Building Better Beings: A Theory of Moral Responsibility argues that the normative basis of moral responsibility is anchored in the effects of responsibility practices. Further, the capacities required for moral responsibility are socially scaffolded. This article considers criticisms of this account that have been recently raised by John Doris, Victoria McGeer, and Michael Robinson. Robinson argues against Building Better Beings’s rejection of libertarianism about free will, and the account of desert at stake in the theory. considers methodological questions that arise (...) from the account of desert, providing some additional resources for thinking about these issues within the framework of the account. McGeer objects to the particular mode of justification used to motivate the prescriptive aspect of the account. This article presents replies to each of these lines of response. (shrink)

Abstract:This essay argues that moral accountability depends upon having a shared system of social norms. In particular, it argues that the Strawsonian reactive attitude of resentment is only fitting when people can reasonably expect a mutual recognition of the justified demands to which they are being held. Though such recognition should not typically be expected of moral demands that are thought to be independent of any social practice, social norms can ground such mutual recognition. On this account, a significant part (...) of a society’s social norms are also properly seen as moral norms. The essay defends this overlap of social and moral norms in contrast to views on which moral norms and social norms are sharply distinguished. Lastly, the essay concludes by addressing challenges for accountability in circumstances of norm change. (shrink)

Seizing the opportunity to apply what they had learned, the students declared a cheating competition. Outspoken participants (future lawyers, politicians, and captains of industry) bragged about their ruses. But to their chagrin, an ethics student prevailed.

Mill argues that, apart from the principle of utility, his utilitarianism is incompatible with absolutes. Yet in On Liberty he introduces an exceptionless anti-paternalism principle—his liberty principle. In this paper I address ‘the absolutism problem,’ that is, whether Mill's utilitarianism can accommodate an exceptionless principle. Mill's absolute claim is not a mere bit of rhetoric. But the four main solutions to the absolutism problem are also not supported by the relevant texts. I defend a fifth solution—the competence view—that turns on (...) his attention to decision-making structures and, in particular, on the role of expertise considerations in his account. (shrink)

I argue that a notorious passage from Utilitarianism concerning the relationship between morality and blameworthiness need not be an obstacle to a consistent act-utilitarian interpretation of Mill's moral theory. First, the Art of Life provides a framework for reconciling Mill's evaluation of conduct in terms of both expediency and blameworthiness. Like contemporary sophisticated act-utilitarians, Mill treats expediency as the more fundamental category of evaluation. Second, textual evidence suggests that, on Mill's view, evaluations of blameworthiness are not strictly bound by rules, (...) despite rule-ish considerations about punishment and discretion. Third, Mill's own jurisdictional account in terms of competent decision-making remains consistent with the act-utilitarian interpretation. (shrink)

Thom Brooks criticizes utilitarian and retributive theories of punishment but argues that utilitarian and retributive goals can be incorporated into a coherent and unified theory of punitive restoration, according to which punishment is a means of reintegrating criminals into society and restoring rights. I point to some difficulties with Brooks’ criticisms of retributive and utilitarian theories, and argue that his theory of punitive restoration is not unified or coherent. I argue further that a theory attempting to capture the complex set (...) of rules and behaviors that constitute the practice of legal punishment cannot persuasively be unified and coherent: legitimate features of the practice advance goals and promote values that in some cases conflict. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to clarify what kind of normativity characterizes a convention. First, we argue that conventions have normative consequences because they always involve a form of trust and reliance. We contend that it is by reference to a moral principle impinging on these aspects (i.e. the principle of Reliability) that interpersonal obligations and rights originate from conventional regularities. Second, we argue that the system of mutual expectations presupposed by conventions is a source of agreements. Agreements stemming (...) from conventions are “tacit” in the sense that they are implicated by what agents do (or forbear from doing) and without that any communication between them is necessary. To justify this conclusion, we assume that: (1) there is a salient interpretation, in some contexts, of everyone’s silence as confirmatory of the others’ expectations (an epistemic assumption), and (2) the participating agents share a value of not being motivated by hostile attitudes (a motivational assumption). By clarifying the relation between conventions and agreements, the peculiar normativity of conventions is analyzed. (shrink)

RESUMO O objetivo do presente trabalho é propor, mediante o papel que a relação entre método e objetivos desempenha em "A theory of justice", uma possível leitura da abordagem contratualista sui generis adotada por Rawls em sua obra-prima. De modo particular, aproveitaremos, como ponto de partida, duas críticas que Onora O'Neill apresenta em uma de suas últimas intervenções sobre o pensamento de Rawls. Tentaremos mostrar, então, como tais críticas padecem de certa inconsistência, na medida em que for enfatizada a complementaridade (...) entre alguns aspectos metodológicos e os objetivos gerais assumidos em "A theory of justice", sobretudo, no que diz respeito à caracterização da posição original como situação ideal de deliberação entre agentes racionais que se reconhecem como livres e iguais em sua pluralidade. Nesse sentido, concentrar-nos-emos na interpretação do nexo entre o véu de ignorância e o equilíbrio reflexivo como momento constitutivo de um processo de reflexão prática em que interagem, sem contradição, racionalidade lógicoformal e razoabilidade das restrições. Daí, indicaremos, em linhas gerais e de maneira absolutamente provisória, em que termos nos parece possível compatibilizar construtivismo e contratualismo em "A theory of justice". ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to propose, through the role that the relationship between method and objectives plays in "A theory of justice", a possible reading of the contractarian sui generis approach adopted by Rawls in his masterpiece. In particular, we will take advantage, as a starting point, of two critical objections that Onora O'Neill presents in one of her latest interventions on Rawls' thought. Then, we will try to show how such critical objections are somewhat insubstantial, to the extent that the complementarity between some methodological aspects and the general objectives assumed in "A theory of justice" is emphasized, especially with regard to the characterization of the original position as ideal situation of deliberation among rational agents who recognize themselves as free and equal in their plurality. In this sense, we will focus on the interpretation of the link between the veil of ignorance and the reflective equilibrium as a constitutive moment of a process of practical reflection in which logical-formal rationality and reasonableness of restrictions interact, without contradiction. Hence, we will indicate, in a general and absolutely provisional way, in which terms it seems possible to reconcile constructivism and contractualism in "A theory of justice". (shrink)

Since publication of the 1986 Carnegie Commission report, A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century, the professional teaching standards movement has gained noticeable momentum. The professional standards movement in teaching has been fueled by national organizations such as the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, the Interstate New Teachers Assessment and Support Consortium, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, and by close collaboration among these four entities. Further, nearly all (...) of the fifty states are embracing the professional standards movement through formal participation in the work of one or more of these organizations. Although the professional standards movement in teaching is strong and growing stronger, its implications are not clear for instructional programs in social foundations of education, either at the teacher preparation or the advanced graduate levels. In response to the standards movement, social foundations educators have a number of options before them, three of which are to (1) largely ignore these developments, as "this too shall pass"; (2) critically interpret and resist these developments through scholarship and collective professional action, as social foundations scholars did with Competency Based Teacher Education in the 1970s; and (3) critically interpret these developments while working to strengthen the potential of the professional teaching standards movement to achieve its stated goal of providing caring and qualified teachers for every classroom in the nation. Of these three options, the last is most advisable, but it presents a considerable challenge to social foundations educators. Although the absence of social foundations skills, perspectives, and understanding should make it very difficult for teacher candidates and teachers to perform well on standards-based teaching assessments, there is no guarantee that these assessments will hold candidates accountable for social foundations learning. Implications for social foundations educators and activists are significant. (shrink)

Constrained instrumentalist theories of punishment – those that seek to justify punishment by its good effects, but limit its scope – are an attractive alternative to pure retributivism or utilitarianism. One way in which we may be able to limit the scope of instrumental punishment is by justifying punishment through the concept of duty. This strategy is most clearly pursued in Victor Tadros’ influential ‘Duty View’ of punishment. In this paper, I show that the Duty View as it stands cannot (...) find any moral distinction between the permissible punishment of the guilty and the permissible punishment of the innocent in extreme circumstances, therefore undermining one the key pillars of its intuitive appeal. I canvass several ways to respond to this problem, arguing that a rights forfeiture theory which employs the distinction between rights forfeiture and rights infringement is the best solution. (shrink)

At criminal trial, we demand that those accused of criminal wrongdoing be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond any reasonable doubt. What are the moral and/or political grounds of this demand? One popular and natural answer to this question focuses on the moral badness or wrongness of convicting and punishing innocent persons, which I call the direct moral grounding. In this essay, I suggest that this direct moral grounding, if accepted, may well have important ramifications for other areas of the (...) criminal justice process, and in particular those parts in which we (through our legislatures and judges) decide how much punishment to distribute to guilty persons. If, as the direct moral grounding suggests, we should prefer under-punishment to over-punishment under conditions of uncertainty, due to the moral seriousness of errors which inappropriately punish persons, then we should also prefer erring on the side of under-punishment when considering how much to punish those who may justly be punished. Some objections to this line of thinking are considered. (shrink)

The contribution of food and diet to health is much disputed in the background culture in the US. Many commercial or ideological advocates make claims, sometimes with health as a primary goal, but often accompanied by commercial or ideological interests. These compete culturally with authoritative recommendations made by publicly funded groups. For public policy concerning diet and health to be legitimate, not only should it not be inconsistent with the scientific evidence, but also it should not be inconsistent with the (...) political environment. Healthy Eating Policy and Political Philosophy (HEPPP), by Barnhill and Bonotti (2022), addresses how policy in this complex area might be justified. In the present essay I highlight some important strengths of their work and also make some points about how it might be clarified or enlarged in scope. The great strength of HEPPP is that it emphasizes the role of a political philosophy in evaluating the legitimacy of public policy. They presume a well-off liberal democratic state, and specifically they draw on Rawls’ political liberalism, as developed in Political Liberalism (PL). One of several interlocking technical concepts developed in this book, public reason speaks to the boundaries of what should be acceptable in public deliberation about constitutional essentials and basic justice. HEPPP explores the application of an extension of public reason to the justification of policies related to “healthy eating.“ Public reason has two components, both of which pertain to a common understanding among citizens: (1) a common understanding of the principles and ideals that are the foundation of the political society, and (2) a common understanding of the standards that govern reason and evidence, including common sense. HEPPP argues that even though for diet and health the complexity of the scientific evidence goes far beyond anything like common sense for a typical citizen, the technical idea of “accessibility” of the scientific evidence justifies reliance on it within the concept of public reason. I question this accessibility argument about scientific evidence and public reason because the nature of the population-level epidemiological evidence about diet and health is that it often includes judgments that are based on arguable interpretations, framing incidence in terms of risk and prevention; thus the issue is more than one of potential accessibility of scientific evidence. Nevertheless, evaluation and consideration of the scientific evidence is of obvious practical importance in policy deliberation concerning policy related to what Rawls call “ordinary legislation.“ Even though public reason applied to healthy eating policy may not be as pertinent as it is for constitutional essentials and basic justice, and even though it is unlikely to result in a “correct outcome,“ invoking reasons based on political values and principles held in common has important value even in these deliberations about more ordinary questions. That value applies not to the specifics of the particular issue, but to the larger context for the particular policy being deliberated, as a potential contribution to an overlapping consensus that is stable for the right reasons. If this vision of political liberalism were achieved, then contentious debate about health eating policy and its scientific basis could occur within that context and be resolved within the basic political structure. Because public health and political liberalism have a common concern for a good at the population level, they have an underlying affinity. Healthy eating policies could be evaluated in two not-unrelated ways: based on their instrumental contribution to the good of the public body of citizens as population-level health, and according to their stabilizing contribution to an overlapping consensus among citizens. In this latter way a policy would contribute to a conditional integral common good a la Sulmasy, one that has the prospect of conditioning a political system, and by doing so create the conditions of the possibility of a constitutive integral common good that is constituted on the right reasons for allegiance to an overlapping consensus. To conclude with reference to HEPPP, public reason may play an important function with respect to the political common good, even as debates about the weight and meaning of scientific evidence from epidemiology play out in deliberation of ordinary legislation concerning healthy eating. (shrink)

n this paper, I analyse Rahel Jaeggi’s socio-ontological account of forms of life. I show that her framework is a two-sided one, since it involves an understanding of forms of life both as inert bundles of practices and as having a normative structure. Here I argue that this approach is based on an a priori argument which assumes normativity as the condition of intelligibility of social criticism. I show that the intimate tension between these two sides is reflected in the (...) socio-ontological model of the constitution of social phenomena, which on the one side is understood in terms of habituation and materialization, and on the other side in terms of constitution through norms. The second side in the end prevails and leads to some sort of normative essentialism which involves a prescriptive meta-theoretical understanding of normativity combined with a socio-ontological model of constitutive rules. I then analyse two arguments that Jaeggi offers in support of her assumption that normative constitution is the deep structure of social practices. I name these the functional- teleological argument, and the crisis developmental argument, and argue that neither succeeds in proving that practices are not normatively underdetermined. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this paper, I analyse Rahel Jaeggi’s socio-ontological account of forms of life. I show that her framework is a two-sided one, since it involves an understanding of forms of life both as inert bundles of practices and as having a normative structure. Here I argue that this approach is based on an a priori argument which assumes normativity as the condition of intelligibility of social criticism. I show that the intimate tension between these two sides is reflected in (...) the socio-ontological model of the constitution of social phenomena, which on the one side is understood in terms of habituation and materialization, and on the other side in terms of constitution through norms. The second side in the end prevails and leads to some sort of normative essentialism which involves a prescriptive meta-theoretical understanding of normativity combined with a socio-ontological model of constitutive rules. I then analyse two arguments that Jaeggi offers in support of her assumption that normative constitution is the deep structure of social practices. I name these the functional-teleological argument, and the crisis developmental argument, and argue that neither succeeds in proving that practices are not normatively underdetermined. (shrink)

Regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with Stacie Friend’s claim that fiction is a genre, her notion of genre can be fruitfully applied to a paradigmatic genre such as science fiction. This article deploys Friend’s notion of genre in order to improve the influential characterization of science fiction proposed by Darko Suvin and to defend it from a criticism recently raised by Simon Evnine. According to Suvin, a work of science fiction must concern “a fictional ‘novum’ validated by cognitive (...) logic.” While Suvin conceives of his characterization as a necessary and sufficient condition for membership in the genre, I propose to cast the notions of “fictional novum” and “cognitive validation” as standard features of the genre, which works of science fiction should have but might lack. I argue that this amended version of Suvin’s characterization can better account for two basic properties of science fiction as a genre, namely its historicity and its relevance to appreciation. Lastly, I show that the amended version can shed some light on the affinity between works of science fiction and philosophical thought experiments. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

This brief critique of Frances Kamm’s Bioethical Prescriptions (Oxford University Press, 2013) focuses on the phenomenon of philosophers taking on roles outside of academia, which Kamm discusses in chapter 24, “The Philosopher as Insider and Outsider: How to Advise, Compromise, and Criticize.” Kamm discusses various conflicts that can arise for philosophers who serve as advisors on governmental commissions. One goal many philosophers have in joining such commissions is (a) to promote the public good (p. 527), but this can come into (...) conflict with (b) the goals and norms governing one as a philosopher, as well as with (c) the goals and norms governing philosophers qua advisors to the governmental commissions. Kamm’s view is that (c) has precedence, up to a point, over (a) and (b). Questions that I explore are (1) what are the norms constitutive of being a philosopher; (2) how do the norms constitutive of other roles philosophers enter into differ from those of advisors to commissioners; and (3) when and why do some of the norms and goals outlined by Kamm take precedence over others? (shrink)

Elsewhere we have responded to the so-called demandingness objection to consequentialism – that consequentialism is excessively demanding and is therefore unacceptable as a moral theory – by introducing the theoretical position we call institutional consequentialism. This is a consequentialist view that, however, requires institutional systems, and not individuals, to follow the consequentialist principle. In this paper, we first introduce and explain the theory of institutional consequentialism and the main reasons that support it. In the remainder of the paper, we turn (...) to the global dimension where the first and foremost challenge is to explain how institutional consequentialism can deal with unsolved global problems such as poverty, war and climate change. In response, following the general idea of institutional consequentialism, we draw up three alternative routes: relying on existing national, transnational and supranational institutions; promoting gradual institutional reform; and advocating radical changes to the status quo. We evaluate these routes by describing normatively relevant properties of the existing global institutional system, as well as by showing what institutional consequentialism can say about alternatives to it: a world government; and multi-layered sovereignty/neo-medieval system. (shrink)

The reform of offenders is often said to be one of the morally legitimate aims of punishment. After briefly surveying the history of reformist thinking I examine the ‘quasi-reform’ theories, as I call them, of H. Morris, J. Hampton and A. Duff. I explain how they conceive of reform, and what role they take it to have in the criminal justice system. I then focus critically on one feature of their conception of reform, namely, the claim that a reformed offender (...) will obey the relevant laws for moral reasons. I argue on consequentialist grounds that this requirement is objectionable. Consequentialism has always accepted reform as one legitimate goal of punishment, but it will not accept the narrowly moral conception of it that we find in the quasi-reform theorists. I situate my criticism within criminal law theory, but I also consider the claim in moral theory that acting from moral motives has intrinsic value. (shrink)

Politics, Philosophy & Economics, Volume 21, Issue 2, Page 190-227, May 2022. There is a sense of fairness that is distinctive of markets. This is fairness among economic competitors, competitive fairness. We regularly make judgments of competitive fairness about market participants, public policies and institutions. However, it is not clear to what these judgments refer, or what moral significance they have. This paper offers a rational reconstruction of competitive fairness in terms of non-domination. It first identifies competitive fairness as a (...) distinctive claim, advanced within markets in turn characterized as antagonistic, instrumental and procedural. It distinguishes competitive fairness from a number of familiar ideals with which it might be confused: legitimate expectation, equality of opportunity, sporting fairness and economic efficiency. While many exponents likely assume competitive fairness can be explained in terms of one of these ideals, in each case there are significant objections to doing so. Instead, the paper argues that the most promising justification of competitive fairness is under the republican ideal of non-domination, which can reconstruct many of the intuitive judgments of competitive fairness that we make in particular cases. However, it concludes, this explanation makes it difficult for exponents to continue to emphasize competitive fairness, given diverse other risks of domination, and to other values, in markets. (shrink)

The term “social cognition” can be construed in different ways. On the one hand, it can refer to the cognitive faculties involved in social activities, defined simply as situations where two or more individuals interact. On this view, social systems would consist of interactions between autonomous individuals; these interactions form higher-level autonomous domains not reducible to individual actions. A contrasting, alternative view is based on a much stronger theoretical definition of a truly social domain, which is always defined by a (...) set of structural norms; moreover, these social structures are not only a set of constraints, but actually constitute the possibility of enacting worlds that would just not exist without them. This view emphasises the heteronomy of individuals who abide by norms that are impersonal, culturally inherited and to a large extent independent of the individuals. Human beings are socialised through and through; consequently, all human cognition is social cognition. The article argues for this second position. Finally, it appears that fully blown autonomy actually requires heteronomy. It is the acceptance of the constraints of social structures that enables individuals to enter new realms of common meaningfulness. The emergence of social life marks a crucial step in the evolution of cognition; so that at some evolutionary point human cognition cannot but be social cognition. (shrink)

Most contemporary accounts of moral responsibility take desert to play a central role in the nature of moral responsibility. It is also assumed that desert is a backward-looking concept that is not directly derivable from any forward-looking or consequentialist considerations, such as whether blaming an agent would deter the agent from performing similar bad actions in the future. When determining which account of moral responsibility is correct, proponents of desert-based accounts often take intuitions about cases to provide evidence either in (...) favor of or against a proposed theory. In this paper, I discuss two experiments that test whether folk intuitions accord with what desert-based accounts would predict. Results suggest that moral responsibility intuitions are sensitive to forward-looking considerations, thus posing a problem for desert-based accounts of moral responsibility. If appealing to intuitions about cases is a valid method of discovering the nature of moral responsibility and desert, it seems either desert is not entirely backward-looking or moral responsibility is not exclusively desert-based. These experimental results also suggest that consequentialist accounts of moral responsibility, which have largely been abandoned due to their counterintuitive nature, are perhaps not so counterintuitive after all. (shrink)

Many find it intuitive that those who use enhancements like steroids and Adderall in Olympic weightlifting and education are due less praise than those who perform equally well without using these enhancements. Nonetheless, it is not easy to coherently explain why one might be justifiably due less praise for using these technologies to enhance one’s performance. Justifications for this intuition which rely on concerns regarding authenticity, cheating, or shifts in who is responsible for the performance face serious problems. Santoni de (...) Sio et al., however, have recently defended a justification for this intuition which avoids the problems competing justifications face; the nature-of-activities justification. This justification relies on a conceptual analysis of the nature of activities and does not require the defense of any particular ethical stance concerning the use of enhancements. Santoni de Sio et al. claim that the success of the nature-of-activities account requires distinguishing between practice-oriented activities and goal-directed activities. I, however, show that this distinction is both deeply problematic and unnecessary. After exposing the weaknesses of Santoni de Sio et al.’s original account, I defend a simpler and less problematic version of the nature-of-activities account. The revised account is capable of both justifying this intuition of less praise and allowing one to determine when enhancements should be deemed permissible, impermissible, or obligatory for a given activity. (shrink)

Seizing the opportunity to apply what they had learned, the students declared a cheating competition. Outspoken participants (future lawyers, politicians, and captains of industry) bragged about their ruses. But to their chagrin, an ethics student prevailed.

Commanders gain authority from obedience and lose authority from disobedience. We should expect commanders to therefore devise commands that reduce the probability of disobedience. To aid recognition of these techniques for reducing the risk of disobedience, I focus on the extreme of case of commands that reduce the probability to zero. Each of my ten commandments illustrates a logical technique for engineering out disobedience. Once you master these safety measures, you can confidently legislate your own universal maxims. Your innovations will (...) be good news for Immanuel Kant’s characterization of morality in terms of categorical imperatives. The commandments also raise interesting questions about responsibility for necessities and the nature of rule following. (shrink)

Deception of subjects is used frequently in the social sciences. Examples are provided. The ethics of experimental deception are discussed, in particular various maneuvers to solve the problem. The results have implications for the use of deception in the biomedical sciences.

One common justification for the pursuit of profit by business firms within a market economy is that profit is not an end in itself but a means to more efficiently produce and allocate resources. Profit, in short, is a mechanism that serves the market’s purpose of producing Pareto superior outcomes for society. This discussion examines whether such a justification, if correct, requires business managers to remain attentive to how their firm’s operation impacts the market’s purpose. In particular, it is argued (...) that the value of efficiency, despite views to the contrary, cannot be fully separated from the planning and intentions of business managers as long as those managers direct their firms in an ethically responsible fashion. This position is inspired by, and serves as a supportive clarification of Joseph Heath’s so-called “market failures approach” to business ethics. (shrink)

A number of recent authors, most notably Joseph Heath, have persausively defended a market‐centered account of corporate responsibility that grounds standards of business conduct upon the normative presuppositions of the market. They have us focus on two important items: first, the value of welfare, or Pareto efficient outcomes, which underwrites the legitimacy of market arrangements; and second, the behavioral requirements needed to assure that corporations conduct business in a manner consistent with this value. This article critically examines the aspirations of (...) this literature by embracing its basic method but questioning how well it understands the aim of the market. It puts forth a limited case for corporate responsibility anchored in other dimensions of the public good, distinct from the value of efficiency, and argues that a plausible understanding of corporate responsibility arises from the notion that market arrangements are sites of delegated social authority to provision other aspects of the common good. (shrink)

Ethicists in and out of the profession have argued that a journalist's precept to report only the truth is deduced, say, from utilitarianism's appeal to social utility or Rawls' appeal to justice as fairness. The mistake in this is indicated by an argument that the physician owes his or her professional ethic to the human need for health and the lawyer's to the human need for justice. The journalist, therefore, may well owe his or her professional regard for truthful reporting (...) to everyone's need for news?a critical element in a democratic society. So, instead of basing journalistic ethics in the fashionable moral philosophies of the modern era, it is better to argue that it grows out of the special nature of the craft, as imbedded in a more venerable notion of self fulfilling social responsibility. (shrink)

O objetivo desse artigo é investigar o problema da justificação da punição, a saber, como é possível justificar normativamente o dano intencional retributivo reprobatório infligido pelo Estado aos ofensores? Nossa estratégia será tentar conectar a função corretiva e os eventos de remorso, arrependimento e perdão do âmbito privado da punição com o domínio público, de forma a questionar a correção normativa da punição legal. Posteriormente, veremos como o contratualismo pode justificar a instituição da punição de uma forma mais eficiente e (...) como a ética das virtudes pode ser um atrativo modelo quando pensamos em quem punir e o quanto. Por fim, defenderemos que uma teoria moral mista seria desejável para melhor resolver os complexos problemas da justificação da punição. (shrink)

Institutional ethics committees (IECs) in health care facilities now create moral policy, provide moral education, and consult with physicians and other health care workers. After sketching reasons for the development of IECs, this paper first examines the predominant moral standards it is often assumed IECs are now using, these standards being neo-Kantian principles of justice and utilitarian principles of the greatest good. Then, it is argued that a feminine ethics of care, as posited by Carol Gilligan and Nel Noddings, is (...) an unacknowledged basis for IEC discussions and decisions. Further, it is suggested that feminine ethics of care can and should provide underlying theoretical tools and standards for IECs. (shrink)

Institutional ethics committees in health care facilities now create moral policy, provide moral education, and consult with physicians and other health care workers. After sketching reasons for the development of IECs, this paper first examines the predominant moral standards it is often assumed lECs are now using, these standards being neo-Kantian principles of justice and utilitarian principles of the greatest good. Then, it is argued that a feminine ethics of care, as posited by Carol Gilligan and Nel Noddings, is an (...) unacknowledged basis for /EC discussions and decisions. Further, it is suggested that feminine ethics of care can and should provide underlying theoretical tools and standards for lECs. (shrink)

T. M. Scanlon has alleged that the social practice of promising fails to capture the sense in which when I break my promise I have wronged the promisee in particular. I suggest the practice of promising requires the promisee to have a normatively significant status, a status with interpersonal authority with respect to the promisor, and so be at risk of a particular harm made possible by the social practice of promising. This formulation of the social practice account avoids Scanlon’s (...) concern without collapsing into what Elinor Mason has recently referred to as deflationism about promising. (shrink)

The power to promise is morally fundamental and does not, at its foundation, derive from moral principles that govern our use of conventions. Of course, many features of promising have conventional components—including which words, gestures, or conditions of silence create commitments. What is really at issue between conventionalists and nonconventionalists is whether the basic moral relation of promissory commitment derives from the moral principles that govern our use of social conventions. Other nonconventionalist accounts make problematic concessions to the conventionalist's core (...) instincts, including embracing: the view that binding promises must involve the promisee's belief that performance will occur; the view that through the promise, the promisee and promisor create a shared end; and the tendency to take promises between strangers, rather than intimates, as the prototypes to which a satisfactory account must answer. I argue against these positions and then pursue an account that finds its motivation in their rejection. My main claim is: the power to make promises, and other related forms of commitment, is an integral part of the ability to engage in special relationships in a morally good way. The argument proceeds by examining what would be missing, morally, from intimate relationships if we lacked this power. (shrink)

To promise someone to do something is to commit oneself to that person to do that thing, but what does that commitment consist of? Some think a promissory commitment is an obligation to do what’s promised, and that while promising practices facilitate the creation of promissory obligations, they are not essential to them. I favor the broadly Humean view in which, when it comes to promises (and so promissory obligations), practices are of the essence. I propose the Practice Reason Account (...) of promises, according to which a promise is basically to give oneself a self-interested practice reason to do what’s promised. One achieves this feat by invoking self-enforcing independent practice rules thanks to which one’s doing what’s promised preserves one’s promissory trust(worthiness) and promising power. However, nothing in this account supports the Hume-Rawls claim that promise-keeping or promise-breaking is right just when and because it conforms to practice rules that are justified by their good- or right-making properties. (shrink)

A central objection to McDowell’s conceptualism about empirical content concerns the fine-grained phenomenology of experience, which supposedly entails that the actual content of experience cannot be matched in its particularity by our concepts. While McDowell himself has answered this objection in recourse to the possibility of demonstrative concepts, his reply has engendered a plethora of further objections and is widely considered inadequate. I believe that McDowell’s critics underestimate the true force of his reply because they tend to read unrecognized empiricist (...) presuppositions into his account of experience. To show this, I introduce a new hylomorphic reading of McDowell’s account of experience and argue that the objections to his reply all rest on a specific empiricist assumption, which is untenable because it conflates the form of experience with its content. Consequently, conceptualism so understood can resist all of these objections, as I attempt to show by systematizing and answering them. (shrink)

Dreyfus's model of expert skill acquisition is philosophically important because it shifts the focus on expertise away from its social and technical externalization in STS, and its relegation to the historical and psychological context of discovery in the classical philosophy of science, to universal structures of embodied cognition and affect. In doing so he explains why experts are not best described as ideologues and why their authority is not exclusively based on social networking. Moreover, by phenomenologically analyzing expertise from a (...) first person perspective, he reveals the limitations of, and sometimes superficial treatment that comes from, investigating expertise from a third person perspective. Thus, he shows that expertise is a prime example of a subject that is essential to science but can only be fully elaborated with the aid of phenomenological tools. However, both Dreyfus's descriptive model and his normative claims are flawed due to the lack of hermeneutical sensitivity. He assumes an expert's knowledge has crystallized out of contextual sensitivity plus experience, and that an expert has shed, during the training process, whatever prejudices, ideologies, hidden agendas, or other forms of cultural embeddedness, that person might have begun with. One would never imagine, from Dreyfus's account, that society could possibly be endangered by experts, only how society's expectations and actions could endanger experts. The stories of actual controversies not only shows things do not work the way Dreyfus claims, but also that it would be less salutary if they did. Such stories amount to counterexamples to Dreyfus's normative claims, and point to serious shortcomings in his arguments. (shrink)

The Problem of Obligation is the problem of how to explain the features of moral obligations that distinguish them from other normative phenomena. Two recent accounts, the Second-Personal Account and the Relational Account, propose superficially similar solutions to this problem. Both regard obligations as based on the claims or legitimate demands that persons as such have on one another. However, unlike the Second-Personal Account, the Relational Account does not regard these claims as based in persons’ authority to address them. Advocates (...) of the Relational Account accuse the Second-Personal Account of falling prey to the Problem of Antecedence. According to this objection, the Second-Personal Account is committed to the implausible claim that we have an obligation to φ only if, and because, others demand that we φ. Since the Relational Account’s proposed solution to the Problem of Obligation does not face the Problem of Antecedence, its advocates argue that it is dialectically superior to the Second-Personal Account. In this paper, I defend the Second-Personal Account by arguing that, first, the Relational Account does not actually solve the Problem of Obligation and, second, the Second-Personal Account does not fall prey to the Problem of Antecedence. (shrink)

In this paper, I give a reconstruction of the so‐called Reinhold–Sidgwick objection and show that Korsgaard‐style Kantian constructivists are committed to two key premises of the underlying argument. According to the Reinhold–Sidgwick objection, the Kantian conception of autonomy entails the absurd conclusion that no one is ever morally responsible for a morally wrong action. My reconstruction of the underlying argument reveals that the objection depends on a third premise, which says that freedom is a necessary condition for moral responsibility. After (...) mapping the common replies to the objection, I demonstrate that none of these replies is available to Kantian constructivists. But they need not be committed to the absurd conclusion that no one is ever morally blameworthy. Kantian constructivists who want to resist the Reinhold–Sidgwick objection are well advised to subject the third premise of the underlying argument to critical scrutiny. (shrink)

The nudge approach seeks to improve people’s decisions through small changes in their choice environments. Nudge policies often work through psychological mechanisms that deviate from traditional notions of rationality. Because of that, some critics object that nudging treats people as irrational. Such treatment might be disrespectful in itself and might crowd out more empowering policies. I defend nudging against these objections. By defending a nonstandard, ecological model of rationality, I argue that nudging not only is compatible with rational agency but (...) can even support it. Accordingly, a concern with rationality speaks for more rather than less public policy nudging. (shrink)

This paper explores the influence of group context on the ethical predispositions of group members. Results indicate that groups exert a powerful influence on individuals' ethical frameworks, and that the patterns of these influences differ depending on the type of ethical framework involved. Individuals' ethical utilitarianism was affected by both leadership style and group cohesiveness. Ethical formalism was most affected by the leadership style in the group.

This paper explores the relationship between organizational size, structure and the strength of organization members'' ethical predispositions. It is hypothesized that individuals in smaller, more flexible, organic organizations will display stronger ethical predispositions. Survey results from 209 individuals across eleven organizations indicate that contrary to expectations, larger, more rigid, mechanistic structures were associated with higher levels of ethical formalism and utilitarianism. Implications of these findings are discussed.

There is a certain kind of tension in recent accounts of the role of reasons in virtue ethics between two plausible claims that pull in different directions. First, that virtues are the central normative notion in virtue ethics; and second, that virtue is a kind of responsiveness to reasons: that reasons explain both what it is to act from virtue, and what the virtues are. I argue that this is a serious tension and necessitates a different account of the relationship (...) between virtues and reasons; one that explains the distinctive normative contribution of virtue, central to virtue ethics, and that also captures the ways in which virtues structure practical reason itself and provide normative reasons for thinking, feeling, and acting. I develop a view, which I call virtues as reasons structure, that achieves these aims by drawing a theoretical and practical distinction between reasons from virtue and reasons for virtue. On this view, character traits explain what reasons a person has. A generous person, for example, is one who characteristically takes certain facts to be reasons for action; these are reasons from the virtue. Reasons for the virtues have a different role in theoretical and practical reflection in grounding claims with respect to which character traits to develop. I conclude by arguing that this view does not lead to a problematic kind of relativism and suggest further lines of inquiry. (shrink)

In his tightly argued, thought-provoking volume Interpretation without Truth, Pierluigi Chiassoni offers a groundbreaking, reductionist account of judicial fictions.1 Under Chiassoni’s view, judici...