Normative political philosophy always refers to a standard against which a society's institutions are judged. In the first, analytical part of the article, the different possible forms of normative criticism are examined according to whether the standards it appeals to are external or internal to the society in question. In the tradition of Socrates and Hegel, it is argued that reconstructing the kind of norms that are implicit in practices enables a critique that does not force the critic's particular views (...) on the addressee and can also be motivationally effective. In the second part of the article, Axel Honneth's theory of recognition is examined as a form of such reconstructive internal critique . It is argued that while the implicit norms of recognition made explicit in Honneth's philosophical anthropology help explain progressive social struggles as moral ones, his theory faces two challenges in justifying internal critique. The Priority Challenge asks for the reasons why the implicit norms of recognition should be taken as the standard against which other implicit and explicit norms are to be judged. The Application Challenge asks why a social group should, by its own lights, extend equal recognition to all its members and even non-members. The kind of functional, prudential, conceptual, and moral considerations that could serve to answer these challenges are sketched. (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)

What makes a choice hard? I discuss and criticize three common answers and then make a proposal of my own. Paradigmatic hard choices are not hard because of our ignorance, the incommensurability of values, or the incomparability of the alternatives. They are hard because the alternatives are on a par; they are comparable, but one is not better than the other, and yet nor are they equally good. So understood, hard choices open up a new way of thinking about what (...) it is to be a rational agent. (shrink)

I connect commodification arguments to an empirical literature, present a mechanism by which commodification may occur, and show how this may restrict the range of goods and services that are subject to commodification, therefore having implications for the use of commodification arguments in political theory. Commodification arguments assert that some people’s trading a good or service can debase it for third parties. They consist of a normative premise, a theory of value, and an empirical premise, a mechanism whereby some people’s (...) market exchange affects how goods can be valued by others. Hence, their soundness depends on the existence of a suitable candidate mechanism for the empirical premise. The ‘motivation crowding effect’ has been cited as the empirical base of commodification. I show why the main explanations of motivation crowding – signaling and over-justification – do not provide mechanisms that could underpin the empirical premise. In doing this, I reveal some requirements on any candidate me... (shrink)

We now have good reason to worry that many coastal cities will be flooded by the end of the century. How should we confront this possibility (or inevitability)? What attitudes should we adopt to impending inundation of such magnitude? In the case of place-loss due to anthropogenic climate change, I argue that there may ultimately be something fitting about letting go, both thinking prospectively, when the likelihood of preservation is bleak, and retrospectively, when we reflect on our inability to prevent (...) destruction. I then explore some of the ethical complications of this response. (shrink)

I maintain that intrinsic value is the fundamental concept of axiology. Many contemporary philosophers disagree; they say the proper object of value theory is final value. I examine three accounts of the nature of final value: the first claims that final value is non‐instrumental value; the second claims that final value is the value a thing has as an end; the third claims that final value is ultimate or non‐derivative value. In each case, I argue that the concept of final (...) value described is either identical with the classical notion of intrinsic value or is not a plausible candidate for the primary concept of axiology. (shrink)

This paper critically examines Michael Zimmerman’s account of basic final value in The Nature of Intrinsic Value. Zimmerman’s account has several positive features. Unfortunately, as I argue, given one plausible assumption about value his account derives a contradiction. I argue that rejecting that assumption has several implausible results and that we should instead reject Zimmerman’s account. I then sketch an alternative account of basic final value, showing how it retains some of the positive features of Zimmerman’s account while avoiding its (...) pitfalls. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe Assistance Principle is common currency to a wide range of moral theories. Roughly, this principle states: if you can fulfil important interests, at not too high a cost, then you have a moral duty to do so. I argue that, in determining whether the ‘not too high a cost’ clause of this principle is met, we must consider three distinct costs: ‘agent-relative costs’, ‘recipient-relative costs’ and ‘ideal-relative costs’.

We sometimes have reasons to perform actions due to what they would communicate. Those who have discussed such reasons have understood what an action ‘communicates’ as what it conventionally expresses. Brennan and Jaworski argue that when a convention ensures that expressing the appropriate thing would be costly, we should change or flout the convention. I argue that what really matters is often what attitudes we indicate rather than conventionally express, using social science to show that indicating our attitudes is often (...) unavoidably costly, and sometimes worth the cost. I use this account to defend communicative arguments for egalitarian distributive policies. (shrink)

If we were required to sacrifice our own interests whenever doing so was best overall, or prohibited from doing so unless it was optimal, then we would be mere sites for the realisation of value. Our interests, not ourselves, would wholly determine what we ought to do. We are not mere sites for the realisation of value — instead we, ourselves, matter unconditionally. So we have options to act suboptimally. These options have limits, grounded in the very same considerations. Though (...) not merely such sites, you and I are also sites for the realisation of value, and our interests (and ourselves) must therefore sometimes determine what others ought to do, in particular requiring them to bear reasonable costs for our sake. Likewise, just as my moral status grounds a requirement that others show me appropriate respect, so must I do to myself. (shrink)

This article addresses the prioritization questions that arise when people attempt to institutionalize reasonable ethical principles and create guidelines for microlevel decisions. I propose that this instantiates an incommensurability problem, and suggest two different kinds of practical solutions for dealing with this issue.

We often come to value someone or something through experience of that person or thing. You may thereby come to embrace a value that you did not grasp prior to the experience in question. Moreover, it seems that in a large and important subset of cases you could not have fully appreciated that value merely by considering a report of the reasons or arguments that purport to establish that it is valuable. Despite its ubiquity, this phenomenon goes missing in a (...) great deal of contemporary work in ethics and political philosophy. In this paper I further specify the phenomenon of interest by developing a series of examples. Then I support the claim that philosophers routinely overlook it by surveying several significant philosophical positions that do so. (shrink)

‘Heritage’ is a concept that often carries significant normative weight in moral and political argument. In this article, I present and critique a prevalent conception according to which heritage must have a positive valence. I argue that this view of heritage leads to two moral problems: Disowning Injustice and Embracing Injustice. In response, I argue for an alternative conception of heritage that promises superior moral and political consequences. In particular, this alternative jettisons the traditional focus on heritage as a primarily (...) positive relationship to the past, and thus offers resources for coming to terms with histories of injustice. (shrink)

The view that some evaluative concepts are identical to some affective concepts naturally falls out of neo-sentimentalism, but it is unstable. This paper argues for a view of evaluative concepts that is neo-sentimentalist in spirit but which eschews the identity claim. If we adopt a Peacockean view of concepts, then we should think of some evaluative concepts as having possession conditions that are affective in some way. I argue that the best version of this thought claims that possessing those concepts (...) requires being rationally compelled to form evaluative beliefs in response to certain emotions. (shrink)

Proponents of semiotic arguments against the commodification of certain goods face the following challenge: formulate your argument such that it does not appeal to immoral consequences, nor is really an argument showing that we ought to reform the meaning we give to commodification. I here attempt to meet this challenge via appeal to the notion of what I call proto-on-a-par value. Under this construal, the semiotic argument yields that the commodification of certain goods necessarily signals value choice, where value choice (...) ought not to be signaled. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Profit maximizers have reasons to agree with stakeholder theorists that managers may need to consider different values simultaneously in decision making. However, it remains unclear how maximizing a single value can be reconciled with simultaneously considering different values. A solution can neither be found in substantive normative philosophical theories, nor in postulating the maximization of profit. Managers make sense of the values in a situation by means of the many thick value concepts of ordinary language. Thick evaluation involves the simultaneous (...) consideration of different values: making sense of a value always involves knowing how to engage with it given the other values in the situation. This also goes for profit: maximization is only one way of engaging with the value of profit, and grasping whether maximization is appropriate involves considering other values. We discuss some consequences of our approach for stakeholder theorists and profit maximizers. (shrink)

This paper explores two questions in moral philosophy that might at first seem unrelated. The first question is practical. While it’s not a truth we like to contemplate, each of us faces the eventual loss of everyone and everything we love. Is there a way to live in full awareness of that fact without falling into anxiety or depression, or resorting to one form or another of forgetfulness, denial or numbing out? The second question is metaethical. Is it possible to (...) vindicate a strong form of ethical objectivity without positing anything metaphysically or epistemologically mysterious? In this paper, I sketch a partially Buddhist-inspired metaethical view that would, if it could be made to work, give a positive answer to both questions. The overall view is too much to defend in one paper, so I focus on developing one limited part of it. I begin by characterizing the general constructivist strategy for vindicating the objectivity of ethics. After briefly discussing Christine Korsgaard’s Kantian implementation of the strategy, I suggest an alternative implementation. I explore the idea that every agent necessarily faces what I call the problem of attachment and loss. I close with some speculative remarks about why, even though the problem of attachment and loss presents itself in a different substantive guise to each individual agent, it is still possible that the best solution to the problem is universal, and involves taking up an ethical perspective on the world. (shrink)

An innovative program recently initiated at the University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center allows people to donate a kidney in exchange for a voucher that a loved one can redeem for a kidney if and when needed. As a relatively new practice, the ethical implications of advanced kidney donation have not yet been widely discussed. This paper reflects on some of the bioethical issues at stake in this new donation program, as well as some broader philosophical issues related to (...) the meaning and moral salience of commodification. I first consider whether the literature on commercial markets in organs––a longstanding topic of bioethical debate––can meaningfully inform ethical analysis of kidney voucher programs. Specifically, I consider whether and to what extent common objections to the exchange of kidneys for cash also apply to the exchange of kidneys for “kidney vouchers.” Second, I argue that the contrast between the ethical issues raised by these two practices highlights the need to understand commodification as existing on a continuum, with different degrees of commodification giving rise to different ethical issues. Doing so can help sharpen our understanding of commodification as a moral concept, as well as its relevance to broader debates about the moral limits of markets. (shrink)

Whilst the relationship between money and success in elite sport is acknowledged, the exact nature, extent and implications of this relationship is one that has not been carefully examined. In this paper, we have three main aims. Firstly, to provide empirical evidence of the extent that money buys success in the English Premier League. Secondly, to evaluate this evidence from a sports ethics perspective, and finally, to discuss potential solutions to the problem. We argue that the evident performance advantage teams (...) gain through financial investments is contrary to the spirit of sport as it undermines athletic excellence and the ‘sweet tension of uncertainty of outcome’ that is central to good competition. Consequently, financial investments in elite football ought to be regulated and controlled. We argue, however, that current attempts to do so are inadequate as they focus on issues concerning financial health, rather than the health of the game in terms of s... (shrink)

According to most substantive axiological theories – theories telling us which things are good and bad – pleasure is nonderivatively good. This seems to imply that it is always good, even when directed towards a bad object, such as another person’s suffering. This implication is accepted by the Mainstream View about misdirected pleasures: it holds that when someone takes pleasure in another person’s suffering, his being pleased is good, although his being pleased by suffering is bad. This view gains some (...) of its popularity from the advantages of an axiological theory that is structured in the way advocated by Brentano. However, I argue that we should reject the Mainstream View, in favour of an alternative suggested by Aristotle: this distinguishes between nonderivative goodness and exceptionless goodness. When it is good, being pleased is good nonderivatively – but it is not always good. The aim of the paper is to show how a Brentano-style theory can be modified to accommodate this alternative view, and how that supports a case for accepting it. (shrink)

According to the achievement account of the value of knowledge, knowledge is finally valuable because it is a species of a finally valuable genus, achievement. The achievement account is said to solve Pritchard's tertiary value problem, the problem of showing that knowledge enjoys a different kind of value than mere true belief. This paper argues, first, that AA fails to solve TVP, and, second, that Pritchard's motivations for TVP are inadequate. They do, however, motivate a weaker value problem, one that (...) can be solved by showing that knowledge is weakly superior to mere true belief. Finally, third, we argue that knowledge does enjoy this form of weak superiority. Since this argument rests on AA's key species-genus claim, AA can retain the upper hand in the debate. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:In this address, I outline a “back to basics” approach to specifying the responsibilities and role of business in relation to society. Three “basics” comprise the approach. The first is arguing that basic principles of ordinary morality, such as a duty not to harm, provide an adequate basis for specifying the responsibilities of business managers. The second is framing the role of business in society by looking to the values realized by the basic building blocks of contemporary economic activity, i.e., (...) markets and firms. The third is making explicit the basic institutions that structure the background against which business operates. The aim is to develop a plausible framework for managerial decision making that respects the fact of value pluralism in a global economy and that fosters meaningful criticism of current business practices while remaining sufficiently grounded in contemporary circumstances so as to be relevant for managers. (shrink)

It has become commonplace to distinguish enumerative theories of welfare, which tell us which things are good for us, from explanatory theories, which tell us why the things that are good for us have that status. It has also been claimed that while hedonism and objective list theories are enumerative but not explanatory, desire satisfactionism is explanatory but not enumerative. In this paper, I argue that this is mistaken. When properly understood, every major theory of welfare is both enumerative and (...) explanatory. (shrink)

This paper discusses recent interpretations of Jean-Paul Sartre's early theory of emotions, in particular his Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions. Despite the great interest that Sartre's approach has generated, most interpretations assume that his approach fails because it appears to be focussed on ‘malformed’, ‘irrational’ or ‘distorted’ emotions. I argue that these criticisms adopt a rationalistic or epistemically biassed perspective on emotions that is wrongly applied to Sartre's text. In my defence of Sartre I show that the directional (...) fit of emotions is not towards an evaluatively loaded world which is independently given and, at best, represented by emotions, but towards a world shaped through the impact of emotions themselves. Sartre's idea of emotions ‘magically transforming’ reality for the subject so that the latter is better able to cope with problematic aspects of practically relevant situations encapsulates the world-shaping capacities of emotions, which are thus not reserved for a restricted class of emotions. Recognition of the transformative powers of emotions will also direct attention away from their seemingly representative elements to their normative and practical aspects and offer a new basis for delineating the criteria for judging them. The plausibility of this position is discussed with reference to some of Sartre's examples, such as fear, sadness and horror, but also with reference to Joan Didion's account of grief in The Year of Magical Thinking. (shrink)

This commentary uses the dynamic of identity-protective cognition to pose a friendly challenge to Jussim (2012). Like other forms of information processing, this one is too readily characterized as a bias. It is no mistake, however, to view identity-protective cognition as generating inaccurate perceptions. The “bounded rationality” paradigm incorrectly equates rationality with forming accurate beliefs. But so does Jussim's critique.

The paper argues that there is no fundamental incompatibility between the use of vouchers and managed market mechanisms in the distribution of education und the principled aims of egalitarian educational policy. It takes those aims to be equality of opportunity, education for autonomy, and democratic education, and shows in each case how a voucher scheme could accommodate the aim. It explains why a judiciously designed voucher scheme may constitute a more politically feasible method of achieving central egalitarian goals than attempts (...) to improve public provision, but does not endorse the use of voucher schemes. (shrink)

What is the relation between the concept good and more specific or ‘thick’ concepts such as admirable or courageous? I argue that good or more precisely good pro tanto is a general concept, but that the relation between good pro tanto and the more specific concepts is not that of a genus to its species. The relation of an important class of specific evaluative concepts, which I call ‘affective concepts’, to good pro tanto is better understood as one between a (...) determinable and its determinates, whereas concepts such as courageous can be analysed in terms of affective concepts and purely descriptive concepts. (shrink)

ABSTRACTI defend the Interdependency Thesis, according to which rational evaluations of dispositions and actions are made in light of each other. I invoke a model of rationality that relies on various levels of consistency existing between an agent's reasons for adopting a moral disposition, the argument for the moral theory she endorses, her desires, disposition, and choice to be a moral person as reflected in the maxim she adopts. The Interdependency Thesis shows that we do not need to demonstrate the (...) rationality of every morally required action in order to defeat scepticism fully. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend the view that the values of concrete objects and persons are reducible to the final values of tropes. This reductive account has recently been discussed and rejected by Rabinowicz and R0nnow‐Rasmussen (2003). I begin by explaining why the reduction is appealing in the first place. In my rejoinder to Rabinowicz and R0nnow‐Rasmussen I defend trope‐value reductionism against three challenges. 1 focus mainly on their central objection, that holds that the reduction is untenable since different evaluative (...) attitudes have, ontologically speaking, different objects. I grant that this may well be so, but argue that the objection is based on an unwarranted, loose reading of the notion ‘value for its own sake’. On the more reasonable strict reading, it is plausible to maintain that tropes are the sole ontological category that can properly be ascribed final value. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:We argue that Confucianism makes a fundamental contribution to understanding why civility is necessary for a morally decent workplace. We begin by reviewing some limits that traditional moral theories face in analyzing issues of civility. We then seek to establish a Confucian alternative. We develop the Confucian idea that even in business, humans may be sacred when they observe rituals culturally determined to express particular ceremonial significance. We conclude that managers and workers should understand that there is a broad range (...) of morally important rituals in organizational life and that managers should preserve and develop the intelligibility and integrity of many of these rituals. (shrink)

It is now a commonplace that emotions are not mere sensations but, rather, conceptually contentful states. In trying to expand on this insight, however, most theoretical approaches to emotions neglect central intuitions about what emotions are like. We therefore need a methodological shift in our thinking about emotions away from the standard accounts' attempts to reduce them to other mental states and toward an exploration of the distinctive work emotions do. I show that emotions' distinctive function is to engage us (...) with both objective and personal values. Attention to emotions' work reveals that it is precisely their “unruliness” that allows them to play meaningful roles in our lives. (shrink)

Moral platonism, the claim that moral entities are both objective and prescriptive, is generally thought to be a dead end. In an attempt to defend a moderate form of moral platonism or more precisely platonism about values, I first argue that several of the many versions of this doctrine are not committed to ontological extravagances. I then discuss an important objection due to John McDowell and developed by Michael Smith, according to which moral platonism is incoherent. I argue that objectivism (...) is compatible with the claim that certain ways of being aware of values, namely those involving emotions, are motivating. (shrink)

Die Idee, dass vor allem monetäre Anreize das Verhalten von Wirtschaftsakteuren in gewünschte Richtungen lenken und sogar dabei helfen können, durch Leistungssteigerung zusätzliche Wohlfahrtseffekte zu generieren, spielt in der politischen Ökonomie seit ihren Anfängen eine zentrale Rolle. Es spricht sogar einiges dafür, dass dieser Gedanke das verbindende Glied der Ökonomik als Gesellschaftstheorie im Gegensatz zu anderen gesellschaftstheoretischen Entwürfen ausmacht. Dennoch halte ich dieses Anreizargument aus normativer Perspektive für unterentwickelt, wie ich in Auseinandersetzung mit der Ökonomischen Ethik bzw. Ordnungsethik nach Karl (...) Homann und der Integrativen Wirtschaftsethik zeigen möchte. Weder gelingt es der Ordnungsethik nach Karl Homann, die Bedeutung von Anreizstrukturen hinreichend zu begründen, obwohl sie in Ansätzen wichtige Argumente formuliert. Noch gelingt es der Integrativen Wirtschaftsethik, die zentrale Rolle von Anreizstrukturen für die normative Theoriebildung überzeugend zurückzuweisen. Mir geht es nicht darum, den einen oder anderen wirtschaftsethischen Ansatz grundsätzlich zurückzuweisen, sondern vielmehr, auf Lücken in der Argumentation und sich daraus ergebende Forschungsfragen hinzuweisen. Vor diesem Hintergrund könnte es helfen, einen verwandten Diskurs aus der gegenwärtigen Gerechtigkeitstheorie in die Überlegungen mit einzubeziehen. Denn die grundlegende Idee der ökonomischen Gesellschaftstheorie einer Wohlfahrtssteigerung durch die gezielte Manipulation von Anreizstrukturen hat auch in der gegenwärtigen Gerechtigkeitstheorie ihre Wirkung entfaltet. In seiner Theorie der Gerechtigkeit hat John Rawls argumentiert, dass selbst Egalitaristen bestimmte Einkommensunterschiede zulassen müssen, wenn dadurch für Leistungsträgerinnen solche Anreize gesetzt werden, die gleichzeitig auch den Schlechtestgestellten zum Vorteil gereichen. Diese Argumentation ist von Gerald Cohen einer harschen Kritik ausgesetzt worden. Cohen behauptet, dass Rawls mit diesem Anreizargument seinen eigenen Egalitarismus unterläuft. Ich glaube, dass diese philosophische Diskussion des Anreizargumentes in der Gerechtigkeitstheorie für wirtschaftsethische Überlegungen relevant ist, obwohl sie innerhalb eines idealtheoretischen und egalitaristischen Bezugsrahmens geführt wird. Für diese Relevanz werde ich in vier Abschnitten argumentieren. In einem ersten Teil werde ich die Positionen der Ökonomischen Ethik von Karl Homann und der Integrativen Wirtschaftsethik von Peter Ulrich zur Rolle von Anreizen einführen und darlegen, warum ich beide Ansätze für normativ unterbestimmt halte. In einem zweiten Teil werde ich kurz die Argumentation von John Rawls und ausführlicher die Kritik von Gerald Cohen an dieser Position vorstellen. In einem dritten Teil werde ich einige Einwände gegen Cohen formulieren und die Notwendigkeit einer nichtidealen Theorie der Gerechtigkeit betonen. In einem vierten und abschließenden Teil werde ich vorschlagen, einen Teil der Wirtschaftsethik als nichtideale Gerechtigkeitstheorie zu verstehen und aus dieser Perspektive nur kurz andeuten, welche systematische Rolle dem Anreizargument zukommt. (shrink)

There are several powerful motivations for neutral value‐based deontic theories such as Act Consequentialism. Traditionally, such theories have had great difficulty accounting for partiality towards one's personal relationships and projects. This paper presents a neutral value‐based theory that preserves the motivations for Act Consequentialism while vindicating some crucial intuitions about reasons to be partial. There are two central ideas. The first is that when it comes to working out what you ought to do, your friends’ interests, the needs of your (...) family, the significance of your own projects and ideals, etc. have more weight than the interests and needs of strangers. Your friends’ interests are not (thereby) more neutrally valuable than the interests of others. So there is a difference between the value of an outcome and its deontic significance. The second familiar idea is that reasons are modifiable. Reasons of partiality are reasons the weights of which are a function of the value of the relevant outcome modified by facts about the value of caring about the outcome in question. The resulting principle has various further explanatory advantages; in particular, it accounts for project‐ and relationship‐specific permissions and requirements, both at a time and across time. (shrink)

In current meta-ethical debates, many authors believe that there is a close relation between emotions and values. Some think emotions help to constitute moral and non-moral values. Others see emotions as epistemic devices to gain knowledge of values. Both views have roots reaching well back into the history of philosophy, and both can be developed to either support or undermine realistic and anti-realistic theories of value. The article aims to clarify a complicated dialectical situation. In addition, it makes a constructive (...) proposal towards a better understanding of the connection between emotions and values. Though anti-realistic in spirit, this proposal is designed to integrate some important realistic intuitions as well. (shrink)

Nearly everyone agrees that sexual exploitation occurs and that, when it does, it is morally wrong. However, there is substantial disagreement over what constitutes sexual exploitation and why it is wrong. Is sex between freely consenting adults ever exploitative? Is prostitution always exploitative? What features of sexually exploitative interactions lead us to regard them as morally wrong? And if sexual exploitation is morally wrong, what should be done about it?These are not new questions for the social philosopher. However, recent criticisms (...) of social contract theory may lead us to wonder whether contractarianism has the resources to criticize important cases of sexual exploitation—particularly prostitution. Some liberals have defended prostitution “in principle,” arguing that when prostitution is truly consensual, there is nothing wrong with it. This is called “sound prostitution.” Indeed, in cases where the parties to a sexual exchange are both competent adults, liberals and libertarians have a difficult time criticizing it, since to do so runs the risk of imposing a local and historically specific sexual ideal on members of society who explicitly reject it or else suggests that the prostitutes and their clients are not really competent agents. (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)

_ Virtue Ethics_ collects, for the first time, the main classical sources and the central contemporary expressions of virtue ethics approach to normative ethical theory. Edited and introduced by Stephen Darwall, these readings are essential for anyone interested in normative theory. Introduced by Stephen Darwall, this collection brings together classic and contemporary readings which define and advance the literature on virtue ethics. Includes six essays which respond to the classic sources. Includes a contemporary discussion on character and virtue by Gary (...) Watson. Includes classic essays by Aristotle, Francis Hutcheson and David Hume, and recent reactions to this work by philosophers including Philippa Foot, John McDowell, Alasdair MacIntyre, Annette Baier, Rosalind Hursthouse, and Michael Slote. (shrink)

People are often involuntarily laid off from their jobs through no fault of their own. Employees who are dismissed in this manner cannot always legitimately hold employers accountable for these miserable situations because the decision to implement layoffs is often the best possible outcome given the context—that is, layoffs in and of themselves may be “necessary evils.” Yet, even in circumstances in which layoffs qualify as “necessary evils,” morality demands that employers respect the dignity of those whose employment is involuntarily (...) terminated. In this paper I argue that to preserve the dignity of employees who are involuntarily terminated, in most cases employers have a substantial reason to offer a special kind of unemployment benefit, “severance pay.” To support my claim I draw and expand upon Bernard Williams’s analysis of “agent-regret,” which I believe greatly helps to address and articulate employers’ obligations in the context of involuntary termination. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:This article considers the economic case for so-called sweatshop wages and working conditions. My goal is not to defend or reject the economic case for sweatshops. Instead, proceeding from a broadly pluralist understanding of value, I make and defend a number of claims concerning the ethical relevance of economic analysis for values that different agents utilize to evaluate sweatshops. My arguments give special attention to a series of recent articles by Benjamin Powell and Matt Zwolinski, which represent the latest and (...) best defense of the economic case for sweatshops. In the process, I challenge Zwolinski’s “non-worseness claim” (NWC), and the idea that opposition to sweatshop wages and working conditions fails to respect that the autonomy of would-be sweatshop workers. Ultimately, I conclude that even if the economic case for sweatshops rests on a solid empirical foundation, agents possess good reason to advocate for better wages and working conditions for sweatshop workers, and to prefer less exploitative or coercive relationships. Sweatshop labor undermines a compelling vision of free markets, according to both Kantian and republican conceptions of freedom, and the relationships formed by those who participate in such markets. (shrink)