Although measurement is widely misused in education, it is indispensable in addressing the problems of injustice in global educational opportunity. Considering how the case can be made for legitimate use of measurement in normative analysis and argument, we explore ways in which metrics have featured in the formulation of theories of justice, with particular attention to resourcist and capabilities approaches. We then consider three means of addressing global inequality and defend a reconstruction of the public sphere in which objective measures (...) of justice, deliberatively constructed, could supersede prevalent assumptions about measurement. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDieser Artikel beschreibt die ethischen Herausforderungen, die sich durch das Problem der Antibiotikaresistenz ergeben. Wir legen die Ursachen für ABR dar und argumentieren, dass eine effektive Bekämpfung der ABR es erforderlich macht, den derzeitigen Antibiotikagebrauch drastisch zu reduzieren. Allerdings müssen hierbei auch die ethischen Probleme, die durch ABR entstehen, berücksichtigt werden. ABR führt zum einen zur Verstärkung bereits bestehender Herausforderungen im Infektionsschutz, zum anderen wirft sie neue ethische Probleme auf. Wir argumentieren, dass sich diese Probleme vor allem in Bezug auf (...) kollektive Handlungsentscheidungen und gerechte Ressourcenverteilung ergeben. Um den Konsum von Antibiotika fair zu reduzieren, entwickeln wir anschließend sowohl ein kontraktualistisches Prinzip für die Rationierung, als auch erste Vorschläge zu dessen Implementierung. Hierbei skizzieren wir Risikogrenzen für die Patienten, bei denen ein Verzicht auf Antibiotikatherapie gerechtfertigt werden kann. (shrink)

Individuals are at risk of acquiring untreatable agents of infection when they travel to countries where antibiotic-resistant agents of infection are prevalent, and particularly when they travel for healthcare. Uncertainty with respect to the overall political and economic consequences seems to underlie the reluctance of public health authorities to issue relevant travel advisories. The conditions of choice, the act of choice and the consequences of choice can each be a primary focus of ethical appraisal of public health policy. The ‘value (...) of choice’ account provided by Scanlon draws attention to the value of the choices that individuals are given, and the potential for reasonable rejection of policies that do not give adequate emphasis to the conditions of individual choice. There is both instrumental and symbolic value in informing people of the risk of acquisition of antibiotic-resistant microbes associated with health tourism. We cannot reasonably reject a principle of actively informing unless there are insurmountable countervailing reasons. These reasons should be explicit and subject to review. If health tourism is a concern then we might also consider how best to facilitate alternative choices. (shrink)

Associamos questões de responsabilidade ao que julgamos deveres ou obrigações que cada um tem para com os demais. Dentre essas obrigações há as que expressam deveres estritos. Mas como nem todos “deveres morais” expressam deveres em sentido estrito, é comum atribuirmos responsabilidade moral para além daquilo a que estamos estritamente obrigados. Não é incomum afi rmar que alguém deveria ter feito ou deixado de fazer algo, mesmo se ele não tinha a obrigação estrita de fazê-lo ou deixar de fazê-lo. Mas (...) como poderíamos “culpar” ou “condenar” moralmente alguém se ele não tinha a obrigação estrita de fazê-lo? É que o escopo de nossas avaliações “morais”, sendo amplo, comporta tipos diversos de “demandas”, o mesmo devendo valer para nossas “atitudes reativas”, tais como o ressentimento e seus análogos vicários, como a indignação. Porém, reações como o ressentimento e a indignação não podem ser reações genéricas à má vontade, à indiferença ou à falta de consideração, mas reações “apropriadas”a injustiças. Se alguém devia fazer algo, porém não estava efetivamente submetido ao dever estrito de fazê-lo, indignar-se é reagir exageradamente, muito além do que é contextualmente apropriado. Afinal, o modo como reagimos moralmente de forma apropriada não pode estar completamente dissociado do modo como interpretamos certos fatos. Neste ensaio, pretendo examinar o conceito de “responsabilidade moral”. Tratarei do problema das atribuições de responsabilidades e dos juízos de responsabilidade que Thomas Scanlon chamou apropriadamente de juízos de “responsabilidade substantiva.” Defenderei que há ações moralmente razoáveis, e até mesmo, em algum sentido, moralmente “requeridas”, porém sob circunstâncias que não pressupõem qualquer submissão do agente a algum dever em sentido estrito . Para tanto, revisarei o conhecido problema do trólei desgovernado e os problemas concernentes ao princípio do duplo-efeito. Veremos que é possível avaliar as ações de alguém sem atribuir-lhe responsabilidade substantiva por suas decisões corretas ou incorretas. Se eu estiver correto, conclusões práticas sobre a razoabilidade de certas ações não pressupõem necessariamente que seus agentes estejam submetidos previamente a quaisquer responsabilidades em termos substantivos. Sendo assim, as teorias tradicionais sobre a responsabilidade moral deveriam ser revisadas, assim como certas noções em psicologia moral acerca de que atitudes reativas são moralmente apropriadas.Questions of responsibility are associated to what we judge we owe to each other. Among these “duties” there are obligations that express strict duties . But since not all “moral oughts” express duties in the strict sense, it is also common to attribute responsibilities beyond what we consider a duty or an obligation in the strict sense. It is not unusual to assert that one should have to do or not to do something even if they didn’t have a strict obligation of doing or not doing that. But how could we morally “blame” or “condemn” someone if they didn’t have a strict obligation of doing something? As a matter of fact, the scope of our “moral” evaluations, being large, comprehends several types of “demands”, and the same should be applied to our “reactive attitudes”, like resentment, and their vicarious analogous, like indignation. But reactions like resentment and indignation cannot be generic reactions to unwillingness, to indifference, or want of consideration, but appropriated reactions to injustices. If a person should do something, but he was not actually submitted to the strict duty of doing so, then indignation is an exaggerated reaction beyond of what is contextually appropriated. After all the way we appropriately morally react cannot be completely disassociated with the way we interpret some facts. In this paper I will investigate the concept of “moral responsibility”. I will deal with problems of attributions of responsibilities and judgments of responsibility that Thomas Scanlon appropriately called judgments of substantive responsibility. My thesis will be that there are morally reasonable actions, and, at least in some sense, morally “required” actions, that don’t presuppose under some circumstances any submission of the agent to some duty in a strict sense . In this connection, I will reexamine the famous trolley problem and correlated problems on the principle of the double-effect. We will see that it is possible to evaluate someone actions without attributing substantive responsibility for his right or wrong decisions. If I am right, practical conclusions on the reasonability of certain actions don’t necessarily presuppose that their agents are previously submitted to whatever responsibilities in substantive terms. In such case, traditional theories on moral responsibilities have to be revised, as well as certain notions in moral psychology about what reactive attitudes are morally appropriated. (shrink)

This book offers an original account of a distinctly republican theory of social and global justice. The book starts by exploring the nature and value of Hegelian recognition theory. It shows the importance of that theory for grounding a normative account of free and autonomous agency. It is this normative account of free agency which provides the groundwork for a republican conception of social and global justice, based on the core-ideas of freedom as non-domination and autonomy as non-alienation. As the (...) author argues, republicans should endorse a sufficientarian account of social justice, which focuses on the nature of social relationships and their effects on people's ability to act freely and realize their fundamental interests. On the global level, the book argues for the cosmopolitan extension of the republican principles of non-domination and non-alienation within a multi-level democratic system. In so doing, the book addresses a major gap in the existing literature, presenting an original theory of justice, which combines Hegelian recognition theory and republican ideas of freedom, and applying this hybrid theory to the global domain. Fabian Schuppert creates a grand synthesis uniting neo-republican insights on freedom with Hegelian recognition theory. The result is an account of agency that arises from the idea of non-domination whose aim it is to safeguard individual freedom. When combined with Hegelian recognition theory a social focus also emerges. This amalgam comments on many of the major disputes concerning global justice from a cosmopolitan perspective. Because of the broad scope and the many contemporary discussions engaged this book will be of keen interest to scholars as well as a welcome addition to the classroom. (shrink)

In a recent series of papers, Matthias Steup has defended doxastic voluntarism against longstanding objections. Many of his arguments center on the following conditional: if we accept a compatibilist notion of voluntary control, then, in most instances, belief-formation is voluntary and doxastic voluntarism the correct view. Steup defends two versions of this conditional. The first is universal, moving from compatibilism considered generally to doxastic voluntarism: if compatibilism is true, then doxastic voluntarism is true. The second is more particular, moving from (...) the specific form of reasons-responsive compatibilism to doxastic voluntarism: if reasons-responsive compatibilism is true, then doxastic voluntarism is true. I argue that Steup’s arguments for both conditionals fail, in which case we lack reason to believe in either of them. In the final section of the paper, I argue that the impossibility of epistemic akrasia provides prima facie reason to think the latter conditional is false. (shrink)

Ethics, Policy & Environment, Volume 17, Issue 2, Page 150-152, June 2014.

Victor Tadros thinks the idea that in a conflict both sides may permissibly use force should (typically) be rejected. Thus, he thinks that two shipwrecked persons should not fight for the only available flotsam (which can only carry one person) but instead toss a coin, and that a bomber justifiably attacking an ammunitions factory must not be counterattacked by the innocent bystanders he endangers. I shall argue that Tadros’s claim rests on unwarranted assumptions and is also mistaken in the light (...) of the moral reasoning that he himself offers in support of his ‘means principle’. (shrink)

This symposium contribution discusses the conception of ethical objectivity found in the metaethical views of Hilary Putnam's book Ethics without Ontology.

According to the standard story of action, a story that can be traced back at least to David Hume , actions are those bodily movements that are caused and rationalized by a pair of mental states: a desire for some end, where ends can be thought of as ways the world could be, and a belief that something the agent can just do, namely, move her body in the way to be explained, has some suitable chance of making the world (...) the relevant way. Bodily movements that occur otherwise aren't actions, they are mere happenings. (shrink)

This paper examines the extent to which the voluntary adoption of codes of conduct by multinational corporations rendersMNCs accountable for the performance of actions specified in a code of conduct. In particular, the paper examines the ways in which codes of conduct coordinate the expectations of relevant parties with regard to the provision of assistance by MNCs on grounds of rescue or justice. The paper argues that this coordinative role of codes of conduct renders MNCs more accountable for the performance (...) of actions specified in a code of conduct than they would be without a code of conduct. This interpretation of the significance of codes of conduct is contrasted with the view that codes of conduct render MNCs accountable for performing actions specified in a code of conduct by grounding contractual obligations for the performance of such actions. (shrink)

Gorući i težak praktički problem vezan je uz opće pitanje ispravnog društvenog odgovora na prijestupnike klasificirane kao osobe s antisocijalnim poremećajem ličnosti. Članak prilazi ovom općem problemu fokusirajući se, iz filozofske perspektive, na još uvijek važno ali lakše dohvatljivo pitanje jesu li psihopatski prijestupnici moralno odgovorni. Posebno se istražuje imaju li psihopati mogućnost moralnog razumijevanja. Vjerodostojni pristup posljednjem pitanju zahtijeva zadovoljavajuću filozofsku interpretaciju empirijskog dokaza koji pokazuje da psihopati ne uspijevaju naći razliku između konvencionalnih i moralnih normi. Preciznije, uzet ću (...) u obzir nedavnu filozofsku raspravu polariziranu između pobornika racionalističkog i sentimentalističkog objašnjenja moralnog razumijevanja. Ovi su suparnici otvorili raspravu nudi li slučaj psihopatije empirijsku potporu za njihovo objašnjenje i potkopava suparnički pogled. U radu tvrdim da dostupni empirijski podaci ostavljaju ishod ove rasprave neodlučenim. To implicira da bi obje teorije moralnog razumijevanja, ako su neovisno motivirane, uzele u obzir psihopate kao osobe koje imaju određene nedostatke koje bi mogle utjecati na njihovo moralno razumijevanje a stoga i na njihovu moralnu odgovornost. (shrink)

John Rawls's account of Kantian constructivism is perhaps his most striking contribution to ethics. In this paper, I examine the relation between Rawls's constructivism and its foundation in Kantian intuitions. In particular, I focus on the progressive influence on Rawls's approach of the Kantian intuition that the substance of morality is best understood as constructed by free and equal people under fair conditions. Rawls's focus on this Kantian intuition, I argue, motivates the focus on social contract that grounds both his (...) accounts of the original position and of reflective equilibrium. Critics, including Onora O'Neill and Larry Krasnoff, object that Rawls's view distorts various aspects of Kantian moral reasoning. I argue that these objections (i) exaggerate the distinctions between Kant's and Rawls's decision procedures and (ii) reflect an unnecessarily constricted view of Kant's moral thought. (shrink)

In this paper, I want to challenge some common assumptions in contemporary theories of practical rationality and intentional action. If I am right, the fact that our intentions can be rationalised is widely misunderstood. Normally, it is taken for granted that the role of rationalisations is to show the reasons that the agent had to make up her mind. I will argue against this. I do not object to the idea that acting intentionally is, at least normally, acting for reasons, (...) but I will propose a teleological reading of the expression ‘for reasons.’ On this reading, it is quite possible to act for reasons without having reasons to act. In a similar way, paradigmatic cases of cogent practical reasoning do not require the transference of justification from the premises to the practical conclusion. (shrink)

Pre-natal-diagnosis technologies allow parents to discover whether their child is likely to suffer from serious disability. One argument for state funding of access to such technologies is that doing so would be “cost-effective”, in the sense that the expected financial costs of such a programme would be outweighed by expected “benefits”, stemming from the births of fewer children with serious disabilities. This argument is extremely controversial. This paper argues that the argument may not be as unacceptable as is often assumed. (...) In doing so, it sets out a more general framework for assessing the relevance of efficiency calculations to policy-making. The final section also investigates the relationship between the paper’s arguments and claims about parental responsibility for child-bearing and rearing, with reference to Scanlon’s work on “substantive responsibility”. (shrink)

Gender greatly impacts access to opportunities, potential, and success in corporate leadership roles. We begin with a general presentation of why such discussion is necessary for basic considerations of justice and fairness in gender equality and how the issues we raise must impact any ethical perspective on gender in the corporate workplace. We continue with a breakdown of the central categories affecting the success of women in corporate leadership roles. The first of these includes gender-influenced behavioral factors, such as the (...) requirements and expectations of gendered verbal and nonverbal communication styles as well as appearance. We move on to address the impact of family on corporate leadership opportunities and success, discussing the asymmetrical evaluation of an individual’s potential, authority, and competence based on gender stereotypes of familial obligations and expectations. Finally, we address how gender impacts access to networking and sponsorship opportunities and the long-term effects of systematic limitations on women’s inclusion in the upper echelons of corporate leadership. We conclude with a summary of the questions and issues raised by our discussion and direct individuals to consider how different ethical systems and moral requirements might influence their interpretations of gender and leadership in the corporate workplace. (shrink)

When we engage in practical deliberation, we sometimes engage in careful probabilistic reasoning. At other times, we simply make flat out assumptions about how the world is or will be. A question thus arises: when, if ever, is it rationally permissible to engage in the latter, less sophisticated kind of practical deliberation? Recently, a number of authors have argued that the answer concerns whether one knows that p. Others have argued that the answer concerns whether one is justified in believing (...) that one knows that p. Against both of these, this paper argues that the answer concerns whether p is ‘practically certain’—that is, whether the actual epistemic probability that p differs from epistemic certainty that p only in ways that are irrelevant to the decision one currently faces. (shrink)

The nature of the relation between jurisprudential theories and first-order legal judgments is a strangely uncontroversial matter in contemporary legal philosophy. There is one dominant conception of the relation according to which jurisprudential theories are second-order or meta-legal theories that specify the ultimate grounds of first-order legal judgments. According to this conception, difficult first-order legal disputes are to be resolved by jurisprudential theorizing. According to an alternative conception that Ronald Dworkin has influentially advocated, jurisprudential theories are not second-order theories about (...) the nature of law, but instead covert first-order legal theories. These two conceptions of the relation between jurisprudential theories and first-order legal judgments dominate the contemporary legal philosophical scene and crowd out other possible conceptions. This article scrutinizes the two conceptions, and in the process raises the possibility of a different and arguably more credible conception. According to this new conception, our first-order legal views and a jurisprudential theory that we accept are supposed to form a mutually disciplining and supporting set of views that we accept in our pursuit of the epistemic ideal of wide reflective equilibrium. The two sets of views are supposed to constrain and discipline each other; but neither is meant to underwrite, certify, or ultimately determine the contents of the other. This new conception, which allows the relation between jurisprudential theories and first-order legal judgments to be much looser, untidier, and more complex than what the two dominant conceptions imply, should facilitate progress in legal philosophy and in first-order legal thinking. (shrink)

Many anti-obesity policies face a variety of ethical objections. We consider one kind of anti-obesity policy — modifications to food assistance programs meant to improve participants' diet — and one kind of criticism of these policies, that they are inequitable. We take as our example the recent, unsuccessful effort by New York State to exclude sweetened beverages from the items eligible for purchase in New York City with Supplemental Nutrition Support Program assistance. We distinguish two equity-based ethical objections that were (...) made to the sweetened beverage exclusion, and analyze these objections in terms of the theoretical notions of distributive equality and social equality. First, the sweetened beverage exclusion is unfair or violates distributive equality because it restricts the consumer choice of SNAP participants relative to non-participants. Second, it is disrespectful or violates social equality to prohibit SNAP participants from purchasing sweetened beverages with food stamps. We conclude that neither equity-based ethical objection is decisive, and that the proposed exclusion of sugar-sweetened beverages is not a violation of either distributive or social equality. (shrink)

The explanation of promising is fraught with problems. In particular the problem that promises can be valid even when nothing good comes of keeping the promise , and the bootstrapping problem with explaining how the mere intention to put oneself under an obligation can create such an obligation have been recognized since Hume’s famous discussion of the topic. In part 1, I showed that two main views of promising which attempt to solve these problems fall short of explaining the promissory (...) obligation nonetheless. In this second part, I will explain what it takes to show that there is such an obligation to keep one’s promises, and discuss a further account of promissory obligation – the normative powers account – which perhaps stands a chance to solve both the bootstrapping and the bare wrongings problem , and to successfully explain promissory obligation. It comes in at least two different forms: one which regards the normative power to promise as based on our ability to form special relationships, and another which regards the promisee’s ‘authority interest’ as the basis. (shrink)

Much of the literature on practical authority concerns the authority of the state over its subjects—authority to which we are, as G. E. M. Anscombe says, subject “willy nilly”. Yet many of our “willy” (or voluntary) relationships also seem to involve the exercise of practical authority, and this species of authority is in some ways even more puzzling than authority willy nilly. In this paper I argue that voluntary authority relies on a form of voluntary obligation that is akin (in (...) some respects) to the kind of obligation one undertakes in making a promise. Voluntary authority depends, that is, on the possibility of taking on certain obligations more or less at will. It is generated through an interpersonal transaction that involves a directed act of deference, on one side, paired with appropriate uptake of that deference, on the other. Deference, in the relevant sense, should be understood as a normative power that is exercised when agents transfer deliberative discretion to others, undertaking directed obligations to treat others’ directives as content-independent and peremptory reasons. Voluntary authority, thus understood, is both grounded in and constrained by the equal moral authority or autonomy of the participants, since only autonomous agents have the standing to defer in a normatively significant way. (shrink)

Subjective theories of wellbeing place authority concerning what benefits a person with that person herself, or limit wellbeing to psychological states. But how well off we are seems to depend on two different concerns, how well we are doing and how well things are going for us. I argue that two powerful subjective theories fail to adequately account for this and that principled arguments favoring subjectivism are unsound and poorly motivated. In the absence of more compelling evidence that how things (...) go for us cannot directly constitute our wellbeing, I conclude that wellbeing is objective. (shrink)

Under what conditions do you have a reason to perform some action? Do you only have reason to do what you want to do? Reasons-motives internalism is the appealingly simple view that unless an agent is, or could be, motivated to act in a certain way, he has no normative reason to act in that way. Thus, according to reasons-motives internalism, facts about an individual’s motivational psychology constrain what is rational for that agent to do. This article canvasses several ways (...) of formulating the view and considers some advantages and disadvantages of each. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 9, Page 8-9, September 2012.

A central aspect of desire is the alluringness with which the desired object appears to the desirer. But what explains the alluringness of desire? According to the standard view, desire presents its objects with a certain allure because desire involves believing that the desired object is good. However, this cannot explain how those who lack the cognitive sophistication required for evaluative concepts can nonetheless have desires, how nihilists can continue to have desires, nor how we can desire things we believe (...) to be evaluatively neutral or even evaluatively bad. A variation on the standard view ? that desire presents its objects with a certain allure because desire involves being in a belief-like state that represents the desired object to be good ? avoids these problems, but still falsely entails that desire is subject to the norm of truth. Indeed, I argue that ultimately such cognitive accounts of the alluringness of desire have seemed compelling only because of the difficulty of providing an intelligible non-cognitive alternative and I proceed to make such an alternative account of the alluringness of desire explicit in broad outline, arguing that it promises a more faithful understanding of the phenomena. (shrink)

In this paper I look at moral debates about animal disenhancement. In particular, I propose that given the particular social institutions in which such disenhancement will operate, we ought to reject animal disenhancement. I do this by introducing the issue of animal disenhancement and presenting arguments in support of it, and showing that while these arguments are strong, they are unconvincing when we look at the full picture. Viewing animal disenhancement in a context such as high intensity food production, we (...) see that the arguments in support of it fall short of other ethical considerations, leading me to conclude that the moral and pragmatic reasons weigh against animal disenhancement. (shrink)

Like all theories that account for moral motivation, Francis Hutcheson's moral sense theory faces two related challenges. The skeptical challenge calls into question what reasons an agent has to be moral at all. The priority challenge asks why an agent's reasons to be moral tend to outweigh her non-moral reasons to act. I argue a defender of Hutcheson can respond to these challenges by building on unique features of his account. She can respond to skeptical challenge by drawing a direct (...) parallel between an agent's reasons to pursue natural, self-directed goods and her reasons to pursue moral goods. This parallel, however, makes establishing the significance of morality difficult. Given this difficulty, a separate aspect of Hutcheson's account, the additional weight given to benevolence in our assessment of mixed actions, can be used to respond to the priority challenge. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 7, Page 47-49, July 2011.

Jennifer Prah Ruger (2011) rightly points out that social cooperation is essential for achieving health justice. But she is unhappy with the approach to cooperation that social scientists and philosophers have taken. Her main objection is that their models are based on narrow self-interest. Her own proposal, which she calls "shared health governance", is based on public moral norms instead. If individuals and institutions internalized and followed such norms, justice in health could be achieved. -/- In this commentary, I show (...) that Ruger fundamentally misdiagnoses the problem of social cooperation and health justice. Because of the faulty diagnosis, her own proposal is at best unworkable, at worst utopian. (shrink)

This essay reviews contemporary theories of public justification. In particular, it argues that conceptions of public justification and public reason have moved significantly beyond Rawls.

Bonuses, as incentives or rewards for health -related behavior, feature prominently in German social health insurance. Their goal is centered around promoting personal responsibility, but reducing overall health -care expenditure and enabling competition between sickness funds also play a role. The central position of personal responsibility in German health -care policy is described, and a framework is offered for an analysis of the ethical issues raised by policies seeking to promote responsibility. The framework entails seven tests relating to: solidarity; equality (...) and equity; intrusiveness; attributability and opportunity of choice; evidence, rationale, and feasibility; affected third parties; and coherence. It is contended that a focus on tests, in particular from within contractualism, is the most appropriate way of addressing the question of health responsibility in pluralistic societies. However, taken by themselves, the tests also allow an identification of the key ethical issues by particular policies, which are illustrated by applying the framework to particular bonus polices. (shrink)

Medical quarantines often threaten the civil rights of the persons whom they confine. This might happen in two ways. First, quarantines might inflict harsh conditions on their occupants; and, second, quarantines might be imposed in an arbitrary or indeed discriminatory manner. These concerns, moreover, are anything but fantastic. Infectious diseases, particularly in epidemic forms, commonly trigger retributive and discriminatory instincts, so that actual quarantines often impose inhumane, stigmatizing, or even penal treatment upon persons who are confined based on caprice or (...) even prejudice.But quarantines that impose no gratuitous hardships and that are applied pursuant to orderly and non-discriminatory procedures are theoretically possible and also practically available. And such well-run quarantines, especially when they are employed to combat epidemic diseases, cannot plausibly be said to violate the civil rights of the quarantined. Even the staunchest civil libertarian must accept that one person's liberty may be restricted when this is necessary for preventing harm to another. (shrink)

The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 prohibits most forms of discrimination on the basis of genetic information in health insurance and employment. The findings cited as justification for the act, the almost universal political support for it, and much of the scholarly literature about genetic discrimination, all betray a confusion about what is really at issue. They imply that genetic discrimination is wrong mainly because of genetic exceptionalism: because some special feature of genetic information makes discrimination on the basis (...) thereof wrong. I suggest, to the contrary, that the best arguments against genetic discrimination assume that health care is an entitlement . I do this by examining two different exceptionalist arguments for genetic nondiscrimination, showing that they do not furnish good reasons for prohibiting genetic discrimination unless one supposes that health care is an entitlement. (shrink)

Interviews, field observations and other qualitative methods are being increasingly used to inform the construction of arguments in normative political theory. This article works to demonstrate the strong salience of some kinds of qualitative material for cosmopolitan arguments to extend distributive boundaries. The incorporation of interviews and related qualitative material can make the moral claims of excluded others more vivid and possibly more difficult to dismiss by advocates of strong priority to compatriots in distributions. Further, it may help to promote (...) the kind of perspective taking that has been associated with actually motivating a willingness to provide aid by individuals. Illustrative findings are presented from field work conducted for a normative project on global citizenship, including interviews with unauthorized immigrants and the analysis of artefacts left behind on heavily used migrant trails. (shrink)

In his article , Gerald Lang formulates the buck-passing account of value so as to resolve the Wrong Kind of Reason Problem. I argue against his formulation of buck-passing. Specifically, I argue that his formulation of buck-passing is not compatible with consequentialism (whether direct or indirect), and so it should be rejected.

(No abstract is available for this citation).

The article presents the author's views concerning the philosophical views regarding ethical obligation. He emphasizes the general, moral, and practical skepticism of the moral obligation. He provides information on the notions about normative externalism. The conflicting ideas between egoistic and intrapersonal are also discussed.

The buck-passing account of values offers an explanation of the close relation of values and reasons for action: of why it is that the question whether something that is of value provides reasons is not ”open.” Being of value simply is, its defenders claim, a property that something has in virtue of its having other reason-providing properties. The generic idea of buck-passing is that the property of being good or being of value does not provide reasons. It is other properties (...) that do. There are, however, at least three versions of the account which differ in their understanding of those “other properties.” The first two versions both assume that non-normative properties provide reasons, the difference being that the second allows that normative properties also provide reasons. Both run into difficulties, which I explain, in trying to defend the claim that non-normative properties provide reasons for action. The third version of the buck-passing account which explains being of value in terms of more specific evaluative properties that are reason-providing remains unpersuasive as well. Once we understand the relation between general and specific properties as a difference in degree, there is no space for a reduction of the one kind of properties to the other. In section II I sketch an alternative account of the relation between reasons and values, which is based on a thesis that I call the Conceptual Link and the claim that values are not just co-extensive with reasons, but explain them. (shrink)

Millianism is a thesis in philosophy of language that the meaning of a proper name is simply its referent. Millianism faces certain puzzles called Frege's Puzzles. Some Millians defend the view by appealing to a metaphysics of belief that involves Ways of Believing. In the first part of this paper, I argue that ethical naturalists can adopt this Millian strategy to resist Moore’s Open Question argument. While this strategy of responding to the Open Question Argument has already appeared in the (...) literature, I show that the Millian strategy can be easily extended to other versions of the Open Question Argument that are alleged to be stronger than the original formulation. The allegedly stronger versions of the Open Question Argument are not straightforwardly Frege's Puzzles, but they still have analogue versions that have been presented against Millianism. What the Ways Millian can say against those analogue versions can easily be applied to these other versions of the Open Question Argument. (shrink)

Abstract: Would a global commitment to international human rights norms provide enough of a sense of community to sustain a legitimate and sufficiently democratic global order? Sceptics worry that human rights cannot help maintain the mutual trust among citizens required for a legitimate political order, since such rights are now too broadly shared. Thus prominent contributors to democratic theory insist that the members of the citizenry must share some features unique to them, to the exclusion of others—be it a European (...) identity ( Habermas and Derrida 2003 ) or a national public culture generally shared only by the members ( Miller 1995, 2000 ). This essay considers and rejects these arguments. While stable, democratic redistributive arrangements do require trust and institutionalised means of trustworthiness; they need not rely on norms or values that distinguish members from non-members: such exclusion is not required. Thus human rights may be part of a common political identity. (shrink)

I offer a reading of the first clause of T. M. Scanlon's principle of fidelity to assurances. A circularity problem is created by his way of differentiating promises from other assurances which comply with this principle. When the clause is read in the way here proposed, all assurances complying with the principle are promises, and so this problem no longer arises.

It is widely believed that we always have reason to maximize the good. Utilitarianism and other consequentialist theories depend on this conception of value. Scanlon has argued that this view of value is not generally correct, but that it is most plausible with regard to the value of pleasure, and may even be true at least of that. But there are reasons to think that even the value of pleasure is not teleological.

In , John Broome defends a very weak consequentialist account of the value of saving lives. This paper challenges the commitments of this kind of account and describes some reasons for saving lives that would appeal to a non-consequentialist.

Some philosophers believe that two objects of value can be ‘roughly equal’, or ‘on a par’, or belong to the same ‘clump’ of value in a sense that is fundamentally different from that in which some objects are ‘better than’, ‘worse than’, or ‘equally as good as’ others. This article shows that if two objects are on a par, or belong to the same clump, then an agent accepting a few plausible premises can be exploited in a money-pump. The central (...) premise of the argument is that value is choice-guiding. If one object is more valuable than another, then it is not permitted to choose the less valuable object; and if two objects are equally valuable it is permitted to choose either of them; and if two objects are on a par or belong to the same clump it is also permitted to choose either of them. (shrink)