Essays on F.H. Bradley's Ethical Idealism

This dissertation is an analytic and systematic philosophical study of ethical idealism of the type developed by F.H. Bradley. The research fills the interpretative gap resulting from the fact that the book has mostly been discussed either from the standpoint of political and social philosophy, or the history of philosophy. Psychological interpretations may be insightful, but are lacking in analytic approach. No major in-depth analytical interpretation of Bradley’s ethics has been undertaken from the standpoint of moral philosophy. The uniqueness of this study lies in its exclusive focus on the key concepts of Bradley’s moral psychology, normative ethics, and meta-ethics. It reconstructs, analyses, and interprets his ethics on the basis of Ethical Studies (ES) (and minor works in moral psychology) and offers a new analytic reading of the book. This amounts to a re-evaluation and reconsideration of the standard interpretation of Bradley’s ethical views, and their significance for ethics. The dissertation moves Bradley’s under-researched work into the context of present-day ethical debates, and, by doing so, recovers its significance as a ground-breaking early analytic text with implications for moral psychology, ontology, epistemology, and normative ethics. Adopting an analytic approach to ES, this study moves away from the usual focus on the traditional methods of the history of philosophy. The dissertation instead focuses on the elucidation of the key questions of ES, the explication of its main ideas, and the connection between them, as well as connecting these ideas to ethical problems, rather than on tracing the development of ideas and concepts, describing tendencies, and putting ideas in historical perspective, or connecting Bradley’s views to particular schools of philosophy or individual thinkers. As a result, the research breaks away from the traditional interpretation of Bradley’s ethics and rejects its common assumptions. Bradley’s views are identified not merely as an idealistic ethics, i.e. one of the varied moral views held by metaphysical idealists, but rather as a version of ethical idealism that claims that the goal of a moral life must be understood as the realisation of the moral ideal for its own sake. The dissertation consists of five peer-reviewed articles that form a coherent narrative. It begins by challenging the assumption that, for Bradley, social requirements equal moral obligations, and undermining the long-standing belief about the central role of “my station and its duties”. Next, the dissertation turns to the key concept of ES, i.e. the moral self, which is explained in terms of personal projects. This concept is further connected to Bradley’s account of desire, and it is suggested that grand desires, i.e. desires directed towards an ideal of one’s personality, are important for the understanding of Bradley’s idea of selfrealisation and the moral life. Lastly, it reconstructs Bradley’s views on moral motivation and the nature of moral beliefs.Etiikan pääteoriat ovat yksimielisiä siitä, että moraalin kannalta tärkeät asiat (kuten mikä on moraalisesti hyvää, oikein tai ansiokasta) täytyy olla puolueetonta ja muut huomioon ottavaa. Tämä tarkoittaa toisaalta sitä, että moraalin alueella subjektiiviset ja henkilöön liittyvät asiat tulisi jättää huomiotta. Toisaalta se tarkoittaa, että moraalin alaan kuuluu ainoastaan suhteemme muihin ja että ainoa moraalisen tarkastelun kannalta tärkeä asia on, kuinka meidän pitäisi kohdella muita. (Mitä velvollisuuksia meillä on muita kohtaan? Mitkä muihin kohdistuvat teot ovat sallittuja ja mitkä kiellettyjä?) Suhdettamme omaan itseemme on pidetty moraalin kannalta merkityksettömänä. Tämä tutkielma tarkastelee vaihtoehtoista lähestymistapaa, joka tuo moraalisen tarkastelun piiriin sellaiset subjektiiviset tilat kuin halut, intressit ja henkilökohtaiset projektit ja pyrkimykset. Tutkielma keskittyy brittiläisen idealismin johtohahmon F.H. Bradleyn (1846–1924) kehittämään eettiseen idealismiin ja tarjoaa uuden analyyttisen rekonstruktion hänen etiikan alan päätyöstään "Ethical Studies". Tulkitsen Bradleyn kysyvän "Minkälaisiksi henkilöiksi meidän tulisi pyrkiä tulemaan?" Hän uudelleenkohdistaa eettisen tarkastelun henkilön suhteeseen itseensä ja argumentoi, että moraaliset velvollisuudet ovat välttämättä velvollisuuksia itseä kohtaan. Onko henkilö moraalisesti hyvä, ei riipu vain hänen suhtautumisestaan muihin, vaan myös hänen suhtautumisestaan itseensä. Bradley erottelee moraaliset vaatimukset sosiaalisista ja identifioi moraalisen näkökulman ideaalisen näkökulman kanssa. Bradleyn eettisessä idealismissa moraalisen elämän tavoitteeksi tulee ymmärtää moraalisen ideaalin toteuttaminen sen itsensä vuoksi. Tutkielma tarkastelee sellaisia kysymyksiä kuin: Mitä tarkoittaa olla moraalinen henkilö ja elää moraalisesti hyvää elämää? Voiko olla moraalisesti väärin toimia yhteisön odotusten mukaisesti? Kuinka moraalinen minä tulee ymmärtää? Kuinka moraaliset arvostelmat motivoivat toimintaa? Kuinka itsensä toteuttaminen voi olla moraalinen projekti

Bradley’s “my station and its duties” and its moral (in)significance

I argue that, according to F. H. Bradley’s Ethical Studies, duties of our station (positional duties) are not morally obligatory unless they are required from an ideal point of view. I support my interpretation by showing that Bradley places the ideal point of view higher than the social and requires that what society demands from us is evaluated from that higher point of view. My argument relies on a detailed analysis of “my station and its duties”. The phrase must be understood as a category that (1) refers to different concepts throughout Ethical Studies (i.e. a theory that Bradley rejects, a revised thesis that he accepts, and positional duties), and (2) embraces several theses (descriptive, normative, and ideal), each involving a number of claims, only a few of which Bradley accepts. I argue that Bradley rejects the normative thesis of MSID theory that identifies moral obligation with social requirements because he finds bottom-up idealization (what ought to be must conform to what is) unsatisfactory. Bradley’s inclusion of “my station and its duties” in the moral ideal must be understood as amounting to the claim that a positional duty is morally obligatory only when it is justified by the norms governing pre-institutionalised relationships.Peer reviewe

What Does It Mean for a Robot to Be Respectful?

Funding Information: The major work on this article was funded by Kone Foundation in 2020 through the project Towards Responsible Artificial Intelligence (University of Helsinki, Finland). The article was completed at the University of Twente. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 Philosophy Documentation Center. All rights reserved.Intelligent systems are increasingly incorporated into relationships that had, until recently, been reserved solely for humans, and are delegated the role of a partner, which, if human, would presuppose a system of normatively regulated interactivity. This includes expectations of reciprocity and certain attitudes/actions towards human actors, such as respect. Even though a robot cannot respect, I argue that it can be respectful. A robot can be attributed respectfulness (in the direct sense) iff its interactions with persons reflect the respectful attitude of the humans involved in its design and operation. Robot respectfulness is a compound of (a) robotic actions governed by principles that (b) reflect the attitude of respect for persons by humans involved in its design, implementation, and professional use. I define respect for persons as a commitment to core values that make someone a person (i.e., intellect, rationality of reactive attitudes, autonomy, personal integrity, and trust in expertise).Peer reviewe

Phase separation, percolation and giant isotope effect in manganites

Phase separation and a tendency to form inhomogeneous structures seems to be a generic property of systems with strongly correlated electrons. After shortly summarising the existing theoretical results in this direction, I concentrate on the phenomena in doped manganites. I discuss general theoretical results on the phase separation at small doping and close to the doping x=0.5. The "global" phase diagram in this region is constructed. These general results are illustrated on the example of the particular system with rich and complicated properties - (LaPr)_(1-x)Ca_xMnO_3 in which there exist a ferromagnetic metallic (FM) phase and a charge ordered (CO) insulating one. The experimental situation in this system is discussed and the interpretation is given in the framework of the model with competition of FM and CO, and the indications of phase separation and percolative nature of this system are given. Giant isotope effect observed in this situation is shortly discussed.Comment: 7 pages, 5 eps figures, uses elsart.cls and phbauth.cls, invited talk at the LT22, Helsinki 199

Modification of the ground state in Sm-Sr manganites by oxygen isotope substitution

The effect of $^{16}$O $\to$ $^{18}$O isotope substitution on electrical resistivity and magnetic susceptibility of Sm$_{1-x}$Sr$_x$MnO$_3$ manganites is analyzed. It is shown that the oxygen isotope substitution drastically affects the phase diagram at the crossover region between the ferromagnetic metal state and that of antiferromagnetic insulator (0.4 $< x <$ 0.6), and induces the metal-insulator transition at for $x$ = 0.475 and 0.5. The nature of antiferromagnetic insulator phase is discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 3 eps figures, RevTeX, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

International problems in youth’s space in contemporary world

Межнациональные отношения являются одной из острейших проблем общества и молодежной среды, в частности. Россия всегда была многонациональной страной. Из-за острых социальных проблем таких, как нищета значительной части россиян, алкоголизм, наркомания, беспризорное детство и другие появляются и объективные, и субъективные предпосылки к межнациональным претензиям. Разрастание межнациональных конфликтов автоматически ведет к развалу государственности.Interethnic relations are one of the most pressing problems of society and youth protection, in particular. Russia has always been a multi-ethnic country. Because of the acute social problems such as poverty many Russians, alcoholism, drug addiction, homelessness and other childhood appear both objective and subjective conditions to ethnic claims. Proliferation of ethnic conflicts automatically leads to the collapse of the state

Information technologies in musical education

При финансовой поддержке Российского гуманитарного научного фонда, проект № 07-06-14162