Controlling the Boundaries of Morality: The History and Powers of Ayelala Deity

The worship of deities has always been a major religious preoccupation among the Yoruba. Among these deities is Ayelala, a water goddess, who is not only worshiped with pomp and pageantry but also highly revered and respected for its judicial powers. As a deity of retribution and justice, Ayelala is believed to possess great powers which she uses against varying forms of social vice, such as armed robbery, sexual offences, and witchcraft to mention a few. Ayelala is reputed for seeking vengeance when the offender has forgotten her or his crime, and strikes her victims by inflicting on them bodily swelling and in few cases, dryness. Such is Ayelala’s overwhelming power and potency that the deity seeks to control the boundaries of morality and at the same time forms amajor bulwark against societal impropriety. Our article examines the history of Ayelala, being one of the popular deities worshipped in coastal Yorubaland. It also interrogates how the deity’s power stems from the importance of boundaries and difference, insofar as these warrant the strict obedience of individuals, their families and the society as a whole to the prevailing set of moral demands. The article contends that beyond the narratives of power, potency and retribution, Ayelala’s role as an arbiter of justice underscores the importance of civic values held within communities where the deity is worshipped – which are also values that undergird intergroup relations. Though Ayelala worship is pervasive among the Ilaje, Ikale and Ijaw-Apoi communities of Ondo state, Nigeria, the deity is also linked with other neighboring and distant communities which highlight the unifying tendencies of a common religion and deity belief among different sub-ethnic groups.

Philosophical Misframings of Poverty

This chapter explains why viewing poverty as needs scarcity caused by a maldistribution of resources has led many philosophers to ignore critical aspects of poverty and their underlying structural causes. The depoliticized view of chronic deprivation held by philosophers focused on the “moral demands of affluence” is closely linked with the moral doctrine of “sufficientarianism,” whose proponents reject or minimize the significance of inequality as such. “Effective altruism,” a popular movement promoting an evidence-based approach to improving the world through philanthropy, draws on sufficientarianism’s apolitical view of poverty as reducible to needs deprivation, measurable in terms of income and consumption. This chapter argues that ignoring the structural drivers and nonmaterial dimensions of poverty—like social exclusion, dispossession, exploitation, and subordination—leads theorists to overlook the vital role of organized poor communities’ struggles for justice.

The essential superficiality of the voluntary and the moralization of psychology

Is the idea of the voluntary important? Those who think so tend to regard it as an idea that can be metaphysically deepened through a theory about voluntary action, while those who think it a superficial idea that cannot coherently be deepened tend to neglect it as unimportant. Parting company with both camps, I argue that the idea of the voluntary is at once important and superficial—it is an essentially superficial notion that performs important functions, but can only perform them if we refrain from deepening it. After elaborating the contrast between superficial and deepened ideas of the voluntary, I identify the important functions that the superficial idea performs in relation to demands for fairness and freedom. I then suggest that theories trying to deepen the idea exemplify a problematic moralization of psychology—they warp psychological ideas to ensure that moral demands can be met. I offer a three-tier model of the problematic dynamics this creates, and show why the pressure to deepen the idea should be resisted. On this basis, I take stock of what an idea of the voluntary worth having should look like, and what residual tensions with moral ideas this leaves us with.

LEO STRAUSS AND THE CHARACTER OF CLASSICAL POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

This paper aims to present Leo Strauss’s interpretation of the meaning of classical political philosophy. To this end, the paper will try to show how, for Strauss, classical political philosophy, emerging from the original conflict that opposes philosophic reason to the authorized opinions of the city, was organized as a fundamentally esoteric teaching that sought to make the practical and moral demands of political life, expressed exemplarily in the ideal of best regime, compatible with the defense of contemplative life as the most perfect and happy life for man.

Praise as Moral Address

While Strawsonians have focused on the way in which our ‘reactive attitudes’—the emotions through which we hold one another responsible for manifestations of morally significant quality of regard—express moral demands, serious doubt has been cast on the idea that non-blaming reactive attitudes direct moral demands to their targets. Building on Gary Watson’s proposal that the reactive attitudes are ‘forms of moral address’, this chapter advances a communicative view of praise according to which the form of moral address distinctive of the praise-manifesting reactive attitudes (approbation, gratitude) is moral invitation. Like moral demand, moral invitation is a species of directive address presupposing its target’s possession of distinctive agential capacities and, when valid, provides its addressee with reason to give the addressor’s directive discursive uptake. While blame’s demands issue imperatival reasons for compliance (e.g. to acknowledge wrongdoing, apologize), praise’s invitations provide discretionary reasons to accept credit in jointly valuing the significance of the act for the praiser. In addition to its phenomenological plausibility and contribution to the already fecund Watsonian-cum-Strawsonian program, the invitational view helps renders intelligible the power of our praise practices to facilitate the formation and enrichment of our interpersonal relationships.

Trusting the Corona-Warn-App? Contemplations on trust and trustworthiness at the intersection of technology, politics and public debate

Ever since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, questions of whom or what to trust have become paramount. This article examines the public debates surrounding the initial development of the German Corona-Warn-App in 2020 as a case study to analyse such questions at the intersection of trust and trustworthiness in technology development, design and oversight. Providing some insights into the nature and dynamics of trust and trustworthiness, we argue that (a) trust is only desirable and justified if placed well, that is, if directed at those being trustworthy; that (b) trust and trustworthiness come in degrees and have both epistemic and moral components; and that (c) such a normatively demanding understanding of trust excludes technologies as proper objects of trust and requires that trust is directed at socio-technical assemblages consisting of both humans and artefacts. We conclude with some lessons learned from our case study, highlighting the epistemic and moral demands for trustworthy technology development as well as for public debates about such technologies, which ultimately requires attributing epistemic and moral duties to all actors involved.

The Possibility of Introducing Conscientious Exemption from Mandatory Vaccination in Poland

Considerations comprised in the article concern the problem of mandatory vaccination in Poland. Particular attention is paid to the issue of conscientious exemption from the vaccine obligation. The article presents the problem of social support for vaccination in Poland, the arguments issued by vaccination opponents, the current legal status of vaccination in Poland, and finally – the legal analysis regarding the introduction of a conscientious exemption from mandatory vaccination in Poland. The article focuses on judicial opportunities of introducing conscientious exemption in the field of mandatory vaccination; it presents possibilities and obstacles to establishing institution under discussion. The thesis that public health reasons should prevail over conscientious or moral demands is advocated in the article.

Passionate Speech: On the Uses and Abuses of Anger in Public Debate

Anger dominates debates in the public sphere. In this article I argue that there are diverse forms of anger that merit different responses. My focus is especially on two types of anger that I label respectively arrogant and resistant. The first is the characteristic defensive response of those who unwarrantedly arrogate special privileges for themselves. The second is often a source of insight and a form of moral address. I detail some discursive manifestations of these two types of anger. I show that arrogant anger is responsible for attempts to intimidate and humiliate others with whom one disagrees. Whilst resistant anger can be intimidating, it is also essential in communicating moral demands.