Open-mindedness enjoys widespread recognition as an intellectual virtue. This is evident, among other ways, in its appearance on nearly every list of intellectual virtues in the virtue epistemology literature.1 Despite its popularity, however, it is far from clear what exactly open-mindedness amounts to: that is, what sort of intellectual orientation or activity is essential to it. In fact, there are ways of thinking about open-mindedness that cast serious doubt on its status as an intellectual virtue. Consider the following description, from (...) Robert Roberts and Jay Wood (2007), of a ‘bright college freshman, taking an introductory course in philosophy.’ Given this student’s ‘taste for ideas,’ she .. (shrink)

In their article, “Shrewd Bargaining on the Moral Frontier,” J. Gregory Dees and Peter C. Crampton challenge us with a puzzle about deception in bargaining. How can the practice of misleading others about our settlement preferences—the terms on which we are willing to come to an agreement —possibly be justified? On any standard ethical theory, they claim, Brer Rabbit's trick of professing fear of the briar patch in order to avoid being eaten by the fox would seem to be wrong, (...) and yet we read this tale to our children for their moral edification. The discussion by Dees and Crampton of this apparent inconsistency is penetrating, instructive, and well-informed. It is also a delight to read. (shrink)

It is well-known that in recent years, alongside the familiar forms of modern ethical theory, such as consequentialism, deontology, and rights theory, there has been a resurgence of interest in what goes by the name of “virtue ethics” — forms of ethical theory which give a prominent status to the virtues, and to the idea that an agent has a “final end” which the virtues enable her to achieve. With this has come an increase of theoretical interest in ancient ethical (...) theories, particularly Aristotle's, an interest which has made a marked difference in the way ethics is pursued in the Anglo-Saxon and European intellectual worlds. In this essay, I shall not be discussing modern virtue ethics, which is notably protean in form and difficult to pin down. I shall be focusing on ancient eudaimonistic ethical theories, for in their case we can achieve a clearer discussion of the problem I wish to discuss. (shrink)

The concept of the art of healing is intrinsically connected with the idea of healing powers. There are at least three possible approaches to that idea and all of them have different implications for the problem of medical wisdom. These are: the idea of the healing powers of nature, the idea of the healing powers of science, and the idea of the healing powers of physician's personality. Having critically discussed those ideas I sketch an ideal of a wise physician as (...) someone who has a particular kind of knowledge, good judgement, and self-trust. Medical knowledge is certainly a necessary condition of being a wise doctor but it is not the sufficient one. And this is why patients generally prefer to seek help of “naturally wise physicians”. (shrink)

There are many disagreements about what people have moral obligations to do, but almost everyone believes that some people have some moral obligations. Moreover, there are some moral obligations in which almost everyone believes. For example, if I promise to give a talk at this conference, I have a moral obligation to do so. Of course, my obligation might be overridden. Moreover, even if my obligation were overridden, I would still have a moral obligation to give a talk at this (...) conference. (shrink)

Argues that practical irrationality is akin to moral culpability: it is defective practical thought which one could legitimately have been expected to avoid. It is thus a mistake to draw too tight a connection between failure to be moved by reasons and practical irrationality (as in a certain kind of "internalism"): one's failure may be genuine, but not culpable, and therefore not irrational.

I argue that it is possible, in the right circumstances, to see what the kind thing is to do: in the right circumstances, we can, literally, see deontic facts, as well as facts about others’ emotional states, and evaluative facts. In arguing for this, I will deploy a notion of non‐inferential perceptual belief or judgement according to which the belief or judgement is arrived at non‐inferentially in the phenomenological sense and yet is inferential in the epistemic sense. The ability to (...) arrive at these kinds of beliefs and judgements is part of virtue, and is also part of what it is to grasp thick ethical concepts in an engaged way. When we come to thinner evaluative and deontic facts and thinner ethical concepts, however, the requirements for non‐inferential perceptual belief and judgement are less easily met. Seeing what is the kind thing to do is one matter; seeing what is the right thing to do is another. (shrink)

This article discusses the encounter between virtue ethics and environmental ethics and the ways in which environmental virtue ethics confronts nonhuman axiology and the controversial theme of moral anthropocentrism. It provides a reasoned review of the relevant literature and a historical–conceptual rendition of how environmental and virtue ethics came to converge as well as the ways in which they diverge. It explains that contrary to important worries voiced by some non-anthropocentric environmental ethicists, environmental virtue ethics enables and requires a rich (...) and nuanced engagement with nonhuman values of all sorts—intrinsic as well as extrinsic, moral as well as nonmoral, anthropocentric as well as non-anthropocentric—and neither presupposes nor implies moral anthropocentrism in its normativity. Finally, the article considers the fortunes of, and some challenges for, environmental virtue ethics in its application to the ethics of climate change, an increasingly central topic in environmental ethics. This article proceeds as follows: the first section introduces virtue ethics; the second section looks at axiological and normative themes in environmental ethics; the third section discusses environmental virtue ethics; and the fourth section considers its application to climate change. The fifth section draws some conclusions. (shrink)

A key objection to naturalistic versions of moral realism is that the (meta)semantics to which they are committed yields incorrect semantic verdicts about so-called Moral Twin Earth cases. Recently, it has been proposed that the Moral Twin Earth challenge can be answered by adopting a neo-Aristotelian semantics for moral expressions. In this paper, I argue that this proposal fails. First, however attractive the central claims of neo-Aristotelianism are, they do not for us have the status of analytic constraints on the (...) use of ethical expressions, as they must if they are to block Moral Twin Earth counterexamples. Second, even when the neo-Aristotelian’s claims are taken as non-negotiable analytic constraints, the semantics faces a dilemma: if characteristic human functioning is understood in an ethically neutral way, the semantics yields an incorrect intension for ‘good human.’ If human functioning is understood in an ethically partisan way, the semantics fails to avoid problematic Moral Twin Earth counterexamples. (shrink)

This paper argues that suspension of judgement is the appropriate response to disagreement about ultimate moral principles, and outlines the implications of such a response. It begins with an argument influenced by Sextus and Sidgwick for the rationality of suspension, and then illustrates fundamental disagreement with the case of promising. Replies are offered to the arguments against the rationality of suspension offered by Robert Audi in his discussion of moral perception. It is noted in particular that such rationality does not (...) depend on the assumption that epistemic peerhood is widespread. The limited nature of ethical agreement is illustrated, along with the limited implications of disagreement if a less adversarial and more constructive ethical methodology is adopted. (shrink)

Philippa Foot, like others of her philosophical generation, was much concerned with the status and authority of morality. How universal are its demands, and how dependent on the idiosyncrasies of individuals? In the early years of her career, she was persuaded that Kant and his twentieth-century followers had been wrong to insist on the centrality to morality of absolute and unconditionally binding moral imperatives. To that extent, she wrote, there was indeed ‘an element of deception in the official line about (...) morality’. In this paper, I shall explore her early alternative: a system of merely ‘hypothetical’ imperatives, imperatives that depend on the motivations of particular individuals. Could so contingent a system deserve to be termed a morality? How revisionary a proposal was this, and how serious its costs? And how might we reconcile ourselves to a morality stripped of what she called the ‘fictions’ that surrounded it? Foot's early answer, tentative and exploratory, remains of interest, long after she herself abandoned it. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss how a Working group on ethics dealt with the question whether the collapse of the Icelandic banks and related financial setbacks can to some extent be explained by morality and work practice. I describe how the Working group delineated its subject matter by evaluating practice in the financial sector, the administration, the political sector and the social or cultural sector. I demonstrate the approach used by the Working group by discussing some important examples which throw (...) light on some aspects of its manifold analyses. The examples show how different aspects of morality are of importance in an analysis of the events that took place. (shrink)

This paper aims to offer a new insight on the virtue of modesty. It argues that modesty is best understood as an executive virtue with the moderate evaluative attitude at its center. The main goals are to describe the main features of this evaluative attitude and to distinguish it from other features that are only contingently associated with modesty. Then some distinctive features of modesty as an executive virtue are suggested and defended. Next, some of existing accounts are critically examined. (...) Finally, this paper ends with the claim that modesty as a virtue does not depend on possession of excellent qualities. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend a local account of character traits that posits traits like close-friend-honesty and good-mood-compassion. John Doris also defends local character traits, but his local character traits are indistinguishable from mere behavioral dispositions, they are not necessary for the purpose which allegedly justifies them, and their justification is only contingent, depending upon the prevailing empirical situation. The account of local traits I defend posits local traits that are traits of character rather than behavioral dispositions, local traits that (...) are necessary to satisfy one of their central purposes, and local traits whose justification is dependent upon theoretical rather than empirical considerations. (shrink)

The goal of this thesis is to develop the foundation and structure for a virtue ethics theory grounded in a specific notion of care. While there has been a recent revival of interest in virtue ethics theory, the theory has its roots in Aristotle's work as well in the medieval writings of Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas worked out many of Aristotle's ideas in much more detail. However, while Aquinas offers a very rich and compelling ethical theory, it is problematic because it (...) is very tightly wrapped in his theology. A key component in Aquinas's theory is charity. Charity is one of Aquinas's theological virtues, which express the relationship between humans and God. Charity is the love of God and of neighbor and he construes it as the foundation for all the other virtues. My thesis explores the idea of replacing charity with the virtue of care. The virtue of care to be used in this essential role is primarily based on recent work on the ethics of care by Nel Nodding. The virtue of care, as I develop it, combines three interrelated parts: instinctive, maternal and relational care. By comparing and contrasting care and charity, I demonstrate that the virtue of care can fill the role of charity. In this capacity care can serve as a naturalistic foundation for a virtue ethics theory. Since the ethics of care is relatively new, it has yet to take shape. I propose building a care-based virtue ethics theory on the structure of Aquinas's theory. This new care-based virtue ethics theory also benefits from utilizing many of the components of Aristotle's theory which are found in Aquinas's work. My argument is that care can fulfill the role of charity in Aquinas's theory. Care-based virtue ethics theory is a completely naturalistic version of Aquinas's virtue ethics theory. My thesis contains both the foundation for this different kind of care-based virtue ethics theory and some direction for future work on revising Aquinas's theory using the virtue of care. The essence of this care-based virtue ethics theory is captured in the notion I outline of a virtuoso human. (shrink)

Although standard ethical views categorize intentional torture as morally wrong, the ticking time bomb scenario is frequently offered as a legitimate counter-example that justifies the use of torture. In this scenario, a bomb has been placed in a city by a terrorist, and the only way to defuse the bomb in time is to torture a terrorist in custody for information. TTB scenarios appeal to a utilitarian “greater good” justification, yet critics maintain that the utilitarian structure depends on a questionable (...) set of hidden assumptions. Three experiments were conducted to investigate endorsement of torture when these hidden assumptions were violated. In Experiment 1, results indicated that endorsement varied as a function of the success likelihood of torture and its alternatives. In Experiment 2, people found torture to be more acceptable, less wrong, and more obligatory when the suspect in custody was described as a “terrorist” than when he was described simply as an individual, and when he was described as culpable as opposed to innocent. These results are more consistent with retributive justice than utilitarian “greater good” concerns. The results of Experiment 3 indicated that utilitarian decision profiles were not associated with lower levels of empathic concern but were instead associated with personal distress and the ability to transpose oneself into a fictitious character's experience. Across the three experiments, deontologists were more likely to reject torture than utilitarians. (shrink)

My aim is to map some ethical ground. Many people who reject consequentialism and deontology adopt virtue ethics. Contemporary forms of virtue ethics occupy quite a variety of positions, and we do not yet have any satisfactory view of the whole territory that we call “virtue ethics.” Also, I think that there is a lot of logical space outside consequentialism and deontology not occupied by virtue ethics. In fact, I am myself rather more attracted to the environs of virtue ethics (...) than to virtue ethics itself, which particular environs I shall come to later. But, first, we have roughly to locate virtue ethics. (shrink)

According to agent-centered virtue ethics, acting well is not a matter of conforming to agent-independent moral standards, like acting so as to respect humanity or maximize utility. Instead, virtuous agents determine what is called for in their circumstances through good practical reason. This is an attractive view, but it requires a plausible account of how good practical reason works. To that end, some theorists invoke the skill model of virtue, according to which virtue involves essentially the same kind of practical (...) reason as ordinary skills. I contend, however, that ordinary skills provide a plausible and informative model of good practical reason only insofar as they are assessed by agent-independent standards. And so virtue, likewise, must be assessed primarily by agent-independent moral standards, if the skill model is to serve its purpose. I consider how agent-centered virtue ethics might avert this dilemma. But I ultimately suggest proceeding a different way. (shrink)

On a standard Aristotelian account, the moral virtues and vices stand in an asymmetric relationship to one another. To help explain this asymmetry, I argue that the vices share significantly less common structure than many think. That there are many ways for agents to get it wrong gives us prima facie reason to think that the vices lack a robust common structure. Further, the most promising candidates for a common structure of the vices fall short. These are that (a) the (...) vices have the common structure of being excesses and deficiencies, (b) the vices result from agents' unreflectively taking their inclinations as their ends, and, relatedly, (c) the vices result from rational corruption. Argument (b), which Terence Irwin and others endorse, is the most promising one, so I focus on it. But it, too, faces weighty objections. I conclude that none of these important arguments establishes the existence of a robust common structure of the moral vices. The great variety of moral vices is a puzzling phenomenon that continues to stand in need of explanation. (shrink)

There is a growing consensus in Britain on the importance of character, and on the belief that the virtues that contribute to good character are part of the solution to many of the challenges facing modern society. Parents, teachers and schools understand the need to teach basic moral virtues to pupils, such as honesty, self-control, fairness, and respect, while fostering behaviour associated with such virtues today. However, until recently, the materials required to help deliver this ambition have been missing in (...) Britain. The Knightly Virtues Programme, devised by the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, aims to help solve this challenge. The programme, designed for 9 to 11 year olds, draws on selected classic stories to help teach moral character in schools. This approach has proved to be popular with children and teachers, with more than 5,000 pupils from one hundred schools having participated in the programme so far. Fifty-five of these schools and 3,272 pupils were directly involved in different stages of the research. Based at the University of Birmingham, the Jubilee Centre houses leading academics dedicated to researching the various ways in which good character, which underpins the building blocks of society, can be developed. Recent research from the Centre has shown that the qualities that make up character can be learnt and taught, and suggests that we need a new emphasis on their importance in schools and in professional education. This report from the Centre into the use of classic literature within schools sets out the ways in which the Knightly Virtues Programme is able to develop the virtue literacy of school pupils, and the extent to which an understanding and awareness of good moral character can make positive changes to behaviour. The impact of the programme has been tested using several rigorous research methods, detailed in this report alongside their findings, which provide substantial empirical evidence for the effectiveness of using stories to develop virtue literacy. (shrink)

This essay explicates and assesses Yeshayahu Leibowitz's axiology, and its relation to the value he claims halakhic practice instantiates: service of God. It argues that, while Leibowitz often affirms a relativist “polytheism of values,” he sometimes implies that the religious value is the “most valuable value.” However, this is not due to its material content, because serving God is objectively best; rather it is because, consonant with his negative theology, it most fully instantiates the formal properties of a value. The (...) essay concludes by assessing the tenability of Leibowitz's metaethics as well as the argument for positing this contentless value as an intention and reason for halakhic practice. (shrink)

Liberalism faces a tension between its commitment to minimal interference with individual liberty and the urgent need for strong collective action on global climate change. This paper attempts to resolve that tension. It does so on the one hand by defending an expanded model of collective moral responsibility, according to which a set of individuals can be responsible, qua ?putative group?, for harm resulting from the predictable aggregation of their individual acts. On the other, it defends a collectivized version of (...) the harm principle. The claim is that the collectivized principle pushes the burden of argument, against coercively enforced measures to curtail climate change and compensate its victims, onto the global elite collectively responsible for environmental harms. Some such potential arguments are briefly considered and rejected. (shrink)

Russell's study of Hume's theories of freedom and responsibility is the first extended treatment of these themes in the literature and shows in detail how what is regarded by most readers as merely the first statement of "compatibilism" is part of a full naturalistic analysis of praise, blame, punishment and responsibility. The notice seeks to bring out how Russell's account of Hume's view of freedom illuminates his psychology and ethics and concludes with a few "libertarian" criticisms of Hume's position.

Thought experiments have played a pivotal role in many debates within ethics—and in particular within applied ethics—over the past 30 years. Nonetheless, despite their having become a commonly used philosophical tool, there is something odd about the extensive reliance upon thought experiments in areas of philosophy, such as applied ethics, that are so obviously oriented towards practical life. Herein I provide a moderate defence of their use in applied philosophy against those three objections. I do not defend all possible uses (...) of thought experiments but suggest that we should distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate uses. Their legitimate uses are determined not so much by the modal content of any actual thought experiment itself, but by the extent to which the argument in which it is nested follows basic tenets of informal logic and respects the fundamental contingency of applied ethical problems. In pursuing these ideas, I do not so much provide a set of criteria for their legitimate use, but more modestly present two significant ways in which their use can go awry. (shrink)

The actual or potential epistemic vices of a given discipline or field of study are its disciplinary vices. This paper identifies three actual or potential disciplinary vices of vice epistemology. Vice epistemology explains people's epistemic misconduct by reference to their supposed epistemic vices. Such vice explanations are contrasted with attempts to achieve Verstehen of people's epistemic conduct and understand it from their point of view. Although vice explanations do not preclude Verstehen, vice epistemology is in danger of overlooking alternatives to (...) its preferred mode of explanation. In some cases, Verstehen calls into question the assumption that a person is guilty of epistemic misconduct. Vice explanations also risk attaching insufficient weight to politico‐strategic factors in the explanation of political action. Care needs to be taken by vice epistemologists to avoid intellectual myopia, political naivety, and overconfidence in attributing vices. (shrink)

In Science as a Profession and Vocation, Max Weber presents a clear task to scientists: he claims that they have the responsibility to present uncomfortable knowledge to politicians, students and o...

Recent developments in philosophy and in criminology indicate that there are significant respects in which the two disciplines can be mutually informing. Many philosophers are increasingly interested in exploring empirical aspects of philosophical claims, and criminologists are finding their way past the alleged fact/value distinction and are rediscovering the moral significance of facts, especially regarding punishment and desistance. In some recent criminological studies there are implicit links to the British moralists such as David Hume and Adam Smith, and to Aristotle (...) as well. This paper explicates those links and some of the possibilities for philosophy and criminology to be mutually informing. (shrink)

The human brain is subjective and reflects the life of a being-in-the-world-with-others whose identity reflects that complex engaged reality. Human subjectivity is shaped and in-formed (formed by inner processes) that are adapted to the human life-world and embody meaning and the relatedness of a human being. Questions of identity relate to this complex and dynamic reality to reflect the fact that biology, human ecology, culture, and one's historic-political situation are inscribed in one's neural network and have configured its architecture so (...) that it is a unique and irreplaceable phenomenon. So much is a human individual a relational being whose own understanding and ownership of his or her life is both situated and distinctive that neurophilosophical conceptions of identity and human activity that neglect these features of our being are quite inadequate to ground a robust neuroethics. (shrink)

In this article I shall undertake a preliminary exploration of the notion of second best. I shall follow a three-step strategy. First, I shall introduce some applications of the theorem of the second best in different fields of philosophy and social sciences. Secondly, I shall make several conceptual distinctions related to the theorem. I aim to show that there are certain theoretical results that are similar but not identical to the theorem of the second best, and that the notion of (...) second best is often used quite loosely. Finally, I shall try to shed some light on the question of how the theorem is description-sensitive. The overall aim of the paper is to pay attention to the generality of the problem of the second best and stress the importance of the theorem in political theory in particular. (shrink)

Virtue ethics is increasingly regarded as a viable alternative to consequentialist or deontological systems of normative ethics. This paper argues that there can be no such triumvirate of contending comprehensive ethical systems. That is not because virtue is unimportant but rather because genuine virtue is excellent and therefore rare. For most people in most morally salient situations there is no possibility of virtuous response because possession of the relevant virtues simply does not obtain nor can be usefully simulated. Instead, the (...) much more universal and important moral requirement is suitable moderation of one’s vices. Nor should it be supposed that the absence of virtue(s) necessarily diminishes the quality of an individual’s life and that person’s value to others. Rather, moral deficiencies are compatible with other excellences and may indeed contribute to them. I conclude that virtue ethics is less worthy of pursuit than vice ethics. (shrink)

Many traditional conceptions of ethics use categories and arguments that have been developed under conditions of pre-modern societies and are not useful in the age of globalisation anymore. I argue that we need an economic ethics which employs economics as a key theoretical resource and which focuses on institutions for implementing moral norms. This conception is then elaborated further in the area of business ethics. It is illustrated in the case for banning child labour.

En este texto se espera evidenciar por qué y cómo el tono sencillo y amistoso de la epístola permite que las doctrinas filosóficas se aprendan y se realice la interiorización de las mismas. Se mostrará que Sócrates, el personaje histórico y ficcional de Platón, es un antecedente de este modo de filosofar; seguidamente se caracterizará la misiva como “medio diálogo” por la forma en que ésta, siendo consciente de las peculiaridades del interlocutor, se apoya en el estilo llano y coloquial (...) y en la relación filial entre los interlocutores ficticios. (shrink)

The human ability to represent, conceptualize, and reason about mind and behavior is one of the greatest achievements of human evolution and is made possible by a “folk theory of mind” — a sophisticated conceptual framework that relates different mental states to each other and connects them to behavior. This chapter examines the nature and elements of this framework and its central functions for social cognition. As a conceptual framework, the folk theory of mind operates prior to any particular conscious (...) or unconscious cognition and provides the “framing” or interpretation of that cognition. Central to this framing is the concept of intentionality, which distinguishes intentional action (caused by the agent’s intention and decision) from unintentional behavior (caused by internal or external events without the intervention of the agent’s decision). A second important distinction separates publicly observable from publicly unobservable (i.e., mental) events. Together, the two distinctions define the kinds of events in social interaction that people attend to, wonder about, and try to explain. A special focus of this chapter is the powerful tool of behavior explanation, which relies on the folk theory of mind but is also intimately tied to social demands and to the perceiver’s social goals. A full understanding of social cognition must consider the folk theory of mind as the conceptual underpinning of all (conscious and unconscious) perception and thinking about the social world. (shrink)

Tessman responds to her three critics’ comments on Burdened Virtues, focusing on their concerns with her stipulation of an “inclusivity requirement,” according to which one cannot be said to flourish without contributing to the flourishing of an inclusive collectivity. Tessman identifies a naturalized approach to ethics—which she distinguishes from the naturalism she implicitly endorsed in Burdened Virtues—that illuminates how a conception of flourishing that meets the inclusivity requirement could carry moral authority.

Tessman responds to her three critics’ comments on Burdened Virtues, focusing on their concerns with her stipulation of an “inclusivity requirement,” according to which one cannot be said to flourish without contributing to the flourishing of an inclusive collectivity. Tessman identifies a naturalized approach to ethics—which she distinguishes from the naturalism she implicitly endorsed in Burdened Virtues—that illuminates how a conception of flourishing that meets the inclusivity requirement could carry moral authority.

The Common School should promote a sense of the distinctive worth of all human beings. How is the respect thus owed to every individual to be properly understood? This familiar question is explored by discussing ‘lookism’, a form of discrimination on the grounds of appearance. The treatment is located within a wider analysis of stereotyping. Ultimately stereotyping overlooks persons as sources of actions with moral significance and as potential owners of moral virtues. The Common School could profitably approach traditionally emotive (...) issues such as racism indirectly by helping students to understand in some depth how ‘lookist’ attitudes deny agency. It could then encourage students to apply these insights to traditional forms of discrimination. (shrink)

Rationality and reasonableness are often sharply distinguished from one another and are even held to be in conflict. On this construal, rationality consists in means-end calculation of the most efficient means to one's ends (which are usually taken to be self-interested), while reasonableness consists in equitableness whereby one respects the rights of other persons as well as oneself. To deal with this conflict, it is noted that both rationality and reasonableness are based on reason, which is analyzed as the power (...) of attaining truth, and especially necessary truth. It is then shown that, by the rationality involved in reason, the moral principle of reasonableness, the Principle of Generic Consistency (PGC), has a stringently rational justification in that to deny or violate it is to incur self-contradiction. Objections are considered bearing on relevance and motivation. It is concluded that, where reasonableness and egoistic rationality conflict, the former is rationally superior. (shrink)

A number of influential Kantian philosophers assume that true need represents shared and fundamental human concerns that can both ground duties of aid and limit how much an agent can be morally required to do for others. In this paper, I take on this misreading and argue that true need is representative of personal priorities. This subjectivist reading fits better with Kant’s own characterization of true need and with his conceptions of need and happiness. Moreover, I argue that Kant’s own (...) conception of true need is philosophically appealing, as it is anti-paternalistic. Agents are free to determine their own true need. This frees Kant from the challenge of coming up with a list of true human needs that are supposedly stable across cultures, epochs and individuals. Furthermore, my reading also implies that the mere fact that someone else considers something their true need does not necessitate our help. (shrink)