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2017
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(2017): Morality and the regulation of social behavior. Groups as moral anchors. Abingdon, United Kingdom: Routledge (European monographs in social psychology)
Abstract: Morality indicates what is the ‘right’ and what is the ‘wrong’ way to behave. It is one of the most popular areas of research in contemporary social psychology, driven in part by recent political-economic crises and the behavioral patterns they exposed. In the past, work on morality tended to highlight individual concerns and moral principles, but more recently researchers have started to address the group context of moral behavior. In Morality and the Regulation of Social Behavior: Groups as Moral Anchors, Naomi Ellemers builds on her extensive research experience to draw together a wide range of insights and findings on morality. She offers an essential integrative summary of the social functions of moral phenomena, examines how social groups contribute to moral values, and explains how groups act as ‘moral anchors’.
Keywords: Gruppe, Gruppennorm, Gruppenverhalten / Joint Action, Konventionen, Moral, moralische Dimension, Moralphilosophie, Observablen/Kriterien für sozial angemessenes Verhalten und dessen Bewertung, Psychologie, Sozialverhalten, Voraussetzungen für sozial angemessenes Verhalten, Zwischenmenschliche Beziehung -
(2017): The Rawlsian Critique of Utilitarianism. A Luhmannian Interpretation. In: Journal of Business Ethics 142 (1), S. 25-35. DOI: 10.1007/s10551-015-2786-y
Abstract: The present paper builds on the Rawlsian critique of utilitarianism in order to identify the moral implications of Niklas Luhmann's social systems theory. While Luhmann aptly discerned the pervasive problems of the precarious system-environment relations throughout the modern society, he took moral communication to be person-centered and thus ill-equipped to deal with these problems. At the same time, the Rawlsian possibility of sacrificing fundamental liberties for the sake of economic gains not only exemplifies the Luhmannian precariousness of the relations of the economic system to its societal environment, but also shows this precariousness to be a moral problem. Thus, from the systems-theoretic perspective, the Rawlsian idea of justice denotes the moral dimension of the capacity of the societal environment to carry the economic system. More generally, the proposed complementarity between Rawls and Luhmann allows to see the precariousness of system-environment relations, for any type of social system, as a moral problem. Two implications follow. First, the morally problematic manifestations of the precarious system-environment relations are not limited to the Rawlsian case of the discrimination of the least advantaged groups but rather include a broad range of social costs and damaging effects of business on society and nature. Second, and related, the proposed systems-theoretic perspective explicates the moral value of sustainability of the economic as well as other social systems in their environment, societal and ecological alike.
Keywords: BUSINESS, business ethics, ethics, CORPORATE CITIZENSHIP, Disziplin, Economic system, Ethik, Gesellschaftsprofit, John Rawls, Justice, Kosten-Nutzen, Luhmann, Moral, moralische Dimension, Moralphilosophie, Morals, Moraltheorie, Niklas Luhmann, Philosophie, Rawls, SOCIAL COSTS, social systems, Societal environment, SYSTEMS, Utilitarianism, Utilitarismus 2016
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(2016): The ethics of everyday life. Moral theology, social anthropology, and the imagination of the human. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press
Abstract: What should the opportunities and demands of my spouse’s work mean for me given the opportunities and demands of my own work? Should we move away from our extended family for a better job? Should we have children now? What kind of education do we owe our children? How do we balance the demands of our aging parents with the demands of our children? Do my spouse and my children really know how much I love them? How much should we be giving to the church and to this or that cause? Is it okay to drive this safer car and to drive it as much as I do given how much CO2 it emits? Should I really order a steak? I suspect that these are the sorts of moral questions that bedevil a majority of individuals most of the time—nothing glamorous, nothing exciting, only the warp and woof of our daily lives. We want to live faithfully and well, knowing that to live such a life will require a thousand little decisions that may have unintended ethical consequences. [End Page 379] The typical class in ethics, even Christian ethics or moral theology, and the typical anthology used in such a class follows a standard formula. The first part of the class/book is devoted to an examination of the major theories on offer and includes an account of deontological or nonconsequentialist theories (the nature of the act is what makes it wrong or right) with the greatest attention devoted to variations of Kantian ethics. It also includes various permutations of consequentialist or utilitarian ethics (do the greatest good, however that is understood, for the greatest number of people). This, in turn, is typically followed by an introduction to virtue ethics in some shape or form. After this groundwork is laid, students are then given the opportunity to sink their teeth into the juicy bits, namely the “application” of these theories and their guiding principles to a fairly standard set of moral problems, many of which are bioethical problems, including beginning of life issues such as cloning, in vitro fertilization and Assisted Reproductive Technologies, and abortion, and end of life issues such as euthanasia and physician assisted suicide. Other issues include the intentional taking of human life in war and capital punishment; hunger and poverty; and environmental responsibilities and animal welfare. Students who complete such a class may emerge relieved that morality, having so little to do with their daily lives, is not quite as demanding as they had feared. After all, how likely is it that they will come face to face with any of these hard moral problems, much less more than one? And if they should perchance encounter one of these problems, they need only to plug the moral principle into it. “Ethics is really pretty simple,” they may think. Michael Banner, Dean and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, is hardly the first to notice how distorting and unhelpful is the reduction of ethics to an attempted resolution of a hard moral problem. Moral quandaries are but a minor part of the moral life. Unlike earlier critics like Alasdair MacIntyre, who turned to Aristotle to forge a retrieval of an ethics of virtue as an alternative to an ethics of hard cases, Banner commends an “everyday ethics,” an ethics of the course of life (and says not a word about virtue). And where earlier critics, especially MacIntyre, find modern morality, both in theory and in practice, incoherent, Banner is dismissive only of the practices of most modern moral theorists (in particular, bioethicists), and not modern moral practices themselves. Indeed, moral theory should attend to moral phenomena. [End Page 380] Furthermore, because cultural anthropology (in Britain “social anthropology”) is the discipline in which moral phenomena is most closely examined and described, moral theology must partner with social anthropology. Moral theology will do its appropriate work only through its...
2014
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(2014): The DNA of Conventions. In: Law and Philosophy 33 (5), S. 535-571. DOI: 10.1007/s10982-013-9191-4
Abstract: This paper defends a moralized account of conventions, according to which conventional practices are necessarily normative reasons that are ultimately grounded on moral principles (such as fairness, respect or prevention of harm). It argues that a convention exists just in case the fact that others participate in some common practice as well as facts about their motivating reasons for doing so, justify conformity to that practice. The paper locates this moralized account within the relevant philosophical literature and argues that it does better than its rivals in explaining the presence of both motivating and normative reasons in our concept of convention.
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(2014): Subclinical Bias, Manners, and Moral Harm. In: Hypatia 29 (2), S. 287-302. DOI: 10.1111/hypa.12026
Abstract: Mundane and often subtle forms of bias generate harms that can be fruitfully understood as akin to the harms evident in rudeness. Although subclinical expressions of bias are not mere rudeness, like rudeness they often manifest through the breach of mannerly norms for social cooperation and collaboration. At a basic level, the perceived harm of mundane forms of bias often has much to do with feeling oneself unjustly or arbitrarily cut out of a group, a group that cooperates and collaborates but does not do so with me. Appealing to the subtle but familiar choreography of mannered social interaction, I argue, makes it easier to recognize how exclusion can be accomplished through slight but symbolically significant gestures and styles of interaction, where bias manifests not in announced hostility but in an absence of the cooperation and collaboration upon which we rely socially.
2013
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(2013): The moral behavior of ethics professors. Relationships among self-reported behavior, expressed normative attitude, and directly observed behavior. In: Philosophical Psychology 27 (3), S. 293-327. DOI: 10.1080/09515089.2012.727135
Abstract: Do philosophy professors specializing in ethics behave, on average, any morally better than do other professors? If not, do they at least behave more consistently with their expressed values? These questions have never been systematically studied. We examine the self-reported moral attitudes and moral behavior of 198 ethics professors, 208 non-ethicist philosophers, and 167 professors in departments other than philosophy on eight moral issues: academic society membership, voting, staying in touch with one's mother, vegetarianism, organ and blood donation, responsiveness to student emails, charitable giving, and honesty in responding to survey questionnaires. On some issues, we also had direct behavioral measures that we could compare with the self-reports. Ethicists expressed somewhat more stringent normative attitudes on some issues, such as vegetarianism and charitable donation. However, on no issue did ethicists show unequivocally better behavior than the two comparison groups. Our findings on attitude-behavior consistency were mixed: ethicists showed the strongest relationship between behavior and expressed moral attitude regarding voting but the weakest regarding charitable donation. We discuss implications for several models of the relationship between philosophical reflection and real-world moral behavior.
Keywords: Applied Ethics, Attitude-Behavior Consistency, Charity, Ethics, Experimental Philosophy, Moral Behavior, Moral Psychology, Vegetarianism, Voting, Ethik Professoren, Ethik, Ethische Überzeugungen, Fehlverhalten, moralische Dimension, Moralphilosophie, Performative Kraft von wertender Überzeugung?, Philosophical Psychology, Stehlen, Werte -
(2013): Social Freedom, Moral Responsibility, Actions and Omissions. In: The Philosophical Quarterly 63 (253), S. 716-739. DOI: 10.1111/1467-9213.12067
Abstract: This article addresses the question of what history an obstacle that stands in the way of our performing a certain action (x) must have in order to render us socially unfree to x. The most promising view on this question is the moral responsibility view, according to which such an obstacle renders us socially unfree to x, if and only if another person is morally responsible for its existence. The main challenge of this view is to identify a serviceable test for establishing when someone is morally responsible for the existence of an obstacle. Numerous attempts to do so have been made over the years, but none of them proved to be successful. In my discussion of the moral responsibility view I will expose the failure of the most recent and powerful attempt to identify such a test. Then I will suggest a more plausible test and defend it from a few possible objections. Before discussing the moral responsibility view I will discuss its main rivals and show why it is superior to them in the first place.
2012
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(2012): On manners. New York: Routledge
Abstract: Many otherwise enlightened people often dismiss etiquette as a trivial subject or―worse yet―as nothing but a disguise for moral hypocrisy or unjust social hierarchies. Such sentiments either mistakenly assume that most manners merely frame the “real issues” of any interpersonal exchange or are the ugly vestiges of outdated, unfair social arrangements. But in On Manners, Karen Stohr turns the tables on these easy prejudices, demonstrating that the scope of manners is much broader than most people realize and that manners lead directly to the roots of enduring ethical questions. Stohr suggests that though manners are mostly conventional, they are nevertheless authoritative insofar as they are a primary means by which we express moral attitudes and commitments and carry out important moral goals. Drawing primarily on Aristotle and Kant and with references to a wide range of cultural examples―from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice to Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm―the author ultimately concludes that good manners are essential to moral character.
2011
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(2011): Moral enhancement and pro-social behaviour. In: Journal of medical ethics 37 (3), S. 130-131. DOI: 10.1136/jme.2010.041434
DOI: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21325675 Abstract: Moral enhancement is a topic that has sparked much current interest in the world of bioethics. The possibility of making people ‘better,’ not just in the conventional enhancement sense of improving health and other desirable (and desired) qualities and capacities, but by making them somehow more moral, more decent, altogether better people, has attracted attention from both advocates1 2 and sceptics3 alike. The concept of moral enhancement, however, is fraught with difficult questions, theoretical and practical. What does it actually mean to be ‘more moral’? How would moral enhancement be defined and would it necessarily, as some have claimed, make the world a better or safer place? How would or could such enhancement be achieved safely and without undue constraint on personal liberty and autonomy? On this subject, a recent paper by Crockett et al4 investigating the effects of the neurotransmitter serotonin on moral decisionmaking provides an intriguing scientific basis for examining what might or might not constitute moral enhancement. The study involved treatment with citalopram, a drug that increases the action of serotonin in the brain, and subsequent analysis of participants' decisionmaking behaviour in two different situations involving moral dilemmas: the well known ‘Trolley Problem’5 and the ‘Ultimatum Game’.6 The researchers found that citalopram promoted what they call ‘prosocial behaviour’, increasing the participants' aversion to causing direct harm to others: in the first scenario, they were less likely to select the option that required killing one in order to save five, and in the secod, less likely to reject unfair offers at the expense of others.
Keywords: Bioethics,, chemisch / neurologisch / medikamentös / durch Substanzen, Disziplin, entscheiden, Humans, Moral, moral enhancement, moralische Dimension, Moralphilosophie, Morals, Philosophie, pro-social behaviour, Prosocial Behaviour, Serotonin, Serotonin/physiology, Social Behavior, Spieltheorie, Status / biologische Marker 2005
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(2005): Universal Moral Values for Corporate Codes of Ethics. In: Journal of Business Ethics 59 (1-2), S. 27-44. DOI: 10.1007/s10551-005-3403-2
Abstract: How can one establish if a corporate code of ethics is ethical in terms of its content? One important first step might be the establishment of core universal moral values by which corporate codes of ethics can be ethically constructed and evaluated. Following a review of normative research on corporate codes of ethics, a set of universal moral values is generated by considering three sources: (1) corporate codes of ethics; (2) global codes of ethics; and (3) the business ethics literature. Based on the convergence of the three sources of standards, six universal moral values for corporate codes of ethics are proposed including: (1) trustworthiness; (2) respect; (3) responsibility; (4) fairness; (5) caring; and (6) citizenship. Relying on the proposed set of universal moral values, implications are discussed as to what the content of corporate codes of ethics should consist of. The paper concludes with its limitations.
2003
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(2003): Responsible psychopaths. In: Philosophical Psychology 16 (3), S. 417-429. DOI: 10.1080/0951508032000121797
Abstract: Psychopaths are agents who lack the normal capacity to feel moral emotions (e.g. guilt based on empathy with the victims of their actions). Evidence for attributing psychopathy at least in some cases to genetic or early childhood causes suggests that psychopaths lack free will. However, the paper defends a sense in which psychopaths still may be construed as responsible for their actions, even if their degree of responsibility is less than that of normal agents. Responsibility is understood in Strawsonian terms, as a question of our appropriate reactive attitudes toward an agent for what she does, and as distinct from the question of the agent's own motivating attitudes, which lead him to do what he does. The latter is the question more directly relevant to free will, though moral motivation normally depends on the capacity in early childhood to pick up motivating attitudes from others' reactive attitudes. Reactive attitudes based on hatred rather than anger (e.g. disgust or contempt) count as alternative forms of blame that may be appropriately directed toward agents manifesting bad qualities of will, even as a matter of motivational impairment. So psychopaths may still be said to deserve blame, even if they are incapable of modifying their behavior in response to blame.
Keywords: Beeinflussung sozial angemessenen Verhaltens, Fehlverhalten, Moral emotions, Moral und Kognition, moralische Dimension, Moralphilosophie, Moralpsychologie, Observablen/Kriterien für sozial angemessenes Verhalten und dessen Bewertung, Pathologie, Philosophical Psychology, Philosophie der Psychologie, Psychopathie, Schuld -
(2003): Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht. Hamburg: Meiner (Philosophische Bibliothek). Online verfügbar unter http://www.meiner.de
Abstract: Hauptbeschreibung Kants Anthropologie (1798) galt lange als eine bloß popularphilosophische Schrift von allenfalls propädeutischem Wert. Dabei erfüllt sich die Leistung der Anthropologie keineswegs nur in einer vorphilosophischen Verständigung über das theoretische und praktische Vermögen des Menschen. Nur die anthropologische Reflexion verleiht Gewißheit, daß der Mensch ""sein eigener letzter Zweck ist"". Dies gibt dem Leben seinen Sinn Kants Anthropologie (1798) galt lange als eine bloß popularphilosophische Schrift von allenfalls propädeutischem Wert. Dabei erfüllt sich die Leistung der Anthropologie keineswegs nur in einer vorphilosophischen Verständigung über das theoretische und praktische Vermögen des Menschen. Nur die anthropologische Reflexion verleiht Gewißheit, daß der Mensch 'sein eigener letzter Zweck ist'. Dies gibt dem Leben seinen Sinn.
2000
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(2000): Empathy. In: American Philosophical Quarterly 37 (1), S. 65-78
Abstract: Empathy, or roughly, "feeling with" another person, has fascinated philosophers as well as psychologists. Since empathy is frequently linked with altruistic motives and prosocial helping behavior, it seems to have implications for the quality of social life, as well as moral significance. What exactly is empathy, and how is it produced? Part I of this essay deals with the task of defining empathy. Part II addresses the separate question of explaining how it is generated. Part III concludes with a preliminary sketch of one way of thinking about empath's moral significance.
Keywords: Beeinflussung der Bewertung moralischer Urteile, Bewertung von sozialem Verhalten (/sozialer Angemessenheit), Disziplin, Empathie, Empathie als Spezifikum des Menschseins, Empathy, Moral, Moral und Kognition, moralische Dimension, Moralphilosophie, Observablen/Kriterien für sozial angemessenes Verhalten und dessen Bewertung, Pathologie, Philosophie 1992
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(1992): Moral principles, traditions, and fairness in the navajo nation code of judicial conduct. In: JUDICATURE 76 (1), S. 15-21. Online verfügbar unter https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/judica76&div=8&id=&page=
Abstract: Although based on the ABA Model Code, the new Navajo Code of Judicial Conduct incorporates traditional Navajo legal and social values.
1983
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(1983): Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht. Unter Mitarbeit von Wolfgang Becker und Hans Ebeling. Stuttgart: Reclam
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