The national standards for clinical ethics consultation set forth by the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities endorse an “ethics facilitation” approach, which characterizes the role of the ethicist as one skilled at facilitating consensus within the range of ethically acceptable options. To determine the range of ethically acceptable options, ASBH recommends the standard model of decision-making, which is grounded in the values of autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. H. Tristram Engelhardt Jr. has sharply criticized the standard model for presuming (...) contentful moral claims in circumscribing the range of ethically acceptable options, which, he argues, cannot be rationally justified in a pluralistic context. Engelhardt’s solution is a secular clinical ethics based on a contentless principle of permission. The first part of this article lays out Engelhardt’s negative claim, that reason cannot establish contentful moral claims, and his positive claim, that secular clinical ethics ought to be based on a contentless principle of permission. The second part critiques these negative and positive claims. The purpose of this paper is to defend secular clinical ethics expertise—defined as the ability of ethicists to offer justified moral recommendations grounded in consensus positions endorsed by the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities—from the radical critiques of Engelhardt, who argues that no moral or metaphysical claims, and hence no bioethical consensus, can be rationally justified. Engelhardt’s critiques have caused some to worry that secular clinical ethics is in a state of theoretical crisis; this article concludes that Engelhardt’s view is an unstable basis for that worry. (shrink)

Social innovations are usually understood as new ideas, initiatives, or solutions that make it possible to meet the challenges of societies in fields such as social security, education, employment, culture, health, environment, housing, and economic development. On the one hand, many citizen science activities serve to achieve scientific as well as social and educational goals. Thus, these actions are opening an arena for introducing social innovations. On the other hand, some social innovations are further developed, adapted, or altered after the (...) involvement of scientist-supervised citizens in research and with the use of the citizen science tools and methods such as action research, crowdsourcing, and community-based participatory research. Such approaches are increasingly recognized as crucial for gathering data, addressing community needs, and creating engagement and cooperation between citizens and professional scientists. However, there are also various barriers to both citizen science and social innovation. For example, management, quality and protection of data, funding difficulties, non-recognition of citizens’ contributions, and limited inclusion of innovative research approaches in public policies. In this volume, we open theoretical as well as empirically-based discussion, including examples, practices, and case studies of at least three types of relations between citizen science and social innovation: domination of the citizen science features over social innovation aspects; domination of the social innovation features over the citizen science aspects; and the ways to achieve balance and integration between the social innovation and citizen science features. Each of these relationships highlights factors that influence the development of the main scales of sustainability of innovations in the practice. These innovations are contributing to a new paradigm of learning and sharing knowledge as well as interactions and socio-psychological development of participants. Also, there are factors that influence the development of platforms, ecosystems, and sustainability of innovations such as broad use of the information and communications technologies including robotics and automation; emerging healthcare and health promotion models; advancements in the development and governance of smart, green, inclusive and age-friendly cities and communities; new online learning centers; agri-food, cohousing or mobility platforms; and engagement of citizens into co-creation or co-production of services delivered by public, private, non-governmental organizations as well as non-formal entities. (shrink)

This article explores, comparatively and critically, Sidgwick’s and Rawls’s reasons for rejecting desert as a principle of distributive justice. Their ethical methods, though not identical, each re...

As individuals grow older, they usually require assistance with the daily tasks of self-care. This type of assistance, ancillary care, is essential to maintaining the health of those who need these services. In his prudential lifespan account, Norman Daniels includes access to such services making his account an attractive proposal given the current demographic shift. In this paper, I examine the prudential lifespan account through the lens of old age and I focus on the two concepts on which the lifespan (...) account relies. I show that these two concepts, normal species functioning and opportunity cannot buttress Daniels’s lifespan account; at least it cannot do so for older persons. The tensions that I identify in the prudential lifespan account in relation to aging are instructive for the more recent proposals to include aging in a theory of health and health justice. In addition, my analysis allows me to demonstrate that Daniels’s view of opportunity is irreconcilable to capabilities, the latter being more adaptable to the realities of aging. If capabilities appear more promising, it is nonetheless imperative that the specificities of extended care, such as the need for unpaid caregiving, be taken into consideration. (shrink)

Although collegial relationships are among the most prevalent types of interpersonal relationships in our lives, they have not been the subject of much philosophical study. In this paper, we take the first step in the process of developing an ethics of collegiality by establishing what qualifies two people as colleagues and then by determining what it is that gives value to collegial relationships. We argue that A and B are colleagues if both exhibit sameness regarding at least two of the (...) following three features: the same work content or domain of activity; the same institutional affiliation or common purpose; and/or the same status or level of responsibility. Moreover, we describe how the potential value of collegial relationships is grounded in the relationship goods that two colleagues have reason to generate qua colleagues, namely, collegial solidarity and collegial recognition. Two interesting conclusions that can be drawn from our analysis are that one has to be proficient at one’s work if one is to be considered a good colleague and that we are also more likely to be better colleagues if we regard the work we do as valuable. Finally, we draw special attention to the working conditions that are conducive to the generation of good collegial relationships and suggest some policies to promote them. (shrink)

This article describes and rejects three standard views of reason in secular clinical ethics. The first, instrumental reason view, affirms that reason may be used to draw conceptual distinctions, map moral geography, and identify invalid forms of argumentation, but prohibits recommendations because reason cannot justify any content-full moral or metaphysical commitments. The second, public reason view, affirms instrumental reason, and claims ethicists may make recommendations grounded in the moral and metaphysical commitments of bioethical consensus. The third, comprehensive reason view, also (...) affirms instrumental reason, but encourages ethicists to make recommendations grounded in the moral and metaphysical commitments of their private worldviews. A compatibilist view of public reason is then defended, which holds that each standard view captures an important role for reason in different aspects of secular clinical ethics. The article ends by identifying three implications for enduring theoretical debates in clinical ethics. (shrink)

In recent years, scholars in science and technology studies have examined the advice that experts make for the governance of biomedicine. This STS scholarship, however, has not yet explained how the credibility of ethics expertise in public bioethics is produced from particular conditions and extended to different settings. This article describes how a bioethics commission created the ethical principle of justice and examines how the ethics expertise established public credibility on the justice principle. The findings suggest that the principle of (...) justice was first explored as the diverse concepts of “equality” with reference to the review of fetal research, redefined as “fairness” or “desert” from theoretical viewpoints, and then circulated as a standard framework in local settings. The credibility of ethics expertise, based on the coproduction of material and moral orders, was made possible by reaching common ground among different data, principles, and background theories. (shrink)

The present article explores the rationales of scientists and engineers for distributing moral responsibilities related technology development. On the basis of a qualitative case study, it was investigated how the actors within a research network distribute responsibilities for these issues. Rawls’ Wide Reflective Equilibrium model was used as a descriptive framework. This study indicates that there is a correlation between the actors’ ethics position and their responsibility rationale. When discussing how to address ethical issues or how to distribute the responsibility (...) for addressing them, actors with similar normative background theories referred to the same type of normative arguments. It was found that these deliberative processes could best be interpreted in terms of an interplay between different layers of morality. The case suggests that people seek coherence between these layers rather than work through them one-directionally. By distinguishing between rationales for distributing responsibilities and the actual distributions, possible sources of misunderstanding can be identified. The benefit from acknowledging these different rationales is that it enables actors to recognize the legitimacy of other people’s opinions, ultimately contributing to a responsibility distribution that is both complete and accepted by all as justified. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer a solution to the Capacity/Equality Puzzle. The puzzle holds that an account of the franchise may adequately capture at most two of the following: (1) a political equality-based account of the franchise, (2) a capacity-based account of disenfranchising children, and (3) universal adult enfranchisement. To resolve the puzzle, I provide a complex liberal egalitarian justification of a moral requirement to disenfranchise children. I show that disenfranchising children is permitted by both the proper political liberal and (...) the proper political egalitarian understandings of the relationship between cognitive capacity and the franchise. Further, I argue, disenfranchising children is required by a minimalistic, procedural principle of collective competence in political decision-making. At the same time, I show that political equality requires the enfranchisement of all adults, regardless of cognitive capacities, and that the collective competence principle does not ground adult disenfranchisement. This justifies the progressive legal trend that holds the capacity-based disenfranchisement of adults to be incompatible with liberal democratic principles. (shrink)

The thesis explores the question of how should a rational moral agent reason and make choices when he finds himself accepting inconsistent moral judgments. It is argued that it is both conceptually and psychologically justified to describe such an agent as suffering from uncertainty. Such uncertainty, however, is not uncertainty regarding the truth of some descriptive claim, but rather uncertainty regarding the truth of a normative claim. Specifically it is uncertainty regarding the truth of a moral judgement. In the literature (...) this is sometimes called “moral uncertainty”. Two different lines of philosophical literatures that explore the idea of moral uncertainty are discussed. The first line – the one that originated from David Lewis‟ argument against the “Desire as Belief Thesis” – explores the mere possibility of moral uncertainty, while the second line explores the question how ought a rational moral agent choose in face of moral uncertainty. The discussion of these two lines of research leads to the conclusion that a consistent account of moral decision making under conditions of moral uncertainty that will be applicable to the kind of cases that the thesis explores, must make use of degrees of beliefs in comparative moral judgements and of them alone. Specifically, no references to degrees of moral value should be made. An attempt to present such an account in the framework of an extension of Leonard Savage‟s model for decision making is carried out. This attempt leads to a problematic result. Several implications of the result to ethic and meta-ethics are discussed as well as possible ways to avoid it. The conclusion is partly positive and partly negative: While a plausible account of moral decision making under conditions of moral uncertainty is presented, an account of moral reasoning that aims at finding a complete moral theory is shown to be a very difficult – if not impossible - aim to achieve. (shrink)

Many normative theorists want to contribute to making the world a better place. In recent years, it has been suggested that to realise this ambition one must start with an adequate description of real-life practices. To determine what should be done, however, one must also fundamentally criticise existing moral beliefs. The method of reflective equilibrium offers a way of doing both. Yet, its practical usefulness has been doubted and it has been largely ignored in the recent practical turn of normative (...) theorising. This paper offers a complementary methodology to the method of reflective equilibrium, referred to as Rawlsian constructivism, which brings forth its practical merits. With the support of Rawlsian constructivism, the method of reflective equilibrium becomes a tool for public reasoning about practical problems which aims to facilitate shared solutions. The process of reflective scrutiny is used, not in the search of moral truth, but rather to highlight what stands in the way of solutions to problems agents face in different domains of social life. The practical value lies in scrutinising reasons for action that are taken for granted, explicating new rationales for action and highlighting neglected points of agreement. The paper exemplifies this approach with a process of justifying individual obligations to combat climate change. Normative theorists who share the practical agenda have correctly noted the importance of bottom-up investigations of subject domains. This paper argues that the next step should be to utilise this version of the method of reflective equilibrium to explore the potential for morally progressive solutions to these problems. (shrink)

Leiter (2016) charges public philosophy with being “neoliberal”. To understand that charge better, I define, in §1, three versions of public philosophy which might be concerned and two pictures of its practice targeted by Leiter. I also compare two deliberative sites wherein those pictures may play out. In §2, I sketch how Leiter’s two paradoxes for “neoliberal” public philosophy lead to a revised public philosophy. §3 questions the paradoxes’ empirical grounding and scope. Lastly, in §4, I assume Leiter’s picture and (...) illustrate how philosophical dialogue, through appeal to personal self-image and “moral perceptions”, may still influence public discourse. I conclude that Leiter both over- and understates his case and that his conclusions require greater scrutiny. (shrink)

This book develops a novel approach to distributive justice by building a theory based on a concept of desert. As a work of applied political theory, it presents a simple but powerful theoretical argument and a detailed proposal to eliminate unmerited inequality, poverty, and economic immobility, speaking to the underlying moral principles of both progressives who already support egalitarian measures and also conservatives who have previously rejected egalitarianism on the grounds of individual freedom, personal responsibility, hard work, or economic efficiency. (...) By using an agnostic, flexible, data-driven approach to isolate luck and ultimately measure desert, this proposal makes equal opportunity initiatives both more accurate and effective as it adapts to a changing economy. It grants to each individual the freedom to genuinely choose their place in the distribution. It provides two policy variations that are perfectly economically efficient, and two others that are conditionally so. It straightforwardly aligns outcomes with widely shared, fundamental moral intuitions. Lastly, it demonstrates much of the above by modeling four policy variations using 40 years of survey data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. (shrink)

Bioethics has increasingly become a standard part of medical school education and the training of healthcare professionals more generally. This is a promising development, as it has the potential to help future practitioners become more attentive to moral concerns and, perhaps, better moral reasoners. At the same time, there is growing recognition within bioethics that nonideal theory can play an important role in formulating normative recommendations. In this chapter we discuss what this shift toward nonideal theory means for ethical curricula (...) within healthcare education. In particular, we contend that more attention to the particularities of historical and social context needs to be incorporated into bioethics training. To make this argument, we focus on two examples: teaching units on race and medicine and those that focus on stigma and coercion in mental health. For both, we show how a pedagogical approach in which educators focus on social injustice could influence how practitioners engage in ethics in the clinic. This chapter, then, demonstrates what a commitment to nonideal theory can mean practically when it comes to bioethics education. (shrink)

Brian Leiter throws down two gauntlets to philosophers engaged in dialogue with the broader public. If, with the first, public philosophers recognize that they cannot offer substantive answers but only sophisticated method, they nevertheless fail to realize that said method does not resonate with the very public whom they purport to help. For, with the second, that method does not engage the emotivist and tribalist cast of contemporary public discourse: emotivist because a person’s moral and political beliefs are a function (...) of emotional attitudes or affective responses for which she adduces reasons post hoc; tribalist because the person tracks not the inferential relation between beliefs but her similarity with interlocutors. In order to understand the full extent of this critique, it is necessary, first, to parse strands of public philosophy, distinct discursive sites, and pictures of philosophical practice and, then, to probe the critique’s empirical groundedness and intended scope. These elements in place, it is then possible to sketch public philosophy reconceived along Leiter’s lines as equal part rigor and rhetoric. That sketch may be somewhat filled out through two tactics employed in Jeffrey Stout’s work. These form part of a toolkit for philosophical dialogue whereby philosophers get a discursive grip on non-discursive factors underlying public discourse and push back on Leiter's dilemma. (shrink)

John Rawls is famous for two things: his attempt to ground morality in rationality and his conception of justice as fairness. He has developed and polished both in conjunction over the course of half a century. Yet the moral principles he advocates have always been more doctrinaire than the corresponding justification model should have ever allowed with design details explicitly promising objectivity. This article goes to the beginning, or to a reasonable proxy for it, in the “Outline of a Decision (...) Procedure for Ethics,” with the aim of exposing and examining the discrepancy where it originates. The goal is not to prey on the earliest version of an initiative later undergoing revision but to identify and investigate the inception of a systematic bias that is retained rather than revised in subsequent iterations. (shrink)

This article develops an integrative perspective on corporate responsibility by synthesising competing perspectives on the responsibility of the corporation at the organisational and societal levels of analysis. We review three major corporate responsibility perspectives, which we refer to as economic, critical, and politico-ethical. We analyse the major potential uses and pitfalls of the perspectives, and integrate the debate on these two levels. Our synthesis concludes that when a society has a robust division of moral labour in place, the responsibility of (...) a corporation may be economic without jeopardising democracy and sustainability. Moreover, the economic role of corporations neither signifies the absence of deliberative democratic mechanisms nor business practices extending beyond compliance. The study underscores the value of integrating different perspectives and multiple levels of analysis to present comprehensive descriptions and prescriptions of the responsibility phenomenon. (shrink)

This essay contends that individual liberty, understood as the permissibility of making choices about one’s own health care in support of one’s own good and the good of one’s family utilizing private resources, is central to the moral foundations of a health care system. Such individual freedoms are important not only because they often support more efficient and effective health care services, but because they permit individuals to fulfill important moral duties. A comparative study of the health care systems in (...) Hong Kong and mainland China is utilized to illustrate the conceptual and moral concerns at stake. Both regions have implemented two-tier health care systems with a public tier of basic health care services together with a second tier of privately purchased health care. As we document, Hong Kong permits patients and doctors significantly greater opportunities to choose private health care of typically higher medical quality than their mainland counterparts. As a result, individuals are able to obtain higher quality health care while also fulfilling important moral duties for themselves and their families. In this sense, Hong Kong’s health care system is morally superior to mainland China’s. In each case, Confucianism’s concerns regarding equality are partly satisfied through the provision of public health care services on the basic tier, while appropriate use of private resources in support of oneself and one’s family is permissibly exercised on the private tier. Although it is true that inequalities in health care access and outcome are inevitable within a system that permits such individual freedoms, we argue that such inequalities are morally justifiable in terms of Confucian ethical thought. (shrink)

Many agents have failed to comply with their responsibilities to take the action needed to avoid dangerous anthropogenic climate change. This pervasive noncompliance raises two questions of nonideal political theory. First, it raises the question of what agents should do when others do not discharge their climate responsibilities. (the Responsibility Question) In this paper I put forward four principles that we need to employ to answer the Responsibility Question (Sections II-V). I then illustrate my account, by outlining four kinds of (...) action that should be undertaken (Section VI). Pervasive noncompliance also raises a second question: Given the lack of progress in combating climate change, should existing governance structures be maintained or changed (and if they should be changed, in what ways)? (the Governance Question). The paper briefly outlines a methodology for addressing this question and outlines what a nonideal response to the existing institutional structures would be (Section VII). It does so with reference to the Paris Agreement, and in particular the creation of a "global stocktake" (Article 14, Paris Agreement) and the "facilitative dialogue" (paragraph 20 of the ‘Adoption of the Paris Agreement’). The aim, then, is to set out an account of a nonideal theory of climate justice. (shrink)

How are we to appraise new technological developments that may bring revolutionary social changes? Currently this is often done by trying to predict or anticipate social consequences and to use these as a basis for moral and regulatory appraisal. Such an approach can, however, not deal with the uncertainties and unknowns that are inherent in social changes induced by technological development. An alternative approach is proposed that conceives of the introduction of new technologies into society as a social experiment. An (...) ethical framework for the acceptability of such experiments is developed based on the bioethical principles for experiments with human subjects: non-maleficence, beneficence, respect for autonomy, and justice. This provides a handle for the moral and regulatory assessment of new technologies and their impact on society. (shrink)

Insights from social science are increasingly used in the field of applied ethics. However, recent insights have shown that the empirical branch of business ethics lacks thorough theoretical grounding. This article discusses the use of the Rawlsian methods of wide reflective equilibrium and overlapping consensus in the field of applied ethics. Instead of focussing on one single comprehensive ethical doctrine to provide adequate guidance for resolving moral dilemmas, these Rawlsian methods seek to find a balance between considered judgments and intuitions (...) concerning particular cases on the one hand and general principles and theories on the other. In business ethics this approach is promissing because it enables decision-making in a pluralist context with different stakeholders who often endorse different or even conflicting cultural and moral frameworks without giving priority to any of them. Moreover, the method is well founded in political theory. A taxonomy of different kinds of applications is developed, and classified according to the purpose, the content, and the type of justification. On the basis of this taxonomy an inventory of 12 recent applications is made. In terms of the purpose and content of the method the applications are rather diverse. Two conceptual obstacles for applying Rawlsian methods are identified, viz. inclusiveness and the communitarian objection that people have to become detached from their personal life. It is found that methodological questions, such as the question how to retrieve the relevant empirical data, are scarcely addressed in the literature. To advance the use of empirical approaches in general, and that of Rawlsian approaches in particular, it is important not only to use empirical data but to use methodological insights from social sciences in order to further advance the field of empirical ethics. It is recommended that stakeholders be given a more active role in the assessment and justification of these methods. (shrink)

A Moorean fact, in the words of the late David Lewis, is ‘one of those things that we know better than we know the premises of any philosophical argument to the contrary’. Lewis opens his seminal paper ‘Elusive Knowledge’ with the following declaration.

This paper is about the moral status of those human beings with profound intellectual disabilities (PIDs). We hold the common sense view that they have equal status to ‘normal’ human beings, and a higher status than any non-human animal. We start with an admission, however: we don’t know how to give a fully satisfying theoretical account of the grounds of moral status that explains this view. And in fact, not only do we not know how to give such an account, (...) but the most satisfying account of moral status that we know (which we call ‘the standard account’) entails that our view is false. It entails that those with PIDs have a lower status than ordinary human beings and an equal status to non-human animals. Now, in this paper, we do absolutely nothing to try to show where the standard account goes wrong, and we do absolutely nothing to resolve the difficulties we see in developing an alternative account that supports our view. Indeed, we do not give any argument against the standard account or in favour of our own view. Instead, we raise the following question: in order to be justified in continuing to hold our view, are we obliged to give such an account? Our answer will be that we are not. (shrink)

The anti-counterfeiting trade agreement was originally meant to harmonise and enforce intellectual property rights provisions in existing trade agreements within a wider group of countries. This was commendable in itself, so ACTA’s failure was all the more disappointing. In this article, I wish to contribute to the post-ACTA debate by proposing a specific analysis of the ethical reasons why ACTA failed, and what we can learn from them. I argue that five kinds of objections—namely, secret negotiations, lack of consultation, vagueness (...) of formulation, negotiations outside any international body, and the creation of a new governing body outside already existing forums—had only indirect ethical implications. This takes nothing away from their seriousness but it does make them less compelling, because agreements should be evaluated, ethically, for what they are, rather than for the alleged reasons why they are being proposed. I then argue that ACTA would have caused three ethical problems: an excessive and misplaced kind of responsibility, a radical decrease in freedom of expression, and a severe reduction in information privacy. I conclude by indicating three lessons that can help us in shaping a potential ACTA 2.0. First, we should acknowledge the increasingly vital importance of the framework of implicit expectations, attitudes, and practices that can facilitate and promote morally good decisions and actions. ACTA failed to perceive that it would have undermined the very framework that it was supposed to foster, namely one promoting some of the best and most successful aspects of our information society. Second, we should realise that, in advanced information societies, any regulation affecting how people deal with information is now bound to influence the whole ‘onlife’ habitat within which they live. So enforcing IPR becomes an environmental problem. Third, since legal documents, such as ACTA, emerge from within the infosphere that they affect, we should apply to the process itself, which one day may lead to a post-ACTA treaty, the very framework and ethical values that we would like to see promoted by it. (shrink)

In his recent book, The Dimensions of Consequentialism, Martin Peterson puts forward a new version of consequentialism that he dubs ‘multidimensional consequentialism’. The defining thesis of the new theory is that there are irreducible moral aspects that jointly determine the deontic status of an act. In defending his particular version of multidimensional consequentialism, Peterson advocates the thesis—he calls it DEGREE—that if two or more moral aspects clash, the act under consideration is right to some non-extreme degree. This goes against the (...) orthodoxy according to which—Peterson calls this RESOLUTION—each act is always either entirely right or entirely wrong. The argument against RESOLUTION appeals to the existence of so-called deontic leaps: the idea is that endorsing RESOLUTION would not give each relevant moral aspect its due in the final analysis. Our paper argues that, contrary to Peterson, all moral aspects remain visible in what can properly be called the final analysis of a moral theory that involves RESOLUTION, moral aspects do not have to remain visible in judgements of all-things-considered rightness or wrongness, respectively, introduction of what Peterson calls verdictive reasons does not change the overall picture in favour of DEGREE. We conclude that multi-dimensional consequentialists should accept RESOLUTION rather than DEGREE. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that specificationism deprives rights of any significant role in practical reasoning before it arrives at a conclusion, while the generalist conception preserves the practical role we intuitively assign to rights in reasoning directed to action. Assuming that a conception of rights faithful to ordinary practical reasoning is preferable, this fact gives a strong reason to prefer generalism over specificationism, although not without qualification. To be satisfactory from the practical standpoint, any account of rights that adopts (...) the generalist view must include second-order principles to orientate agents with regards to addressing rights conflicts. I show that my practical analysis is substantially different from others available in the literature. (shrink)

Starting from the sensuous perception of what is seen, an attempt is made at re-casting a Husserlian theory of constitution of the object of intuition, as one leaves the natural attitude through a transcendental method, by positing several theses so as to avoid the aporias of philosophical binary oppositions such as rationalism and empiri-cism, realism and idealism, logicism and psychologism, subjectivism and objectivism, transcendentalism and ontologism, metaphysics and positivism. Throughout fifty-five theses on constitution, the Husserlian proposal of continuously reforming philosophizing (...) by transcendental reduction is revisited, leaving the latter incomplete as new conversions are required by noetic-noematic correlations between world and consciousness. (shrink)

Some psychologists working in the psychology and law field feel that the profession does not provide them with adequate ethical guidance even though the field is arguably one of the oldest and best established applied fields of psychology. The uncertainty psychologists experience most likely stems from working with colleagues whose professional ethics differs from their own while providing services to demanding people and the many moral questions associated with the administration of law. I believe psychology’s ethics does, however, provide adequate (...) moral guidance. It has a sound historical basis, has face validity and emphasizes those social moral principles that allow psychologists to best serve individuals and society. Psychologists may nevertheless be confronted with conflicting demands because there are other norm systems that also regulate their behavior as researchers and practitioners, and they, like all people, are influenced by their conscience. Ultimately, psychologists working in the psycholegal field will be best served if they have good knowledge of, and have internalized, the ethical principles of psychology. (shrink)

This study is a contribution to the bioethical debate about new and possibly emerging reproductive technologies. Its point of departure is the intuition, which many people seem to share, that using such technologies to select non-disease traits – like sex and emotional stability - in yet unborn children is morally problematic, at least more so than using the technologies to avoid giving birth to children with severe genetic diseases, or attempting to shape the non-disease traits of already existing children by (...) environmental means, like education. The study employs philosophical analysis for the purpose of making this intuition intelligible and judging whether it is justified. Different ways in which the moral problems posed by reproductive technologies are often framed in bioethical debates are criticised as inadequate for this task. In particular, it is argued that the intuition cannot fully be made sense of in terms of harm to the children that such technologies help create. The study attempts to elaborate an alternative to that broadly consequentialist approach, by drawing on Martin Heidegger’s philosophy of technology, Hans Jonas’s ethics, and Aristotle’s practical philosophy, as it has been received and developed in the hermeneutical tradition. It is suggested that reproductive choices, unlike decisions for already born children, are characterised by a peculiar one-sidedness: the future child appears to the parents as something wholly theirs to decide about, not as a concrete other with whom they must interact in a responsive and attuned way. This is problematic because it means that such choices cannot call upon the particularised moral understanding only gained in interpersonal encounters. In particular, it makes them easily shaped by various tendencies, to which parents are always susceptible, to relate to children in instrumentalising ways, and at risk of reinforcing such tendencies. However, this does not mean that all uses of reproductive technologies are equally troubling. When selecting against severe disease the parents can rely on a widely shared illness experience to escape the dangers that one-sidedness involves. It is concluded that the intuition under discussion, thus explicated and in some ways qualified, makes sense morally. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the practical importance of different forms of paternalism for educational theory and practice. Contrary to the traditional treatment of paternalism as a sometimes necessary and rather messy aspect of educational practices, I demonstrate that paternalism is to be regarded as an “indigenous concept” of educational theory and as the ‘indigenous model of justification’ that underlies the structure of educational practices. Based on an analysis of the intricate nexus between autonomy-oriented forms of paternalism and educational forms (...) of autonomy-based perfectionism I furthermore argue that a perfectionistically structured conception of autonomy provides a more adequate evaluative framework for justifying autonomy as an educational aim than alternative educational regimes of autonomy can deliver. Finally, I discuss some major theoretical problems of bridging the gap between general ethical principles and their application in practical fields. (shrink)

To be able to understand the history of bioethics, it is necessary to provide an overview of the mainstreams in philosophy which influenced them. That way one can clarify the theoretical origins of several ways of thought in bioethics as well as pinpoint certain problems within the field of bioethics. This paper will give a brief overview of moral theories in the history of philosophy and the way the have influenced ethical thought on biotechnology.

In this paper we introduce the ‘New Substitution Problem’ which, on its face, presents a problem for adaptation proposals that are justified by appeal to obligations of reparation. In contrast to the standard view, which is that obligations of reparation require that one restore lost value, we propose instead that obligations to aid and assist species and ecosystems in adaptation, in particular, follow from a failure to adequately justify – either by absence, neglect, omission or malice – actions that caused, (...) or coalesced to cause, climatic change. Because this position suggests a different reason for reparation – namely, it does not rely on the notion that an obligation to repair is contingent upon a lost good – it permits moving forward with assisted colonisation and migration, but does so without falling subject to the complications of the New Substitution Problem. (shrink)

This paper proposes a Rawlsian conception of moral justification as a social activity. Through a close reading, Rawls’ view of ethical justification is shown to be significantly more dialogical and deliberative than is commonly appreciated. The result is a view that emphasizes the social nature of ethical justification and identifies information sharing between persons as the crux of justification in metaethics, in contrast to normative ethics. I call it Rawlsian reflective equilibrium to distinguish it from other varieties.

Principles of distributive justice are normative principles designed to guide the allocation of the benefits and burdens of economic activity.

Ordinary Language Philosophy has largely fallen out of favour, and with it the belief in the primary importance of analyses of ordinary language for philosophical purposes. Still, in their various endeavours, philosophers not only from analytic but also from other backgrounds refer to the use and meaning of terms of interest in ordinary parlance. In doing so, they most commonly appeal to their own linguistic intuitions. Often, the appeal to individual intuitions is supplemented by reference to dictionaries. In recent times, (...) Internet search engine queries for expressions of interest have become quite popular. Apparently, philosophers attempt to surpass the limits of their own linguistic intuitions by appealing to experts or to factual uses of language. I argue that this attempt is commendable but that its execution is wanting. Instead of appealing to dictionaries or Internet queries, philosophers should employ computer-based linguistic corpora in order to confirm or falsify hypotheses about the factual use of language. This approach also has some advantages over methods employed by experimental philosophers. If the importance of ordinary language is stressed, the use of linguistic corpora is hardly avoidable. (shrink)

Rationale, aims and objectives: Bioethics and professionalism are standard subjects in medical training programmes, and these curricula reflect particular representations of meaning and practice. It is important that these curricula cohere with the actual concerns of practicing clinicians so that students are prepared for real-world practice. We aimed to identify ethical and professional concerns that do not appear to be adequately addressed in standard curricula by comparing ethics curricula with themes that emerged from a qualitative study of medical practitioners. Method: (...) Curriculum analysis: Thirty-two prominent ethics and professionalism curricula were identified through a database search and were analysed thematically. Qualitative study: In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 medical practitioners. Participants were invited to reflect upon their perceptions of the ways in which values matter in their practices and their educational experiences. The themes emerging from the two studies were compared and contrasted. Results: While representations of meaning and value in ethics and professionalism curricula overlap with the preoccupations of practicing clinicians, there are significant aspects of ‘real-world’ clinical practice that are largely ignored. These fell into two broad domains: ‘sociological’ concerns about enculturation, bureaucracy, intra-professional relationships, and public perceptions of medicine; and epistemic concerns about making good decisions, balancing different kinds of knowledge, and practising within the bounds of professional protocols. Conclusions: Our findings support the view that philosophy and sociology should be included in medical school and specialty training curricula. Curricula should be reframed to introduce students to habits of thought that recognize the need for critical reflection on the social processes in which they are embedded, and on the philosophical assumptions that underpin their practice. (shrink)

Empirical studies on people's moral attitudes regarding ethically challenging topics contribute greatly to research in medical ethics. However, it is not always clear in which ways this research adds to medical ethics as a normative discipline. In this article, we aim to provide a systematic account of the different ways in which attitudinal research can be used for normative reflection. In the first part, we discuss whether ethical judgements can be based on empirical work alone and we develop a sceptical (...) position regarding this point, taking into account theoretical, methodological and pragmatic considerations. As empirical data should not be taken as a direct source for normative justification, we then delineate different ways in which attitudes research can be combined with theoretical accounts of normative justification in the second part of the article. Firstly, the combination of attitudes research with normative-ethical theories is analysed with respect to three different aspects: The extent of empirical data which is needed, the question of which kind of data is required and the ways in which the empirical data are processed within the framework of an ethical theory. Secondly, two further functions of attitudes research are displayed which lie outside the traditional focus of ethical theories: the exploratory function of detecting and characterising new ethical problems, and the field of ‘moral pragmatics’. The article concludes with a methodological outlook and suggestions for the concrete practice of attitudinal research in medical ethics. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that health plays a special role in the promotion of well-being within the capabilities approach framework. I do this by first presenting a scenario involving two individuals, both of whom lack access to only one capability. The first cannot secure the capability of bodily health due to an unhealthy lifestyle, whilst the second lacks access to bodily integrity due to a life of celibacy. Second, I explore these scenarios by assessing the nature of disadvantage suffered (...) in both instances. I suggest that corrosive disadvantage (or the type of disadvantage that adversely impacts one’s ability to secure other valuable things) is what leads us to conclude that health is of special moral importance in the promotion of justice and the endorsing of well-being. (shrink)

This paper considers the place of children within liberal-democratic society and its related political morality. The genesis of the paper is two considerations which are in tension with one another. First, that there must be some point at which children are divided from adults, with children denied the rights which go along with full membership of the liberal community. The justification for the difference in the statue between these two groups must be rooted in some notion of capacities, since these (...) are the only relevant differences between adults and children. Second, that linking an individual's capacities to her status undermines the central liberal commitment of political equality. This dilemma explains what I term the threshold view, which holds that children become adult citizens upon reaching an age of competence and that above this level differences in abilities cease to matter to an individual's status. While this view has attractions, this paper argues that this view must eventually be rejected because of its inability to deal with the actual process of human development. In its place, the paper proposes a modification to this view which sees the threshold constrained by moral demands and applied indirectly to age groups rather than individuals. These constraints preserve the commitment to equality in a way consistent with a plausible view of children's place in society. (shrink)

Soft regulatory measures are often promoted as an alternative for existing regulatory regimes for nanotechnologies. The call for new regulatory approaches stems from several challenges that traditional approaches have difficulties dealing with. These challenges relate to general problems of governability, tensions between public interests, but also (and maybe particularly) to almost complete lack of certainty about the implications of nanotechnologies. At the same time, the field of nanotechnology can be characterized by a high level of diversity. In this paper, we (...) discuss and compare two models for framing public policy in relation to technology regulation: the first is a deliberative model based on foresight knowledge and the second the wide reflective equilibrium model, developed by political philosopher John Rawls. In both models, the aim is to find consensus on (a framework for) policy measures and regulation. On the basis of a critical discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of both models, some tentative conclusions are drawn for effective policy making and implementation based on soft law. (shrink)

Carson Strong has recently argued that wide reflective equilibrium (WRE) is an unacceptable method of justification in bioethics. In its place, Strong recommends a methodology in which certain foundational moral judgments play a central role in the justification of moral beliefs, and coherence plays a limited justificatory role in that the rest of our judgments are made to cohere with these foundational judgments. In this paper, I argue that Strong’s chief criticisms of WRE are unsuccessful and that his proposed alternative (...) is in fact just another version of WRE. In the course of doing so, I specify which theses are central to WRE and which are not, and thus, provide a response to an additional objection, advanced by Peter Singer, that WRE is vacuous. I conclude by arguing that there may be better prospects for advancing the debate regarding methodology in bioethics if we focus on restricted epistemic and methodological theses rather than broad approaches, such as WRE, that come in many different varieties. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that Powers and Faden’s non-ideal, comprehensive theory of justice cannot keep in line with the proposed moderateness of their essentialist approach. My argument is as follows: Powers and Faden’s comprehensive theory of justice contravenes the thrust of moderate essentialism, in claiming that their theory values health for its own sake. Why do they define their conception of justice as valuing health for its own sake when it is likely to be incongruous with their essentialist approach? (...) To understand this, we should examine their sufficientarian proposal. There are two requirements for plausible sufficientarianism. The first requirement is to specify the threshold below which people are seriously deprived and must be urgently benefited in a non-arbitrary manner. The second requirement is that sufficientarianism should be sensitive to certain inequalities above the threshold. Powers and Faden’s approach convincingly meets the first requirement. However, the non-ideal aspect of their approach, which is key to meeting the second requirement, makes it explicit that at least one of the listed dimensions of well-being must be valued for their own sake. This is not reconcilable with their own characterization of moderate essentialism. For this reason, we should conclude that Powers and Faden fail to argue for moderate essentialism. (shrink)

The phenomenon of distributed knowledge is well-known in epistemic logic. In this paper, a similar phenomenon in ethics, somewhat neglected so far, is investigated, namely distributed morality. The article explains the nature of distributed morality, as a feature of moral agency, and explores the implications of its occurrence in advanced information societies. In the course of the analysis, the concept of infraethics is introduced, in order to refer to the ensemble of moral enablers, which, although morally neutral per se, can (...) significantly facilitate or hinder both positive and negative moral behaviours. (shrink)

This article begins with a detailed analysis of how the choice situation of a social contract for international business ethics can be constructed and justified. A choice situation is developed by analyzing conceptions of the multinational firm and the domain of international business. The result is a hypothetical negotiation between two fictional characters, J. Duncan Grey and Elizabeth Redd, who respectively represent the interests of businesses and communities seeking to engage in international trade. The negotiators agree on ethical principles governing (...) wages, the environment, and compliance social and cultural norms. These principles are then shown to rest in wide reflective equilibrium with considered moral judgments on international business ethics, which are drawn from international agreements, such as the UN Declaration on Human Rights, and voluntary business initiatives, such as the Global Sullivan Principles and the UN Global Compact. (shrink)

This paper develops and defends a coherentist account of reasons. I develop three core ideas for this defense: a distinction between basic reasons and noninferential justification, the plausibility of the neglected argument against first philosophy, and an emergent account of reasons. These three ideas form the backbone for a credible coherentist view of reasons. I work toward this account by formulating and explaining the basic reasons dilemma. This dilemma reveals a wavering attitude that coherentists have had toward basic reasons. More (...) importantly, the basic reasons dilemma focuses our attention on the central problems that afflict coherentist views of basic beliefs. By reflecting on the basic reasons dilemma, I formulate three desiderata that any viable coherentist account of basic beliefs must satisfy. I argue that the account on offer satisfies these desiderata. (shrink)

This paper takes up the question of the role of philosophical moral theory in our attempts to resolve the ethical problems that arise in health care, with particular reference to the contention that we need theory to be determinative of our choice of actions. Moral theorizing is distinguished from moral theories and the prospects for determinacy from the latter are examined through a consideration of the most promising candidates: utilitarianism, deontology and the procedures involved in reflective equilibrium. It is argued (...) that the current lack of any generally accepted method of solving moral problems, together with the extreme improbability of philosophy achieving a plausibly determinate theory, should encourage us to approach the problems in a spirit of agnosticism regarding the way in which theoretical material might be of relevance. The practical test for both moral theorizing and moral theories is thus not determinacy but the degree to which they increase our understanding of moral problems by serving, as they do in philosophy, as a means of inquiry into their nature. (shrink)