What It Is to Legislate

There are many key distinctions that play an important role in mapping out plausible ways of thinking about law construed as a social practice. Among the varied dichotomies the one that has probably been most infl uential is the distinction between a description of an action and the normative characterisation of an action. The former aims to explain the action without resorting to the values or principles of the agent; the latter aims to show how actions are part of the normative landscape where values, principles and other normative standards play a key role. The focus might be on the values, principles and standards of the agent or on values, principles and standards that are objective. 1 In previous work 2 I have defended the view that the primary conception of intentional action is normative all the way through. There is no ‘ brute fact ’ or ‘ pure facts ’ about actions and therefore actions cannot primarily be grasped by descriptors of the world either mental, physical or of a similar sort. I have argued that in order to make intentional actions intelligible we need to resort to the values or principles or goodmaking characteristics that the agent aims to bring about in the world and we need to understand that the values, principles or good-making characteristics of the action provide a unity and intelligibility to the various bodily movements of the agent. This is a complex and occasionally diffi cult understanding of agency but it is one that, in my view, is sound. The core elements of this account of agency are that (a) there is a parallel between practical reason or deliberative reasoning and intentional action; (b) practical reasoning involves practical knowledge which is non-observational; (c) the error of an action stems not from what the world looks like but from the performance of the agent; and (d) intentional action is primarily from the fi rst person or deliberative point of view and therefore it is forward-looking. I will not provide a full defence of features (a), (b) or (c) in this chapter; rather I will focus only on (d) and will argue that this feature provides the key premise for the conclusion that a characterisation of actions in social practices, including law, cannot be carried out on the basis of descriptions. I will fi rst show that (d) is true and I will then advance the best account of actions in terms of descriptions provided by legal philosophers in recent years, which is the idea that actions and the resulting social practices can correctly be grasped as ‘ deep conventions ’ . Finally, I will show that conventions sensu stricto and deep conventions require (d) to be intelligible.

The pursuit of moral excellence is a journey that transcends mere ethical reasoning and extends into the very essence of human fulfillment. This book explores the intricate relationship between moral philosophy and the art of self-perfection, providing a profound examination of how individuals can cultivate virtue, wisdom, and integrity to achieve a higher state of being. Prof. Dr. Yoesoep Edhie Rachmad, Ph.D., DBA, presents an intellectual discourse that bridges classical ethical theories with contemporary moral dilemmas, offering a transformative perspective on self-discipline, character refinement, and the role of personal ethics in shaping a just society. Published in New York, USA, in 2014, this book serves as a guide for those seeking to elevate their moral consciousness while navigating the complexities of modern life. The motivation behind this work stems from an urgent need to reassess the philosophical foundations of morality in a rapidly evolving world. Prof. Dr. Yoesoep Edhie Rachmad, Ph.D., DBA, contends that ethical decay and moral relativism have weakened the commitment to virtue, necessitating a renewed exploration of moral philosophy as a means of personal and societal transformation. Published in 2014 in New York, this book seeks to revive the discourse on the intrinsic value of character development as the foundation for human dignity and progress. Moral philosophy encompasses the principles that govern human conduct, determining the distinction between right and wrong. Prof. Dr. Yoesoep Edhie Rachmad, Ph.D., DBA, delves into classical theories from Aristotle, Kant, and Confucius while integrating contemporary perspectives on ethical reasoning and moral agency. Self-perfection is presented not as an abstract ideal but as a tangible pursuit of excellence through disciplined thought, deliberate action, and lifelong learning. Modern society faces an array of ethical dilemmas, from technological advancements that challenge privacy to economic structures that breed inequality. Prof. Dr. Yoesoep Edhie Rachmad, Ph.D., DBA, examines how these phenomena erode moral responsibility and advocates for a philosophical framework that enables individuals to navigate these challenges with integrity and wisdom. Operational Principles A commitment to moral excellence requires a structured approach to self-improvement. Prof. Dr. Yoesoep Edhie Rachmad, Ph.D., DBA, identifies introspection, ethical reasoning, and disciplined practice as fundamental principles for cultivating virtue. The book outlines the necessity of aligning one's actions with moral ideals while acknowledging the complexities of ethical decision-making in diverse cultural contexts. Indicators and Variables of Moral Development Moral maturity manifests through consistency in ethical behavior, a deep sense of justice, and an unwavering commitment to truth. Prof. Dr. Yoesoep Edhie Rachmad, Ph.D., DBA, presents a set of indicators that define self-perfection, including moral courage, empathy, and intellectual humility. Operational variables such as environmental influences, education, and personal disposition are examined as determinants of ethical growth. Determinant Factors The formation of superior moral character is influenced by social structures, educational systems, and individual choice. Prof. Dr. Yoesoep Edhie Rachmad, Ph.D., DBA, explores how these elements either facilitate or obstruct ethical progress, emphasizing the role of mentorship, philosophical inquiry, and societal expectations in shaping moral consciousness. Implementation and Strategies Translating moral philosophy into practice necessitates deliberate strategies, including self-reflection, ethical education, and communal dialogue. Prof. Dr. Yoesoep Edhie Rachmad, Ph.D., DBA, provides a roadmap for implementing ethical frameworks in personal and professional life, advocating for a culture of virtue that permeates institutions and governance. Challenges, Support, and Obstacles Pursuing self-perfection is fraught with challenges, including societal cynicism, ethical complacency, and institutional corruption. Prof. Dr. Yoesoep Edhie Rachmad, Ph.D., DBA, discusses these barriers while highlighting supportive structures such as philosophical communities, moral education, and personal accountability as essential counterbalances to ethical decline. Conclusion and Summary At the core of this book lies the assertion that moral philosophy is not merely an academic pursuit but a necessary discipline for achieving personal and collective excellence. Prof. Dr. Yoesoep Edhie Rachmad, Ph.D., DBA, concludes that self-perfection is a continuous endeavor, one that requires commitment, wisdom, and an unwavering dedication to virtue. This book serves as both a philosophical treatise and a practical guide for those who seek to refine their moral character in an age of ethical uncertainty.

In his 1958 seminal paper “Saints and Heroes”, J. O. Urmson argued that the then dominant tripartite deontic scheme of classifying actions as being exclusively either obligatory, or optional in the sense of being morally indifferent, or wrong, ought to be expanded to include the category of the supererogatory. Colloquially, this category includes actions that are “beyond the call of duty” (beyond what is obligatory) and hence actions that one has no duty or obligation to perform. But it is a controversial category. Some have argued that the concept of supererogation is paradoxical because on one hand, supererogatory actions are (by definition) supposed to be morally good, indeed morally best, actions. But then if they are morally best, why aren't they morally required, contrary to the assumption that they are morally optional? In short: how can an action that is morally best to perform fail to be what one is morally required to do? The source of this alleged paradox has been dubbed the ‘good-ought tie-up’. In our article, we address this alleged paradox by first making a phenomenological case for the reality of instances of genuine supererogatory actions, and then, by reflecting on the relevant phenomenology, explaining why there is no genuine paradox. Our explanation appeals to the idea that moral reasons can play what we call amerit conferring role. The basic idea is that moral reasons that favor supererogatory actions function to confer merit on the actions they favor—they play a merit conferring role—and can do without also requiring the actions in question. Hence, supererogatory actions can be both good and morally meritorious to perform yet still be morally optional. Recognition of a merit conferring role unties the good-ought tie up, and (as we further argue) there are good reasons, independent of helping to resolve the alleged paradox, for recognizing this sort of role that moral reasons may play.

There is an explanatory constraint on practical reasons: practical reasons have to be the kinds of things that we can act for. Some philosophers, notably Bernard Williams, have argued that the explanatory constraint favours internalism about reasons: for an agent to have a reason to Ф it is at least a necessary condition that she would, after ideal deliberation, be motivated to Ф. Internalism suggests that naturalism about reasons is more plausible for, in this view, reasons are psychological states. However, reasons must not only be the kinds of things we can act for, at least some reasons must be good reasons, i.e. normative requirements. Derek Parfit argues that internalist, naturalist accounts cannot capture the normative aspect of reasons. He takes this to be a point in favour of his own externalist, non-naturalist account. I ask first whether Williams’ account does fail to account for the normativity of reasons as Parfit argues, and second whether Parfit’s externalist account can adequately meet the explanatory constraint. Although I claim that the answer to the first question is yes and the second no, the answer to both questions turns on the nature of practical rationality. My case stands if practical rationality is procedural, and falls if practical rationality is substantive. I argue, however, that the burden of proof is on those who, like Parfit, wish to defend a substantive account of practical rationality.

Contemporary educational systems predominantly emphasize cognitive development while largely overlooking the interconnected nature of human learning that encompasses spiritual, emotional, and volitional dimensions. This research investigated the efficacy of a tri-partite educational framework that positions spiritual governance as the primary driver of holistic learning outcomes, followed by emotional processing and volitional decision-making, culminating in cognitive and behavioral manifestations. Using synthetic data generation techniques, we developed comprehensive student profiles incorporating metrics across three dimensions: spiritual indicators (creative insight frequency, wisdom application, purpose alignment), emotional indicators (empathy development, emotional regulation, values integration), and volitional indicators (ethical decision-making patterns, persistence, intentional choices). Machine learning models were trained to predict educational outcomes under two distinct governance paradigms: the proposed spirit-led hierarchical model versus conventional cognitive-first approaches. Our predictive modeling framework employed regression and classification algorithms to analyze learning trajectories, creativity scores, character development indices, and academic performance metrics. The AI-enhanced analysis revealed significant outcome differentials between the two educational approaches, with the tri-partite model demonstrating superior performance in holistic development measures including creative problem-solving, ethical reasoning, and sustained motivation. The findings provided evidence that educational frameworks prioritizing spiritual development as the foundational governance layer produce more integrated learning outcomes compared to purely cognitive-focused methodologies. This study adds to the body of holistic learning research by presenting quantitative proof of multi-dimensional learning methods, with implications for curriculum planning, evaluation methodologies, and AI system development capable of discovering and fostering the entire range of human potential within learning settings.

What does deep ethical understanding look like and how can we measure the progression of this aptitude? Qualitative and quantitative data collected from students in Contemporary Moral Problems courses over two successive semesters revealed that the development of moral reasoning skills is a slow process. The progression of moral reasoning does not occur in a linear fashion nor is there a point at which a person will have satisfied all of the necessary and sufficient conditions for good moral reasoning. Student artifacts collected present moral reasoning skills as more of an ebb and flow, a type of coherence model with ongoing adjustment of one’s beliefs, moral principles, values, and factual information.

What makes an episode of practical reasoning good? In one kind of view, practical reasoning succeeds just in case it leads the agent to do what she ought to do or to respond correctly to her reasons. Even if it is capricious, inconsistent, or habitual, it will count as good insofar as it hits its target. An alternative approach holds that reasoning can be assessed for its correctness independently of its outcome. The standard way of fleshing this out posits the existence of formal rational requirements. In this view, reasoning is good if it leads the agent to satisfy these structural requirements, independently of whether the result accords with what she actually ought to intend or do. But might there be norms of practical reasoning that do not just collapse into successful reasons-responsiveness or universal structural requirements? For instance, in certain contexts where the future is fairly predictable and resources are abundant, a norm that enjoins you to "stick to your plans" will be quite useful. In contexts that are unpredictable and resource scarce, however, this norm might not be as useful and thus not pass muster as a universal rational requirement. This chapter articulates a view in which there are genuine norms of practical reasoning that go beyond mere reasons-responsiveness but that are substantive, contingent, and context sensitive rather than universal and structural. We argue that such norms are needed to capture much of what is meant by "good practical reasoning."

Paradoxes of white moral experience

Patterns of deliberate human activity and behavior are of utmost importance in areas as diverse as disease spread, resource allocation, and emergency response. Because of its widespread availability and use, e-mail correspondence provides an attractive proxy for studying human activity. Recently, it was reported that the probability density for the inter-event time tau between consecutively sent e-mails decays asymptotically as tau(-alpha), with alpha approximately 1. The slower-than-exponential decay of the inter-event time distribution suggests that deliberate human activity is inherently non-Poissonian. Here, we demonstrate that the approximate power-law scaling of the inter-event time distribution is a consequence of circadian and weekly cycles of human activity. We propose a cascading nonhomogeneous Poisson process that explicitly integrates these periodic patterns in activity with an individual's tendency to continue participating in an activity. Using standard statistical techniques, we show that our model is consistent with the empirical data. Our findings may also provide insight into the origins of heavy-tailed distributions in other complex systems.

Voluntarists in the early modern period speak of an agent’s following the law because she was ordered to do so or because it’s the law. Contemporary philosophers tend either to ignore or to dismiss the possibility of justified obedience of this sort – that is, they ignore or dismiss the possibility that something’s being the law could in itself constitute a good reason to act. In this paper, I suggest that this view isn’t taken seriously because of certain widespread beliefs about practical reason – in particular, it’s due to the belief that it’s impossible for reasons to be “bootstrapped” into existence. I argue, though, that a plausible account of practical reasoning should allow that reasons can be bootstrapped into existence, and so there’s no reason to be suspicious about the possibility of a person’s being justified in following the law because it’s the law. I end by suggesting that this conclusion opens up important new avenues of inquiry for philosophers working on topics related to legal obedience.

Recently it has been argued that some instances of germ‐line gene therapy will change the identity of the person who receives the benefit of therapy, and that in these instances there is no good moral reason to conduct germ‐line gene therapy. Against this we argue that even if gene therapy should have an effect on the identity of the resulting person, this would not diminish the urgency of the therapy. Not only would impersonal moral reasons speak in favour of such radical gene therapy, there would also be person‐affecting reasons to perform it.

What do we owe to non-human animals? How should we respond to the many injustices they face? Answering these questions requires philosophical attention to complicated questions about moral reasoning, moral status, and ethical theory. This first part of this chapter provides an overview of what both good and bad moral reasoning look like in the context of discussions about animal ethics. The second part of this chapter provides an overview of competing approaches to moral status, including anthropocentric, rationality, and sentio-centric approaches. The third, and final, part of this chapter provides an overview of competing approaches to ethical theory, including contractualism, rights theory, utilitarianism, and virtue ethics, as they apply to the moral treatment of other animals. And in its entirety, this chapter provides moral guidance to those who aim to protect animals in a world infested with animal injustices.

Arguing for a vegan economy, this book explains how we can and should alter our eating habits away from meat and dairy through sociocultural evolution. Using the latest research and ideas about the cultural ecology of food, this book makes the case that through biological and, especially, cultural evolution, the human diet can gravitate away from farmed meat and dairy products. The thrust of the writing demonstrates that because humans are a cultural species, and since we are evolving more culturally than biologically, it stands to reason for health and environmental reasons that we develop a vegan economy. The book shows that for many good reasons we don’t need a diet of meat and dairy and a call is made to legislative leaders, policy makers, and educators to shift away from animal farming and inform people about the advantages of a vegan culture. The bottom line is that we have to start thinking collectively about smarter ways of growing and processing plant foods, not farming animals as food, to generate good consequences for health, the environment, and, therefore, animals. This is an attainable and worthy goal given the mental and physical plasticity of humans through cooperative cultural evolution. This book is essential reading for all interested in veganism, whether for ethical, environmental, or health reasons, and those studying the human diet from a range of disciplines, including cultural evolution, food ecology, animal ethics, food and nutrition, and evolutionary studies.

Animal use in medical research is widely accepted on the basis that it may help to save human lives and improve their quality of life. Recently, however, objections have been...

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the representation of migrant employees in German organizations and to demonstrate that their employment opportunities are outcomes of diversity strategies – i.e. patterns of personnel practices and the reasons that cause them or are alleged to do so.Design/methodology/approachThe study is based on a typology of diversity strategies where elements of strategy and diversity research are combined with resource dependence theory. Propositions on the strategies’ relation to personnel structures and practices are examined through empirical data stemming from telephone interviews conducted with HR managers of 500 German companies.FindingsEmpirical analyses revealed that diversity strategies are tightly related to personnel structures and practices. The best employment opportunities and career prospects for skilled migrants are offered by companies pursuing a diversity strategy labelled learning. In addition, the findings demonstrate the robustness of this typology.Research limitations/implicationsThe empirical data suffer from common method bias: information was gathered on the pursued strategy, the personnel structure and practices of each company by interviewing one single person. Moreover, to dig more deeply into the relation with career prospects, a supplementary qualitative approach would be fruitful.Practical implicationsThe results highlight conditions which are beneficial for advocating the integration of migrant employees. Equally, they may incentivise organizational decision makers with the “good reasons” to employ migrants.Originality/valueBy this paper's typology of diversity strategies, an innovative approach is contributed to the theoretical foundation of diversity research as their relation to personnel structures and practices is empirically analysed for the first time.