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In recent years we have seen a newfound engagement with Jürgen Habermas's work in philosophy of education, focusing on his conception of argumentative dialogue, or discourse, as the origin of both truth‐related epistemic judgments and justifications of moral norms that claim rightness rather than truth. In this article, Krassimir Stojanov first reconstructs the way in which Habermas determines the relation between truth and rightness, and he then shows that moral rightness functions as a "truth‐analogue" since moral norms, like true facts, transcend the actual and local practices of their justification. In the case of moral rightness, this transcendence occurs as an infinite process of inclusion of the perspectives and interests of all potentially concerned persons — also (and foremost) the perspectives and interests of those who are strange to each other in their respective values, worldviews, and interests. With this account of "truth‐analogue" moral rightness, Habermas conceptualizes a kind of processual and "difference‐sensible" universalism, which is very different from the substantialist universalism of some traditional conceptions of education, or Bildung. In the final section, Stojanov shows why including children in their otherness as children in the discursive process of production of moral knowledge, and thus treating them with a kind of epistemic respect, is a constitutive condition for that process. The demand for the discursive inclusion of children follows from the discourse ethics approach, but it requires an enlargement and some corrections of that approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of indoctrination is typically used to characterize the actions of individual educators. However, it has become increasingly common for citizens to raise concerns about the indoctrinatory effects of institutions such as schools and universities. Are such worries fundamentally misconceived, or might some state of affairs obtain under which it can be rightly said that an educational institution is engaged in indoctrination? In this paper Christopher Martin outlines what the concept of institutional indoctrination could mean. He then uses Jürgen Habermas's discourse theory in order to develop a specific conception of institutional indoctrination: an educational institution indoctrinates when it exercises its authority in order to support the deliberative norm that some belief P ought to be exempt from tests of or challenges to its truth or rightness just because it is belief P. Martin argues that this norm undermines conditions of symmetrical and inclusive public discourse essential to the development of knowledge and understanding among free and equal citizens. That is, institutional indoctrination involves a closing of the public mind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the clear theological context and argumentation surrounding many ideas that shaped early market society. It mentions that from a genealogical and historical perspective, when comparing different periods, work would also need to be done to compare and contrast the meanings and uses of the theological schemas; and also mentions that value systems that establish profit as a supreme goal.

Crowdsourcing practices have generated much discussion on their ethics and fairness, yet these topics have received little scholarly investigation. Some have criticized crowdsourcing for worker exploitation and for undermining workplace regulations. Others have lauded crowdsourcing for enabling workers' autonomy and allowing disadvantaged people to access previously unreachable job markets. In this paper, we examine the ethics in crowdsourcing practices by focusing on three questions: (a) What ethical issues exist in crowdsourcing practices? (b) are ethical norms emerging or are issues emerging that require ethical norms? and, more generally, (c) how can the ethics of crowdsourcing practices be established? We answer these questions by engaging with Jürgen Habermas' discourse ethics theory to interpret findings from a longitudinal field study (from 2013 to 2016) involving key crowdsourcing participants (workers, platform organizers, and requesters) of three crowdsourcing communities. Grounded in this empirical study, we identify ethical concerns and discuss the ones for which ethical norms have emerged as well as others which remain unresolved and problematic in crowdsourcing practices. Furthermore, we provide normative considerations of how ethical concerns can be identified, discussed, and resolved based on the principles of discourse ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the topic of discursive democracy and the limitations of the freedom of speech in nations including U.S., European countries and Canada. The essay presents the analysis of free speech, constitutional law and social inequalities and hierarchies. The article sections also features the topics of feminist argument against the pornography practice, discourse ethics and principles of equality and inclusion.

The claim that ordinary ethical discourse is typically true and that ethical facts are typically knowable (ethical conservativism) seems in tension with the claim that ordinary ethical discourse is about features of reality friendly to a scientific worldview (ethical naturalism). Cornell Realism attempts to dispel this tension by claiming that ordinary ethical discourse is, in fact, discourse about the same kinds of things that scientific discourse is about: natural properties. We offer two novel arguments in reply. First, we identify a key assumption that we find unlikely to be true. Second, we identify two features of typical natural properties that ethical properties lack. We conclude that Cornell Realism falls short of dispelling the tension between ethical conservativism and ethical naturalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Common philosophical discussions concerning the ethics of human interaction with the biosphere and universe have been significantly informed by certain presuppositions: (1) nature is conquerable; (2) human cultural and social (contrasted with moral) progress is somewhat like a thing, beyond human control, and is inevitable and benevolent; and (3) Homo sapiens is the superior life-form. Although arguments, such as whether humans should conquer nature, founded upon these presuppositions have sometimes been challenged, each of these three presuppositions wants direct analysis. The three have become so ingrained in professional and everyday discourse that they have mythic proportions, as though beyond question. Because of the weightiness of the relevant philosophical issues, they merit overt analysis. Although they are independent and may be analyzed separately, this article treats them as whole, as they often work together in arguments. After finding substantial problems, the article suggests alternative ways of building sustainable presuppositions in similar territory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay Krassimir Stojanov attempts first to reconstruct the "heart" of Jürgen Habermas's discourse ethics, namely the so-called "principle of universalization" of ethical norms. This principle grounds Habermas's proceduralist account of social justice via equal access of all concerned to the practices of deliberative validation of norms. Stojanov claims with regard to this account that it could only be implemented if the social actors are involved in a process of education as discursive initiation. After using R. S. Peters's educational theory to distinguish discursive initiation from a traditionalist understanding of educative initiation, he discusses some central social prerequisites for the development of discursive skills in growing individuals; to identify these prerequisites, he draws on Axel Honneth's conception of the intersubjective origins of individuals' development of rational autonomy. In the final part of the essay, Stojanov briefly explores some implications of his elaborated account of discursive initiation and its social preconditions for schooling and pedagogy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including the structures of communication that exist between all persons, discourse ethics acceptable to plural democratic societies, and political dimension of public debate over educational justice.

What do you get when you cross a fallacy with a good argument? A fugu, that is, a valid argument that tempts you to reach its conclusion invalidly (named after the dangerous but delicious Japanese puffer fish). You have yielded to the temptation more than you realize. If you are a teacher, you may have served many fugus. They arise systematically through several mechanisms. Fugus are interesting intermediate cases that shed light on the following issues: bare evidentialism, false pleasure, philosophy of education, and the ethics of argument. Normally, a fugu will not yield knowledge from known premises. But if the reasoning is only slightly fallacious, they do yield knowledge. These mild fugus show that we can gain knowledge by invalid reasoning. This is a conservative resource for historians. They want to credit discoveries to Euclid rather than those who made minor corrections to his proofs, such as David Hilbert. We also benefit from this practice of grandfathering in old standards of knowledge attribution. For we can compete spiritedly for priority. We do not need to worry that credit will instead go to future scholars who will make the minor amendments needed to raise present proofs to a future standard of demonstration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on the mischaracterization of Jürgen Habermas and Klaus Günther's account of application discourses by Alexandre Lefebvre. It discusses application discourses and their norm-creative character which Lefebvre alleged to be absent. It also looks into Lefebvre's article titled "Habermas and Deleuze on Law and Adjudication" which features the author's critique on the jurisprudence conception of Gilles Deleuze.

The article discusses the superiority of discourse ethics and its difference from other contructivism forms. Topics covered include the pragmatic function of discourse, its quasi-transcendental presuppositions and challenges raised against constitutivism and constructivism. Also mentioned are objections to defend constitutivism that rely on the discourse ethics premise and transcendental pragmatism that can meet the challenges to constitutivism.

This study analyzes BP's crisis communication related to the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Specifically, we observe how an organization whose priorities are misaligned with the ethic of first and second things has a severely limited capacity for delivering a crisis message that resonates with the general public, and especially those most affected by the disaster. Organizational connectedness and Lewis' essays on the ethic of first and second things are discussed and research on virtuous responses to crisis and renewal discourse is highlighted to explain how BP's focus on maximizing profit over safety and the environment stymied their communication efforts. A discourse of renewal is suggested as essential for the organization to regain connectedness post-crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is the first of two companion articles drawn from a larger project, provisionally entitled Undisciplining Moral Epistemology. The overall goal is to understand how moral claims may be rationally justified in a world characterized by cultural diversity and social inequality. To show why a new approach to moral justification is needed, it is argued that several currently influential philosophical accounts of moral justification lend themselves to rationalizing the moral claims of those with more social power. The present article explains how discourse ethics is flawed just in this way. The article begins by identifying several conditions of adequacy for assessing reasoning practices designed to achieve moral justification and shows that, when used in contexts of cultural diversity and social inequality, discourse ethics fails these conditions. It goes on to argue that the failure of discourse ethics is rooted in its reliance on a broader conception of moral epistemology that is invidiously idealized. It concludes by pointing to the need to rethink both the mission and the method of moral epistemology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented arguing the contemporary justifications of human rights. It mentions a justification deficit in human rights discourse and notes that the justification for claims about the existence of human rights is still obscure. The author argues that the discourse-theoretic account of human rights differs from traditional accounts as well as the functional account.

The argument from the claim to correctness has been put forward by Robert Alexy to defend the view that normative utterances admit of objective answers. My purpose in this paper is to preserve this initial aspiration even at the cost of diverting from some of the original ideas in support of the argument. I begin by spelling out a full-blooded version of normative cognitivism, against which I propose to reconstruct the argument from the claim to correctness. I argue that the context of uttering normative propositions points to the possibility of normative cognition, but does not constitute it. What constitutes the possibility of cognition is, as of necessity, the propositional structure of norms. I conclude that the argument from the claim to correctness ought to safeguard a distinction between the context of uttering a normative sentence and the proposition that individuates the content of the utterance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on social and political implications of the claim that race is socially constructed. It addresses the eliminativist arguments of philosophers Kwame Anthony Appiah and Naomi Zack that the notion of race should be eliminated. The author also considers Lucius Outlaw's conservationist argument that racial identity cannot be eliminated from human societies. He uses mestizo and white racial identities for examples of his theory of discursive justification regarding race.

BSTRACT Clinical ethical support services (CESS) represent a multifaceted field of aims, consultancy models, and methodologies. Nevertheless, the overall aim of CESS can be summed up as contributing to healthcare of high ethical standards by improving ethically competent decision-making in clinical healthcare. In order to support clinical care adequately, CESS must pay systematic attention to all real-life ethical issues, including those which do not fall within the 'favourite' ethical issues of the day. In this paper we attempt to capture a comprehensive overview of categories of ethical tensions in clinical care. We present an analytical exposition of ethical structural features in judgement-based clinical care predicated on the assumption of the moral equality of human beings and the assessment of where healthcare contexts pose a challenge to achieving moral equality. The account and the emerging overview is worked out so that it can be easily contextualized with regards to national healthcare systems and specific branches of healthcare, as well as local healthcare institutions. By considering how the account and the overview can be applied to i) improve the ethical competence of healthcare personnel and consultants by broadening their sensitivity to ethical tensions, ii) identify neglected areas for ethical research, and iii) clarify the ethical responsibility of healthcare institutions' leadership, as well as specifying required institutionalized administration, we conclude that the proposed account should be considered useful for CESS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

abstract It is common in moral philosophy to test the validity of moral principles by proposing counter-examples in the form of cases where the application of the principle does not give the conclusion we intuitively find valid. These cases are often imaginary and sometimes rather 'outlandish', involving ray guns, non-existent creatures, etc. I discuss whether we can test moral principles with the help of outlandish cases, or if only realistic cases are admissible. I consider two types of argument against outlandish cases: 1) Since moral principles are meant for guiding action in this world, cases drawn from other worlds are irrelevant. 2) We lack the capacity to apply our intuitive moral competence to outlandish cases. I argue that while the first approach is importantly flawed, the second approach is plausible, not because our moral competence per se is limited to cases from this world, but because we lack the capacity to imagine outlandish cases, and we cannot apply our moral competence to a case we fail to imagine properly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the author focuses on the objections of H. Tristram Engelhardt to the concept of social justice and some issues relative to the ethics of infanticide. The author examines the possibility for social justice to be a form of statecraft, the distinctive moral practices and beliefs, and the status of Christian morality. The author argues that Engelhardt has underestimated the complex nature of political discourse in diverse societies.

Evolutionary debunking arguments ( EDAs) are arguments that appeal to the evolutionary origins of evaluative beliefs to undermine their justification. This paper aims to clarify the premises and presuppositions of EDAs-a form of argument that is increasingly put to use in normative ethics. I argue that such arguments face serious obstacles. It is often overlooked, for example, that they presuppose the truth of metaethical objectivism. More importantly, even if objectivism is assumed, the use of EDAs in normative ethics is incompatible with a parallel and more sweeping global evolutionary debunking argument that has been discussed in recent metaethics. After examining several ways of responding to this global debunking argument, I end by arguing that even if we could resist it, this would still not rehabilitate the current targeted use of EDAs in normative ethics given that, if EDAs work at all, they will in any case lead to a truly radical revision of our evaluative outlook. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some philosophers argue that any attempt to model changing the past will either be contradictory or really model avoiding the past. Using Nicholas Smith's (1997) argument as a basis, I formulate a generic version of this Avoidance Argument. I argue that the Avoidance Argument fails because (i) it involves an equivocation of what is meant by 'bifurcation of the time of an event' and (ii) resolving the equivocation results in the falsity of at least one of the premises. Hence, the Avoidance Argument will not support the claim that changing the past is logically impossible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two recent arguments purport to find a new and firmer foundation for evidentialism in the very nature of the concept of belief. Evidentialism is claimed to be a conceptual truth about belief, and pragmatism to be ruled out, conceptually. But can the conclusion of such conceptual arguments be regarded as the denial of pragmatism? The pragmatist traditionally conceived belief through its motivational role. Therefore, when confronted with conceptual evidentialism, the pragmatist should cede the term 'belief,' but insist that pragmatism be understood as a claim about another attitude, a motivational duplicate of belief. Thus, the original dispute is simply relocated terminologically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing, it is more difficult to justify doing harm than it is to justify allowing harm. Enabling harm consists in withdrawing an obstacle that would, if left in place, prevent a pre-existing causal sequence from leading to foreseen harm. There has been a lively debate concerning the moral status of enabling harm. According to some (e.g. McMahan, Vihvelin and Tomkow), many cases of enabling harm are morally indistinguishable from doing harm. Others (e.g. Foot, Hanser) support the Equivalence Hypothesis, according to which enabling harm is morally equivalent to allowing harm. Here I argue that there is every reason to embrace, and no reason to reject, the Equivalence Hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peter van Inwagen contends that free will is a mystery. Here I present an argument in the spirit of van Inwagen's. According to the Assimilation Argument, libertarians cannot plausibly distinguish causally undetermined actions, the ones they take to be exercises of free will, from overtly randomized outcomes of the sort nobody would count as exercises of free will. I contend that the Assimilation Argument improves on related arguments in locating the crucial issues between van Inwagen and libertarians who hope to demystify free will, while avoiding objections these arguments have faced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the argument from self-sacrifice, standard, unrestricted desire-based theories of welfare fail because they have the absurd implication that self-sacrifice is conceptually impossible. I attempt to show that, in fact, the simplest imaginable, completely unrestricted desire-based theory of well-being is perfectly compatible with the phenomenon of self-sacrifice - so long as the theory takes the right form. I go on to consider a new argument from self-sacrifice against this simple theory, which, I argue, also fails. I conclude that, contrary to popular opinion, considerations of self-sacrifice do not pose a problem for preferentist theories of welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay critically examines whether there are ethical dimensions to the way that expertise, knowledge claims, and expressions of skepticism intersect on technical matters that influence public policy, especially during times of crisis. It compares two different perspectives on the matter: a philosophical outlook rooted in discourse and virtue ethics and a sociological outlook rooted in the so-called third-wave approach to science studies. The comparison occurs through metaphilosophical analysis and applied claims that clarify how the disciplinary orientations appear to lead to different judgments about matters related to Robert Paarlberg's condemnation of activists who advise African politicians to ban genetically modified food. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers Derrida's principal works on the animal as comprising a summons to the consuming animal, the human subject. It summarizes, firstly, Derrida's accusation that the entire Western philosophic tradition is guilty of a particularly pernicious disavowal of its repudiation of the animal. This disavowal underpins what he calls the ‘carnophallogocentric order’ that privileges the virile male adult as a transcendental subject. The paper shows how he calls this line of argument into question by challenging the purity of the predicates that are presumed to secure human self-presence, such as capacity of response. This questioning is extended to consider marketing discourse in relation to the animal. In the second part of the paper, Derrida's arguments from the points of view of ‘animalséance’ (which here is referred to as ‘animalmalaise’) and ‘limitography’ are compared and contrasted with those of animal ethicists, Peter Singer and Tom Regan, and with Emmanuel Levinas. Finally, some implications are discussed for what it might mean to eat well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the author examines the tension between philosopher Jurgen Habermas' universalist cosmopolitan discourse ethics and his practical intervention in postnational European politics. He explores the reason behind the ethical closure advocated by Habermas in order to protect a social democratic Europe. The possible ethical problems implied in such a closure through an engagement with the critics of Habermas are examined. The author also discusses the ethics of a postnational closure in relation to the common perception of a democratic deficit in European Union politics.

Kant famously argued that, from experience, we can only learn how something actually is, but not that it must be so. In this paper, I defend an improved version of Kant's argument for the existence of a priori knowledge, the Modal Argument, against recent objections by Casullo and Kitcher. For the sake of the argument, I concede Casullo's claim that we may know certain counterfactuals in an empirical way and thereby gain epistemic access to some nearby, nomologically possible worlds. But I maintain that our beliefs about metaphysical necessities still cannot be justified empirically. Furthermore, I reject Casullo's deflationary thesis about the significance of such justification. Kitcher's most troublesome objection is that we can gain any modal justification whatsoever through testimony, i.e. in an experiential way. This can be countered by distinguishing between productive sources of justification, like perception, and merely reproductive sources, like testimony. Thus, some productive a priori source will always be needed somewhere. 1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the argumentative paper about the doctrine of the specious present through the Overlap Model. Two main schools of thought such as retentional and extensional approach, illustrate a momentary cross-section of actual experience with representations of a temporal spread of phenomena. An overview of the detailed exploration on the two approaches, along with its criticisms, is offered. Meanwhile, the doctrine of the specious present will help decide on accounts of change.

Type-B materialism is the thesis that though phenomenal states are necessarily identical with physical states, phenomenal concepts have no a priori connections to physical or functional concepts. Though type-B materialists have invoked this conceptual independence to counter a number of well-known arguments against physicalism (e.g. the conceivability of zombies, the ignorance of Mary, the existence of an ‘explanatory gap’), anti-physicalists have raised objections to this strategy. My aim here is to defend type-B materialism against these objections, by arguing that they share the common problem of not taking the central features of the view sufficiently seriously. However, I will end by noting that type-B materialism raises other questions, and suggesting that what stands in the way of an adequate naturalistic account of phenomenal states may be the propensity to take type-B materialism more seriously than it deserves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the history and future good of acceptance ethics and helps frame the publication of papers presented at the workshop on Professional Promises: Hopes and Gaps in Access to Oral Health Care. Discovery and development of Universal Patient Acceptance (UPA), a practical application of acceptance ethics, is key to systematizing access to oral health; UPA expands partnerships among professional volunteerism, culture, and economic structures. A Veterans' Administration health services preventive dentistry research project and a West Virginia school children's preventive dental program raised awareness of acceptance. A state insurance crisis revealed an underlying systems ethics problem that was not purely legal, political, educational, economic, or scientific in nature. Key players were identified for dialogue, and questions were ranked. UPA was articulated and proposed as a unique, practical, and positive professional promise. The experience involved PEDNET, a dental ethics education group. An intensive applied dental ethics course for practicing dentists was developed; it attracted the American College of Dentists (ACD) and American Dental Association (ADA). Annual ACD LeaderSkills helped expand continuing education of ethics; several dental ethics summits were initiated. Concepts like discourse, adequate care, and viewing organizations as both persons and machines motivated further exploration of acceptance. Separating acceptance from diagnosis, treatment, and payment improves discourse on the various philosophical notions and practical applications that dominate each area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discourse ethics, as related to design conversation, is a primary factor in the conceptions, decisions, and actions undertaken in the systems design processes. Considerations for what is ethical as well as who determines the system of ethics that guide the design of a human activity system are questions that must be addressed. In this paper, the author examines the importance of discourse ethics in the design of educational systems, situating ethicality within the conversational nature of social systems design. The author first discusses the ethical responsibility of educational systems design. Second, the author explores design conversation as an ethical human activity system. The author then examines discourse ethics and ethical discourse, concluding with an examination of design praxis as a stance taken by the user–designer who engages critically, reflectively, and intentionally in an inquiry that belongs intrinsically to a project of self-understanding—realize the individual and social ‘self’ through authentic engagements. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers the author's insights regarding conclusive reasons for belief and doxastic involuntarism. He examines the argument for doxastic involuntarism, a view that one could not control his beliefs, and argues that the argument assumes a familiar thesis on control called the Principle of Alternate Possibilities (PAP). He adds that one cannot do otherwise than to hold that belief. He adds that control over beliefs consists the capacity to attend to reasons for and against believing.

Steven Lukes has advanced the bold claim that power research is a political activity. The purpose of this article is to examine the credentials for this claim. The conclusion arrived at by the present author is that Lukes's arguments are wanting, but that power research actually contains political elements. Some of these elements will be unearthed in the article. This operation is performed, time and again, by raising the crucial question: does this particular choice by the power analyst require normative justification? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers the author's insights on the philosophical relation and distinction between deconstruction and discourse ethics, and speculative logic. The author explores the views of philosophers Jacques Derrida and Georg Hegel on the definition, logic, and origin of the term différance. He also discusses the three moments of Hegel's speculative dialect, including equivocation, undecidable equivocity, and undecidably equivocal.

The article discusses neo-Kantianism discourse ethics. It says that social ethics are divided into two philosophies in which one is neo-Kantianism that prioritizes justice in ethical norms and have been promoted by philosophers like John Rawls, and the other is neo-Aristotelian that prioritizes the good of the community and is promoted by philosophers like Alasdair MacIntyre. It adds that the discourse ethics of Jürgen Habermas is Kantian, but it seeks to overcome Kantian inadequacies.

An essay is presented on solidarity and justice. It relates the discussion by Lawrence Kohlberg concerning moral development, moral justifications, and moral theory. It discusses the central objection of Bill Puka in all deontological approaches being derived from the theories by philosopher Immanuel Kant. Moreover, the author defended against Puka's views by applying the concept of discourse ethics.

An essay is presented on the challenges, objections, and criticisms on the communicative or discourse ethics based from the views of philosophers Aristotle and Georg Hegel. It explores the use by neo-Aristotelianism of the three strands of philosophical argumentation and social analysis in the late-capitalist societies. It also discusses the designation of the term neo-Aristotelian, the relation between morality and modernity, and the cultural interpretations of good life and socialization.