In contrast, these self - other differences were much weaker in evaluations
of ethical actions.
Not exact matches
But a class -
action lawsuit filed recently in Florida suggests that serious
ethical lapses remain a defining part
of the industry.
What does it take to design an
ethical plan
of action?
The incident also led to the resignation
of vice president Joe Chernov and a pay cut for Halligan, «who knew about Volpe's
actions but failed to bring the
ethical violation to the board's attention in a timely fashion,» reports the Boston Globe.
His
actions are not that
of an
ethical person.»
The messages
of Amos, Hosea, Micah, and Isaiah, while addressed to Israel as a whole, demanded decision and
action on the part
of the Israelite, and this appeal to intellectual discrimination and
ethical choice involved a consequence more important than the prophets probably guessed.
Part
of the problem the way the question is posed is by assuming that we can abstract an
ethical ideal from one part
of scripture and use it to judge the
actions of God in another part
of scripture, as though scripture were given us so we could form such dehistoricized abstract
ethical judgments!
The content
of medical activities is largely determined by medical, not by
ethical principles; but the will to let one's
actions be determined by objective medical principles is itself a moral
action.
thought that an
action will become less
ethical the more «medical» it is, and medical problems
of morality might be regarded as a sign that objectivity has not yet been carried far enough.
That means the final
ethical norm is in the
action of God in the person
of Jesus in whom the Spirit has become incarnate.9
In the New Testament the meaning
of ethical love is given by the divine
action in the history
of Jesus.
The changes in social structures
of moral
action, which previously were strongly linked to and supportive
of Christian faith, has important implications both to how we conceive our relationship as Christians to our host society, and how we nurture
ethical behaviour within adherents
of the Christian faith who also participate fully as members
of this society.
What is given for the
ethical life in Jesus Christ is not a law in the form
of specific prescriptions, but an
action which releases power to accept responsibility for that
action which will serve the neighbour.
Is the absolute demand that the physician should defend the life
of every man as far as at all possible either the artificial and morally unreflected exaggeration
of the biological zest for life which rational man opposes to the true «objectivity»
of nature's
action in life and death, or is such absoluteness a genuine
ethical demand?
Accordingly, the remainder
of this essay will proceed as follows: I will first seek to show that the meta -
ethical character
of every claim to moral validity includes a principle
of social
action by which a universal community
of rights is constituted, so that no moral theory can be valid if it is inconsistent with these rights.
No, we don't all have absolute
ethical moral standards, but that doesn't deny us the ability to criticize the horrific
actions of regions with different social norms.
The principle constituting this universal social practice is itself meta -
ethical, in the following sense: the social
action prescribed is explicitly neutral to all moral disagreement.4 On the face
of it, one might object, a prescription
of universal rights can not be explicitly neutral to all such disagreement because it is not explicitly neutral to disagreement about the principle itself.
As a derivation from the meta -
ethical character
of every claim to moral validity, the specific practice
of moral discourse both implies and is implied by — and, in that sense, belongs to — a principle that constitutes social
action universally.
We may call this meta -
ethical principle a formative principle
of social
action, meaning precisely that adherence to it is explicitly neutral to all moral disagreement.
Yet to begin
ethical reflection at this point invariably seems to result in arbitrarily separating the moral judgment
of an
action from the kind
of person who performs it.
Thus, on Hartshorne's view,
ethical status is measured by love, that is, by
action from social awareness which takes account
of the interests
of others.
The propensity
of scholars (and Christians more generally) to confine the
ethical teaching
of Jesus to his words has been shown to be a misunderstanding
of the genre; the contrasting
actions of Jesus are just as important.
The
ethical is the acceptance or denial
of actions not according to their use or harmfulness but according to their intrinsic value and disvalue.
In a context where millions in our world are either excluded or have been rendered invisible by callous and inhuman policies and
actions of international financial institutions and agencies (which are supposedly there to regulate trade and create the space for the powerless), to talk
of ethical engagement
of Christians in struggle for life, is more urgent now then ever before.
They are realising that they need an autonomous method
of thought and
action to construct and promote their view
of the world,
of society,
of ethical principles,
of the economy,
of the social institutions.
It never challenges the scientism and materialism
of the American elite, and it sets the stage for
ethical action.
The spirit
of Hus energized moral insight and
ethical action in the service
of God and the truth.
This is one side
of the picture; in its theological aspect it emphasizes the absolute authority
of God over His creation, and in its
ethical aspect suggests a deterministic theory
of man's
actions.
In circumstances which put it to the utmost test, it might find expression in actual martyrdom, but something
of its quality must be present in all truly
ethical action.
While not denying the systematic possibility
of a «naturalized» Whiteheadian metaphysics, Hall argues that Whitehead grounds rational religion in distinctive aspects
of experience which can not be reduced to
ethical modalities, as Sherburne suggests, without greatly impoverishing «the sources
of thought,
action and feeling to which civilized men refer for self - understanding.»
Underlying its
actions is the belief that «
ethical living is the supreme witness
of religion.»
Since that time
of course it has wriggled free to such an extent that its claims
of expediency are often used to inhibit
ethical discourse and
action.
Directed by Marie Fortune, a pastor and author
of Sexual Violence, The Unmentionable Sin: An
Ethical and Pastoral Perspective (Pilgrim Press, 1983), the Center has developed resources for congregational study and
action, including a study guide for teen - agers on preventing sexual abuse, a monograph on violence against women
of color, and a manual for congregational use in discovering and developing community resources on family violence.
For Aristotle, ethics deals with
action and not with production, and this means that the whole realm
of arts and economic activity is outside the strict boundaries
of the
ethical.
Indeed, Reinhold Niebuhr, perhaps the most influential American theologian relative to political and
ethical action in this century, wrote his theories
of sin under the grip
of Soren Kierkegaard's more individualistic notions
of the origin
of sin.
In spite
of differences on the
ethical problem all Christian liberals conceived
of ethical social
action as rooted in a religious conception
of the meaning
of that
action and with a religious faith which gives hope for its success.
Making judgments and taking
actions can be pretty tricky, and no doubt even unpleasant from that context, but like Shawn noted in his «invasion» analogy, they may be entirely necessary (maybe that's a tool to employ in unpacking
ethical / cultural aspects
of Biblical history).
But religious faith can increase a person's sensitivity to the
ethical dimensions
of alternative
actions and the implications
of his work.
Often it is associated with the call for secularity, or for a political theology, or for a theology
of revolution, or even for a dissolution
of theology in
ethical action.
Non-violent
action can,
of course, be undertaken without reference to love, but one characteristic
of most
of the non-violent
ethical movements has been the conviction that this strategy is required by love and provides a way
of giving love a direct expression in social conflict.
Reinhold stresses not the contrast between the good
of the whole and defeat
of the self - assertive individual parts, but rather the gap between the ideal and actuality — between the absolute
ethical ideals that humans conceive and the limited goals that can actually be achieved by collective
action.
The development in the civil rights movement
of doubts about the full effectiveness
of non-violence may represent in part a yielding to emotions less disciplined by
ethical considerations; but it also reflects the discovery
of some complexities
of effective social
action.
Reinhold claims that a tragic view
of history is necessary to help the Christian negotiate the gap between the
ethical ideal and the possibilities attainable by human collective
action.
We may, by such reasoning, justify our use
of any means to achieve what we think are good ends on the assumption that — since history is a perennial tragedy, and collective
actions are always on a lower
ethical level than individual
actions — we are not obligated to strive for the highest ideals possible, or to present an alternative to the usual way
of the world.
For Aristotle, the plot is also the story
of human
action from which moral and
ethical issues can not be separated.
He clarified the
ethical demands
of a God - centered life by applying obedient love or agape to all human situations, both personal and social, and insisted this included the earthly as well as the eternal, and required our best
actions amid the relativities
of the present world.
To develop
ethical guidelines for our treatment
of domesticated animals, for example, we must try to consider the kind
of effects our
actions have on them subjectively.
Instead
of approaching
ethical questions in terms
of specifiable rules or in terms
of the consequences
of one's
actions, virtue ethics asks which virtues one ought to possess.
Hopefully, radical theology is truly apolitical and nonethical, if responsible
ethical and political
action are identified with the established forms
of modern Western politics and ethics.
However Ritschlianism was already giving way to the religionsgeschichtliche Schule, whose philosophy
of religion centred in a decided preference for cultic experience over
ethical action, and whose historical reconstruction saw primitive Christianity orientated like other Hellenistic religions to the cult's dying and rising Lord, rather than to the Jesus
of the Sermon on the Mount.