Changes in attitudes towards how animals are housed in agriculture are currently under question in the public eye—particularly for laying hens. Many arguments from the rights and utilitarian viewpoints have been made for changing environmental conditions and managerial practices for animals in an effort to respect the interests of the animal and better their welfare. Yet, these arguments have been based upon belief systems that were developed from information that can be collected by human perception only. Technological advancements can facilitate (...) animal welfare assessment by providing humans with new information about what the animal perceives. Yet, little has been discussed surrounding the thought process behind which technologies are conceived, how they are developed, and why they are implemented. Here, using the laying hen as a model, we turn to the philosophy of technology to address what role technological advancements may have in our capacity to understand animals, how technology can affect their welfare, and what role technology may play in furthering animal welfare assessment. (shrink)

About the extent of moral agency in the animal kingdom, one view is that only humans are moral agents. Holding a different view, I argue that moral agency depends on the capacity for other-regard and the capacity to be attuned to significance—such that things matter to one. I derive a criterion where a creature is a moral agent if she performs an action that promotes others’ significant interests and brings great costs to herself where she is aware of these significant (...) interests and imposed costs. Failure to confirm that she has this awareness is a weakness of examples of moral agency in animals that writers provide, since she may be unaware of the significance of what she is doing. Since species of non-ape Primates and aquatic mammals satisfy the evidential criterion, moral agency is likely prevalent throughout much of Mammalia. I consider possible objections from Kant, Singer, and Korsgaard. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore and discuss the use of the concept of being affected in biomedical decision making processes in Germany. The corresponding German term ‘Betroffenheit’ characterizes on the one hand a relation between a state of affairs and a person and on the other an emotional reaction that involves feelings like concern and empathy with the suffering of others. An example for the increasing relevance of being affected is the postulation of the participation of people with disabilities and (...) chronic or acute diseases in the discourse, as partly realized in the German National Ethics Council or the Federal Joint Committee. Nevertheless, not only on the political level, the resistance against the participation of affected people is still strong; the academic debate seems to be cross-grained, too. Against this background, we explore the meaning and argumentative role of the concept of being affected as it is used by affected and lay people themselves. Our analysis is based on four focus group discussions in which lay people, patients and relatives of patients discuss their attitudes towards biomedical interventions such as organ transplantation and genetic testing. This setting allows for a comparison of how affected and non-affected people are concerned and deliberate about medical opportunities, but also of how they position themselves as being affected or non-affected with respect to (scientific) knowledge and morality. On this basis, we discuss the normative relevance of being affected for the justification of political participation. (shrink)

The main claim of this paper is that the method outlined and used in Aristotle’s Ethics is an appropriate and credible one to use in bioethics. Here “appropriate” means that the method is capable of establishing claims and developing concepts in bioethics and “credible” that the method has some plausibility, it is not open to obvious and immediate objection. It begins by suggesting why this claim matters and then gives a brief outline of Aristotle’s method. The main argument is made (...) in three stages. First, it is argued that Aristotelian method is credible because it compares favourably with alternatives. In this section it is shown that Aristotelian method is not vulnerable to criticisms that are made both of methods that give a primary place to moral theory (such as utilitarianism) and those that eschew moral theory (such as casuistry and social science approaches). As such, it compares favourably with these other approaches that are vulnerable to at least some of these criticisms. Second, the appropriateness of Aristotelian method is indicated through outlining how it would deal with a particular case. Finally, it is argued that the success of Aristotle’s philosophy is suggestive of both the credibility and appropriateness of his method. (shrink)

Purpose: To survey the attitudes of the general public in Sweden to biobank research and to discuss the findings in the light of some well-known ethical principles.Methods: A questionnaire was used to survey the opinions of the general public in Sweden, and an ethical analysis (using the principles of autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence and justice) was performed to discuss the possible conditions of such research.Findings: Between 3 and 9% answered that they did not want their samples to be collected and stored (...) in a biobank. Many respondents required information about the purpose of the research and wanted to be able to consent or refuse. About one third of the respondents said they would have answered differently if financial gain was involved and those who commented indicated a more negative attitude. The principle of autonomy maintains that the right to self-determination should be respected, and the principles of non-maleficence and beneficence that the probable harms and benefits resulting from a particular project by using samples from a biobank should be balanced. The general public disagree about how these principles are to be balanced. Interpretation: In the light of the findings different interpretations of the situation as well as possible alternatives are discussed in this paper. (shrink)

Health policy frameworks usually construe environmental protection and human health as harmonious values. Policies that protect the environment, such as pollution control and pesticide regulation, also benefit human health. In recent years, however, it has become apparent that promoting human health sometimes undermines environmental protection. Some actions, policies, or technologies that reduce human morbidity, mortality, and disease can have detrimental effects on the environment. Since human health and environmental protection are sometimes at odds, political leaders, citizens, and government officials need (...) a way to mediate and resolve conflicts between these values. Unfortunately, few approaches to applied bioethics have the conceptual tools to do accomplish this task. Theories of health care ethics have little to say about the environment, and theories of environmental ethics don’t say much about human health. In this essay, I defend an approach to ethical decision-making that gives policy-makers some tools for balancing promotion of human health and protection of the environment. (shrink)

The animal rights movement is a serious challenge to current agricultural practices. Agriculture's response, in part, depends on how successfully it can mobilize its natural constituency, farmers. However, theories of the mainstream press suggest that the mainstream press generally covers events, rarely reports or adopts the perspective of alternative movements, rarely includes mobilizing information, and suggests that routine social structures can, should, and will contain the movement. Hence, current theory indicates that the mainstream press does not act to mobilize the (...) general public. However, very little research has examined how specialized presses, such as the farm press, respond to movements. The study reported here was based on an analysis of 406 articles from ten farm magazines. The findings suggest that the farm press acted more as an advocacy press than does the mainstream press. Collectively, the farm press articles included as many positions pieces and stories explaining animal rights as an issue as they did event stories. The articles reported, and countered, the positions of the animal rights movement; suggested that routine social structures might not contain the animal rights movement; called for agriculture to mobilize; and included specific recommendations concerning how agriculture should mobilize. (shrink)

In contemporary times, wildlife managers attempt to provide solutions to problems arising from conflicting uses of the environment by humans and nonhuman animals. Within the Kangaroo Management Zones of New South Wales , the commercial culling "solution" is one such attempt to perpetuate kangaroo populations on pastoral land while supporting farmers in continuing inefficient sheep farming. Because wildlife management rests on a distinction between the "nature" of humans and animals, then humanist attention to standards of individual welfare need not interrupt (...) the process whereby individual animals are killed within an economic framework designed to improve habitat management for the conservation of their populations. Building on Thorne's discussion of the meanings scripted onto individual kangaroo bodies, this paper explores the utilitarian underpinnings of the commercialization approach and considers the ethical implications of constructing the population as resource, even if this results in an improvement in the welfare of individual kangaroos. (shrink)

Efforts to conserve endangered species of animal are, in some important respects, at odds with Buddhist ethics. On the one hand, being abstract entities, species cannot suffer, and so cannot be proper objects of compassion or similar moral virtues. On the other, Buddhist commitments to equanimity tend to militate against the idea that the individual members of endangered species have greater value than those of less-threatened ones. This paper suggests that the contribution of Buddhism to the issue of species conservation (...) should not, however, be discounted. It argues, on the contrary, that Buddhist traditions, in reminding us of the moral significance of the suffering of individual animals, add an important dimension to debates concerning the ethical justification of efforts to conserve endangered species. (shrink)

The risk posed by anthropogenic climate change is generally accepted, and the challenge we face to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to a tolerable limit cannot be underestimated. Reducing GHG emissions can be achieved either by producing less GHG to begin with or by emitting less GHG into the atmosphere. One carbon mitigation technology with large potential for capturing carbon dioxide at the point source of emissions is carbon capture and storage (CCS). However, the merits of CCS have been questioned, (...) both on practical and ethical grounds. While the practical concerns have already received substantial attention, the ethical concerns still demand further consideration. This article aims to respond to this deficit by reviewing the critical ethical challenges raised by CCS as a possible tool in a climate mitigation strategy and argues that the urgency stemming from climate change underpins many of the concerns raised by CCS. (shrink)

This essay responds to the machine question in the affirmative, arguing that artifacts, like robots, AI, and other autonomous systems, can no longer be legitimately excluded from moral consideration. The demonstration of this thesis proceeds in four parts or movements. The first and second parts approach the subject by investigating the two constitutive components of the ethical relationship—moral agency and patiency. In the process, they each demonstrate failure. This occurs not because the machine is somehow unable to achieve what is (...) considered necessary and sufficient to be a moral agent or patient but because the characterization of agency and patiency already fail to accommodate others. The third and fourth parts respond to this problem by considering two recent alternatives—the all-encompassing ontocentric approach of Luciano Floridi’s information ethics and Emmanuel Levinas’s eccentric ethics of otherness. Both alternatives, despite considerable promise to reconfigure the scope of moral thinking by addressing previously excluded others, like the machine, also fail but for other reasons. Consequently, the essay concludes not by accommodating the alterity of the machine to the requirements of moral philosophy but by questioning the systemic limitations of moral reasoning, requiring not just an extension of rights to machines, but a thorough examination of the way moral standing has been configured in the first place. (shrink)

This article analyzes the claim that “deliberate denial [of genocide] is a form of aggression that ought to be regarded as a contribution to genocidal violence in its own right.” Its objective is to demonstrate that the claim is substantially correct: there are instances of genocide negation that are genocidal acts. The article suggests that one such instance is contained in a letter sent to Professor Robert Jay Lifton by Turkey's ambassador to the United States. The article is divided into (...) three parts. In the first part, it delineates and discusses the unexpected contents of the letter to Lifton. In the second, it primarily deals with three topics: lying, genocide, and Austinian performatives. In the third part, it takes the points made in the second part and applies them to the contents of the letter to Lifton, and demonstrates that the letter is an instance of genocide negation that is genocidal. (shrink)

Presents the author's evolving views of the best current positions on certain core philosophical and psychological problems as they developed over time. These positions together suggest a skeptical or nihilist perspective modified by evolutionary psychology and contemporary philosophy that embraces our desire to live as best we can and the relative and psychological reality of values, free will and other phenomena while recognizing limitations on their foundations and our understanding. The below makes no claims to originality for most of the (...) ideas expressed, drawing on a range of mostly unreferenced texts that will be familiar to philosophers and psychologists working in this area. (shrink)

Should environmental, social, and economic sustainability be of primary concern to engineers? Should social justice be among these concerns? Although the deterioration of our natural environment and the increase in social injustices are among today’s most pressing and important issues, engineering codes of ethics and their paramountcy clause, which contains those values most important to engineering and to what it means to be an engineer, do not yet put either concept on a par with the safety, health, and welfare of (...) the public. This paper addresses a recent proposal by Michelfelder and Jones (2011) to include sustainability in the paramountcy clause as a way of rectifying the current disregard for social justice issues in the engineering codes. That proposal builds on a certain notion of sustainability that includes social justice as one of its dimensions and claims that social justice is a necessary condition for sustainability, not vice versa. The relationship between these concepts is discussed, and the original proposal is rejected. Drawing on insights developed throughout the paper, some suggestions are made as to how one should address the different requirements that theory and practice demand of the value taxonomy of professional codes of ethics. (shrink)

Global poverty is a huge problem in today's world. This survey article seeks to be a first guide to those who are interested in, but relatively unfamiliar with, the main issues, positions and arguments in the contemporary philosophical discussion of global poverty. The article attempts to give an overview of four distinct and influential normative positions on global poverty. Moreover, it seeks to clarify, and put into perspective, some of the key concepts and issues that take center stage in the (...) philosophical discussion of global poverty. The four positions to be discussed are labeled the Maximalist Position, the Minimalist Position, Intermediate Position I and Intermediate Position II. After an account of these four distinct positions, we turn, in the conclusion, to a discussion of what role empirical sciences such as economics and political science should play in normative considerations about global poverty. (shrink)

In their recent paper, Kurt Gray and Daniel Wegner offer a model of moral cognition, the “Moral Typecasting” thesis, in which they claim that perceptions of moral agency are inversely related to perceptions of moral patiency. Once we see someone as a moral agent, they claim, we cannot see them as a moral patient (and vice versa). In this paper, I want both to challenge the conception of morality on which the typecasting thesis is fundamentally based and to raise some (...) concerns with the data offered in favor of moral typecasting. I first argue that the dyadic definition of morality is far too narrow to fully capture either all of morality or all of moral psychology. Further, even setting aside the problems with the dyadic notion of morality, I argue that the experimental data Gray and Wegner appeal to fail to demonstrate the sort of mutual exclusivity of and causal interaction between moral perceptions that the moral typecasting thesis proposes. Rather, I suggest, the perceptual differences that do show up in the cited studies arguably arise not from a psychological tendency towards moral typecasting, but from confounding features of the characters in the stimuli. (shrink)

This article calls for a paradigm shift in the language, theory and practice of human rights: it calls for human rights to be reconceptualized as sentient rights. It argues that human rights are not qualitatively distinct from the basic entitlements of other sentient creatures, and that attempts to differentiate human rights by appealing to something distinctive about humanity, their unique political function or their universality ultimately fail. Finally, the article claims that moving to sentient rights will not lead to intractable (...) conflicts between rights, but to a more inclusive, fair and rationally defensible normative enterprise. (shrink)

Abstract Scholars find that political elites are badly polarized over a large range of policy issues, but they tend to agree that the mass public is much more ambivalent. The abortion war in particular is regarded as one in which millions of ambivalent citizens are caught in the crossfire of polarized activists. Yet even abortion activists struggle to escape the very ambivalent sentiments that plague ordinary Americans. These common sentiments even exert a moderating influence on both movements in ways that (...) are consistent with the preferences of the American public. They also suggest that liberalism may be mired in permanent conflict and ambivalence over the scope of basic human rights. (shrink)

Learning to address moral dilemmas is important for participants on courses in business ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR). While modern, rule-based ethical theory often provides the normative input here, this has faced criticism in its application. In response, post-modern and Aristotelian perspectives have found favour. This paper follows a similar line, presenting an approach based initially on a critical interpretation of Ross's theory of prima facie duties, which emphasises moral judgement in actual situations. However, the retention of a modern (...) element is suggested, with an invitation to hypothetically universalise detailed proposals for action, following Hare. This further step may reassure students/managers who seek additional closure in their decision-making. Some pedagogical implications are also briefly raised regarding the use of case material and the need to recognise questions of social interaction and personal character as features of dilemma resolution in actual organisational contexts. (shrink)

This paper defends a coherentist approach to moral epistemology. In “The Immorality of Eating Meat”, I offer a coherentist consistency argument to show that our own beliefs rationally commit us to the immorality of eating meat. Elsewhere, I use our own beliefs as premises to argue that we have positive duties to assist the poor and to argue that biomedical animal experimentation is wrong. The present paper explores whether this consistency-based coherentist approach of grounding particular moral judgments on beliefs we (...) already hold, with no appeal to moral theory, is a legitimate way of doing practical ethics. I argue that grounding particular moral judgments on our core moral convictions and other core nonmoral beliefs is a legitimate way to justify moral judgments, that these moral judgments possess as much epistemic justification and have as much claim to objectivity as moral judgments grounded on particular ethical theories, and that this internalistic coherentist method of grounding moral judgments is more likely to result in behavioral guidance than traditional theory-based approaches to practical ethics. By way of illustrating the approach, I briefly recapitulate my consistency-based argument for ethical vegetarianism. I then defend the coherentist approach implicit in the argument against a number of potentially fatal metatheoretical attacks. (shrink)

As a member of the British Oxford Group, psychologist Richard Ryder marked the beginning of the modern animal rights and animal welfare movement in the seventies. By introducing the concept “speciesism.” Ryder contributed importantly to the expansion of this movement. Surprisingly little attention has been paid to Ryder’s moral theory, “painism”, that aims to resolve the conflict between the two predominant rival theories in animal ethics, the deontological of Tom Regan and the utilitarian of Peter Singer. First, this paper examines (...) the kernel and historical sources of Ryder’s painist theory, linking it to the work of John Rawls and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Second, it examines Ryder’s critique of utilitarianism. It is argued that his critique of Singer’s use of the word “sentience” is unconvincing and that his critique of utilitarian aggregation as not taking a full account of the metaphysical separateness of persons, has already been countered and dealt with. Finally this paper looks at some of the counterintuitive implications of Ryder’s theory and argues that utilitarianism might have more resources for dealing with its own alleged counterintuitive implications than Ryder acknowledges. (shrink)

This essay sketches out what a utilitarian should support when considering global warming along with what measures can be recommended to political leaders for utilitarian reasons. If we estimate the utility of the great advantages that any ambitious climate policy might create in the name of poverty reduction in the present, I will show how a decision can be made in favor of a vigorous climate policy based on such estimates. My argument is independent of the truth of the claims (...) of climate sceptics. Until now, the debate has neglected the double effects of a vigorous climate policy that not only avoids risks of damages but also creates utility. In conclusion, three strategies of a climate policy legitimized by utilitarianism will be introduced: (1) Utilitarianism favors global emissions trading in comparison with a global CO2 tax. (2) Utilitarianism calls for this trade to be introduced while, at the same time, investments in renewable energies should be increased. (3) Furthermore, utilitarianism favors a policy that aims to slow down the rate of population growth. (shrink)

“Ethics” is used as a label for a new kind of expertise in the field of science and technology. At the same time, it is not clear what ethical expertise consists in and what its political status in modern democracies can be. Starting from the “participatory turn” in recent social research and policy, we will argue that bioethical reasoning has to include public views of and attitudes towards biomedicine. We will sketch the outlines of a bioethical conception of “public understanding (...) of ethics,” addressing three different issues: (a) the methodological relevance of moral questions and problems raised by lay persons in everyday life regarding biomedicine and technology, (b) the normative relevance of such lay moralities for the justification of ethical decisions, and (c) the necessity of public deliberation in this context. Finally, we draw conclusions in view of the concepts and methods such a conception of “public understanding of ethics” should employ. (shrink)

To determine whether fish welfare matters morally, we need to know what characteristics or capacities beings need to have in order to be morally considerable, and whether fish have such characteristics. In this paper I discuss a group of theories, Kantian practical reasoning theories, in which agency (or practical rationality) is traditionally thought to be a necessary condition for moral considerability. An individual must have quite sophisticated capacities to be a (moral) agent in such theories: she must be able to (...) act on rational principles. It seems unlikely that nonhuman animals such as fish have such capacities. I argue, however, that on the basis of certain Kantian arguments, moral agents have reason to accept duties to nonrational animals if they are agents in a much less demanding sense: if they are motivated to pursue the objects of their desires. If fish have this capacity, their welfare matters morally. (shrink)

In the case of an intellectually disabled patient, the attending physician was restricted from writing a Do-Not-Resuscitate (DNR) order. Although the rationale for this restriction was to protect the patient from an inappropriate quality of life judgment, it resulted in a worse death than the patient would have experienced had he not been disabled. Such restrictions that are intended to protect intellectually disabled patients may violate their right to equal treatment and to a dignified death.

The article tries to inquire a third way in normative ethics between consequentialism or utilitarianism and deontology or Kantianism. To find such a third way in normative ethics, one has to analyze the elements of these classical theories and to look if they are justified. In this article it is argued that an adequate normative ethics has to contain the following five elements: (1) normative individualism, i. e., the view that in the last instance moral norms and values can only (...) be justified by reference to the individuals concerned, as its basis; (2) consideration of the individuals’ concerns and interests—aims, desires, needs, strivings—insofar as they have a justificatory function; (3) a pluralism of references of these concerns and hence of moral norms and values to all possible elements of actions; (4) the necessity of a principle of aggregation and weighing with regard to these concerns; (5) finally, as a central principle of aggregation and weighing, the principle of relative reference to self and others, operating as a generalizing meta-principle that guides the application of concrete principles and decisions. (shrink)

The dualistic structures permeating western culture emphasize radical discontinuity between humans and nonhumans, but receptive attention to nonhuman others discloses both continuity and difference prevailing between other forms of life and our own. Recognizing that agency and subjectivity abound within nature alerts us to our potential for dominating and oppressing nonhuman others, as individuals and as groups. Reciprocally, seeing ourselves as biological beings may facilitate reconstructing our social reality to undo such destructive relationships.

Recently, the ‘right to die’ became a major social issue. Few agree suicide is a right tout court. Even those who believe suicide (‘regular’, passive, or physician-assisted) is sometimes morally permissible usually require that a suicide be ‘rational suicide’: instrumentally rational, autonomous, due to stable goals, not due to mental illness, etc. We argue that there are some perfectly ‘rational suicides’ that are, nevertheless, bad mistakes. The concentration on the rationality of the suicide instead of on whether it is a (...) mistake may lead to permitting suicides that should be forbidden. (shrink)

Debunking arguments are an important species of undermining argument, in which facts about the origins of a judgement are used to explain away that judgement. There is a long history of debunking arguments in the domains of moral judgement and religious belief, from the early Christian fathers to Sigmund Freud and beyond. Debunking arguments work by offering a truth-mooting genealogy of the judgement in question, where the truth of the judgement doesn’t play a role in generating the judgement, nor does (...) the genealogy probabilify the judgement. Since debunking arguments work against judgements, we can only use them in the domains of morality and religion if we assume cognitivism for those domains. There may be, however, analogous dialectic moves if we instead assume non-cognitivism. (shrink)

The issues of human cloning and stem cell retrieval are inseparable in circumstances in which the rationale of self-preservation may be invoked as a negative right. I apply this rationale to a hypothetical case in which cloning is necessary to preserve the bodily integrity or life of an individual. Self-preservation as moral integrity is examined in a narrower context, i.e., as applicable to those for whom deliberate termination of embryonic life is morally-problematic. This issue is addressed through comparison with two (...) paradigms commonly used in support of clinical practice: the distinction between letting die and killing, and the permissibility of vital organ retrieval after death. Although these paradigms are questionable in their own right, they offer a rationale by which scientists and clinicians may respect the negative right to moral integrity of those with whom they disagree. (shrink)

The debate over surgical abortion is certainly one of the most divisive in ethical discourse and for many it seems interminable. However, this paper argues that a primary reason for this is confusion with regard to what issues are actually under dispute. When looking at an entrenched and articulate figure on one side of the debate, Peter Singer, and comparing his views with those of his opponents, one finds that the disputed issue is actually quite a narrow one: the moral (...) status of potential persons. Finding this common ground clears the conceptual space for a fruitful argument: the thesis of which is that most, including Singer, who argue that potential persons do not have full personal moral status fail to make the necessary distinction between natural potential (which confers moral status) and practical potential (which admittedly does not). (shrink)

An executive ought to be as informed as possible about the needs and preferences of her constituency and about the most important policy issues that her constituency confronts. This ethical duty, referred to as the informed governance principle, requires that an executive who is not opposed to the death penalty personally carry out at least one execution of a death row inmate. Having an executive act as executioner, even if just once, could also help citizens reflect upon their personal ethical (...) commitments, spur them to monitor the government’s power, and prompt them to contemplate how best to distribute power so that the chance of injustice is minimized. (shrink)

On 25 April 2002, the German Parliament has passed a strict new law referring to stem cell research. This law took effect on July 1, 2002. The so-called embryonic Stem Cell Act ( Stammzellgesetz — StZG ) permits the import of embryonic stem (ES) cells isolated from surplus IvF-embryos for research reasons. The production itself of ES cells from human blastocysts has been prohibited by the German Embryo Protection Act of 1990, with the exception of the use of ES cells (...) which exist already. The debate on the legitimate use of ES cells escalated, after the main German research funding agency, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), unexpectedly published new guidelines recommending are stricted use of human ES cells for research. Meanwhile, the debate has ethically dividedsociety, political parties, government and church members into a group supporting and a group rejecting ES cell research. The arguments in favour of such a research can be summarized as arguments derived from a new ethics ofhealing calling for a therapeutic imperative, whereas the arguments against can be summarized as arguments violating the fundamental principle of human dignity as they imply the destruction of human embryos. This article willtry to present and evaluate various ethical arguments founded on the latest biological and medical data on the potential use of stem cell technologies. It will finally come to the conclusion that ES cell research is opposed to human dignity, since the procedures of isolating ES cells require the destruction and instrumentalization of human embryos. Human embryos are human beings at a very early stage of their development, fully possessing the ability of completing their development. At this very early stage, human embryos are extremely dependent and fragile, and thus vulnerable corporealities. Vulnerability and human dignity demand the protection of the embryo's corporeal integrity. Hence, this essay will try to propagate research with adult stem(AS) cells, a procedure which does not require the destruction of human embryos; with regard to the necessary plasticity, it should be emphasized that AS cells very much resemble ES cells. (shrink)

The debate over the nature of egalitarianism has come to dominate political philosophy. As ever more sophisticated attempts are made to describe the principles of an egalitarian distribution or to specify the good or goods that should be distributed equally, little is said about the fundamental basis of equality. In virtue of what should people be regarded as equal? Egalitarians have tended to dismiss this question of fundamental equality. In the first part of the paper I will examine some of (...) these strategies of marginalisation and assess whether the issue of fundamental equality matters. Jeremy Waldron has criticised this strategy of avoidance in his recent book God, Locke and equality. He argues that Locke’s turn to a theistic grounding for fundamental equality provides a better approach to the problem than the approach taken by contemporary liberals such as John Rawls. I will examine Waldron’s critique of Rawls and show that it is wanting. I will conclude by suggesting that Rawls’s approach to the issue has a bearing on the way in which equality should be understood as a political value. This argument for the primacy of a political conception of egalitarianism has a bearing on the interconnection between core liberal values and the idea of the state that has been emphasised by Rawls, Dworkin and Nagel. (shrink)

Jeff McMahan appeals to what he calls the “Time-relative Interest Account of the Wrongness of Killing ” to explain the wrongness of killing individuals who are conscious but not autonomous. On this account, the wrongness of such killing depends on the victim’s interest in his or her future, and this interest, in turn, depends on two things: the goods that would have accrued to the victim in the future; and the strength of the prudential relations obtaining between the victim at (...) the time of the killing and at the times these goods would have accrued to him or her. More precisely, when assessing this interest, future goods should be discounted to reflect reductions in the strength of such relations. Against McMahan’s account I argue that it relies on an implausible “actualist” view of the moral importance of interests according to which satisfactions of future interests only have moral significance if they are satisfactions of actual interests. More precisely, I aim to show that the Time-relative Interest Account does not have the implications for the morality of killing that McMahan takes it to have, and implies, implausibly, that certain interest satisfactions which seem to be morally significant are morally insignificant because they are not satisfactions of actual interests. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Peter Singer suggests that some interesting new findings in experimental moral psychology support what he has contended all along—namely that intuitions should play little or no role in adequate justifications of normative ethical positions. Not only this but, according to Singer, these findings point to a central flaw in the method (or epistemological theory) of reflective equilibrium used by many contemporary moral philosophers. In this paper, we try to defend reflective equilibrium from Singer’s attack and, in (...) part, we do this by discussing Singer’s own favoured moral methodology as outlined in his Practical Ethics . Although basing ethics solely on (certain kinds of) intuitions certainly is problematic, we argue, basing it solely on ‘reason’ gives rise to similar problems. The best solution would arguably be one which could strike a balance between the two—but, we suggest, this is precisely what reflective equilibrium is all about. (shrink)

This review presents the principal themes of Robert Spaemann's Persons: The Difference between ‘Someone’ and ‘Something.’ To be a person is not to be identical with one's teleological nature, but rather, to have that nature. Personal consciousness is necessarily temporal consciousness. Persons have a range of distinctively personal acts, such as recognizing and respecting one another, understanding their lives as wholes, making judgments of conscience, promising, and forgiving. All members of the human species, whatever their stage of development or limitations, (...) are persons. The present review also briefly considers certain objections that have been raised against Spaemann's position. (shrink)

A few years ago, I wrote on the need for expansion of the environmental areas of bioethics, and covered some of the topics touched on here. Sadly, although it is possible to find some notable exceptions, bioethics does not provide much of an ethical base for considering human-nature relationships. Here I’m not going to deal with these philosophical issues or others about the nature of ethical decision-making. The rapid worsening of the human predicament means that applied ethical issues with a (...) significant environmental connection (what I call “ecoethics”), must be dealt with without waiting for the more interesting theoretical issues to be resolved. I define ecoethics very broadly to deal with dilemmas over a vast range of scales, and believe they now should penetrate virtually all areas of human activities. Ecoethics must struggle with issues of intra-generational (and interperson/group/nation) equity and the dilemmas of discounting by distance (valuing distant persons/events/costs/benefits less than those closer to the observer in physical or mental distance). Ecoethics also deals with the difficult dilemma of inter-generational equity—of discounting the future. That is especially troublesome when actions today can have significant environmental consequences 50 or more generations from now. Here I would like to highlight the ubiquity of those questions and the importance of seeking answers. (shrink)

Welfarism is the view that morality is centrally concerned with the welfare or well-being of individuals. The division between welfarist and non-welfarist approaches underlies many important disagreements in ethics, but welfarism is neither consistently defined nor well understood. I survey the philosophical work on welfarism, and I offer a suggestion about how the view can be characterized and how it can be embedded in various kinds of moral theory. I also identify welfarism's major rivals, and its major attractions and weaknesses.

Mainstream environmental ethics grew out of an approach to value that was rooted in a particular conception of rationality and rational choice. As weaknesses in this approach have become more evident, environmental philosophers have experimented with both virtue ethics and with pragmatism as alternative starting points for developing a more truly ecological orientation to environmental philosophy. However, it is possible to see both virtue ethics and pragmatism as emerging from older philosophical traditions that are here characterized as “agrarian.” Agrarian philosophy (...) stresses the role of nature, soil and climate in the formation of moral character as well as social and political institutions. As such, reaching back to the agrarian tradition may provide a way to move forward with both virtue oriented themes as well as pragmatist themes in developing ecological ethics. (shrink)

This paper discusses the possible inspirations that might be derived from the viewpoints of Eastern Philosophy in contemporary studies of consciousness. First of all, two notions of consciousness are introduced, one of which can be explained by science. The other however cannot, and as such is also called the ‘Hard Problem’. Secondly, the special features shared by morality and the ‘Hard Problem of Consciousness’ are discussed. Thirdly, I discuss the conventional routes Oriental philosophy takes toward an exploration of the human (...) mind, and consequently point out that Oriental philosophy views consciousness as the fundamental feature of moral beings. One of the reasons that human beings can pursue meaningful life is because of the necessary existence of conscious experience. It is our conscious experience that makes a life of value possible. Therefore, in Oriental philosophy matters of consciousness revolve around aspects of morality and spirituality, and the training of the abilities of consciousness is emphasized over knowledge. Finally, this paper concludes with a comparison of the different approaches Oriental philosophy and current Western academics take in their study of consciousness. Hopefully, one day consciousness can be fully explored from more diverse viewpoints to gain a more comprehensive understanding and so further the happiness of humanity. (shrink)

The fact that humans have a special relationship to each other insofar as they belong in the same species is often taken to be a morally relevant difference between humans and other animals, one which justifies a greater moral status for all humans, regardless of their individual capacities. I give some reasons why this kind of relationship is not an appropriate ground for differential treatment of humans and nonhumans. I then argue that even if relationships do matter morally species membership (...) cannot justify a difference in moral status. This has important implications because it removes one barrier to giving animals greater moral status. (shrink)