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This paper critically compares the philosophy of Günther Anders and the contemporary transhumanists, like Julian Savulescu, Ingmar Persson, or Thomas Douglas. The Andersian concepts of moral blindness, promethean gap, and promethean shame will be discussed in order to understand human beings’ outdatedness; parallel to this, we will also expose the transhumanist analysis on the unfitness of human beings in evolutive and cognitive terms. We will show that much of the transhumanist analysis is a reformulation of the Andersian thesis, now under scientific terminology. Finally, we will approach the transhumanist proposal of moral enhancement, explaining and confronting some critics raised on the grounds of freedom and moral responsibility. Este artículo compara críticamente los planteamientos de Günther Anders y filósofos contemporáneos transhumanistas, como Julian Savulescu, Ingmar Persson o Thomas Douglas. Se expondrán los conceptos andersianos de ceguera moral, desnivel prometeico y vergüenza prometeica para comprender la obsolescencia del ser humano, paralelamente al análisis transhumanista de la desadaptación humana en términos evolutivos y cognitivos. Se mostrará cómo buena parte del análisis transhumanista es una reformulación de las tesis andersianas bajo terminología científica. Por último, se abordará la propuesta transhumanista de mejora moral, exponiendo y abordando algunas críticas surgidas sobre la libertad y la responsabilidad moral.

Abstract. Moral sensitivity, understood as an individual’s capability of identifying and ascribing importance to moral issues when they arise, is often considered a key competence in professional life and a precondition of ethical behavior. With a focus on business settings, this article presents a new measure to assess individual’s sensitivity to moral and business values. The measure was developed using a vignette-based domain-specific approach and validated in two studies. In Study 1, we compared our instrument and various convergent and divergent scales to obtain the first evidence of the construct validity of the instrument. Study 2 provides evidence of criterion validity by comparing the sensitivity to moral and business-related issues between a sample of business managers/bankers and employees of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The results demonstrate that business managers/bankers reveal lower scores of moral sensitivity than employees of NGOs. Further directions for moral sensitivity research and limitations are discussed.

This chapter presents conclusions and perspectives of reflections on moral blindness and banality of evil in private business and public administration. The chapter argues for the necessity of moral thinking unlimited in organizations and bureaucracies and in research and theoretical reflection. The main challenge of management education and teaching of political administration is how to teach managers, bureaucrats and administrators “how to think” and have the capacity of moral thinking in the context of their professional life and work. In this context, the chapter discusses the danger of moral blindness of philosophy and of theoretical reflections in social sciences and humanities.

Leaning particularly on Zygmunt Bauman's thoughts, this paper analyses past theorizations of music education, asking if these trends have created a value indifference and moral blindness in terms of who 'we' want to be in super-diverse societies. The paper pinpoints the need for a professional social epistemology in which social integration brings forth the use of moral imagination beyond the bounds of existing musical and educational practices whilst constructing the 'we'. Post Second World War music education theorisation shunned the idea of schools as spaces of education fostering a 'common culture', an idea seen as characteristic of nationalistic music education. The cognitive turn towards individual knowledge construction, first manifested in the aesthetic approach and then followed by the 'practice turn' and rights-based multiculturalism, has focused on individual cognition and identities in relation to diverse musical practices. The paper argues that the increasing diversity, polarisation, and consequential policy demands for social integration now require that music education needs to return to moral questions about how we as a profession potentially construct 'our life' and 'our values' in educational contexts.

Despite coming from a world-famous, widely published sociologist and ethicist, Zygmunt Bauman’s thought has not significantly influenced scholarship on public relations. Although Bauman’s works indeed challenge classical theories of public relations, they also offer concepts that can reshape current understandings of how organisations interact with publics. Referring to Bauman’s social and ethical theory, in this article, I argue that amid the transition from solid to liquid modernity, the boundaries between public relations and other communications disciplines also become liquid and ultimately dissolve. As a consequence, experts from traditional disciplines within communications (e.g. public relations, marketing and corporate communications) increasingly compete with data engineers to influence publics, and in the process, their attempts at persuasive communication neglect moral considerations. In light of that dynamic, I contend that the recent data scandal involving Cambridge Analytica does not represent a false start but the dark future of digital communications management., + ID der Publikation: hslu_75851 + Art des Beitrages: Wissenschaftliche Medien + Sprache: Englisch + Letzte Aktualisierung: 2020-06-16 09:28:58

In Cambodia, more than half of all children experience physical, emotional, or sexual abuse. This article examines how Cambodians view the causes and effects of child abuse and analyses its underlying cultural forces. Adopting a conceptual framework originally developed for the cultural context of violence against women, 110 cases of child abuse were ethnographically studied, comprising 61 cases of sexual abuse (50 girls and 11 boys), 26 cases of physical abuse (13 girls and 13 boys), and 23 cases of emotional abuse or neglect (13 girls and 10 boys). The perpetrators included fathers and other close relatives, lay Buddhist officiants and monks, and neighbors. Most informants viewed the sexual or physical abuse of children as stemming from “cultural attractors,” including blighted endowment caused by deeds in a previous life, a bad character starting early in life, astrological vulnerability to abuse, preordained entanglement between the child and the abuser (they are “fated” to meet), sexual craving, “entering the road to ruin,” and a moral blindness that portrays the abuser as blameless. Although these traits are similar to those identified in the explanations of violence against women, there were notable differences such as the role of the tiracchāna in explaining sexual abuse, including incest. Using these findings, this article identifies a cultural epigenesis of child sexual abuse, and provides a blueprint for developing a culturally responsive plan to prevent child abuse.

Wydział Filozofii, Instytut Filozofii; promotor rozprawy doktorskiej: ks. prof. dr hab. Alfred Marek Wierzbicki Przedstawiona dysertacja jest próbą analizy moralnych podstaw przemocy religijnej, a także ich implikacji na podstawie debaty dotyczącej współczesnego terroryzmu. Otwiera to drogę wielu dyskusjom i intelektualnym poszukiwaniom, dotyczącym złożonej relacji pomiędzy religią a przemocą, która stała się wspólnym doświadczeniem tradycji religijnej. Rozdział pierwszy jest próbą wyjaśnienia i przedstawienia historii przemocy religijnej. W rozdziale drugim debatuje się nad tym, czy religia jest z natury brutalna, czy też nie. Rozdział trzeci prezentuje analizę roli religii we współczesnym terroryzmie. Rozdział czwarty rozważa różne sposoby usprawiedliwienia terroryzmu religijnego i środki zaradcze stosowane w celu jego uniknięcia. Rozdział piąty prezentuje moralne implikacje i wyzwania tego religijnego problemu przez naświetlenie stanowisk różnych badaczy w aspekcie tyki przemocy. Rozprawa pokazuje, że "potworna" przemoc może być popełniana przez "przerażająco normalne" jednostki. Ta idea może być lepiej wyrażona w tej analizie jako "bezduszne podkreślenie inności", które ujawnia centralne znaczenie "osoby" w etyce przemocy i ukazuje niebezpieczeństwo odrzucenia norm personalistycznych w relacjach międzyludzkich. Z całości rozważań można wyprowadzić wniosek, że przemoc zaczyna się wraz z konceptualizacją "innego" w kontekście "mimetycznej rywalizacji" "nas przeciwko nim" jako moralnemu rozumieniu "innego" w intersubiektywnych relacjach "Jednego i innego". Przez wskazanie "złotej reguły" jako odpowiadającej w etyce religijnemu odrzuceniu przemocy, rozprawa wzywa do odnowienia etyki personalistycznej w przekonaniach i praktykach religijnych, co pomogłoby znaleźć rozwiązania problemów teoretycznych i praktycznych wywoływanych przez przemoc religijną. This dissertation attempts to analyze the axiomoral underpinnings and implications of violence in religion against the backdrop of debates on contemporary terrorism. It lends voice to the numerous discussions and intellectual inquiries on the complex relationship between religion and violence which has been common experience in the history of the world's religious tradition. Chapter one attempts an explanation and history of religious violence. Chapter two debates whether religion is inherently violent or not. Chapter three analyzes religion's role in contemporary terrorism. Chapter four analyses the various justifications of religious terrorism and the various counterterrorism measures employed to avert them. Chapter five presents the moral implications and provocations of this religious predicament. The essay demonstrates the monstrous violence can be perpetrated by "frighteningly normal" individuals. It uses the term "heartless otherization" to show the centrality of "person" in the ethics of violence and to recognize the danger of neglecting the personalistic norm in interpersonal relationships. Violence begins with one's very conceptualization of the "other" in the context of the "mimetic rivalry" of "Us vs them" as against the axiomoral understanding of the "other" in the intersubjectivity of "One-and-Other". By identifying the golden rule as a point of moral convergence for religious non-violence, this essay calls for the rejuvenation of the personalist morality in religious beliefs and practices, which would help provide viable antidotes to the conceptual and practical challenges of violence in religion.

A review of the book: Jacob Dahl Rendtorff, Moral Blindness in Business. A Social Theory of Evil in Organizations (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020)

A modernidade líquida nos trouxe inúmeras repercussões, principalmente para as relações humanas. O turbilhoes de informações, advindos da globalização negativa, tornam as pessoas cada vez menos empáticas diante de situações catastróficas, como a queda de avião, rompimento de barragens, pandemias, furacões e etc. O novo individualismo atrelado ao enfraquecimento dos vínculos humanos e a dissolução da solidariedade repercutem em uma espécie de cegueira moral e ética dos indivíduos. O objetivo deste artigo é relacionar os excetos da obra Ensaio sobre a Cegueira de José Saramago (2017) com o conceito cegueira moral de Bauman. O livro narra a história de uma epidemia de cegueira branca que se espalha pela cidade causando situações caóticas. A cegueira vivenciada pelos personagens da literatura, não é decorrente de problemas físicos, mas está relacionada a perda de sensibilidade ao sofrimento dos outros, ou seja, trata-se de uma cegueira moral.

El trance vivido por Sócrates, causado por las acusaciones que lo sentenciaron a muerte, es un buen ejemplo a considerar cuando, aguzando la pupila, pretendemos investigar las influencias del tradicionalismo en la esfera académica y cultural, pues expresa la grave vulneración que sufre la libertad de pensamiento y de expresión a partir del supuesto de infalibilidad arraigado en el folclore. Entendiendo dichas libertades como ejes vertebradores de todo Estado democrático, percibidas a la vez como una construcción erigida desde la Academia, la presente analogía puede servir para esclarecer el desequilibrio sociocultural de tantos Estados considerados como democráticos. En este sentido, mediante una investigación cualitativa fundamentada en la documentación bibliográfica y la reflexión, se plasmará cómo y porqué la Academia en general, cual funambulista, transita inoculada por influencias socioculturales y políticas perniciosas; los óbices que propician una ceguera intelectual y moral en el ámbito social.

Almost one in four women in Cambodia is a victim of physical, emotional or sexual violence. The study aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the ways in which Cambodians see its causes and effects and to identify and analyse the cultural forces that underpin and shape its landscape. An ethnographic study was carried out with 102 perpetrators and survivors of emotional, physical and sexual violence against women and 228 key informants from the Buddhist and healing sectors. Their views and experiences of it were recorded-the popular idioms expressed and the symptoms of distress experienced by survivors and perpetrators. From these results, the eight cultural forces, or cultural attractors, that are seen to propel a person to violence were identified. Violence stemmed from blighted endowment, or 'bad building' (sɑmnaaŋ mɨn lʔɑɑ) determined by deeds in a previous life (kam). Children with a vicious character (kmeeŋ kaac or doṣa-carita) might grow to be abusers, and particular birthmarks on boys were thought to be portents. Krʊəh, or mishap, especially when a female's horoscope predicted a zodiac house on the descent (riesəy), explained vulnerability to violence and its timing. Astrological incompatibility (kuu kam) was a risk factor. Lust, anger and ignorance, the 'Triple Poison', fuelled it. 'Entering the road to ruin' (apāyamuk), including alcohol abuse, womanising and gambling, triggered it. Confusion and loss of judgement (mohā) led to moral blindness (mo baŋ). These were the eight cultural attractors that shaped the landscape of violence against women. The cultural epigenesis of violence against women in Cambodia is an insight which can be used to build culturally responsive interventions and strengthen the primary prevention of violence against women. An understanding of the epigenesis of violence could strengthen the primary prevention of violence against women.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to contribute to the relaxion on what can be done to develop ethical cultures that may be less permeable and more resilient to changes in leadership from an ethical point of view. The influence of leaders on organisational ethics is recognised, and there are even those who consider that it is not possible to maintain an ethical culture when leaders are not engaged. But, if this theory is true, all business ethics programmes that can be created, and the cultures that can gradually be developed in organisations, will always have their existence and robustness suspended at each leadership change. How to maintain an ethical culture beyond leadership?Design/methodology/approachAs a strategy, we used the case study with a narrative methodology, in which a chief executive officer (CEO) and a chief compliance officer (CCO) narrate in the first person a case of perceived collapse of the ethical culture of a multinational company.FindingsThe findings point to the difficulty in maintaining ethical leadership. Key aspects to protect an organization from leadership changes are as follows: the management of the succession process, the quality of the training on ethics and the mechanisms developed by the organization to foment speak up and take notice of the situations. Moral blindness and the banality of evil that also can be observed in organizations appear as facilitating elements for collapse.Originality/valueEthical leadership is generally presented as a necessary condition for an ethical culture. However, leaders often have unethical or ethically neutral leadership. This case helps to understand the difficulties experienced by leaders in adopting ethical leadership and proposes a set of instruments and procedures that, when included in an ethical programme, can protect the company's ethical culture against unethical leaders. Some characteristics of our case study make it particularly relevant: action occurs in a multinational, a context where, by size and complexity, achieving uniformity in culture becomes particularly relevant, and actions happen in the context of a CEO succession process, something that may occur in any company and which is often a trigger for ethical misconducts. Additionally, our case is narrated by a CEO and a CCO, which makes it rare, as it is especially difficult to have access to these executives.

Рецензируемые книги представляют собой анализ различных аспектов утраты чувствительности современного текучего общества, в котором отсутствуют всяческие альтернативы. Авторы указывают, что человечество инфицируется моральной слепотой, ведущей к кризису социальных отношений. Первопричина — в регулярной трансляции насилия; когда зло атакует по всем фронтам, мы прекращаем обращать на него внимание. Парадокс заключается в том, что хорошие новости намного слабее, чем плохие, и поэтому не вызывают эмоционально окрашенного отклика. Бауман и Донскис весьма скептически относятся к технологизации современного общества, склоняясь к той точки зрения, что социальные сети не объединяют, а разобщают людей, подвергая их нескончаемым атакам моральных паник и массовых психозов. И если моральная слепота приводит к утрате доверия и усилению индивидуализации, то выход из ситуации авторы видят в налаживании диалога между различными членами нашего фрагментарного общества. Благодарность. Работа выполнена при финансовой поддержке РФФИ в рамках научного проекта 19-011-00082 А «Нормотворчество в морали, праве, религии».

This paper critically compares the philosophy of Gunther Anders and the contemporary transhumanists, like Julian Savulescu, Ingmar Persson, or Thomas Douglas. The Andersian concepts of moral blindness, promethean gap, and promethean shame will be discussed in order to understand human beings’ outdatedness; parallel to this, we will also expose the transhumanist analysis on the unfitness of human beings in evolutive and cognitive terms. We will show that much of the transhumanist analysis is a reformulation of the Andersian thesis, now under scientific terminology. Finally, we will approach the transhumanist proposal of moral enhancement, explaining and confronting some critics raised on the grounds of freedom and moral responsibility.

Resumen Los escándalos de corrupción dados a conocer durante los últimos tres años en Latinoamérica, además de reflejar el modo en que la corrupción mueve los engranajes de las instituciones y organizaciones empresariales, pueden considerarse como uno de los principales detonantes de la aporofobia (rechazo, odio al pobre) y ceguera moral (incapacidad para identificar la condición de vulnerabilidad de los demás) que aqueja a nuestras sociedades. Teniendo en consideración los resortes que activan ambos fenómenos, el presente artículo explora las posibilidades que tiene la simpatía smithiana para desactivarlos, así como el aporte social de ésta en la lucha contra la corrupción que cualquier país pudiera emprender. Abstract The corruption scandals unveiled during the last three years in Latin America, in addition to reflecting the way in which corruption moves the gears of the institutions and business organizations, can be considered as one of the main triggers of the aporophobia (rejection, hatred of the poor) and moral blindness (inability to identify the condition of vulnerability of others) that afflicts our societies. Considering the springs that activate both phenomena, this article explores the possibilities that smithian sympathy has to deactivate them, as well as its social contribution in the fight against corruption that any country could undertake.

The continuing debate between Persson and Savulescu and myself over moral enhancement concerns two dimensions of a very large question. The large question is: what exactly makes something a moral enhancement? This large question needs a book length study and this I provide in my How to be Good, Oxford 2016. (JH 2016). In their latest paper Moral Bioenhancement, Freedom and Reason take my book as their point of departure and the first dimension of the big question they address is one that emphasizes a distinction, not highlighted in their original 2008 paper, between a moral enhancement that will ensure an improvement in morality and one that will simply make people more motivated to be moral. The second issue concerns whether anything that would be a “moral enhancement” properly so called, could involve denying moral agents the very possibility of autonomously choosing to try to be good. In this response, although P&S cover a number of other related issues, I shall concentrate on these two points.

Augustine was Calvin’s main source of reference in the “Insti- tutes”. However, his treatment of Augustine’s views was not uncritical. This article discusses the way in which Calvin modi- fied Augustine’s doctrine of original sin. The main differences can be attributed to different theological aims. Augustine deve- loped his doctrine of original sin against the teachings of the Manicheans and Pelagians, whereas Calvin shifted the focus to knowledge of God and the self. Calvin understood original sin noetically as religious and moral blindness – whereas Augus- tine viewed sexual concupiscence as the main principle of original sin. Augustine made a considerable effort to explain that sin does not find its origin in God. God foresaw the fall, but did not compel it. Calvin located sin in God’s eternal decree and permission. Augustine, furthermore, understood the transmis- sion of original sin biologically, whereas Calvin ascribed it to God’s eternal permissive will. These differences culminated in a different understanding of the meaning of Jesus’ virgin birth. The article concludes by discussing the relevance of Calvin’s noetic approach to original sin.

Popularized in Spain through the work of the Italian satirist Traiano Boccalini, the motif of the occhiali politici, or political lenses, is one of the most understudied conceits in early modern Spanish satire. This essay examines four early modern Spanish texts where anteojos de larga vista (“eyeglasses” or “telescopes”) become central elements as the eye is given the ability to perceive the reality beyond deceptive appearances. But a capacity to see beyond reveals two parallel concerns: the adoption of spectacles as a mark of social distinction by a society suffering from the moral blindness these novels denounce and the increasing tensions between astronomy and religion stemming from the use of lenses as stargazing tools. Contextualizing these anxieties in the contemporary polemics regarding the divulgation of Galileo's Copernican theses, I illustrate how a simple corrective instrument triggered a fierce debate at the center of Spain's uneven modernity.

Some contemporary Kantians have argued that one could not be virtuous without having internalized certain patterns of awareness that permit one to identify and respond reliably to moral reasons for action. I agree, but I argue that this insight requires unrecognized, far‐reaching, and thoroughly welcome changes in the traditional Kantian understanding of maxims and virtues. In particular, it implies that one's characteristic emotions and desires will partly determine one's maxims, and hence the praiseworthiness of one's actions. I try to show this by pointing out an instability in the Kantian understanding of maxims. On the one hand, maxims are thought of as consciously affirmed, subjective principles of action. On the other hand, Kantians claim that nothing counts as an action, nor as morally assessable, unless it has a maxim. One cannot take both thoughts seriously without implausibly constricting the range of behavior that counts as action, hence as morally assessable. This difficulty can be overcome, I suggest, by jettisoning the idea that maxims must be consciously affirmed, and by stressing the way in which maxims are grounded in the pruning and shaping of one's emotions and desires during socialization. This opens the door to a rich Kantian theory of virtue. It also raises questions about the scope and ground of our moral responsibility, which I address at the end of the paper.

Zygmunt Bauman and Leonidas Donskis. Moral Blindness: Loss of Sensitivity in Liquid Modernity. Polity, 2013. 224 p. ISBN-10: 0745662757 Methodological Friendship – Dialog of TheoreticiansJulija Tuleikytė>

The fields of late Imperial Russian and Soviet history have reached a new plateau. Recent scholarship-particularly in the areas of social history of late Imperial Russia, the historiography of the Russian revolutions of 1917, and the post-1917 history of the Soviet Union-has broken new conceptual ground and, at least in the case of post-1917 history, has opened entire new areas of enquiry. These developments often have run well ahead of corresponding openings in the current Soviet discourse of historians and publicists. There, the tendency has been to blame present-day problems and moral failures of the party on Stalin and his personal regime and on the "administrative command" system.' It is convenient to begin Soviet history in 1928 or 1929 with Stalin's "great change," but it is the investigation of the formative years of Soviet power, which must include the revolutionary tradition going back to 1905-7 and 1917 through the end of the twenties, that will supply the insight into basic Soviet political and social institutions. Only very recently have professional historians in the USSR begun to call for abandoning the hoary official historiography of the October Revolution and reassessing the role of Lenin.2 With the events of the past eighteen months in Eastem Europe and the Soviet Union, some have already proclaimed "the end of history" and have argued that one need not bother explaining how the Soviet Union came to be, how its basic social and political institutions (totalitarian or not) were created, how they developed, and how they launched and nurtured the processes that have brought us to the present watershed. It is as if by labeling the period a totalitarian or utopian disaster one is no longer required to explain its sources or how it worked. This is a peculiar form of moral blindness, for it surely

This article analyzes Zygmunt Bauman’s notion of moral blindness against the backdrop of his designation of modern culture as a dynamic process of liquefaction constantly dissolving every paradigm and subject to the flexible and indeterminate power of individual choice. Bauman argued that the social conditions of this radically individualistic liquid modernity result in a kind of moral insensitivity that he calls adiaphorization. Adiaphorization for him places certain human acts outside the “universe of moral obligations.” It defies the entire ortho- dox theory of the social origins of morality as it reveals that some dehumanizing monstrous atrocities like the holocaust and genocides are not exclusively reserved for monsters, but can be attributable to “frighteningly normal” moral agents. The present text therefore attempts to discuss the various moral implications of Bau- man’s analysis of moral blindness, with a view to highlighting its weaknesses. It moves on to explore Bauman’s recourse to Emmanuel Levinas’ ethics of the “face of the Other” as a viable ethical remedy that trumps the uncanny effects of this whole adiaphorization effect. Finally, the paper further advances his call for a rediscovery of the sense of belonging, by appealing to some major insights originating from African traditions of ethical communalism in order to propose a possible route towards the avoidance and amelioration of this moral challenge.