Since the development of assisted reproductive technologies, infertile individuals have crossed borders to obtain treatments unavailable or unaffordable in their own country. Recent media coverage has focused on the outsourcing of surrogacy to developing countries, where the cost for surrogacy is significantly less than the equivalent cost in a more developed country. This paper discusses the ethical arguments against international surrogacy. The major opposition viewpoints can be broadly divided into arguments about welfare, commodification and exploitation. It is argued that the (...) only valid objection to international surrogacy is that surrogate mothers may be exploited by being given too little compensation. However, the possibility of exploitation is a weak argument for prohibition, as employment alternatives for potential surrogate mothers may be more exploitative or more harmful than surrogacy. It is concluded that international surrogacy must be regulated, and the proposed regulatory mechanism is termed Fair Trade Surrogacy. The guidelines of Fair Trade Surrogacy focus on minimizing potential harms to all parties and ensuring fair compensation for surrogate mothers. (shrink)

This essay examines the function of the concept of human dignity (both as an inherent feature of human existence and as an ideal achievement) in the United Nations's 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It explains why the key framers of the document affirmed an inherent human dignity in order to provide an explanatory basis for the validity of universal human rights while eschewing any religious or metaphysical justification for this affirmation. It argues that the key framers, while aware of (...) the Christian anthropology informing the modern Western concept of the dignity of the person, grasped (1) that the Declaration, to be ratifiable, would need to be free of religious reference, and also (2) that the notion of inherency suffices to suggest heuristically not only a universal human nature but also, crucially, a transcendent reality in which all persons participate. (shrink)

This article argues that the concept of evil is needed in normative ethics in general as well as in the professional ethics of social work. Attention is drawn to certain shortcomings in the classical theories of normative ethics when it comes to recognizing the profound destructiveness of certain types of acts that exceed the mere ?bad? or ?wrong? applied in the most common theories of moral philosophy. Having established the category of morally evil acts in general, the author turns to (...) the field of social work and applies it to some paradigm cases of evil that many social workers are likely to be confronted with during the course of their service. In the final part of the article, the concept of moral evil is discussed in relation to the professional ethics of social work in general, with reference to certain value assumptions that are found to be inherent to social work. (shrink)

Means-based harms are frequently seen as forbidden, even when they lead to a greater good. But, are there mitigating factors? Results from five experiments show that judgments about means-based harms are modulated by: 1) Pareto considerations (was the harmed person made worse off?), 2) the directness of physical contact, and 3) the source of the threat (e.g. mechanical, human, or natural). Pareto harms are more permissible than non-Pareto harms, Pareto harms requiring direct physical contact are less permissible than those that (...) do not, and harming someone who faces a mechanical threat is less permissible than harming someone who faces a non-mechanical threat. These results provide insight into the rich representational structure underlying folk-moral computations, including both the independent and interacting roles of the inevitability, directness and source of harm. (shrink)

John Harris recently argues that the moral bioenhancement proposed by Persson and Savulescu can damage moral agency by depriving the recipients of their freedom to fall (freedom to make wrongful choices) and therefore should not be pursued. The link Harris makes between moral agency and the freedom to fall, however, implies that all forms of moral enhancement, including moral education, that aim to make the enhancement recipients less likely to “fall” are detrimental to moral agency. In this paper, I present (...) a new moral agency-based critique against the moral bioenhancement program envisaged by Persson and Savulescu. I argue that the irresistible influences exerted by the bioenhancement program harms our capabilities for conducting accurate self-reflection and forming decisions that truly express our will, which subsequently undermine our moral agency. (shrink)

Does communicative retributivism necessarily negate capital punishment? My answer is no. I argue that there is a place, though a very limited and unsettled one, for capital punishment within the theoretical vision of communicative retributivism. The death penalty, when reserved for extravagantly evil murderers for the most heinous crimes, is justifiable by communicative retributive ideals. I argue that punishment as censure is a response to the preceding message sent by the offender through his criminal act. The gravity of punishment should (...) be commensurate to the preceding criminal message, so that the offender can face up to the nature and significance of his crime. All murders are not the same. To measure up to the most evil and humanity-degrading murderous message, capital punishment should be the counter-message. Next, I argue that capital punishment does not necessarily violate human dignity. The death penalty and torture may both disrupt human dignity, yet in distinct ways. The death penalty terminates life, the vessel that holds together autonomy, while torture directly assaults autonomy. Torture is never permissible as a form of punishment. But death penalty, when used only on the extravagant evildoers, is justifiable, as life is thoroughly degraded by his own evil act. Further, I argue that mercy is integral to communicative retributivists’ theory of capital punishment. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article explores how Charles Taylor’s account of moral personhood and Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot’s account of justificatory regimes can add breadth, depth, and specificity to discussions of ethical dilemmas in public relations. These frameworks are analyzed for their potential to make the following contributions to public relations ethics. First, they convey that there is more to ethics than choosing the right duties and actions. Second, they reveal the diversity of goods that people consider to be ethically worthy and (...) admirable, as well as the complex personal issues involved in ranking these goods. Third, they emphasize that these different goods often need to be articulated and evaluated in different ways. Last, they can either point toward new ways of resolving ethical dilemmas or show why such resolutions are not possible. (shrink)

Kant described the state as a ‘moral person’, and did so when dealing with international relations. For all the interest in his contribution to the theory of global politics, the locution according to which Kant characterized the state has received very little attention. When notice has been taken of it, the moral personality of the state has moved arguments in opposing directions. On one recent reading, when Kant called the state a moral person he intended to indicate that it possessed (...) certain duties to itself and to others, for the sake of which it could be coerced to leave the international state of nature. On another, the juridical compulsion of states to join a state of nations or world republic is categorically ruled out because this would impair their moral personality. Both cannot be right. In this article, I analyse Kant’s notion of moral personhood, contextualizing it within his wider philosophical concerns. On the basis of this groundwork I put forward an argument about Kant’s theory of the moral person of the state which allows me to show how he in fact was able coherently to incorporate two seemingly contradictory arguments about the state as an international actor in a single argument, and present this as my solution to what I call the Perpetual Peace Puzzle. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the varying conceptions of ethics underpinning the accounts of community in Blanchot, Nancy, and Esposito. A focus on ethics brings into relief points of divergence amongst accounts of community that otherwise overlap and share in many significant ways. Furthermore, it provides a basis to better assess Esposito's contribution. I focus on the concepts of difference and transcendence and the figure of the lovers, a shared topos in Nancy and Blanchot, to demonstrate these subtle variations. In turning to (...) Esposito, Kantian-inflected notions of duty, obligation, and law shape a community where others recede into the background and the lovers lose their visibility. I suggest that Esposito's focus on duty has consequences that give cause for further reflection. The law renders each of us other, but in its universality it risks losing a sense of the exceptional. Relying etymologically on the notion of duty as that which, following his reading of Kant, undermines the subject and renders possible the impossible community, grounds the Communitas in a law that risks congealing the meaning of community around this impossible obligation. (shrink)

I argue that free will is a nominal construct developed and deployed post hoc in an effort to provide cohesive narratives in support of a priori moral-judgmental dispositions. In a reversal of traditional course, I defend the view that there are no circumstances under which attributions of moral responsibility for an act can, should, or do depend on prior ascriptions of free will. Conversely, I claim that free will belief depends entirely on the apperceived possibility of moral responsibility. Orthodoxy dictates (...) an agency-first thesis, according to which free will is necessarily antecedent to moral responsibility. However, I present a number of arguments against this view, and in favor of an agency-last stance, according to which the concept of free will is dependent upon that of moral responsibility. I provide further support for my case in the form of new empirical evidence regarding the stable mode of inference used to attribute free will across moral contexts. These experimental results can be interpreted to imply the deflation of one of the longest-standing veridical paradoxes in experimental philosophy. Furthermore, the sole conceptual scheme found to be capable of modeling the experimental results is also capable of illuminating several classic works in the analytic philosophy of moral agency. (shrink)

The view that acting morally is ultimately a question of treating others with respect has had a profound influence on moral and legal philosophy. Not surprisingly, then, some scholars forcefully argue that the modes of punishment that the states mete out to offenders should not be disrespectful, and, furthermore, it has been argued that obliging offenders to receive neurological treatment is incompatible with showing them their due respect. In this paper, I examine three contemporary accounts of what showing respect for (...) offenders in our sentencing practices would amount to: that it involves not interfering with offenders’ capacities for rationality and autonomy, that it should not undermine offenders’ prospect of reform, and that it amounts to treating offenders as if opaque. I then critically discuss whether any of these accounts plausibly imply that mandating neurointerventions to some offenders is necessarily morally wrong. I argue that they do not. (shrink)

The concept of experience by John Dewey revisited: conceiving, feeling and “enliving”. Dewey takes a few steps towards a differentiation of the concept of experience, such as the distinction between primary and secondary experience, or between ordinary (partial, raw, primitive) experience and complete, aesthetic experience. However, he does not provide a systematic elaboration of these distinctions. In the present text, a differentiation of Dewey’s concept of experience is proposed in terms of feeling, “enliving” (a neologism proposed in this paper) and (...) conceiving. Feeling refers to the basic mode of experience where action, emotion, cognition and communication constitute an original unity. Enliving, aesthetic experience, constitutes the lifeworld, as a person-in-world experience. Even though enliving is holistic and relational, a certain distance emerges between action, emotion and cognition which allows contemplation and choice. Conceiving, on the other hand, refers to the isolating and abstracting understanding of the world with even greater distance between action, emotion and cognition. Such a differentiation provides a clearer understanding of the scope of education. It avoids the risks of regressive tendencies in the concept of experience, and it helps to include conceiving within the realm of experience. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer one moral reason to eschew antidepressant medication in favor of cognitive therapy, all other things being equal: taking antidepressants can be a form of self-objectification. This means that, by taking antidepressants, one treats oneself, in some sense and some cases, like a mere object. I contend that, morally, this amounts to a specific form of devaluing oneself. I argue this as follows. First, I offer a detailed definition of “objectification” and argue for the possibility of (...) self-objectification on this definition. I then explain why this form of self-objectification is morally problematic. (Morally problematic does not mean morally impermissible. It means, instead, that there is a moral reason opposing the activity in question). After, I describe how taking antidepressants can count as self-objectifying. Finally, I defend my thesis against a key objection offered by Levy. Thus, assuming that antidepressants and cognitive therapy are equally efficacious, and that all other things are equal, the self-objectifying character of antidepressants is a compelling reason to regard cognitive therapy as a first-choice treatment for depression. (shrink)

The scale and severity of the alterations to global ecologies should not simply be noted or acknowledged by communication scholars but rather should drive communication ethicists to carefully examine the values and communication practices that have enabled and promoted this kind of unchecked growth. At minimum, I argue, we ought to carefully examine this social trajectory to determine whether more growth at the current rate of speed should continue to be a goal of modern society and at what costs. Specifically, (...) as scholars of moral communication we should feel concerned with whether a moral transgression is associated with this type of rapid growth. (shrink)

James Pattison's argument for the assignment of a duty of humanitarian intervention is interesting and offers a new perspective in the humanitarian intervention debate. However, Pattison's argument suffers from three main problems, each increasingly serious: his definition of success is vague and raises questions about the content of a duty of humanitarian intervention; his consequentialist foundation raises problems of prospective and retrospective judgment; and his intentional omission of the distinction between perfect and imperfect duties leads to conceptual difficulties.

Many morally significant outcomes can be brought about only if several individuals contribute to them. However, individual contributions to collective outcomes often fail to have morally significant effects on their own. Some have concluded from this that it is permissible to do nothing. What I call ‘the problem of insignificant hands’ is the challenge of determining whether and when people are obligated to contribute. For this to be the case, I argue, the prospect of helping to bring about the outcome (...) has to be good enough. Furthermore, the individual must be in a position to increase the probability of its being brought about to an appropriate extent. Finally, I argue that when too few are willing to contribute, people may have a duty to increase their number. Thus, someone can be obligated to contribute or to get others to contribute. This prospect account is consistent with Kantianism, contractualism and rule consequentialism but inconsistent with act consequentialism. (shrink)

Many morally significant outcomes can be brought about only if several individuals contribute to them. However, individual contributions to collective outcomes often fail to have morally significant effects on their own. Some have concluded from this that it is permissible to do nothing. What I call ‘the problem of insignificant hands’ is the challenge of determining whether and when people are obligated to contribute. For this to be the case, I argue, the prospect of helping to bring about the outcome (...) has to be good enough. Furthermore, the individual must be in a position to increase the probability of its being brought about to an appropriate extent. Finally, I argue that when too few are willing to contribute, people may have a duty to increase their number. Thus, someone can be obligated to contribute or to get others to contribute. This prospect account is consistent with Kantianism, contractualism and rule consequentialism but inconsistent with act consequentialism. (shrink)

Rüdiger Bittner surveys with a skeptical eye classic and contemporary ideas of Kantian autonomy. He allows that we can be more or less free in a modest (quasi-Hobbesian) sense and that many people may want more of this freedom from impediments that make it difficult or impossible to do various things. He argues, however, that high-minded general affirmations of human freedom are unfounded and not likely to retain their grip on our thinking. While acknowledging the value of Bittner’s challenges, I (...) raise questions about Bittner’s dismissal of ideas of freedom apparently imbedded in ordinary language and his critique of the idea of autonomy in Kant’s ethics and broadly Kantian theories. A key issue is how to make sense of the claim that a moral law can be a law and yet also self-imposed. Given certain background assumptions about Kant’s conception of autonomy of the will, the key claim requires different interpretations when it concerns the supreme moral law (the Categorical Imperative) and when it concerns more specific moral laws (for example, derivative principles in Kant’s Doctrine of Virtue). Bittner’s challenges are valuable because they require us to work out and articulate more carefully what we mean by autonomy and why it is important. As Bittner says, Kant’s idea of autonomy is not the same as the ideas of autonomy that appear in medicine, politics, and everyday life. Nevertheless, those who care about either have some reason to think about how these are connected. (shrink)

Rüdiger Bittner surveys with a skeptical eye classic and contemporary ideas of Kantian autonomy. He allows that we can be more or less free in a modest (quasi-Hobbesian) sense and that many people may want more of this freedom from impediments that make it difficult or impossible to do various things. He argues, however, that high-minded general affirmations of human freedom are unfounded and not likely to retain their grip on our thinking. While acknowledging the value of Bittner’s challenges, I (...) raise questions about Bittner’s dismissal of ideas of freedom apparently imbedded in ordinary language and his critique of the idea of autonomy in Kant’s ethics and broadly Kantian theories. A key issue is how to make sense of the claim that a moral law can be a law and yet also self-imposed. Given certain background assumptions about Kant’s conception of autonomy of the will, the key claim requires different interpretations when it concerns the supreme moral law (the Categorical Imperative) and when it concerns more specific moral laws (for example, derivative principles in Kant’s Doctrine of Virtue). Bittner’s challenges are valuable because they require us to work out and articulate more carefully what we mean by autonomy and why it is important. As Bittner says, Kant’s idea of autonomy is not the same as the ideas of autonomy that appear in medicine, politics, and everyday life. Nevertheless, those who care about either have some reason to think about how these are connected. (shrink)

Immanuel Kants Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Rechtslehre, 1797 als erster Teil der Metaphysik der Sitten erschienen, stellen einen Beitrag zur neuzeitlichen Rechts- und Staatsphilosophie dar. Hinsichtlich der normativen Prinzipien von Recht und Staat entwickelt Kant eine erfahrungsunabhängige, insofern metaphysische Theorie. Sie beginnt mit einem angeborenen und unveräußerlichen Menschenrecht und geht dann zu den Institutionen des Eigentums und des Rechtsstaates über. Besonders aktuell ist die Formulierung eines rechts- und friedensfunktionalen Völkerrechts und eines Weltbürgerrechts. Darüber hinaus behandelt Kant auch das Ehe und Familienrecht, (...) das Verhältnis von Staat und Kirche und das Straf- und Begnadigungsrecht. Durch den thematischen Reichtum und die begriffliche Genauigkeit, vor allem jedoch durch die Radikalität seiner Fragen und die Originalität der Antworten ist Kants Rechtsdenken bis heute von hohem systematischem Rang. Die elf Beiträger dieses kooperativen Kommentars, der anlässlich des 300. Kant-Jubiläums in einer 3., überarbeiteten Auflage erscheint, nehmen die bleibend gültigen Provokationen der „Metaphysischen Anfangsgründe" ernst. Mit Beiträgen von Hans Friedrich Fulda, Otfried Höffe, Peter König, Kristian Kühl, Bernd Ludwig, Jean-Christophe Merle, Jörg Paul Müller, Terry Pinkard, Alessandro Pinzani, Robert B. Pippin, Allen W. Wood. (shrink)

La teoría de la pena ideada por Kant suele ser estudiada sin consideración del marco filosófico que le da sentido y fundamentación. La intención del presente trabajo es explicitar la fundamentación teórico-filosófica que sostiene a dicha teoría de la pena. Me propongo exhibir cómo Kant deriva el carácter categórico de la ley penal a partir del principio del Derecho y del imperativo categórico. Esta fundamentación teórica del carácter categórico de la pena se sostendrá en tanto podamos comprender en qué sentido (...) y por qué la razón es capaz de imponerse a sí misma principios categóricos de acción, es decir, deberes. (shrink)

Suppose an agent has made a judgement of the form, 'all things considered, it would be better for me to do a rather than b (or any range of alternatives to doing a)' where a and b stand for particular actions. If she does not act upon her judgement in these circumstances would that be a failure of rationality on her part? In this paper I consider two different interpretations of all things considered judgements which give different answers to this (...) question, one suggested by Donald Davidson, the other by Paul Grice and Judith Baker. I argue that neither interpretation is adequate. However, a third interpretation that combines features of the Grice/Baker view with the Davidsonian view is possible. In the final section of the paper I defend this interpretation against two objections. (shrink)

Deliberation incompatibilism is the view that an agent being rational and deliberating about which of (mutually excluding) actions to perform, is incompatible with her believing that there exist prior conditions that render impossible the performance of either one of these actions. However, the main argument for this view, associated most prominently with Peter van Inwagen, appears to have been widely rejected by contemporary authors on free will. In this paper I argue first that a closer examination of van Inwagen's argument (...) shows that the standard objections are based on a misunderstanding of the notion of ‘deliberation’ presupposed in this argument. Second, I attempt to strengthen the case for deliberation incompatibilism by offering a different argument in its support. (shrink)

This essay discusses monism and pluralism about two related evaluative notions: welfare, or what makes people better off, and value simpliciter, or what makes the world better. These are stipulatively referred to as 'axiological value'. Axiological value property monists hold that one of these notions is reducible to the other (or else eliminable), while axiological value property pluralists deny this. Substantive monists about axiological value hold that there is just one basic kind of thing that makes our lives or the (...) world better, while substantive pluralists hold that there is more than one such thing. A more radical kind of pluralism holds that each of the plurality of good things is good in its own way, thus raising questions concerning value comparability and compensability. The essay elucidates these theories and discusses important arguments for and against them. (shrink)

Laws, codes, and rules are essential for any community, public or private, to operate in an orderly and productive fashion. Without laws and codes, anarchy and chaos abound and the purpose and role of the organization is lost. However, danger is significant, and damage serious and far-reaching when individuals or organizations become so focused on rules, laws, and specifications that basic principles are ignored. This paper discusses the purpose of laws, rules, and codes, to help understand basic principles. With such (...) an understanding an increase in the level of ethical and moral behavior can be obtained without imposing detailed rules. (shrink)

I first clarify the idea that blameworthiness requires consciousness as the view that one can be blameworthy only for what is a response to a reason of which one is conscious. Next I develop the following argument: blameworthiness requires exercising control in a way distinctive of persons and doing this, in view of what it is to be a person, requires responding to a reason of which one is conscious. Then I defend this argument from an objection inspired by Arpaly (...) and Schroeder according to which responding to moral reasons suffices for exercising control distinctive of persons. (shrink)

Every tenable ethical theory must have an account of moral virtue and vice. Julia Driver has performed a great service for utilitarians by developing a utilitarian account of moral virtue that complements a broader act-based utilitarian ethical theory. In her view, a moral virtue is a psychological disposition that systematically produces good states of affairs in a particular possible world. My goal is to construct a more plausible version of Driver’s account that nevertheless maintains its basic integrity. I aim to (...) accomplish this goal by developing four problems concerning admiration and luck for Driver’s account. Subsequently, I modify the account in a way that partially or entirely mitigates each difficulty. Finally, I attempt to undermine Driver’s rationale for rejecting the modification and explore how well the modified account of moral virtue fits with utilitarian accounts of right action. (shrink)

It is almost unanimously accepted that Kant denies resultant moral luck—that is, he denies that the lucky consequence of a person’s action can affect how much praise or blame she deserves. Philosophers often point to the famous good will passage at the beginning of the Groundwork to justify this claim. I argue, however, that this passage does not support Kant’s denial of resultant moral luck. Subsequently, I argue that Kant allows agents to be morally responsible for certain kinds of lucky (...) consequences. Even so, I argue that it is unclear whether Kant ultimately endorses resultant moral luck. The reason is that Kant does not write enough on moral responsibility for consequences to determine definitively whether he thinks that the lucky consequence for which an agent is morally responsible can add to her degree of praiseworthiness or blameworthiness. The clear upshot, however, is that Kant does not deny resultant moral luck. (shrink)

This paper repudiates Manuel Vargas’s attempt to supplant the traditional moral influence theory of responsibility with his ‘agency cultivation model’. By focusing on fostering responsiveness to moral considerations, ACM purports to avoid the chief pitfalls of MIT. However, I contend that ACM is far less distinctive than it initially appears and so possesses all of MIT’s defects. I also assail Vargas’s counterfactual test for assessing whether a wrongdoer can respond to moral considerations. It is argued that the counterfactual test is (...) epistemically redundant because it can only be fleshed out once we have settled the issues it is supposed to resolve. Moreover, it tacitly inverts the relation between freedom and responsibility—we cannot attribute free will to wrongdoers unless we have already established their blameworthiness. The upshot of this is that enquiries into an agent’s freedom are irrelevant to the ethics of holding her responsible. (shrink)

The news reminds us almost daily that the truth is apparently not highly valued by many in business. This paper develops two prescriptive standards — the Expectation and Reputation guidelines — that may help businesspeople avoid violating clearly accepted truth standards. The guidelines also assist in determining whether truth is required in circumstances where honesty seems in conflict with the practical demands of business. A discussion of why, when and how these guidelines may be applied to facilitate truth-telling by business (...) organizations follows, along with illustrative examples. (shrink)

If one sits in the stands for awhile at a local sporting contest, whether it is wrestling, soccer, baseball or particularly basketball, before long someone will exclaim toward a referee, ?That was a makeup call. You owe us one.? Everyone knows what this means but if an eight-year old beside you hears this screamed for the first time and asks, ?What does that mean?? An explanation given to her will be something like ?that's when an official makes a call and (...) immediately realizes it was a wrong call so at the first opportunity he can he makes a call against the team that has benefitted from the previous call; he is trying to even things out for his mistake.? The referee or umpire is attempting to be fair by ?giving back? the call with a ?makeup call.? A make-up call can be defined as the act of compensating for a questionable or bad officiating call by making a proportionally even call against the team that was aided by the first call. Usually these are immediate and obvious. They can also be conscious or subconscious, intentional or unintentional. The hope is that the two calls generally offset one another without either team being dramatically harmed. I will argue that the makeup call is prima facie immoral but if one were to attempt to find moral justification for it, this could best be done through a corrective theory of justice. But this presents a number of moral questions and ambiguities, most significantly, is a makeup call just and fair? Is it appropriate to understand the makeup call as an example of two wrongs making a right? A broader philosophic al question about officiating is whether each call in a contest should be viewed by as an independent single call with the goal of the official getting that one immediate call correct or should each call be understood as in a direct relationship with every other call in that game as a type of gestalt thus justifying makeup calls? This work will probe the depths of the highly suspect yet common moral puzzle, the makeup call. (shrink)

This essay explores the two main objectives of Bishop’s book, which he analyzes in the context of the care for the dying: the medical metaphysics underlying medical science and biopolitics as governance of the human body. This essay discusses Bishop’s claims in view of newer developments in medicine, especially the turn to the construction of life, and confronts the concept of the patient’s sovereignty with an alternative model of vulnerable agency. In order to overcome the impasses of contemporary bioethics, the (...) essay argues that practical reason requires a two-fold ethics: first, it must develop a new hermeneutics of illness and disease, and second, in order to protect the individuals in the process of dying, moral claims concerning death must be based on the concept of human rights. (shrink)

This paper presents the first English translation of one of Tanabe’s early essays on Kant. Tanabe marks the occasion of the first translation of the Critique of Practical Reason into Japanese by providing his reflections on Kant’s theory of freedom in this essay. This creative essay by Tanabe represents the hallmark Kyoto School interpretation of Kant. Tanabe weaves his account of Kant with elements from other philosophers in an attempt to think systematically about the nature of freedom. He agrees with (...) Kant that morality itself “rises and falls” with the idea of freedom; however, Tanabe also tries to rescue some of the pitfalls he sees in Kant’s theory by reconstructing Kant’s account. In this brief, but rich essay, Tanabe unfolds one of the more creative aspects of his philosophy through Kant. (shrink)

the term as used by sunstein seeks to bring together various traditions. however, there are significant differences between uses of the term in the cognitive and the social psychological research, and these differences are accompanied by very distinct evidential criteria. we suggest the term should refer to processes, which means that further evidence is required.

In the following article, I discuss the root of Scheler’s account of the person, its origin in phenomenology and the larger impact that view has as an alternative to other conceptions of the person. My thesis in this article intends to show why we should start with Scheler’s phenomenology over other approaches to the person. First, I take a look at what theoretical resources Scheler’s phenomenology has to offer us, and secondly, I outline the cultural conditions as to why the (...) value of the person must be affirmed in light of the 20th century and past philosophical mistakes in ethics. I, then, end on affirming the reasons why we ought to revive Scheler’s account of the person. (shrink)

Abstract: Human rights developed in response to specific violations of human dignity, and can therefore be conceived as specifications of human dignity, their moral source. This internal relationship explains the moral content and moreover the distinguishing feature of human rights: they are designed for an effective implementation of the core moral values of an egalitarian universalism in terms of coercive law. This essay is an attempt to explain this moral-legal Janus face of human rights through the mediating role of the (...) concept of human dignity. This concept is due to a remarkable generalization of the particularistic meanings of those "dignities" that once were attached to specific honorific functions and memberships. In spite of its abstract meaning, "human dignity" still retains from its particularistic precursor concepts the connotation of depending on the social recognition of a status—in this case, the status of democratic citizenship. Only membership in a constitutional political community can protect, by granting equal rights, the equal human dignity of everybody. (shrink)

In Ian Brassington’s article in a previous issue of this journal, he argues that suicide for the purpose of avoiding suffering is not, as Kant has contended, contrary to the moral law. Brassington’s objections are not cogent because they rely upon the exegetically incorrect premise that according to Kant the priceless value of personhood is in the noumenal world that we have no perception of. On the basis of Kant’s normative, metaphysical and epistemological theory, I argue, contrary to Brassington, that (...) according to Kant personhood’s moral value is explicitly in the sensible, phenomenal realm. While I argue that suicide solely to avoid suffering is immoral, I show that Kant’s normative system allows some acts of suicide to be morally permissible. In the course of the discussion of the value of humanity’s rationality and the immorality of suicide, I will discuss the broader modern medical ethical implications of Kant’s arguments, such as the moral impermissibility of using rationality depriving drugs, such as ketamine, solely to avoid pain. (shrink)

In On What Matters Derek Parfit advocates the Kantian Contractualist Formula as one of three supreme moral principles. In important cases, this formula entails that it is wrong for an agent to act in a way that would be partially best. In contrast, Parfit’s wide value-based objective view of reasons entails that the agent often have sufficient reasons to perform such acts. It seems then that agents might have sufficient reasons to act wrongly. In this paper I will argue that (...) such reasons are a symptom of a fundamental inconsistency between the Kantian Contractualist Formula and Parfit’s view of reasons. The formula requires that we consider what everyone could rationally will, while a wide value-based objective view requires that we consider only what the agent has sufficient reasons for doing. The same inconsistency is particularly obvious in Parfit’s version of the Consent Principle, which share important features with the Kantian Contractualist Formula. Parfit accepts that moral principles might entail that we sometimes have sufficient reasons to act wrongly. However, to accept that supreme moral principles have such implications is objectionable if you, like Parfit, also hold that principles with such implications should be rejected or revised. I suggest that we could abandon the requirement that we have to consider the reasons of everyone. This would make the Kantian Contractualist Formula consistent with Parfit’s view of reasons, at least in this respect. I also argue that we can keep most implications of the Kantian Contractualist Formula that Parfit finds attractive. (shrink)

As the number of intrinsically unknowable technologically produced risks global society faces continues to grow, it is evident that the question of our responsibilities towards future people is of urgent importance. However, the concepts with which this question is generally approached are, it is argued, deficient in comprehending the nature of these risks. In particular, the individualistic language of rights presents severe difficulties. An alternative understanding of responsibility is required, which, it is argued, can be developed from phenomenological and feminist (...) concepts of care. Such concepts privilege an understanding of human beings that is primarily relational rather than individualistic, and show that responsibility is, in the first place, about connection rather than respecting separation. Care, by opening up for us an understanding of the diversity of values that are constitutive of a worthwhile life, also connects us to the future as the future of care. As such, it provides us with ethical resources that can guide us in the face of uncertainty, including general principles of action and the desire for institutions that can articulate them. (shrink)

This paper aims to critique the phenomenon of advanced patient autonomy and choice in healthcare within the specific context of self-testing devices. A growing number of self-testing medical devices are currently available for home use. The premise underpinning many of these devices is that they assist individuals to be more autonomous in the assessment and management of their health. Increased patient autonomy is assumed to be a good thing. We take issue with this assumption and argue that self-testing provides a (...) specific example how increased patient autonomy and choice within healthcare might not best serve the patient population. We propose that current interpretations of autonomy in healthcare are based on negative accounts of liberty to the detriment of a more relational understanding. We also propose that Kantian philosophy is often applied to the healthcare arena in an inappropriate manner. We draw on the philosophical literature and examples from the self-testing process to support these claims. We conclude by offering an alternative account of autonomy based on the interrelated concepts of relationality, care and responsibility. (shrink)

A new book by Stephen Engstrom repeats a criticism of Bruce Aune's of Kant's derivation of the universalizability formula of the categorical imperative. The criticism is that Kant omitted at least one substantive premise in the derivation of the formula: ‘Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.’ The grounds for the formula that are given in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, however, are said to support (...) only a weaker requirement, namely, that a maxim conform to a universal law. Hence, Kant omits at least one necessary substantive premise of the derivation. This paper attempts to show that nothing substantive is omitted from the argument. It only needs two principles of inference that it is assumed add nothing substantive to the premises. (shrink)

An imperfect duty such as the duty to aid those in need is supposed to leave leeway for choice as to how to satisfy it, but if our reason for a certain way of satisfying it is our strongest, that leeway would seem to be eliminated. This paper defends a conception of practical reasons designed to preserve it, without slighting the binding force of moral requirements, though it allows us to discount certain moral reasons. Only reasons that offer criticism of (...) alternatives can yield requirements, but our reasons for particular ways of satisfying imperfect duties merely count in favor of the acts in question. When the state is authorized to take over charitable obligations, it should not be seen as enforcing fulfillment of our imperfect duties, but rather as forcing us to help fulfill collective duties that may be substantially modified by transfer to the state, replacing imperfect duties with perfect. Besides the cost to us in freedom of choice there is a moral cost to replacing the virtuous motives of charity with those that tend to accompany paying taxes. However, a compensating feature of state involvement is the fact that its more precise demands come with limits. (shrink)