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Topic: Universalizability

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	20th WCP: Universalizability and Philippine Jurisprudence
		The requirement that judicial reasoning be universalizable, that the justifying reasons for a decision are to be articulated or at least must be capable of being articulated in the form of a universal norm under which the facts of the case are to be subsumed so as to entail logically the decision,
		The strong sense of universalizability asserts that the universal norm under which the facts of the case are to be subsumed must be capable of being formulated without the use of what would be intuitively recognized as proper names or rigged definite descriptions.
		Whether universalizability in the strong or weak sense is indeed a conceptual feature of moral reasoning or not, there is no doubt as to the value of this requirement in the moral setting.
	www.bu.edu /wcp/Papers/Law/LawFern.htm (4398 words)

	Universalizability - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		The concept of universalizability is one which was set out by the 18th century German philosopher Immanuel Kant as part of his work, the Groundwork for the Metaphysic of Morals.
		It is part of the first formulation of his categorical imperative, which states that the only maxims of our actions that are morally acceptable are ones that could rationally be willed to be a universal law.
		The precise meaning of universalizability is contentious, but the most common interpretation is that the categorical imperative asks whether the maxim of your action could become one that everyone could act upon in similar circumstances.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Universalizability (228 words)

	R. M. Hare
		At first sight, it would seem that this does not apply to you: if you consider it wrong for your friend to refuse to lend you a big sum of money, it is your friend, not you, the one who should be acting accordingly.
		However -and here is where the two properties combine and the philosophically interesting results appear-, universalizability allows for the same judgment to be made irrespective of your position in the situation.
		So, by universalizability, if you happened to be, not the one asking, but the one asked the money, the same moral judgment would still apply; and, by prescriptiviy, you would have to act accordingly.
	www.ebroadcast.com.au /lookup/encyclopedia/ri/Richard_Mervyn_Hare.html (651 words)

	Impartiality (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
		Universalizability, thus formulated, does imply at least one sort of impartiality: an agent whose judgments are universalizable will be morally consistent, in the sense that she will judge her own actions by the same standards she applies to others.
		A different approach to universalizability eschews the appeal to psychological facts altogether, and holds that whether or not a particular judgment is universalizable is a logical fact rather than a psychological one.
		The requirement that moral judgements be universalizable seems to reflect two fundamental moral insights: first, that morality is objective, and not simply a matter of personal opinion or expression of interest and desire; and second, that from the standpoint of morality, each person matters just as much as, and no more than, any other person.
	plato.stanford.edu /entries/impartiality (10137 words)

	Gray, F. A. Hayek and the Rebirth of Classical Liberalism, continued: Library of Economics and Liberty
		All these liberals and libertarians fasten upon Hayek's use of a Kantian test of universalizability to argue that such a test is almost without substance, in that highly oppressive and discriminatory laws will survive it, so long as their framers are ingenious enough to avoid mentioning particular groups or named individuals in them.
		Applying the full test of universalizability to the maxims that go towards making a legal order, we find that, not only are references to particulars ruled out, but the maxims must be impartial in respect of the interests of all concerned, and they must be neutral in respect of their tastes or ideals of life.
		It is by interpreting the demands of universalizability in the framework of the permanent necessities of human social life that we derive Hume's three laws of natural justice.
	www.econlib.org /library/Essays/LtrLbrty/gryHRC2.html (8192 words)

	Particularism and Universalizability (Jörg Schroth)
		Universalizability seems far better justified than particularism and if one of them has to be given up, the odds are surely against particularism.
		This common assumption is wrong and the alleged conflict between particularism and universalizability is due to a misunderstanding of the universalizability thesis.
		The debate about particularism and universalizability is fruitless as long as some of the debaters conceive of the universalizability thesis as (U) and others conceive of it as (P) (or, which is the same, as composed of (U) and (R)).
	wwwuser.gwdg.de /~sophia/schroth/pu.htm (2737 words)

	Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind - practical reasoning
		Kantian theories of practical reasoning typically require that reasons be universalizable: roughly, that it be possible for everyone in like circumstances to act likewise on the basis of a similar reason.
		Universalizability acts as a filter through which proposed actions and the reasons for them are passed, but it can also be used to generate reasons on its own, when not acting on a proposed reason would fail the universalizability test.
		Contemporary interest in universalizability is primarily due to the role it plays in Kantian moral theory, which is today one of the most prominent positions in ethics; Korsgaard (1990) reconstructs Kant's reasons for insisting on the universalizability requirement.
	philosophy.uwaterloo.ca /MindDict/practicalreasoning.html (4344 words)

	Distance, Divided Responsibility and Universalizability, by Karen Green
		If utilitarianism follows from universalizability, but leads to conclusions which most of us find counter-intuitive we are faced with a severe dilemma.
		My discussion demonstrates why divided or distributed duties are inevitable even from the perspective of universalizability, and why it therefore does not follow that as individuals we have an obligation to give of the kind Singer demands.
		As well as believing that the principle of their action should be such that they should not do to others what they would not have others to do to them, many people follow a negative version of universalizability which places limits on the demandingness of morality.
	www.utilitarian.net /singer/about/20030701.htm (5509 words)

	IngentaConnect Universalizability for Collective Rational Agents: A Critique of ...
		This paper contends that a Kantian universalizability constraint on theories of practical reason in conjunction with the possibility of collective rational agents entails the surprisingly strong conclusion that no fully agent-relative theory of practical reason can be sound.
		The basic point is that a Kantian universalizability constraint, the thesis that all reasons for action are agent-relative and the possibility of collective rational agents gives rise to a contradiction.
		This contradiction can be avoided by either rejecting Kantian universalizability, the possibility of collective rational agents, or the tenability of a fully agent-relative theory of practical reason; we cannot have all three.
	www.ingentaconnect.com /content/ips/ppr/2005/00000070/00000001/art00002 (174 words)

	Anti-State.com : Defending Argumentation Ethics: Reply to Murphy & Callahan , by Stephan Kinsella
		But even though universalizability is merely a formal requirement, it does eliminate many proposed norms, such as those underlying most versions of socialism which amount to "I can hit you but you cannot hit me" particularizable rules.
		And if it did adopt universalizable rules, which would basically amount to saying 'everybody can hit everybody else,' such rulings could not conceivably be said to be universally acceptable on account of their very material specification.
		It is universalizable, because the different treatment of the slave-aggressor and the master-victim is not arbitrary but is grounded in the objective fact of the act of aggression.
	www.anti-state.com /article.php?article_id=312 (4445 words)

	Morality and Modernity: A Critique of Jurgen Habermas's Neo-Marxist Theory of Justice
		The Principle of Universalizability Discourse occurs for Habermas when the participants in communicative action take up the issue of whether a contested claim of truth, normative legitimacy, or authenticity can be vindicated or criticized through arguments.
		This understanding of the principle of universalizability says nothing about the character of the values or reasons for actions that are universalized.
		There is, then, nothing about the principle of universalizability that requires the adoption of an impersonal point of view regarding values or reasons for acting.
	www.heritage.org /Research/PoliticalPhilosophy/HL230.cfm (3288 words)

	The Truth in Ethical Relativism
		Those enamored with universalizability would say so much the worse for my view; I would say: so much the worse for universalizability.
		If universalizability conflicts with these phenomena, that indicates the deficiencies of the principle, not vice-versa.
		Doubtless some defenders of universalizability might argue that the principle is compatible with these phenomena.
	www.stpt.usf.edu /hhl/papers/relative.htm (4581 words)

	E.G.: Mother Teresa and universalizability.
		Whoever claims that a certain act is or was good or wrong is bound to claim that any other act of the same type, performed under circumstances of the same type, by actors of the same type, is good or wrong too.
		He does not claim that all universalizable judgments are moral; still less does he claim that all universalizable judgments are correct.
		But I think she may have formed judgments in accordance with something like this "inverted egoism." At any rate, it appears that the real Mother Teresa believed she had special obligations (e.g., obligations to extraordinary acts of charity) which nobody else had, even though there was no "relevant difference" between her and anybody else.
	eg.typepad.com /eg/2005/02/mother_teresa_a.html (1227 words)

	Rasmussen (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		The trouble with the universalizability of The Democracy (the movement from the democracy to The Democracy) in this context lies in the absence of common ground (e.g.
		This is not only caused by the recent footage of the former dictator shortly after his arrest (this effect can only be temporary).
		Thomas L. Friedman points to a new dynamic in the universalizability of democracy.
	www.demontage.dk /2003/12/entry-universalizability-important.htm (920 words)

	Gale on a Pragmatic Argument for Religious Belief
		Gale contends that this moral permission is defeated in the circumstances in question both because it violates the principle of universalizability and because belief produces an evil that outweighs the good it promotes.
		According to the first, her permission is defeated because it violates the moral principle of universalizability.
		And this example seems to be typical of a large class of cases in which one can make a contribution to the success of a collective enterprise but one's contribution is not essential to its success.
	www.philoonline.org /library/quinn_6_1.htm (3538 words)

	Universalizability and the Golden Rule (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		Universalizability: "whatever is right (or wrong) in one situation is right (or wrong) in any relevantly similar situation" (Harris et al., p.
		Universalizability as described above is a basic logical feature of all moral discourse.
		If in making a judgment you refuse to recognize its universalizability, then you are actually refusing to make a moral judgment.
	www-phil.tamu.edu /~gary/bioethics/ethicaltheory/universalizability.html (256 words)

	Formal Ethics 4 - Impartiality (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		Universalizability axiom U says that the morality of an act depends on the act's universal properties.
		Impartiality is based on universalizability; impartiality theorems tell us not to have belief combinations violating universalizability.
		Or we might see universalizability or the impartiality norm as self-evident, as coherent with our moral intuitions, or as required by ideal ethical thinking.
	www.jcu.edu /philosophy/Gensler/fe/fe-4--00.htm (463 words)

	Richard Joyce - The Evolution of Morality - Reviewed by Peter Singer, Princeton University and the University of ...
		Perhaps Joyce's rejection of universalizability is tied up with his concern to make his concept of morality as broad as possible, so that all, or virtually all, human societies have a morality.
		Conversely, however, he wishes to restrict morality to language users, and the means he uses to do this poses a problem for his denial of universalizability.
		Whether or not we count chimpanzees among beings with a moral sense, there is no doubt that the acquisition of a sophisticated language transforms the nature of moral judgment and allows for the explicit invocation of moral standards.
	ndpr.nd.edu /review.cfm?id=6383 (1878 words)

	Weak and Strong Universalizability
		Let me distinguish the weak universalizability from the strong universalizability (although the words sound very similar, my distinction is quite different from Gibbard's 1988, 59-60; as I see it, his distinction is rather concerned with weights of preferences, which will be discussed in the subsequent sections 5, 6, and 7).
		Some may wish to appeal to the concept of morality (e.g., by asserting that at least 'moral ought' is universalizable), and others may admit that the strong universalizability (with respect to evaluative words) is itself a substantive ethical principle, despite its formal and abstract character.
		Notice that, even if we make the universalizability true by vitrue of the meaning of 'moral', we thereby import another substantive question, 'why should we be moral?' Thus, although many of us are, unlike Sidgwick, unhappy with an appeal to 'self-evidence', Sidgwick's claim that the (strong) universalizability of 'ought' is non-tautologous seems still correct.
	www.bun.kyoto-u.ac.jp /~suchii/4_w&s.univ.html (618 words)

	[No title] (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		It is this principle of universalizability which 1) renders speech situations necessary in validating a norm which is ultimately an unachievable ideal, and 2) renders notions of continual, contextual process more relevant than final results.
		It is also this principle of universalizability which allows communicative action the possibility of preserving freedom and the good life while yet retaining the power to make prescriptive moral pronouncements.
		Habermas's universalizability principle is reflected in the Bahá'í notion of truth being consensual and reached through consultation.
	bahai-library.com /?file=winters_communicative_interaction (10565 words)

	Universalizability and Good
		Whereas Hare seems to have derived, in effect, in his Moral Thinking (1981) by means of the logic (the prescriptivity and universalizability of an evaluative judgement) and the facts of the case in question what these Principles have accomplished; thus leading to his version of utilitarianism.
		His reason is not quite clear, but he seems to be suggesting that, although it is logically possible to treat differently different individuals making up a Logical Whole (humans, in this case), our reason dictates to treat them similarly, if their situations are similar; and that this dictate is self-evident, although it is non-tautologous.
		However, it is not clear at all how the (strong) universalizability may help for determining such a criterion based on preferences.
	www1.kcn.ne.jp /~h-uchii/5_univ&good.html (1254 words)

	Amazon.com: "Universalizability Principle": Key Phrase page (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		The premise follows from the universalizability principle ("What is right for one person is right for anyone else in similar circumstances")...
		Kant's universalizability principle asks if there could be, or if a person could will, a world in which a certain maxim were universally...
		5.6 Kant's universalizability principle We have already seen that Kant held that it was a distinguishing mark of moral propositions that they were categorical...
	www.amazon.com /phrase/Universalizability-Principle (508 words)

	Radical Perspectivism: Chapter on Truth
		Apart from being the oldest known method of philosophical thinking, known also as the "dialectic," such method is, incidentally, another form of perspectival analysis, since it relies at least to a certain extent on examining something from a variety of perspectives.
		In any event, a counter-argument to the above argument regarding the "universalizability" of thinking might be that humans think as they do precisely because of how they "evolved," and therefore because of their human-like brain and body structures.
		In other words, unlike linear and non-reflective types of thinking, we are also capable of thinking about thinking, as did Rene Descartes (4), and so many others before and after him, and attempt to eliminate human bias (as in fact I am trying to do here by writing this chapter about truth).
	webs.csu.edu /~amakedon/RadicalPerspectivism/Truth.html (8735 words)

	Phil (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		Appeal to the Principle of Universalizability and Self-interest.
		The test of universalizability: A good moral principle is one that you can rationally recommend that everyone adopt as a basis of actions, no matter what their station in society or yours.
		A) State the requirement that moral principles be universalizable.
	www.sp.uconn.edu /~py101vc/101oL19ethobj.htm (596 words)

	Ethics, Human Security, and Peace Building - Laurie Calhoun
		The basis for a peaceful world is the same as the basis for a peaceful community: the members of the group in question must treat others with the same respect with which they expect others to treat them.
		This requirement of simple consistency is sometimes characterized by ethical theorists as the requirement of "universalizability" and is arguably an indispensable part of any truly moral perspective.
		In the view of John Stuart Mill and other utilitarians, the requirement of universalizability is embedded directly in the principle of utility, that one ought always to act so as to maximize the happiness of the greatest number (of moral persons).
	www.gmu.edu /academic/hsp/Calhoun.htm (1752 words)

	[No title]
		Given that whether or not others are likely to steal from him is not significantly affected by whether he steals from others when he can get away with it, it is in his interests to do so.
		Appealing to universalizability and rights will do no good since rights are a moral concept and so, for him, no one can have a right that it is not in his self-interest to respect.
		Unfortunately for Rand, this denies her one of the primary ways by which she argued that such actions as theft and murder are not in one's self-interest.
	www-personal.umich.edu /~jsku/ooKant.html (824 words)

	Amazon.com: "universalizability constraint": Key Phrase page (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		So, it appears that this universalizability constraint is nothing but the essence of pure practical reason itself (F, secs.
		But this is irrelevant to the issue of whether the insider's judgments violate the universalizability constraint, unless no judgments ever violate the constraint.
		The question is a pressing one for nonconsequentialists, because if no such response can be identified, then the universalizability constraint is going to make their position hard to maintain.
	www.amazon.com /phrase/universalizability-constraint (517 words)

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