Rogerio Antonio Picoli

Usually moralist behaviour and attitude are defined in terms of a very demanding obedience to moral principles or obligations, a kind of intransigence towards abiding by the moral rules and sternness of the moral condemnations. From an ethical point of view, moralism is considered a flaw or distortion in making moral considerations, in relation to precedence of moral aspects or to the appropriate moral scope. In this paper, assuming the possibility of a positive moralism, I criticize the limitations of the negative conception, and present a more comprehensive conception. According to this conception, moralism is described as a moral perspective based on the value integrity. I defend this conception can explain many characteristics we associate with both negative and positive moralism. Since moral criticism involves asking for justification and opening to excuses, I suggest the negative moralism is an objectionable moral attitude or behaviour, precisely, because it blocks or hinders the possibility of moral justification and excuse.

The work deals with the problem of diversity of utilitarian theories and their relationship to historical interpretations of the doctrine. After a brief presentation of what can be considered as family ties of utilitarian theories, we seek to highlight the connection between the variety of utilitarian theories and works of historical interpretation as a defense strategy of the doctrine. Noteworthy is the central place in these historical interpretations of the doctrine of the called "classical authors", in particular, the interpretations of the Jeremy Bentham's thought, the father of utilitarianism. Are questioned some assumptions of these traditional readings, generally accepted by both critics and defenders of the doctrine, that obscure or neglect important aspects of Bentham's thought such as the volitional nature of morality, the procedure of moral deliberation, the negative defense of the principle of utility and the relationship between private ethics and governance; aspects which, if taken into account, seem to reveal a Bentham quite different from traditional readings.

This paper concerns the investigation of some speciñc possible relation between Rev. John Gay’s and David Hume’s moral theories. In the part, Gay’s thought is reconstructed trying to show his relatively neglected central role in the utilitarian tradition. From a close scrutiny of Gay’s criticisms to Hutcheson's moral theory it is possible to show how the author, Working on lockean views of language and psychology, have constructed in the moral branch an specifically utilitarian theoretical framework. In the second part, it is argued in favor of a certain continuity between Gay’s and Hume’s moral thought. The comparison of the Rev. John Gay’s Dissertation concerning the fundamental principle ofthe virtue or morality with Hume’s books II and III of A Treatise of human Nature reveals similarities which support the hypothesis, chronologically possible, that Hume was inspired or perhaps influenced by the reading of Gay's Dissertation. As matter of conclusion it is suggested that Hume’s Tïeatise paragraph about “is” and “ought” is somehow related to Gay's Dissertation paragraph in which We can read “...some things and actions are apt to produce pleasure, others pain; some are convenient, other inconvenient for a society; some are for the good of mankind; others tend to detriment of it; therefore those are to be chosen which tend to the good of mankind, the others to be avoided.”

According to Pettit and Skinner the rising of utilitarianism would have decisively contributed to the eclipse of the modern republican tradition. The Utilitarians would have been responsible for a radical critique of the concept of republican liberty, which would have resulted in the predominance of the Hobbesian conception of freedom. The sharpness and strength of the utilitarian attack to the conception of republican liberty would have be summarized in a set of objections formulated, in the late eighteenth century, by the English theological utilitarian William Paley. An examination of Paley's thought shows that his conception of liberty, contrary to what suggest Skinner and Pettit, is quite distinct from the Hobbesian concept