Rules proliferate; some are kept with a bureaucratic stringency bordering on the absurd, while others are manipulated and ignored in ways that injure our sense of justice. Under what conditions should we make exceptions to rules, and when should they be followed despite particular circumstances? The two dominant models in the literature on rules are the particularist account and that which sees the application of rules as normative. Taking a position that falls between these two extremes, (...) Alan Goldman provides a systematic framework to clarify when we need to follow rules in our moral, legal and prudential decisions, and when we ought not to do so. The book distinguishes among various types of rules; it illuminates concepts such as integrity, self-interest and self-deception; and finally, it provides an account of ordinary moral reasoning without rules. This book will be of great interest to advanced students and professionals working in philosophy, law, decision theory and the social sciences. (shrink)

The field of contemporary ethics has been dominated by two opposite but equally extreme positions regarding the function of rules in moral reasoning. According to the first of these positions, known as rule-based ethics, morality consists of obeying a set of rules. On the other hand, according to the opposite view, known as particularism, moral reasoning cannot be reduced to the application of rules to particular situations. The particularist argues that rules and rule-following cannot genuinely capture (...) the nature of moral reasoning. Instead, such reasoning must always involve context-based considerations of morally relevant factors that can and do vary from particular case to particular case. (shrink)

Dialogue is a seminal concept within the work of the Brazilian adult education theorist, Paulo Freire, and the Russian literary critic and philosopher, Mikhail Bakhtin. While there are commonalities in their understanding of dialogue, they differ in their treatment of dialectic. This paper addresses commonalities and dissonances within a Bakhtin-Freire dialogue on the notions of dialogue and dialectic. It then teases out some of the implications for education theory and practice in relation to two South African contexts of learning (...) that facilitate the access to education of disadvantaged groups, one in higher education and the other in early childhood education. (shrink)

A review of Alan H. Goldman, _Practical Rules: When We Need Them and When We Don’t_ (Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. xi + 210.

Simon Blackburn puts forward a compelling original philosophy of human motivation and morality. He maintains that we cannot get clear about ethics until we get clear about human nature. So these are the sorts of questions he addresses: Why do we behave as we do? Can we improve? Is our ethics at war with our passions, or is it an upshot of those passions? Blackburn seeks the answers in an exploration of guilt, shame, disgust, and other moral emotions; he draws (...) also on game theory and cognitive science in his account of the structures of human motivation. Many philosophers have wanted a naturalistic ethics a theory that integrates our understanding of human morality with the rest of our understanding of the world we live in. What is special about Blackburn's naturalistic ethics is that it does not debunk the ethical by reducing it to the non-ethical. At the same time he banishes the spectres of scepticism and relativism that have haunted recent moral philosophy. Ruling Passions sets ethics in the context of human nature: it offers a solution to the puzzle of how ethics can maintain its authority even though it is rooted in the very emotions and motivations that it exists to control. (shrink)

In this paper, I focus on the idea that language is a rule‐constituted and rule‐governed practice. This notion has been criticised recently. It has been claimed that, even if linguistic meaning is determined by rules, these rules are not genuinely normative because they do not govern actions within the practice by themselves. It has been emphasised that one needs to consent (e.g., has relevant intention or desire) to be a part of that practice. First, I (...) distinguish between two issues: (1) How do rules come to life? (and the answer to that question is by enactment or communal acceptance), and (2) does being assessed by the standards set by the rules require some form of consent for one's actions to be evaluated by these standards? Then, I demonstrate how, by introducing the notion of “default normativity”, one can defend the idea that there are normative practices that are constituted and governed by rules and that language is one of them. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a game-theoretic solution to the rule-following paradox in terms of what I will call basic constitutive practices. The structure of such a practice P constitutes what it is to take part in P by defining the correctness conditions of our most basic concepts as those actions that lie on the correlated equilibrium of P itself. Accordingly, an agent S meant addition by his use of the term ‘+’ because S is taking part in a (...) basic constitutive practice of adding where quus-like answers are ruled out by not lying on the equilibrium. The resulting picture of language will preserve the objectivity and correctness conditions of meaning, all the while providing room for the community as a whole to make a mistake. I also argue that by accepting the account presented, we have a strong reason to reject the idea that language is rule-governed. (shrink)

Can there be rules of language which serve both to determine meaning and to guide speakers in ordinary linguistic usage, i.e., in the production of speech acts? We argue that the answer is no. We take the guiding function of rules to be the function of serving as reasons for actions, and the question of guidance is then considered within the framework of practical reasoning. It turns out that those rules that can serve as reasons for linguistic (...) utterances cannot be considered as normative or meaning determining. Acceptance of such a rule is simply equivalent to a belief about meaning, and does not even presuppose that meaning is determined by rules. Rules that can determine meaning, on the other hand, i.e., rules that can be regarded as constitutive of meaning, are not capable of guiding speakers in the ordinary performance of speech acts. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Following a rule Practices and techniques Doing the right thing and doing the same thing Privacy and the community view On not digging below bedrock.

People often have a strong intuitive sense that we ought to rescue those in serious need, even in cases where we could produce better outcomes by acting in other ways. It has become common in such cases to refer to this as the Rule of Rescue. Within the medical field this rule has predominantly been discussed in relation to decisions about whether to fund particular treatments. Whilst in this setting the arguments in favour of the Rule of Rescue have generally (...) been found to be unconvincing, there are some reasons for thinking that it may have more of a role to play at the clinical level. In this article we examine three lines that such reasoning might take. In each case we argue that the reasons given do not support the adoption of a Rule of Rescue in clinical practice. (shrink)

Bioethics seems preoccupied with establishing, debating, promoting and sometimes debunking principles. While these tasks trade on the status of the word ‘principle’ in our ordinary language, scant attention is paid to the way principles operate in language. In this paper, we explore how principles relate to rules and practices so as to better understand their logic. We argue that principles gain their sense and power from the practices which give them sense. While general principles can be, and are, establishable (...) in abstraction from specific practices, as they are in principlist bioethics, such principles are impotent as moral guides to action. We show that the purchase any principle has as a moral guide to action emerges from its indexical properties as a principle which has sense in a specific practice. The meaning of any principle is internal to the practice and context in which it is invoked and, therefore, principles are not kinds of master rule which dictate moral judgement in new contexts but rather chameleon-like rules which change with the contexture in which they are invoked. (shrink)

I address the question of whether naturalism can provide adequate means for the scientific study of rules and rule-following behavior. As the term "naturalism" is used in many different ways in the contemporary debate, I will first spell out which version of naturalism I am targeting. Then I will recall a classical argument against naturalism in a version presented by Husserl. In the main part of the paper I will sketch a conception of rule-following behavior that is influenced by (...) Sellars and Haugeland. I will argue that rule-following is an essential part of human nature and insist in the social dimension of rules. Moreover, I will focus on the often overlooked fact that genuine rule-following behavior requires resilience and presupposes an inclination to calibrate one's own behavior to that of the other members of the community. Rule-following, I will argue, is possible only for social creatures who follow shared rules, which in turn presupposes a shared (first-person plural) perspective. This implies, however, that our scientific understanding of human nature has to remain incomplete as long as it does not take this perspective, which prima facie seems alien to it, into account. (shrink)

One of the most fundamental questions in general jurisprudence concerns what makes it the case that the law has the content that it does. It is the job of theories of legal content to provide answers. This article offers a novel positivist theory of legal content. According to the theory it calls “principled positivism,” legal practices ground legal principles, and legal principles determine legal rules. This two-level account of the determination of legal content differs from Hart’s celebrated theory in (...) two essential respects: in relaxing Hart’s requirement that fundamental legal notions depend on judicial consensus; and in assigning weighted contributory legal norms—“principles”—an essential role in the determination of legal rights, duties, powers, and permissions. Drawing on concrete examples from American statutory and constitutional law, the article shows how the version of positivism that it introduces and defends betters Hart’s in meeting the most formidable challenges to positivism that Dworkin marshaled. The article also explains why the revisions it advances matter, legally as well as philosophically. (shrink)

We present and defend a view labeled “practiceism” which provides a solution to the incompatibility problems. The classic incompatibility problem is inconsistency of:1. Someone who intentionally violates the rules of a game is not playing the game.2. In many cases, players intentionally violate the rules as part of playing the game.The problem has a normative counterpart:1’. In normal cases, it is wrong for a player to intentionally violate the rules of the game.2’. In many normal cases, it (...) is not wrong for a player to intentionally violate the rules of the game.According to both formalism and informalism, the rules of the game include the formal rules of the game. Both traditional positions avoid the incompatibility problems by rejecting 1 and 1'. Practiceism rejects 2 and 2’: it maintains that the rules are the rules manifested in playing the game, not the formal rules.Practiceism presents two theses: (... (shrink)

This paper defends the knowledge rule of informative speech acts. It is argued that Edward Craig's insightful practical explication of the concept of knowledge can be extended to motivate the knowledge rule. A number of problem cases for the knowledge rule are addressed and accommodated.

'Practices without foundations' is, in genesis and in effect, a discussion of the following quotation , which serves therefore as an epigraph to it: ;Nelson Goodman's discussion of the 'new riddle of induction' ... deserves comparison with Wittgenstein's work. Indeed ... the basic strategy of Goodman's treatment of the 'new riddle' is strikingly close to Wittgenstein's sceptical arguments .... Although our paradigm of Wittgenstein's problem was formulated for a mathematical problem it ... is completely general and can be applied to (...) any rule or word. In particular, if it were formulated for the language of color impressions, as Wittgenstein himself suggests, Goodman's 'grue', or something similar, would play the role of 'quus'. But the problem would not be Goodman's about induction--"Why not predict that grass, which has been grue in the past will be grue in the future?"--but Wittgenstein's about meaning: "Who is to say that in the past I didn't mean grue by 'green', so that now I should call the sky, not the grass, 'green'?" vskip9pt ;This fascinating remark of Kripke's suggests a project, that of charting out both the interpretive and philosophic points of connection and disconnection between Wittgenstein, Goodman and Kripke. That project is this dissertation. ;My work severely tests Kripke's remark. For I argue that Kripke not only misreads Wittgenstein, but also mistakes the extremity of the 'scepticism' of his version of Wittgenstein for the priority of the philosophical puzzle that Goodman has bequeathed to us. ;To reach this conclusion, I show that Kripke's Wittgenstein's 'meaning-scepticism' is unanswerable if statable, but actually unstatable; and that, under certain interpretations, the same is true of putative scepticisms derivable from Goodman's text. The upshot is that the sceptical reading of most twentieth century philosophy must be displaced in favour of 'post-scepticism' and 'philosophical ethnography'. The latter concepts, sketched toward the end of the dissertation, are perhaps its telos. (shrink)

Rule following has been estimated as a major issue in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy. It seemed to be a key to understand his philosophy of language, and a criterion for the correct use of words. It was further valued as a notion, which conforms to standards required in a theory of language. In this essay I shall argue that these views are neither supported in the Philosophical Investigations nor in any other of Wittgenstein’s writings. In my view rule following serves as (...) a default option to clarify that there are no definite standards of the correct use of words and in consequence, that the actual use of a language is not to be explained at all. Any approach to an explanation of the actual language use by means of rules appears to be nonsensical and beside the point. In order to recognize this view one has to take Wittgenstein’s proposition seriously and at face value that the use of a language is a practice. Providing that only the practice counts the famous “paradox” reappears in a new light. (shrink)

Understanding legal rules not as determinants of behavior but as points of reference for conduct, this volume considers the ways in which rules are invoked, referred to, interpreted, put forward, or blurred. It also asks how both legal practitioners and lay participants conceive of and participate in the construction of facts and rules, and thus, through decisions, defenses, pleas, files, evidence, interviews and documents, actively participate in law's life. With attention to the formulation of notions such as (...) person, evidence, intention, cause and responsibility in the course of legal practices, Legal Rules in Practice provides the outlines of a praxiological anthropology of law - an anthropology that focuses on words, concepts and reasoning as actively used to solve conflicts with the help of legal rules. As such, it will appeal to sociologists, anthropologists and scholars of law with interests in ethnomethodology, rule-based conduct and practical reasoning. (shrink)

The author discusses the rational argumentation of the values from a proposal defended by the legal philosopher Robert Alexy. The paper shows that discourse for Alexy is essentially a regulated activity. A model of certain rules ensure the rationality and correctness of practical discourse oriented towards resolving conflicts of value. Firstly, the types of rules responsible for the rationality of practical argumentation are described. Secondly, some open problems relating to the claim to correctness of reasoned practical discourse are (...) posed, namely problems derived from the idea of consensus and that of a single correct answer to certain practical issues that include conflicts of values and raise basic disagreements. (shrink)

In this article we examine moments in which parents or other caregivers overtly invoke rules during episodes in which they take issue with, intervene against, and try to change a child’s ongoing behavior or action(s). Drawing on interactional data from four different languages (English, Finnish, German, Polish) and using Conversation Analytic methods, we first illustrate the variety of ways in which parents may use such overt rule invocations as part of their behavior modification attempts, showing them to be functionally (...) versatile interactional objects. Their interactional flexibility notwithstanding, we find that parents typically invoke rules when, in the course of the intervention episode, they encounter trouble with achieving an acceptable compliant outcome. To get at the distinct import of rule formulations in this context, we then compare them to two sequential alternatives: parental expressions of an experienced negative affective state, and parental threats. While the former emphasize aspects of social solidarity, the latter seek to enforce compliance by foregrounding a power asymmetry between the parent and the child. Rule formulations, by contrast, are designedly impersonal and appear to be directed at what the parents construe as shortcomings in common-sense practical reasoning on the child’s part. Reflexively, the child is thereby cast as not having properly applied common-sense ‘practical reason’ when engaging in what is treated as the problematic behavior or action. Overt rule invocations can, therefore, be understood as indexical appeals to practical reason. (shrink)

Wittgenstein’s rule-following argument captures the underlying problem concerning how meaning gets attached to what we do. Besides the debate on rules as normative constraints of meaning in the philosophy of language, the illustration of the problem is also evident in how regularities and necessity play a role in understanding social practice in the philosophy of social science. The contested views on the notion of practice are between a thin view (Humean regularist view) and a thick view (e.g., (...) presumably, Wittgensteinian view). While the thin view is represented as the view that there are mere regularities in behaviour, the thick view takes it that necessities (in the sense of normativities) are inhered in regularities. According to Haslanger (2013), the thickest view can fall into the trap of an intentionally overloaded thick view, namely, the view that there is no gap between the regularities in what we do and the normativity of what we do. Examples of the intentionally overloaded thick view discussed in this paper include the ideas of Winch and Diamond. Based on McDowell’s reading of Wittgenstein’s rule-following argument, this paper argues for the non-intentionally overloaded thick view where rules are engaged within practices but are objectively characterizable. Arguing for the non-intentionally overloaded thick view, the paper exploits Haslanger’s project of doing philosophy, namely, the ameliorative aim. This sort of thick view entails realism about social structure, which may lead to the circularity problem. That is, behaviour regularities are assumed to be the effect of some causal properties of a social structure before it is known whether such properties exist. However, the paper argues that the regularities in question should be taken as phenomenal regularities, which can be stated as counterfactual conditions. (shrink)

The title of this rich, wide-ranging, and rewarding book alludes both to the idea that passions rule, and to the thought that we rule our passions. Blackburn offers a conception of both, one broadly in the spirit of Hume and Adam Smith.

The previous chapter specified the three features of rules that will be used throughout the study: _volk_ (demographic scope), _wenn_ (conditions of operation), and _nono_. The _nono_ component, which is sometimes referred to as ‘the burden’, targets the routines (the sequences of actions) that, given the other features of the rule in question, the rule prohibits. Leaving rules undefined, and relying on an intuitive grasp of what they are, we could treat them as just things that have those (...) three features, which we would concentrate upon, without prejudice to others (like the authorities that may be the sources of the rules). We would then also be treating them without prejudice to there being definitions of rules other than the one offered in this chapter. (shrink)

The paper begins by posing the theoretical problem of the foundation of reasonable interpretation and arguing that it cannot be realized by calculable rules or pure common sense or a hermeneutic “art”. There must be rules that make the interpretation strategy explicit. This thesis is studied with the example of the Talmud, who theorises different levels of interpretation and above all builds lists of rules of the correct argument. It is shown how these rules have a (...) rhetoric character and are governed by some meta-principles, such as the total significance of the sacred text, the hierarchy of sources, the principle of majority of the competent ones, to show at the end that in this tradition reasonableness is evaluated in terms of responsibility for interpretation. (shrink)

This paper provides a conceptual exploration of the implication of Jeffrey’s rule of belief revision to account for rule-following behavior in a game-theoretic framework. Jeffrey’s rule reflects the fact that in many cases learning something new does not imply that one has full assurance about the true content of the information. In other words, the same information may be both perceived and interpreted in several different ways. I develop an account of rule-following behavior according to which, in the context of (...) strategic interactions, following a rule is defined by two conditions. First, that agents must frame the interaction in a sufficiently similar way and be aware of the same salient properties, i.e. they must have the same partition of the event. Second, they must ascribe to others the same revised probabilities to what they take to be the common partition. In a game-theoretic framework, this also indicates that rule-following behavior cannot be identified merely to the existence of a common prior. (shrink)

We are the funny organisms that make and follow rules. To understand us, one must understand what is it to institute and follow a rule, to perform correctly or in error. This question is more important than it might at first seem for linguistic meaning is constituted by rules that govern uses of expressions. For example, the fact that 'squid' is correctly applied to squid and incorrectly applied to cuttlefish is part of what makes 'squid' mean what it (...) does. Philosophers sometimes argue further that all representations are rule-governed so that a theory of representation must explain the possibility of misrepresentation. ;The rule-following problem makes an explanation of correctness surprisingly difficult. Philosophers have also not been clear on just what is the problem with rules. I provide a statement of the features of rules and the problems they drive. I then show that some well-known accounts of rule following---Kripke's, Wright's, Blackburn's---are inadequate. My formulation also shows that some favored theories of content---causal, evolutionary, interpretivist---are inadequate. ;Positively, I argue that an essentially social and irreducibly normative organization---a practice---solves the rule-following problem. Therefore, only participants in social practices can follow rules and thence traffic in linguistic meaning. Still, an account of the correctness of a linguistic performance is not yet an explanation of its representational content. I argue that linguistic content is constituted by correctness facts but also by the representational purport of expressions. I explain an expression's purport to represent naturalistically in terms of syndromes of psychological and behavioral symptoms. A theory of linguistic representation, then, must join the non-natural social facts that constitute correctness with the natural individualistic facts that constitute representational purport. ;Such a hybrid theory reveals that thought and language are not as intimately connected as philosophers assume. Whereas linguistic content constitutively partakes of the social organization that sets humans apart from other creatures, thought content involves only refinements of the psycho-behavioral syndromes that we share with most vertebrates. It follows that linguistic content and thought content cannot be explained one in terms of the other. (shrink)

Domestication and compliance with international human rights laws are generally conceptualized as endpoints that states linearly strive to achieve. Missing is a consideration of the impact a state’s formal and informal institutional legacies have on both. Legalization and compliance studies also cannot explain why states engage in rule by law practices. Rule by law studies focus on politicians’ use of the law to curb dissent, with little consideration given to the lasting influence of institutions and norms on behavior. Legalization, compliance, (...) and rule by law are better framed as interrelated components of law as practice, which envisages law as a multidirectional process informed by a country’s institutional history. These legacies shape the behavior of those involved in policymaking over time. This study demonstrates that history of authoritarian rule and the genocide in Rwanda continuously obstruct the institutionalization of civil and political rights and enable the government’s selective compliance with same. (shrink)

Contrary to the popular assumption that linguistically mediated social practices constitute the normativity of action (Kiverstein and Rietveld, 2015; Rietveld, 2008a,b; Rietveld and Kiverstein, 2014), I argue that it is affective care for oneself and others that primarily constitutes this kind of normativity. I argue for my claim in two steps. First, using the method of cases I demonstrate that care accounts for the normativity of action, whereas social practices do not. Second, I show that a social practice account (...) of the normativity of action has unwillingly authoritarian consequences in the sense that humans act only normatively if they follow social rules. I suggest that these authoritarian consequences are the result of an uncritical phenomenology of action and the fuzzy use of “normative”. Accounting for the normativity of action with care entails a realistic picture of the struggle between what one cares for and often repressive social rules. (shrink)

The attention to the deductive method began with Imam Al-Ash’ari and the establishment of the rules of theorizing from the first moment of the emergence of the Ash’ari school of thought at the hands of the founder of the school of thought, Abu Al-Hasan Al-Ash’ari, and the scholars who followed after him who wrote theological works. This reflects the great care of the Ash’arism in rooting and theorizing the methods of theory, and setting the methodological rules of reasoning, (...) so he dealt with The research examines the most important comprehensive theological rules through which the Ash’ari reasoned in the doctrinal issues on which Ash’ari theological thought was founded, taking into account the extent of stability or change that occurred in some of these rules along the path of the Ash’ari doctrine. The aim of this study was to answer an important methodological question in formulating the verbal thinking curriculum: It is: What is the impact of comprehensive verbal rules in achieving intellectual consistency and methodological consistency in the theory of verbal reasoning according to the Ash’arism between theory and application? The answer to the nature of this research required delving into the journey of exploring the idea of comprehensive verbal grammar in the theological heritage. It was appropriate for this task to adopt the historical approach in collecting the material and searching for comprehensive grammar in its context from the verbal works approved in the Ash’arite school. It was necessary to study the origins of the theory of verbal grammar. Comprehensive and anticipating the methodological features governing inference, adopting the analytical approach; The approach adopted in this study was a combined approach of the two approaches: historical and analytical, in order to reach the impact of comprehensive verbal rules in both theoretical and applied studies. (shrink)

Masek’s recent paper offers a disciplined challenge to the dead donor rule (DDR).1 Unlike critics who rely on consequentialism or deny donors’ moral status, Masek works within non-consequentialist ethics to mount a consistency argument: the principles used to justify the DDR—do-no-harm, do-not-kill and double effect—would, if applied consistently, also prohibit kidney donation, fetal surgery, domino liver transplants and lethal palliation. Since those practices are widely accepted, these principles cannot bear the weight placed on them. The argument is largely successful against (...) its targets. The fictional cases are philosophically effective, particularly the replacement liver case, in which the DDR requires replacing a dying patient’s liver solely to avoid technical violation of the rule—serving no medical, existential or relational good for anyone. I grant that DDR proponents can no longer rest comfortably on any single principle Masek examines without confronting the contradictions he identifies. But the argument proves less than it appears, because it targets the wrong level of justification. Masek’s logical engine is straightforward: if physicians may knowingly cause death to relieve suffering (lethal palliation), and if there is no morally relevant difference between that and causing death to fulfil a patient’s autonomous wish to donate a vital organ, then the DDR is unjustified. The suppressed premise is that all morally relevant …. (shrink)

First published in 1865, this book puts forth a new ethical system that aims to provide practical guidance on how to live a good life based on reason, empathy, and social responsibility. The author argues that traditional religious and philosophical systems have failed to keep up with the changing social and economic conditions of modern life and proposes a set of principles that are grounded in the needs and aspirations of ordinary people. The book covers a wide range of topics, (...) including work, family, education, politics, and the environment. A thought-provoking read for anyone interested in ethics and social justice. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

(2001). Activities, Not Rules: The Need for Responsive Practice (On the Way Toward Responsibility) The American Journal of Bioethics: Vol. 1, No. 4, pp. 52-54.

The article presents the conceptual groundwork for an understanding of the essentially improvisational dimension of human rationality. It aims to clarify how we should think about important concepts pertinent to central aspects of human practices, namely, the concepts of improvisation, normativity, habit, and freedom. In order to understand the sense in which human practices are essentially improvisational, it is first necessary to criticize misconceptions about improvisation as lack of preparation and creatio ex nihilo. Second, it is necessary to solve the (...) theoretical problems that derive from misunderstandings concerning the notions of normativity, habit, and freedom – misunderstandings that revolve around the idea that rationality is a form that is developed out of itself and thus works in a way similar to algorithms. One can only make sense of normativity, habit, and freedom if one understands that they all involve conflictual relationships with the world and with others, which in turn enables one to adequately take into account their constitutive connection to improvisation, properly understood. In outlining these conceptual connections, we want to prepare the foundations for an explanation of rational practices as improvisational practices. The article concludes by stating that human rational life is improvisatory because the conditions of human practice arise out of practice itself. (shrink)

Human rights issues are present today in almost every area of society and, accordingly, occupy a special place in it. Due to the fact that modern Ukraine is in a transitional state of creating legal, state and public institutions, the process of formation of civil society requires the identification of the nature of legal relations in a transitional period. After all, relations in civil society should be formed on the basis of awareness of the inalienability and non-repudiation of natural human (...) rights. They should be based on the positive legislation of the state. They are the key to the effectiveness of the entire system of social relations. Ensuring human rights is the criterion by which the achieved level of democracy in the state is assessed. The beginning of this process can be called consolidation in the Basic Law of the provision that a person, his life and health, honor and dignity, integrity and security are recognized as the highest social value, and determining the priority of universal values. At the same time, the needs of the present, in fact, directs the development of modern law, is the development of certain general legal standards that allow us to move on to a new qualitative coexistence of nations in the modern world on substantial humanistic principles. In addition to examining the established mechanisms and specifics of protecting everyday human rights, the article examined the new human rights that exist in post-modern society, which today are called the rights of the “fourth generation”. (shrink)

The distinction between moral rules and moral ideals is presented and explained in various ways. The authors propose that people in business are required to obey the moral rules and have a choice with respect to ideals. Thus, they are not in a different position from that of anyone else in society.Four case studies are presented and discussed. The analytical approaches used by the authors' students are summarized and evaluated. The moral rules/ideals paradigm is described as helping (...) discussants of the cases to establish congruence between business ethics and their personal set of values. Other values of the classroom discussion of ethics cases are considered. (shrink)

Introduction -- Instrumental rationality -- Social order -- Deontic constraint -- Intentional states -- Preference noncognitivism -- A naturalistic perspective -- Transcendental necessity -- Weakness of will -- Normative ethics.

The article exposes the analysis of different socio-philosophical approaches to the fixation of a rule in contemporary praxis. It clarifies the status and role of the rule as a notion in practical philosophy. The author compares the advantages of neo-Aristotelian, neo-Kantian and socio-critical approaches to the revelation of valid forms of praxis rules. In the framework of social philosophy, the article demonstrates the interdependency and succession of these approaches to the interpretation of the essence of the practical rule. The (...) renaissance of the Aristotelean definition of praxis is considered in the works by E. Stein and A. MacIntyre. The relevance of the neo-Kantian approach to the revelation of the nature of practical rule in contemporary social theory is justified on the basis of works by R. Jaeggi, E. von Redecker and J. Butler. The author traces the productive interaction between the neo-Aristotelean and the neo-Kantian approaches to defining praxis rules. Special attention is paid to the philosophy of H. Lotze and E. Lask, where is accomplished the practical turn from the Aristotelean accomplished deed itself to the Kantian judgement about a value of this or that form fulfillment. The dominance of the axiological approach to praxis in contemporary social theory is problematised by means of the neo-Aristotelean interpretation, which prevents its alienation from the essence of the virtue action. The late modern characteristic forms of the practical rule fulfillment in creative activity are considered. There is justified the necessity of turning the theory of practices to the neo-Kantian and the neo-Aristotelean traditions in order to reveal valid forms of expressing and preserving the value-normative nature of rules in contemporary society. That can partially overcome the pragmatic relativism of the theory of practices, which neglects the traditional sense of the praxis rule in its situational intersubjective interpretation. Taking into account complexity and non-linear development of social reality, as well as of the variety of approaches to its reflection, there is explicated the relevance of the determination of contextually possible and universally necessary forms of praxis rules, which are justifiable as value meaningful. (shrink)