ‘anthropological’ strategy of research that is based on the laboratory method. Against the emphasis on altruism it will be argued that it misleads into providing a distorted description of social acting, and that, due (...) to insufficient clarity about motives for acting, Fehr’s empirical results give evidence not of altruism but rather of phenomena of social recognition. The objection against the anthropological strategy will be that it makes visible only local phenomena within prevailing social conditions and that it thus assumes more than it explains. (shrink)

The degradation of natural resources in the environment is, technically speaking, a form of depleting a public good. Public goods are notorious for free-riding among egoists, but the marginality of individual contributions provides no less an obstacle, both to moral duty and motivation. This article discusses the problems of minimized and missing causal involvement on the empirical side; and, in the applicability of classical moral arguments, on the ethical side. It. suggests that individual responsibility is derived on the basis of (...) implicit advantage-taking from participation in collective action. (shrink)

Russia’s war against Ukraine has grave consequences in several political categories. These include: a reassessment of the school of ‘political realism’, one of whose proponents claims to have predicted the war. Was the West partly ‘responsible’ for the war? Second, to what extent does the war of aggression, as an undeniable violation of law, damage the status of international law and justice? Third, the war is embedded in political developments that stretch back a century. It is examined in its context (...) within American foreign policy since the Wilsonian peace programme, in relation to the dangerous reluctance of the EU to pursue a decisive geopolitical policy towards Russia, and interpreted in the light of Stalinist echoes within Russian politics. (shrink)

Die analytische Handlungstheorie ist gegenwärtig in einem Stadium, in dem sie sich anschickt, ihre vor allem von D. Davidson fixierte Programmatik zu verlassen. Unter den zwei Bedingungen, Beschreibungsabhängigkeit und Gründe-Ursachen-Synthese, gewinnt, anders als bei Davidson, die Erstere zunehmend größeres Gewicht. Den hoffnungsvollen Übergang zu einer holistisch-kontextuellen Handlungstheorie belegen drei neuere Diskussionen, deren Verlauf geschildert wird: das Wiedergewinnen der Absichten in Bratmans Plänetheorie, die Suche nach nicht auf Glauben/Wünsche-Paare reduzible Handlungsgründe und das Entdecken der Akteursaktivität, einschließlich der Rolle des normativ rekonstruierten (...) Akteurs. (shrink)

“Having a moral right” in private and public debates probably is one of the most important arguments to bring some foundation to one’s claims. Within international law and politics, for example, one easily falls back on universal “human rights”, especially if neither a more subtle moral argument nor prudential reasons find a hold. But in some contrast to this agreement on the strong practical relevance of rights, both the conceptual analysis and normative justification of rights are rather controversial in moral (...) philosophy. There is, perhaps, a consensus on a constructivist understanding of rights, that is that rights have to be constructed from a basis of more “elementary parts” of morality. There is no agreement, however, on the exact character of these parts and their normative import within an overall construction of rights. It seems to be clear somehow that rights have to secure and promote interests — of a human and animal kind. Not so clear is the kind of foundation rights can be given within the sphere of interests, especially if this is understood in a reductive sense. Nevertheless, because the function of rights is to secure interests, the construction of rights from an understanding of interests seems to suggest itself. It is in the interest of all beings to have their interests secured and furthered by rights. Therefore, an “interest theory of rights” provides itself as a primary option — meaning thereby the justificatory, and not the directive side of rights. (shrink)

It is not easy to give up on a tradition that promises to rationalize, explain, and thereby ultimately help improve, society. This article narrates the history of Critical Theory in three stages, following the dynamics of its own self-criticism during distinct historical periods and within different societies. Horkheimer/adorno, Habermas and Honneth are read as participating in a philosophical project of societal rationalism which can be criticized by appeal to a pragmatist view of social theories, and specifically the ‘pragmatic maxim’. In (...) spite of its post-metaphysical announcements, Critical Theory overextends itself when it seeks to reconcile fully the normative and the empirical. An alternative, and more explicitly ethical and empirically controllable, scheme for critical theories (plural!) is suggested. (shrink)

Health and beauty are the most important physical ideals. This paper seeks to compare and contrast these ideals, based on a value theory of human abilities. Health is comprehended as a potential ability to act grounded in bodily functions. Beauty is explained as a symbolising reference to happiness, physical beauty as a combination of organic orientation to purpose and virtuous orientation to action. Physical beauty is the implicit symbolic expression of mental and physical health. This teleological theory is tested and (...) exemplified using current stereotypes such as youthfulness, slimness and shapeliness. (shrink)

In 2003, South African writer J. M. Coetzee was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his riveting portrayals of racial repression, sexual politics, the guises of reason, and the hypocrisy of human beings toward animals and nature. Coetzee was credited with being "a scrupulous doubter, ruthless in his criticism of the cruel rationalism and cosmetic morality of western civilization." The film of his novel _Disgrace_, starring John Malkovich, brought his challenging ideas to a new audience. Anton Leist (...) and Peter Singer have assembled an outstanding group of contributors who probe deeply into Coetzee's extensive and extraordinary corpus. They explore his approach to ethical theory and philosophy and pay particular attention to his representation of the human-animal relationship. They also confront Coetzee's depiction of the elementary conditions of life, the origins of morality, the recognition of value in others, the sexual dynamics between men and women, the normality of suppression, and the possibility of equality in postcolonial society. With its wide-ranging consideration of philosophical issues, especially in relation to fiction, this volume stands alone in its extraordinary exchange of ethical and literary inquiry. (shrink)

When we want to justify claims against one another, we discover that conceptual thought alone is not sufficient to legitimize property and income in the relative and proper proportions among members of a productive group. Instead, the basis for justification should also be seen in motivational states, validated less by rational thought than by an effective behaviour. To circumnavigate otherwise dangerously utopian claims to justice, the social sciences, and especially behavioural economics, are the most reliable basis for normative distributive justice. (...) This article builds on recent findings of experiments, first of all in order to give proof of the extent to which a general behavioural tendency towards equality is widespread among people, and second of all in order to highlight ‘desert’ and ‘need’ as the crucial criteria of just distribution, which will then sum up to justified inequality in the economic sphere. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Jahrbuch für Wissenschaft und Ethik Jahrgang: 16 Heft: 1 Seiten: 159-178.

In seinem im Stil einer vorlesungsartigen Einführung in die Ethik verfaßten Buch stellt Anton Leist die unausweichliche Bedeutung der Ethik für jeden einzelnen in seinem eigenen Leben heraus. Verstanden wird die Moral in einem an Kant orientierten Vorschlag als eine ideelle Konstruktion, die objektive Kriterien sowohl entwickelt wie ihnen gehorcht. Inhaltlich entsteht dabei eine universelle Moral, die allerdings von internen Widersprüchen bedroht ist. Die persönlichen und unpersönlichen Beziehungen, die Forderungen nach Hilfe und Nichtschaden stehen widersprüchlich zueinander und benötigen (...) einer neuen Zuordnung. Der moderne Universalismus ist auch heute noch weitgehend ein Programm – wenn auch, wie der Autor zeigt, ein grundsätzlich realisierbares. (shrink)

Sustainability is currently the term dominating environmental policy. Its extensive political diffusion is in stark contrast, however, to the extent to which there is agreement over its meaning. Its ability to motivate is not in question, but a certain scepticism surrounds its ideological content. Since ideological terms have no objective basis, it is therefore important for the purposes of environmental policy to establish whether such scepticism is justified.

This critical review concentrates on four important parts of Raimo Tuomela’s analytical theory of social action. It examines the book’s reconstructions of social action, of practical reasoning in this context, of social norms and it investigates its claim to a conceptual individualism. The result is critical in several aspects. Tuomela’s most original idea in the analysis of joint action, that of we-intentions, is not broad enough to cover more than a part of social action in the commonly understood sense. His (...) ‘social’ practical reasoning incorporates an implausible premiss. The game-theoretical reconstruction of social norms strikes one as unlikely to be fulfilled in social reality. Hardly any of these analyses back up the individualist claims of Tuomela’s project. (shrink)

Health and beauty are the most important physical ideals. This paper seeks to compare and contrast these ideals, based on a value theory of human abilities. Health is comprehended as a potential ability to act grounded in bodily functions. Beauty is explained as a symbolising reference to happiness, physical beauty as a combination of organic orientation to purpose and virtuous orientation to action. Physical beauty is the implicit symbolic expression of mental and physical health. This teleological theory is tested and (...) exemplified using current stereotypes such as youthfulness, slimness and shapeliness. (shrink)

Some goods cannot, according to MacLean, be dealt with adequately by cost-benefit analysis. An explanation for this thesis is given, linking these goods to the altruism implied in intimate social relations. MacLean’s argument is then shown to be insufficient when extended to matters of public relevance. The integration of political values and economic costs should be possible, on a level doing justice to both.

Myers' offer of cooperation as a medicine for ailing moral theories is welcomed as potentially helpful, even if his handling of it is diagnosed as implicitly one-sided consequentialist. His search for an ethically “substantive way of engaging with others” is shown as not coherent with his remarks on the tasks cooperation as an ethical concept has to fulfil. Instead, it is proposed that the concept be disentangled from the micro- problems Myers' wants it to solve, and that it be read (...) more freely, from the perspective of Rawls' conception of cooperation. (shrink)

The article gives an overview on arguments typically used within discussions on the ethical aspects of abortion. Five types of argument especially are analyzed more closely. Only one type withstands critical scrutiny: so-called interest-arguments, arguments referring to whether or when being killed (as involved in abortion) is against the interest of the fetus. In critical revision of a proposal due to Peter Singer the result is that abortion should be seen as morally neutral up to four months of pregnancy.

Die Kantische Ethik gilt bis heute als die dominante Theorie der Moral, und das nicht nur mit Blick auf ihre moralischen Inhalte, sondern mehr noch mit Bezug auf ihre Begründung der moralischen Prinzipien aus der Vernunft. Die Auseinandersetzung mit Kant führt jedoch zu der Einsicht, daß wir unsere Vorstellungen vom Verhältnis zwischen Ethik und Moral, sowie von der Verbindung von Moral und sozialer Realität reformulieren müssen. Die im vorliegenden Buch gesammelten Artikel verbindet die Erwartung, daß die Moral statt über die (...) Vernunft über ihre Funktion im Rahmen sozialer Beziehungen besser zu verstehen und gestalten sein sollte. Den konkreten Reichtum unserer Handlungsziele, Beziehungsmöglichkeiten und sozialen Fähigkeiten sind wir nur dann in der Lage zu erschließen, wenn wir das Werkzeug der abstrakten Vernunft als unbrauchbar beiseite legen und statt dessen mit den alltäglichen, persönlichen und überpersönlichen, Erfahrungen arbeiten, nit denen wir uns auskennen. Weil einzig aus den Beziehungsformen Normativität erwächst, sollten uns diese selbst, ihre Bedeutungen und ihre Wandelbarkeit interessieren, weniger kodifizierbare moralische Pflichten und Regeln. Gegenstand der Ethik der Beziehungen sind die konkreten Spielräume und Kräfte der sozialen Verhältnisse zwischen Menschen, nicht die abstrakten Fingerzeige eines von den Beziehungen unabhängigen ‚moralischen Gesetzes'. (shrink)

Es soll die These begründet werden, daß die Suche nach Wahrheitskriterien als philosophische Anstrengung sinnlos ist, weil einerseits mit Wahrheit ein Absolutheitsanspruch der Erkenntnis erhoben werden muß, andererseits aber ein solcher Anspruch mit Hilfe von Wahrheitskriterien nicht eingelöst werden kann. Die Begründung faßt den spezifischen Geltungscharakter des Wahrheitsanspruchs und einen unausweichlichen Regreß bei Wahrheitsfragen als geeignete Hinweise auf, daß und wieso Wahrheitskriterien logisch unmöglich sind; daß und wieso die Erkenntnispraxis darunter keinen Schaden erleidet; daß und wieso Wahrheit als die regulative (...) Rolle verstanden werden soll, welche der Wahrheitsanspruch in der Erkenntnis hat. (shrink)