The Vicissitudes of Common-Sense Virtue Ethics, Part I: From Aristotle to Slote

http://philpapers.org/rec/KULTVOIn a treatise on methods of applied ethics, Abraham Edel, Elizabeth Flower, and Finbarr O'Connor distinguish between three traditional families of terms, “the family of right and wrong, duty and moral law, rights and responsibilities; the family of good and bad; and the family of virtues and vices.” They argue that “the formulation of an ethical question is choosing among ways in which it may explored. And it is turning to some rather than other of the resources that the history of ethical theory offers in its treatment of ethical concepts.” Under the inspiration of pragmatism, they recommend a pluralistic approach. “Instead of urging a choice among competing theories, we suggest building up an inventory of resources from the theoretical reservoir, with a clear understanding of which can be invoked from what kind of purposes.” They maintain that ethical theories can be utilized to resolve practical problems without unifying concepts into a single system. Unfortunately, attempts by philosophers to resolve practical issues of great concern to the public such as abortion, physician assisted suicide, our obligations to nature and future generations, and capital punishment have resulted in stalemates among members of the same schools of thought and more intractably among members of different schools. Unification of theory seems mandatory if we ever hope to break the stalemates and approach a consensus on how to solve practical problems. Suppose then, contrary to the counsel of Edel, Flower and O'Connor, we undertake to determine which of the three popular approaches to ethical theory is correct and to reduce the concepts of the others to it. We might be able to show that a theory of virtue is a department or application of a theory of the right or a theory of the good, as many modern ethical theorists have argued. We also might find virtue ethics to be fundamental and reduce the other families of concepts to it. A few contemporary moralists assert that it is time to try this route. Prominent among them is Michael Slote, who argues in two recent books that the family of virtue concepts is irreducible to either or both the other two families. He anticipates that the theory of virtue will evolve into a “free-standing” ethic rather than remain a “supplement to common-sense, Kantian, utilitarian, or other forms of ethics and moral philosophy.

The Vicissitudes of Common-Sense Virtue Ethics, Part II: The Heuristic Use of Common Sense

http://philpapers.org/rec/KULTVO-2In the first part of this study, I compared the ways in which Aristotle and Michael Slote utilize common sense, meaning the opinions and intuitions of the majority of people or some reference group among them. Both philosophers center their attention on human virtue and so both may be categorized in a very broad way as common-sense virtue ethicists. Aristotle uses common sense only heuristically as an aid to forming opinions of his own, which he then checks against the facts as he sees them. In contrast, Slote uses common sense probatively. When his views accord with common sense, he takes it as a confirmation and, at points, as a proof of their validity. He is thus a commonsense philosopher in a more profound sense than Aristotle. My criticisms of his views were designed to show that he is ill-advised in appealing to common sense in the way he does. Aristotle's guarded and limited use of it is the only approach that can be justified in ethical theory. I will now sketch the way in which intuitions, whether the intuitions of all people, of a select group, or of the philosopher herself, should interplay with theoretical considerations in her development of an ethical theory. The department of ethical theory that I shall discuss will continue to be that devoted to virtue, but I shall argue that virtue as a property of persons cannot be understood without adequate concepts of the right as a property of actions, and the good as a property of goals. In developing a theory of virtue from common intuitions, Slote claims to utilize a systematic procedure exploiting an interplay between theory and intuition. He observes that this is “a methodology at least partially analogous with scientific methodology.” In developing this procedure, we would expect him to improve measurably on Aristotle, since he has available a much more sophisticated form of scientific inquiry as his model. To see how far the analogy between ethics and science takes him, let me sketch a classic example of scientific procedure. This example is Lavoisier's discovery of oxygen and explanation of combustion, which precipitated a revolution in chemistry and led to the development of a body of theory recognizably continuous with that current today. The analysis will show that Slote does not go far enough with the analogy and that the analogy largely impugns the probative value of common sense as Slote uses it

On the biomedicalization of alcoholism

The shift in the prevailing view of alcoholism from a moral paradigm towards a biomedical paradigm is often characterized as a form of biomedicalization. We will examine and critique three reasons offered for the claim that viewing alcoholism as a disease is morally problematic. The first is that the new conceptualization of alcoholism as a chronic brain disease will lead to individualization, e.g., a too narrow focus on the individual person, excluding cultural and social dimensions of alcoholism. The second claim is that biomedicalization will lead to stigmatization and discrimination for both alcoholics and people who are at risk of becoming alcoholics. The third claim is that as a result of the biomedical point of view, the autonomy and responsibility of alcoholics and possibly even persons at risk may be unjustly restricted. Our conclusion is that the claims against the biomedical conceptualization of alcoholism as a chronic brain disease are neither specific nor convincing. Not only do some of these concerns also apply to the traditional moral model; above that they are not strong enough to justify the rejection of the new biomedical model altogether. The focus in the scientific and public debate should not be on some massive “biomedicalization objection” but on the various concerns underlying what is framed in terms of the biomedicalization of alcoholism

Aberrant S_RN1 reaction of 4-aminophenol with a,p-dinitrocumene: EPR observation of intermediates

The tert-butoxide-induced substitution of alpha,p-dinitrocumene by 4-aminophenol unexpectedly afforded the N-coupled product, 2-(4-hydroxyanilino)-2-(4-nitrophenyl)propane. EPR observations revealed arylaminyl radical intermediates as well as coupled anion radicals, hence the normal S(RN)1 process may compete with an alternative nonchain reaction pathway.</p

Aberrant S_RN1 reaction of 4-aminophenol with a,p-dinitrocumene: EPR observation of intermediates

The tert-butoxide-induced substitution of alpha,p-dinitrocumene by 4-aminophenol unexpectedly afforded the N-coupled product, 2-(4-hydroxyanilino)-2-(4-nitrophenyl)propane. EPR observations revealed arylaminyl radical intermediates as well as coupled anion radicals, hence the normal S(RN)1 process may compete with an alternative nonchain reaction pathway.</p

Discovery and optimisation of a selective non-steroidal glucocorticoid receptor antagonist

High-throughput screening of 3.87 million compounds delivered a novel series of non-steroidal GR antagonists. Subsequent rounds of optimisation allowed progression from a non-selective ligand with a poor ADMET profile to an orally bioavailable, selective, stable, glucocorticoid receptor antagonist