871 resultados para Social ethics
Resumo:
Kierkegaardian Intersubjectivity and the Question of Ethics and Responsibility By Kevin Krumrei. Kierkegaard's contributions to philosophy are generally admitted and recognized as valuable in the history of Western philosophy, both as one of the great anti-Hegelians, as the founder (arguably) of existentialism, and as a religious thinker. However valid this may be, there is similarly a generally admitted critique of Kierkegaard in the Western tradition, that Kierkegaard's philosophy of the development of the self leads the individual into an isolated encounter with God, to the abandonment of the social context. In other words, a Kierkegaardian theory of intersubjectivity is a contradiction in terms. This is voiced eloquently by Emmanuel Levinas, among others. However, Levinas' own intersubjective ethics bears a striking resemblance to Kierkegaard's, with respect to the description and formulation of the basic problem for ethics: the problem of aesthetic egoism. Further, both Kierkegaard and Levinas follow similar paths in responding to the problem, from Kierkegaard's reduplication in Works of Love, to Levinas' notion of substitution in Otherwise than Being. In this comparison, it becomes evident that Levinas' reading of Kierkegaard is mistaken, for Kierkegaard's intersubjective ethics postulates, in fact, the inseparability and necessity of the self s responsible relation to others in the self s relation to God, found in the command, "you shall love your neighbour as yourself."
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Educational administrators are expected to relate social justice considerations to their actions and to the theoretical foundations of their practice. At the same time, social constructs-including those related to administrative practice, social justice, and societal norms-are important in helping administrators understand, frame, and describe administrative issues. Furthermore, as part of socially constructed language, these constructs represent discursive practices and accepted ways of knowing, valuing, and experiencing the world. Drawing on the multidimensional methods of critical discourse analysis as articulated in the writings of Michel Foucault, Norman Fairclough, and Allan Luke, and using deconstruction as a strategic device for reading and interpreting texts, this exploratory qualitative study examined how administrator knowledge, values, and experiences impact their understanding of social justice within the context of delivering social justice for students who experience bullying. Study findings reveal that school administrators interpreted social justice as equitable distribution, action, and results; fairness; and equity. Constructs embedded in these interpretations assumed common things such as universal acceptance of norms of social relations and conveyed administrator intent to secure the kind of social relations that enabled individuals to enjoy greater equality within existing social arrangements.
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Public policies often involve choices of alternatives in which the size and the composition of the population may vary. Examples are the allocation of resources to prenatal care and the design of aid packages to developing countries. In order to assess the corresponding feasible choices on normative grounds, criteria for social evaluation that are capable of performing variable-population comparisons are required. We review several important axioms for welfarist population principles and discuss the link between individual well-being and the desirability of adding a new person to a given society.
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This paper provides new versions of Harsanyis social aggregation theorem that are formulated in terms of prospects rather than lotteries. Strengthening an earlier result, fixed-population ex-ante utilitarianism is characterized in a multi-profile setting with fixed probabilities. In addition, we extend the social aggregation theorem to social-evaluation problems under uncertainty with a variable population and generalize our approach to uncertain alternatives, which consist of compound vectors of probability distributions and prospects.
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This paper reviews the welfarist approach to population ethics. We provide an overview of the critical-level utilitarian population principles and their generalized counterparts, examine important properties of these principles and discuss their relationships to other variable-population social-evaluation rules. We illustrate the difficulties arising in population ethics by means of an impossibility result and present characterizations of the critical-level generalized-utilitarian principles and of three of their sub-classes.
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Lmergence de lutilisation du mthylphnidate (MPH; Ritalin) par des tudiants universitaires afin damliorer leur concentration et leurs performances universitaires suscite lintrt du public et soulve dimportants dbats thiques auprs des spcialistes. Les diffrentes perspectives sur lamlioration des performances cognitives reprsentent une dimension importante des dfis sociaux et thiques autour dun tel phnomne et mritent dtre lucides. Ce mmoire vise examiner les discours prsents dans les reportages internationaux de presse populaire, les discours en biothique et en en sant publique sur le thme de lutilisation non mdicale du mthylphnidate. Cette recherche a permis didentifier et danalyser des lacunes dans les perspectives thiques, sociales et scientifiques de lutilisation non mdicale du mthylphnidate pour accrotre la performance cognitive dindividus en sant. Une analyse systmatique du contenu des discours sur lutilisation non mdicale du mthylphnidate pour accrotre la performance cognitive a identifi des paradigmes divergents employs pour dcrire lutilisation non mdicale du mthylphnidate et discuter ses consquences thiques. Les paradigmes choix de mode de vie , abus de mdicament et amlioration de la cognition sont prsents dans les discours de la presse populaire, de la biothique et de la sant publique respectivement. Parmi les principales diffrences entre ces paradigmes, on retrouve : la description de lutilisation non mdicale dagents neuropharmacologiques pour lamlioration des performances, les risques et bnfices qui y sont associs, la discussion denjeux thiques et sociaux et des stratgies de prvention et les dfis associs laugmentation de la prvalence de ce phnomne. La divergence de ces paradigmes reflte le pluralisme des perceptions de lutilisation non mdicale dagents neuropharmacologiques Nos rsultats suggrent la ncessit de dbats autour de lamlioration neuropharmacologique afin de poursuivre lidentification des enjeux et de dvelopper des approches de sant publique cohrentes.
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La croissance de la population vieillissante en Amrique du Nord a un impact significatif sur nos politiques sociales. Ainsi, ltat qubcois met la disposition des personnes ges une aide afin de faciliter le maintien domicile. Qui a maintenant la responsabilit de rpondre aux besoins des personnes ges; est-ce la famille ou ltat? Si la rponse peut nous aider formuler des politiques sociales quitables, elle nous pousse aussi repenser le lien social la lumire de la dpendance. Dans un premier temps nous nous pencherons sur lvolution de lthique de la sollicitude pour ensuite analyser les apports des tudes sur la production du handicap. Puisque la problmatique de la dpendance savre cruciale dans ce dbat, les crits de deux thoriciens franais, Albert Memmi et Bernard Ennuyer, nous aideront lucider la question de la dpendance. Nous verrons par la suite comment ces divers apports peuvent nous amener reconceptualiser le lien social.
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Given the fact of moral disagreement, theories of state neutrality which rely on moral premises will have limited application, in that they will fail to motivate anyone who rejects the moral premises on which they are based. By contrast, contractarian theories can be consistent with moral scepticism, and can therefore avoid this limitation. In this paper, I construct a contractarian model which I claim is sceptically consistent and includes a principle of state neutrality as a necessary condition. The principle of neutrality which I derive incorporates two conceptions of neutrality (consequential neutrality and justificatory neutrality) which have usually been thought of as distinct and incompatible. I argue that contractarianism gives us a unified account of these conceptions. Ultimately, the conclusion that neutrality can be derived without violating the constraint established by moral scepticism turns out to rely on an assumption of equal precontractual bargaining power. I do not attempt to defend this assumption here. If the assumption cannot be defended in a sceptically consistent fashion, then the argument for neutrality given here is claimed to be morally minimal, rather than fully consistent with moral scepticism.
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As long as the social rented sector - which comprised 6% of the housing stock - housed traditional families and the allocation procedures were rather loose, little commotion came about. A combination of changes in family structures (leading to the in stream of ethnic minorities), economic changes (leading to the in stream of poor people), and the strengthening of allocation procedures towards those most in need, did change perceptions. Marginalisation and ghettoisation became during the 1990s the buzzwords when talking and writing about social rented housing. In this article, we will explain the background of the scapegoat trends and the possible consequences for social tenants in particular and for the social rental housing in general.
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The fashionable widespreading of Sens ideas coincides with a new mood in the shaping of public policies in affluent societies. In Europe indeed, an opportunity-based approach to social security has been implemented through the European Employment Strategy. Public action tends to rely on a procedural concern with individual opportunities or potentialities in the labour market. The underlying ethics is that individuals are then responsible to use these background opportunities in order to lead the kind of life they value most. More broadly, the discourse and practice of the so-called Third Way shares with the capability approach an appeal for a procedural and enabling depiction of the role of the State. The paper intends to clarify the relation between procedural and opportunity-based approaches to social justice, among them the capability approach, and these new patterns of public action. Our vision goes in the way of a yet renewed, but deeper action of the welfare state, where social agency is envisaged as the very condition of individual agency. Drawing on the various critics of mainstream equality of opportunity, two opposed approaches to responsibility are identified: on the one hand, responsibility is conceived of as i) a luck vs. choice fixed starting point, ii) a backward-looking conception and iii) a highly individualistic framework. On the other hand, responsibility is envisaged as i) an outcome of public policies rather than a starting point, ii) a forward-looking conception, and iii) a combined institutional-individual framework. We situate here Sens capability approach, as well as critics of the luck egalitarianism path. The Third Way rhetoric is assessed against both these perspectives. The issue eventually boils down to an ethical reflection on the articulation of responsibilities, and to a pragmatic and substantial concern for the content of what providing security should mean in practice.
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This article examines the firmspractices in the French tourist sector. By confronting the concepts defined in the literature on the social responsibility and what really happens in companies, the current research shows that the studied firms implement a minimal social responsibility which remains well below the expectation level of some stakeholders. This situation is explained by several factors, namely structural. Finally, the paper suggests ways to improve the concept of social responsibility.
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Cet article discute des problemes de gouvernance et de corruption en Afrique dans le cadre dun debat politique et philosophique large entre universalisme et relativisme, idealisme et realisme, ainsi que entre individualisme et communautarisme. Premierement, je defends que lapproche realiste de lethique politique et du leadership ne permet pas de differencier entre les elements descriptifs et prescriptifs de la gouvernance et peut aisement etre utilisee pour justifier les Mains Sales des dirigeants au nom de linteret superieur de la nation, meme dans les cas ou linteret personnel est la seule force motivationnelle pour les actions qui sapent les codes sociaux et ethiques ordinaires. Deuxiemement, larticle montre la faillite de la confiance publique dans le gouvernement et la faiblesse de lEtat renforce les politiques communautariennes sub-nationales qui tendent a etre fondees sur lethnie et exclusive, et par consequent, qui viole le cur de lethique publique, cest-a-dire limpartialite. Finalement, larticle suggere que les principes dethique universels pour les services publiques soient introduits en complement plutot quen concurrence avec les ethiques locales, socialement et culturellement limitee au prive. Cela requiere, dune part, que nous comprenions mieux la complexite historique, les circonstances economiques et sociales et les arrangements politiques transitionnels dans les pays africains. Dautre part, un nous devons investir dans une education ethique civique et professionnel reflexive qui adopte un point de vue nuance entre le realisme politique et lidealisme comme point de depart des reformes institutionnelles, aussi bien que modalite de changement des comportements a long terme.
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Fragile States is a way of naming this particular category of states that have weak performance, insufficient service delivery, weak administrative and government power, and lack of legal rules. Little consideration is usually made to the fact that their own societies may also be fragile and easily jeopardised by inappropriate economic measures or external events. Poverty traps and social exclusion, unjust inequalities with lack of equity, feelings of insecurity and vulnerability, usually undermine the social fabric. Moreover, the people bear their own internal fragilities, which are based on the lack of capabilities and recognition, and interfere in the relationships between the groups that constitute the society. Therefore, dealing with the issue of fragility requires to consider various decision levels, from the personal one to the State level. Such an approach could allow fragile states to conceive preventive policies that would avoid the surge of a political crisis resulting from the combination of social conflict and individual failure.
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This article is an excellent example of applied ethics in public health policy development.
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The growing epidemic of allergy and allergy-induced asthma poses a significant challenge to population health. This article, written for a target audience of policy-makers in public health, aims to contribute to the development of policies to counter allergy morbidities by demonstrating how principles of social justice can guide public health initiatives in reducing allergy and asthma triggers. Following a discussion of why theories of social justice have utility in analyzing allergy, a step-wise policy assessment protocol formulated on Rawlsian principles of social justice is presented. This protocol can serve as a tool to aid in prioritizing public health initiatives and identifying ethically problematic policies that necessitate reform. Criteria for policy assessment include: 1) whether a tentative public health intervention would provide equal health benefit to a range of allergy and asthma sufferers, 2) whether targeting initiatives towards particu- lar societal groups is merited based on the notion of worst-off status of certain population segments, and 3) whether targeted policies have the potential for stigmatization. The article concludes by analyzing three examples of policies used in reducing allergy and asthma triggers in order to convey the general thought process underlying the use of the assessment protocol, which public health officials could replicate as a guide in actual, region-specific policy development.
