Care has increasingly been promoted as an element of successful management practice. However, an ethic of care is a normative theory that was initially developed in reference to intimate relationships, and it is unclear if it is an appropriate normative standard in business. The purpose of this review is to bridge the social scientific study of care with philosophical understandings of care and to provide a theoretical justification for care as a managerial value. We review the three different forms of (...) care advanced by the ethics literature: caring relations, organizational care, and care as a virtue. We compare these forms of care to the management litertature. In doing so, we integrate what has previously been a scattered, yet growing, body of research on care. Our review of the literature reveals that care has increasingly been studied in management in relation to an ethic of care. Yet, many of the properties of care have also played a role in other established research domains (e.g., leadership). We discuss and critique the management and ethics literatures on care, paying attention to areas of agreement or disagreeement between the two. We go on to provide a normative justification of care as a value in business. Finally, we close by suggesting directions for future research. (shrink)

To whom is egalitarian justice owed? Our fellow citizens, or all of humankind? If the latter, what form might a global brand of egalitarianism take? This paper examines some recent debates about the justification, and content, of global egalitarian justice. It provides an account of some keenly argued controversies about the scope of egalitarian justice, between those who would restrict it to the level of the state and those who would extend it more widely. It also notes the cross-cutting distinction (...) between relationists (whose views on scope are derived from a belief about which relations, practices or institutions give rise to the demands of equality) and non-relationists (who place no such importance on empirical facts about the relations between individuals). Beyond this, it sets out some of the different principles that might flow from a commitment to global egalitarianism. One of the key goals is to highlight the increasing diversity within debates on global justice, so that even those with a shared commitment to global equality may espouse different views about the justifications for equality, as well as the nature of, and proper sites for, egalitarian principles. (shrink)

The city of Cincinnati, we know, can be an engaging place, but federal judge Arthur Spiegel also found, in the mid-'90s, that it could be quite a vexing place. The city council of Cincinnati had passed what was called the Human Rights Ordinance of 1992, which barred virtually all species of discriminationAppalachian origin.sexual orientation.minority status” in the law. The framers of the amendment objected to the tendency to treat gays and lesbians on the same plane as groups that have suffered (...) discrimination based on race, religion, or gender. The proposal, known as Issue 3, drew wide support and passed in a referendum in 1993. It was, of course, challenged in the courts, which is why it found its way into the hands of Judge Spiegel. (shrink)

According to a simple form of consequentialism, we should base decision on our judgments about their consequences for achieving out goals. Our goals give us reason to endorse consequentialism as a standard of decision making. Alternative standards invariably lead to consequences that are less good in this sense. Yet some people knowingly follow decision rules that violate consequentialism. For example, they prefer harmful omissions to less harmful acts, they favor the status quo over alternatives they would otherwise judge to be (...) better, they provide third-party compensation on the basis of the cause of an injury rather than the benefit from the compensation, they ignore deterrent effects in decisions about punishment, and they resist coercive reforms they judge to be beneficial. I suggest that nonconsequentialist principles arise from overgeneralizing rules that are consistent with consequentialism in a limited set of cases. Commitment to such rules is detached from their original purposes. The existence of such nonconsequentialist decision biases has implications for philosophical and experimental methodology, the relation between psychology and public policy, and education. (shrink)

The article seeks to advance the debate on Islam and secularism, not by thinking of secularism in terms of whether there is or should be state neutrality toward religion, but rather by proposing that we think in terms of a state neutrality that is anchored in pluralism to-come. The latter is not a future pluralism that will one day arrive but is rather characterized by a structural promise of openness to futurity which thus exposes us to absolute surprise simultaneously of (...) the best and the worst in plurality, the one never coming without opening the possibility of the other. The analysis is developed via a critical examination of the presuppositions of Abdullahi A. An-Na‘im’s book, Islam and the Secular State, supplemented with key ideas from Jacques Derrida’s political philosophy. I specifically propose to shift the debate on the question of Islam and state neutrality in two ways. First, I propose that instead of thinking in terms of secularism and its mechanism – civic reason – for sustaining pluralism in heterogeneous societies, we think in terms of a secularity and a civic reason, both of which presuppose a pluralism to-come. Second, I propose that we think not simply in terms of actual pluralism but rather in terms of an autoimmune pluralism. (shrink)

It is often claimed that all acts of supererogation involve sacrifice. This claim is made because it is thought that it is the level of sacrifice involved that prevents these acts from being morally required. In this paper, I will argue against this claim. I will start by making a distinction between two ways of understanding the claim that all acts of supererogation involve sacrifice. I will then examine some purported counterexamples to the view that supererogation always involves sacrifice and (...) examine their limitations. Next, I will examine how this view might be defended, building on comments by Dale Dorsey and Henry Sidgwick. I will then argue that the view and the argument in favor of it should be rejected. I will finish by showing how an alternative explanation for the limits of moral obligation avoids the problems facing The Sacrifice View. (shrink)

A commonly accepted feature of commonsense morality is that there are some acts that are supererogatory or beyond the call of duty. Recently, philosophers have begun to ask whether something like supererogation might exist in other normative domains such as epistemology and esthetics. In this paper, I will argue that there is good reason to think that sporting supererogation exists. I will then argue that recognizing the existence of sporting supererogation is important because it highlights the value of sport as (...) a mutual pursuit of excellence and reinforces the value of sportsmanship. (shrink)

One of the most fundamental tenets of medical research, enshrined in the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki, is that scientific investigation involving human beings requires the informed consent of the subjects.

In Legitimacy: The Right to Rule in a Wanton World, I offer both a conceptual analysis of legitimacy, the power-liability view, and a substantive moral theory, the free group agency view. Here, I defend my account against three challenges brought by Kjarsten Mikalsen. First, though I argue that conceptual analysis should not prematurely close open moral questions, it is not my view that conceptual analysis must have no substantive implications. Second, though I acknowledge that free group agency ordinarily supports a (...) moral duty to obey, it is a feature, not a bug, that my conceptual analysis is consistent with moral theories that disagree with my preferred moral theory. Third, I argue that Mikalsen’s proposed explanation of justified civil disobedience, which sees law in such cases as creating a moral claim-right that entails a merely presumptive duty, is less perspicuous than the explanation given by the power-liability view. Along the way, I emphasize that the distinction between felicitous moral power and justified causal power is as important as the distinction between moral liability and moral duty. (shrink)

In “Professional Detachment: The Executioner of Paris,” I concluded with the cheap and some would say libelous suggestion that lawyers might accurately be described as serial liars, because they repeatedly try to induce others to believe in the truth of propositions or in the validity of arguments that they believe to be false. Good lawyers have responded with some indignation that, in calling zealous advocacy “lying,” I have misdescribed the practice of law. I wish to explain why I believe that (...) it is the practice of lawyering that engages in misdescription. (shrink)

This article makes the normative case for a differentiated approach to the sovereignty of states over natural resources. In the first half of the article, drawing on the example of the Yasuní-ITT-Initiative, I will argue that countries commit a moral wrong when they exploit natural resources for their own benefit, but that they have the moral right to do so given the current structure of the international system. In the second half of the article, I address the question of whether (...) states' rights over natural resources can be justified. Central to my argument will be the distinction between “control rights” and “income rights.” Only control rights, I will argue, can be justified as inherently tied to collective self-determination. (shrink)

The present paper revisits the issue of rational decision making in John Rawls' original position. Drawing on Isaac Levi's theory of decision, I discuss how we can defend Rawls against John C. Harsanyi's charge that maximin reasoning in the original position is irrational. The discussion suggests that systematic application of Levi's theory is likely to have important consequences for ethics and political theory as well as for public policy.

Are there any coherent and defensible alternatives to liberal democracy? The author examines the possibility that a reformed democratic centralism-the principle around which China's current polity is officially organized-might be legitimate, according to both an inside and an outside perspective. The inside perspective builds on contemporary Chinese political theory; the outside perspective critically deploys Rawls's notion ofa "decent society " as its standard. Along the way, the author pays particular attention to the kinds and degree of pluralism a decent society (...) can countenance, and to the specific institutions in China that might enable the realization of a genuine and/or decent democratic centralism. The author argues that by considering both inside and outside perspectives, and the degrees to which they inter-penetrate and critically inform one another, we can engage in a global philosophy that neither pre-judges alternative political traditions nor falls prey to false conceptual barriers. (shrink)

Sidgwick's seminal textThe Methods of Ethicsleft off with an unresolved problem that Sidgwick referred to as the dualism of practical reason. The problem is that employing Sidgwick's methodology of rational intuitionism appears to show that there are reasons to favour both egoism and utilitarianism. Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer offer a solution in the form of an evolutionary debunking argument: the appeal of egoism is explainable in terms of evolutionary theory. I argue that like rational prudence, rational benevolence is (...) subject to debunking arguments and so problematic, but also – and more importantly – that debunking arguments are irrelevant in the debate over the dualism of practical reason on the view of reason and rational intuitionism that Lazari-Radek and Singer embrace. Either both egoism and utilitarianism are debunked, or neither are. If I am right, Sidgwick's dualism is left standing. (shrink)

The paper departs from an analysis of the case of Michelle Dumaresq, a transgender female downhill mountain biker who experienced marginalization within her sport. The analysis is based on Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition. The Dumaresq case is particularly relevant to Honneth’s ideas of solidarity, which provide insight into the dynamics of social integration. Honneth’s theory of recognition also provides a conceptual framework and a methodology that gives new perspectives on the ethical significance of sport. In the paper, an analysis (...) is presented of the lack of solidarity experienced by Dumaresq. The argument is made that sport has a particular potential for realizing solidarity among its practitioners. Realizing solidarity however depends to a large degree upon that the rules of sport are perceived as fair and just. In the Dumaresq case, challenges to solidarity came from what her competitors considered to be unfair classification rules. Summing up, it is argued that, as long as the rules of a spor.. (shrink)

A. W. Brian Simpson, Cannibalism and the Common Law Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1984.

Public reasoning is widely thought to be essential to democracy, but there is much disagreement about whether such deliberation should be constrained by a principle of public reason, which may seem to conflict with important democratic values. This paper denies that there is such a conflict, and argues that the distinctive contribution of public reason is to constitute a relationship of civic friendship in a diverse society. Acceptance of public reason would not work against mutual understanding, learning, or compromise, nor (...) does the principle involve any violation of political equality. The real threat to democracy is not public reason, but the framing of public reason by a presumption against state action. (shrink)

Marilena Chauí, entre 1977 e 1982, produziu uma série de textos de Filosofia Política que podem ser considerados marco inicial para uma longa e ainda ativa carreira de investigações socialistas acerca da democracia, da liberdade e, não menos importante, da justiça. Sua filosofia promove uma crítica às teorias liberais do Estado, ao nosso autoritarismo genuinamente brasileiro, aos inimigos da classe trabalhadora então dedicada a se auto-afirmar politicamente. Ao lado da crítica chauiana à justiça liberal, porém, penso ser o caso de (...) identificar um conceito próprio de Justiça na obra de Chauí. (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)

Drawing on broad definitions of technology and engineering as well as precedents in the philosophical literature, this paper makes the novel argument that the purposeful design of one’s unique good life using existing philosophical concepts is an engineering activity. Whether as a metaphor or as an engineering activity in its own right, a sampling of important benefits and perspectives provided for well-being by the presented “life engineering” framework are highlighted. A key strength of the framework is the conceptual simplicity, with (...) minimal sacrifices in completeness or consistency. This necessitates a tradeoff of limited precision for any one practical implementation. Consistent conceptual definitions for wisdom, virtue and the good life are presented within an informative ethics. Only a descriptive evaluation to aid in conceptual understanding is discussed, no prescriptive normative evaluations are made. The good life is defined to be one in which the minimum requirements are met and then performance is good, but no attempt is made to define what is good. A fundamental limitation of the framework stems from the inherent focus of technology on human utility. Although no novel fundamental conclusions are drawn in this paper, the presented framework is demonstrated to correspond with numerous ethical precepts of many existing philosophical traditions. (shrink)

At the September 1992 Birth of Bioethics conference observing the 30th anniversary of the Seattle kidney dialysis program, Warren Reich discussed the “bilocated” birth of the term bioethics. He showed that the term bioethics was coined in Michigan by Van Rensselaer Potter and that the term was also apparently conceived of independently at about the same time in 1970–1971 in Washington, D.C., by Andre Hellegers and Sargent Shriver. Potter's work, like many similar works in the early 1970s, was concerned with (...) the growing global biological crisis of human overpopulation, the destruction of species, and how to respond to these. He prefaced his book Bioethics with a “Bioethical Creed for Individuals,” outlining duties to respond to this crisis in a meaningful and scientific way. Hellegers and Shriver used the neologism to name the new Joseph and Rose Kennedy Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction and Bioethics. The Center was to study concerns somewhat different from Potter's: the technological revolution in healthcare and its impact on reproduction, investigator-patient relations, and medical ethics. (shrink)

I defend a neo-Kantian view wherein we are capable of being completely autonomous and impartial and argue that this ability can ground normativity. As this view includes an existentialist conception of the self, I defend radical choice, a primary component of that conception, against arguments many take to be definitive. I call the ability to use radical choice “existentialist voluntarism” and bring it into a current debate in normative philosophy, arguing that it allows that we can be distanced from all (...) ends at once so as to be completely impartial. Finally, I indicate how this can be the source of normativity as it provides a purely impartial reason for being rational. (shrink)

In Epistemic injustice, Miranda Fricker makes a tremendous contribution to theorizing the intersection of social epistemology with theories of justice. Theories of justice often take as their object of assessment either interpersonal transactions (specific exchanges between persons) or particular institutions. They may also take a more comprehensive perspective in assessing systems of institutions. This systemic perspective may enable control of the cumulative effects of millions of individual transactions that cannot be controlled at the individual or institutional levels. This is true (...) not only with respect to the overall distribution of such goods as income and wealth, but also with respect to the goods of testimonial and hermeneutical justice. Cognitive biases that may be difficult for even epistemically virtuous individuals to correct on their own may be more susceptible to correction if we focus on the principles that should govern our systems of testimonial gathering and assessment. Hence, while Fricker’s focus on individual epistemic virtue is important, we also need to consider what epistemic justice as a virtue of social systems would require. My paper will indicate some directions forward on this front, focusing on the need for integration of diverse institutions and persons engaged in inquiry. (shrink)

This paper considers the view that the basis of equality is the range property of being a moral person. This view, suggested by John Rawls in his A Theory of Justice (1971), is commonly dismissed in the literature. By defending the view against the criticism levelled against it, I aim to show that this dismissal has been too quick. The critics have generally failed to fully appreciate the fact that Rawls's account is restricted to the domain of distributive justice. On (...) Rawls's view distributive justice is a matter of the fair terms of cooperation among the participants of a system of social cooperation. I argue that this understanding of distributive justice can provide a compelling rationale for considering moral personality as the basis of equality for this domain of morality. That moral persons are indeed equal is further supported by an intuitive argument concerning the irrelevance of morally arbitrary factors, giving us reasons to believe that varying capacities among moral persons does not result in an unequal moral status. The dismissal of Rawls's account of equality has thus been premature, and it remains an important view to consider. (shrink)

Due to the alarming rise of antibiotic resistance, medically unwarranted use of antibiotics has assumed new moral significance. In this paper, a thematic content analysis of focus group discussions was conducted to explore lay people’s views on the moral challenges posed by antibiotic resistance. The most important finding is that lay people are morally sensitive to the problems entailed by antibiotic resistance. Participants saw the decreasing availability of effective antibiotics as a problem of justice. This involves individual as well as (...) collective moral responsibility. Yet, holding agents responsible for their use of antibiotics involves varying degrees of demandingness. In our discussion, these findings are related to the contemporary ethical debate on antibiotic resistance and two proposals for the preservation of antibiotic effectiveness are compared to and evaluated against participants’ views. (shrink)

The object of this paper is to throw light on the reciprocal exchanges between legal philosophy and the theory of speech acts (as developed by Austin and Searle). The first part concerns the contributions to legal philosophy made by the theory of speech acts with a view to developing new perspectives. The second part deals with the contributions of legal philosophy to speech act theory.

Current International Criminal Law suffers from at least four theoretical shortcomings regarding its ‘concept and meaning’, ‘ius puniendi’, ‘overall function’ and ‘purposes of punishment’. These issues are intimately interrelated; in particular, any reflection upon the last two issues without having first clarified the ius puniendi would not make sense. As argued elsewhere, in an initial contribution towards a consistent theory of ICL, the ius puniendi can be inferred from a combination of the incipient supranationality of the value-based world order and (...) the world citizens’ fundamental human rights predicated upon a Kantian concept of human dignity. On this basis, it is now possible to examine the overall function of ICL. Given the fact that ICL has not yet achieved the status of an autonomous discipline, the inquiry must start with a discussion of national theories of criminalisation. The article focuses on the two most important theories of criminalisation, namely the theories of protection of Rechtsgüter and the prevention of harm. Next, it examines whether and how these national theories can be transferred to ICL. (shrink)

This paper examines the concepts of desert and luck, familiar in political theory but neglected by sociologists. I argue that the idea of desert is composed of both personal performance and the degree of responsibility a person has over that performance. Distribution ought to be in accordance with the indebtedness created by the person's performance. This can be compromised by luck; that is, personal desert is undermined where lack of performance scuttles the applicability of the contributory model. This paper examines (...) recent work, focusing on establishing desert criteria for each person's ends and life‐plans, and a formula for distribution according to personal welfare. (shrink)

Abstract.The author examines the discipline of moral rights and in particular the need to embed them in a consequential system. He argues that the widely held opinion that independence from consequential evaluation is the right way of guaranteeing individual freedom is based on an inadequate appraisal of the role of moral rights in the social context. In this perspective he examines two specific cases: (1) elementary political and civil rights, and (2) the reproductive rights of women in the context of (...) poor countries with the problem of fast population growth. He argues that a coherent goal‐rights system which accommodates rights among others goals, can overcome the non‐consequential arguments and justify the force of moral rights fully within a consequentiality perspective. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:The language of virtue is gaining wider appreciation in the philosophical, psychological, and management literatures. Ethicists and social scientists aim to integrate normative and empirical approaches into a new “science of virtue.” But, I submit, they are talking past each other; they hold radically different notions of what a virtue is. In this paper, I shall examine two conflicting conceptions of virtue, what I call the reductive and the non-reductive accounts of virtue. I shall critically study them and argue that (...) the non-reductive view is the best philosophical account of virtue and the only one that can account for the way we talk about virtue in business and in everyday life. We can only understand what it means to act virtuously through the examination of the attitudes, beliefs, desires, and inclinations of the virtuous agent. I shall illustrate the differences between the reductive and non-reductive accounts by considering the virtue of gratitude. (shrink)

One of the prevailing explanations of the corporate scandals of the Enron era and the recent financial crisis is the failure of professional gatekeepers—such as auditors, corporate lawyers, and securities analysts—to detect and disrupt corporate misconduct. The alleged solution to this failure—typically proposed and justified on consequentialist grounds—is to impose legal liability on professionals. The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the normative foundations of gatekeeper liability. In the course of this paper, I shall defend the claim that (...) gatekeeper liability may be morally objectionable not only on grounds of fairness but also on consequentialist grounds. The expected contribution of this paper is threefold. First, it systematizes the framing and moral justification of gatekeeping duties. Second, it calls into question the normative underpinnings for targeting intermediaries instead of primary wrongdoers. Third, it anticipates some negative results of gatekeeping strategies in the accounting profession, specifically in the realm of clientele selection, the expectation gap, and auditor compensation. (shrink)

The question of how society should deal with social conflicts arising from cultural differences persists. Should we adopt an exclusivist approach by excluding reasons based on specific cultural traditions (culture-based reasons) from public debates about social policy, especially because these reasons do not appeal to the public at large? Or should we resort to an inclusivist approach by including reasons based on cultural traditions in public debate to give recognition to the diverse cultural identities of those who practice these traditions? (...) While these two approaches assign different roles to cultural traditions in public debate, both seem to welcome compromise between conflicting parties. This paper reviews contending normative approaches for dealing with conflicts in multicultural societies and explores the place of culture-based reasons in public debates designed to resolve conflicts. (shrink)

Any liberal argument for incorporating meaningful work within a theory of justice inherits a burden of proof to show why it does not fall to the objection that privileging the work process valorizes particular ideas about the good and thereby unfairly privileges some persons over others. Existing liberal defences of meaningful work, which rely on the formative effects of work in contemporary economies, have a limited scope of appeal and do not provide a convincing reply to the objection. The paper (...) offers an alternative reply by arguing that meaningful work, understood as a person-engaging social contribution, is intimately connected through reciprocity to the fundamental political idea of society as a system of cooperation between free and equal participating members. This makes the opportunity to engage in meaningful work a social basis of self-respect. (shrink)

For centuries, philosophers and scholars have debated the role of the state in forming and distributing well-being, a concept now termed the ‘welfare state’. An ideal welfare state is one that protects and promotes the economic and social well-being of its citizens, based on the principles of equal opportunity and equitable distribution of wealth. In order to create such a welfare state, there must be a balance between a society’s demands and the market’s needs. In this paper, I argue for (...) the need for equal and just welfare state reform based on the current needs and demands of both society and the labour market in Kuwait. Moreover, I discuss unemployment as a result of disequilibrium between society and market needs. Finally, I propose education reform as a solution to the unemployment problem. (shrink)

An emerging branch of political theory, ‘the politics of dissensus’, starts out from the premise that in order to understand the politics of constitutional democracies, one needs to focus on parliamentary politics, which compromises both institutional settings and debates. Politics takes place among adversaries, and dissensus and argumentation pro et contra is the rule. The focus on the conditions for consensus in contemporary democratic theory accordingly misses the essence of politics. The politics of dissensus tends to think that the political (...) philosophy inaugurated by John Rawls, political liberalism in particular, is too idealistic and utopian to capture real parliamentary politics. I argue that this basic objection against political liberalism is misconceived. To the contrary, the politics of dissensus and political liberalism supplement each other. The impact of my argument is that research in these disparate fields of political studies ought to enlighten each of them. (shrink)

Geach and Thomson have argued that nothing is just plain good, because ‘good’ is, logically, an attributive adjective. The upshot, according to Geach and Thomson, is that consequentialism is unacceptable, since its very formulation requires a predicative use of ‘good’. Reactions to the argument have, for the most part, been uniform. Authors have converged on two challenging objections . First, although the logical tests that Geach and Thomson invoke clearly illustrate that ‘good’, as commonly used, is an attributive, they don’t (...) show that ‘good’ lacks an intelligible predicative interpretation. Second, even if the English word ‘good’ fails to express the property of goodness, we can just stipulate that ‘good*’ expresses goodness and thus formulate consequentialism accordingly. The second objection is one way of voicing skepticism about the method of drawing substantive philosophical conclusions from considerations about ordinary language. In this essay, we present an argument, inspired by Geach and Thomson, which isn’t susceptible to the same objections but which supports the same conclusion. The significance of our argument for ethics is obvious; it challenges the intelligibility of standard consequentialism, and even certain forms of non-consequentialism. One might be inclined to think that a more sophisticated consequentialism, which relies on ‘good {possible world/state of affairs/outcome}’ instead of just ‘good’, evades the criticism. But we explain why the criticism can’t be so easily evaded. (shrink)

According to what we could call the "liberal" theory of distributive justice, people do not deserve the money they are able to make in the market for contributing to the economy. Yet the standard arguments for that view, which center on the fact that persons have very limited control over the size of their contributions, would also seem to imply that persons cannot deserve admiration, appreciation, esteem, praise and so on for these and other contributions. The control asymmetry is this: (...) the first conclusion of these arguments is acceptable but the second not. This paper is an effort to defend that claim, but without appeal to the notion of control. (shrink)

With multi-year funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), a team of researchers has just released a comprehensive report detailing ethical issues arising from human enhancement (Allhoff et al. 2009). While we direct the interested reader to that (much longer) report, we also thank the editors of this journal for the invitation to provide an executive summary thereof. This summary highlights key results from each section of that report and does so in a self-standing way; in other words, this (...) summary presupposes no familiarity with the report and offers the opportunity to gain quick familiarity with its most central findings. (shrink)