: To what extent do moral judgments depend on conscious reasoning from explicitly understood principles? We address this question by investigating one particular moral principle, the principle of the double effect. Using web-based technology, we collected a large data set on individuals’ responses to a series of moral dilemmas, asking when harm to innocent others is permissible. Each moral dilemma presented a choice between action and inaction, both resulting in lives saved and lives lost. Results showed that: patterns of moral (...) judgments were consistent with the principle of double effect and showed little variation across differences in gender, age, educational level, ethnicity, religion or national affiliation and a majority of subjects failed to provide justifications that could account for their judgments. These results indicate that the principle of the double effect may be operative in our moral judgments but not open to conscious introspection. We discuss these results in light of current psychological theories of moral cognition, emphasizing the need to consider the unconscious appraisal system that mentally represents the causal and intentional properties of human action. (shrink)

Libertarianism is a controversial political theory. But it is often presented as a resting upon a simple, indeed commonsense, moral principle. The libertarian “Non-Aggression Principle” (NAP) prohibits aggression against the persons or property of others, and it is on this basis that the libertarian opposition to redistributive taxation, legal paternalism, and perhaps even the state itself is thought to rest. This paper critically examines the NAP and the extent to which it can provide support for libertarian political theory. It identifies (...) two problems with existing libertarian appeals to the NAP. First, insofar as libertarians employ a moralized understanding of aggression, their principle is really about the protection of property rights rather than the prohibition of aggression. Second, the absolutist prohibition on aggression, which libertarians typically endorse and which is necessary to generate strongly libertarian conclusions, is grossly implausible. The paper concludes by setting forth a version of the NAP that does not suffer from these problems. It argues that this more moderate and defensible version of the NAP still has important libertarian implications, but that a full defense of libertarianism cannot rely upon appeals to non-aggression alone. (shrink)

Call "radical moral theorizing" the project of developing a moral theory that not only tries to conform to our existing moral intuitions, but also manifests various theoretical virtues: consistency, simplicity, explanatory depth, and so on. Many moral philosophers assume that radical moral theorizing does not require any particular metaethical commitments. In this paper, I argue against this assumption. The most natural justification for radical moral theorizing presupposes moral realism, broadly construed; in contrast, there may be no justification for radical moral (...) theorizing if moral anti-realism is true. (shrink)

The strength of emotions in moral judgment and decision-making under risk The focus of this paper is the role of emotions in judgments and choices associated with moral issues. Study 1 shows that depending on the strength of emotions when making a moral decision, people become sensitive to the severity and the probability of harm that their decisions can bring to others. A possible interpretation is that depending on the strength of emotions, people in their moral judgments choose to be (...) either utilitarian or deontologist. In Study 2, following the priority heuristic model, we found that in situations in which the violation of moral norms does not evoke strong negative emotions, people are sensitive to quantitative risk parameters, and the decision-making process requires a relatively longer time. In moral situations in which a violation of the moral norm evokes strong emotions, decision-making is based on arguments other than quantitative risk parameters, and the process takes a shorter time. (shrink)

This book offers a solution to the ancient philosophical problem regarding the nature and the justification of morality. The importance of this subject matter is obvious, not merely as an abstract philosophical problem, but perhaps even more as a practical challenge, regarding the way we ought to live our lives: the values that ought to direct us, and the ends that we ought to pursue. -/- In the course of this inquiry, a wide array of philosophical topics is explored: the (...) nature of intentional action, and the role played by reason and desires in agency; the question of the final end of agency – better known in ancient terminology as the question of the purpose of life, and in modern terms as the question of the meaning of life; the nature of moral obligations and their rational justification; the challenge posed by determinism for the freedom of the will, with its implications on fatalism and moral responsibility; and normative questions regarding the value of life. (shrink)

Science promises benefits, some true and some illusory. Consider a scientific agnostic who thinks that to reap the true benefits of a scientific theory he does not have to believe in its theoretical posits. Instead, it is enough if he believes that the theory successfully predicts the behavior of the observables, as ultimately only such predictions matter. -/- Say, however, that given the results of her thorough research, a psychologist proposes a theory describing a psychological mechanism underlying a certain class (...) of normative judgments. Moreover, the mechanism seems unfit for the task—once you see the details of the mechanism, you will realize that this is not the way they should be produced. Therefore, if the psychologist is right, it seems that these normative judgments should not inform one's normative theorizing or one's actions (Greene 2008, 2014, Kelly 2014). And say that the agnostic accepts the psychologist's theory, trusting that it makes correct predictions about, for example, fMRI images and subjects' reaction times, as they are observable. He also thinks that if the psychologist's description of the mechanism is correct, the judgments should not be trusted. Yet, since the mechanism posited by the theory is not observable, the agnostic is agnostic about it. He thus cannot be convinced that these judgments are produced in a flawed way and, consequently, has no reason to distrust them. -/- Scientific agnosticism comes, therefore, at the cost of dismissing normative arguments that invoke unobservable posits of psychological models. The ability to make such arguments is a true (rather than illusory) benefit of science, despite the agnostic's promise that his philosophical theory leaves intact benefits that genuinely matter. (shrink)

Autonomous vehicles have the potential to save tens of thousands of lives, but legal and social barriers may delay or even deter manufacturers from offering fully automated vehicles and thereby cost lives that otherwise could be saved. Moral philosophers use “thought experiments” to teach us about what ethics might say about the ethical behavior of AVs. If a manufacturer designing an AV decided to make what it believes is an ethical choice to save a large group of lives by steering (...) away from the large group towards a single individual, could the manufacturer be liable to that single individual? I believe the answer is yes. This article discusses famous “trolley problem” thought experiments in moral philosophy, which news articles have recently applied to AVs. After establishing a hypothetical case, applying product liability law to AV behavior may show a way, in some jurisdictions, that will permit a manufacturer to implement an ethical choice without triggering liability, but liability risk remains. I then turn to possible traditional defenses to see if they prevent liability for a manufacturer making what it believes is an ethical design choice—necessity, defense of self, and the sudden emergency doctrine. None of them provides an effective defense. Under current law, maximizing collision avoidance appears to minimize legal risk. I conclude that the only way to provide effective protection to a manufacturer seeking to implement ethical choices about AV behavior is through special legislation or regulation. (shrink)

In this paper, I set out a new Kantian approach to resolving conflicts between moral obligations for highly autonomous machine agents. First, I argue that efforts to build explicitly moral autonomous machine agents should focus on what Kant refers to as duties of right, which are duties that everyone could accept, rather than on duties of virtue (or “ethics”), which are subject to dispute in particular cases. “Moral” machines must first be rightful machines, I argue. I then show how this (...) shift in focus from ethics to a standard of public right resolves the conflicts in what is known as the "trolley problem" for autonomous ma-chine agents. Finally, I consider how a deontic logic suitable for capturing duties of right might meet Kant’s requirement that rightfully enforceable obligations be consistent in a system of equal freedom under universal law. (shrink)

As the trolley problem runs its course, consequentialists tend to adopt one of two strategies: silently take comfort in the fact that deontological rivals face their own enduring difficulties, or appeal to cognitive psychology to discredit the deontological intuitions on which the trolley problem depends. I refer to the first strategy as silent schadenfreude and the second as debunking attack. My aim in this paper is to argue that consequentialists ought to reject both strategies and instead opt for what I (...) call robust advantage. This strategy emphasizes the intricate calculations that consequentialists employ to defend against objections based on friendship and integrity. I argue that these calculations offer consequentialism an explanatory advantage over deontology in the context of the trolley problem. It requires striking a delicate balance between deeply internalized dispositions to avoid causing harm and a context-sensitive ability to prevent disasters; however, empirical data help consequentialism on this front by illustrating that the integration of separate cognitive functions is an ordinary part of human psychology. (shrink)

Discussion of the “problem of numbers” in morality has focused almost exclusively on the moral significance of numbers in whom-to-rescue cases: when you can save either of two groups of people, but not both, does the number of people in each group matter morally? I suggest that insufficient attention has been paid to the moral significance of numbers in other types of case. According to common-sense morality, numbers make a difference in cases, like the famous Trolley Case, where we must (...) choose whether to kill a person (or persons) as a side effect of saving a greater number. I argue that recognition of the role of numbers in killing cases forces us to reassess purported solutions to the problem of numbers. (shrink)

According to the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing, the distinction between doing and allowing harm is morally significant. Doing harm is harder to justify than merely allowing harm. This paper is the second of a two paper critical overview of the literature on the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing. In this paper, I consider the moral status of the distinction between doing and allowing harm. I look at objections to the doctrine such as James’ Rachels’ Wicked Uncle Case and Jonathan (...) Bennett’s argument that any acceptable analysis of the distinction leaves it implausible that the distinction is morally relevant. I consider putative defences of the Doctrine from Philippa Foot and Warren Quinn. I argue that neither Foot not Quinn provides a satisfactory justification of the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing, but that the idea of self-ownership discussed by Quinn can be developed to provide a justification of the doctrine. (shrink)

According to the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing, the distinction between doing and allowing harm is morally significant. Doing harm is harder to justify than merely allowing harm. This paper is the first of a two paper critical overview of the literature on the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing. In this paper, I consider the analysis of the distinction between doing and allowing harm. I explore some of the most prominent attempts to analyse this distinction:. Philippa Foot’s sequence account, Warren (...) Quinn’s action/ inaction account, and counterfactual test accounts put forward by Shelly Kagan and Jonathan Bennett. I also discuss Jeff McMahan’s account of the removal of barriers to harm. I argue that analysis of the distinction has often been made more difficult by two mistaken assumption: (1) the assumption that when an agent does or allows harm his behaviour makes the difference to whether or not the harm occurs (2) the assumption that the distinction between doing and allowing and the distinction between action and inaction are interchangeable. I suggest that Foot’s account is the most promising account of the doing/allowing distinction, but that it requires further development. (shrink)

The distinction between doing and allowing appears to have moral significance, but the very nature of the distinction is as yet unclear. Philippa Foot's ‘pre-existing threats’ account of the doing/allowing distinction is highly influential. According to the best version of Foot's account an agent brings about an outcome if and only if his behaviour is part of the sequence leading to that outcome. When understood in this way, Foot's account escapes objections by Warren Quinn and Jonathan Bennett. However, more analysis (...) is required to show what makes a relevant condition part of a sequence. Foot's account is promising, but incomplete. (shrink)

Many philosophers display relaxed scepticism about the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing and the Doctrine of Double Effect, suspecting, without great alarm, that one or both of these Doctrines is indefensible. This relaxed scepticism is misplaced. Anyone who aims to endorse a theory of right action with Nonconsequentialist implications should accept both the DDA and the DDE. First, even to state a Nonconsequentialist theory requires drawing a distinction between respecting and promoting values. This cannot be done without accepting some deontological (...) distinction. Second, if someone is going to accept any deontological distinction she should accept either the DDE or the DDA or some replacement. Finally, anyone who accepts either the DDE or the DDA should accept both doctrines or a replacement of each. Unless both Doctrines can be defended or given a defensible replacement, any Nonconsequentialist is in trouble. (shrink)

Self-driving cars currently face a lot of technological problems that need to be solved before the cars can be widely used. However, they also face ethical problems, among which the question of crash-optimization algorithms is most prominently discussed. Reviewing current debates about whether we should use the ethics of the Trolley Dilemma as a guide towards designing self-driving cars will provide us with insights about what exactly ethical research does. It will result in the view that although we need the (...) ethics of the Trolley Dilemma as important input for self-driving cars, the route towards simply implementing it into automated cars is blocked. (shrink)

This paper develops an account of rigour in the use of thought experiments in ethics. I argue that there are two separate challenges to be faced. The first is internal validity: is the thought experiment designed in a way that allows its readers to make judgements that are confident and free of bias about the hypothesis or point of principle that it aims to test? The second is external validity: to what extent do ethical judgements that are correct of the (...) world of the thought experiment generalize to a wide variety of other contexts, including ethical decision-making in the actual world? Ensuring external validity is the harder and more important problem of rigour, yet it is one that few philosophers have even noticed, let alone begun to solve. (shrink)

This article will focus on the ethical issues of vaccine mandates and stake claim to the relatively extreme position that outright requirements for people to receive the vaccine are ethically correct at both the governmental and institutional levels. One novel strategy employed here will be to argue that deontological considerations pertaining to consent rights cut as much in favor of mandating vaccines as against them. The presumption seems to be that arguments from consent speak semi-definitively against forcing people to inject (...) something into their bodies, and so any argument in favor of mandates must produce different and overriding logical and ethical considerations. Our central claim will be that the same logic that might seem to prohibit vaccine mandates as violations of consent actually supports such mandates when viewed from the perspective of the potential bystander who might otherwise be exposed to COVID-19. (shrink)

Explaining moral intuitions is one of the hot topics of recent cognitive science. In the present article we focus on a factor that attracted surprisingly little attention so far, namely the temporal order in which moral scenarios are presented. We argue that previous research points to a systematic pattern of order effects that has been overlooked until now: only judgments of actions that are normally regarded as morally acceptable are susceptible to be affected by the order of presentation, and this (...) in turn is only the case if the dilemma is immediately preceded by a dilemma in which the proposed action was considered as not morally acceptable. We conducted an experiment that largely confirmed this pattern and allowed us to analyze by what individual level responses it was generated. We argue that investigating order effects is necessary for approaching a complete descriptive moral theory. Furthermore, we discuss the implications of these findings for moral philosophy. (shrink)

The article examines methods of distinguishing positive and negative duties within the provisions of the European Convention of Human Rights as applied by the European Court of Human Rights. It highlights problems with tying positive duties to acts and negative duties to omissions, and sets out a supplemental delineation method when those problems lead to systematic classification errors: duties sort as positive if they have the capacity for multiple fulfilment options and negative if they only allow one fulfilment option. These (...) delineation criteria allow for a more consistent reconstruction of case law and point to a causal mechanism for alleged asymmetries in proportionality review and margins of appreciation. Lastly, there are revisionary implications for human rights scholarship. Judgments have been sorted as positive rights cases because they feature a requirement that states commit to legislative amendment, yet performative acts of amendment may be continuous with underlying negative duties. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore how to accommodate non-consequentialist constraints with a broadly value-based conception of reasons for action. It turns out that there are two grades of non-consequentialist constraints. The first grade involves attaching ethical importance to such distinctions as the doing/allowing distinction, and the distinction between intended and unintended consequences that is central to the Doctrine of Double Effect. However, at least within the value-based framework, this first grade is insufficient to explain rights, which ground weighty reasons against (...) infringing those rights that need not be outweighed even when infringing those rights is necessary for preventing a larger number of people from having their rights infringed in the same way. Such rights form a second grade of non-consequentialist constraints: within the value-based framework, this second grade is best explained in terms of the intrinsically relational values and disvalues of interpersonal interactions and relationships. (shrink)

This essay defends a version of the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE) – the doctrine that there is normally a stronger reason against an act that has a bad state of affairs as one of its intended effects than against an otherwise similar act that has that bad state of affairs as an unintended effect. First, a precise account of this version of the DDE is given. Secondly, some suggestions are made about why we should believe the DDE, and about (...) why it is true. Finally, a solution is developed to the so-called ‘closeness problem’ that any version of the DDE must face. (shrink)

The frequency of death from miscarriage is very high, greater than the number of deaths from induced abortion or major diseases.Berg (2017, Philosophical Studies 174:1217–26) argues that, given this, those who contend that personhood begins at conception (PAC) are obliged to reorient their resources accordingly—towards stopping miscarriage, in preference to stopping abortion or diseases. This argument depends on there being a basic moral similarity between these deaths. I argue that, for those that hold to PAC, there are good reasons to (...) think that there is no such similarity. There is a morally relevant difference between preventing killing and letting die, giving PAC supporters reasons to prioritize reducing abortion over reducing miscarriage. And the time-relative interest account provides a morally relevant difference in the badness of death of miscarriages and deaths of born adults, justifying attempts to combat major diseases over attempts to combat miscarriage. I consider recent developments in the literature and contend that these new arguments are unsuccessful in establishing moral similarities between deaths from miscarriage and abortion, and deaths from miscarriage and disease. (shrink)

ABSTRACTProponents of the linguistic analogy suggest that methodologies originally developed for investigating linguistic grammar can also be fruitfully applied to the empirical study of moral grammar: the causal and intentional representations of moral events which – according to the linguistic analogy – drive moral judgements. In the current study, we put this claim to the empirical test. Participants were presented with moral dilemmas which previously have been shown to implement a central principle in moral judgements: the principle of double effect. (...) Participants responded to by and in order to probes to assess causal and intentional representations of this principle. Results show that these linguistic probes do not relate to moral judgement in the manner predicted by proponents of the linguistic analogy and moral grammar. Although the linguistic analogy is a theoretically rich framework, the procedures posited to give it empirical traction require revision. (shrink)

Ethical questions have traditionally been approached through conceptual analysis. Inspired by the rapid advance of modern brain imaging techniques, however, some ethical questions appear in a new light. For example, hotly debated trolley dilemmas have recently been studied by psychologists and neuroscientists alike, arguing that their findings can support or debunk moral intuitions that underlie those dilemmas. Resulting from the wedding of philosophy and neuroscience, neuroethics has emerged as a novel interdisciplinary field that aims at drawing conclusive relationships between neuroscientific (...) observations and normative ethics. A major goal of neuroethics is to derive normative ethical conclusions from the investigation of neural and psychological mechanisms underlying ethical theories, as well as moral judgments and intuitions. The focus of this article is to shed light on the structure and functioning of neuroethical arguments of this sort, and to reveal particular methodological challenges that lie concealed therein. We discuss the methodological problem of how one can—or, as the case may be, cannot—validly infer normative conclusions from neuroscientific observations. Moreover, we raise the issue of how preexisting normative ethical convictions threaten to invalidate the interpretation of neuroscientific data, and thus arrive at question-begging conclusions. Nonetheless, this is not to deny that current neuroethics rightly presumes that moral considerations about actual human lives demand empirically substantiated answers. Therefore, in conclusion, we offer some preliminary reflections on how the discussed methodological challenges can be met. (shrink)

The neuroscience of morality presents novel approaches in exploring the cognitive and affective underpinnings of moral conduct, and is steadily accumulating influence within discursive frames of biocitizenship. Many claims are infused with varieties of neuro-actuarialism in governing morally risky subjects, with implications that other fields should observe closely. Sociologists and other social scientists, however, have typically been reluctant to interject their expertise. However, a resurgent sociology of morality offers the means by which closer engagement may be realized. In encouraging this (...) interdisciplinarity, a brief outline of recent developments in the neuroscience of morality is provided. Some interdisciplinary collaborations are then explored, which weave together novel methodological affordances from the neurosciences with conceptual models from sociological inquiry. A brief overview of ‘neuroliberalism’ follows, to concretize the growing appeal and practical application of the psy- and neurosciences in governing moral conduct. Finally, some tentative ‘provocations’ are offered, towards fostering moralities that, ultimately, we can live with. (shrink)

The method of Conceptual Analysis makes use of natural language speaker intuitions about the meanings of expressions, and relies on an externalist assumption about meanings—namely, that they can be given in terms of referential relations and truth. This article argues that this widely used methodology in metaphysics is troubled, because the assumed externalist hypothesis about natural language meanings is beset with trenchant obstacles in explaining linguistic phenomena. It argues that the use of Conceptual Analysis in metaphysical investigation inherits the difficulties (...) for the externalist hypothesis generally assumed by metaphysical inquiry. It explores two cases of such investigation that serve to exemplify the breadth of topics susceptible to troubles with the externalist hypothesis regarding natural language meanings: the extended mind hypothesis and the metaphysics of causation. (shrink)

Some argue that procreation is immoral due to its negative environmental impact. Since living an “eco-gluttonous” lifestyle of excessive resource consumption is wrong in virtue of the fact that it increases greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impact, then bringing another human being into existence must also be wrong, for exactly this same reason. I support this position. It has recently been the subject of criticism, however, primarily on the grounds that such a position (1) is guilty of “double-counting” environmental impacts, (...) and (2) that it over-generalizes to condemn other clearly permissible behaviors, such as saving lives, or certain instances of adoption and immigration. Here, I will defend the environmental argument against procreation from these criticisms. I will do this, first, under the assumption that our individual consumption and emissions cause significant harm. I will then address the problem of causal impotence, and argue that, even if our individual contributions to environmental problems ultimately make no difference to the amount of harm that occurs, procreation is still immoral for many, if not most, of those living in the developed world. (shrink)

With respect to climate change, what is wanted is an account that morally condemns the production of ‘luxury’ greenhouse gas emissions (e.g., joyriding in an SUV), but not ‘subsistence’ emissions (e.g., cooking meals). Now, our individual greenhouse gas emissions either cause harm, or they do not—and those who condemn the production of luxury emissions generally stake their position on the grounds that they do cause harm. Meanwhile, those seeking to defend the moral permissibility of luxury emissions generally do so by (...) arguing that our individual emissions do not cause harm. Here, I argue that, if our individual emissions do cause harm, then this entails too much. For, it entails not only that our luxury emissions are morally impermissible, but that our subsistence emissions are too. This is an undesirable result. Therefore, I propose that we embrace our other option. Namely, I propose that we accept that our individual emissions do not cause harm; or at least, that they make no perceptible difference with respect to the harms associated with climate change. The result of this admission is not as bad as you might think. For, I argue, even if we are individually causally impotent with respect to the harms of climate change, there remains a plausible route toward the moral condemnation of our individual luxury emissions—contrary to what others have argued. What is more, only by accepting our individual causal impotence can we successfully ground the permissibility of our individual subsistence emissions. (shrink)

Moral perceptualism is the view that perceptual experience is attuned to pick up on moral features in our environment, just as it is attuned to pick up on mundane features of an environment like textures, shapes, colors, pitches, and timbres. One important family of views that incorporate moral perception are those of virtue theorists and sensibility theorists. On these views, one central ability of the virtuous agent is her sensitivity to morally relevant features of situations, where this sensitivity is often (...) spoken of in perceptual terms. However, sensibility theorists have often not been careful to specify how to understand their claims about moral sensibilities as perceptual. In this paper, we distinguish between what we call Attentional Moral Perception and Contentful Moral Perception. We argue that sensibility theorists should endorse Attentional Moral Perception, because it has very powerful empirical evidence in its favor, and it can play all of the explanatory roles that the sensibility theorist needs in her theory of moral sensibilities. (shrink)

Recent work by Ingmar Persson and Jason Hanna has posed an interesting new challenge for deontologists: How can they account for so-called cases of letting oneself do harm? In this article, I argue that cases of letting oneself do harm are structurally similar to real-world cases such as climate change, and that deontologists need an account of the moral status of these cases to provide moral guidance in real-world cases. I then explore different ways in which deontologists can solve this (...) challenge and argue that the most promising way to conceive of cases of letting oneself do harm is as nonstandard cases of allowing harm, supplemented with an additional argument for the moral relevance of one's own agency. The upshot is that cases of letting oneself do harm are both more theoretically challenging and practically important than has been acknowledged. (shrink)

This paper addresses an important issue that has been commonly debated in moral psychology, namely the normative and metaethical implications of our differing intuitive responses to morally indistinguishable dilemmas. The prominent example of the asymmetry in our responses is that people often intuitively accept pulling a switch and deny pushing as a morally permissible way of sacrificing an innocent person to save more innocent people. Joshua Greene traces our negative responses to actions involving “up close and personal” harm back to (...) our evolutionary past and argues that this undermines the normative power of deontological judgments. I reject Greene’s argument by arguing that our theoretical moral intuitions, as opposed to concrete and mid-level ones, are independent of direct evolutionary influence because they are the product of autonomous moral reasoning. I then explain how both consequentialist and deontological theoretical intuitions, which enable us to make important moral distinctions and grasp objective moral facts, are produced by the exercise of autonomous moral reasoning and the process of cultural evolution. My conclusion will be that Greene is not justified in his claim that deontology is normatively inferior to consequentialism. (shrink)

. How does the doctrine of double effect apply to business decisions to sell products which may be harmful to consumers? Lawrence Masek believes that some authors have misapplied the doctrine to this type of decision and, as a consequence, have committed themselves to placing unwarranted constraints on businesses. Seeking to correct this mistake, Masek presents his account of how the doctrine applies here, an account which is rather permissive but which, he claims, nevertheless preserves the virtues of the doctrine. (...) It will be seen, though, that his attempt to loosen these putatively unnecessary constraints by appealing to consumer autonomy and an intuition about the morality of producing harmful products leaves the doctrine of double effect irrelevant to this type of decision. His argument that the doctrine is less restrictive in this context than others suppose leads ultimately to the conclusion that the doctrine does not constrain this kind of business decision at all. (shrink)

Taurek cases focus a choice between two views of permissible action, Can Save One and Must Save Many . It is argued that Taurek cases do illustrate the rationale for Can Save One , but existing views do not highlight the fact that this is because they are examples of claims grounded on non-comparative justice. To act to save the many solely because they form a group is to discriminate against the one for an irrelevant reason. That is a canonical (...) form of non-comparative injustice. The error lies in taking a contingency of some presentations of some Taurek cases, namely, that they involve distribution, to introduce the claims of comparative as opposed to non-comparative justice. But cases of non-comparative justice can, contingently, also involve distribution. In order to settle which form of justice applies it is necessary to examine the nature of the distribution involved and the nature of “classes” to which individuals can be assigned. (shrink)

Even if we know all relevant descriptive facts about an act, we can still be uncertain about its moral acceptability. Most literature on how to act under such normative uncertainty operates on moral realism, the metaethical view that there are objective moral facts. Lay people largely report anti-realist intuitions, which poses the question of how these intuitions affect their interpretation and handling of normative uncertainty. Results from two quasi-experimental studies (total N = 365) revealed that most people did not interpret (...) normative uncertainty as referring to objective moral facts but rather as uncertainty regarding one’s own view, uncertainty regarding the culturally accepted view or as the result of ambivalence. Especially the anti-realist majority of participants interpreted normative uncertainty different to how it is described in the literature on choice under normative uncertainty. Metaethical views were also associated with lay peoples’ choice of uncertainty reduction strategies and with assumptions about the intended aim of such strategies. The current findings suggest that empirical investigations of normative uncertainty might benefit from considering folk metaethical pluralism, as the lay public largely disagrees with the metaethical assumptions underlying the current discourse on choice under normative uncertainty. (shrink)

A recent study of moral intuitions, performed by Joshua Greene and a group of researchers at Princeton University, has recently received a lot of attention. Greene and his collaborators designed a set of experiments in which subjects were undergoing brain scanning as they were asked to respond to various practical dilemmas. They found that contemplation of some of these cases (cases where the subjects had to imagine that they must use some direct form of violence) elicited greater activity in certain (...) areas of the brain associated with emotions compared with the other cases. It has been argued (e.g., by Peter Singer) that these results undermine the reliability of our moral intuitions, and therefore provide an objection to methods of moral reasoning that presuppose that they carry an evidential weight (such as the idea of reflective equilibrium). I distinguish between two ways in which Greene's findings lend support for a sceptical attitude towards intuitions. I argue that, given the first version of the challenge, the method of reflective equilibrium can easily accommodate the findings. As for the second version of the challenge, I argue that it does not so much pose a threat specifically to the method of reflective equilibrium but to the idea that moral claims can be justified through rational argumentation in general. (shrink)

A puzzle has been presented in the recent past in Northern Ireland: what is the correct description of the person who dies as a result of a hungerstrike? For many the simple answer is that such a person commits suicide, in that his is surely a case of . Where then is the puzzle? It is that a number of people do not see such deaths as suicides. I am not here referring to political propagandists or paramilitaries, for whom the (...) correct description of such deaths is or (to quote advertisements in the Belfast nationalist press at the time of Bobby Sands' death). I am rather thinking of some theologians who, despite being opposed to the hunger-strike and indeed publicly condemning the whole campaign, refused to describe what the hunger-strikers did as suicide. (shrink)

One response to the demandingness objection is that it begs the question against consequentialism by assuming a moral distinction between what a theory requires and what it permits. According to the consequentialist, this distinction stands in need of defense. However, this response may also beg the question, this time at the methodological level, regarding the credibility of the intuitions underlying the objection. The success of the consequentialist's response thus turns on the role we assign to intuitions in our moral methodology. (...) After presenting the demandingness objection to consequentialism and revealing the underlying methodological stalemate, I break the stalemate by appealing to research in the cognitive neuroscience of intuitions. Given the evidence for the hypothesis that our moral intuitions are fundamentally emotional (rather than rational) responses, we should give our intuitions a modest (rather than robust) role in our moral methodology. This rescues the consequentialist's response to the demandingness objection. (shrink)

We address the ethics of scenarios in which one party entraps, intentionally tempts or intentionally tests the virtue of another. We classify, in a new manner, three distinct types of acts that are of concern, namely acts of entrapment, of intentional temptation and of virtue testing. Our classification is, for each kind of scenario, of itself neutral concerning the question whether the agent acts permissibly. We explain why acts of entrapment are more ethically objectionable than like acts of intentional temptation (...) and why these, in turn, are more ethically objectionable than like acts of virtue testing. Along the way, we scrutinize, and eventually reject, the view that acts of entrapment are ethically unacceptable because intentional temptation is involved in entrapment. (shrink)

Our survey of literature on moral dilemmas in teaching reveals that scholars declare the need to unequivocally resolve them yet refrain from doing so. This phenomenon is rooted in falure to distinguish between the different moral conflicts. The methods of resolving abstract hypothetical dilemmas, advocated but not implemented by the scholars, are poorly suited to deal with conflicts involving social pressure and high-stakes consequences for the parties involved, like most of the conflicts that teachers report. Thus, textbooks invite teachers to (...) resolve dilemmas on their own through reflection and dialogue, beyond the limits which Habermasian ethics of dialogue allows. The scholarship licenses lax attitudes towards commitment to professional and ethical standards by appealing to the ethics of care. It appeals to outdated versions of ethics of care that posit care in opposition to the ethics of duties, no longer employed in ethics of nursing and other caring professions. (shrink)

Neuroscientific claims have a significant impact on traditional philosophy. This essay, focusing on the field of moral neuroscience, discusses how and why philosophy can contribute to neuroscientific progress. First, viewing the interactions between moral neuroscience and moral philosophy, it becomes clear that moral philosophy can and does contribute to moral neuroscience in two ways: as explanandum and as explanans. Next, it is shown that moral philosophy is well suited to contribute to moral neuroscience in both of these two ways in (...) the context of the problem of ecological validity. Philosophy can play the role of an agent for ecological validity, since traditional philosophy shapes and reflects part of our social reality. Finally, based on these arguments, I tentatively sketch how a Kantian account of moral incentive can play this role. (shrink)

Inspired by the success of generative linguistics and transformational grammar, proponents of the linguistic analogy (LA) in moral psychology hypothesize that careful attention to folk-moral judgments is likely to reveal a small set of implicit rules and structures responsible for the ubiquitous and apparently unbounded capacity for making moral judgments. As a theoretical hypothesis, LA thus requires a rich description of the computational structures that underlie mature moral judgments, an account of the acquisition and development of these structures, and an (...) analysis of those components of the moral system that are uniquely human and uniquely moral. In this paper we present the theoretical motivations for adopting LA in the study of moral cognition: (a) the distinction between competence and performance, (b) poverty of stimulus considerations, and (c) adopting the computational level as the proper level of analysis for the empirical study of moral judgment. With these motivations in hand, we review recent empirical findings that have been inspired by LA and which provide evidence for at least two predictions of LA: (a) the computational processes responsible for folk-moral judgment operate over structured representations of actions and events, as well as coding for features of agency and outcomes; and (b) folk-moral judgments are the output of a dedicated moral faculty and are largely immune to the effects of context. In addition, we highlight the complexity of the interfaces between the moral faculty and other cognitive systems external to it (e.g., number systems). We conclude by reviewing the potential utility of the theoretical and empirical tools of LA for future research in moral psychology. (shrink)

Contemporary defenses of the doctrine of double effect are mainly focused on avoiding the absurdity charge raised by Judith Thomson (). There are two strategies proposed in the literature for refuting Thomson's argument. In this paper I argue that answering Thomson's challenge comes at a heavy price: while both versions of the DDE that are developed within these two strategies successfully avoid the absurdity charge, they also remain incomplete. Thomson's argument reveals that the proponents of the DDE can at best (...) provide a partial defense of the claim that intentions can be relevant to permissibility. (shrink)

Introduction: This study delves into the ethical dimensions surrounding autonomous vehicles (AVs), with a specific focus on decision-making algorithms. Termed the “Trolley problem,” an ethical quandary arises, necessitating the formulation of moral algorithms grounded in ethical principles. To address this issue, an online survey was conducted with 460 participants in China, comprising 237 females and 223 males, spanning ages 18 to 70. -/- Methods: Adapted from Joshua Greene’s trolley dilemma survey, our study employed Yes/No options to probe participants’ choices and (...) Likert scales to gauge moral acceptance. The primary objective was to assess participants’ inclinations toward four distinct algorithmic strategies—Utilitarianism, Rawlsianism, Egoism, and a Hybrid approach—in scenarios involving AVs -/- Results: Our findings revealed a significant disparity between participants’ preferences in scenarios related to AV design and those focused on purchase decisions. Notably, over half of the respondents expressed reluctance to purchase AVs equipped with an “egoism” algorithm, which prioritizes the car owner’s safety. Intriguingly, the rejection rate for “egoism” was similar to that of “utilitarianism,” which may necessitate self-sacrifice. -/- Discussion: The hybrid approach, integrating “Utilitarianism” and “Egoism,” garnered the highest endorsement. This highlights the importance of balancing self-sacrifice and harm minimization in AV moral algorithms. The study’s insights are crucial for ethically and practically advancing AV technology in the continually evolving realm of autonomous vehicles. (shrink)

Do we have stronger duties to assist in emergencies than in nonemergencies? According to Peter Singer and Peter Unger, we do not. Emergency situations, they suggest, merely serve to make more salient the very extensive duties to assist that we always have. This view, while theoretically simple, appears to imply that we must radically revise common-sense emergency norms. Resisting that implication, theorists like Frances Kamm, Jeremy Waldron, and Larry Temkin suggest that emergencies are indeed normatively exceptional. While their approach is (...) more in line with common-sense, however, it is theoretically less simple, and it is has proven difficult to justify the exception. In this paper we propose a model of emergencies that we call the Informal-Insurance Model, and explain how this can be used to combine theoretical simplicity with common-sense emergency norms. (shrink)

(1986). Moral Approaches to Nuclear Strategy: A Critical Evaluation. Canadian Journal of Philosophy: Vol. 16, Supplementary Volume 12: Nuclear Weapons, Deterrence and Disarmament, pp. 75-109.