POLEMICS & DEBATES : Moral tragedy
In this paper it is argued, contrary to certain moralists, that resolutely good people can be assured of a contentment of the soul.
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In this paper it is argued, contrary to certain moralists, that resolutely good people can be assured of a contentment of the soul.
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The principal postulate of environmental ethics is to include animals, or even all living entities, in the moral universe. However, questions include: Does this equally concern rats, mice, mosquitoes, bugs, parasites and other creatures which are dangerous for people’s health and life? If not, what are the criteria for selecting protected living beings and unprotected ones? Aren’t such criteria anthropocentric, and contrary to the biocentric assumptions of environmental ethics? Do the differences between the assumptions of environmental ethics and human ethics affect the particular rules of these two kinds of ethics, demanding different kinds of behaviour (towards human and towards nonhuman beings)? How should we appraise people who respect one kind of ethics, but break the other? Could we recognize those who live and act accordingly to the ethics of respect for nature, but don’t respect human rights, as ethically good? And do animals have rights in the same way as human beings? Are they the same rights, or different rights? And if they are different, should they nonetheless have ethical sources and foundations? These are some of the main dilemmas of environmental ethics which are considered in this article.
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The author discusses the relationship between art and the body, as exemplified by the similarities and differences in the works of two Japanese artists, Matsui Chie (b. 1960) and Higashikage Tomohiro (b. 1978); and the Polish artist, mirosław Bałka (b. 1958). These examples are referred to in the context of a unique project recently conducted in Japan — the Tatsuno Art Project 2013. Held with the support of the Agency for Cultural Affairs of Japan, the project aims to present contemporary art to people from across Japan and around the globe, and to capitalize on the region’s unique cultural heritage, creating opportunities for people to communicate with local residents and making Tatsuno a more dynamic and popular place to visit. This paper considers various connections between art and the body by focusing on a selection of works included in the Tatsuno Art Project 2013: Arts and memories. Known in past centuries as the ‘little Kyoto’ of Harima Province, Tatsuno is an atmospheric old castle town. It is mild and relatively warm all year round, with the climate of the nearby Seto Inland Sea region, said to be similar to that of the mediterranean. Thanks to the support of numerous people, the organizers were able to hold the 2013 event which represented the culmination of their efforts over the past few years, being the largest ever in terms of scale with nine invited artists, eleven other participating artists, and one contemporary musician, for a total of 21 creators contributing works. With new spaces added to create a total of 16 venues, the community‑wide project truly achieved its goal of presenting the ‘historic castle town as a museum’. The project curators were also able to strengthen Tatsuno’s international ties by inviting artists from France and Poland to take part, as well as Japanese artists residing in the UK and Spain.
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This essay examines the question of whether the Humean view of instrumental rationality, i.e., rationality in the sense of acting optimally to achieve given goals, should be understood as skepticism. The analysis draws on two classic texts on the problem of practical rationality, namely K. Setiya's essay "Hume on Practical Reason" and J. Hampton's essay "Does Hume have an Instrumental Conception on Practical Reason?”. The text contains three parts. The first part is dedicated to some terminological distinctions regarding the question of skepticism and practical rationality. The second part outlines the arguments offered by the two authors in relation to the question posed in the title. The third part of the analysis points out the most important ideas that, in my opinion, make K. Setyia's argumentation more convincing than J. Hampton's.
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The article discusses The Lobster (2015) by Yorgos Lanthimos in connection with the concepts of transcendence and immanence, morality and ethics. This film is a dystopia that critically reveals the relationship between modernity and morality and draws attention with its objections to transcendental moral values. Therefore, in this study, the film is the subject of a discussion mainly focusing on the loss of control of modern individuals over their own lives under the pressure of transcendent values and moral systems that produce hierarchy. The film is evaluated on the axis of Spinoza’s approach to immanence ethics. The distinction between morality and ethics, which stands out in Spinoza’s philosophy of immanence, and the association of morality with transcendence and ethics with immanence form the basis of the analysis of the film. Criticisms of transcendence and morality are hidden in the ironic style that is based on Cartesian oppositions such as nature–culture, good–evil, mind–body, woman–man, rule-illegal, similarity–difference in the film. In addition, the emphasis on the lack of emotion in the film is an important part of the critical style of the film in terms of the role that Spinoza assigns to the affects in the context of activating the conatus.
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In this article, an attempt is made to ontological relations with subjective realities using spatial rhetoric, it is about understanding and continuity of traumatic experience. Understanding is considered as evidence, which is provided by the locative participation of the subject in the event. The subject receives the status of a witness in the performative space of damage (avant-garde art, actionism, litigation). An artist or juror is able to witness the trauma by providing a discourse of justice through the language of non-semantic signs.
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Although approached in different notes, randomly spread by mathematician Eugen Russu in one of his 1940 works called 'Notes on MAN', the issues of man and moral are various, covering to a large extent the subject matter of all that is characteristic to a human being – moral, science, culture from the perspective of intertwining psychology and ethics. Yet, despite all drawbacks caused by such a composition of the book, a logical and coherent vision can be scrupulously achieved that could account for the way more than eight decades ago a man of culture coming from the field of a particular science, that is mathematics, envisaged man (his nature and condition) and moral.
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Review of Ion Cordoneanu, Liviu Cocei (editori), 'Despre fericire', Timișoara, Editura Universității de Vest, colecția Filosofia în viață, 2022
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I borrow part of the title of my paper from Susan Sontag. In 2003, a year before her death, Susan Sontag published an essay entitled Regarding the Pain of Others. There she takes up the subject of the moral significance of presenting the views of war, violent human death exposed to the lenses of cameras. Her approach to the contemporary issue of mediatisation through the image of the sight of human suffering provokes a question: Do we need teleethics today, the ethics of remote moral relations? Using the method of comparative analysis in the area of cultural determinants of ethics, I draw attention to the contemporary challenges that the culture of late modernity imposes on the morality of everyday life. My thesis is this: The images of human suffering provided by the media reveal the imperfection of our morality. As moral subjects, we are not prepared to respond to the suffering of human beings absent from face-to-face relationships. So, we need teleethics. The paper is devoted to this issue.
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Today, the dynamic development of biomedical sciences generates more and more ethical questions about the limits of medical intervention in human life. Also, the progress that has been made in such fields as genetics or biotechnology requires in-depth bioethical reflection. The article attempts to answer the question of how the existential analysis and the concept of freedom and responsibility proposed by Viktor E. Frankl – an Austrian psychiatrist, professor of neurology and doctor of philosophy – can enrich bioethical reflection and contribute to a better understanding of the situation of a man facing bioethical dilemma.
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Man has always aspired towards the highest knowledge. Thus philosophy, as the science of sciences, has tried, starting from what could be expressed rationally, to explain the existence or the possibility of man's knowledge of the existence of the Supreme Being, as designated by Immanuel Kant. The questions that can be raise dare: can human reason grasp the transcendental meanings of the Supreme Being?Can philosophical reason be overcome by theological knowledge, as a result of experiencing the Personal God? The answer to these questions can only be expressed through an analysis of Kant's rational arguments alongside the mode of knowledge proposed by theology
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The conventional view is that God had prohibited Adam from eating of the Tree of Eternity. However, he forgot the promise and, prodded by the Satan, he ate. He thus fell and then repented his wrongdoing. In this view, Ayat 20:115: “And We had already taken a promise from Adam before, but he forgot; and We found not in him determination,” draws attention of Prophet Mohammad to the wrongdoing of eating of the Tree mentioned in 7:22 and 20:121. This view leaves unexplained why would God,being beneficent and merciful, prohibit Adam from eating of the Tree of Eternity. We provide an alternative exegesis to resolve this issue. We suggest that the earlier promise mentioned in 20:115 was that of eating of the Tree. However, Adam forgot and did not eat of it. Then, God gave him a “negative order” to prompt him to eat of it.Adam still did not eat. Then, Satan assured Eve that God actually wanted them to eat of the Tree. Thereupon Adam and Eve ate of it and their wrongdoing of not eating of the Tree earlier became apparent to them.
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The noun migration refers not only to arriving and leaving a place – mere movement, but also to dramatic and sometimes tragic events in people’s lives. Therefore, this text aims to support such difficult, and at the same time necessary, reflections on the disturbing phenomenon affecting responsible educators and representatives of other professions seeking support in ethics and law. The subject of the analysis are migrations and migrants as well as the growing pyramid of problems related to their presence. This task is to be helped – this time – not so much by the relatively easy-to-find legal provisions, even if they are scattered across various documents of national and international importance, but by reflections referring to publications which, according to one’s personal assessment, may stimulate deeper penetration into the essence of accepting people painfully experienced by life.
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The aim of the article is to demonstrate which meanings of the word 'chance' can be used in the matter of moral luck. The first part of the article briefly discusses the essence of the problem of moral luck, the types of moral luck and the consequences of recognizing the role of luck/chance for morality. The second part contains case definitions. This part also presents arguments for which of the presented meanings of chance can be used in the analysis of the issue of moral luck. At the end of the article there is a suggestion to limit the meaning and role of the so-called the paradox of moral luck.
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Teorija filma tradicionalno je oprezna glede etičkog potencijala filma, uzimajući ga kao fascinantan i varljiv medij koji zahtijeva teorijsku analizu i etičko-političku kritiku. Mnogima je dobro poznato kako su teoretske teze o ideološkoj moći »aparata« i njegova opasnog kapacitet za manipulaciju publikom pokrenule razvoj istraživačke paradigme, koja je tek odnedavno počela slabjeti.1 Premda su filozofi filma počeli analizirati pitanja o etici i filmu, začudo vrlo je malo slaganja o tome što to znači. Kako filmovi izražavaju etičke koncepcije? Kako prikazuju kompleksnost neke moralne ili političke situacije? Kakvo etičko iskustvo pobuđuje film? Analizirat ću ova pitanja, skicirati neke teorijske pristupe zamjetne u recentnim radovima na ovu temu i analizirati neka metodološka pitanja postavljena uslijed sve većeg filozofskog interesa za odnos između filma i etike.
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The purpose of this study was to determine the portrait of courage among the fishing community of Api-api village, Wonokerto district, Pekalongan regency. The approach used in this research is using a qualitative approach. The informants in this study were 7 fishermen, consisting of 4 large boat fishermen and 3 small boat fishermen. Data were collected using interview techniques and open questionnaires. The results of the study show that some forms of courage are daring to step forward to move forward, if this was indeed necessary, courage can also be interpreted as daring to step back regularly and take tactics if it is considered better. Someone who has a brave nature will use his own way according to the circumstances of the atmosphere and time. A brave person, that is, if he does something after careful thought and his heart is determined that what he is doing will give results. Based on the above phenomenon, a person who has courage is a person who is in a condition and environment that requires him to dare to take strategic steps, fight for it seriously and also dare to take risks. One indication that shows this courageous nature can be photographed in the life of the fishing community in Api-api Village, Wonokerto District, Pekalongan Regency. Where most of the people’s livelihoods are fishermen who demand them to take steps that require courage and are full of risk in navigating the vast ocean.
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The essay deals with Max Scheler´s value problem, looking back at the term “sympathy” in the context of migration question. First of all, phenomena such as compassion and love are taken up, whose hermeneutic and phenomenological relevance are personally based. In order for the concept of the person to be able to unfold its actual dynamics in the real world, however, it must transcend the framework conditions of Scheler’s material vaule ethics, whose concerns appear on the a priori foundation. For this purpose, Karol Wojtyla’s term „suppositum“ is used, which reveals the person as the subject of existence and action. Not only is soocial harmony promoted in real terms, but personal order is also refined from an ethical-anthropological point of view. Ultimately, this has an impact on how the issue of migrants and refugees is dealt with.
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The paper deals with the issue of excessive shame (verecundia, δυσωπία) presented in the writings of selected Greek and Roman authors.
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This essay shows how changing ways of thinking about love and fear in armed combat have shaped intellectual responses to ethical behaviour in war. While there is a voluminous literature on the importance of reasoning in just war literature, the history of thinking about justice, ethics and war is also shaped by reflection on the role of love and fear in war, as existential emotions rather than as abstract principles. As reflection on ethics in war has increasingly taken on secular forms, the impression of prior religious traditions continues to play important roles. The essay shows how modern and contemporary responses to war can use multidisciplinary enquiries in order to bridge the gaps between factors that can be rationalised, and emotions related to love and fear, which demand more humanistic analytical approaches. The final part of the essay shows how such multidisciplinary enquiries have been used since 1945 in changing military education, and particularly in the development of new forms of ethics education in the military and in the changing focus of efforts by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to disseminate the values which protect people in war thanks to the development of International Humanitarian Law.
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