The purpose of the third section of Kant’s Groundwork is to prove the possibility of the categorical imperative. In the end of the second section, Kant establishes that a proof like this is necessary to show that morality is ‘something’ and ‘not a chimerical idea without any truth’ or a ‘phantom’. Since the categorical imperative was established as a synthetic a priori practical proposition, in order to prove its possibility it is necessary ‘to go beyond cognition of objects to a (...) critique of the subject, that is, of pure practical reason’. Kant names this kind of proof a deduction. The present paper intends to show the argument whose purpose is to justify the categorical imperative; show that the argument is a transcendental deduction; present the argument as it is reconstructed by Allison, and show that, although it seems compelling, the position of the commentator could not be accepted by Kant himself. (shrink)

Artefacts are often regarded as being mere things that possess only instrumental value. In contrast, living entities (or some subset of them) are often regarded as possessing some form of intrinsic (or non-instrumental) value. Moreover, in some cases they are thought to possess such value precisely because they are natural (i.e., non-artefactual). However, living artefacts are certainly possible, and they may soon be actual. It is therefore necessary to consider whether such entities should be regarded as mere things (like most (...) non-living artefacts) or as possessing intrinsic value (like many, if not all) living entities. That is, it is necessary to determine whether artefactualness is a value-relevant property with respect to the intrinsic value of living things. (shrink)

Many environmental problems are longitudinal collective action problems. They arise from the cumulative unintended effects of a vast amount of seemingly insignificant decisions and actions by individuals who are unknown to each other and distant from each other. Such problems are likely to be effectively addressed only by an enormous number of individuals each making a nearly insignificant contribution to resolving them. However, when a person’s making such a contribution appears to require sacrifice or costs, the problem of inconsequentialism arises: (...) given that a person’s contribution, although needed (albeit not necessary), is nearly inconsequential to addressing the problem and may require some cost from the standpoint of the person’s own life, why should the person make the effort, particularly when it is uncertain (or even unlikely) whether others will do so? In this article I argue that justifications for making the effort to respond to longitudinal collective action environmental problems are, on the whole, particularly well supported by virtue-oriented normative theories, on which character traits are evaluated as virtues and vices consequentially or teleologically and actions are evaluated in terms of virtues and vices. If ethical theories are to be assessed on their theoretical and practical adequacy, and if providing a compelling response to the problem of inconsequentialism is an instance of such adequacy, then this is a reason for preferring virtue-oriented ethical theory over non-virtue-oriented ethical theories, such as Kantian, act utilitarian, and global utilitarian theories. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Peter Singer suggests that some interesting new findings in experimental moral psychology support what he has contended all along—namely that intuitions should play little or no role in adequate justifications of normative ethical positions. Not only this but, according to Singer, these findings point to a central flaw in the method (or epistemological theory) of reflective equilibrium used by many contemporary moral philosophers. In this paper, we try to defend reflective equilibrium from Singer’s attack and, in (...) part, we do this by discussing Singer’s own favoured moral methodology as outlined in his Practical Ethics . Although basing ethics solely on (certain kinds of) intuitions certainly is problematic, we argue, basing it solely on ‘reason’ gives rise to similar problems. The best solution would arguably be one which could strike a balance between the two—but, we suggest, this is precisely what reflective equilibrium is all about. (shrink)

Upon arriving in Auschwitz Primo Levi discovered that rational discourse, in which actions are done for reasons, was left lying on the carriage floor together with his human dignity. By responding ‘Here one doesn't ask why’, the camp guard succinctly conveys the insight that evil defies reason. This paper examines two studies of evil that are predicated on that idea: Kant's and Augustine's. It argues that their theories share an underlying formation wherein evil remains incomprehensible, except in negative terms as (...) an absence of the reasonable. This deep similarity in the structure of the concept of evil is exceptionally striking if we bear in mind the radical difference in the scope of its application: whereas for Augustine ‘evil’ is a general metaphysical concept that concerns everything that goes wrong in creation, for Kant it is limited to agents and what they do. My argument is that the privative structure which underlies their understanding of evil stems from a shared belief in the central role of rationality in ethical discourse, and in an absolute dependence of moral responsibility on free will. (shrink)

This essay concerns two forms of moral non-naturalism according to which general moral principles or laws enter into the grounding explanations of particular moral facts. According to bridge-law non-naturalism, the laws are themselves partial grounds of the moral facts; whereas according to grounding-law non-naturalism, the laws explain the grounding connections that obtain between particular natural facts and particular moral facts. I pose and develop an objection to BLNN concerning moral worth: as compared to GLNN, BLNN has trouble accommodating the common (...) intuition that actions performed out of motivation for rightness de dicto are, at least in paradigm cases, deficient in their moral worth as compared to those performed out of motivation for rightness de re. After presenting the moral worth objection to BLNN, I respond to a possible defense of the view and explain why GLNN is not itself imperiled by an analogous objection. I finally argue that in light of the moral worth objection, a purported analogy between the law and morality fails to give us any reason to prefer BLNN to GLNN. I conclude that non-naturalists who accept the existence of general and explanatory moral principles should adopt GLNN rather than BLNN. (shrink)

This article examines Kant’s discussion of the division between reason and unreason in his Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View . On the one hand, Kant says that there is a normative, clear, and definite division between reason and unreason. On the other hand, Kant offers three arguments showing that we cannot draw such a division. First, we cannot explain the normative grounds for the division. Second, both reason and unreason are present in everyone to varying degrees in different (...) ways. Third, Kant invalidates the division as such by characterizing what should be more incomprehensible than an extreme case of unreason as also being a rational way of life. (shrink)

Respect for Autonomy has been a mainstay of medical ethics since its enshrinement as one of the four principles of biomedical ethics by Beauchamp and Childress’ in the late 1970s. This paper traces the development of this modern concept from Antiquity to the present day, paying attention to its Enlightenment origins in Kant and Rousseau. The rapid C20th developments of bioethics and RFA are then considered in the context of the post-war period and American socio-political thought. The validity and utility (...) of the RFA are discussed in light of this philosophical-historical account. It is concluded that it is not necessary to embrace an ethic of autonomy in order to guard patients from coercion or paternalism, and that, on the contrary, the dominance of autonomy threatens to undermine those very things which have helped doctors come to view and respect their patients as persons. (shrink)

The discussion of propositional gratitude stands in need of a secure theoretical underpinning. Its place in the gratitude literature, alongside the more familiar targeted gratitude that we direct towards benefactors, now seems assured, but its adoption has been uncritical in many cases. In this paper, I argue that existing accounts of gratitude fail to give us good reason to incorporate propositional gratitude into our theories. I discuss Sean McAleer’s paper ‘Propositional Gratitude’ in some detail, and argue that the connection he (...) draws between propositional gratitude and humility is not as close as he supposes, and cannot do all the work required of it. Then I trace the connections between propositional gratitude, targeted gratitude, and gladness, and develop and defend a definition of gratitude that integrates the propositional and the targeted components. (shrink)

Do professional ethicists behave any morally better than other professors do? Do they show any greater consistency between their normative attitudes and their behavior? In response to a survey question, a large majority of professors (83 percent of ethicists, 83 percent of nonethicist philosophers, and 85 percent of nonphilosophers) expressed the view that “not consistently responding to student e-mails” is morally bad. A similarly large majority of professors claimed to respond to at least 95 percent of student e-mails. These professors, (...) and others, were sent three e-mails designed to look like queries from students. Ethicists’ e-mail response rates were not significantly different from the other two groups’. Expressed normative view correlated with self-estimated rate of e-mail responsiveness, especially among the ethicists. Empirically measured e-mail responsiveness, however, was at best weakly correlated with self-estimated e-mail responsiveness; and professors’ expressed normative attitude was not significantly correlated with empirically measured e-mail responsiveness for any of the three groups. (shrink)

Discussions of withdrawal of life support often revolve around a patient’s perceived level of suffering or lack of experience. Personhood, however, is often linked to personal agency. In the present study, 279 laypeople estimated the amount of agency and experience in hypothetical patients differing in degree of consciousness. Participants also indicated whether they would choose to maintain or terminate life support. Patients were more likely to terminate life support for a patient in a persistent vegetative state, followed by one with (...) amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and in a minimally conscious state. The decision to maintain life support was reliably predicted by perceptions of a patient’s agency but life support decisions were not significantly predicted by ratings of experience. In sum, decisions regarding maintaining life support are more influenced by perceptions of a patient’s ability to plan and act than by perceptions of a patient’s ability to feel or experience. (shrink)

Human beings as imperfect rational beings face continuous challenges, one of them has to do with the lack of recognizing and respecting our inner dignity in present times. In this collective paper, we address the overall theme—Philosophy of Education in a New Key from various perspectives related to dignity. We address in particular some of the constraints and possibilities with regard to this issue in various settings such as education and society at large. Klas Roth discusses, for example, that it (...) is not uncommon that the value of human beings has to do with their price in, inter alia, their social, cultural, political and economic settings throughout the world. He argues that such a focus does not necessarily draw attention to the inner dignity of human beings, but that human beings ought to do so in education and society at large. Lia Mollvik discusses views of inner and outer dignity, and argues that there needs to be a balance in between them, and that the balance ought to be acknowledged in education. Rama Alshoufani discusses the classification of human beings in terms of various diagnoses related to the asserted dysfunction of the brain, and she argues that such classification does paradoxically not necessarily respect people with such diagnoses as ends in themselves. On the contrary, she argues that their inner dignity is not respected, but that it should be. Other such failures are due to the lack of inner dignity when it comes to Children’s rights as discussed by Rebecca Adami, and to the lack of recognition of human beings’ vulnerability as discussed by Katy Dineen. Fariba Majlesi criticizes a too strong emphasis on substantive notions of humanist education, which seem to hinder new ways of thinking; she argues that it is necessary to acknowledge the latter in and through education in order to preserve the dignity of human beings. Dignity, it is argued throughout the paper, has an inner moral worth, and is beyond price. (shrink)

Do we need principles of the unification of our agency, our mode of acting? Immanuel Kant and Christine Korsgaard argue that the reflective structure of our mind forces us to have some conception of ourselves, others and the world—including our agency—and that it is through will and reason, and in particular principles of our agency, that we take upon ourselves to unify and test the way(s) in which we make our lives consistent. I argue that the principles suggested—the hypothetical imperative (...) and the categorical imperative—function to unify our understanding of ourselves and others as agents as efficacious and autonomous and that the extent to which those concerned render themselves efficacious and autonomous in cosmopolitan education or elsewhere is due to the extent to which they act in accordance with and are motivated by the suggested principles and in particular the categorical one. I first discuss how the principles function to unify our agency and how the categorical imperative functions as a test of maxims for our actions, how the will is the source of our morality, and how we are forced to have practical identities. I end with some remarks on what it means to acknowledge the mentioned principles in cosmopolitan education. (shrink)

Kant argues that we have a duty to perfect ourselves morally and promote the happiness of others. He also argues that we have an innate propensity to evil. Our duty to perfect ourselves sug...

Kant argues that we have a duty to perfect ourselves morally and promote the happiness of others. He also argues that we have an innate propensity to evil. Our duty to perfect ourselves suggests that we struggle with our innate propensity to wilfully deviate from doing our duty. And we do this when we struggle against the depravation of our heart, namely our propensity to reverse ‘the ethical order as regards the incentives of a free power of choice’, namely, our (...) propensity to wilfully comply with the principle of self-love and override the moral law. It seems, however, that education does not enable those concerned to fulfil their duties. It seems, instead, that education basically makes them efficacious with regard to desired ends and with the devised means. It seems, too, that education does not necessarily make it possible for those concerned with duty to perfect themselves morally and help others to do the same, which in turn suggests that those concerned are not being enabled to make themselves ‘as conscientious as possible in [their] moral self-examination’. I argue that education ought to enable those concerned to cultivate their moral strength to do so and enable others to do the same. (shrink)

Why should we deliberate? I discuss a Kantian response to this query and argue that we cannot as rational beings avoid deliberation in principle; and that we have good reasons to consider the value and strength of Kant's philosophical investigations concerning fundamental moral issues and their relevance for the question of why we ought to deliberate. I also argue that deliberation is a wide duty. This means that it has to be set as an end, that it is meritorious, and (...) that we cannot specify exactly what acts can be identified with it or are required for its realization. I begin by discussing why we cannot avoid deliberation in principle, that deliberation is a wide duty and why we ought to set it as an end. In the second part I argue how deliberation can be acknowledged in cosmopolitan education, and how we can inquire into the quality of communication in terms of deliberation in such an education or elsewhere. (shrink)

This essay links Jean-Luc Marion's phenomenology of fine art to his description of Christian love. It does so by carefully showing how Marion's overall project is closely related to Kant's well-known account of the relationship between aesthetics and morality. While Kant and Marion both believe that aesthetic experience can lay the groundwork for moral action, their contrasting views of morality lead them to very different articulations of such a relationship. While Kant sees encounters with fine art as preparing individuals for (...) the particular kinds of disinterested judgments characteristic of moral decision-making, Marion sees artwork as preparing the subject for the openness toward intuitive excess that is necessary for love. (shrink)

This paper proposes to analyse the process that makes paths of action meaningful. It argues that this process is one of ‘figuration’. The term ‘figuration’ intends to outline how the experience of moral meaning is one that already positively marks out a field and to identify and analyse the mechanisms used for such marking and selection. It is my contention that these mechanisms predate the persuasion to a moral path; they are the process through which this path is constructed as (...) meaningful. This thesis is elucidated through an analysis of the tactics of meaning in Kant’s moral theory. Kant turns to aesthetics as a means of corroboration for his moral theory, but he also attempts to limit the scope of the interactions between his aesthetic and moral theory. For instance, when he writes on the topic of form in aesthetic taste or outlines the technical specifications of aesthetic judgment, it is arguably the arcane peculiarities of his system that are met. For this reason, Kant insists on the merely analogical relations between beauty and morality. However, it is also possible to see how certain aspects of Kant’s aesthetic theory execute wider, and potentially more important, functions for his practical philosophy, such as providing meaningful orientation for the ascetic moral attitude of his duty-ethics. In this respect, certain figures of Kant’s aesthetic theory may well be viewed as complementing the dependence in his moral philosophy, in the important sections on moral pedagogy and methodology, on appeals to heroic models and stories as ways of shaping and inculcating the moral disposition. This paper considers these aspects of interaction between Kant’s aesthetic and moral philosophies as both 1) a problem for the consistency of his philosophy given his avowed exclusion of aesthetic and religious elements of meaning in his duty-ethics; and 2) as a case study for the new, schematic analysis of ‘moral figuration’ outlined in the paper. (shrink)

This article explores the ideological origins of the American free-speech tradition. It analyzes the two principal categorizations of free speech in classical antiquity: isegoria, the right to voice one’s opinion, and parrhesia, the license to say what one pleases often through provocative discourse, thus grounding modern free-speech epistemology and jurisprudential philosophy in a sociohistorical context. Part 1 reviews the First Amendment corpus juris. A progression of incrementally absolute judicial holdings promotes parrhesia, highlighting democratic utility over individual self-actualization; thus, Americans no (...) longer view freedom of speech as an end ipso facto. While Athenian democracy recognized the need for provocative speech, certain institutional and social constraints, such as dokimasia, established standards of truth and accountability. Part 2 frames the historical developments of isegoria and parrhesia for modern analysis. The author begins by discussing isegoria’s principal aims, namely, promoting individual self-actualization and effective democratic governance. The European free-speech tradition, which views the individual as the locus of power, favors the former. The American tradition, which ‘depersonizes’ civil liberties such that the collective becomes the locus of control, favors the latter. Part 3 identifies the colonial developments in Anglo-American history that account for present-day U.S. free-speech permissiveness. It shows that the American preference for parrhesia-based absolutism was born from British imperialism and censorship. Part 4 suggests a need to reexamine free speech-understandings in the context of new-media proliferation and digital content regulation. The dominance of U.S.-based social media companies injects the American speech tradition into cultures with disparate free-speech philosophies and practices. (shrink)

Political liberals argue that the classical conception of autonomy must be discarded because it is sectarian and metaphysical. This article rejects that a commitment to autonomy necessarily leads to sectarianism and questions the notion that respect for persons is separable from the commitment to autonomy. It defends a Kantian approach to autonomy, as belonging to the standpoint of practical reason, and argues that in this approach autonomy is a norm regulating how we should treat each other as opposed to a (...) good to be promoted. This approach also avoids the metaphysical idea of autonomy as self-origination of binding principles. (shrink)

Jeffrey Kahn and I agree that organ donation by altruistic strangers is acceptable, and that the organ procured this way ought to be allocated equitably. Our agreement in principle, however, is challenged in the details of its application. Specifically, I want to focus on three issues raised by Kahn that merit further discussion: whether relationships matter; how kidneys should be allocated; and the ethical acceptability of the expanded donor pool.

Jürgen Habermas’s political philosophy incorporates the view that legitimacy is immanent to law, even though it makes morality a central component of democratic legitimacy. Taking this as a startin...

While there is much literature on autonomy and the conditions for its attainment, there is less on how those conditions reflect on agents’ ordinary careers. Most people’s careers involve a great deal of subservient activity that would prevent the kind of control over agents’ actions that autonomy would seem to require. Yet, it would seem strange to deny autonomy to every agent who regularly follows orders at work—to do so would make autonomy a futile ideal. Most contemporary autonomy accounts provide (...) purely theoretical analysis without reference to any practical goal that autonomy could serve. These accounts are likely to resolve this issue in one direction: either almost entirely including or excluding subservient workers from autonomy. Either solution would fail to distinguish agents who sufficiently control their lives, in spite of limited subservience, according to their own standards, from agents for whom subservience precludes a fulfilling life. I suggest the solution lies in a return to goal-oriented autonomy accounts, which can use the goal to distinguish when subservience overwhelms autonomy from when subservience and autonomy can coexist. I present an account that anchors autonomy in the happiness that it provides for agents who sufficiently control their lives as determined by their more important prudential standards. On this account, agents in subservient careers can be autonomous if they determine how to make their careers consistent with their happiness. (shrink)

While Iris Murdoch lived, Charles Taylor found philosophers as yet ‘too close’ to her rich philosophical contribution to see its true importance (Taylor 1996: 3). Twelve years from her death, Iris Murdoch, Philosopher is the first collection of essays on Murdoch’s philosophy edited by a philosopher, for a readership in academic philosophy. The collection is not yet the fulfilment of Taylor’s prophecy, but has the energy of a giant leap.

I defend the claim that Kant held a wide-scope view of hypothetical imperatives, against objections raised by Mark Schroeder [2005]. There is an important objection, now commonly known as the ‘bootstrapping’ problem, to the alternative, narrow-scope, view which Schroeder attributes to Kant. Schroeder argues that Kant has sufficient resources to reply to the bootstrapping problem, and claims that this leaves us with no good reason to attribute to Kant the wide-scope view. I show that Schroeder's Kantian reply to the bootstrapping (...) problem cannot fully answer it. Schroeder also offers three main textual arguments for attributing to Kant the narrow-scope view: from Kant's claim that the moral imperative is unique in virtue of its categoricity, from Kant's distinction between ‘problematic’ and ‘assertoric’ hypothetical imperatives, and from Kant's conception of analyticity together with his claim that hypothetical imperatives are analytic. I argue that each of these views can be understood as cohering with the.. (shrink)

The debate between proponents and opponents of a role for empirical psychology in ethical theory seems to be deadlocked. This paper aims to clarify the terms of that debate, and to defend a principled middle position. I argue against extreme views, which see empirical psychology either as irrelevant to, or as wholly displacing, reflective moral inquiry. Instead, I argue that moral theorists of all stripes are committed to a certain conception of moral thought—as aimed at abstracting away from individual inclinations (...) and toward interpersonal norms—and that this conception tells against both extremes. Since we cannot always know introspectively whether our particular moral judgments achieve this interpersonal standard, we must seek the sort of self-knowledge offered by empirical psychology. Yet reflective assessment of this new information remains a matter of substantive normative theorizing, rather than an immediate consequence of empirical findings themselves. (shrink)

It is a philosophical truism that we must think of others as moral agents, not merely as causal or statistical objects. But why? I argue that this follows from the best resolution of an antinomy between our experience of morality as necessarily binding on the will and our knowledge that all moral beliefs originate in contingent histories. We can address this antinomy only by understanding moral deliberation via interpersonal relationships, which simultaneously vindicate and constrains morality’s bind on the will. This (...) means that moral agency is fundamentally social. I model an attitude toward our causal nature on sociologist Erving Goffman’s concept of ‘civil inattention’; our social practice of agency requires that we give minimal attention to the contingent origins of moral judgments in ourselves and others. Understood this way, seeing ourselves as moral agents requires avoiding appeal to causal aetiology to settle substantive moral disagreement. (shrink)

The evidential value of moral intuitions has been challenged by psychological work showing that the intuitions of ordinary people are affected by distorting factors. One reply to this challenge, the expertise defence, claims that training in philosophical thinking confers enhanced reliability on the intuitions of professional philosophers. This defence is often expressed through analogy: since we do not allow doubts about folk judgments in domains like mathematics or physics to undermine the plausibility of judgments by experts in these domains, we (...) also should not do so in philosophy. In this paper I clarify the logic of the analogy strategy, and defend it against recent challenges by Jesper Ryberg. The discussion exposes an interesting divide: while Ryberg’s challenges may weaken analogies between morality and domains like mathematics, they do not affect analogies to other domains, such as physics. I conclude that the expertise defence can be supported by analogical means, though care is required in selecting an appropriate analog. I discuss implications of this conclusion for the expertise defence debate and for study of the moral domain itself. (shrink)

Even if preventive military counter-terrorism may sometimes be ethically justifiable, it remains an open question whether the Bush Doctrine presents a discursively coherent account of the relevant normative conditions. With a view towards answering this question, this article critically examines efforts to ground the morally personifying language of the Bush Doctrine in term of hegemonic stability theory. Particular critical attention is paid to the arguments of leading proponents of this brand of game theory, including J. Yoo, E. Posner, A. Sykes, (...) and J. Goldsmith. When examined in their terms, the Bush Doctine is best understood as an ethically hypocritical and shortsighted international discursive strategy. Its use of moralistic language in demonizing 'rogue states' for purely amoral purposes is normatively incoherent and discursively unsustainable. If it is a strategically rational piece of international communication, it seems designed to undermine globally shared normative meanings for the sake of short-term unilateral military advantage. (shrink)

This article advocates a naturalist and realist ethics of solidarity. Specifically, it argues that human needs should be met; and that they should be met in harmony with the environment. Realism should include respect for existing cultures and the morals presently being practiced – with reasonable exceptions. Dignity must come in a form understood and appreciated by the person whose dignity is being respected. It is also argued that naturalist ethics are needed to combat liberal ethics, not least because the (...) latter supports today’s inflexible and dysfunctional institutions. In arguing for these positions, reference is made to the naturalist realist ethics of Georges Canguilhem, C.H. Waddington, John Dewey and David Sloan Wilson, all of whom embed the social order in the natural order. (shrink)

Those objecting to human DNA patenting frequently do so on the grounds that the practice violates or threatens human dignity. For example, from 1993 to 1994, more than thirty organizations representing indigenous peoples approved formal declarations objecting to the National Institutes of Health's bid to patent viral DNA taken from subjects in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Although these were not patents on human DNA, the organizations argued that the patents could harm and exploit indigenous peoples and violate (...) their cultural values. NIH eventually dropped one of its patent applications.On May 18, 1995, 180 religious leaders, led by biotechnology critic Jeremy Rifkin, held a press conference objecting to DNA patenting in Washington, D.C. In their “Joint Appeal against Human and Animal Patenting,” these leaders decried any attempt to patent nature. Some of the more outspoken members of the Joint Appeal likened DNA patenting to slavery, while others objected to treating human beings as marketable commodities. In his recent book, The Biotech Century, Rifkin rehashed the objections to DNA patenting voiced by members of the Joint Appeal. (shrink)

MacIntyre holds that there is no practical reasoning capacity for human beings independent of his training and upbringing in moral traditions. Human beings should acquire moral virtues by following moral exemplars before being able to reason about them. MacIntyre’s position here approaches the virtue ethics view, which emphasizes the role of moral training and habituation in acquiring the capacity for practical reasoning. This position is at odds with the Kantian view according to which morality is a matter of practical and (...) rule-based reasoning, which is independent of moral traditions; and in fact, serves as a measure for the evaluation of these traditions. (shrink)

The subject of this article is the analysis of the concept of freedom as one of the fundamental issues of political thought in Kant’s philosophy. Given Isaiah Berlin’s typology of the negative and positive conceptions of freedom in the history of philosophy, this article examines Kant’s position on freedom in the form of the above two conceptions. In Kant’s view, moral action is a practice with a purely moral motive and respect for the moral law, without the accompaniment of human (...) desires. There is a kind of opposition between moral inclinations and motivation in Kant’s moral theory. In Kant’s view, freedom means the abandonment of desires and the fulfillment of moral duty. In his view, inner tendencies act as internal barriers to moral action and‌ freedom, and must be eliminated or at least controlled. The concept of freedom has a central place in Kant’s moral theory, as freedom is the product of obedience to moral duties, and this positive concept, contrary to Berlin’s claim, does not lead to tyranny. (shrink)

Communication between medical professionals and patients is an important aspect of therapy and patient satisfaction. Common barriers that get in the way of effective communication in this sphere include: (1) gender, age, and cultural differences; (2) physical or psychological discomfort or pain; (3) medical literacy; and (4) distraction due to technological factors or simply being overworked. The author examines these communicative barriers from a philosophical lens and then utilizes Martin Heidegger’s phenomenology and hermeneutics to provide guidance for medical professional–patient interactions. (...) The phenomenological approach espoused emphasizes the particular, contextual nature of such interactions, and thus is opposed to abstract, theoretical principles. Heidegger’s hermeneutics provides a philosophical approach to communication that may guide the back-and-forth interpretation that should happen between medical professionals and patients to achieve effective communication. (shrink)

This article starts from the observation that in classical Athens the discovery of democracy as a normative model of politics has been from the beginning not only a political and a legal but at the same time a philosophical enterprise. Reflections on the concept of criminal law and on the meaning of punishment can greatly benefit from reflections on Athenian democracy as a germ for our contemporary debate on criminal justice in a democracy. Three main characteristics of the Athenian model (...) will be analysed: the self-instituting capacity of a democracy based on participatory and reflective citizenship, political power as the capacity of citizens for co-operating and co-acting with others, and the crime of hubris as one of the key issues in Athenian criminal law. These analyses will lead to the conclusion that one of the key issues of a democratic legal order lies in its capacity of recognizing the fragility of the human condition and of developing workable and effective standards of justice in that context. A relational conception of criminal law and punishment, based on proportionality, reflexivity, mutual respect and responsibility fits best with a democracy under the rule of law. (shrink)

In Eichmann in Jerusalem , Hannah Arendt struggled to defend the possibility of judgment against the obvious problems encountered in attempts to offer legally valid and morally meaningful judgments of those who had committed crimes in morally bankrupt communities. Following Norrie, this article argues that Arendt’s conclusions in Eichmann are equivocal and incoherent. Exploring her perspectival theory of judgment, the article suggests that Arendt remains trapped within certain Kantian assumptions in her philosophy of history, and as such sees the question (...) of freedom in a binary way. The article argues that Adorno’s philosophy of freedom provides the resources to diagnose and overcome Arendt’s shortcomings. Adorno’s position provides a way of embracing the antinomical character of judgment, by emphasising the need for elements of reason and nature in the phenomenon of freedom. In Adorno’s lights, judgment becomes an attempt to express a ‘spirit of solidarity’ with the tragic status of the potentially free but actually unfree subject of modernity. (shrink)

Biometric identification is thought to be less vulnerable to fraud and forgery than are traditional forms of identification. However biometric identification is not without vulnerabilities. In a ‘spoofing attack’ an artificial replica of an individual’s biometric trait is used to induce a system to falsely infer that individual’s presence. Techniques such as liveness-detection and multi-modality, as well as the development of new and emerging modalities, are intended to secure biometric identification systems against such threats. Unlike biometrics in general, the societal (...) and ethical issues raised by spoofing and anti-spoofing techniques have not received much attention. This paper examines these issues. (shrink)

Although Kant argues that a world republic with coercive public law is the only rational way to secure a lawful cosmopolitan condition, he states that it is an unachievable ideal, and he proposes a voluntary, non-coercive federation of states as a substitute. While some scholars have criticized Kant for moving away from this ideal due merely to pragmatic considerations, I argue that his rejection of a coercive world republic is based on his conception of state sovereignty and what is required (...) for a lawful condition. I consider how we can institutionalize a lawful condition between states without a coercive world republic in ways that go beyond Kant’s voluntary federation. I also consider how we can resolve this dilemma in Kant’s account to support a federal world republic. (Published online first on June 16, 2014). (shrink)

Some of Catherine Malabou’s recent work has developed her conception of plasticity (originally deployed in a reading of Hegelian Aufhebung ) in relation to neuroscience. This development clarifies and advances her attempt to bring contemporary theory into dialogue with the natural sciences, while indirectly indicating her engagement with the French tradition in philosophy of science and philosophy of medicine, especially the work of Georges Canguilhem. I argue that we can see her development of plasticity as an answer to some specific (...) shortcomings in Canguilhem’s conception of organic or biological normativity as advanced in The Normal and the Pathological . Such a view of plasticity shows its potential to provide the basis for a powerful critical engagement with contemporary conceptions of selfhood, self-transformation, subjectivation, and the general theory of norms. (shrink)

While Hannah Arendt claimed to have abandoned her early conception of radical evil for a banal one, recent scholarship has questioned that conclusion. This article contributes to the debate by arguing that her conceptual alteration is best understood by engaging with the structure of norms subtending each conception. From this, I develop a compatibilist understanding that accounts for Arendt’s movement from a radical to a banal conception of evil, by claiming that it was because she came to reject the foundationalism (...) of the former for the non-foundationalism of the latter, where norms are located from an ineffable ‘source’ diffusely spread throughout the society. While it might be thought that this means that such norms are all-encompassing to the extent that they determine individual action, I appeal to her notions of plurality, action, and natality, to argue that she defends the weaker claim that moral norms merely condition action. This demonstrates how Arendt’s conceptions of evil complement one another, highlights her understanding of the action–norms relation, and identifies that there is built into Arendt’s conception(s) of evil a resource for resisting totalitarian domination. (shrink)

In discussions on the ethics of genome collections and biobanks, the main worry about whether we are permitted to collect and use individuals’ genomic and genetic data is the potential for the violation of individuals’ right to informational privacy. Yet, if we do not permit these endeavors, we risk giving up on the future benefits of biomedical research. In this paper, I describe a private venture in blockchain genomics that seeks to provide an apt solution to concerns about potential privacy (...) violations in genome collections and biobanks. I then provide some reasons to doubt the kind of solution to the dilemma that such start-ups propose. I argue that the sort of autonomy that grounds the value of the right to informational privacy cannot be secured with blockchain technology alone. So, blockchain genomics ventures are insufficient to establish the permissibility of genome collections and biobanks. I then discuss an additional ethical challenge to genomic biobanks. This challenge takes the form of doubting that future benefits that result from biomedical research dependent on genomic databases will outweigh the costs. Despite criticisms of genomic research, I claim that it is reasonable to think that future net benefits will be gained from research on such databases. Therefore, I conclude that there remains a dilemma in the ethics of genomic biobanks. (shrink)

This book analyzes major ethical issues surrounding the use of climate engineering, particularly solar radiation management techniques, which have the potential to reduce some risks of anthropogenic climate change but also carry their own risks of harm and injustice. The book argues that we should approach the ethics of climate engineering via "non-ideal theory," which investigates what justice requires given the fact that many parties have failed to comply with their duty to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Specifically, it argues that (...) climate justice should be approached comparatively, evaluating the relative justice or injustice of feasible policies under conditions that are likely to hold within relevant timeframes. Likely near-future conditions include "pessimistic scenarios," in which no available option avoids serious ethical problems. The book contends that certain uses of SRM can be ethically defensible in some pessimistic scenarios. This is the first book devoted to the many ethical issues surrounding climate engineering. (shrink)

This paper makes an attempt to philosophically re-construct what I have termed as a fundamental paradox at the heart of deontological liberalism. It is argued that liberalism attempts to create the possibilities of rational consensus and of bringing people together socially and politically by developing methodologies which overcome the divisive nature of essentially parochial substantive conceptions of the good. Such methodologies relying on the supposed universally valid dictates of reason and notions of procedural rationality proceed by disengaging men from the (...) divisive particularities of their plural value contexts. That disengagement is sought to be achieved by conceptualizing the individual as self sufficient in her moral and epistemic being thereby conceptually isolating individual man from the other. The liberal effort to create rational consensus which can bring people together then gets off the ground by isolating the individual from the other. This I have termed as the paradox of the self and the other or alternatively the paradox of social atomism and universalism. As a possible philosophical alternative this paper makes an attempt to re-construct Gandhi’s conceptualization of the relationship between swaraj as self rule and Satyagraha as non-violent resistance. This Gandhian connection, it is argued, has the potential to transform the moral psychology of our response to the other, thereby posing a challenge to the modern, predominantly liberal, conceptualization of such a response. (shrink)

The article traces origins of the contradiction that calls into being the polemics on the moral status of duties to close persons. Special obligations are created by the unique life narrative of an actor that makes different recipients of her actions more or less distant. Those who are less distant are “close ones.” Those who are more distant are “strangers.” The basis of this distance can be different: individual sympathy, consanguinity, belonging to cultural, territorial and political communities. Special obligations presuppose (...) that the preferential treatment of “close ones” is not only permissible but obligatory. This feature of moral duties to close persons makes moral philosophers suspicious because they are prone to endow moral requirements with two interrelated properties: universality and the high level of generality. The main reason for this is that the typical moral duty is a duty of every human being to another human being without any further qualifications. Against the background of such duties, any preference to close persons looks like the breach of moral equality and manifestation of impermissible partiality. Though, common moral beliefs persistently include special obligations in the whole system of moral duty. R. Goodin thinks that they have a priority over positive general duties and yield to negative general duties. The empirical researches of moral evaluations which reviewed in this article in general confirm this conclusion. The ethical theory cannot ignore fundamental features of common moral beliefs. That is why it is doomed to look for ways of reconciling the moral equality and impartiality with the preferential treatment of close persons embedded into special obligations. (shrink)

Are inferences, theoretical and practical, subject to requirements of rationality? If so, are these of the form 'if … ought …' or 'ought … if …'? If the latter, how are we to understand the 'if'? It seems that, in all cases, we get unintuitive implications if 'ought' connotes having reason. It is difficult to formulate such requirements, and obscure what they explain. There might also be a requirement forbidding self-contradiction. It is a good question whether self-contradiction constitutes, or evidences, (...) irrationality; but talk of a rational requirement causes trouble. (shrink)

Are inferences, theoretical and practical, subject to requirements of rationality? If so, are these of the form 'if … ought …' or 'ought … if …'? If the latter, how are we to understand the 'if'? It seems that, in all cases, we get unintuitive implications if 'ought' connotes having reason. It is difficult to formulate such requirements, and obscure what they explain. There might also be a requirement forbidding self-contradiction. It is a good question whether self-contradiction constitutes, or evidences, (...) irrationality; but talk of a rational requirement causes trouble. (shrink)