Filosofia Morale/Moral Philosophy

Editoriale

Anna Donise — 2024-07-13

Oltre la zona di interesse. Un’analisi della responsabilità nel presente tra Glazer e Levinas

Lorenza Bottacin Cantoni — 2024-07-13

This paper explores the question of historical memory and ethical responsibility through an analysis of Jonathan Glazer’s film “The Zone of Interest” and Levinas’ philosophical reflections on the ethics of responsibility and disinterestedness. The film is interpreted as a critical reflection on modern man’s ability to distinguish good from evil in a world normalized by evil itself. Through the specific use of images, sounds, and montages, Glazer invites reflection on individual responsibility for history and perpetuated evil, proposing an antithesis to an “anesthetized memory” that merely remembers without acting. The article analyzes how the film proposes a new kind of being in the world, one in which Levinas’s disinterestedness becomes an antidote to the passive acceptance of horror and stimulates an active responsibility toward the other, a critical engagement that transforms memory into a duty of justice and ethical action.

Transumanesimo e progresso morale

Roberto Di Ceglie — 2024-07-13

In this article, it is argued that it is highly unlikely that the technological progress promoted by transhumanists can generate the moral progress (moral enhancement) they preach. After examining the meaning and value of the link between technological progress and moral progress, three basic limits to the possibility of moral enhancement are discussed. These are “technological ignorance”, “technological passivity”, and “technological easiness”. Finally, it will be noted that they can be exacerbated given that the unknown is a typically transhumanist feature of the future horizon of technology.

Di realtà e di possibilità. Una lettura della Postilla conclusiva non scientifica alle “Briciole filosofiche” di Søren Kierkegaard

Nicolò Germano — 2024-07-13

This contribution aims to outline a history of the evolution of the Kierkegaardian interpretation of the modal category of “possible”, to underline its ethical implications. In particular, what this essay sets out to do is to highlight the importance that “reality” assumes in the categorisation of the modality especially in the Postscript. In order to do so, the different semanticisation of the possible to which Climacus aspires in the Crumbs will be investigated. The new “possible” presented in the work of 1846, in particular, allows us to re-evaluate the position of the ethical stage, which takes on a new depth, and precisely thanks to the theory of possibility presented there allowing the transition to a “second ethics”.

Suffering, care, and the good life: some ethical remarks

Claudia Navarini — 2024-07-13

Pain and suffering can be seen as distinct experiences, although they show analogies and mutual influence. On a moral level, we might consider if and why a “painful life” is an overall “bad life”, or if (and why) some personal resources can be found to cope better with it and ultimately preserve the possibility of pursuing some “goods”. In this paper I will first address the two notions of pain and suffering, and then focus on the inner condition of human suffering, with the aim of identifying possible ethical and anthropological meanings. While suffering remains a challenging and undesirable situation in life, some personal goals and virtues may be compatible with it and can therefore be cultivated accordingly. Moreover, the human condition of suffering may even reveal some aspects of our identity, our deepest needs, and seemingly unrelated positive values, especially those related to our relational dimension. In conclusion, human flourishing can be sought despite the undeniable condition of suffering, and a constructive attitude towards suffering can yield significant elements such as mutual love and the joy that comes with it.

Determinazione e libertà in Nicolai Hartmann

Giovambattista Vaccaro — 2024-07-13

Some recent interpreters of Hartmann stress the importance of the modal category of effectiveness in his ontology and disregard the modal category of possibility. Through an analysis of the volume two of Hartmann’s ontology this essay aims to show that such interpretation is partial, because possibility comes into the real world from the ideal world of the moral values through the free action of human being.

Una memoria pre-biografica? Ricordo e oblio come esperienze somatiche

Daria Baglieri — 2024-07-13

Human beings’ relationship with time seems to be quite conflictual: on the one hand, they seem to be attached to their memories; on the other hand, when this relentless, even painful yet natural time passing comes to a halt, the very essence of being in the world loses its meaning.
Building upon this observation, the article draws on Bessel van der Kolk’s psychiatric research, recent psychoanalytic studies, and Husserl’s concepts of Körper and Leib, to analyse traumatic memory as a somatic condition. Then, the article suggests looking at forgetfulness as a somatic experience as well.
Trauma, acting like a foreign body, disrupts both our physical-physiological and psychological-existential equilibrium, dissociating the two aspects of our experience originally lived as one, and interrupting the temporal continuity of that experience. The integrity of the Self, relegated to a pre-verbal dimension, requires to be recovered from its somatic dimension. Indeed, in the body the original and constant contact with the world occurs, and there resides immediate evidence of time. The forgetfulness granted by the somatic dimension, then, does not entail a trauma to vanish, but rather a kind of “digestion,” which allows memories to be sedimented and their meaning to change in view of the future, unfolding a new time for life.

Entre sens et mémoire. Philosophie et littérature de la Shoah

Gérard Bensussan — 2024-07-13

The universal language of philosophy, namely the logos, runs out in an effort to procure an intelligibility to the Shoah, in an attempt to give it reasons and to inscribe it in a causal chain. The sense presides over the passage from empirical diversity to its fixing into a concept. Nonetheless, it is necessary to reaffirm that the Shoah doesn’t make any sense, although this does not exempt us from having to think it. There is no philosophy of the Shoah, even when set within a meditation on evil inasmuch evil thinks. There is however a literature of the Shoah which allows to approach a sense preceding the “sense” and to avoid the perverse demand that always asks for unquestionable evidences of an existence.

Memory Modulation: Ethical Issues and Identity-Broadening

Andrea Lavazza — 2024-07-13

The human desire to erase negative memories is as old as civilization itself, mirroring our long-standing aspiration to enhance our memory. While the latter goal has been partially achieved without significant ethical concerns, the former has remained elusive. Recent scientific advancements, however, have opened the possibility of manipulating memories to mitigate their emotional impact and potentially remove certain mnemonic traces. This raises several ethical quandaries that form the focus of this paper. The inquiry extends beyond the moral implications of memory erasure to examine the concept of personal identity, which is deeply rooted in memory and may become less rigid and persistent in light of these emerging memory manipulation techniques.

La memoria del male. Rimorso, ricordo e oblio nello sviluppo dell’identità etica

Aldo Pisano — 2024-07-13

This paper focuses on the relationship between memory, forgetting, and moral identity. It analyzes how moral actions influence ethics through thinking. The ‘inner dialogue’ is a crucial process in the individual moral development, especially with regard to the memory of evil actions. Good and evil experiences (factual memory) create representations of good and evil as qualities (value memory) for individuals, while both remembering and forgetting can improve moral judgement and decision-making.

Il tempo e il perdono. Una lettura di Rabbia e perdono di Martha Nussbaum

Edoardo Poli — 2024-07-13

The paper aims to analyze and criticize Martha Nussbaum’s essay Anger and Forgiveness, where the philosopher thematizes the notion of forgiveness. Firstly, I will show how forgiveness is conceived by Nussbaum, then I will discuss her concept according to French theory, focusing on the role of memory and oblivion. Eventually, I will use Levinas’ theory of time to demonstrate how forgiveness implies the time dimension of the future as well as the past.

Jun Fujita Hirose, Come imporre un limite assoluto al capitalismo?, Ombre Corte, Verona 2022, pp. 129

Luca Cardone — 2024-07-13

Anna Pia Ruoppo, Marxismo ed esistenzialismo: due filosofie dell’Europa. Lukács e Jaspers si incontrano a Ginevra (1946), coll. Jaspersiana, Mimesis, Milano-Udine 2023, pp. 280

Fabrizio Carlino — 2024-07-13

Corine Pelluchon, L’età del vivente. Per un nuovo illuminismo, con una prefazione di Orietta Ombrosi, Donzelli, Roma 2023, pp. 256

Chiara Di Rocco — 2024-07-13

Carol Gilligan, In a Human Voice. Polity Press, Cambridge, UK e Hoboken, NJ 2023, pp. 131

Claudia Manzione — 2024-07-13