To be self-compassionate is to show compassion not (only) for others but for yourself. Research in psychology suggests that self-compassion leads to improved well-being and functioning. With the psychological research in the background, we give a philosophical account of self-compassion and its ethical significance. We build a definition of self-compassion, suggesting that self-compassion is different from but closely analogous to compassion for others. Our definition departs from the most prominent definition in the psychological literature but is well-equipped to guide ongoing (...) empirical research. We then argue that self-compassion is a virtue. Self-compassion makes ordinary people happier and more likely to act well, and the self-compassionate person understands and values herself correctly; she sees herself accurately as a needy, vulnerable, limited human whose interests matter. If we are right, then the ethical relationship with self is more complicated than philosophical treatments have so far acknowledged. The virtuous person does not only meet moral duties to herself or exercise permissions to favor her own interests. She also has an emotional relationship with herself, which incorporates enlightened self-understanding and self-care. (shrink)

The conception of two kinds of practical identities, which Korsgaard introduces in the Sources of Normativity, helps her explain how universal categorical reasoning is compatible with the moral content of individual practical decisions. Based on this conception, she devises an interpretation of the Kantian as if principle amended by her argument for the public shareability of reasons. I suggest that, in doing so, Korsgaard steps too far away from Kant’s architectonic approach to the question of why moral norms bind us, (...) and that, as a result, the Korsgaardian explanation, as it stands, cannot be accomplished. (shrink)

In recent years, debates about euthanasia and assisted suicide have increased to the point that now, many people defend the recognition of the right to die, the right for people to decide upon the end of their life. Consistently, advocates fight to legalise practices such as euthanasia to guarantee patients’ possibility to die when they request it. In this paper, I review two of the strongest arguments invoked by proponents of physician-assisted suicide: the argument for compassion and the argument for (...) dignity. The focus of this paper is to propose a review of these arguments through the lens of virtue ethics to inform the debate on physician-assisted suicide and question the relevance of such arguments for the legalisation of that right that would greatly ease the possibilities to end the life of a patient asking for it. (shrink)

Kant’s religious ethics is grounded in a practical philosophy where ‘God’ is subordinated to moral principles. To accomplish this goal, Kant dismantled the onto-theological groundwork of religion and the conventional method of attaching morality to God, as if morality was a consequence of religious belief. In this essay, I will show how Kant replaces the metaphysics of being with the metaphysics of morality. More importantly, I will show how Kant’s thesis of moral theism argues that the practical philosophy does not (...) end with the categorical imperative, but that Kant also thinks morality inevitably leads to religious belief. (shrink)

Kant considers eudaimonism as his main opponent and he assumes that his ethics is the only viable alternative to eudaimonism. He does not explicitly address theories differing from both eudaimonism and from his own. I argue that whilst Kant and Act-Consequentialists advocate different normative principles, their positions share the important abstract feature that they establish what is to be done from a rational principle and not based on what is in the self-interest of the respective agent, as Kant thinks eudaimonism (...) does. Act-Consequentialism is thus closer to Kant’s ethics than is often assumed. I will demonstrate and vindicate this point with a new interpretation of the Fact of Reason. This reading also establishes that the notion of a Fact of Reason is less contentious than many of Kant’s critics believe. We should not expect that the Fact establishes Kantianism. Instead, the Fact is only supposed to count against a specific competing view of morality, namely, eudaimonism. Act-Consequentialists can accept the Fact as well. (shrink)

Graphic and gut-wrenching images of death, violence, and pain fill our news media, despite debate about their effect on audiences and their potential to harm their subjects. This research uses in-d...

In this paper, I will suggest an unorthodox hybrid theory of ethical justification that combines, on an ontological level, a realist approach with constructivist elements. On an epistemological level, the realist part of the theory will be squared with an intuitionist account. Eventually, the suggested hybrid theory will take the form of an intuitionist ethics of persons. I will start with briefly sketching the ontological shape of the relevant concept of person whereby I will extensively draw on Kant and endorse (...) a realist reading of his ethical theory (2.). Subsequently, I will explain why and how constructivist elements must complement the picture (3.). Then, I will focus on the epistemological shape of the theory. In particular, I will suggest an intuitionist reading of Kant’s doctrine of “the fact of reason” (4.). Next, I will briefly comment on classical intuitionism and on Bernard William’s notion of convergence in ethics (5.). Subsequently, I will compare my approach with Robert Audi’s attempt to refine a Rossian type of intuitionism (6.). Finally, I will revisit the charge of dogmatism that has traditionally been raised against intuitionism (7.). (shrink)

In Self-Constitution, I argue that the principles governing action are “constitutive standards” of agency, standards that arise from the nature of agency itself. To be an agent is to be autonomousl...

Several commentators have tried to ground legal prohibitions of kidney sales in some form of Kant’s moral arguments against such sales. This paper reconsiders this approach to justifying laws and policies in light of Kant’s approach to law in his political philosophy. The author argues that Kant’s political philosophy requires that kidney sales be legally permitted, although contracts for such sales must remain unenforceable. The author further argues that Kant’s approach to laws, such as those governing kidney distribution, was formed (...) in part by considering and rejecting an assumption frequently employed in the bioethics literature, namely, that legal duties can be grounded directly in moral duties. The author explains some of Kant’s reasons for rejecting this assumption and concludes that arguments pertaining to the legality of kidney sales developed on the basis of Kant’s moral philosophy should no longer be considered tenable. (shrink)

According to the doctrine of informed consent medical procedures are morally permissible when a patient has consented to the treatment. Problematically it is possible for a patient to consent to or refuse treatment which consequently leads to a decline in her best interests. Standardly, such conflicts are resolved by prioritising the doctrine of informed consent above the requirement that the medical practitioner acts in accordance with the duty of care. This means that patient free choice is respected regardless as to (...) whether her choice leads to a decline in her best interests, since to disrespect patient choice would be an instance of ‘unwarranted’ paternalism. This thesis defends the claim that in cases where patient consent comes into conflict with her best interests, paternalistic interference is in fact justified. The ambition of the thesis is thus twofold: in the first place I argue that the doctrine of informed consent cannot be used as an ethical guarantor for medical decision making. Secondly I will conclude that hard paternalism is justified in medical practice, thereby calling for a reversal of the prioritisation of informed consent procedures over the medical practitioner’s duty of care. (shrink)

In the field of U.S. art history, the photography specialization is fairly new and the discourse is dominated by a handful of voices like Walter Benjamin and Roland Barthes, while Vilém Flusser has been virtually ignored. This essay examines the trilogy of “technical image” texts Flusser wrote in the 1980s—Towards a Philosophy of Photography, Into the Universe of Technical Images, and Does Writing Have a Future? —and beyond these, locating the seeds of Flusser’s “photophilosophy” in his use of information and (...) communications theory to develop concepts like “image,” “apparatus,” “program,” and “information.” It considers the U.S. art historical bias toward writers like Jean Baudrillard, Paul Virilio, and the “control society” ethos of Gilles Deleuze and Flusser’s proposal that technical images and photography criticism could provide models for creative disruption of apparatus and finally, “human freedom.” Placed in the current moment, with its crises of environment, technology, economy, and geopolitics, this essay considers Flusser’s writing as a form of ethics and politics in which photography serves as a model for thinking about history, culture, revolution, and consciousness. (shrink)

Given that artificial moral agents—such as autonomous vehicles, lethal autonomous weapons, and automated financial trading systems—are now part of the socio-ethical equation, we should morally evaluate their behavior. How should artificial moral agents make decisions? Is one moral theory better suited than others for machine ethics? After briefly overviewing the dominant ethical approaches for building morality into machines, this paper discusses a recent proposal, put forward by Don Howard and Ioan Muntean (2016, 2017), for an artificial moral agent based on (...) virtue theory. While the virtuous artificial moral agent has various strengths, this paper argues that a rule-based utilitarian approach (in contrast to a strict act-utilitarian approach) is superior because it can capture the most important features of the virtue-theoretic approach while realizing additional significant benefits. Specifically, a 2-level utilitarian artificial moral agent incorporating both established moral rules and a utility calculator is especially well-suited for machine ethics. (shrink)

This paper examines political rights in Islam by focusing on freedom of religion and the extent to which the state is empowered to enforce faith and religious law on society. It starts by comparing the notion of law in both Western and Islamic traditions, and then analyzes the difference between the ethical and legal within Sharī‘ah. The paper illustrates how Islamic law grew historically by working to limit the power of the state, and points out the need to maintain the (...) distinction between the state and civil society for the proper implementation of Sharī‘ah. The paper also contends that those who call on the state to enforce all rules of Sharī‘ah on society rely on a faulty theory of right and concludes that Islamic law fully recognizes the right of individuals to adopt and practice their faith freely. Freedom of religion, it stresses, is an intrinsic aspect of Islamic law and all efforts to limit this freedom is bound to violate its purpose and dictates. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis essay introduces paternalism—a concept widely discussed in political philosophy and applied ethics—into media ethics, given that the concept is frequently mentioned but rarely explicated. The purpose of the essay is to defend paternalism as a normatively positive concept. The essay defines paternalism, outlines normative objections to paternalism grounded in autonomy and rationality, and applies the concept of paternalism to journalism. Theoretical connections to virtue ethics and implications for the practice of journalism are also discussed.

The dead donor rule states that organ donors must be declared dead before any vital organs are removed. Recently, scholars and physicians have argued for the abandonment of the dead donor rule, based on the rule’s supposed connection with the concept of brain death, which they view as a conceptually unreliable definition of death. In this essay, I distinguish between methods of death determination and the question of whether or not the dead donor rule should be a guiding principle of (...) organ transplant ethics. In principle, the dead donor rule does not rely on any one definition of death, but only prohibits the taking of vital organs before a patient is declared dead. In light of this distinction, I argue that even if the dead donor rule is tied to brain death in practice, conceptual disagreement about brain death does not provide grounds for rejection of this rule. I then present evidence in support of the consistency and reliability of the diagnosis of brain death. I show that, when performed carefully and under specific clinical circumstances, the diagnosis of brain death is considered by most neurologists to be reliable. Finally, I argue that, without the dead donor rule, organ transplantation programs would become susceptible to violations of the ethical principle of respect for persons. (shrink)

This article proposes a Kantian account of our reasons to forgive that situates our moral fallibility as their ultimate ground. I explore similarities and differences between Kant’s account in the Doctrine of Virtue and the more recent account offered by Garrard and McNaughton, 39–60, 2003). After tracing the connection between moral fallibility and moral luck, I discuss Kant’s argument for a duty to be forgiving. Kant’s strategy yields a plausible account of the normative status of forgiveness: Although we generally have (...) a moral reason to forgive others, forgiveness is not required in every case of wrongdoing. Kant’s argument is based on the assumption that we are all in need of forgiveness, the nature of which I go on to explain. Forgiveness has the power to relieve us of a burden that results from moral failure, which grounds both its standing as a duty and its importance in the lives of fallible moral agents. (shrink)

Prevailing philosophies about parental and other caregiver responsibilities toward children tend to be protectionist, grounded in informed benevolence in a way that countenances rather than circumvents intrusive paternalism. And among the kinds of children an adult might be called upon to parent or otherwise care for, children with disabilities figure among those for whom the strongest and snuggest shielding is supposed be deployed. In this article, we examine whether this equation of securing well-being with sheltering by protective parents and other (...) care-givers should unreflectively be adopted for disabled children. We also consider why healthcare providers might reasonably be reluctant to yield to this principle, even if parents instinctively suppose that protectionism is the parenting policy that best serves their disabled child’s interest. We contend that caregivers owe children with disabilities at least as much, and possibly more, respect for self-governance than other children need. In spite of disabled children’s vulnerability and even in view of it, we argue that they should be accorded not only welfare rights to well-being but at least a modified version of liberty rights as well. Healthcare providers are especially favorably positioned to facilitate the latter response. The main components of respectful caregiving can come into conflict with one another, but we present some priorities that advise against adopting a protectionist account of parenting rights, or at least against accepting protectionist views that focus parenting narrowly on shaping ideas about the child’s welfare. In sum, caring for a disabled child, we argue, involves more than creating conditions that will afford her contentment and comfort over the course of life. (shrink)

Gamification is an increasingly common marketing tool. Yet, to date, there has been little examination of its ethical implications. In light of the potential implications of this type of stealth marketing for consumer welfare, this paper discusses the ethical dilemmas raised by the use of gamified approaches to marketing. The paper draws on different schools of ethics to examine gamification as an overall system, as well as its constituent parts. This discussion leads to a rationale and suggestions for how gamification (...) could be regulated and/or controlled by more informal codes of conduct. The paper ends by outlining a practical framework which businesses can use to evaluate the potential ethical implications raised by their own gamified marketing techniques. (shrink)

One of the perennially intriguing questions regarding Kant’s approach to the human sciences is the relation between his ‘transcendental psychology’ and empirical cognitive psychology. In this paper I compare his analysis of the a priori conditions of human cognition in the Critique of pure reason with his empirical account of the human cognitive faculties in his Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view. In comparing his approach to self-consciousness, sensibility, imagination, and understanding in these two works, I argue that Kant (...) distinguishes between the transcendental and empirical aspects of the human cognitive faculties, and regards the transcendental functions as configuring the empirical faculties of human consciousness, or as giving them the structure that they require to become faculties of cognition. I then show that the cognitive faculties of human beings may vary in their empirical operation, even while they are configured by the same transcendental structure. Finally, I characterize Kant’s transcendental psychology in the first Critique as an account of the faculties that are required for a mind to be an agent or subject of cognition, corresponding to his account of the conditions that are required universally and necessarily for something to be an object of cognition.Keywords: Immanuel Kant; Anthropology; Psychology; Cognition; Transcendental; Empirical. (shrink)

This dissertation attempts to preserve the central tenets of a global moral theory called “the capabilities approach” as defended by Martha Nussbaum, but to do so in a way that better realizes its own goals of identifying gender injustices and gaining cross-cultural support by providing an alternative defense of it. Capabilities assess an individual’s well-being based on what she is able to do (actions) and who she is able to be (states of existence). Nussbaum grounds her theory in the intuitive (...) idea that each and every person is worthy of equal respect and dignity. The problem with grounding a theory in a version of intuitionism is that it runs the risk of authoritarian moral reasoning. I argue Nussbaum, in fact, is the final arbiter who decides which intuitions are mistaken, which are not, and how to interpret what people say to fit into her own framework. This method of justifying capabilities is most problematic in cases of social inequality whereby dominant group members do not feel they need to check their intuitions against non-dominant group members, and even if they did, they are not forced to take the non-dominant group’s intuitions seriously. I find capabilities as a global moral theory to be very promising, and I agree with Nussbaum that a list of capabilities is beneficial for identifying people who are not able to live a truly dignified human life. However, I am also sympathetic to the criticism of defending capabilities using a version of intuitionism. So, I offer an alternative method of justifying the capabilities rooted in the discourse ethics tradition. This method seeks all persons that are affected by the outcome to freely and equally share their opinion. This avoids the charge of authoritarian moral reasoning, because (1) it seeks perspectives other than simply one’s own, but unlike traditional ethics, it (2) pays special attention to the ways in which power relations shape dialogue. Ultimately, I hope to have preserved the central tenets of the capabilities approach while better realizing Nussbaum’s commitment to defending a theory that is gender sensitive and has gained cross-cultural support. (shrink)

Agents sometimes act for normative reasons—for reasons that objectively favor their actions. Jill, for instance, calls a doctor for the normative reason that Kate is injured. In this article I explore a dispositional approach to acting for a normative reason. I argue for the need of epistemic, motivational, and executional dispositional elements of a theory of acting for a normative reason. Dispositions play a mediating role between, on the one hand, the normative reason and its normative force, and the action (...) on the other hand. Thereby, they help to deal with problem cases such as cases of deviant causal chains and improper instrumental motivation. (shrink)

In recent years, direct brain interventions have shown increased success in manipulating neurobiological processes often associated with moral reasoning and decision-making. As current DBIs are refined, and new technologies are developed, the state will have an interest in administering DBIs to criminal offenders for rehabilitative purposes. However, it is generally assumed that the state is not justified in directly intruding in an offender’s brain without valid consent. Thomas Douglas challenges this view. The state already forces criminal offenders to go to (...) jail without their consent. This represents a serious interference with an offender’s rights. If criminal offenders are already morally liable to incarceration, why is the state not also entitled to administer DBIs without consent for the purposes of rehabilitation? Douglas argument focuses on the right to ‘bodily integrity’. He argues that there is no compelling reason to believe that bodily rights that protect an offender from non-consensual DBIs are stronger than rights that protect an offender from incarceration. This paper will extend Douglas’ analysis. It will consider the more fundamental right to ‘mental integrity’. The right to mental integrity defends an inner sphere of liberty. It protects critical capacities necessary for the exercise of autonomous human agency—without which a vast majority of moral rights could not exist. Thus, the right to mental integrity is ultimately more important for a moral assessment of DBIs. The right strongly suggests that both presently, and in the future, there may be many cases in which the state is not entitled to administer DBIs to criminal offenders without valid consent. (shrink)

_Essays on Beauvoir’s influences, contemporary engagements, and legacy in the philosophical tradition._.

In this paper, I argue that cases of radical selftransformation (cases in which an agent willfully changes a foundational element of their motivational structure) constitute an important philosophical puzzle. Though our inclination to hold people responsible for such changes suggests that we regard radical transformation as (in some sense) self-determined, it is difficult to conceive how a transformation that extends to the heart of an agent’s practical life can be attributed to the agent at all. While I contend that the (...) best way to solve this puzzle is to deny that radical transformations are in fact self-determined, many maintain the opposite. The defense of my thesis involves showing how the conditions that must be met in order to coherently attribute transformation to an agent are not satisfied in cases of radical transformation. Radical transformation is, thus, something that happens to an agent, not something that is done by her. (shrink)

The categorical imperative can be construed as a universalization test for moral permissibility. False negatives of the categorical imperative would be maxims failing this test, despite the permissibility of their actions; maxims like: ‘I’ll withdraw all my savings on April 15th’. Examples of purported false negatives familiar from the literature can be grouped into three general categories, and dispatched by applying category-specific methods for proper formulation of their maxims, or for proper testing. Methods for reformulating failing maxims, such as the (...) addition of appropriate conditional clauses, do not generate false-positive counterexamples in other instances. (shrink)

Nobody's going to object to the advice "Do the right thing", but that doesn't mean everyone's always going to follow it. Sometimes this is because of our volitional limitations; we cannot always bring ourselves to make the sacrifices that right action requires. But sometimes this is because of our cognitive limitations; we cannot always be sure of what is right. Sometimes we can't be sure of what's right because we don't know the non-normative facts. But sometimes, even if we were (...) to know all of the non-normative facts, we'd still not be sure about what's right, because we're uncertain about the normative reasons those facts give us. In this dissertation, I attempt to answer the question of what we're to do when we must act under fundamentally normative uncertainty. It's tempting to think that, in such circumstances, we should do what we regard as most probably right. I argue that this view is mistaken, for it is insensitive to how degrees of actions' values compare across different normative hypotheses; if an action is probably right, but, if wrong, is terribly, terribly, wrong, it may be rational not to do that action. A better answer is that we should do the action with the highest expected value. I spend the first part of the dissertation providing arguments for and rebutting arguments against this view of action under normative uncertainty. I spend the next part of the dissertation explaining what degrees of value are, and showing how they can be compared across normative hypotheses. In the remaining parts of the dissertation, I consider two questions related to our primary question -- first, what is one required, or obligated, to do under normative uncertainty; and second, what is it rational for one to do when one is not only normatively uncertain in the way we've been discussing, but also uncertain about what it is rational to do under this sort of normative uncertainty. (shrink)

Teamwork in sport presents a variety of special challenges and satisfactions. It requires an integration of talents and contributions from individual team members, which is a practical achievement, and it represents a shared pursuit, which is a moral achievement. In its best instances team sport allows members to transform individual interests into a common interest, and in the process discover of part of their own identities. Teamwork is made intelligible by the collective pursuit of victory, but moral requirements importantly condition (...) that activity. To some extent, the dynamic of team sport instantiates a basic experience of human sociality. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to defend the position that aesthetics and ethics in sport are not two separate domains or aspects. In sport, the aesthetic and the ethical both arise from sport’s attractiveness or from the pleasure sport offers to its activists and consumers. To think about sport philosophically, we should find a link and a principle beyond this division as a source of both the aesthetic and the ethical in sport. The philosophy and philosophical sociology of Jean-Marie (...) Guyau is presented as a response to this problem. Two points of fundamental importance are considered critically here: his criticism of any reductionism, and life or the idea of life as key principle of a philosophical system which puts ethics and aesthetics together. (shrink)

Kantian moral theories must explain how their most basic moral values of dignity and autonomy should be interpreted and applied to human conditions. One place Kantians should look for inspiration is, surprisingly, the utilitarian tradition and its emphasis on generally accepted, informally enforced, publicly known moral rules of the sort that help us give assurances, coordinate our behavior, and overcome weak wills. Kantians have tended to ignore utilitarian discussions of such rules mostly because they regard basic moral principles as a (...) priori requirements that cannot be tailored to human foibles and limitations. I argue that Kantian moral theories should incorporate public moral rules as mid-level moral requirements for embodied and socially embedded human agents. I explain how certain specific moral judgments about how we ought to act are justified by public moral rules, which are themselves justified by more fundamental moral requirements. (shrink)

According to the traditional philosophical definition, you lie if and only if you say something that you believe to be false and you intend to deceive someone into believing what you say. However, philosophers have recently noted the existence of bald-faced lies, lies which are not intended to deceive anyone into believing what is said. As a result, many philosophers have removed deception from their definitions of lying. According to Jennifer Lackey, this is ‘an unhappy divorce’ because it precludes an (...) obvious explanation of the prima facie wrongness of lying. Moreover, Lackey claims that there is a sense of deception in which all lies are deceptive. In this paper, I argue that bald-faced lies are not deceptive on any plausible notion of deception. In addition, I argue that divorcing deception from lying may not be as unhappy a result as Lackey suggests. (shrink)

This paper provides a sketch of an agent-centered way of understanding and answering the question, “What’s wrong with that?” On this view, what lies at the bottom of judgments of wrongness is a bad attitude; when someone does something wrong, she does something that expresses a bad, or inappropriate, attitude . In order to motivate this account, a general Kantian agent-centered ethics is discussed, as well as Michael Slote’s agent-based ethics, in light of analysis of the grounding role of attitudes (...) in the evaluation of two core cases. In light of these discussions, it is argued that there are advantages to preserving the grounding of the appropriateness of attitudes in facts about their objects , while cutting such an agent-centered ethics away from a Kantian grounding. (shrink)

The belief that human rights are culturally relative has been reinforced by recent attempts to develop more plausible conceptions of human rights whose philosophical foundations are closely aligned with culture-specific ideas about human nature and/or dignity. This paper contests specifically the position that a conception of human rights is culturally relative by way of contesting the claim that there is an African case in point. That is, it contests the claim that there is a unique theory of rights. It analyses (...) three examples of what often passes as African conception of human rights arguing that they have little or nothing to do with human rights, are simply inadequate or are not African in the sense at issue in a cultural relativism. Along the way, it distinguishes between two meanings of the term African contending that to the extent that the practice of prizing the ‘community’ higher than any other value is definitive of African, the idea of African human rights remains suspect. (shrink)

Though we cherish freedom and equality, there are human relations we commonly take to be morally permissible despite the fact that they essentially involve an inequality specifically of freedom, i.e., parental and fiduciary relations. In this article, I argue that the morality of these relations is best understood through a very old and dangerous concept, the concept of status. Despite their historic and continuing abuses, status relations are alive and well today, I argue, because some of them are necessary. We (...) must therefore carefully specify the conditions in which such status relations may morally obtain, as well as the duties of virtue and duties of right to which all parties are subject when it does (including a duty of care) to clearly articulate the ways in which these putatively moral status relations that essentially involve an asymmetry of autonomy (status relations) can go well or badly even within the context of the Kantian tradition from which our current legal and social practices arose. To this end, I offer Kant's own concept of status as a promising one because in Kant's theory, status is a nexus of virtue and right that is reducible to neither property nor contract but akin to each in familiar ways. Once status is admitted as an alternative to property and contract, status may be extended beyond Kant's domestic paradigm, most perspicuously to institutional ethics. In this article, I sketch a status-based theory of stakeholding that locates environmental impact, institutional oppression, and other significant features of our moral landscape within a Kantian framework of duties rich enough to more accurately characterize the complexities of stakeholding than current tradition has allowed. (shrink)

About the extent of moral agency in the animal kingdom, one view is that only humans are moral agents. Holding a different view, I argue that moral agency depends on the capacity for other-regard and the capacity to be attuned to significance—such that things matter to one. I derive a criterion where a creature is a moral agent if she performs an action that promotes others’ significant interests and brings great costs to herself where she is aware of these significant (...) interests and imposed costs. Failure to confirm that she has this awareness is a weakness of examples of moral agency in animals that writers provide, since she may be unaware of the significance of what she is doing. Since species of non-ape Primates and aquatic mammals satisfy the evidential criterion, moral agency is likely prevalent throughout much of Mammalia. I consider possible objections from Kant, Singer, and Korsgaard. (shrink)

After giving a brief account of human rights, the paper investigates five contemporary attacks on them. All of the attacks come from two contemporary proponents of the cost-benefit state, attorney Cass Sunstein and philosopher Larry Laudan. These attacks may be called, respectively, the rationality, objectivity, permission, voluntariness, and comparativism claims. Laudan's and Sunstein's rationality claim (RC) ist that only policy decisions passing cost-benefit tests are rational. Their objectivity presupposition (OP) is that only acute, deterministic threats to life are objective. Sunstein’s (...) permission claim (PC) is that regulators are merely permitted, 3 not required, to take distributive and human rights concerns into account. Sunstein’s 3 voluntariness claim (VC) is that the consent of potential victims is not relevant to government regulations about risks and benefits. Laudan’s comparativism claim 3 (CC) is that there are no rules of thumb, no precomparative norms like human rights, for assessing theory choice in policy science. The paper analyzes each of these claims, shows how they undercut human rights, and argues that each of them errs. (shrink)

Summary A good deal of the late-twentieth-century commentary on Kant's ‘Perpetual Peace’ essay accepted its author's view that his conception of cosmopolitan justice had superseded the law of nations, some of whose leading exponents—Grotius, Pufendorf, and Vattel—Kant characterised as ‘miserable comforters’. Focusing on the case of Vattel, in this paper I begin to subject Kant's claim to an historical investigation, asking whether his ‘Perpetual Peace’ did indeed supersede Vattel's Law of Nations in terms of the actual uses of the texts (...) in a variety of historical contexts. In pointing to an array of evidence against Kant's widely accepted claim, I develop a different and more historical way of assessing the relation between the two writers. Kant, I argue, should be approached as a political metaphysician whose conception of cosmopolitan justice formed part of a factional theological and philosophical attack on the law of nations tradition. Vattel, however, was a diplomatic official whose text operates within the horizon of the European state ensemble and functioned as a summative abstraction of a wide variety of post-Westphalian public-law treaties and diplomatic rules and conventions. This accounts for the wide distribution, use, and influence of Vattel's work in a variety of Anglophone contexts from the late eighteenth century through to the end of the nineteenth, where Kant's text was marginal to discussion. (shrink)

This essay is concerned with the relation between motivating and normative reasons. According to a common and influential thesis, a normative reason is identical with a motivating reason when an agent acts for that normative reason. I will call this thesis the ‘Identity Thesis’. Many philosophers treat the Identity Thesis as a commonplace or a truism. Accordingly, the Identity Thesis has been used to rule out certain ontological views about reasons. I distinguish a deliberative and an explanatory version of the (...) Identity Thesis and argue that there are no convincing arguments to accept either version. Furthermore, I point out an alternative to the Identity Thesis. The relation between motivating and normative reasons can be thought of as one of representation, not identity. (shrink)

An autobiographical account is offered of how the medical study of self (immunology) became a chapter in the philosophical study of human agency (from Nietzsche and Thoreau to Freud by way of Wittgenstein). Whether viewed scientifically or philosophically, several themes converge on the intractable instability of any notion of selfhood—epistemological or moral. How this problematic motivated an extended analysis of selfhood refracts the psychology of the author and his pursuit of philosophy as self‐knowledge.

There are two primary traditions in philosophical theorizing about moral standing—one emphasizing Experience (the capacity to feel pain and pleasure) and one emphasizing Agency (complexity of cognition and lifestyle). In this article we offer an explanation for this divide: Lay judgments about moral standing depend importantly on two independent cues (Experience and Agency), and the two philosophical traditions reflect this aspect of folk moral cognition. In support of this two-source hypothesis, we present the results of a series of new experiments (...) providing evidence for our account of lay judgments about moral standing, and argue that these results lend plausibility to the proposed causal link between folk moral cognition and the philosophical traditions. (shrink)

Aquaculture is the fastest growing animal-production sector in the world. This leads to the question how we should guarantee fish welfare. Implementing welfare standards presupposes that we know how to weigh, define, and measure welfare. While at first glance these seem empirical questions, they cannot be answered without ethical reflection. Normative assumptions are made when weighing, defining, and measuring welfare. Moreover, the focus on welfare presupposes that welfare is a morally important concept. This in turn presupposes that we can define (...) the capacities of fish, which is an empirical undertaking that informs and is informed by ethical theories about the moral status of animals. In this article we want to illustrate the need for a constant interaction between empirical scientific research and ethics, in which both fields of research make their own contribution. This is not a novel claim. However, the case of fish sheds new light on this claim, because regarding fish there is still much empirical uncertainty and there is a plurality of moral views on all levels. Therefore, we do not only want to show the necessity of this interaction, but also the added value of a cooperation between ethicists and empirical scientists, such as biologists, physiologists, and ethologists. We demonstrate this by considering the different steps in the process of reflection about and implementation of fish welfare. (shrink)

In this article, I examine anew the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant and its contributions to educational theory. I make four claims. First, that Kant should be read as having the Categorical Imperative develop out of subjective maxims. Second, that moral self-perfection is the aim of moral education. Third, that moral self-perfection develops by children habituating the results of their moral maxims in scenarios and cases. Fourth, that character and culture, Kant’s highest aims for humanity, are the ultimate beneficiaries of (...) this process. (shrink)

If philosophical moral reflection tends to promote moral behavior, one might think that professional ethicists would behave morally better than do socially comparable non-ethicists. We examined three types of courteous and discourteous behavior at American Philosophical Association conferences: talking audibly while the speaker is talking (versus remaining silent), allowing the door to slam shut while entering or exiting mid-session (versus attempting to close the door quietly), and leaving behind clutter at the end of a session (versus leaving one's seat tidy). (...) By these three measures, audiences in ethics sessions did not appear to behave any more courteously than did audiences in non-ethics sessions. However, audiences in environmental ethics sessions did appear to leave behind less trash. (shrink)

Research to improve the health of pregnant and fetal patients presents ethical challenges to clinical investigators, institutional review boards, funding agencies, and data safety and monitoring boards. The Common Rule sets out requirements that such research must satisfy but no ethical framework to guide their application. We provide such an ethical framework, based on the ethical concept of the fetus as a patient. We offer criteria for innovation and for Phase I and II and then for Phase III clinical trials (...) to improve the health of pregnant patients and of fetal patients and also criteria to responsibly manage the transition from investigation to clinical practice. Basing ethical criteria for research involving pregnant women on the ethical concept of the fetus as a patient insulates the proposed ethical framework and therefore research on pregnant women from the divisive and politicized concepts and discourses of personhood, fetal rights, and unborn child. (shrink)

Peters' account of the moral life and the conception of practical reason that informed it reflects a sophisticated moral universalism. However, attempts to extend a similarly sophisticated universalism into our understanding of education are not as well received. Yet, such a project is of clear contemporary relevance given the pressure put on educational institutions to achieve certain ends. If we can show that education entails standards that are not entirely contingent upon current interests, we would have a framework that all (...) institutions seriously claiming to be involved in the enterprise would have to acknowledge. In this paper I argue that a reconstruction of the relationship between Peters' work in philosophical ethics and his conceptual analysis may go some way in showing how one can speak of education in universalistic terms. Accordingly, although many of the criticisms laid at Peters' feet are of merit, they overshadow more potentially useful interpretive moves. Finally, I show how a change in the focus of Peters' account of education and practical reason more generally can provide important resources for engaging in a more plausible exploration of universalistic themes in education. (shrink)

This article concerns the morality of establishing regulated kidney markets in an effort to reduce the chronic shortage of kidneys for transplant. The article tries to rebut the view, recently defended by James Taylor, that if we hold autonomy to be intrinsically valuable, then we should be in favor of such markets. The article then argues that, under current conditions, the buying and selling of organs in regulated markets would sometimes violate two Kantian principles that are seen as moral constraints. (...) One principle forbids expressing disrespect for the dignity of humanity; the other forbids treating others merely as means. In light of the moral danger posed by regulated markets, the article advocates an alternative way of diminishing the current organ shortage, namely opt-out systems of cadaveric organ donation. (shrink)

This essay reflects on issues raised by commentators regarding my book, The Atrocity Paradigm: A Theory of Evil (Oxford 2002). They are (1) Robin Schott's observation of the tension between my discussion of forgiveness and of castration fantasies; (2) Bat-Ami Bar On's questions regarding whether evil is ethical, political, or both; (3) Adam Morton's queries regarding the relative seriousness of evils and injustices; and (4) María Pía Lara's concerns regarding what is valuable in Kant's ethics.

Beginning from an analysis of moral obligation's form that I defend in The Second-Person Standpoint as what we are answerable for as beings with the necessary capacities to enter into relations of mutual accountability, I argue that this analysis has implications for moral obligation's substance. Given what it is to take responsibility for oneself and hold oneself answerable, I argue, it follows that if there are any moral obligations at all, then there must exist a basic pro tanto obligation not (...) to undermine one another's moral autonomy. (shrink)

The concepts of 'ethical' and 'socially responsible' investment (SRI) have become increasingly popular in recent years and funds which offer this kind of investment have attracted many individual inve... merstors. The present book addresses the issue of 'How ought one to invest?' by critically engaging with the ideas of the proponents of this movement about what makes 'ethical' investing ethical. The standard suggestion that ethical investing simply consists in refraining from investing in certain 'morally unacceptable companies' is criticised for being (...) both too rigid (often resting on absolute moral rules which lead to an austere conclusion) and too ineffective for individual investors (investors who after all control only a small part of the investment universe). Furthermore, the idea that ethical investing could consist in engaging more actively with the companies one invests in, in order to make them change their ways and become more socially responsible, is criticised for being just as ineffective for individual investors. Some more radical alternatives are elaborated on and defended - for instance, the suggestion that investors should make as much money from their investments as possible and then donate the proceeds to socially worthwhile charities. From similar suggestions, the common idea that there is no conflict between morality and profitability, or that genuinely ethical investing can be just as profitable as mainstream investing, is criticised for being too naïve. Making a difference may indeed require personal sacrifice of investors, but it is argued that the needs of the possible recipients of philanthropy are morally more important than the luxury of investment returns. (shrink)