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== '''[[Moral responsibility]]''' ==
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'''Moral responsibility''' is an assignment of a duty or obligation to behave in a 'good' manner and refrain from behaving in a 'bad' manner. From a philosophical standpoint, the rationale behind 'good' and 'bad' is a subject for [[ethics]]<ref name=Shoemaker>
==Footnotes==
{{cite web |author=David Shoemaker |title=Personal Identity and Ethics |work=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition) |editor=Edward N. Zalta, ed |date=Feb 13, 2012 |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-ethics/ }}
</ref> and [[metaethics]].<ref name=SayreMcCord/> Stent provides four conditions for assigning moral responsibility, among them the "duties and obligations devolving from moral, legal, or ritual imperatives".<ref name=Stent/> In everyday life, obligation in this context is distinguished in part from milder demands for conformity like etiquette by the intense and insistent social pressure brought to bear upon those who deviate or threaten to deviate.<ref name=Hart0>
{{cite book |author=HLA Hart |title=The Concept of Law |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=53u8K7jNGioC&pg=PA86&lpg=PA86 |page=86 |isbn=0199644705  |year=2012 |publisher= Oxford University Press |edition=3rd }} Reprint of 1961 edition with introduction by Leslie Greene.
</ref> From an anthropological or sociological standpoint, the specifics of what is 'good' or 'bad', and the ways of enforcing acceptable behavior, vary considerably from one group to another.<ref name=Kleinman>
{{cite book |title=Normal and Abnormal Behavior in Chinese Culture |chapter=Moral rules |author=Richard W. Wilson |editor=A. Kleinman, T.Y. Lin, eds  |pages=pp. 119-120 |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=JFnqr74bCxAC&pg=PA119 |isbn=9027711046 |year=1981 |publisher=Springer}}
The reference is to {{cite book |author=BF Skinner |title=Beyond Freedom and Dignity  |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=CtF6FDfUcQoC&pg=PA128 |year=2002  |pages=p. 128 |isbn=1603844163 |publisher=Hackett Publishing |edition= Reprint of Knopf 1971 ed}}
</ref>
:"Social learning theorists...feel that the learning of moral rules is not culturally invariant, but is, rather, critically related to particular learning environments and to the distinctive normative code of the society in question. The major influences on moral development are what B.F. Skinner calls "contingencies of reinforcement"...culturally variable factors that explain why different peoples acquire different types of moral orientations."
 
'Moral responsibility' is part of the interplay between the individual and their society, and study of this relationship is both a scientific and a philosophical investigation.<ref name=Kendler>
{{cite book |author=Howard H. Kendler |title=Amoral thoughts about morality |chapter=Nature's search for human values |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=b2XgltlsIAcC&pg=PA27 |pages=pp. 27 ''ff'' |isbn= 0398077924 |year=2008 |edition=2nd ed |publisher=Charles C Thomas}}
</ref><ref name=Morgan>
{{cite book |title=Naturally Good: A Behavioral History of Moral Development from Charles Darwin to E.O. Wilson |author= John Henry Morgan |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=vTEH01s9BJIC&pg=PA1 |isbn=1929569130 |year=2005 |publisher=Cloverdale Press}}
</ref>
:"The study of ethics is concerned not only with identification of societal values but with thinking logically about ethical challenges and developing practical approaches to moral problem solving. Other disciplines also are concerned with discovering society's moral precepts. For example, sociology and anthropology each study cultural norms."<ref name=Carper>
{{cite book |title=Understanding the law |chapter=The nature of ethical inquiry |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=fdgFAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA28 |pages=p. 28 |isbn=111179801X |publisher=Cengage Learning |year=2007 |edition=5th ed |author=Donald Carper, John McKinsey, Bill West}}
</ref>
 
A large part of the philosophical discussion of 'moral responsibility' is focused upon the logical implications (as distinct from the ascertainable facts, such as they may be) of whether or not humans actually are able to control their actions to some or another extent.<ref name=Vargas>
{{cite book |title=Building Better Beings: A Theory of Moral Responsibility |author=Manuel Vargas |quote=[There are] other legitimate worries one can have about responsibility. For example, one could be worried about the consequences of reductionism of the mental (including whether our minds do anything, or whether they are epiphenomenal byproducts of more basic causal processes). Alternately, one might be worried that specific results in some or another science (usually, neurology but sometimes psychology) show that we lack some crucial power necessary for moral responsibility....|isbn=0191655775 |year=2013 |publisher=Oxford University Press |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=S21oAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA10&lpg=PA10 |pages=p. 10}}
</ref><ref name=Cane0/> Resolution of that issue is the philosophical subject of [[free will]], a continuing debate that began millennia ago and seems destined to continue indefinitely. It is known that humans' control over their actions is limited in some circumstances, and there is debate over the role of moral responsibility where there is only curtailed agency.
 
''[[Moral responsibility|.... (read more)]]''
 
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Latest revision as of 10:19, 11 September 2020

The Irvin pin. The eyes have always been red, but there are urban legends about the meanings of other colors.
A pin from another company, possibly Switlik or Standard Parachute. This style is common in catalogs and auctions of military memorabilia.

The Caterpillar Club is an informal association of people who have successfully used a parachute to bail out of a disabled aircraft. After authentication by the parachute maker, applicants receive a membership certificate and a distinctive lapel pin.

History

Before April 28, 1919 there was no way for a pilot to jump out of a plane and then to deploy a parachute. Parachutes were stored in a canister attached to the aircraft, and if the plane was spinning, the parachute could not deploy. Film industry stuntman Leslie Irvin developed a parachute that the pilot could deploy at will from a back pack using a ripcord. He joined the Army Air Corps parachute research team, and in April 1919 he successfully tested his design, though he broke his ankle during the test. Irvin was the first person to make a premeditated free fall jump from an airplane. He went on to form the Irving Airchute Company, which became a large supplier of parachutes. (A clerical error resulted in the addition of the "g" to Irvin and this was left in place until 1970, when the company was unified under the title Irvin Industries Incorporated.) The Irvin brand is now a part of Airborne Systems, a company with operations in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K.[1].

An early brochure [2] of the Irvin Parachute Company credits William O'Connor 24 August 1920 at McCook Field near Dayton, Ohio as the first person to be saved by an Irvin parachute, but this feat was unrecognised. On 20 October 1922 Lieutenant Harold R. Harris, chief of the McCook Field Flying Station, jumped from a disabled Loening W-2A monoplane fighter. Shortly after, two reporters from the Dayton Herald, realising that there would be more jumps in future, suggested that a club should be formed. 'Caterpillar Club' was suggested because the parachute canopy was made of silk, and because caterpillars have to climb out of their cocoons and fly away. Harris became the first member, and from that time forward any person who jumped from a disabled aircraft with a parachute became a member of the Caterpillar Club. Other famous members include General James Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh and (retired) astronaut John Glenn.

In 1922 Leslie Irvin agreed to give a gold pin to every person whose life was saved by one of his parachutes. By 1945 the number of members with the Irvin pins had grown to over 34,000. In addition to the Irvin Air Chute Company and its successors, other parachute manufacturers have also issued caterpillar pins for successful jumps. Irvin/Irving's successor, Airborne Systems Canada, still provides pins to people who made their jump long ago and are just now applying for membership. Another of these is Switlik Parachute Company, which though it no longer makes parachutes, still issues pins.

Footnotes