This paper considers the hotly debated issue of whether one should grant moral and legal personhood to intelligent robots once they have achieved a certain standard of sophistication based on such criteria as rationality, autonomy, and social relations. The starting point for the analysis is the European Parliament’s resolution on Civil Law Rules on Robotics and its recommendation that robots be granted legal status and electronic personhood. The resolution is discussed against the background of the so-called Robotics Open Letter, which (...) is critical of the Civil Law Rules on Robotics. The paper reviews issues related to the moral and legal status of intelligent robots and the notion of legal personhood, including an analysis of the relation between moral and legal personhood in general and with respect to robots in particular. It examines two analogies, to corporations and animals, that have been proposed to elucidate the moral and legal status of robots. The paper concludes that one should not ascribe moral and legal personhood to currently existing robots, given their technological limitations, but that one should do so once they have achieved a certain level at which they would become comparable to human beings. (shrink)

Contre une interprétation déconstructiviste de la question de l'animalité, on s'attache à montrer, par une présentation précise des objections adressées à P. Singer par G. Francione, que l'éthique animale « classique » comporte en elle-même les ressources d'une pensée critique extrêmement audacieuse.

Philip Pettit has argued that universalizability entails consequentialism. I criticise the argument for relying on a question-begging reading of the impartiality of universalization. A revised form of the argument can be constructed by relying on preference-satisfaction rationality, rather than on impartiality. But this revised argument succumbs to an ambiguity in the notion of a preference (or desire). I compare the revised argument to an earlier argument of Pettit’s for consequentialism that appealed to the theoretical virtue of simplicity, and I raise (...) questions about the force of appeal to notions like simplicity and rationality in moral argument. (shrink)

This paper examines the challenges that climate change raises for animal agriculture and discusses the contributions that may come from a virtue ethics based approach. Two scenarios of the future role of animals in farming are set forth and discussed in terms of their ethical implications. The paper argues that when trying to tackle both climate and animal welfare issues in farming, proposals that call for a reorientation of our ethics and technology must first and foremost consider the values that (...) drive current livestock production. This paper sets forth and discusses the broader societal values implicit in livestock production. We suggest that a virtues approach would improve our thinking and practice regarding animal agriculture, facilitating a move from livestock production to animal husbandry. This change in animal agriculture in a time of climate change would stress virtues such as attentiveness, responsibility, competence, and responsiveness as central elements in any mitigation or adaptation program. (shrink)

The ability of a computer to have a sense of humor, that is, to generate authentically funny jokes, has been taken by some theorists to be a sufficient condition for artificial consciousness. Creativity, the argument goes, is indicative of consciousness and the ability to be funny indicates creativity. While this line fails to offer a legitimate test for artificial consciousness, it does point in a possibly correct direction. There is a relation between consciousness and humor, but it relies on a (...) different sense of “sense of humor,” that is, it requires the getting of jokes, not the generating of jokes. The question, then, becomes how to tell when an artificial system enjoys a joke. We propose a mechanism, the GHoST test, which may be useful for such a task and can begin to establish whether a system possesses artificial consciousness. (shrink)

. Caring at a Distance: partiality, Moral Motivation and the Ethics of Representation - Asylum and the Principle of Proximity. Ethics, Place & Environment: Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 313-317.

Transcendental conceptions of subjectivity, beginning with Descartes and including Kant, Fichte, and Husserl as well as neo-transcendental accounts of the 20th century, try to explicate a subject’s subjectivity as a necessary condition for all theoretical and practical validity claims. According to this conception, only this subject-theoretical presupposition allows for an adequate foundation of terms of authorship of action and self-determination. However, the conceptual self-explication of this position faces some inherent difficulties, which has repeatedly been pointed out even by representatives of (...) this school of thought themselves. Moreover, it seems as if the constitutional achievements of transcendental philosophy are increasingly being detached from philosophy: due to the development of the modern sciences of man, they are step by step conceived as objects of empirical research. This paper looks critically into this thesis of detachment. (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)

NGO-based and rigorously monitored development programmes are bringing about important and positive socio-economic changes in the developing world. However, there are numerous instances of the employment of aggressive and grueling monitoring techniques which objectify the subject of development, the primary stakeholder, claiming development results as the successful achievement of goals of the donor or implementing organization. It is in this context that one can speak of an ethic of monitoring development programmes. The paper argues that such an ethic can be (...) positively based on principles like empowering people through development work without hurting their sense of self-worth, the principle of trust and partnership and, negatively, never striving to objectify any person or people for the achievement of some objective, even if this objective is in itself honourable and desirable. The paper contends that if development is freeing the subject, the central player, to exercise their capability to live their life to the fullest, then development monitoring and development work in general has to enhance freedom, autonomy and openness. (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)

Maclntyre's ?disquieting suggestion? concerning the apparently irretrievably anarchic state of contemporary moral discourse begs the crucial questions in any argument over the notion of ?incoherence? in moral thought and practice. Thus his attempt to establish the canonical authority of Aristotelianism fails. Nonetheless, the attempt to reconstruct a plausible Aristotelianism is of independent interest. Maclntyre introduces the quasi?technical notion of a ?practice? to locate a non?reductive teleology of the virtues. Though certain teleological expressions come naturally in a deepened understanding of the (...) place of the virtues in a human life, they will not, at crucial points, bear the philosophically motivated teleological emphasis that Maclntyre places on them. This emphasis is a mistaken reaction to the inadequacies of expressions like ?intrinsic? and ?for its own sake?, as often used by philosophers who argue against teleological construals of morality. It is also prompted by the mistaken belief that it is required to reveal the connection between morality and a person's good. For a non?reductive construal of that connection we must focus on the meaning of action and of a life. This is in accord with some things Aristotle said. It is not in easy accord with the claim that moral judgments are factual or truth?valued, nor with the claim that such a concern with meaning can be discursively underwritten by showing it to be a requirement of any sound philosophy of action and of personal identity. This does not lead to what Maclntyre calls ?emotivism?, nor to ?non?cognitivism? (shrink)

Using birth stories as our object of inquiry, this article examines the ways in which normative discourses about gender, disability and Down syndrome construct the birth stories of three mothers of children with Down syndrome. Their stories are composed of the mothers’ recollections of the first hours after birth as a time when their infants are separated from them and their postpartum needs are ignored. Together, their stories illustrate socio-cultural tropes that position Down syndrome as a dangerous form of the (...) “other” and mothers who give birth to children with Down syndrome as implicated in transgressing cultural norms. (shrink)

As a new approach to the still unsettled problem of a morally significant difference between active and passive euthanasia, the meanings of the notion of killing are distinguished on the levels of causality, intention, and motivation. This distinction allows a thorough analysis and refutation of arguments for the equality of killing and letting die which are often put forward in the euthanasia debate. Moreover, an investigation into the structure of the physician's action on those three levels yields substantial differences between (...) the two ways of acting. As can be demonstrated, only a teleological notion of the organism is able to grasp the characteristic feature of active euthanasia. On this basis it is argued that an action against the organism as a whole must, on the interpersonal level, be at once directed against the patient as a person himself. (shrink)

The debate on personal persistence has been characterized by a dichotomy which is due to its still Cartesian framwork: On the one side we find proponents of psychological continuity who connect, in Locke’s tradition, the persistence of the person with the constancy of the first-person perspective in retrospection. On the other side, proponents of a biological approach take diachronic identity to consist in the continuity of the organism as the carrier of personal existence from a third-person-perspective. Thus, what accounts for (...) someone’s persistence over time, is the continuity of his mind on the one hand, and the continuity of his body on the other. In contrast to those views, the paper intends to show that bodily existence represents the basis of selfhood across time, both as the continuity of the experiential self and as the continuity of the autopoietic organism. On the one hand, the lived body conveys a continuity of the self from a first-person perspective, namely a pre-reflective feeling of sameness or a felt constancy of subjectivity. Moreover, an analysis of awakening and sleep shows that there is a continuous transition from full wakefulness to periods of deep sleep which may thus not be regarded as a complete interruption of subjective experience. On the other hand, this constancy converges with the continuity of the organismic life process as conceived from a third-person perspective. Thus, the experiential self of bodily subjectivity and the autopoietic self of the living organism should be regarded as two aspects of one and the same life process. Finally, the lived body also exhibits a specific form of memory that results from the continual embodiment of existence: it consists of all the affinities, capacities and experiences, which a person has acquired throughout his life. Thus, it provides a continuity of self that must not be actively produced through remembering, but rather integrates the person’s entire past in his present being and potentiality. (shrink)

Theories of personal identity in the tradition of John Locke and Derek Parfit emphasize the importance of psychological continuity and the abilities to think, to remember and to make rational choices as a basic criterion for personhood. As a consequence, persons with severe dementia are threatened to lose the status of persons. Such concepts, however, are situated within a dualistic framework, in which the body is regarded as a mere vehicle of the person, or a carrier of the brain as (...) the organ of mental faculties. Based on the phenomenology of embodiment, this paper elaborates a different approach to personal identity in dementia. In this perspective, selfhood is primarily constituted by pre-reflective self-awareness and the body memory of an individual, which consists in the embodiment and enactment of familiar habits, practices and preferences. After describing the different types of body memory, the paper develops a phenomenology of dementia as a loss of reflexivity and meta-perspective. This is contrasted with the preservation of individual forms of body memory even in the later stages of the illness. The ethical consequences of an embodied approach to dementia are outlined. A final look is given to narrativistic and constructionist concepts of the self in dementia. (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)

Several European and North American states encourage or even require, via good Samaritan and duty to rescue laws, that persons assist others in distress. This paper offers a utilitarian and contractualist defense of this view as applied to corporations. It is argued that just as we should sometimes frown on bad Samaritans who fail to aid persons in distress, we should also frown on bad corporate Samaritans who neglect to use their considerable multinational power to undertake disaster relief or to (...) confront widespread social ills such as those currently befalling public health (obesity) and the environment (climate change). As such, the corporate duty to assist approach provides a novel justification for sustainable business practices in such cases. The paper concludes by arguing that traditional stakeholder approaches have not articulated this duty of assistance obligation, though a new utilitarian stakeholder theory by Thomas Jones and Will Felps may be coextensive. (shrink)

Recent results from neuroimaging appear to indicate that some patients in a vegetative state have partially intact awareness. These results may demonstrate misdiagnosis and suggest the need not only for alternative forms of treatment, but also for the reconsideration of end-of-life decisions in cases of disorders of consciousness. This article addresses the second consequence. First, I will discuss which aspects of consciousness may be involved in neuroimaging findings. I will then consider various factors relevant to ethical end-of-life decision-making, and analyse (...) whether and to what extent the above consequence applies to these factors. It will be shown that knowledge of the existence of partial awareness in patients with disorders of consciousness only influences end-of-life decision-making if certain background assumptions are made. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to pose significant health, economic, and social challenges. Given that many of these challenges have moral relevance, the present studies investigate whether the COVID-19 pandemic is influencing moral decision-making and whether moralisation of behaviours specific to the crisis predict adherence to government-recommended behaviours. Whilst we find no evidence that utilitarian endorsements have changed during the pandemic at two separate timepoints, individuals have moralised non-compliant behaviours associated with the pandemic such as failing to physically distance themselves from (...) others. Importantly, our findings show that this moralisation predicts sustained individual compliance with government-recommended behaviours. (shrink)

This paper argues that applied ethics can itself be morally problematic. As illustrated by the case of Peter Singer’s criticism of social practice, morally loaded communication by applied ethicists can lead to protests, backlashes, and aggression. By reviewing the psychological literature on self-image, collective identity, and motivated reasoning three categories of morally problematic consequences of ethical criticism by applied ethicists are identified: serious psychological discomfort, moral backfiring, and hostile conflict. The most worrisome is moral backfiring: psychological research suggests that ethical (...) criticism of people’s central moral convictions can reinforce exactly those attitudes. Therefore, applied ethicists unintentionally can contribute to a consolidation of precisely those social circumstances that they condemn to be unethical. Furthermore, I argue that the normative concerns raised in this paper are not dependent on the commitment to one specific paradigm in moral philosophy. Utilitarianism, Aristotelian virtue ethics, and Rawlsian contractarianism all provide sound reasons to take morally problematic consequences of ethical criticism seriously. Only the case of deontological ethics is less clear-cut. Finally, I point out that the issues raised in this paper provide an excellent opportunity for further interdisciplinary collaboration between applied ethics and social sciences. I also propose strategies for communicating ethics effectively. (shrink)

We can distinguish two kinds of moral universalization tests for practical principles. One requires that the universal practice of the principle, i.e., universal conformity to it by all agents in a given world, satisfies some condition. The other requires that conformity to the principle by any possible agent, in any situation and at any time, satisfies some condition. We can call these universal practice and universal applicability tests respectively. The logical distinction between these tests is rarely appreciated, and many philosophers (...) systematically confuse them with each other. In practice, UP tests are more frequently used to defend deontological norms, while UA tests are used to defend consequentialist norms. Both conceptual argument and practical examples of their applications will show that UA tests are decisively superior to UP tests for grounding moral norms, casting greater doubt upon deontological theories which rely upon the latter unless they can reformulate their arguments using some version of a UA test. (shrink)

Given the existence of “marginal human cases”, it is often argued that we must either acknowledge that some human beings have less moral status than some non-human animals, or commit to the idea that moral status is held by humans qua human. In this paper, the moves available on both sides are shown to be unsatisfactory, and an argument for moral status that avoids both of the standard positions is suggested. Ultimately, it is argued that the discussion of moral status (...) is confused when marginal human cases are seen as posing a unique, rather than a general, theoretical problem. (shrink)

Standard liberal theories of justice rest on the assumption that only those beings that hold the capacity for moral personality have moral status and therefore are right-holders. As many pointed out, this has the disturbing implication of excluding a wide range of entities from the scope of justice. Call this the under-inclusiveness objection. This paper provides a response to the under-inclusiveness objection and illustrates its implications for liberal theories of justice. In particular, the paper defends two claims: first, it argues (...) that both the CMP and the potential capacity for moral personality are bases of moral status. This pluralist account of the basis of moral status can broaden the scope of justice and provide a solid philosophical justification for the common-sense intuition that almost all human beings have a moral status that is different and superior to that of nonhuman animals. Second, contra what is commonly suggested, it contends that potential and actual moral persons have different and unequal rights, other things being equal. (shrink)

Our ethical obligations to another being depend at least in part on that being’s capacity for a mental life. Our usual approach to inferring the mental state of another is to reason by analogy: If another being behaves as I do in a circumstance that engenders a certain mental state in me, I conclude that it has engendered the same mental state in him or her. Unfortunately, as philosophers have long noted, this analogy is fallible because behavior and mental states (...) are only contingently related. If the other person is acting, for example, we could draw the wrong conclusion about his or her mental state. In this article I consider another type of analogy that can be drawn between oneself and another to infer the mental state of the other, substituting brain activity for behavior. According to most current views of the mind–body problem, mental states and brain states are non-contingently related, and hence inferences drawn with the new analogy are not susceptible to the alternative interpretations that plague the behavioral analogy. The implications of this approach are explored in two cases for which behavior is particularly unhelpful as a guide to mental status: severely brain–damaged patients who are incapable of intentional communicative behavior, and nonhuman animals whose behavioral repertoires are different from ours and who lack language. (shrink)

The paper identifies in the literature two categories of codes of ethics, inspirational and prescriptive, and introduces new classification categories of allodial and decretal. The first classification is based on the identity of the ethics decision‐maker – the authors or the addressees of codes. The second classification is based on whether operational definitions are applied by the codes. Such concrete definitions may be in the rules themselves, in related documents or be known from shared knowledge. The second classification has importance (...) if national associations of accountants use codes as a means for assurance of specific outcomes of defined ethical behaviours. For the study, a survey of 57 codes of ethics issued by national associations of professional accountants was undertaken to determine the basic features of codes and to analyse their content. The areas of ethical concern in national associations were identified and compared to the IFAC model code for professional accountants. The paper reports that national organisations of accountants have promulgated decretal codes in 96% of cases examined. As these codes contain operational definitions, their outcomes can be scientifically measured and sanctions for breaches fairly and reasonably imposed. (shrink)

Most of the ethical literature on extreme poverty suggests, that some, if not most, of the incomes of the residents of rich countries ought to be donated to the global poor. Yet complying with this ethical demand becomes increasingly more difficult as the changes in lifestyle in the (post)industrial north demand ever more consumption in order to obtain the necessities for survival in such societies. In this article, I will discuss Peter Singer's famous arguments for the ethical duty to donate (...) one's possessions, and elaborate the conception of needs prevalent in both Singer's theory and the theories of many of his critics. My argument is that we have to recognise a category of needs called 'social necessities' that are neither luxuries nor basic needs. This leads to two main conclusions: first, the space for ethical deliberation on whether to donate to life-saving purposes is socially conditioned; and second, ethical strategies of redistribution ought to be accompanied with institutional changes, which also concern the conditions in wealthy countries. (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)

Many familial and cultural traditions rely on animals for their fulfillment - think of Christmas ham, Rosh Hashannah chicken soup, Fourth of July barbeques, and so forth. Though philosophers writing in animal ethics often dismiss interests in certain foods as trivial, these food-based traditions pose a significant moral problem for those who take animals’ lives and interests seriously. One must either turn one’s back on one’s community or on the animals. In this paper, I consider the under-theorized area of intra-cultural (...) critique. My focus is how we should think about and seek to resolve inter-animal conflicts of interest that arise within our own communities and cultural or religious groups. How should a theory that takes animals seriously approach a conflict between animals’ interests and culturally important human interests in the context of one’s own cultural, ethnic, or religious group? How, for example, should we think about the person staring down at a bowl of her grandmother’s chicken soup while recognizing the moral impermissibility of slaughtering chickens for human consumption? In contrast to traditional approaches that fail to take these robust, food-based, interests into account, I offer an ecofeminist approach that highlights the importance of respecting animals’ interests while also undertaking the work of moral repair to address damage done to relationships of love and care in the process. (shrink)

Should doctors have the possibility to save children from incurable suffering and end their lives?. At first glance, the standpoints in the debate around this question seem translucent and well known and the debate intelligible. I contend that this is not the case and I will illustrate this in analysing the debate between Peter Singer and Ulrich Bleidick. Whomever wants to answer the question whether it is acceptable to end the lives of suffering small children will have to do some (...) careful reading and thinking about the different and differing moral arguments in the debate. This demands emotional restraint and intellectual honesty. Trying to understand Singer and his opponents is a challenging way of charting what exactly is at stake in this debate. (shrink)

Ethics, Policy & Environment, Volume 14, Issue 3, Page 361-375, October 2011.

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)

The ethics of care still appeals to many in spite of penetrating criticisms of it which have been presented over the past 15 years or so. This paper tries to offer an explanation for this, and then to critically engage with three versions of an ethics of care. The explanation consists firstly in the close affinities between nursing and care. The three versions identified below are by Gilligan (1982 ), a second by Tronto (1993 ), and a third by Gastmans (...) (2006 ), see also Little (1998 ). Each version is described and then subjected to criticism. It is concluded that where the ethics of care is presented in a distinctive way, it is at its least plausible; where it is stated in more plausible forms, it is not sufficiently distinct from nor superior to at least one other common approach to nursing ethics, namely the much-maligned 'four principles' approach. What is added by this paper to what is already known: as the article tries to explain, in spite of its being subjected to sustained criticism the ethics of care retains its appeal to many scholars. The paper tries to explain why, partly by distinguishing three different versions of an ethics of care. It is also shown that all three versions are beset with problems the least serious of which is distinctiveness from other approaches to moral problems in health care. (shrink)

Department of Philosophy and Center for Health Policy, Research and Ethics, George Mason University, 4400 University Avenue, MS 2D7, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA. Tel.: +1 703 993 1724; Fax: +1 5703 993 1555; Email: leckenwi{at}gmu.edu ' + u + '@' + d + ' '//--> . Abstract Here I consider the migration of health workers and propose a conception of transnational justice that can best address the concerns it raises, including the perpetuation of global health inequities. My focus will be (...) on nurses and direct care workers (DCWs), also called paraprofessionals—the vast majority of whom are women—coming from the global South to the United States. In the first part of the paper I will identify the factors behind this flow of what I will hereafter call ‘care workers’. From there, I will describe a conception of transnational justice that seems especially promising and explore selected policy options. Finally, I will conclude by offering specific prescriptions for action on the part of a wide range of agents, including institutions as well as individuals. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Secular arguments for equal and exclusively human worth generally tend to follow one of two strategies. One, which has recently gained renewed attention because of a novel argument by S. Matthew Liao, aims to directly ground worth in an intrinsic property that all humans have in common, whereas the other concedes that there is no morally relevant intrinsic difference between all humans and all other animals, and instead appeals to the membership of all humans in a special kind. In this (...) article, I argue that both strategies necessitate drawing a line that is both arbitrary and implausibly opens a moral gulf between individuals whose difference from one another in terms of empirical reality is entirely unremarkable, providing reasons to reject them that go beyond the standard objections in the literature. I conclude that, if all humans are to be included in the community of equals, we must lay to rest the idea that we can do so without also including a wide range of non-human animals. (shrink)

According to a common view, sentience is necessary and sufficient for moral status. In other words, whether a being has intrinsic moral relevance is determined by its capacity for conscious experience. The _epistemic objection_ derives from our profound uncertainty about sentience. According to this objection, we cannot use sentience as a _criterion_ to ascribe moral status in practice because we won’t know in the foreseeable future which animals and AI systems are sentient while ethical questions regarding the possession of moral (...) status are urgent. Therefore, we need to formulate an alternative criterion. I argue that the epistemic objection is dissolved once one clearly distinguishes between the question what determines moral status and what criterion should be employed in practice to ascribe moral status. Epistemic concerns are irrelevant to the former question and—I will argue—criteria of moral status have inescapably to be based on sentience, if one concedes that sentience determines moral status. It follows that doubts about our epistemic access to sentience cannot be used to motivate an alternative criterion of moral status. If sentience turns out to be unknowable, then moral status is unknowable. However, I briefly advocate against such strong pessimism. (shrink)

According to an orthodox view, the capacity for conscious experience (sentience) is relevant to the distribution of moral status and value. However, physicalism about consciousness might threaten the normative relevance of sentience. According to the indeterminacy argument, sentience is metaphysically indeterminate while indeterminacy of sentience is incompatible with its normative relevance. According to the introspective argument (by François Kammerer), the unreliability of our conscious introspection undercuts the justification for belief in the normative relevance of consciousness. I defend the normative relevance (...) of sentience against these objections. First, I demonstrate that physicalists only have to concede a limited amount of indeterminacy of sentience. This moderate indeterminacy is in harmony with the role of sentience in determining moral status. Second, I argue that physicalism gives us no reason to expect that introspection is unreliable with respect to the normative relevance of consciousness. (shrink)

Illusionism about consciousness entails that phenomenal consciousness doesn’t exist. The distribution question concerns the distribution of consciousness in the animal kingdom. Skepticism of animal consciousness is the view that few or no kinds of animals possess consciousness. Thus, illusionism seems to imply a skeptical view on the distribution question. However, I argue that illusionism and skepticism of animal consciousness are actually orthogonal to each other. If illusionism is true, then phenomenal consciousness does not ground intrinsic value so that the non-existence (...) of phenomenal consciousness would not have ethical implications. In this case, the adequate reaction is to reformulate the distribution question in terms of the quasi-phenomenal functional features associated with the illusion of phenomenal consciousness which do ground intrinsic value. Hence, either illusionism is false or the distribution question does not concern phenomenal consciousness. In any case, illusionism does not directly tell us anything about the distribution question. However, since illusionism forces us to revise our traditional conception of consciousness, it indirectly affects research on animal consciousness by questioning that consciousness is a unified and an all-or-nothing property. (shrink)

A recent administrative law decision in Victoria, Australia, applied double effect reasoning in a novel way. Double effect reasoning has hitherto been used to legitimate treatments which may shorten life but where the intent of treatment is pain relief. The situation reviewed by the Victorian tribunal went further, supporting actions where a doctor agrees to provide pentobarbitone to a patient at some time in the future if the patient feels at that time that his pain is unbearable and he wants (...) to end his life. The offer to provide the drug was described as a palliative treatment in that it gave reassurance and comfort to the patient. Double effect reasoning was extended in this instance to encompass potentially facilitating a patient’s death. This extension further muddies the murky double effect reasoning waters and creates another challenge to this concept. (shrink)