Our understanding of emotional labor, while conceptually and empirically substantial, is normatively impoverished: very little has been said or written expressly about its ethical dimensions or ramifications. Emotional labor refers to efforts undertaken by employees to make their private feelings and/or public emotion displays consistent with job and organizational requirements. We formally define emotional labor, briefly summarize research in organizational behavior and social psychology on the causes and consequences of emotional labor, and present a normative analysis of its moral limits (...) focused on conditional rights and duties of employers and employees. Our focus is on three points of conflict involving rights and duties as they apply to the performance of emotional labor: when employees’ and organizations’ rights conflict, when employees’ rights conflict with their duties, and when organizations’ rights conflict with their duties. We discuss implications for future inquiry as well as managerial practice. (shrink)

Whereas professional persuasion is a means to an immediate and instrumental end, ethical persuasion must rest on or serve a deeper, morally based final end. Among the moral final ends of journalism, for example, are truth and freedom. There is a very real danger that advertisers and public relations practitioners will play an increasingly dysfunctional role in the communications process if means continue to be confused with ends in professional persuasive communications. Means and ends will continue to be confused unless (...) advertisers and public relations practitioners reach some level of agreement as to the moral end toward which their efforts should be directed. In this article we advance a five-part test that defines this moral end, establishes ethical boundaries that should guide persuasive practices, and serves as a set of action-guiding principles directed toward a moral consequence in professional persuasion. The TARES Test consists of five principles: Truthfulness, Authenticity, Respect, Equity and Social Responsibility. We provide checklists to guide the practitioner in moral reflection and application of TARES Test principles. (shrink)

Kraut and other neo-Aristotelians have argued that there is no such thing as absolute goodness. They admit only good in a kind, e.g. a good sculptor, and good for something, e.g. good for fish. What is the view of Aristotle? Mostly limiting myself to the Nicomachean Ethics, I argue that Aristotle is committed to things being absolutely good and also to a metaphysics of absolute goodness where there is a maximally best good that is the cause of the goodness of (...) all other things in virtue of being their end. I begin by suggesting that the notion of good as an end, which is present in the first lines of the NE, is not obviously accounted for by good in a kind or good for something. I then give evidence that good in a kind and good for something can explain neither certain distinctions drawn between virtues nor the determinacy ascribed to what is good “in itself.” I argue contra Gotthelf that because several important arguments in the Nicomachean Ethics rely on comparative judgments of absolute value—e.g. “Man is the best of all animals”—Aristotle is committed to the existence of both absolute goodness and an absolutely best being. I focus on one passage, Aristotle’s division of goods in NE I 12, which presupposes this metaphysical picture. (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)

A democratic society cannot flourish if its citizens merely pursue their own narrow interests. If it is to do more than survive, at least a substantial proportion of its citizens must fulfill responsibilities that go beyond simply avoiding the violation of others' rights and occasionally casting a vote. The vitality and success of a democracy requires that many citizens — ideally all of them — contribute something to their communities and participate responsibly in the political process. The disposition to do (...) these things is a large part of what constitutes civic virtue. But that virtue encompasses considerably more. My task here is to explore civic virtue. I first outline a conception of virtue in general and, with that set out, pursue the question of what makes a virtue civic. My special concern is to articulate what constitutes civic virtue in relation to an enduring problem for democratic societies and especially for the pluralistic democracies of the Western world: how to determine what constitutes a proper relation between religion and politics and, in the lives of religious citizens having civic virtue, an appropriate balance between religious and secular considerations. (shrink)

This paper presents a nonmonotonic deontic logic based on commonsense entailment. It establishes criteria a successful account of obligation should satisfy, and develops a theory that satisfies them. The theory includes two conditional notions of prima facie obligation. One is constitutive; the other is epistemic, and follows nonmonotonically from the constitutive notion. The paper defines unconditional notions of prima facie obligation in terms of the conditional notions.

This article argues that existing approaches to programming ethical AI fail to resolve a serious moral-semantic trilemma, generating interpretations of ethical requirements that are either too semantically strict, too semantically flexible, or overly unpredictable. This paper then illustrates the trilemma utilizing a recently proposed ‘general ethical dilemma analyzer,’ GenEth. Finally, it uses empirical evidence to argue that human beings resolve the semantic trilemma using general cognitive and motivational processes involving ‘mental time-travel,’ whereby we simulate different possible pasts and futures. I (...) demonstrate how mental time-travel psychology leads us to resolve the semantic trilemma through a six-step process of interpersonal negotiation and renegotiation, and then conclude by showing how comparative advantages in processing power would plausibly cause AI to use similar processes to solve the semantic trilemma more reliably than we do, leading AI to make better moral-semantic choices than humans do by our very own lights. (shrink)

The dominant theory of the evolution of moral cognition across a variety of fields is that moral cognition is a biological adaptation to foster social cooperation. This chapter argues, to the contrary, that moral cognition is likely an evolutionary exaptation: a form of cognition where neurobiological capacities selected for in our evolutionary history for a variety of different reasons—many unrelated to social cooperation—were put to a new, prosocial use after the fact through individual rationality, learning, and the development and transmission (...) of social norms. This chapter begins with a brief overview of the emerging behavioral neuroscience of moral cognition. It then outlines a novel theory of moral cognition that I have previously argued explains these findings better than alternatives. Finally, it shows how the evidence for this theory of moral cognition and human evolutionary history together suggest that moral cognition is likely not a biological adaptation. Instead, like reading sheet music or riding a bicycle, moral cognition is something that individuals learn to do—in this case, in response to sociocultural norms created in our ancestral history and passed down through the ages to enable cooperative living. (shrink)

Suppose that A and B are two kinds of goods such that more of each is better than less. A is strongly superior to B if any amount of A is better than any amount of B. It is weakly superior to B if some amount of A is better than any amount of B. There are many examples of these relations in the literature, sometimes under the labels “higher goods” and “discontinuity.” The chapter gives a precise and generalized statement (...) of Strong and Weak Superiority and discusses different ways in which these relations can be relevant to the aggregation of welfare. It also proves a number of general results. One of the results gives rise to a dilemma: It can be used as an argument against the existence of value superiority or, alternatively, as an argument against the view that superiority entails a radical difference in value. (shrink)

While deliberation has traditionally played a central role in philosophical and behavioral accounts of ethical decision-making, several recent studies challenge the value of deliberation. These studies find that deliberative thinking, such as considering divergent views or different perspectives, leads to less ethical decisions. We observe, however, that these studies do not address normative deliberation, in which decision-makers consider or apply a normative standard. We predict that normative deliberation improves ethical decision-making. Across six experiments, we examine the effects of non-normative deliberation (...) and normative deliberation on ethical decision-making. We find that normative deliberation improves ethical decision-making and, in contrast to recent studies, no form of deliberation harms ethical decision-making. (shrink)

Moral pluralism is the norm in contemporary society. Even the best philosophical arguments rarely persuade moral opponents who differ at a foundational level. This has been vividly illustrated in contemporary debates in bioethics surrounding contentious issues such as abortion and euthanasia. It is readily apparent that bioethics discourse lacks an empirical explanation for the broad differences about various topics in bioethics and health policy. In recent years, social and cognitive psychology has generated novel approaches for defining basic differences in moral (...) intuitions generally. We propose that if empirical research using social intuitionist theory explains why people disagree with one another over moral issues, then the results of such research might help people debate their moral differences in a more constructive and civil manner. We illustrate the utility of social intuitionism with data from a national physician survey. (shrink)

Various studies have reported that moral intuitions about the permissibility of acts are subject to framing effects. This paper reports the results of a series of experiments which further examine the susceptibility of moral intuitions to framing effects. The main aim was to test recent speculation that intuitions about the moral relevance of certain properties of cases might be relatively resistent to framing effects. If correct, this would provide a certain type of moral intuitionist with the resources to resist challenges (...) to the reliability of moral intuitions based on such framing effects. And, fortunately for such intuitionists, although the results can’t be used to mount a strident defence of intuitionism, the results do serve to shift the burden of proof onto those who would claim that intuitions about moral relevance are problematically sensitive to framing effects. (shrink)

During the coronavirus pandemic, communities have faced shortages of important healthcare resources such as COVID-19 vaccines, medical staff, ICU beds and ventilators. Public health officials in the U.S. have had to make decisions about two major issues: which infected patients should be treated first, and which people who are at risk of infection should be inoculated first. Following Beauchamp and Childress’s principlism, adopted guidelines have tended to value both whole lives and life-years. This process of collective moral reasoning has revealed (...) our common commitment to both Kantian and utilitarian principles. For Kant, respecting people’s rights entails that we ought to value whole lives equally. Therefore we ought to allocate resources so as to maximise the number of patients who survive to discharge. By contrast, the principle of utility has us maximise life-years so that people can satisfy more of their considered preferences. Although people are treated impartially in the utilitarian calculus, it does not recognise their equal worth. Subjecting Kantian ethics and utilitarianism to the process of reflective equilibrium lends support to the idea that we need a pluralistic approach that would accommodate our moral intuitions regarding both the equal value of whole lives and the additive value of life-years. (shrink)

Geach and Thomson have argued that nothing is just plain good, because ‘good’ is, logically, an attributive adjective. The upshot, according to Geach and Thomson, is that consequentialism is unacceptable, since its very formulation requires a predicative use of ‘good’. Reactions to the argument have, for the most part, been uniform. Authors have converged on two challenging objections . First, although the logical tests that Geach and Thomson invoke clearly illustrate that ‘good’, as commonly used, is an attributive, they don’t (...) show that ‘good’ lacks an intelligible predicative interpretation. Second, even if the English word ‘good’ fails to express the property of goodness, we can just stipulate that ‘good*’ expresses goodness and thus formulate consequentialism accordingly. The second objection is one way of voicing skepticism about the method of drawing substantive philosophical conclusions from considerations about ordinary language. In this essay, we present an argument, inspired by Geach and Thomson, which isn’t susceptible to the same objections but which supports the same conclusion. The significance of our argument for ethics is obvious; it challenges the intelligibility of standard consequentialism, and even certain forms of non-consequentialism. One might be inclined to think that a more sophisticated consequentialism, which relies on ‘good {possible world/state of affairs/outcome}’ instead of just ‘good’, evades the criticism. But we explain why the criticism can’t be so easily evaded. (shrink)

Two generally recognized moral duties are to reciprocate benefits one has received from others and to compensate harms one has done to others. In this paper I want to show that it is not possible to give an adequate account of either duty – or at least one that corresponds to our actual practices – within a contractualist moral theory of the type developed by T. M. Scanlon (1982, 1998). This fact is interesting in its own right, as contractualism is (...) a leading contemporary contender among deontological moral theories, and the two duties I have mentioned are fairly standard ingredients of such theories. But it also serves to highlight a general problem with contractualism, at least in Scanlon’s version – namely its one-dimensional view of the keystone of any plausible deontological theory: the idea of respect for persons. (shrink)

Atomism is defined as the view that the moral value of any object is ultimately determined by simple features whose contribution to the value of an object is always the same, independently of context. A morally fundamental feature, in a given context, is defined as one whose contribution in that context is determined by no other value fact. Three theses are defended, which together entail atomism: (1) All objects have their moral value ultimately in virtue of morally fundamental features; (2) (...) If a feature is morally fundamental, then its contribution is always the same; (3) Morally fundamental features are simple. (shrink)

Some psychologists working in the psychology and law field feel that the profession does not provide them with adequate ethical guidance even though the field is arguably one of the oldest and best established applied fields of psychology. The uncertainty psychologists experience most likely stems from working with colleagues whose professional ethics differs from their own while providing services to demanding people and the many moral questions associated with the administration of law. I believe psychology’s ethics does, however, provide adequate (...) moral guidance. It has a sound historical basis, has face validity and emphasizes those social moral principles that allow psychologists to best serve individuals and society. Psychologists may nevertheless be confronted with conflicting demands because there are other norm systems that also regulate their behavior as researchers and practitioners, and they, like all people, are influenced by their conscience. Ultimately, psychologists working in the psycholegal field will be best served if they have good knowledge of, and have internalized, the ethical principles of psychology. (shrink)

A common intuition is that there is a moral difference between ‘making people happy’ and ‘making happy people.’ This intuition, often referred to as ‘the Asymmetry,’ has, however, been criticized on the grounds that it is incoherent. Why is there, for instance, not a corresponding difference between ‘making people unhappy’ and ‘making unhappy people’? I argue that the intuition faces several difficulties but that these can be met by introducing a certain kind of reason that is favouring but non-requiring. It (...) is argued that there are structural similarities between the asymmetry and moral options and that the asymmetry can be defended as an instance of a moral option. (shrink)

Psychiatric practice is often faced with complex situations that seem to pose serious moral dilemmas for practitioners. Methods for solving these dilemmas have included the development of more objective rules to guide the practitioner such as utilitarianism and deontology. A more modern variant on this objective model has been 'Principlism' where 4 mid level rules are used to help solve these complex problems. In opposition to this, there has recently been a focus on more subjective criteria for resolving complex moral (...) dilemmas. In particular, virtue ethics has been posited as a more sensitive method for helping doctors to reason their way through difficult ethical issues. Here the focus is on the character traits of the practitioner. Bloch and Green advocated another way whereby more objective methods such as Principlism and virtue ethics are combined to produce what they considered sound moral reasoning in psychiatrists. This paper points out some difficulties with this approach and instead suggests that a better model of ethical judgment could be developed through the use of narratives or stories. This idea puts equal prima facie value on the patient's and the psychiatrist's version of the dilemma they are faced with. It has the potential to lead to a more genuine empathy and reflective decision-making. (shrink)

Raanan Gillon is a noted defender of the four principles approach to healthcare ethics. His general position has always been that these principles are to be considered to be both universal and prima facie in nature. In recent work, however, he has made two claims that seem to present difficulties for this view. His first claim is that one of these four principles, respect for autonomy, has a special position in relation to the others: he holds that it is first (...) among equals. We argue that this claim makes little sense if the principles are to retain their prima facie nature. His second claim is that cultural variation can play an independent normative role in the construction of our moral judgments. This, he argues, enables us to occupy a middle ground between what he sees as the twin pitfalls of moral relativism and moral imperialism. We argue that there is no such middle ground, and while Gillon ultimately seems committed to relativism, it is some form of moral imperialism that will provide the only satisfactory construal of the four principles as prima facie universal moral principles. (shrink)

In recent discussions, it has been argued that a theory of animal rights is at odds with a liberal abortion policy. In response, Francione (1995) argues that the principles used in the animal rights discourse do not have implications for the abortion debate. I challenge Francione’s conclusion by illustrating that his own framework of animal rights, supplemented by a relational account of moral obligation, can address the moral issue of abortion. I first demonstrate that Francione’s animal rights position, which grounds (...) moral consideration in sentience, is committed to the claim that a sentient fetus has a right to life. I then illustrate that a fully developed account of animal rights that recognizes the special obligations humans have to assist animals when we cause them to be dependent and vulnerable through our voluntary actions or omissions is committed to the following: a woman also has a special obligation to assist a sentient fetus when she causes it to be dependent and vulnerable through her voluntary actions or omissions. From these considerations, it will become evident that a fully developed and consistent animal rights ethic does in fact have implications for the abortion discussion. (shrink)

For decades a debate has played out in the literature about who bioethicists are, what they do, whether they can be considered professionals qua bioethicists, and, if so, what professional responsibilities they are called to uphold. Health care ethics consultants are bioethicists who work in health care settings. They have been seeking guidance documents that speak to their special relationships/duties toward those they serve. By approving a Code of Ethics and Professional Responsibilities for Health Care Ethics Consultants, the American Society (...) for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) has moved the professionalization debate forward in a significant way. This first code of ethics focuses on individuals who provide health care ethics consultation (HCEC) in clinical settings. The evolution of the code's development, implications for the field of HCEC and bioethics, and considerations for future directions are presented here. (shrink)

Far from being indiscriminately critical of the ideas he associated with the morality system, Bernard Williams offered vindicatory explanations of its crucial building blocks, such as the moral/non-moral distinction, the idea of obligation, the voluntary/involuntary distinction, and the practice of blame. The rationale for these concessive moves, I argue, is that understanding what these ideas do for us when they are not in the service of the system is just as important to leading us out of the system as the (...) critique of that system. I then show how regarding the aspiration to shelter life from luck as the system’s organizing ambition explains why the system elaborates and combines these building blocks in the way it does. Finally, I argue that the ultimate problem with the resulting construction is its frictionless purity. It robs valuable concepts of their grip on the world we live in, and, by insisting on purity from contingency, threatens to issue in nihilism about value and scepticism about agency. (shrink)

Foundationalism in moral epistemology is a core tenet of ethical intuitionism. According to foundationalism, some moral beliefs can be known without inferential justification; instead, all that is required is a proper understanding of the beliefs in question. In an influential criticism against this view, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong has argued that certain psychological facts undermine the reliability of moral intuitions. He claims that foundationalists would have to show that non-inferentially justified beliefs are not subject to those defeaters, but this would already constitute (...) a form of inference and hence undermine the possibility of noninferential justification. The goal of my paper is to defend foundationalism against Sinnott-Armstrong’s criticism. After presenting his challenge, I first argue that the most promising objection to it fails. This objection makes the case that defeater-defeaters are not part of the justification, but merely preserve the justification which the original claim provides. I object to this argument by distinguishing between weak and robust defeaters; only weak defeaters, I argue, fall outside the scope of justification, and it is an open question whether Sinnott-Armstrong’s defeaters fall into that category. This leads the way to my own criticism of Sinnott-Armstrong’s challenge: foundationalists in moral epistemology are entitled to the use of defeater-defeaters as part of the justification for moral beliefs as long as those defeater-defeaters themselves do not entail moral claims. Therefore, Sinnott-Armstrong’s challenge does not undermine foundationalism. (shrink)

Auch wenn eine umfassende Darstellung und Einordnung der Epoche, in der sich die Philosophie gerade befindet, der Nachwelt vorbehalten bleibt, so ist bereits absehbar, dass die häufig als »analytische Philosophie« bezeichnete Strömung, die mit dem 20. Jahrhundert einsetzt und sich bis in die Gegenwart erstreckt, zumindest in der normativen Ethik wohl kaum als eine Einheit betrachtet werden wird. Dafür fehlt es an inhaltlicher Übereinstimmung, sind doch die von Thomas Hurka als »Achterbahnfahrt« (Hurka 2004, S. 246) bezeichneten letzten 120 Jahre von (...) Strömungen geprägt, die häufig sowohl die Methodologie als auch die grundlegenden Annahmen der jeweils vorherigen Abschnitte verwerfen. Die ersten Jahrzehnte der Moralphilosophie des 20. Jahrhunderts waren von Positionen gekennzeichnet, die sich trotz aller Verschiedenheit unter dem Dach des Intuitionismus vereinen lassen. Für diese Positionen nahmen normative Themen eine zentrale Stellung ein, und die Frage danach, worin unsere grundlegenden Pflichten bestehen, wurden häufig mit einer »Intuition« genannten Erkenntnisform beantworten. Der Nonkognitivismus, für den die Frage, was wir tun sollen, nicht von der Philosophie beantwortet werden kann, prägte dagegen den Zeitraum von 1930 bis 1950. Es dauerte bis zu den 1970er Jahren, ehe wieder ein verstärktes Interesse an der Ethik aufkam. Die abgebrochenen Diskussionen und verwaisten Positionen wurden freilich nicht einfach fortgeführt, sondern unter anderen Gesichtspunkten betrachtet, was Inhalt und Methode betrifft – hier hat sich insbesondere das von John Rawls in der Moralphilosophie populär gemachte »Überlegungsgleichgewicht« als maßgeblich erwiesen. (shrink)

(See also the separate entry for the volume itself.) This introduction has three parts. The first providing an overview of some main lines of research in deontic logic: the emergence of SDL, Chisholm's paradox and the development of dyadic deontic logics, various other puzzles/challenges and areas of development, along with philosophical applications. The second part focus on some actual and potential fruitful interactions between deontic logic, computer science and artificial intelligence. These include applications of deontic logic to AI knowledge representation (...) in legal systems, to modelling computer systems where it is expected that sub-ideal states will emerge and require countermeasures, to norm-governed human interactions with computer systems, and to the representation of some features of multi-agent systems where different agent-like computer systems interact with one another. The third and final part briefly groups and previews the papers in the anthology. (shrink)

First-order normative theories concerning what’s right and wrong, good and bad, etc. and metanormative theories concerning the nature of first-order normative thought and talk are widely regarded as independent theoretical enterprises. This paper argues that several debates in metanormative theory involve views that have first-order normative implications, even as the implications in question may not be immediately recognizable as normative. I first make my claim more precise by outlining a general recipe for generating this result. I then apply this recipe (...) to three debates in metaethics: the modal status of basic normative principles, normative vagueness and indeterminacy, and the determination of reference for normative predicates. In each case I argue that certain views on each issue carry first-order normative commitments, in accordance with my recipe. (shrink)

Chapter 1 of this book argued that moral philosophy should be based on seven principles of theory selection adapted from the sciences. Chapter 2 argued that these principles support basing normative moral philosophy on a particular problem of diachronic instrumental rationality: the ‘problem of possible future selves.’ Chapter 3 argued that a new moral principle, the Categorical-Instrumental Imperative, is the rational solution to this problem. Chapter 4 argued that the Categorical-Instrumental Imperative has three equivalent formulations akin to but superior to (...) Kant’s formulations of the Categorical Imperative. Chapter 5 argued that my principle’s three formulations make it rational to adopt a Moral Original Position to derive moral principles. The present chapter derives Four Principles of Fairness from the Moral Original Position--principles of coercion minimization, mutual assistance, fair negotiation, and virtue—and unifies them into a single principle of rightness: Rightness as Fairness. Finally, this chapter argues that Rightness as Fairness entails a novel approach to applied ethics called ‘principled fair negotiation’, illustrating how the theory provides a plausible new framework for addressing applied cases including lying, suicide, trolleys, torture, distribution of scarce resources, poverty, and the ethical treatment of animals. (shrink)

Agent-centered constraints on harming hold that some harmful upshots of our conduct cannot be justified by its generating equal or somewhat greater benefits. In this paper I argue that all plausible theories of agent-centered constraints on harming are undermined by the likelihood that our actions will have butterfly effects, or cause cascades of changes that make the world dramatically different than it would have been. Theories that impose constraints against only intended harming or proximally caused harm have unacceptable implications for (...) choices between more and less harmful ways of securing greater goods. This leaves as plausible only theories that impose constraints against causing some unintended distal harms. But, I argue, given the distal harms our actions are likely to cause through their butterfly effects, these theories entail that any way of sustaining our lives is overwhelmingly likely to involve unjustified killing, and that we are therefore morally required either to allow ourselves to waste away or kill ourselves. (shrink)

Attributions of what we shall call normative responsibilities play a central role in everyday moral thinking. It is commonly thought, for example, that parents are responsible for the wellbeing of their children, and that this has important normative consequences. Depending on context, it might mean that parents are morally required to bring their children to the doctor, feed them well, attend to their emotional needs, or to see to it that someone else does. Similarly, it is sometimes argued that countries (...) that emit most greenhouse gases are responsible for preventing catastrophic climate change. This responsibility might imply that these countries are morally required to take necessary steps individually and jointly to come to an agreement on and implement a workable plan, and to avoid steps that worsen the situation. More trivially, the grading of your student’s essays might be your responsibility, as might making sure there is wine at tomorrow’s picnic, and you might thus be required to see to it that essays are competently graded and suitable wine brought to the picnic. -/- Though attributions of normative responsibilities are legion, such responsibilities have received surprisingly little philosophical attention compared to its normative relatives, obligations and reasons, and compared to retrospective responsibility. This chapter hopes to improve on this situation by taking on two main tasks. The first, attempted in section 1, is to spell out the general structure of normative responsibility, in particular the relation between normative responsibilities and corresponding obligations and demands. We suggest that normative responsibilities are constituted by normative requirements that the responsible agents care appropriately about how well things go in certain regards, and that obligations generally can be seen as straightforward upshots of requirements to care. -/- The second task, taken on in section 2, is to provide an overview of prominent sources of normative responsibility and its distribution among agents. Why would the children’s wellbeing be the parents’ responsibility? Why not the neighbor’s, or the state’s, or everyone’s? Here we discuss a range of possible sources, including agents’ abilities, costs involved in taking on the responsibility in question, retrospective responsibility for the situation, promises or contracts, and certain social relationships. (shrink)

A comprehensive account of human kindness.

In this paper, I assess the role responsibility argument that claims suicidal agents have obligations to specific people not to kill themselves due to their roles. Since the plausibility of the role responsibility argument is clearest in the parent–child relationship, I assess parental obligations. I defend a view that says that normative roles, such as those of a parent, are contractual and voluntary. I then suggest that the normative parameters for some roles preclude permissible suicide because the role-related contract includes (...) a promise to provide continuing care and emotional support. I propose that as we have established criteria for morally acceptable reasons for cancelling, voiding, or amending a contract, we can apply these to the role responsibility argument to establish grounds for releasing a parent from his role-related and contractual obligations. Failure to fulfil one’s contractual roles may not be blameworthy, depending upon the circumstances. I propose the factors determining culpability in failure to fulfil one’s role-related obligations are: intention, voluntariness, diminished responsibility, mental capacity, and foreseeability. (shrink)

Die Moralphilosophie des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts hat mit Konsequentialismus, Deontologie, Kontraktualismus und Tugendethik nicht nur höchst einflussreiche Theorieparadigmen produktiv weiterentwickelt, sondern auch eine Reihe wichtiger neuer Probleme aufgeworfen. Der vorliegende Band versammelt zentrale Beiträge der analytischen Moralphilosophie, u. a. von David Gauthier, Shelly Kagan, Frances Kamm, Thomas Nagel, Michael Slote, Christine Swanton und Susan Wolf, die für ein Verständnis gegenwärtiger Diskussionen in der normativen Ethik unabdingbar sind. -/- Inhaltsverzeichnis: Vorwort Einleitung: Analytische Moralphilosophie der Gegenwart -/- 1. Konsequentialismus Shelly Kagan: (...) Ein Plädoyer gegen die Alltagsmoral Peter Railton: Entfremdung, Konsequentialismus und die Anforderungen der Moral -/- 2. Deontologie Thomas Nagel: Ethik William David Ross: Was macht richtige Handlungen richtig? -/- 3. Kontraktualismus David Gauthier: Warum Kontraktualismus? Thomas Scanlon: Die Struktur des Kontraktualismus -/- 4. Tugendethik Christine Swanton: Eine tugendethische Theorie des richtigen Handelns Michael Slote: Akteursbasierte Tugendethik -/- 5. Moralische Aggregation John Taurek: Zählt die Anzahl? Frances M. Kamm: Aggregation und zwei moralphilosophische Methoden -/- 6. Das Prinzip der Doppelwirkung Jonathan Bennett: Vorhergesehene Nebenwirkungen vs. beabsichtigte Folgen Ralph Wedgwood: Zur Verteidigung der Lehre von der Doppelwirkung -/- 7. Moralische Rechte H. L. A. Hart: Gibt es natürliche Rechte? Joseph Raz: Über die Beschaffenheit von Rechten -/- 8. Moralischer Zufall Thomas Nagel: Moralischer Zufall Susan Wolf: Die Moral des moralischen Zufalls. (shrink)

The thesis investigates the implications for moral philosophy of research in psychology. In addition to an introduction and concluding remarks, the thesis consists of four chapters, each exploring various more specific challenges or inputs to moral philosophy from cognitive, social, personality, developmental, and evolutionary psychology. Chapter 1 explores and clarifies the issue of whether or not morality is innate. The chapter’s general conclusion is that evolution has equipped us with a basic suite of emotions that shape our moral judgments in (...) important ways. Chapter 2 presents and investigates the challenge presented to deontological ethics by Joshua Greene’s so-called dual process theory. The chapter partly agrees with his conclusion that the dual process view neutralizes some common criticisms against utilitarianism founded on deontological intuitions, but also points to avenues left to explore for deontologists. Chapter 3 focuses on Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer’s suggestion that utilitarianism is less vulnerable to so-called evolutionary debunking than other moral theories. The chapter is by and large critical of their attempt. In the final chapter 4, attention is directed at the issue of whether or not social psychology has shown that people lack stable character traits, and hence that the virtue ethical view is premised on false or tenuous assumptions. Though this so-called situationist challenge at one time seemed like a serious threat to virtue ethics, the chapter argues for a moderate position, pointing to the fragility of much of the empirical research invoked to substantiate this challenge while also suggesting revisions to the virtue-ethical view as such. (shrink)

Relational egalitarians claim that a situation is just only if everyone it involves relates to one another as equals. It implies that relational egalitarians believe the ideal of “living as equals” (for short) is desirable, and furthermore, necessary for justice. In this paper, I distinguish three accounts of the desirability of the ideal: the instrumental value account, the non‐instrumental value account, and the non‐consequentialist account. I argue that the former two accounts cannot provide satisfying reasons for being a relational egalitarian. (...) Instead, the ideal of “living as equals” ought to be understood as fundamentally a moral requirement in a non‐consequentialist sense. In addition, a pluralist (though fundamentally non‐consequentialist) approach is welcome. (shrink)

How should we think about apparent conflicts of moral rights? I defend a non-balancing and holistic specification model: non-balancing because moral rights have absolute deontic stringency regardless of any balance of independent values; holistic because the content of moral rights is limited only by that of other moral rights. Holistic Specification, as I call the model, offers a principled, non-consequentialist explanation of exceptions to moral rights. Moreover, Holistic Specification explains why moral rights matter to practical thought while rendering remedial duties (...) less mysterious. (shrink)

Probabilistic coherence is not an absolute requirement of rationality; nevertheless, it is an ideal of rationality with substantive normative import. An idealized rational agent who avoided making implicit logical errors in forming his preferences would be coherent. In response to the challenge, recently made by epistemologists such as Foley and Plantinga, that appeals to ideal rationality render probabilism either irrelevant or implausible, I argue that idealized requirements can be normatively relevant even when the ideals are unattainable, so long as they (...) define a structure that links imperfect and perfect rationality in a way that enables us to make sense of the notion of better approximations to the ideal. I then analyze the notion of approximation to the ideal of coherence by developing a generalized theory of belief functions that allows for incoherence, and showing how such belief functions can be ordered with regard to greater or lesser coherence. (shrink)

The idea that immoral behaviour can sometimes be admirable, and that moral behaviour can sometimes be less than admirable, has led several of its supporters to infer that moral considerations are not always overriding, contrary to what has been traditionally maintained. In this paper I shall challenge this inference. My purpose in doing so is to expose and acknowledge something that has been inadequately appreciated, namely, the moral aspect of nonmoral goods and evils. I hope thereby to show that, even (...) if immorality can be admirable, this poses no threat to morality. (shrink)

Analyses are given of the concepts of absolute and prima facie obligation. The former is a maximizing analysis: roughly, one ought absolutely to perform those actions which are performed in the best worlds accessible to one. The latter analysis is roughly this: one ought prima facie to perform those actions which are such that those accessible worlds in which they are performed are better than the closest accessible worlds in which they are not performed. Accounts of conditional obligation, both absolute (...) and prima facie, are also given, and the issue of the detachment of unconditional from conditional obligation is addressed. (shrink)

This paper considers three general views about the nature of moral obligation and three particular answers concerning the following question: if on Monday you lend me a book that I promise to return to you by Friday, what precisely is my obligation to you and what constitutes its fulfillment? The example is borrowed from W.D. Ross, who in The Right and the Good proposed what he called the Objective View of obligation, from which he inferred what is here called the (...) First Answer to the question. In Foundations of Ethics Ross repudiated the Objective View in favor of the Subjective View, from which he inferred a Second Answer. In this paper each of the Objective and Subjective Views and the First and Second Answers are rejected in favor of the Prospective View and a Third Answer. The implications of the Prospective View for another question closely related to the original question are then investigated: what precisely is your right regarding my returning the book and what constitutes its satisfaction? (shrink)

The main point of this paper has been to show that the concept of evaluative incompleteness deserves consideration. In addition, I have suggested that it is plausible to accept that certain states of affairs in fact are evaluatively incomplete. But I have not sought to prove that this is so; indeed, I do not know how such proof might be given. Just which states of affairs, if any, are evaluatively incomplete is an extremely vexed question, and it is not one (...) to which I have attempted to supply any systematic answer. My aim has been merely to point out that it is arguable that certain states of affairs are evaluatively incomplete — a fact that ought not to be overlooked due to an unquestioning acceptance of (II) and a fact which, certainly, ought not to be ruled out by fiat due to an adherence to definitions and assumptions which imply that (II) is false. (shrink)

It is commonly thought that moral rules and principles, such as ‘Keep your promises,’ ‘Respect autonomy,’ and ‘Distribute goods according to need ,’ should play an essential role in our moral deliberation. Particularists have challenged this view by arguing that principled guidance leads us to engage in worse decision making because principled guidance is too rigid and it leads individuals to neglect or distort relevant details. However, when we examine empirical literature on the use of rules and principles in other (...) domains, we find that people can learn to use rules discriminately and that rule-based models tend to outperform even expert judgment. I argue that this evidence poses a problem for the moral particularist. If the particularist claims that we should not rely on decision-making rules when making practical decisions and it turns out that these rules help us make better decisions, then the particularists’ prescriptive account is deficient. However, if the particularist claims that we should rely on practical decision-making rules but not on moral rules, she needs to explain how practical rules are different from moral rules and why we should rely on the former but not the latter. (shrink)

As the trolley problem runs its course, consequentialists tend to adopt one of two strategies: silently take comfort in the fact that deontological rivals face their own enduring difficulties, or appeal to cognitive psychology to discredit the deontological intuitions on which the trolley problem depends. I refer to the first strategy as silent schadenfreude and the second as debunking attack. My aim in this paper is to argue that consequentialists ought to reject both strategies and instead opt for what I (...) call robust advantage. This strategy emphasizes the intricate calculations that consequentialists employ to defend against objections based on friendship and integrity. I argue that these calculations offer consequentialism an explanatory advantage over deontology in the context of the trolley problem. It requires striking a delicate balance between deeply internalized dispositions to avoid causing harm and a context-sensitive ability to prevent disasters; however, empirical data help consequentialism on this front by illustrating that the integration of separate cognitive functions is an ordinary part of human psychology. (shrink)

Physicians make some medical decisions without disclosure to their patients. Nondisclosure is possible because these are silent decisions to refrain from screening, diagnostic or therapeutic interventions. Nondisclosure is ethically permissible when the usual presumption that the patient should be involved in decisions is defeated by considerations of clinical utility or patient emotional and physical well-being. Some silent decisions - not all - are ethically justified by this standard. Justified silent decisions are typically dependent on the physician's professional judgment, experience and (...) knowledge, and are not likely to be changed by patient preferences. We condemn the inappropriate exclusion of the patient from the decision-making process. However, if a test or treatment is unlikely to yield a net benefit, disclosure and discussion are at times unnecessary. Appropriate silent decisions are ethically justified by such considerations as patient benefit or economy of time. (shrink)

There has, in recent decades, been considerable scholarship regarding the moral aspects of corporate governance, and differences in corporate governance practices around the world have been widely documented and investigated. In such a context, the claims associated with moral relativism are relevant. The purpose of this paper is to provide a detailed consideration of how the metaethical and normative claims of moral relativism in particular can be applied to corporate governance. This objective is achieved, firstly, by reviewing what is meant (...) by metaethical moral relativism and identifying two ways in which the metaethical claim can be assessed. The possibility of a single, morally superior model of corporate governance is subsequently considered through an analysis of prominent works justifying the shareholder and stakeholder approaches, together with a consideration of academic agreement in this area. The paper then draws on the work of Wong, firstly in providing an argument supporting metaethical moral relativism and secondly regarding values of tolerance and/or accommodation that can contribute to the normative claim. The paper concludes by proposing an argument that it is morally wrong to impose a model of corporate governance where there are differences in moral judgements relevant to corporate governance, or to interfere with a model in similar circumstances, and closes with consideration of the argument’s implications. (shrink)

Rohwer and Marris’s exploration of grounds for a prima facie duty to preserve the genetic integrity of wild species makes two important contributions to the environmental ethics literature. While n...

This article proposes an eclectic and holistic model of ethics and ethical thinking. It uses this tripart model to show how partialities can be integrated into impartial moral reasoning. Ethical reasoning is divided into three problem areas or "levels" - cases, frameworks, and ultimate ethical goals. Each level employs its own form of reasoning. For evaluating cases, the author advocates an eclectic application of principles; for evaluating frameworks of principles, the author advocates contractualism; for evaluating ethical theory as a whole, (...) the author advocates a notion of the human good inspired by Aristotelian perfectionism. This article argues that utilitarianism, which is one part of eclectic deliberation, is hampered by the idea that ethical reasoning must be based on a single moral criterion or "master" principle. The article concludes by showing how this eclectic model, supplemented by "mitigated impartialism," provides a systematic method for assessing partialities, with reference to the problem of patriotism in journalism. (shrink)

If there is a moral reason for A to do X, and if A cannot do X without doing Y, and if doing Y will enable A to do X, then there is a moral reason for A to do Y. This principle is plausible but mysterious, so it needs to be explained. It can be explained by necessary enabler consequentialism, but not by other consequentialisms or any deontological moral theory. Or so I argue. Frances Howard-Snyder objects that this argument (...) fails to establish consequentialism as understood by, because it fails to establish agent-neutrality. I respond by distinguishing consequentialism, which need not be agent-neutral, from utilitarianism, which claims agent-neutrality. Howard-Snyder also presents a schema for a non-consequentialist theory that is supposed to explain moral substitutability. I respond that her explanation cannot be completed without introducing incoherence into deontological moral theories. (shrink)