:: Moral - Ethics

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Moral - Ethics Communities Sociological
Perspectives of Moral Dimensions inside the
Globalisation Process
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Moral Approaches I

• The Philosophical Approach
• Social Coherence and Individual Subjective
  Utilities and Egoismn (Thomas Hobbes)
• Unvisible-Hand-Explanation (The Scottish Moral
  Philosophers, Adam Smith and David Ricardo),
  individual benefit will lead to general welfare
• Contracts, Convention and Constitutions, The
  French Line (Montesquieu)

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Moral Approaches II

• The German Classics Kant categorical
  imperative, Hegel (Bewusstsein -gt Sein Marx,
  Sein-gt Bewusstsein)
• The relevance of the German Philosophy about
  Moral is the inclusion of the French tradition of
  enligthenment and literacy to more social aspects
  of social communities (sociology Spencer et al.,
  constructivsm Schütz, Husserl et al.)

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• The sociological Approach

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Social Systems and construction of Moral Beliefs
and Systems

• Social Systems needs individual restrictions by
  shared common rules (values and norms)
• These restrictions have to legitimated by all
  involved people (democracy)
• Moral is a social construction, depends of
  culture and socialisation (civilization)

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Definition Approaches

• Definition of Moral Conventions about common
  rules of living together in one society
• Definition of Ethics Individual Belief in these
  Moral Standard(s)
• Best moral is, when people internalized the
  societal moral beliefs as their own beliefs
  (socialisation)

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Differentiation of Moral

• Modern Societies hold different Moral Standards
  in the Subsystems with different codes
• Society (law)
• Community (Religion, Sexuality, Subcultures)
• Politics and Professions (Ethos)
• Science (Truth)
• Economy (common welfare, benefit)

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The Process of Civilisation

• First moral standards were performed by religion.
  Moral is God and Follow your leader
• Moral get more and more individual and more
  self-responsible
• Moral subsystems appears on the scene (Human
  rights, social rights, political rights)

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The Process of Rationalisation

• Progress in science delegitimated moral mythos
  and historical standards (Max Weber)
• Science will substitute moral
• Discussion Rationalisation will going back to
  individual egoism or is moral rational?
• Process of globalisation bring in competition
  between different moral standards

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Civic Society
4th Samara Winterschool gtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgt
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Civic Society

• Rationalisation and Civilisation will lead to
  Civic Society (Habermas)
• Civic Society means participation will get new
  moral standard in individual value orientation
• The way to Civic Society are discourses and
  deliberative democracy, i.e. civic culture
  (NieVerba, Lazarsfeld) in partizipation (highest
  level of direct democracy)

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Analytical Deliberation

• Definition of Deliberation
• Common public discourses with the following
  properities transparent decision making, all
  arguments on the top, fair discussion of
  advantages und disadvantages, risks and benefits,
  open-mind process
• Examples america speaks, GM Nation, Nano-Nation,
  Future, Citizen Panels a.s.o.

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www.americaspeaks.org
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University of StuttgartDepartment for Social
SciencesInstitute of Technological Assessment
and Protection of EnvironmentChair Dr. Uwe
Pfenning