{"title":"Counterfactual Empathy and Essence As Ensoulment: Dissonance and Resonance With Fichtean Self-Positing","authors":"Mitchell Atkinson III","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3316179","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3316179","url":null,"abstract":"The paper discusses empathy as a necessary constituent feature of moral reasoning. Building on Brannmark (2015), I construct a definition of empathy employing two restrictions and two assertions: the Self Affecting Restriction (SAR), the Person Affecting Restriction (PAR), the Self Affecting Assertion (SAA), and the Person Affecting Assertion (PAA). I provide an adumbration of a counterfactual approach to grounding empathy and argue that a consistent practice of counterfactual empathy requires a concept of human essence, which may be seen as some sort of ensoulment. The approach delineates a logic of the moral subject which asserts the primacy of empathy as a sine qua non of moral reasoning and behavior. I attempt to reinterpret these results in light of Fichtean self-positing. I argue that a standard reading of the Fichtean X of the Wissenshaftslehre is not adequate to Fichte’s purposes, and propose an alternative reading. Finally, I examine similarities and differences between the Fichtean X, under this new reading and the concept of ensoulment under counterfactual empathy.","PeriodicalId":415468,"journal":{"name":"CSN: Morality (Sub-Topic)","volume":"111 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114637631","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Happiness Is the Wrong Metric (Extended)","authors":"Amitai Etzioni","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2781594","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2781594","url":null,"abstract":"People are motivated not only by a quest for satisfaction but also by trying to live up to their sense of what is moral. This sense cannot be reduced to a form of satisfaction, among other reasons because it often engenders pain and sacrifice rather than pleasure. Analysis is enriched when we realize people are moral wrestlers who are pulled by both kinds of motivations. Such a recognition is also useful for public policy. The concept of well-being is a step forward but one must take into account that people can find meaning and purpose in bad behavior from gang-like activities to serving in ISIS.","PeriodicalId":415468,"journal":{"name":"CSN: Morality (Sub-Topic)","volume":"105 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117348785","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Kay Blaufus, Matthias Braune, Jochen Hundsdoerfer, M. Jacob
{"title":"Self-Serving Bias and Tax Morale","authors":"Kay Blaufus, Matthias Braune, Jochen Hundsdoerfer, M. Jacob","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2489834","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2489834","url":null,"abstract":"In a real-effort laboratory experiment to manipulate evasion opportunities, we study whether the moral evaluation of tax evasion is subject to a self-serving bias. We find that tax morale is egoistically biased: Subjects with the opportunity to evade taxes judge tax evasion as less unethical as opposed to those who cannot evade. The detection probability does not affect this result. Further, we do not find moral spillover effects, for example, on legal activities.","PeriodicalId":415468,"journal":{"name":"CSN: Morality (Sub-Topic)","volume":"186 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124709537","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}