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One of the newest and most influential ethical, political and philosophical theory of the XXI century is “effective altruism”. Its basic ideas firstly appeared in the second half of the XX century in the works of the famous utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer, but the real influence the conception obtained in the second decade of the XXI century. The popularity of the concept is ensured by a combination of a humanistic philosophy, on the one hand, and a concentration on its realistic and effective implementation, on the other. The emergence of the effective altruism is connected with the growing disbalances in the globalizing world. At the turn of the XX and XXI centuries, the quality of people’s lives in the most developed countries reached the highest level in history, while the problems of hunger and child mortality in less developed countries of Africa and Asia remained sharp. Effective altruists wonder how is it possible in the modern world. How, from the point of view of morality, one can explain the existence of easily remedied disasters and injustices on our planet? What needs to be done to solve these problems? One of the main problems identified by representatives of effective altruism is the specificity of moral intuitions inherent both in humankind and in each individual. These intuitions may block the moral intentions toward a person in a distance, while promote them toward people who are close. Effective altruists criticize such situation and try to find a solution. The article observes the main stages of the evolution of the concept of the effective altruism. The philosophical foundations of the concept are explored based on the works of the most famous representative of the movement – Peter Singer. The philosophical critique of effective altruism from both deontological and virtue ethical theories is considered.

Throughout the Western world, people's policy views are correlated across domains in a strikingly similar fashion. This article proposes that what partly explains the structure of ideology is moral universalism : the extent to which people exhibit the same level of altruism and trust towards strangers as towards in-group members. In new large-scale multinational surveys, heterogeneity in universalism descriptively explains why some people support redistribution, health care, environmental protection, affirmative action, and foreign aid, while others advocate for spending on the military, law enforcement, and border protection. Universalism is a substantially stronger predictor of policy views and ideological constraints than variables such as income, wealth, education, religiosity, or beliefs about government efficiency. Consistent with the idea that universalism shapes policy views, we further document that the left–right divide on redistribution, environmental protection, or foreign aid strongly attenuates or even reverses when people evaluate less universalist implementations of these policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many applied economic settings involve trade-offs between in-group members and strangers. To better understand decision making in these contexts, this paper measures and investigates the economic relevance of heterogeneity in moral universalism: the extent to which people exhibit the same level of altruism and trust toward strangers as toward in-group members. We first introduce a new experimentally validated, survey-based measure of moral universalism that is simple and easily scalable. We then deploy this tool in a large, representative sample of the U.S. population to study heterogeneity and economic relevance. We find that universalism is a relatively stable trait at the individual level. In exploratory analyses, heterogeneity in universalism is significantly related to observables: Older people, men, the rich, the rural, and the religious exhibit less universalist preferences and beliefs. Linking variation in universalism to self-reports of economic and social behaviors, we document the following correlations. Universalists donate less money locally, but more globally, and are less likely to exhibit home bias in equity and educational investments. In terms of social networks, universalists have fewer friends, spend less time with them, and feel more lonely. These results provide a blueprint for measuring moral universalism in applied settings and suggest that variation in universalism is relevant for understanding a myriad of economic behaviors. This paper was accepted by Yan Chen, behavioral economics and decision analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evolution of the discourse surrounding human rights has led to calls for multiculturalism in modern society. While human rights originate from a perceived universal need to protect the rights of the individual, their appeal has not been universal, as they are perceived to be a threat to cultural rights by some. This is because of the perceived conflict or dilemma of negotiating both as entitlements. While arguments for both human rights and cultural rights are compelling, they expose a tension or conflict of rights. Calls for multiculturalism emerged in defense of cultural diversity and other forms of rights. The central question surrounding this tension is as follows: Can human and cultural rights be reconciled without compromising basic individual rights? Attempts to answer this question have occupied scholarship for several decades, with works on cross-cultural universalism and intersectionality emerging as a bridge for the seeming unbridgeable controversy. This essay explores some of these works that relate to the question of women's rights and the implications for the controversial practice of female genital cutting (FGC). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethical relations to the past demand a conscious confrontation of the past. In this sense we will examine the close connection between past events and moral concepts and their influence on current moral discourses. We presume a weak moral objectivism, since strong moral objectivism fails to take account of relevant particulars of a given context, now or in the past, and since it might carry a tendency to dogmatism and rigidity. A stringent moral relativism, on the other hand, can lead to the trivialisation and denial of the violation of universal ethical values. From a philosophical standpoint, it will be argued that moral judgments about past actions are appropriate and necessary, followed by reflections on the significance of universalist and relativist positions in social science discourses and from psychoanalytic social psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main ideas of Kant’s moral philosophy were embodied in what can be called the “Enlightenment Project”. Kant’s calls for freedom, nti-paternalism and the requirement of abandonment of concern for moral behaviour are associated with ethical ideas of autonomy, the categorical imperative, negative and positive freedom, the universality of morality in relation to the human being as a rational actor etc. These ideas are consistent with the ideals of the “Enlightenment Project”. The following ideals can be distinguished: 1) the ideal of classical scientific rationality; 2) the idea of “pure reason”; 3) free, equal and autonomous individuals; 4) moral universalism; 5) the creation of a united human civilisation; 6) the ideals of moral progress and universal happiness. In contemporary philosophy and ethics the main objects of criticism are the ideals of a free and autonomous individual, as well as ideas about the possibility of the existence of universal morality. In the context of the discussion of the possibility of the existenceof rationally justified universal morality and the existing moral pluralism, the results of the experimental on-line research of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) – “Moral Machine” – are interesting. The analysis of the results of this study shows the possibility of the existence of different types of rational universality (scientific-epistemological and moral). But while scientific universality requires theoretical unity of empirical data, moral universality firstly allows pluralism of norms and values and, secondly, requires a generalised normative regulation ofempirical moral diversity.

Almost all participants in the debate about the ethics of accidents with self-driving cars have so far assumed moral universalism. However, universalism may be philosophically more controversial than is commonly thought, and may lead to undesirable results in terms of non-moral consequences and feasibility. There thus seems to be a need to also start considering what I refer to as the "relativistic car" — a car that is programmed under the assumption that what is morally right, wrong, good, bad, etc. is determined by the moral beliefs of one's society or culture. My investigation of this idea involves six steps. First, I explain why and how the moral universalism/relativism debate is relevant to the issue of self-driving cars. Second, I argue that there are good reasons to consider accident algorithms that assume relativism. Third, I outline how a relativistic car would be programmed to behave. Fourth, I address what advantages such a car would have, both in terms of its non-moral consequences and feasibility. Fifth, I address the relativistic car's disadvantages. Finally, I qualify and conclude my considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the ethical views of the 17th century Czech thinker Jan Amos Komenský, also known as Johann Amos Comenius. Comeniologic studies are focused on different aspects of his contribution to education, theology and philosophy but surprisingly there are only a few studies on his ethical standpoints. Jan Patočka classified Comenius’s work in three periods: prepansophic, pansophic and panorthotic. Here the focus is on the panorthotic works in order to trace the different conceptions of ethics, virtue and other ethical concepts specially the virtue of prudence (prudentia/phronesis). Furthermore, to have a broader perspective, a short analysis of his prepansophic period book The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart is also included in order to contrast the evolution of the concept of prudence and the ethical sphere in his world-view. The methodology is based on conceptual analysis, the contrast of different references to ethics in his late period books. At the same time, this work is an attempt to extract secular elements for understanding his ethics, although the organic link between philosophy, theology and politics is recognized in his thought.

Katie Cannon is described as the creator of womanist ethics, a once-new, now permanent part of the field of Christian ethics. Ten themes in her work are named, and the author elaborates on how each of these themes has worked its way into his own understanding of Christian ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most popular argument against moral realism is the argument from disagreement: if there are mind‐independent moral facts, then we would not expect to find as much moral disagreement as we in fact do; therefore, moral realism is false. In this paper, I develop the flipside of this argument. According to this argument from agreement, we would expect to find lots of moral disagreement if there were mind‐independent moral facts. But we do not, in fact, find much moral disagreement; therefore, moral realism is false. I defend the argument, explain the empirical evidence that supports it, and show what makes this challenge novel and powerful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universal human rights and particular cultural identities, which are relativistic by nature, seem to stand in conflict with each other. It is commonly suggested that the relativistic natures of cultural identities undermine universal human rights and that human rights might compromise particular cultural identities in a globalised world. This article examines this supposed clash and suggests that it is possible to frame a human rights approach in such a way that it becomes the starting point and constraining framework for all non-deficient cultural identities. In other words, it is possible to depict human rights in a culturally sensitive way so that universal human rights can meet the demands of a moderate version of meta-ethical relativism which acknowledges a small universal core of objectively true or false moral statements and avers that, beyond that small core, all other moral statements are neither objectively true nor false.

This article aims to present that moral particularism is a viable alternative to the dominant ethics of modernity to the present (i.e., Kantian and utilitarian ethics); theories that have been criticized during the last decades, especially, by the requirement of moral impartiality. The agent in these ethics deliberates impartially due to the universalism of moral principles. I will suggest that moral particularism, insofar as it excludes impartiality as a relevant factor in the agents' deliberations, presents reasons to be a plausible ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human rights have become the language of justice in our globalizing world. Yet, curiously, despite many rounds of debate over moral versus political conceptions, little attention has been paid to the meaning of human rights as international legal concepts. The specific normative significance of the fact that human rights are legal norms of the international legal order and the implications this has for the nature and justice of that order has gotten lost in the fray. This article addresses Patrick Macklem's excellent attempt to fill that gap. He is right that a key function of international human rights law is to mitigate the injustices of an international legal order that distributes sovereignty to states. A legal conception of human rights is indeed needed to get at the distinctive normative role international human rights documents play as law. But I argue that, while such an analysis can and must supplement other approaches, no adequate understanding of human rights as international legal norms can dispense with moral justifications of them. Otherwise, the purpose and specificity of human rights as distinct from the rights of corporations and other non-human entities gets obscured and the priority of the human rights of human persons, vis-à-vis other legal persons, is undermined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of the universality of human rights has much in common with the question of the universality of ethics. In the form of a multidisciplinary reflexive survey, the aim of this article is to show how human rights discourses derive from more basic principles related to basic needs. These needs are the universal grammar for moral principles, which will be distinguished from ethical norms. Ethical norms, I will argue, are rules that develop in social groups to put into effect moral principles through communicative action and therefore develop as culturally specific norms, which guide behaviour within these social groups. This will explain why ethical norms contain some universal principles, but are largely culturally specific. In order to shed some light on the universality debate, I will show how moral principles translate into ethical norms and might manifest through communicative action in human rights law. For this purpose the article develops a socio-legal account on social norm-creation that bridges moral universality and legal universality via ethical pluralism, which in effect explains why despite the universality of moral principles, the outcomes of ethical rationales can vary extremely.

The article revisits Habermas’s recasting of moral universalism, so as to avoid the aporias of naturalism and cultural relativism, according to a pragmatic-formal perspective that does justice to the complex phenomenon of religion in a postsecular, pluralist world, where believers, atheists, and agnostics can coexist together and actively participate in the construction of a more tolerant, just society.

Este artigo trata das críticas, elaboradas por Albrecht Wellmer, ao tipo de teoria moral baseada em princípios universalistas. Inicialmente, é abordada sua tentativa de uma reelaboração da própria idéia de universalismo moral, para depois esboçar a radicalidade de sua crítica a qualquer moral universalista. Nesse ponto, a Ética do Discurso de Jürgen Habermas, é que lhe serve de objeto. Por fim, também a partir de Wellmer, apontam-se possíveis alternativas a esse tipo de ética, sobretudo, a formulação de um ponto de vista moral fundamento numa teoria do reconhecimento social.This article approaches the Albrecht Wellmer's critic to moral theories which are based on universalistic principles. Our starting point is his attempt to review the very idea of moral universalism. Afterwards, we lean over his radical critics to all kinds of principiological moral universalism, whose main example, on his theoretical context, is the Jürgen Habermas's Ethic of Discourse. Finally, we try to grasp some possible alternatives, overall the possibility of elaboration of moral theory on the basis of a theory of social recognition.

'Universalist' moral principles have fallen into disfavour because too often they have been pretexts for unilateral impositions upon others, whether domestically or internationally. Too widely neglected has been Kant's specifically Critical re-analysis of the scope and character of rational justification in all non-formal domains, including the entirety of epistemology and moral philosophy, including both justice and ethics. Rational judgment is inherently normative because it is in part constituted by our self-assessment of whether the considerations we now integrate into a candidate judgment have been integrated as they ought, so as to form a cogent, justifiable judgment. Constitutive of this self-assessment is that rational judgments must be based upon considerations which can be communicated to all others, such that they too can assess them as sufficiently cogent justification; also constitutive of this rational self-assessment is that we actually engage with others who do assess our judgments. Kant's Critical principles rule out in principle any unilateral imposition upon others, whether in cognition or morals. Using Kant's Critical principles and methods in connection with 'practical anthropology' and the enormously important domain of acquired rights and obligations shows how Kant had already justified fundamentally universal principles of justice which can be institutionalised in variously distinctive cultures, and which form the proper bases for our acquired, specifically social rights and obligations, including those of friendship and community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commentary on Judith Shklar's skepticism has ranged from the claim that it was not the central characteristic of her thought to the argument that it seriously hobbled her thinking about justice. In fact Shklar's uniqueness as a thinker resides precisely in the fact that she combined a sweeping skepticism with a strong commitment to liberal justice. Skepticism interacted with her liberal moral commitments to inspire her account of injustice, without which her views about justice are impossible to grasp. Shklar's skepticism produced her laser-like focus on sources of injustice and oppression for the individual, whom she perceived to be potentially threatened no less by tribe, nation, family, or a democratic citizens' community than by the state itself. It produced not only her highly original insights into the inadequacy of all existing models of justice, but also her subtle yet concerted effort to render democracy safe for liberalism in political theory while at the same make liberalism more egalitarian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The need for explicit theoretical reflection on cross-cultural bioethics continues to grow as the spread of communication technologies and increased human migration has made interactions between medical professionals and patients from different cultural backgrounds much more common. I claim that this need presents us with the following dilemma. On the one hand, we do not want to operate according to an imperialist ethical framework that denies and silences the legitimacy of cultural values other than our own. On the other hand, we do not want to backslide into a form of cultural relativism that is unable to critically appraise cultural practices that are harmful, unjust, or oppressive. I examine two prominent attempts - the principlism of Tom Beauchamp and James Childress and the Contractarianism of Robert Baker - to frame cross-cultural bioethics between these two extremes and argue that both approaches have significant flaws. The principlist approach fails to provide a non-question begging way to identify cross-cultural norms that does not already assume the universal legitimacy of moral principles dominant in North American society. Baker's contractarianism cannot grapple with the realities of political power imbalances that often characterize cross-cultural moral disputes. I suggest that a naturalized feminist framework, though not free of its own theoretical difficulties, provides the best alternative for approaching moral diversity respectfully and critically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I will investigate a perceived tension in Swedish early childhood education (ECE) policy between reevaluating certain foundational claims on the one hand and following universal moral commands on the other. I ask the question; how is it that certain commonly held assumptions are being debunked and others left undisturbed in this particular context? To this end, I look at some of the preconditions of framing the educational practice by universal moral commands so as to make visible some of its underlying ontological assumptions. Correspondingly, I look at some necessary epistemological and ontological prerequisites for understanding knowledge formation as essentially relational, such as it is construed in the policy documents concerned. I connect this with a broader trend in educational philosophy and theory, one where the destabilizing of a Cartesian notion of subjectivity has opened up for more relational conceptions of subjectivity. Next, I will take a closer look at some key passages from the policy documents where the appeal to moral universalism runs parallel with an appeal to a relational ontology. Having done so, I point to some epistemological problems with combining these two conflicting approaches on a policy level. To conclude, I formulate some final thoughts regarding how one might begin to resolve this tension within the discourse of Swedish ECE by coming to terms with what kind of ontological and epistemological foundation to rely upon. I do this by trying out the notion of a pedagogy of dosage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Islamic religious norms are important for Islamic bioethical deliberations. In Muslim societies religious and cultural norms are sometimes confused but only the former are considered inviolable. I argue that respect for Islamic religious norms is essential for the legitimacy of bioethical standards in the Muslim context. I attribute the legitimating power of these norms, in addition to their purely religious and spiritual underpinnings, to their moral, legal, and communal dimensions. Although diversity within the Islamic ethical tradition defies any reductionist or essentialist reconstruction, legitimacy is secured mainly by approximation of Islamic ethical ideals believed to be inherent in the scriptural texts, rather than by the adoption of particular dogmatic or creedal views. With these characteristics, Islamic (bio) ethics may provide useful insights for comparative ethics and global bioethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of bioethics continues to struggle with the problem of cultural diversity: can universal principles guide ethical decision making, regardless of the culture in which those decisions take place? Or should bioethical principles be derived from the moral traditions of local cultures? Ten Have and Gordijn (Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 14:1–3, 2011 ) and Bracanovic (Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 14:229–236, 2011 ) defend the universalist position, arguing that respect for cultural diversity in matters ethical will lead to a dangerous cultural relativity where vulnerable patients and research subjects will be harmed. We challenge the premises of moral universalism, showing how this approach imports and imposes moral notions of Western society and leads to harm in non-western cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of the universality of human rights has much in common with the question of the universality of ethics. In the form of a multidisciplinary reflexive survey, the aim of this article is to show how human rights discourses derive from more basic principles related to basic needs. These needs are the universal grammar for moral principles, which will be distinguished from ethical norms. Ethical norms, I will argue, are rules that develop in social groups to put into effect moral principles through communicative action and therefore develop as culturally specific norms, which guide behaviour within these social groups. This will explain why ethical norms contain some universal principles, but are largely culturally specific. In order to shed some light on the universality debate, I will show how moral principles translate into ethical norms and might manifest through communicative action in human rights law. For this purpose the article develops a socio-legal account on social norm-creation that bridges moral universality and legal universality via ethical pluralism, which in effect explains why despite the universality of moral principles, the outcomes of ethical rationales can vary extremely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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