Partiality and Impartiality

Partiality and Impartiality
Author: Brian Feltham
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2010-10-28
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199579954

Issues of impartiality and partiality are a major focus of debate in moral theory. Should our personal relationships and commitments have a special place in our moral deliberations? Ten specially written essays by experts in the field offer a variety of perspectives, which will interest readers in both theoretical and practical ethics.

Partiality and Impartiality in African Philosophy

Partiality and Impartiality in African Philosophy
Author: M. Molefe
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 181
Release: 2021-11-10
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1498599443

Partiality and Impartiality in African Philosophy fills the lacuna in African philosophy literature on the inherent tension between requirements of partiality (favoritism) and impartiality (equality). Motsamai Molefe deploys two strategies to philosophically resolve the tension between partiality and impartiality. The first strategy involves applying the moral theories of Kwasi Wiredu, Thaddeus Metz, and Kwame Gyekye to the problem. Finding their views useful in some ways and seriously limited in others, Molefe turns to the second strategy in which he invokes the salient normative concept of personhood in African cultures. Molefe argues that the concept of personhood adjoins theories of human dignity and moral perfection (virtue). The major insight that emerges is a robust ethical theory qua personhood that accommodates both partiality and impartiality. He grounds requirements of impartiality on human dignity, which operates largely as a macro-ethical concept that normatively informs the character of our social institutions (politics). Politics is characterized by fairness, equality, and impartiality. Partiality (the agent-and-other-centred forms of it) is directly connected with the agent’s chief moral duty to achieve her own virtue (moral perfection), which operates as a micro-ethical concept. These two kinds of moral partialism, self-favoritism and close ties such as family, are justified by appeal to the project's view, instead of the individuals-and-relationships view typically invoked to justify moral partiality in the literature.

Partiality

Partiality
Author: Simon Keller
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2013-05-21
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1400846382

We are partial to people with whom we share special relationships--if someone is your child, parent, or friend, you wouldn't treat them as you would a stranger. But is partiality justified, and if so, why? Partiality presents a theory of the reasons supporting special treatment within special relationships and explores the vexing problem of how we might reconcile the moral value of these relationships with competing claims of impartial morality. Simon Keller explains that in order to understand why we give special treatment to our family and friends, we need to understand how people come to matter in their own rights. Keller first presents two main accounts of partiality: the projects view, on which reasons of partiality arise from the place that people take within our lives and our commitments, and the relationships view, on which relationships themselves contain fundamental value or reason-giving force. Keller then argues that neither view is satisfactory because neither captures the experience of acting well within special relationships. Instead, Keller defends the individuals view, on which reasons of partiality arise from the value of the individuals with whom our relationships are shared. He defends this view by saying that we must accept that two people, whether friend or stranger, can have the same value, even as their value makes different demands upon people with whom they share different relationships. Keller explores the implications of this claim within a wider understanding of morality and our relationships with groups, institutions, and countries.

Partiality and Justice in Nursing Care

Partiality and Justice in Nursing Care
Author: Marita Nordhaug
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 126
Release: 2019-05-07
Genre:
ISBN: 9780367224509

Partiality and Justice in Nursing Careexamines the conflicting normative claims of partiality and impartiality in nursing care, looking in depth at how to reconcile reasonable concerns for one particular patient with equally important concerns for the maximisation of health-related welfare for all with relevant nursing-care needs, in a resource-limited setting. Drawing on moral philosophy, this book explores how discussions of partiality and impartiality in moral philosophy can have relevance to the professional context of clinical nursing care as well as in nursing ethics in general. It develops a framework for normative nursing ethics that incorporates a notion of permissible partiality, and specifies which concerns an ethics of nursing care should entail when balancing partialist and impartialist concerns. At the same time, Nordhaug argues that this partiality must also be constrained by both principled and context-sensitive assessments of patients' needs, as well as of the role-relative deontological restriction of minimising harm, something that could be mitigated by institutional and organisational arrangements. This thought-provoking volume is an important contribution to nursing ethics and philosophy. ents of patients' needs, as well as of the role-relative deontological restriction of minimising harm, something that could be mitigated by institutional and organisational arrangements. This thought-provoking volume is an important contribution to nursing ethics and philosophy.

An African Philosophy of Personhood, Morality, and Politics

An African Philosophy of Personhood, Morality, and Politics
Author: Motsamai Molefe
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 185
Release: 2019-04-02
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3030155617

This book explores the salient ethical idea of personhood in African philosophy. It is a philosophical exposition that pursues the ethical and political consequences of the normative idea of personhood as a robust or even foundational ethical category. Personhood refers to the moral achievements of the moral agent usually captured in terms of a virtuous character, which have consequences for both morality and politics. The aim is not to argue for the plausibility of the ethical and political consequences of the idea of personhood. Rather, the book showcases some of the moral-political content and consequences of the account it presents.

Equality and Partiality

Equality and Partiality
Author: Thomas Nagel
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 197
Release: 1995-05-11
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0198023421

Derived from Thomas Nagel's Locke Lectures, Equality and Partiality proposes a nonutopian account of political legitimacy, based on the need to accommodate both personal and impersonal motives in any credible moral theory, and therefore in any political theory with a moral foundation. Within each individual, Nagel believes, there is a division between two standpoints, the personal and the impersonal. Without the impersonal standpoint, there would be no morality, only the clash, compromise, and occasional convergence of individual perspectives. It is because a human being does not occupy only his own point of view that each of us is susceptible to the claims of others through private and public morality. Political systems, to be legitimate, must achieve an integration of these two standpoints within the individual. These ideas are applied to specific problems such as social and economic inequality, toleration, international justice, and the public support of culture. Nagel points to the problem of balancing equality and partiality as the most important issue with which political theorists are now faced.

African Ethics

African Ethics
Author: Munyaradzi Felix Murove
Publisher: University of Kwazulu Natal Press
Total Pages: 492
Release: 2009
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN:

This is the first comprehensive volume on African ethics, centered on Ubuntu and its relevance today. Important contemporary issues are explored, such as African bioethics, business ethics, traditional African attitudes to the environment, and the possible development of a new form of democracy based on indigenous African political systems. In a world that has become interconnected, this anthology demonstrates that African ethics can make valuable contributions to global ethics. It is not only African academics, students, organizations, or those individuals committed to ethics that are envisaged as the beneficiaries of this book, but all humankind. A number of topics presented here were inspired by a Shona proverb that says, Ndarira imwe hairiri (One brass wire cannot produce a sound). The chorus of voices in African Ethics demonstrates this proverbial truism.

The Ethics of Care

The Ethics of Care
Author: Virginia Held
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 222
Release: 2006
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 0195180992

The author assesses the ethics of care as a promising alternative to the familiar moral theories that serve so inadequately to guide our lives. Held examines what we mean by care and focuses on caring relationships. She also looks at the potential of care for dealing with social issues and global problems.

Handbook of Patriotism

Handbook of Patriotism
Author: Mitja Sardoč
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2020-07-28
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9783319544830

Both historically and conceptually, patriotism has been one of the foundational characteristics that defines the very essence of one’s attachment, identification and loyalty to a political community and a basic virtue associated with citizenship as a political conception of the person. Despite its centrality in the pantheon of political ideals, patriotism remains a contested concept and an elusive virtue as well as a source of potential conflicts and violence. The Handbook of Patriotism (the first reference work of its kind) brings together a set of contributions by some of the leading authors on the main themes and concepts associated with this area of scholarly research. Each chapter provides a comprehensive coverage of a particular aspect of this complex, and controversial, social phenomenon. The handbook provides a clear and authoritative exposition of key contemporary conceptions of patriotism, discusses the justification and the motivational impulses associated with patriotism, and examines some of the different ideas most commonly associated with one’s attachment, identification and loyalty to a political community. At the same time, it covers a number of basic concepts associated with the ‘standard’ analysis of patriotism, e.g. civic friendship, solidarity, associative duties, civic virtue, loyalty, pride, responsibility, courage etc. It also presents some of the concepts that were previously lef outside its gravitational orbit, e.g. federalism, religion, taxation and the economy.

Partial Values

Partial Values
Author: Kevin DeLapp
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 186
Release: 2018-03-12
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1786602148

When, if ever, is it permissible to afford special consideration to friends and family? How can we strive to be objective in our thinking, and is this always a feasible or appropriate aim? This book examines the categories of impartiality and objectivity by showing how they frame certain debates in epistemology, moral psychology, and metaethics, arguing that many traditional conceptions of objectivity fail to capture what is important to our identities as knowers, social beings, and moral agents. A new thesis of ‘perspectival realism’ is offered as a critique of strong objectivity, but in a way that avoids radical subjectivism or relativism. Locally-situated identities can provide their own criteria of epistemic and moral justification, and we may aspire to be impartial in a way that need not sacrifice particular perspectives and relationships. Arguments throughout the book draw heavily on resources from classical Chinese philosophy, and significant attention is given to applications of arguments to concrete issues in applied ethics, cross-cultural anthropology, and political science.