biologia: Altruism

Evidence: 91 • authority: 72

Altruism is concern for the well-being and life of others independently of personal benefit or reciprocity. The word altruism was popularised (and possibly coined) by the French philosopher Auguste Comte (1798–1857) c. 1830 in French, as altruisme, as an antonym of egoism. He derived it from the Italian altrui, which in turn was derived from Latin alteri, meaning "other people" or "somebody else". Altruism may be considered a synonym of selflessness, the opposite of self-centeredness. Altruism is an important moral value in many cultures, ideologies, and religions. It can expand beyond care for humans to include consideration for other sentient beings and future generations. Altruism in bio…

Evidence: 39 • authority: 80

Brillouin Zone (Usually Used as Short for the First Brillouin Zone)

Evidence: 39 • authority: 72

Utilitarianism is a family of theories in normative ethics that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for all affected individuals. In other words, utilitarian ideas encourage actions that lead to the greatest good for the greatest number. Although different varieties of utilitarianism admit different characterizations, the basic idea that underpins them all is, in some sense, to maximize utility, which is often defined in terms of well-being or related concepts. For instance, Jeremy Bentham, the founder of utilitarianism, described utility as the capacity of actions or objects to produce benefits, such as pleasure, happiness, and good, or to prevent harm, such as pain an…

Evidence: — • authority: 88

Deontological Principles. This chapter considers the harm principle. According to this principle, our negative duties not to harm people are much stronger than our positive duties to make things go better by saving people from being harmed. One of two duties would be stronger in the cost-requiring sense if we would be morally required to bear greater burdens, if that were necessary, to fulfil this duty. One of two duties would be stronger in the conflict-of-duty sense if this duty would be stronger than the other when these duties conflict. Our negative duties not to harm people may be much stronger in the cost-requiring sense than our positive duties to save people from being harmed. But t…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

Moral disengagement is a term from developmental psychology, educational psychology and social psychology for the process of convincing the self that ethical standards do not apply to oneself in a particular context. This is done by separating moral reactions from inhumane conduct and disabling the mechanism of self-condemnation. Thus, moral disengagement involves a process of cognitive re-construing or re-framing of destructive behavior as being morally acceptable without changing the behavior or the moral standards. In social cognitive theory of morality, self-regulatory mechanisms embedded in moral standards and self-sanctions translate moral reasoning into actions, and, as a result, mor…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

In moral philosophy, consequentialism is a class of normative, teleological ethical theories that holds that the consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate basis for judgement about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct. Thus, from a consequentialist standpoint, a morally right act (including omission from acting) is one that will produce a good outcome. Consequentialism, along with eudaimonism, falls under the broader category of teleological ethics, a group of views which claim that the moral value of any act consists in its tendency to produce things of intrinsic value. Consequentialists hold in general that an act is right if and only if the act (or in some views, the rule unde…