OBJECTIVES To interrogate the concept of personhood and its application to care practices for people with dementia. METHOD We outline the work of Tom Kitwood on personhood and relate this to conceptualisations of personhood in metaphysics and in moral philosophy. RESULTS The philosophical concept of personhood has a long history. The metaphysical tradition examines the necessary and suffici...

One of the arguments for which Kant is best known (or most notorious) is the so-called “moral proof” of the existence of God, freedom, and the immortal soul. Versions of the proof can be found in each of the Critiques, in various lectures, and in Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. “Proof” has to be taken loosely here, since the attitude licensed by moral considerations, for Kant, is...

This paper examines whether the modern bioethical principles of respect for autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice proposed by Beauchamp and Childress are existent in, compatible with, or acceptable to the leading Chinese moral philosophy-the ethics of Confucius. The author concludes that the moral values which the four prima facie principles uphold are expressly identifiable in Co...

SSM is a socio-technical system methodology offering tools for analysing complex situations. This modelling approach identifies differing worldviews of the system by encouraging discussion and debate. Academic ethical studies of moral philosophy have been extensively studied but rarely attributed to system modelling. We investigate the possibility of an ethical dimension to SSM comparing it to ...

This paper has two central aims. The first is to explore philosophical complications that arise when we move from (i) explaining the evolutionary origins of genetically influenced traits associated with human cooperation and altruism, to (ii) explaining present manifestations of human thought, feeling and behaviour involving cooperation and altruism. While the former need only appeal to causal ...

Full Citation: Kelly, D. (2013). ‘Moral Disgust and The Tribal Instincts Hypothesis,' Cooperation and Its Evolution, Eds. K. Sterelny, R. Joyce, Calcott, B, & B. Fraser. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, pages 503-524. http://www.amazon.com/Cooperation-Evolution-Life-Mind-Philosophical/dp/0262018535 Moral Disgust and Tribal Instincts: A Byproduct Hypothesis By Daniel R. Kelly Department of Philosop...

educated at Harvard University and New York University, and received his PhD from Columbia University in 1978. His research has centered on epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical issues lying at the boundaries between economics and philosophy. He is the co-founder and former co-editor of the journal Economics and Philosophy. His most important books are The Inexact and Separate Science of E...

The belief persists in philosophy, religion, science, and popular culture that some special cognitive property of persons like self-consciousness confers a unique moral standing. However, no set of cognitive properties confers moral standing, and metaphysical personhood is not sufficient for either moral personhood or moral standing. Cognitive theories all fail to capture the depth of commitmen...

Is it acceptable and moral to sacrifice a few people's lives to save many others? Research on moral dilemmas in psychology, experimental philosophy, and neuropsychology has shown that respondents judge utilitarian personal moral actions (footbridge dilemma) as less appropriate than equivalent utilitarian impersonal moral actions (trolley dilemma). Accordingly, theorists (e.g., Greene et al., 20...

Ancient Chinese philosophy already developed a philosophy of humanitarianism or humanity in the general sense. The concept of "Ren" / "Jen" was indeed a main idea already in Confucianism. It was to my mind Mencius, who was the most explicit, if not even the first, philosopher of what I call concrete humanity. The article takes up Albert Schweitzer's discussion of MengZi's philosophical humanita...