This paper is about the relationship between two widely accepted and apparently conflicting claims about how we should understand the notion of ‘reason giving’ invoked in theorising about reasons for action. According to the first claim, reasons are given by facts about the situation of agents. According to the second claim, reasons are given by ends. I argue that the apparent conflict between these two claims is less deep than is generally recognised.

Die empirische Ethik sieht ihre eigene Aufgabe darin, soziale und kulturelle Aspekte der Medizin zu berücksichtigen. Damit trennt sie den wissenschaftlich kognitiven Aspekt der Medizin von kulturell normativen Aspekten, die einzig sozialwissenschaftlich zu erforschen wären. Wenn Medizin aber als gesellschaftliche Praxis begriffen wird, wird die saubere Trennung zwischen naturwissenschaftlicher Medizin, kulturell-normativen Aspekten und ethischer Reflexion durchbrochen. Wir schlagen vor, ethische Reflexion und empirische sozialwissenschaftliche Forschung in mehrstufiger Weise aufeinander zu beziehen. Den Sozialwissenschaften kommt dabei die Funktion einer ersten Reflexionsinstanz der (...) medizinischen Praxis zu, an die in einem zweiten Schritt die Medizinethik reflexiv anschließt und sich dabei wieder einer soziologischen Kritik stellen muss. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDie Zulässigkeit später Schwangerschaftsabbrüche nach Pränataldiagnostik wirft die Frage auf, ob die deutsche Rechtspraxis nicht widersprüchlich ist, die einerseits Ärzte dazu verpflichtet, zu früh und behindert geborene Kind zu behandeln, andererseits bei einer vorgeburtlich diagnostizierten Behinderung des Kindes aber den Abbruch einer Schwangerschaft bis zur Geburt zulässt. Der Beitrag geht der Frage nach, ob die Unterschiede, die im gesetzlichen Schutz des Lebens einerseits von ungeborenen und neugeborenen Kindern und anderseits von behinderten und nichtbehinderten Föten gemacht werden, aus ethischer Sicht verteidigt (...) werden können. Hierzu werden zunächst weltanschaulich liberale, konservative und vermittelnde Positionen in der Bioethik zum moralischen Status menschlicher Wesen diskutiert. Abschließend wird ein eigener Vorschlag vorgestellt, der von weiten Sorgepflichten der Schwangeren gegenüber ihrem ungeborenen Kind ausgeht und die außergewöhnliche Beziehung zwischen Frau und Kind in der Schwangerschaft berücksichtigt. Diese Argumentation zeigt, dass eine liberale Regelung des Schwangerschaftsabbruchs mit einer allgemeinen medizinischen Behandlungspflicht zu früh oder behindert geborener Kinder aus ethischer Sicht vereinbar ist. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDie Zulässigkeit später Schwangerschaftsabbrüche nach Pränataldiagnostik wirft die Frage auf, ob die deutsche Rechtspraxis nicht widersprüchlich ist, die einerseits Ärzte dazu verpflichtet, zu früh und behindert geborene Kind zu behandeln, andererseits bei einer vorgeburtlich diagnostizierten Behinderung des Kindes aber den Abbruch einer Schwangerschaft bis zur Geburt zulässt. Der Beitrag geht der Frage nach, ob die Unterschiede, die im gesetzlichen Schutz des Lebens einerseits von ungeborenen und neugeborenen Kindern und anderseits von behinderten und nichtbehinderten Föten gemacht werden, aus ethischer Sicht verteidigt (...) werden können. Hierzu werden zunächst weltanschaulich liberale, konservative und vermittelnde Positionen in der Bioethik zum moralischen Status menschlicher Wesen diskutiert. Abschließend wird ein eigener Vorschlag vorgestellt, der von weiten Sorgepflichten der Schwangeren gegenüber ihrem ungeborenen Kind ausgeht und die außergewöhnliche Beziehung zwischen Frau und Kind in der Schwangerschaft berücksichtigt. Diese Argumentation zeigt, dass eine liberale Regelung des Schwangerschaftsabbruchs mit einer allgemeinen medizinischen Behandlungspflicht zu früh oder behindert geborener Kinder aus ethischer Sicht vereinbar ist. (shrink)

G.A. Cohen and David Estlund claim that, because of their fact-dependent nature, constructivist theories of justice do not qualify as moral theories about fundamental values such as justice. In this paper, I defend fact-dependent, constructivist theories of justice against this fact-independency critique. I argue that constructivists can invoke facts among the grounds for accepting fundamental principles of justice while maintaining that the foundation of morality has to be non-empirical. My claim is that constructivists ultimately account for the normativity of fact-dependent (...) principles by referring to a fact-independent, moral conception of the person, which is not a principle of justice.1. (shrink)

In recent years, scholars and researchers have discovered a new trend in the migration of unauthorized people into the United States: while the total numbers of unaccompanied migrant children crossing the border have grown exponentially in the past few years, human rights violations against migrant women have also increased significantly. This unfortunate trend is not unrelated to the intensifying border militarization and the criminalization of all unauthorized migrants. This paper attempts to provide an ethical solution to the political conundrum of (...) undocumented migration by engaging a critical discourse with major feminist theorists of justice, including Seyla Benhabib, Martha Nussbaum, Iris Marion Young, and Onora O'Neill. I develop an argument in the paper that the US government's political appropriation of forgiveness is the most justifiable and practical solution for resolving the precarious situation of undocumented migrant women and children. (shrink)

Traditional accounts of vulnerability tend to label entire populations as vulnerable. This approach is of limited utility. Instead, this article utilizes a layered approach to vulnerability, identifying multiple vulnerabilities that older people experience. It focuses on distinguishing the different layers of vulnerability that may be experienced by the elderly in middle-income countries of Latin America. In doing so, I show how the layered approach to vulnerability functions, and demonstrate why it is more interesting and useful than the traditional approach. The (...) article achieves three things. First, it unwraps the different potential layers of vulnerability that develop in old age and the multidimensionality aspects of aging. Second, it reestablishes the usefulness of the concept of vulnerability and explains its functioning. Finally, it shows how different policies can be designed in order to address each vulnerability layer. The layered account promotes a multifaceted approach to public policy analyses and design. In this sense, the layered concept of vulnerability is an appealing concept to consider in public health ethics. (shrink)

Despite the fact that business people and business students often cast doubt on the relevance of universal moral principles in business, the rejection of relativism is a precondition for business ethics to get off the ground. This paper proposes an educational strategy to overcome the philosophical confusions about relativism in which business people and students are often trapped. First, the paper provides some conceptual distinctions and clarifications related to moral relativism, particularism, and virtue ethics. More particularly, it revisits arguments demonstrating (...) that virtues in business are not in contradiction with the relevance of universal principles, despite the fact that virtue ethics is often identified with particular relationships and contexts. It goes on to show how students and managers, but also researchers, often mix up radically different conceptions of moral relativism. It is also argued that this confusion is in part created by the cross-cultural management literature in which the methodological stance of the value-freedom of the social sciences is, in a perplexingly mistaken way, transformed into a rejection of all normative discussion and a plea for relativism. The remainder of the paper presents some tools that may be helpful in steering people toward less simplistic views about moral relativism and virtue ethics. It further argues that it is equally important to spell out that moral universalism can be understood in a humble way, without implying either arrogant ethnocentrism or omniscience, as part of an ongoing debate that progresses gradually. (shrink)

The hypothetical scenarios generally known as trolley problems have become widespread in recent moral philosophy. They invariably require an agent to choose one of a strictly limited number of options, all of them bad. Although they don’t always involve trolleys / trams, and are used to make a wide variety of points, what makes it justified to speak of a distinctive “trolley method” is the characteristic assumption that the intuitive reactions that all these artificial situations elicit constitute an appropriate guide (...) to real-life moral reasoning. I dispute this assumption by arguing that trolley cases inevitably constrain the supposed rescuers into behaving in ways that clearly deviate from psychologically healthy, and morally defensible, human behavior. Through this focus on a generally overlooked aspect of trolley theorizing – namely, the highly impoverished role invariably allotted to the would-be rescuer in these scenarios – I aim to challenge the complacent twin assumptions of advocates of the trolley method that this approach to moral reasoning has practical value, and is in any case innocuous. Neither assumption is true. (shrink)

This article argues the benefits of including a theological interpretation of natural law morality within the normative discourses of international politics. It challenges the assumption of a Grotian secular natural law arguing that practical reason, in a Thomist interpretation, is better suited to the demands of international political theory. It engages with themes of agency, practical reason, and community in order to enhance the content of the post-territorial community evidenced in ethical cosmopolitan debates. Likewise, it envisions simultaneously enhancing a rapprochement (...) among cosmopolitan and communitarian discourses of international politics facilitated through an institutional design guided by the morality of natural law. (shrink)

The ‘Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights’ (Principles) that provide guidance for the implementation of the United Nations’ ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy’ framework (Framework) will probably succeed in making human rights matters more customary in corporate management procedures. They are likely to contribute to higher levels of accountability and awareness within corporations in respect of the negative impact of business activities on human rights. However, we identify tensions between the idea that the respect of human rights is a perfect (...) moral duty for corporations and the Principle’s ‘human rights due diligence’ requirement. We argue that the effectiveness of the ‘human rights due diligence’ is in many respects dependent upon the moral commitment of corporations. The Principles leave room for an instrumental or strategic implementation of due diligence, which in some cases could result in a depreciation of the fundamental norms they seek to promote. We reveal some limits of pragmatic approaches to coping with business-related human rights abuses. As these limits become more apparent, not only does the case for further progress in international and extraterritorial human rights law become more compelling, but so too does the argument for a more forceful discussion on the moral foundations of human rights duties for corporations. (shrink)

Why should all human beings have certain rights simply by virtue of being human? One justification is an appeal to religious authority. However, in increasingly secular societies this approach has its limits. An alternative answer is that human rights are justified through human dignity. This paper argues that human rights and human dignity are better separated for three reasons. First, the justification paradox: the concept of human dignity does not solve the justification problem for human rights but rather aggravates it (...) in secular societies. Second, the Kantian cul-de-sac: if human rights were based on Kant's concept of dignity rather than theist grounds, such rights would lose their universal validity. Third, hazard by association: human dignity is nowadays more controversial than the concept of human rights, especially given unresolved tensions between aspirational dignity and inviolable dignity. In conclusion, proponents of universal human rights will fare better with alternative frameworks to justify human rights rather than relying on the concept of dignity. (shrink)

This is the first of two companion articles drawn from a larger project, provisionally entitled Undisciplining Moral Epistemology. The overall goal is to understand how moral claims may be rationally justified in a world characterized by cultural diversity and social inequality. To show why a new approach to moral justification is needed, it is argued that several currently influential philosophical accounts of moral justification lend themselves to rationalizing the moral claims of those with more social power. The present article explains (...) how discourse ethics is flawed just in this way. The article begins by identifying several conditions of adequacy for assessing reasoning practices designed to achieve moral justification and shows that, when used in contexts of cultural diversity and social inequality, discourse ethics fails these conditions. It goes on to argue that the failure of discourse ethics is rooted in its reliance on a broader conception of moral epistemology that is invidiously idealized. It concludes by pointing to the need to rethink both the mission and the method of moral epistemology. (shrink)

While there is a growing body of work on moral issues and global governance in the fields of global justice and international relations, little work has connected principles of global health justice with those of global health governance for a theory of global health. Such a theory would enable analysis and evaluation of the current global health system and would ethically and empirically ground proposals for reforming it to more closely align with moral values. Global health governance has been framed (...) as an issue of national security, human security, human rights, and global public goods. The global health governance literature is essentially untethered to a theorized framework to illuminate or evaluate governance. This article ties global health justice and ethics to principles for governing the global health realm, developing a theoretical framework for global and domestic institutions and actors. (shrink)

This article examines the normative force of consent, explaining how consent works its “moral magic” in transforming the moral quality of conduct that would otherwise constitute a wrong against the consenting person. Dempsey offers an original account of the normative force of consent, according to which consent (when valid) creates an exclusionary permission . When this permission is taken up, the moral quality of the consented-to conduct is transformed, such that it no longer constitutes a wrong against the consenting person. (...) Building on this account of how consent works, Dempsey identifies two sets of cases in which consent fails to transform the moral quality of one’s conduct: cases in which one is consent-insensitive to the rational force of another’s consent, and cases in which one acts for sadistic reasons. (shrink)

It is widely acknowledged that moral principles are not sufficient to guide moral thought and action: they need to be supplemented by a capacity for judgement. However, why can we not rely on this capacity for moral judgement alone? Why do moral principles need to be supplemented, but are not supplanted, by judgement? So-called moral particularists argue that we can, and should, make moral decisions on a case-by-case basis without any principles. According to particularists, the person of moral judgement is (...) a person of empathy, sensibility and virtue, rather than a person of principle. In this paper I argue that this is a false dichotomy. The person of good moral judgement is a person of principle. I propose that we think of moral principles as internalised long-term commitments that form our moral character and sensitivity, and, as such, are constitutive of moral judgement. (shrink)

There are two main motivations for undertaking this thesis on Sen’s capability approach and microfinance. One is to evaluate Sen’s capability approach by considering moral philosophy and developmental ethics contexts. The other is to analyse the impact of microfinance on poverty reduction in accordance with Sen’s approach. This thesis argues that Although Sen’s capability approach has drawbacks, both as a general moral theory and as a theory of justice, it does bring up important aspects of development and poverty reduction. When (...) the empirical evidence is combined with criteria from the capability approach, microfinance is a relative failure as a poverty-reducing approach. The evidence that micro-loans reduce poverty is weak, and there are moral arguments against the group lending approach that is used to assure repayments. Other services sometimes associated with microfinance – savings and insurance — do help the poor, however. However, we should notice that the conclusion I propose here does not exclude the possibility that perhaps microfinance does help promote some other freedoms that are of significance locally. (shrink)

This paper addresses whether universal, general education programs are enough to satisfy basic criteria of human rights, or whether comprehensive family planning programs, in conjunction with universal education programs, might also be morally required. Even before the Reagan administration instituted the ‘global gag rule’ at the 1984 conference in Mexico City, prohibiting funding to nongovernmental organizations that included providing information about abortion as a possible method of family planning, the moral acceptability of family planning programs has been called into question. (...) This paper makes a moral argument for family planning by appealing to both data and to theory: data about the efficacy of universal and comprehensive family planning education programs at reducing fertility and infant mortality, and theory about what is required for the establishment of autonomy. It reasons that universal educational programs are insufficient for the promotion of autonomy, and therefore argues on substantive autonomy grounds for comprehensive family planning programs in addition to universal education programs. (shrink)

This article contextualises current debates over human rights and transnational corporations. More specifically, we begin by first providing the background to John Ruggie's appointment as 'Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises'. Second, we provide a brief discussion of the rise of transnational corporations, and of their growing importance in terms of global governance. Third, we introduce the notion of human rights, and note some difficulties associated therewith. Fourth, we (...) refer to Ruggie's scholarly work on 'embedded liberalism', the 'global public domain' and 'social constructivism'. Following this, we refer to the other five papers contained in this "Journal of Business Ethics" special issue, 'Spheres of Influence/Spheres of Responsibility: Multinational Corporations and Human Rights', and consider some of the potential obstacles to Ruggie's recent suggestion that a 'new consensus' has formed, or is forming, around his 'Protect, Respect and Remedy' framework. We conclude by raising questions regarding the processes of consensus-building around, and the operationalisation of, Ruggie's 'Protect, Respect and Remedy' framework. (shrink)

This paper reclaims the concept of solidarity for democratic theory. It does this by proposing a theory of solidarity as social involvement that is construed through the integration of three better known conceptions of solidarity that have played an influential role in the political thought of the last two centuries. The paper begins by explaining why solidarity should receive more sustained attention from political theorists with an interest in democracy, and proceeds by presenting two indispensability arguments. Section three outlines the (...) three rival conceptions of solidarity and contends that whilst individually incomplete, each provides an important insight, so that a fuller and more satisfying conception of solidarity can be developed by weaving together some features of these three conceptions. This task is undertaken in section four, which introduces the theory of solidarity as social involvement, defining solidarity in terms of acting-for and acting-with. Section five briefly discusses some of its potential implications for democratic theory, before bringing the article to a close. (shrink)

Justice is important, but so is peaceful cooperation. In this article, I argue that if one takes seriously the autonomy of individuals and groups and the fact of moral pluralism, a just system of cooperation cannot guarantee peaceful cooperation in a pluralistic world. As a response to this consideration, I develop a contractarian theory that can secure peace in a pluralistic world of autonomous agents, assuming that the agents who exist in this world expect that peaceful cooperation is the most (...) beneficial form of interaction for them in the long run. The theory specifies the restrictions on the behavior of autonomous individual and collective agents that are indispensable for peaceful cooperation in a pluralistic world. In particular, I argue for the need of (i) a globally valid rule of conflict resolution to settle all intra- and inter-group conflicts that cannot be resolved locally, (ii) a world court to apply this rule in cases where local group authorities are inadequate to do so, and to serve as a final court of appeal, and (iii) a world police to enforce the rule. (shrink)

Whenever fellow humans suffer due to natural catastrophes, we have a duty to help them. This duty is not only acknowledged in moral theory, but also expressed in ordinary people’s reactions to phenomena such as tsunamis, hurricanes, and earthquakes. Despite being widely acknowledged, this duty is also widely disputed: some believe it is a matter of justice, others a matter of charity. Although central to debates in international political theory, the distinction between justice and charity is hardly ever systematically drawn. (...) To fill this gap in the literature, I consider three accounts of this distinction, the ‘Agent-based’, the ‘Recipient-based’, and the ‘Mixed’ View, and argue that they are all unsatisfactory. I then offer a fourth alternative, the ‘Autonomy’ View, which successfully overcomes the difficulties affecting its rivals. I conclude by considering the implications of this view for the moral grounds of disaster relief in earthquake-stricken Haiti, New Zealand, and Japan. (shrink)

Answers to the question of immigrant admissions have been debated extensively by political philosophers since the 1980s. A wide variety of normative approaches to the question have been taken, but very nearly zero have been expressly feminist. Generalizing from Alison Jaggar's articulation of a feminist methodological approach to the political morality of abortion, this article proposes a feminist methodological approach to immigrant admissions. This article does not defend a substantive view on what policies states ought to adopt, but it does (...) describe several features of our social world that are salient for a feminist methodological approach to the assessment of the justice of states’ immigrant admissions policies. (shrink)

This dissertation is a contribution to the debate about ‘climate justice’, i.e. a call for a just and feasible distribution of responsibility for addressing climate change. The main argument is a proposal for a cautious, practicable, and necessary step in the right direction: given the set of theoretical and practical obstacles to climate justice, we must begin by making contemporary development practices sustainable. In times of climate change, this is done by recognising and responding to the fact that emissions of (...) greenhouse gases, with climate change as their result, are an immanent threat to any reflectively embraced development project. In the universal pursuit of progress, basic needs of both present and future people are put at risk. Even so, a political stalemate and business-as-usual prevail. The situation is locked up by an uncertainty about the exact impacts of choices made and by the reasonable disagreement of modern societies. The result is passiveness, and the passing on of a slowly and indiscernibly growing problem to future generations. This dissertation brings out a crucial message about the need to make our development sustainable. Instead of delaying action through trying to resolve the intractable epistemic and normative uncertainty fully, the focus should be on vindicating already shared points of practical convergence. On the constructivist method here adopted, the task is to characterise the agent and the situation faced from a practical and first-person point of view. More specifically, to specify the practical problem climate change gives rise to; the moral importance of needs (chapter three); how a principled priority of basic needs can be defended (chapter four), intergenerationally (chapter five) and internationally (chapter six); and what natural and social limits there are to development (chapter seven). These conceptions narrows the practice of development in the present context: it can be concluded that development must not risk the basic needs of anyone implicated. This common ground brackets off disagreement irrelevant to the urgent need to act, and so brings together otherwise deeply divided agents. A sufficientarian basic needs-principle, as the focus of an overlapping consensus, is practicable and anticipatory in the disuniting moral conundrum of climate change. (shrink)

In this article the extent to which stories and personal narratives can and should be used to inform education policy is examined. A range of studies describable as story or personal narrative is investigated. They include life-studies, life-writing, life history, narrative analysis, and the representation of lives. We use 'auto/biography' as a convenient way of grouping this range under one term. It points to the many and varied ways that accounts of self interrelate and intertwine with accounts of others. That (...) is, auto/biography illuminates the social context of individual lives. At the same time it allows room for unique, personal stories to be told. We do not explicitly discuss all the different forms of auto/biography. Rather, we investigate the epistemology underlying the personal story in the context of social action. We discuss the circumstances in which a story may validly be used by educational policy makers and give some examples of how they have done so in the past. (shrink)

According to the most detailed articulation and defence of moral particularism, it is a metaphysical doctrine about the nature of reasons. This paper addresses aspects of particularist epistemology. In rejecting the existence and efficacy of principles in moral thinking and reasoning particularists typically appeal to a theory of moral knowledge which operates with a ‘perceptual’ metaphor. This is problematic. Holism about valence can give rise to a moral epistemology that is a metaethical variety of atomistic empiricism. To avoid what could (...) be called the Myth of the Moral Given, particularism has made use of a judgement-centred account of moral epistemology. This paper critically examines that account with reference to a proposed analogy between our moral knowledge and our knowledge of similarities. (shrink)

Rights dominate most modern understandings of what actions are proper and which institutions are just. Rights structure the forms of our governments, the contents of our laws, and the shape of morality as we perceive it. To accept a set of rights is to approve a distribution of freedom and authority, and so to endorse a certain view of what may, must, and must not be done.

Neoliberal globalization has not yielded the results it promised; global inequality has risen, poverty and hunger are still prevailing in large parts of this world. If this devastating situation shall be improved, economists must talk less about economic growth and more about people’s rights. The use of the language of rights will be key for making the economy work more in favor of the least advantaged in this world. Not only will it provide us with the vocabulary necessary to reframe (...) such pressing global problems and to find adequate economic solutions; it will also deliver the basis for deriving according duties and duty-bearers – the language of rights is congruent with the language of justice and as such it is inevitably and at the same time the language of obligations. The language of obligations exposes the multinational corporation as one of the main agents of justice in the global economy. Taking distributive justice as a starting point for reflection, a consistent derivation of the multinational’s moral obligations must focus on capabilities rather than on causality. This will lead to a shift from merely passive to active duties and accordingly to a stronger emphasis on the corporation’s contribution to the realization of positive rights. (shrink)

Psychological theory and research in ethical decision making and ethical professional practice are presently hampered by a failure to take appropriate account of an extensive background in moral philosophy. As a result, attempts to develop models of ethical decision making are left vulnerable to a number of criticisms: that they neglect the problems of meta-ethics and the variety of meta-ethical perspectives; that they fail clearly and consistently to differentiate between descriptive and prescriptive accounts; that they leave unexplicated the theoretical assumptions (...) derived from the underlying moral theories; and that they fail to accommodate the complexity and comprehensiveness of the processes involved in the making and implementing of ethical decisions. Many of these problems also have implications for the methodological domain. This paper offers an analysis of the difficulties, and makes a number of recommendations for future theory, research and practical applications, including: the need for training in moral philosophy; clarification of the status of Professional Codes in decisional models; the development of theoretically comprehensive prescriptive models; and the testing of these models in ways that do justice to their dimensional scope and theoretical complexity. (shrink)

: Drawing from work in feminist moral philosophy, Tobin argues that the most common methodology used in practical ethics is a questionable methodology for addressing practical problems across diverse cultural contexts because the kind of impartiality it requires is neither feasible nor desirable. She then defends an alternative methodology for practical ethics in a global context and uses her proposed methodology to evaluate a problem that confronts many Sunni Muslim women around the world.

Claiming that citizens have a “right to free speech” signals to those in free and democratic societies that speech is a freedom that should be protected. Claiming this right, however, does not explain the limits of that right, such as who can speak and what they can and cannot say within organizations. Unlike other articles that describe the legal limits of speech rights, I provide an account of how speech rights can be ethically justified inside and outside of organizations. I (...) first make three assumptions about how strong common interests in speaking and owning things eventually became moral rights and then legal rights within free societies. I also explain how an organization’s property rights and right to make and dissolve contracts can justify managers in limiting free speech. Using principles from rights, fairness, and justice, I further describe when managers should and should not limit speech based on organizational roles and speech content. In some cases, employees could argue that speech limits are unfair if employees in similar circumstances are not allowed to speak on similar topics. I conclude by analyzing whistleblowing as employee speech that managers may try to limit using property rights or consequentialist arguments, but that society protects as a requirement of justice. (shrink)

Humean constructivists object to Kantian constructivism that by endorsing the constitutivist strategy, which grounds moral obligations in rational agency, this position discounts the impact of cont...

This article challenges the received view on the role of motivations in contemporary theories of social justice. Neo-Kantians argue that a theory of justice must be rooted in moral motivations of reasonableness, not rationality. Yet reasonableness is a demanding motivation, stipulating actions that people may not be able or willing to perform. This opens egalitarians like Rawls to the accusation of prescribing a political philosophy that is not 'followable'. The aim of this article is to explore the benefits for egalitarian (...) theories of justice of sanctioning both rational and reasonable motivations. Being vulnerable to self-regarding passions, people often fail to act upon the principles of fairness or impartiality, even when they are motivated by their sense of justice. The institutions of justice must therefore find a way to fortify and encourage the development of our sense of justice. This can be achieved by giving people a rational incentive to act upon and therefore engender their sense of justice. Finding ways to motivate people to act justly is the most pressing challenge facing egalitarian justice today. (shrink)

This paper situates the problem of defeaters in a larger debate about the source of normative authority. It argues in favour of a constructivist account of defeasibility, which appeals to the justificatory role of normative principles. The argument builds upon the critique of two recent attempts to deal with defeasibility: first, a particularist account, which disposes of moral principles on the ground that reasons are holistic; and second, a proceduralist view, which addresses the problem of defeaters by distinguishing between provisional (...) and strictly universal principles. The particularist view fails to establish that moral principles have no epistemological import, but it raises important questions about their role in practical reasoning. The proceduralist view fails to distinguish between reasoning by default and reasoning by principles, but it shows that normative principles have a structural justificatory role. The constructivist view recognizes that the moral valence of normative claims vary across contexts, but denies that this is because of holism about reasons. Rather, it defends defeasibility within a constructivist account of reasoning where universality serves as the matrix of judgment. The constructivist view vindicates the justificatory role of universal normative principles, and makes room for some ordinary sources of defeasibility, which are left unaccounted by competing views, and which depend on the agent’s own progress. (shrink)

G. A. Cohen and J. Raz object that Constructivism is incoherent because it crucially deploys unconstructed elements in the structure of justification. This paper offers a response on behalf of constructivism, by reassessing the role of such unconstructed elements. First, it argues that a shared conception of rational agency works as a starting point for the justification, but it does not play a foundational role. Second, it accounts for the unconstructed norms that constrains the activity of construction as constitutive norms. (...) Finally, on this basis, it draws a contrast between constructivist and foundational methods of ethics, such as deontology and teleology. (shrink)

This paper aims to persuade its reader that libertarianism, at least in several of its varieties, is a species of the genus Michael Oakeshott referred to as ‘rationalism in politics’. I hope to demonstrate, employing the work of Oakeshott, as well as Aristotle and Onora O’Neill, how many libertarian theorists, who generally have a sincere and admirable commitment to personal liberty, have been led astray by the rationalist promise that we might be able to approach deductive certainty concerning the 'correctness' (...) of some political programme. Of course libertarians, in common with the adherents of almost any other political ‘stance’, are not a monolithic body, but exhibit a variety of more or less rationalist arguments for their views. For example, a thinker like Hayek, who is often placed in the libertarian camp, came to adopt much of Oakeshott’s critique of rationalism in his later work. And, of course, Oakeshott himself expressed an affinity for libertarian ideas in his essay, ‘The Political Economy of Freedom’ (1991 [1962]). But a general predilection to enhance individual freedom as far as is deemed practicable is quite a different matter from taking a stance in which liberty, and liberty conceived in a rather narrow fashion, is the only value deemed admissible into ‘reasonable’ political discourse. (We will see in a subsequent section that Oakeshott recognized this urge to sanctify one value above all others as a logical requirement of striving for deductive political truths.) I believe that a critique of such libertarian rationalism is particularly relevant given the present situation in the United States vis-à-vis civil rights and the ongoing ‘war on terror’, in that many non- libertarian supporters of peace and strong civil rights find themselves allied with libertarians on these issues—if libertarians have gotten these issues ‘correct’, then how might they have gone wrong elsewhere? Furthermore, the critique may aid libertarians themselves, because, if the title of this paper is accurate, such a single-minded exaltation of one value above all others is an enemy of true liberty, so that libertarians might want to rethink adopting such a position. As Philip Pettit demonstrates (1997), freedom as non-domination is more robust and inclusive of all that we value about freedom than is the libertarian concept of freedom as non-interference; by allowing, say, immense economic power to be concentrated in a single corporation, as intervention to break the company up would violate the principle of non-interference, libertarian ideas may greatly diminish the liberty of the people subject to that corporate power. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Creating the Conditions for Intergenerational Justice: Social Capital and ComplianceAdelin-Costin DumitruIntroductionSuppose philosophers succeeded in putting forward two equally desirable theories of intergenerational justice. Both of them fare extremely well in regard to either a case-implication critique or a prior-principle strategy of argumentation (with the former requiring us to check the implications of a principle in counterfactual cases, and the latter testing the compatibility of a principle with certain more (...) fundamental values, according to Sen [197]). How are we to decide between them? To the extent that we believe that one of the purposes of political philosophy is to issue achievable and desirable recommendations (Stemplowska 319) or to be action-guiding (Swift 363), we might compare the two by applying a feasibility criterion. Such a criterion indicates that a state of affairs could be realized “if we were to summon sufficient practical will and direct our (individual or collective) efforts in the right direction” (Gheaus 450). In our case, the decision is a relatively easy one: both theories pass a threshold of acceptability and thus we would be morally justified in attempting to bring them about. Furthermore, by stipulation, world A in which theory x were implemented would be equally desirable as world B, in which theory y were implemented. The only distinction would be one concerning their feasibility.Nonetheless, this scenario is usually not one that is available to us. If theories differ based on their desirability as well as their feasibility, how are we to choose? One option would be to choose that moral theory which best satisfies the criteria mentioned by Buchanan, of moral accessibility, feasibility, and accessibility (Justice, Legitimacy). However, feasibility entails not only a static conception of duties, but a dynamic one, in which we postulate that agents have “duties that do not focus merely on what can be done in given [End Page 20] circumstances, but also on how to change circumstances so that new things can be done” (Gilabert and Lawford-Smith 812). In the present article, I argue that taking the idea of dynamic duties seriously requires that we redirect our efforts and resources toward those actions that would maximize the probability of achieving a successful transition from a non-ideal to an ideal state of the world. The argument is that, in the specific context of intergenerational justice, we ought to pay more attention to the matter of social capital extant in a society, if we want to achieve the ends of an intergenerational theory of justice. The concept of social capital puts under the same umbrella distinct features of social life such as networks and civic engagement, the role of reciprocity and trust in building institutions, and the effects that informal rules and institutions have on formal ones (Ostrom and Ahn, “Social Science Perspective” 4). Intuitively, these aspects are relevant for an account of intergenerational justice. The particular way in which they are relevant will be detailed later in this article.The claim that I defend is that the higher the level of social capital in a community, the more probable it will be that individuals are willing to redistribute resources to future generations. The underlying assumption that holds throughout the article is that public justification is important in construing a defense of a conception of justice. I proceed as follows. In the first section, I present an account of social capital. In the second section, I present the literature connecting social capital to political philosophy. In the third section, I argue why developing social capital is a worthwhile goal to pursue if we want to achieve intergenerational justice. The fourth section presents a series of measures that can increase the level of social capital. The fifth section responds to a series of potential objections that could be raised and concludes the paper.The Many Faces of Social CapitalMuch of the intellectual history of the twentieth century was dedicated to institutions and their function in shaping the social, economic, cultural, and political order. In a comprehensive definition put forward by March and Olsen, institutions represent “routines, procedures, conventions, roles, strategies, organizational forms, technologies..., beliefs, paradigms, codes, cultures and knowledge that surround, support, elaborate, and... (shrink)

Solidarity within bioethics is increasingly being recognized as an important means of improving health for all. Its contribution seems particularly relevant when there are injustices or inequalities in health and different individuals or groups are disadvantaged. But the current context of ecological collapse, characterized mainly by a loss of biodiversity and ecosystem decline, affects global health in a different way to other factors. This scenario creates new challenges, risks and problems that require new insights from a bioethical perspective. I, therefore, (...) propose an argument in favor of ecological solidarity. The aim of this article is to re-define this concept, outlining which causes should incite action through ecological solidarity and who should be the main recipient of it. To this end, I discuss what the background for practicing ecological solidarity might be: an intrinsically altruistic motivation to attempt to be a better person or a forced response to a political obligation. Finally, by way of example, I argue for rewilding as an effective, practical strategy through which ecological solidarity can be applied in the belief that building ecological solidarity supports a number of key interdependencies and ensures ethical care for the health of the planet. (shrink)

In philosophical debates on human rights between the East and the West, scholars argue whether rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and other international documents (in short, “international human rights”) are universal or culturally relative. Some scholars who emphasize the importance of East Asian cultures (such as the Confucian tradition) have different attitudes toward civil and political rights (CP rights) than toward economic, social, and cultural rights (ESC Rights). They argue that at least some international human rights (...) on the list of CP rights are not universal and believe that East Asian cultures can contribute to the moral justification of ESC rights. This chapter introduces a philosophical argument to support a normative account of human rights. This normative account, called “the minimal account of human rights,” is based on the ideas of minimal values, especially essential necessities of dignity. Based on this account, we can explain why international human rights are both universal and justified by East Asian cultures, especially the Confucian tradition. To explain this minimal account and illustrate how it can be applied to debates on international human rights, this chapter focuses on debates on the international human rights to liberty on the list of CP rights and the human rights to health on the list of ESC rights. (shrink)

There is a tendency within the literature to decry Kant as either a proto-imperialist or as a proto-democrat in relation to his views on distant strangers. I here take an alternative view, arguing that Kant’s cosmopolitan morality is considerably more context-sensitive than is often assumed. More specifically, I argue that Kant’s encounter with American nomads on the final pages of his Doctrine of Right reflects a nuanced reading of European settlers’ requisite comportment towards them: Kant neither endorses a universal duty (...) of state entrance nor does he place nomads beyond all possible moral engagement with European settlers. (shrink)

Although ethical and justice arguments operate in two distinct levels—justice being a more specific concept—they can easily be conflated. A robust justification of ecological justice requires starting at the roots of justice, rather than merely giving, for example, an argument for why certain non-human beings have moral standing of some kind. Thus, I propose that a theory of ecological justice can benefit from a four-step justification for the inclusion of non-human beings into the community of justice, starting with Hume’s circumstances (...) of justice. I will further argue that the resulting theory of ecological justice should be biocentric—meaning that all living beings should be included into the community of justice, as they constitute a ‘community of fate’. (shrink)