This title explores how human commitments, rooted in the story of God's love, are acts of free choice and love. Farley reflects on the concrete experiences of people who strive to be faithful to what they have claimed to love: 'My concern is to name something that I think is, after all, common to all of our lives - an experience, a reality, perhaps a problem, a challenge, something that is sometimes a source of joy, sometimes a cause of tragedy'. (...) Farley explores the nature nad meaning of commitment as it is played out in our lives, addressing love, fidelity, a sense of obligation, and covenant. (shrink)

What should we do when faced with powerful theoretical arguments that support a severe change in our personal beliefs and commitments? For example, what should new parents do when confronted by unanswered anti-natalist arguments, or two lovers vexed by social theory that apparently undermines love? On the one hand, it would be irrational to ignore theory just because it’s theory; good theory is evidence, after all. On the other hand, factoring in theory can be objectifying, or risks unraveling one's (...) life, fracturing one's identity or social relations. Sometimes, then, following the evidence where it apparently leads would mean not merely changing what we think but who we are. Some might say that there’s something right about the thought that theory can bear on what we ought to believe, it’s just that when we work with full beliefs, only then do we seriously risk having to substantially alter our doxastic economy when pressed by exceptional theoretical arguments. When we work with partial beliefs, however, this risk is greatly diminished. Others will say that we can advocate or champion revisionary positions whilst rationally retaining our pre-theoretical personal convictions. Still others will argue that we should adopt a Moorean posture towards the revisionary arguments. I argue that each response is inadequate, and argue instead that we are permitted to bracket certain kinds of theoretical evidence against our beliefs because of the personal and ethical risks born out of giving them serious consideration. In turn, some of philosophy's doxastic influence is constrained by its attendant ethical risks: the personal enjoys a partial insulation from the theoretical. I close by addressing what this means for practicing philosophers. (shrink)

It has been argued - most prominently in Harry Frankfurt's recent work - that the normative authority of personal commitments derives not from their intrinsic worth but from the way in which one's will is invested in what one cares about. In this essay, I argue that even if this approach is construed broadly and supplemented in various ways, its intrasubjective character leaves it ill-prepared to explain the normative grip of commitments in cases of purported self-betrayal. As an alternative, (...) I sketch a view that focuses on intersubjective constraints of intelligibility built into social practices and on the pragmatics of how those norms are contested in an ongoing fashion. (shrink)

On Chang's voluntarist account of commitments, when we commit to φ, we employ the 'normative powers' of our will to give ourselves a reason to φ that we would otherwise not have had. I argue that Chang's account, by itself, does not have sufficient conceptual resources to reconcile the normative significance of commitments with their alleged fundamentally volitional character. I suggest an alternative, second-personal account of commitment, which avoids this problem. On this account, the volitional act involved in (...) committing is one of holding ourselves accountable, thus putting us under to a pro tanto obligation to ourselves. The second-personal account implies that there is an interesting link between commitment and morality. (shrink)

This study investigates pro-environmental behaviour through a personality-focused approach as well as the role of emotional engagement with environmental issues, specifically through affective commitment. Using structural equation modelling, data from an online survey of 669 participants were analyzed to explore the direct and indirect effects of personality traits on pro-environmental behaviours. Findings indicate that affective commitment significantly influences pro-environmental behaviours, particularly among individuals high in Neuroticism, Conscientiousness, and to some extent, Extraversion. However, this relationship is not observed in (...) individuals with higher levels of Agreeableness or Openness to new experiences. By integrating personality traits with the influence of the emotional state, this study offers new insights into the complexities underlying pro-environmental behaviours. These findings may have practical implications for the development of interventions, campaigns, and programs aimed at promoting pro-environmental behaviours. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to assess the relationships among ethical context, organizational commitment, and person-organization fit using a sample of 304 young working adults. Results indicated that corporate ethical values signifying different cultural aspects of an ethical context were positively related to both organizational commitment and person-organization fit. Organizational commitment was also positively related to person-organization fit. The findings suggest that the development and promotion of an ethical context might enhance employees' workplace experiences, and companies (...) should consider adopting ethical policies that support principled conduct, punish unethical actions, and increase individual perceptions of an ethical company environment. (shrink)

Personalist thought offers fundamental perspectives which are able to shape the broader fields of philosophy, theology, and related areas of study. Familiarity with the scope of its recent developments is valuable not only for personalist scholars but also for those interested in non-materialist thought and especially the problems and questions of the person in various aspects. This work, bringing together papers from a 2019 conference, aims to serve these readerships. It will also provide an archival record of the state of (...) the field at this point in Western intellectual history. In terms of content, the work addresses four general themes: personalist thought as it is encountered in the writings of particular scholars; the place of personalism within broader philosophical thought; personalist engagement with major religious traditions; and the application of personalist modes of thinking to a range of real-world questions. The book is unique in that it brings together multiple strands of personalist thought, demonstrating its breadth and depth and its ability to engage in wider contemporary philosophical and cultural debates. (shrink)

I will present here a personal point of view on the commitment of mathematicians in medicine. Starting from my personal experience, I will suggest generalisations including favourable signs and caveats to show how mathematicians can be welcome and helpful in medicine, both in a theoretical and in a practical way.

Despite the current popularity of what is commonly referred to as an `ethics of care', no one has yet undertaken a systematic philosophical study of `care' itself. In this book, Jeffrey Blustein presents the first such study, offering a detailed exploration of human `care' in its various guises: concern for and commitment to individuals, ideals, and causes. Blustein focuses on the nature and value of personal integrity and intimacy, and on the questions they raise for traditional moral theory.

Are acts of violence performed in virtual environments ever morally wrong, even when no other persons are affected? While some such acts surely reflect deficient moral character, I focus on the moral rightness or wrongness of acts. Typically it’s thought that, on Kant’s moral theory, an act of virtual violence is morally wrong (i.e., violate the Categorical Imperative) only if the act mistreats another person. But I argue that, on Kant’s moral theory, some acts of virtual violence can be morally (...) wrong, even when no other persons or their avatars are affected. First, I explain why many have thought that, in general on Kant’s moral theory, virtual acts affecting no other persons or their avatars can’t violate the Categorical Imperative. For there are real world acts that clearly do, but it seems that when we consider the same sorts of acts done alone in a virtual environment, they don’t violate the Categorical Imperative, because no others persons were involved. But then, how could any virtual acts like these, that affect no other persons or their avatars, violate the Categorical Imperative? I then argue that there indeed can be such cases of morally wrong virtual acts—some due to an actor’s having erroneous beliefs about morally relevant facts, and others due not to error, but to the actor’s intention leaving out morally relevant facts while immersed in a virtual environment. I conclude by considering some implications of my arguments for both our present technological context as well as the future. (shrink)

This research proposes a model, which examines the relationship between an organization's corporate social performance (CSP), its employees and its overall performance. Exploration includes (1) whether the employees view an organization's top management team (TMT) as ultimately responsible for the corporate social performance of that organization; (2) whether the relationship between an organization's CSP and the organizational commitment of its employees is moderated by person-organization fit; and finally, (3) whether the organizational commitment of the employees impacts a firm's (...) overall performance. Propositions, which hope to guide future research in this area, are included. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophy of science tells us that scientific theories are “underdetermined” by their accompanying data in a variety of ways. Briefly put, theories are not constructed on data alone. Psychiatric classification is subject to this same kind of underdetermination. Theories may be determined by a combination of data, historical factors, practical constraints, value commitments, and other factors. While practical constraints (like user-friendliness or compatibility across diagnostic systems) are commonly admitted to be influential in shaping psychiatric classification, the idea that values (...) shape psychiatric classification is still a controversial one. This article addresses this controversy by (1) defining a particular domain or type of value commitment (epistemic values), (2) showing how they might be assumed in psychiatric classification, (3) developing a set of conceptual tools to analyze epistemic value content, and (4) applying this set of tools to concretely illustrate how this type of value is “at work” in shaping classification. A classic paper on the dispute between categorical and dimensional models for personality disorders is systematically examined to illustrate this “epistemic value” rubric. (shrink)

In this work the distinguished physical chemist and philosopher, Michael Polanyi, demonstrates that the scientist's personal participation in his knowledge, in both its discovery and its validation, is an indispensable part of science itself. Even in the exact sciences, "knowing" is an art, of which the skill of the knower, guided by his personal commitment and his passionate sense of increasing contact with reality, is a logically necessary part. In the biological and social sciences this becomes even (...) more evident. The tendency to make knowledge impersonal in our culture has split fact from value, science from humanity. Polanyi wishes to substitute for the objective, impersonal ideal of scientific detachment an alternative ideal which gives attention to the personal involvement of the knower in all acts of understanding. His book should help to restore science to its rightful place in an integrated culture, as part of the whole person's continuing endeavor to make sense of the totality of his experience. In honor of this work and his The Study of Man Polanyi was presented with the Lecomte de Noüy Award for 1959. (shrink)

The study of engineering ethics tends to emphasize professional codes of ethics and, to lesser degrees, business ethics and technology studies. These are all important vantage points, but they neglect personal moral commitments, as well as personal aesthetic, religious, and other values that are not mandatory for all members of engineering. This paper illustrates how personal moral commitments motivate, guide, and give meaning to the work of engineers, contributing to both self-fulfillment and public goods. It also explores (...) some general frameworks for thinking about these commitments and calls for further exploration of them. (shrink)

This new essay collection by distinguished philosopher Margaret Gilbert provides a richly textured argument for the importance of joint commitment in our personal and public lives. Topics covered by this diverse range of essays range from marital love to patriotism, from promissory obligation to the unity of the European Union.

The purpose of this study was to test whether personal commitment to community was related to political involvement in two cultural contexts: Italy and the USA. Participants were 566 adolescents (48.2% males) aged 14–19 years (M = 16 years; SD = 1.29): 311 Italians and 255 Americans. Participants filled out a self-report questionnaire. Analyses of variance revealed that American high school students reported higher levels of personal commitment to community than did their Italian peers and that (...) many forms of political involvement were significantly more common among American adolescents. Structural equation modeling analyses revealed that personal commitment to community was strongly and positively associated with involvement in political activities in both adolescent samples. Thus, fostering personal commitments to community could potentially lead youth to political engagement. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that the concept of disposition is often unclear in teacher education programs, sometimes referring to general personal values and beliefs, and sometimes referring to professional commitments and actions. As a result, it is unclear whether teacher education programs should focus on selecting the right kind of person, or on educating the student for a profession. I suggest that a clearer distinction should be made between predispositions (value commitments that a person may or may not (...) act upon) and professional dispositions (characteristics attributed to a person based on actually observed actions), and that teacher education programs should focus their attention on the latter, not the former. The question is not whether student-teachers have the ?right? personal beliefs but whether, if the dispositions required by the profession are at odds with their personal beliefs, the former will override the latter. (shrink)

Under normal circumstances, saying that you have a thought, a belief, a desire, or an intention differs from saying that somebody (who happens to be you) has that attitude. The former statement comes with some form of first person authority and constitutes commitments that are not involved in the latter case. Speaking with first person authority, and thereby publicly committing oneself, is a practice that plays an important role in our communication and in our understanding of what it means to (...) be a person. In their Group Agency, Christian List and Philip Pettit argue that some corporations are agents with attitudes of their own, and they claim that they are persons. The question on which this paper is focused is: Can corporations (groups with attitudes and the capacity for linguistic communication) participate in this practice, that is, can they express their attitudes with first person authority, and thereby enter first person commitments? The first section of the paper gives a rough (and, I hope, ecumenical) account of some features of first person authority and commitment. The second section examines if and how this account of first person authority carries over to corporations. It is argued that the possibility for groups to express their attitudes with straightforward first person authority, and thus to enter first person commitments, are extremely limited. The third part of the paper argues that while under normal circumstances, a member’s expression of her group’s attitudes in first person plural terms does not constitute straightforward first person authority, it does come with something resembling some aspects of the first-personal commitments encountered in the singular case. (shrink)

Human persons exist longer than a single moment in time; they persist through time. However, so far it has not been possible to make this natural and widespread assumption metaphysically comprehensible. The philosophical debate on personal identity is rather stuck in a dilemma: reductionist theories explain personal identity away, while non-reductionist theories fail to give any informative account at all. This chapter argues that this dilemma emerges from an underlying commitment, shared by both sides of in the (...) debate, to an ontology which that gives the priority to static unchanging things. The claim defended here is that the dilemma of personal identity can be overcome if we acknowledge the biological nature of human persons and switch to a process- ontological framework that takes process and change to be ontologically primary. Human persons are biological higher-order processes, rather than things, and their identity conditions can be scientifically investigated. (shrink)

Moral commitments play a role in the process of moral cultivation. This paper explores the concept of commitment and its significance in moral development. Rational relativists argue that commitment -/- is an act of will that guides individuals in making decisions, espe- cially when faced with value conflicts. Through a series of decisions, -/- individuals develop their dispositions and become distinct persons. However, this view of commitment has two major weaknesses: first, rational relativism does not adequately address (...) how to sustain and fulfill long-term commitments; second, commitments driven by selfish motives may undermine long-term moral growth. In response, I turn to the Confucian concept of zhi 志, which offers a more nuanced and holistic approach. For Confucians, the making and maintenance of zhi is a continuous, on-going process of moral cultivation. This paper demonstrates how the Confucian notion of -/- zhi can effectively address these challenges, providing a more sus- tainable and morally enriching framework for commitment. (shrink)

According to critics such as Bernard Williams, traditional ethical theories render it impossible to lead good and meaningful lives because they emphasize moral duty or the promotion of external values at the expense of the personal commitments that make our lives worth living from our own perspective. Responses to this criticism have not addressed the fundamental question about the proper relationship between a person's commitments to moral values and her commitments to non-moral or personal values. In this article, (...) I suggest that we think about this relationship by reflecting on the way that a prudentially virtuous person who has commitments to both moral and non-moral values would regard these commitments. I argue that people with the virtue of balance do have reasons to act in accordance with their moral commitments, but that whether or not these reasons are overriding depends on the type of commitment in question. (shrink)

The role of followers in financial statement fraud has not been widely examined, even though these frauds typically involve collusion between followers and destructive leaders. In a study with 140 MBA students in the role of followers, we examined whether two follower personality traits were associated with behavioral intentions to comply with the demands of an unethical chief executive officer to be complicit in committing financial statement fraud. These personality traits are self-sacrificing self-enhancement, a form of maladaptive narcissism characterized by (...) seemingly altruistic behaviors that are actually intended to boost self-esteem and proactivity, a trait characterized by behaviors reflecting efforts to positively change one’s environment. As predicted, follower SSSE was positively associated with follower behavioral intentions to comply with CEO pressure to commit fraud, while follower proactivity was negatively associated with fraud compliance intentions. Also as predicted, follower SSSE interacted with follower proactivity, such that followers high in SSSE and high in proactivity reported greater intentions to resist pressure from the unethical CEO to commit fraud compared to low-SSSE followers. Implications for future research and corporate governance are discussed. (shrink)

The publication of Personal Knowledge in 1958 shook the science world, as Michael Polanyi took aim at the long-standing ideals of rigid empiricism and rule-bound logic. Today, Personal Knowledge remains one of the most significant philosophy of science books of the twentieth century, bringing the crucial concepts of “tacit knowledge” and “personal knowledge” to the forefront of inquiry. In this remarkable treatise, Polanyi attests that our personal experiences and ways of sharing knowledge have a profound effect (...) on scientific discovery. He argues against the idea of the wholly dispassionate researcher, pointing out that even in the strictest of sciences, knowing is still an art, and that personal commitment and passion are logically necessary parts of research. In our technological age where fact is split from value and science from humanity, Polanyi’s work continues to advocate for the innate curiosity and scientific leaps of faith that drive our most dazzling ingenuity. For this expanded edition, Polyani scholar Mary Jo Nye set the philosopher-scientist’s work into contemporary context, offering fresh insights and providing a helpful guide to critical terms in the work. Used in fields as diverse as religious studies, chemistry, economics, and anthropology, Polanyi’s view of knowledge creation is just as relevant to intellectual endeavors today as when it first made waves more than fifty years ago. (shrink)

This article describes issues related to the consideration of the victim’s behavior when sentencing a person who intentionally killed someone in a state of strong emotional excitement. Also, the author analyzed in the article that the main reason for the strong emotional excitement of the culprit is the illegal act of the victim, therefore, the sudden emotional excitement is defined in the law as a mitigating circumstance. In addition, the article analyzes the objective aspect of the crime of intentional homicide (...) committed in a state of strong emotional excitement, in which (a) intentional homicide is caused by the victim's response to violence; (b) severe insults by the victim (insulting human dignity, accusing him of committing a crime or immorality, insulting his religion and nationality); (c) it is emphasized that attention should be paid to the victim's other illegal actions (such as dereliction of duty). (shrink)

Under a widespread understanding of the nature of moral obligation, one cannot be under an obligation to perform or omit an act and have a moral power to release oneself from one’s obligation. According to this view, being under an obligation necessarily entails relinquishing one’s sovereignty over the obligatory matter, that is, one’s capacity to control one’s own obligational world. This essay argues against such a view. I shall argue that by making what I will call a commitment, a (...) person assumes an obligation toward another on a given matter while preserving the power to release herself from her obligation.. Commitments constitute morally obligatory acts over which’s obligatoriness those obliged always retain control. They constitute obligations over which obligors preserve moral sovereignty. I show that the notion of commitment sheds light on the structure of important moral phenomena such as some of our loyalty obligations, and, furthermore, that it reveals something central about the justification and scope of the law of contracts. (shrink)

Most of us care about certain people and things, and some of these concerns become personal commitments, involving our values, our relationships, our work and our religious or political stances. But what is commitement, and why should it matter? Is social commitment - for example, to the family - being eroded by individualism or ironic detachment? And how should we deal with the potential tension between devotion to a life-stance, and the doubts prompted by pursuit of rational integrity? (...) In this work, Piers Benn delves into the relationship between commitment and meaningful life, and asks whether commitment must be based on truth to provide such meaning. He also explores obstacles to commitment such as boredom, sloth and indifference. Drawing on his own experience of dithering and procrastination, he suggests that a sceptical, cautious attitude to important matters can be both a virtue and a real obstacle to human fulfillment. (shrink)

Most of us care about certain people and things, and some of these concerns become personal commitments, involving our values, our relationships, our work and our religious or political stances. But what is commitement, and why should it matter? Is social commitment - for example, to the family - being eroded by individualism or ironic detachment? And how should we deal with the potential tension between devotion to a life-stance, and the doubts prompted by pursuit of rational integrity? (...) In this work, Piers Benn delves into the relationship between commitment and meaningful life, and asks whether commitment must be based on truth to provide such meaning. He also explores obstacles to commitment such as boredom, sloth and indifference. Drawing on his own experience of dithering and procrastination, he suggests that a sceptical, cautious attitude to important matters can be both a virtue and a real obstacle to human fulfillment. (shrink)

A number of prominent theories of personal autonomy have been influenced substantially by feminist normative commitments. While the sharing of such commitments may have been hoped to yield more ready agreement on the relational and normative dimensions of autonomy, that hope has not been fulfilled. This chapter examines critically ways four recent conceptions of autonomy—those developed, respectively, by Marina Oshana, Natalie Stoljar, Marilyn Friedman, and John Christman—appeal to particular feminist commitments and the manner in which those appeals shape each (...) theory’s understanding of autonomy’s relational character. Contending that Oshana’s and Stoljar’s approaches restrict the scope of autonomy excessively and that Friedman’s and Christman’s theories are overly inclusive, the chapter argues for a constitutively relational account of autonomy that integrates considerations of autonomous agents’ voices with considerations of their agential authority. The resulting view of autonomy clarifies the role of personal autonomy within feminist social theory. (shrink)

Moore’s paradox is taken to be emblematic of peculiarities in the first person point of view, and to have significant implications for several issues in epistemology, in philosophy of language and mind. Yet, its nature remains elusive. In the first part of the paper, the main kinds of analysis of it hereto proposed in the literature are criticized. Furthermore, it is claimed that there are cases in which its content can be legitimately judged. Close inspection of those cases reveals that (...) they depend on self-ascriptions of beliefs as dispositions. These are kinds of belief that are not normative in nature. In the second part of the paper, it is argued that, in order to save the paradox, one must resort to a thoroughly normative notion of beliefs as first-personal commitments. Its bearing on the paradox is explored and, in closing, a defence of it from possible objections is presented. (shrink)

Tim Scanlon has recently argued that an action is *blameworthy* if it "show[s] something about the agent's attitudes toward others that impairs the relations that others can have with him or her" and hence that "to *blame* a person is to judge him or her to be blameworthy and to take your relationship with him or her to be modified in a way that this judgment of impaired relations holds to be appropriate" (*Moral Dimensions*, 128--29). Given this, Scanlon argues, reactive (...) attitude accounts of blame, while they can capture some of the ways blaming attitudes vary depending on one's relationship to the wrongdoer, are in general "too thin" and cannot explain all the relevant changes in our attitudes, "including changes in our readiness to interact with [the wrongdoer] in specific ways" (143). Yet Scanlon does not provide clear accounts of what types of relationships matter for blame and how violations of the "standards" of these relationships justifies what new attitudes. My aim is to address this. -/- To do this, we need to turn not merely to particular reactive attitudes but to broad, interpersonal rational patterns of reactive attitudes in terms of which we can make sense of what I have come to call "communities of respect". My claim is that the sort of relationship whose impairment is relevant to blame is that of co-membership in a community of respect, so that the significance of the agent's wrongdoing relevant for blame is the significance those actions and attitudes have *for us* in the community. However, accommodating the variability of blame on which Scanlon rightly insists requires a more careful examination of two additional factors that affect how it is proper for one to respond to the impairment to those relationships that the wrongdoing represents: one's role in a given case as perpetrator, victim, or witness, and one's personal commitments. For, I argue, these factors provide one with excuses for failing to treat the perpetrator with the normal trust and respect we demand of each other, and the validity of these excuses itself depends on the overall rational structure of the patterns of reactive attitudes within the community. Consequently, both the individual and the community are important in defining the relationships and modifications of relationships that are central to blame; however, such modifications to personal relationships are a *consequence* of blame rather than, as Scanlon claims, part of its content. (shrink)

It is persons who are ontologically committed. But a person is not ontologically committed by virtue of his character, his height, his social standing or whatever, but by virtue of the sentences he assents to. Hence we should look to sentences for a criterion of ontological commitment. This is precisely what is done by advocates of what I will call the Referential theory. In this paper I argue that the Referential theory faces serious objections related to the role paraphrase (...) must play in it. I then present a modified Referential theory and go on to discuss certain implications of the modified theory. More precisely, the paper divides up as follows. In §1 I present the Referential theory. In §2 I argue that it is in trouble over paraphrase. In §3 I consider a general objection to the arguments of §2. In §4 I present the modified theory. In §5 I consider the implications of the modified theory for polemic over what there is and for the existence of properties or universals. (shrink)

Lying is an important moral phenomenon that most people are affected by on a daily basis—be it in personal relationships, in political debates, or in the form of fake news. Nevertheless, surprisingly little is known about what actually constitutes a lie. According to the traditional definition of lying, a person lies if they explicitly express something they believe to be false. Consequently, it is often assumed that people cannot lie by more indirectly communicating believed‐false claims, for instance by merely (...) conversationally implicating them. In this paper, we subject this claim to an empirical test. In a preregistered study of 300 participants, we investigate how people judge cases of implicit deceptions that would usually be excluded by the traditional definition of lying (i.e., conversational implicatures, presuppositions, and nonverbal actions). Our results show that people do in fact consider it possible to lie by indirect means, suggesting that people have a broader concept of lying than is usually assumed. Moreover, our findings indicate that lie judgments are closely tied to the extent to which agents are perceived as having committed themselves to the believed‐false claims they have communicated. We discuss the implications of our results for the traditional definition of lying and propose a new commitment‐based definition of lying that can account for the findings of our experiment. (shrink)

This chapter responds to a range of questions posed by sociologist Annette Schnabel with respect to the author’s joint commitment account of group belief along with other aspects of group life. Some questions concern the contrast between joint commitment and personal commitment, the contexts in which joint commitments are likely to develop, and how they can facilitate human interaction in the case of problematic structures of inclinations such as a “prisoner’s dilemma.” Other questions concern the mechanisms (...) that lead people to conform to their joint commitments, and the relationship between the beliefs and preferences of groups to those of individuals. (shrink)