A perpetrator’s mental state – whether she had mens rea or a “guilty mind” – typically plays an important role in evaluating wrongness and assigning punishment. In two experiments, we find that this role for mental states is weaker in evaluating conventional violations relative to moral violations. We also find that this diminished role for mental states may be associated with the fact that con...

One of the most oft-cited parts of Francis Hutcheson’s Illustrations upon the Moral Sense (1728) is his discussion of “exciting reasons.” In this paper I address the question: What is the function of that discussion? In particular, what is its relation to Hutcheson’s attempt to show that the rationalists’ normative thesis ultimately implies, contrary to their moral epistemology, that moral idea...

Ethics is the branch of philosophy that explores the nature of moral virtue and evaluates human actions. Philosophical ethics differs from legal, religious, cultural and personal approaches to ethics by seeking to conduct the study of morality through a rational, secular outlook that is grounded in notions of human happiness or well-being. A major advantage of a philosophical approach to ethics...

By giving sympathy a central role, Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) can be regarded as one of the ‘enlightened’ moral theories of the Enlightenment, insofar as it widened the scope of moral consideration beyond the traditionally restricted boundary of human beings. This, although the author himself does not seem to have been aware of this fact. In this paper, I want to focus on tw...

The ethical problem of privacy lies at the core of computer ethics and cyber ethics discussions. The extensive use of personal data in digital networks poses a serious threat to the user’s right of privacy not only at the level of a user’s data integrity and security but also at the level of a user’s identity and freedom. In normative ethical theory the need for an informational self-determinis...

Most of the essays gathered in this Symposium were submitted to the Special Workshop on Economics, Ethics, and Law at the 22nd IVR World Congress in Granada, Spain.1 The papers selected address promises and commitments, their rational or moral grounding, and their relationship to various kinds of contracts and agreements. While the duty to fulfill promises is uncontroversial, the nature of prom...

Kant believes that the concepts of a just and compassionate God and the life beyond death spring from our rational need to unite happiness with virtue. But since Kant had banished happiness from any place in moral reasoning, his philosophy of religion have been deemed as not merely discontinuous with his ethics but radically opposed to it. This article tries to argue against this apparent incon...