Suppose that in an emergency evacuation of a hospital after a flood, not all of the patients can make it out alive. You are the doctor faced with the choice between abandoning these patients to die alone and in pain, or injecting them with a lethal dose of drugs, without consent, so that they die peacefully. Perhaps no one will be able to blame you whatever you decide, but, whichever action you choose, you will remain burdened by guilt. What happens, in cases like this, when, no matter what you do, you are destined for moral failure? What happens when there is no available means of doing the right thing? Human life is filled with such impossible moral decisions. These choices and case studies that demonstrate them form the focus of Lisa Tessman's arresting and provocative work. Many philosophers believe that there are simply no situations in which what you morally ought to do is something that you can't do, because they think that you can't be required to do something unless it's actually in your power to do it. Despite this, real life presents us daily with situations in which we feel that we have failed morally even when no right action would have been possible. Lisa Tessman boldly argues that sometimes we feel this way because we have encountered an 'impossible moral requirement.' Drawing on philosophy, empirical psychology, and evolutionary theory, When Doing the Right Thing Is Impossible explores how and why human beings have constructed moral requirements to be binding even when they are impossible to fulfill.
In Wass et al. pp. 405–428. Dying: Facing the Facts. ... New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Wass, Hannelore, Robert A. Neimeyer, Felix, M. Berardo, ... Wiegand, Johannes, and Thomas Berg. “The Etiology, Diagnosis and Prevention of ...
If you're working alongside your church, God can and will do many things as you listen for his voice. He can and will help you all to make the impossible for all those you will reach. Together, you can gather food, clothing, housing, ...
The fatalist says that if you are fated to travel down one road rather than another, then doing so is inevitable. ... It seems unfair to hold you responsible for failing to do the right thing when the right thing is impossible to do.
See Tessman, When Doing the Right Thing Is Impossible, 116–17. 261. Thomas Merton shares his own reaction to World War II: “I myself am responsible for this. My sins have done this. Hitler is not the only one who started this war: I ...
Restricted to single agents, a dilemma is a situation in which a person ought to do A, ought to do B, and cannot do ... 19 Terrance McConnell, “Moral Residue and Moral Dilemmas,” 36; see also, Tessman, When Doing the Right Thing, 27–42.
See also: Ambivalence, Choice, Guilt and Shame, Indecision, Regret, Responsibility, Uncertainty, What If Reading Lisa Tessman, When Doing the Right Thing Is Impossible (Oxford University Press, 2017) ...
And why are his choices so often the subject of intense debate among his fans and philosophers alike? Batman and Ethics goes behind the mask to shed new light on the complexities and contradictions of the Dark Knight’s moral code.
On the impossible demands of morality. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. Tessman, Lisa. When doing the right thing is impossible. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. Tetlock, Philip E. “Thinking the unthinkable: Sacred ...
Another variation, prominently present during the 63 65 Lisa Tessman, When Doing the Right Thing Is Impossible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). 64 The same thought underlies Cane's identification of a separate public law ...
Isaw seniors of all abilitylevels achieve things impossible to achieve in a regular classroom. WhileI taught atWoodlands twoofmy students dida study of theGreenburgh School District and presented ittothe Board of Education.