Does moral rhetoric fuel or reduce divides between parties and non-copartisan voters?

Political parties at times use moral appeals to voters outside of their support base, i.e., non-copartisan voters. Yet, morality is typically considered a divisive force in politics. Does moral rhetoric actually alleviate or exacerbate divides between parties and non-copartisan voters? The paper addresses this question by focusing on non-copartisans’ attitudes towards the party. Insights from previous work on moral persuasion and attitudinal bias suggest a conflicting picture. On the one hand, moral rhetoric is likely to make morally aligned non-copartisans more favourable towards the party. On the other hand, moral rhetoric is unlikely to make even the morally aligned favourable towards the party. In fact, moral rhetoric may further push away non-copartisans with pre-existing hostility. Using original, representative survey experiments from Britain, the paper finds that moral rhetoric can increase favourable attitudes and that it does not further promote hostility. Morality in party competition does not necessarily fuel division.     

The Fact/Value Distinction and the Social Sciences

Metaethics is an especially illuminating context for exploring the relation between facts and values. There are good reasons in favor of a cognitivist, realist interpretation of moral value, and some of the elements of that interpretation suggest bases for rejecting the alleged fact/value distinction in social scientific explanations. Some of the main objections to the alleged fact/value distinction and to expressivist interpretations of moral value are articulated, with a view to showing their relevance to the understanding of social phenomena more broadly. Also, the way in which rationality inevitably involves normativity is discussed because it is a crucial consideration in regard to understanding the normative aspects of issues the social sciences seek to explain.     

儒家道德权利与政治权利要义

作为社会身份和政治资格的人权在儒家“孔仁孟义”的思想体系中被表达为“内圣外王”之道,其在“修齐治平”的实现程序之中又以“公私之辨”和“义利之辨”标志出政治伦理原则和“以德限权”的社会治理特色。儒家以“公权利”揭示人的自然权利,以其公平性和自然性引申为人的道德权利;再以道德权利为基础推演出人的政治权利,而“私权力”则仅为政治权利的异化形式,其极端化的结果就是“以权谋私”,后者因其“侵害公权利”的实质,儒家的人提倡以“道德权利”加以限制,故称为“德治”。儒家的道德权利与政治权利不仅影响了中国社会的思想和制度传统,而且其思想特色通过“为人民服务”、“改革开放”、“三个代表”和“三为”等原则亦被创造性地运用于当代中国共产党人的治国理政事业之中。     

Toward a Coherent Theory of Human Moral Development: Beyond Sir Isaiah Berlin's Vision of Human Nature

Berlin's theory of human nature is criticized on two grounds. First, within his substantive account of us, there is a tension between the Kantian vision of persons as purposive (which requires that we be free) and the Herderian pluralism (which depicts liberty as equal to other values). Second, his claim that theories of self-realization are inherently prone to rationalist perversion-and political oppression-is depicted as mistaken because it is teleology, and not the regularities of human change, that perverts our ideals. To resolve the tension within Berlin's account, a non-teleological account of our moral development is suggested: once secured, we can grow in a variety of contradictory directions. Liberty-which, along with justice and privacy, fosters security-is thus not the height of a superior morality, but a part of the psychological basis of any valid morality.     

POLICY RESEARCH AS SOCIAL SCIENCE: OUTFLANKING THE VALUE DILEMMA

Social scientists fear that policy research compromises their objectivity. As a result, policy science is becoming a separate discipline which is accorded lower status that other fields of social inquiry. However, the history, sociology and psychology of science show that the elaboration of robust social theory would be aided by a more intimate relation between policy research and academic social science than currently obtains. The traditional canons of value freedom, which have been invoked to justify the independence of social science from policy, misrepresent the relation between facts and values in science. Objective knowledge is consequent on dispute and triangulation by a many-valued community of fallible social scientists; but it does not eventuate from consensual value neutralism. Social knowledge interacts with social values to change phenomena our theories represent. This self-restructuring characteristic of social events warrants singular attention by social scientists. Policy researchers are in a particularly opportune position to provide that attention.     

网络治理理论视角下我国社会泄愤类极端事件的治理对策--以公交车纵火案为例

随着社会转型的深化,社会泄愤类极端事件在我国不断发生。社会泄愤类极端事件的产生既有制度不完善、机制不健全、法治弱化、道德下滑等规则缺陷的原因,也有涉案者在心理方面的个人原因。社会泄愤类极端事件的发生造成严重社会危害,必须高度重视。为了更好地治理这类社会问题,政府、企业和社会等多元主体要协同建立治理网络,重建良好的信任基础和沟通协调机制,重建民主、法治、道德等规则,更好地维护社会公平正义,降低社会伤害事件的频次及危害。     

Dworkin on external skepticism and moral permissions

This article discusses Ronald Dworkin’s first objection against what he calls external moral skepticism, the view that denies truth-value to moral judgments. According to that objection, an external skeptic denies that substantive moral judgments can be true. But, at the same time, the objection goes, what follows from the skeptical view is that all actions are morally permissible, which is in itself a substantive moral judgment. We call this ‘the self-defeating argument.’ We argue that the objection’s success depends on how we interpret the idea of moral permission, an issue Dworkin does not clearly resolve. Against his objection, we advance two different arguments. First, once we learn what role the idea of moral permission plays in morality, we can see that any plausible view of some agent’s moral permission must acknowledge its complex character, and that the existence of a moral permission must have some impact on the balance of moral reasons for other agents. On this understanding, it is false that it follows solely from external skepticism that everything is permissible. Second, we argue that even if permissions have a simple character, not a complex one, they are plausible only when framed within a moral constellation of rights and obligations. So understood, it is, again, false that it follows from external skepticism that everything is permissible.     

市场经济中的道德与道德主义

发展市场经济不能忽视道德问题，无视道德问题的建设将不可能使市场经济得以健康发展，这是人们的共识。但另一方面我们却有必要区分市场经济中的道德与道德主义，并将此两的界限加以必要的把握。     

新视野下法律与道德互动关系新探

法律和道德的形成、发展，既遵循着共同的根本客观规律，又表现出不同的性质和特点，所以，法律和道德是相互作用、相互补充、相互渗透、相互包含的，法律是最低限度的道德，道德是不成文的法律。法律中包含道德，是道德的外在表现，道德又是法律的源泉。法律通过直接或间接的作用，教育和启迪公民的道德建设，加强道德社会作用的力度，同时，道德的教育和舆论作用，又有助于提高法律的功效和作用。     

THE EYE OF DOUBT: NEUTRALITY,RESPONSIBILITY, AND MORALITY*

Abstract: The conditions of employment of a professional public service together with the wide-ranging consequences of the actions of public servants combine to require considerable moral responsibility. Whatever political neutrality means for public servants, it does not mean moral neutrality. If public servants were never to exercise moral judgement in moments of truth there would be little justification for endowing the profession with the status and security it now enjoys. After some discussion of the origins of the professional public service, several recent cases of morally responsible public servants are reviewed and the arguments frequently given to avoid or trivialise morality are evaluated. My claim is that courage is the key to morality. The ordinary moral obligations that lie upon us all apply with added force to public servants. The truth that the eye of doubt beholds is that political neutrality brings moral responsibility. … the more civil servants, the more thieves… The Great Elector … not from the Castle … not from the village… Kafka … polite, upright, and mild… Hegel     

Information and direct democracy: What voters learn about ballot measures and how it affects their votes

Limited research has evaluated what voters know about the initiatives and referendums that regularly appear on their ballots. Analyzing survey data covering nine ballot measures in three U.S. states, I explore what voters know about measures that would implement policies ranging from approving same-sex marriage to requiring identification to vote. My results show a great deal of variation across both ballot measures and type of knowledge. Specifically, I find that knowledge of endorsements and status quo policies is similar to their knowledge of civics. Policy specific facts, however, lag far behind. My results also show that voters tend to know more about moral issues. Increased campaign spending also helps voters learn about relevant endorsements, though not facts. When comparing the efficacy of facts versus endorsements, knowledge of an endorsement has a measurable decision-improving impact on voters’ choices while knowing a fact only rarely does.     

Towards a Kantian Moral Psychology or the Practical Effects of Self-Predicating Judgements of Sublimity

Abstract

This essay develops an account of the link between Kant's aesthetics and his ethics. It does so by articulating a Kantian account of moral psychology by way of aesthetic reflective judgements of sublimity. Since judgements of sublimity enrich the picture of a Kantian subject by forcefully revealing the unbounded power of the faculty of reason, I investigate the possibility that judgements of this kind could serve as a basis for moral motivation. The paper first shows how judgements of sublimity help a subject recognize reason's unbounded nature, and proceeds to analyse the practical effects of a subject judging itself sublime. When judgements of sublimity have as their object the unbounded and unsythesizable power of reason, they may thereby serve as the basis for both the recognition of our moral vocation, and the grounds for determining the will to act from respect for it. Since a judgement of sublimity produces for Kant the experience of an enlivening emotion and an outflowing of vital forces, the paper then develops Kant's concept of “life” motivated by a recognition of its practical orientation. In this way sublimity rather than beauty can be interpreted as symbolic hypotyposis of morality. The paper then takes up less favourable interpretations of the practical effects of self-predicated judgements of sublimity, and constructs critical responses to such positions. I conclude, following Adorno, by stressing the historical and social dimension of the capacities for both making sublime judgements, and being morally enlivened by them.     

Making moral incentives pay

Politicians often appeal to moral principles as a least-cost method of enforcing their policy demands. To do so effectively, they must understand how such principles fit into ordinary people's decision functions. Here I distinguish three ways for formally representing moral principles. One reduces morality to enlightened self-interest, denying that morality has any special place in the decision calculus. Another, while acknowledging that people do internalize moral principles per se, enters them into utility functions as just another consumption good. Truly strong moral principles, however, are best represented by a third model of seriously held moral principles which must be kept formally apart from mundane considerations. Such principles are as precarious as they are powerful. Policy-makers who want to tap them must respect the formalisms that make them strong, most typically by shielding moral principles from contamination by egoistic impulses.This is a revised version of a paper read at the 1978 Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association in New York. I am grateful to Stanley Benn for prodding that prompted this essay and to Brian Barry, David Braybrooke, Joseph Carens, Russell Hardin, Martin Hollis and David Miller for advice on its improvement.     

Perceived public condemnation and avoidance intentions: The mediating role of moral outrage

The effects of intrapersonal emotion on consumers' behavior have long been studied, but the effects of interpersonal emotions on public's intentions remain poorly understood. People often get angry when they observe injustice with others but not themselves. Drawing on emotions as social information theory, we investigated how perceived public condemnation (knowledge that other also condemn a particular norm violation by an organization) affects the moral outrage of public and their future intentions toward the organization. A quantitative study was empirically examined through a sample of 107 users of a leading riding service in Pakistan. Data were analyzed through statistical tools (IBM SPSS & AMOS 21). Finding shows that perceived public condemnation was positively correlated with moral outrage and avoidance intentions of individuals. However, moral outrage mediates the association between perceived public condemnation and avoidance intentions of the public. The implications highlight the importance of a community's social norms and values to gauge the organization's reputation in people's eyes.     

Open Immigration Policies and Liberal Discomfort

Consequentialist cosmopolitanism, Peter Higgins argues, enables closed border liberals to evade charges of moral hypocrisy despite their commitment to moral equality of individuals, once we recognize that open border arguments rely on cosmopolitanism’s individualism requirement, which ignores social realities relevant to a realistic assessment of the social consequences of an open immigration policy. Higgins is mistaken, however, in contending that cosmopolitan individualism entails attention to people only in their capacity as the abstract atomic individuals populating Charles Mills’ idealized social ontologies. Conversely, if cosmopolitan individualism does compel us to think of people as abstract atomic individuals, we are not obliged to think of them as relatively privileged. Under liberal cosmopolitanism, however, which prohibits state discrimination between citizens and non-citizens, open border policies are subject to no such consequentialist objections.

Artificial Morality. Concepts,Issues and Challenges

Artificial morality is an emerging field in artificial intelligence which explores whether and how artificial systems can be furnished with moral capacities. Since this will have a deep impact on our lives it is important to discuss the possibility of artificial morality and its implications for individuals and society. Starting with some examples of artificial morality, the article turns to conceptual issues that are important for delineating the possibility and scope of artificial morality, in particular, what an artificial moral agent is; how morality should be understood in the context of artificial morality; and how human and artificial morality compare. Outlined next is how moral capacities can be implemented in artificial systems in general and in more detail with respect to an elder care system. On the basis of these findings some of the arguments that can be found in public discourse about artificial morality will be reviewed and the prospects and challenges of artificial morality are discussed.     

Between morality and rationality: framing end-of-life care policy through narratives

This paper analyzes the nature of the debate generated prior to the implementation of the Act Respecting End-of-Life Care in 2015 in Québec (Canada). Including medical assistance in dying (MAID) along existing palliative care services, the act is an important policy change on a very sensitive issue. As such, MAID could be categorized as a morality policy issue, the latter being defined as a particular category of policy because of its specific features (issues of first principle, technical simplicity, high salience, public interest, and public participation). In line with Mucciaroni’s proposition, we rather analyze this issue by understanding morality policy as one of two framing strategies (moral and/or rational-instrumental frame). Our research reconstructs four public opinion framings as advanced and transmitted through the media between 2005 and 2015. It shows that although opponents to the bill unsurprisingly framed the debate in deontological terms, mostly referring to sanctity of life as one of the most important values in society, they also framed it on rational-instrumental grounds in a similar proportion, alleging the danger of a slippery slope and potential abuse. As well, if some of the proponents favored a moral framing centered on the argument that dignity and individual autonomy take precedence over all other values, others put forward a rational-instrumental one, where the slippery slope/abuse argument is used as a cautionary statement against the artificial prolongation of life. Our analysis reinforces Mucciaroni’s and Ferraiolo’s assertions that sensitive issues classified as morality policy cannot be apprehended solely through the unidimensional frame of morality.     

The Moral Efficacy of Aesthetic Experience: Figures of Meaning in the Moral Field

Abstract

This paper proposes to analyse the process that makes paths of action meaningful. It argues that this process is one of "figuration". The term "figuration" intends to outline how the experience of moral meaning is one that already positively marks out a field and to identify and analyse the mechanisms used for such marking and selection. It is my contention that these mechanisms predate the persuasion to a moral path; they are the process through which this path is constructed as meaningful. This thesis is elucidated through an analysis of the tactics of meaning in Kant's moral theory. Kant turns to aesthetics as a means of corroboration for his moral theory, but he also attempts to limit the scope of the interactions between his aesthetic and moral theory. For instance, when he writes on the topic of form in aesthetic taste or outlines the technical specifications of aesthetic judgment, it is arguably the arcane peculiarities of his system that are met. For this reason, Kant insists on the merely analogical relations between beauty and morality. However, it is also possible to see how certain aspects of Kant's aesthetic theory execute wider, and potentially more important, functions for his practical philosophy, such as providing meaningful orientation for the ascetic moral attitude of his duty-ethics. In this respect, certain figures of Kant's aesthetic theory may well be viewed as complementing the dependence in his moral philosophy, in the important sections on moral pedagogy and methodology, on appeals to heroic models and stories as ways of shaping and inculcating the moral disposition. This paper considers these aspects of interaction between Kant's aesthetic and moral philosophies as both (1) a problem for the consistency of his philosophy given his avowed exclusion of aesthetic and religious elements of meaning in his duty-ethics; and (2) as a case study for the new, schematic analysis of "moral figuration" outlined in the paper.     

Four worlds of morality politics: the impact of institutional venues and party cleavages

The most prominent theory accounting for variation of morality politics across Western Europe is the so-called Two Worlds framework. According to this approach, the presence or absence of a secular?religious cleavage in national party systems strongly affects the degree of conflict intensity and the framing of morality policy issues. This article shows that the explanatory power of the Two Worlds model could be enhanced significantly by introducing a second analytical dimension that captures the institutional venue (party politics vs. parliamentary politics), in which moral conflicts take place. This is useful because there are instances in which a religious cleavage is lacking, but moral conflicts are nonetheless highly intense and party-based (the traditionalist world), and there are cases in which the religious cleavage formally exists, but moral conflicts are nonetheless resolved in the parliamentary arena (the unsecular world).