Omnivore - Moral Coherence and Other Issues in Morality

From Bookforum's Omnivore blog, here is an interesting collection of links on morality in all its many contemporary (and ancient) forms. Just for fun, here is the abstract to one of the more interesting papers linked to in this collection:

Moral Coherence and Principle Pluralism

Patricia Marino, University of Waterloo Department of Philosophy

August 14, 2012
Journal of Moral Philosophy (2013)

Abstract:

This paper develops and defends a conception of moral coherence that is suitable for use in contexts of principle pluralism. I argue that, as they are traditionally understood, coherence methods stack the deck against pluralist theories, by incorporating norms such as systematicity – that the principles of a theory should be as few and as simple as possible. I develop and defend an alternative, minimal, conception of coherence that focuses instead on consistency. It's been suggested that consistency in this context should aim at the avoidance of conflict, but I argue against this: what matters is "case consistency," or judging consistently from one case to another. This means judging in accordance with morally relevant similarities and differences. I defend my proposal of minimal coherence from objections having to do with complexity and arbitrariness.

Citation:
Marino, P. (2013) Moral Coherence and Principle Pluralism. Journal of Moral Philosophy. DOI: 10.1163/17455243-4681032. Available at SSRN.


Moral Coherence

Sep 19 2013
9:00AM

• From Essays in Philosophy, a special issue on Cartesian virtue and freedom. 
• Josh May (Monash): Does Disgust Influence Moral Judgment? 
• Ryan Conree Preston-Roedder (UNC): A Better World. 
• Alexander Peysakhovich (Harvard) and David G. Rand (Yale): Habits of Virtue: Creating Norms of Cooperation and Defection in the Laboratory. 
• Patricia Marino (Waterloo): Moral Coherence and Principle Pluralism. 
• Leon R. Calleja (Brooklyn): Reconciling the Self and Universalism. 
• Benjamin M. Eidelson (Yale): Treating People as Individuals. 
• David O. Brink (UCSD): Situationism, Responsibility, and Fair Opportunity. 
• Cristian Constantinescu (Birkbeck): Moral Vagueness: A Dilemma for Non-Naturalism. 
• Zachary Horne (Illinois): Belief Updating in Moral Dilemmas. 
• Michael Lynch (UConn): Truth in Ethics. 
• Graham Hubbs (Idaho): Answerability without Answers. 
• Thomas Scanlon on what is morality. 
• Are intelligent people better at morality? Katja Keuchenius on whether good brains reach high moral stages. 
• Bernard Yack reviews Aristotle's Politics: Living Well and Living Together by Eugene Garver. 
• Crowding out virtues: JP O’Malley interviews Michael J. Sandel. 
• From Bleeding Heart Libertarians, a symposium on Michael Huemer’s The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey. 
• You're joking, right, you haven't really made a musical based on John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice, have you?

Changesurfer Radio - What Is Character?

This was posted in November, at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies Changesurfer Radio podcast - a two-part episode in which Dr. J. (Dr. James J. Hughes) chats with Christian Miller, Professor of Philosophy and Director of The Character Project at Wake Forest University. They discuss the idea of virtue and moral character and its relationship to moral philosophy, personality theory, religion and neuroscience.

What is Character? pt1

Christian Miller

Changesurfer Radio

Posted: Nov 28, 2011


Dr. J. chats with Christian Miller, Professor of Philosophy and Director of The Character Project at Wake Forest University. They discuss the idea of virtue and moral character and its relationship to moral philosophy, personality theory, religion and neuroscience. Part 1 of 2.



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What is Character? pt2

Christian Miller

Changesurfer Radio

Posted: Nov 28, 2011


Dr. J. chats with Christian Miller, Professor of Philosophy and Director of The Character Project at Wake Forest University. They discuss the idea of virtue and moral character and its relationship to moral philosophy, personality theory, religion and neuroscience. Part 2 of 2. Also Dr. J. finishes his chat with Ted Chiang about his Hugo award winning novella “The Lifecycle of Software Objects” and the state of science fiction. (Part 2 of 2)



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Changesurfer Radio - The Bodhisattva’s Brain with Owen Flanagan

Owen Flangan has a new book, The Bodhisattva’s Brain: Buddhism Naturalized. Dr. J at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies interviewed Flanagan for Changesurfer Radio's podcast series.

Flanagan is a well-known philosopher, a couple of books include The Problem Of The Soul: Two Visions Of Mind And How To Reconcile Them and The Really Hard Problem: Meaning in a Material World (Bradford Books).

There are some similarities between Flanagan and Thomas Metzinger, but they are coming from much different disciplines. Both incorporate Buddhist concepts of no-self into human consciousness - Flanagan works from the inside out (philosophy) and Metzinger works from the outside in (neuroscience). Their approaches are different in a lot of ways, and their conclusions are framed differently, but they both seem to adopt an interpretation of emptiness in looking at consciousness (see also B Alan Wallace).

The Bodhisattva’s Brain pt1

Owen Flanagan

Changesurfer Radio

Posted: Dec 20, 2011

Dr. J. chats with Owen Flanagan, professor of philosophy at Duke University and author of The Bodhisattva’s Brain: Buddhism Naturalized. They discuss the relationship of the Aristotleian and Buddhist ideas of happiness and virtue, and the relevance of neuropsychological research on what it means to have a flourishing life. (Part 1 of 2)

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The Bodhisattva’s Brain pt2

Owen Flanagan

Changesurfer Radio

Posted: Dec 20, 2011

Dr. J. chats with Owen Flanagan, professor of philosophy at Duke University and author of The Bodhisattva’s Brain: Buddhism Naturalized. They discuss the relationship of the Aristotleian and Buddhist ideas of happiness and virtue, and the relevance of neuropsychological research on what it means to have a flourishing life. (Part 2 of 2)

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Authors@Google: Jeffrey Sachs, "The Price of Civilization"

Interesting talk from Jeffrey Sachs, Director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University. He is author of The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity.

"The Price of Civilization"

As he has done in dozens of countries around the world in the midst of economic crises, Sachs turns his unique diagnostic skills to what ails the American economy. He finds that both political parties—and many leading economists—have missed the big picture, offering shortsighted solutions such as stimulus spending or tax cuts to address complex economic problems that require deeper solutions. Sachs argues that we have profoundly underestimated globalization's long-term effects on our country, which create deep and largely unmet challenges with regard to jobs, incomes, poverty, and the environment. America's single biggest economic failure, Sachs argues, is its inability to come to grips with the new global economic realities.

Yet Sachs goes deeper than an economic diagnosis. By taking a broad, holistic approach—looking at domestic politics, geopolitics, social psychology, and the natural environment as well—Sachs reveals the larger fissures underlying our country's current crisis. He shows how Washington has consistently failed to address America's economic needs. He describes a political system that has lost its ethical moorings, in which ever-rising campaign contributions and lobbying outlays overpower the voice of the citizenry. He also looks at the crisis in our culture, in which an overstimulated and consumption-driven populace in a ferocious quest for wealth now suffers shortfalls of social trust, honesty, and compassion.

Finally, Sachs offers a plan to turn the crisis around. He argues persuasively that the problem is not America's abiding values, which remain generous and pragmatic, but the ease with which political spin and consumerism run circles around those values. He bids the reader to reclaim the virtues of good citizenship and mindfulness toward the economy and one another. Most important, he bids each of us to accept the price of civilization, so that together we can restore America to its great promise.