According to an influential and intuitively appealing argument, morality is usually continuous, namely, a gradual change in one morally significant factor triggers a gradual change in another; the law should usually track morality; therefore, the law should often be continuous. This argument is illustrated by cases such as the following example: since the moral difference between a defensive action that is reasonable and one that is just short of being reasonable is small, the law should not impose a severe punishment (...) when the action is almost reasonable and no punishment at all when the action is reasonable. In this Article, I consider two doubts regarding this argument. First, the premise that morality is continuous in such cases is incompatible with the common view that the moral status of actions is not continuous since there is an important difference between actions that are permissible and actions that are wrong— even if this difference is due to a difference that is very small, such as the one between an action whose consequences are the best and an action whose consequences are just slightly less good. This view extends also to the overall moral status of agents given the common assumption that it depends on the moral status of their actions. This is an important challenge that the Continuity Argument should confront. However, I argue that the best account of morality is more scalar than the common view in these respects. Therefore, I conclude that the first premise of the Continuity Argument is correct in this regard, although it is based on a minority view. The second doubt concerns the scope of the second premise: since there are reasons both in favor and against legal continuity, and the applicability and force of these reasons depend not only on various moral propositions but also on contingent non-moral facts, we often lack the evidence to determine the degree to which the law, at a certain place and time, should be continuous, and specifically that it should often be continuous. (shrink)

Anti-war pacifism rejects modern war as a means of attaining peace. This paper outlines two varieties of theoretical anti-war pacifism: conditional pacifism (war is conditionally unjustifiable due to the harm it causes to innocent persons) and contingent pacifism (war is justified if certain criteria are met but contingent facts about modern war mean that few, if any, actual wars meet these criteria). It elucidates the main points of contention at which these positions intersect with other war institution preserving theories, and (...) each other, and defends them as plausible positions that can add significant value to the critical studies and international relations conversations on war. (shrink)

This paper explores early Australasian philosophy in some detail. Two approaches have dominated Western philosophy in Australia: idealism and materialism. Idealism was prevalent between the 1880s and the 1930s, but dissipated thereafter. Idealism in Australia often reflected Kantian themes, but it also reflected the revival of interest in Hegel through the work of ‘absolute idealists’ such as T. H. Green, F. H. Bradley, and Henry Jones. A number of the early New Zealand philosophers were also educated in the idealist tradition (...) and were influential in their communities, but produced relatively little. In Australia, materialism gained prominence through the work of John Anderson, who arrived in Australia in 1927, and continues to be influential. John Anderson had been a student of Henry Jones, who might therefore be said to have influenced both main strands of Australian philosophical thought. (shrink)

In this essay I will argue, as does Bernard Williams, that lying and misleading are both commonly wrong because they involve an aim to breach a trust. I will also argue, contrary to Williams, that lying and misleading threaten trust differently, and that when they are wrong, they are wrong differently. Indeed, lying may be wrong when misleading is not.

Even among those who find lethal defense against non-responsible threats, innocent aggressors, or justified aggressors justified even in one to one cases, there is a debate as to what the best explanation of this permissibility is. The contenders in this debate are the liability account, which holds that the non-responsible or justified human targets of the defensive measures are liable to attack, and the justified infringement account, which claims that the targets retain their right not to be attacked but may (...) be attacked anyway, even in one to one situations. Given that we normally think that rights are trumps, this latter claim is counter-intuitive and rather surprising, and therefore in need of justification and explanation. So far only Jonathan Quong has actually tried to provide an explanation; however, I will argue that his explanation fails and that Quong’s own account of liability is misguided. I then address Helen Frowe’s critique of the liability account. She makes the important concession that the tactical bomber has to compensate his victims, but she tries to block the conclusion that he must therefore be liable. I will demonstrate that her attempt to explain away liability fails once that concession is made. (shrink)

The article reviews recent developments in England in the law of necessity as a defence to crime and calls for its further extension. It argues that the defence of necessity presents the criminal law with difficult questions of competing values and the ordering of harms. English law has taken a nuanced position on the respective roles of the courts and the legislature in the ordering of harms, although the development of the law has been pragmatic rather than coherently theorised. The (...) law has granted necessity some scope as an exculpatory principle in the law of general defences, but it has also respected the primacy of the legislature as the legitimate arbiter of many of the competitions of value that necessity throws up. The recognition of necessity has not been in the form of a single unified defence of that name. Rather it has taken the form of a number of defences, based on a principle of necessity, but with different nomenclature and different rationales. This approach to necessity is defended as right in terms of principle and policy. Any further development of necessity as a general defence should be restricted to two contexts, namely those of emergencies, and of conflicts of duty, where a danger of death or serious injury is present. (shrink)

A polemical account of Australian philosophy up to 2003, emphasising its unique aspects (such as commitment to realism) and the connections between philosophers' views and their lives. Topics include early idealism, the dominance of John Anderson in Sydney, the Orr case, Catholic scholasticism, Melbourne Wittgensteinianism, philosophy of science, the Sydney disturbances of the 1970s, Francofeminism, environmental philosophy, the philosophy of law and Mabo, ethics and Peter Singer. Realist theories especially praised are David Armstrong's on universals, David Stove's on logical probability (...) and the ethical realism of Rai Gaita and Catholic philosophers. In addition to strict philosophy, the book treats non-religious moral traditions to train virtue, such as Freemasonry, civics education and the Greek and Roman classics. (shrink)

Education systems are full of harmful violence of types often unrecognised or misunderstood by educators, education leaders, and bureaucrats. Educational violence harms a great number of innocent persons (those who, morally speaking, may not be justifiably harmed). Accordingly, this paper rejects educational violence used to achieve educational ends. It holds that educational violence is unjustified if the condition that innocent persons are harmed is satisfied, that this condition is satisfied in current educational practice (compulsory schooling), and that, therefore, the current (...) education system (schooling) acts in an unjustifiable manner. If the means of educating cannot be justified, then that education system itself cannot be justified, since an end cannot be justifiably pursued if the means requisite to pursuing it are unjustifiable. I call this stance ‘educational pacifism’. (shrink)

This paper elucidates the rights violations caused by mass formal schooling systems and explores what students may do about them. Students have rights not to be harmed and rights to liberty (not to be oppressed), as well as attendant rights to (proportionately) defend their rights if necessary. For some time now, education has been dominated by mass formal schooling systems that harm and oppress many students. Such harm and oppression violate those students’ rights not to be harmed or oppressed, which (...) may justify student nonviolent defensive (or rights-protecting) action. (shrink)

Pacifism is the view that necessarily, the nonconsensual harming of pro tanto rights-bearers is all-things-considered morally impermissible. Critics of pacifism frequently point to common moral intuitions about self-defenders and other-defenders as evidence that pacifism is false and that self- and other-defense are often morally justified. I call this the Justification View and defend its rival, the Excuse View. According to the latter, a robust view of moral excuse adequately explains the common moral intuitions invoked against pacifism and is compatible with (...) pacifism. The paper proceeds in five steps. First, I identify ten intuitive data points that require explanation. Second, I introduce the justification/excuse distinction. Third, I demonstrate the Excuse View’s equal explanatory power with respect to the intuitive data. Fourth, I defend the Fair Use Principle: When evaluating the plausibility of rival theories J and E, the use of datum d’s full intuitive force against E and for J is epistemically permissible only if (i) d is better explained by J than E and (ii) no intuitive components of d are equally well-explained by E. Finally, I conclude that the conjunction of pacifism and the Excuse View renders the intuitive defense of the Justification View largely moot, and that this is a substantial victory for pacifism. (shrink)

US law continues its historical trend of growing more permissive towards actors who engage in violent action in purported self-defense. We draw on some informal game theory to show why this is strategically irrational and suggest rolling back self-defense doctrines like stand your ground to earlier historical precedents like duty to retreat.

Anti-war pacifism eschews modern war as a means of attaining peace. It holds war to be not only evil and supremely harmful, but also, on balance, morally wrong. But what about force short of war? The aim of this paper is to analyse targeted killing, a specific form of force short of war, from an anti-war pacifist perspective, or, more specifically, from two related but distinct pacifist perspectives: conditional and contingent. Conditional pacifism deems war to be unjustified if the condition (...) that innocent persons are killed in war is satisfied. Since this condition is always fulfilled, conditional pacifism implies the impermissibility of modern war. Contingent pacifism concedes that war would be morally acceptable if its harms were sufficiently outweighed by its benefits, but maintains that no (or very few) wars meet this criterion. The empirical reality of war is such that it cannot be justified, because it harms too many innocents in proportion to the harm it prevents. Pacifists’ treatment of targeted killing short of war should thus concentrate on the harm it does to innocents. Conditional pacifists should focus on whether targeted killing kills innocents, while contingent pacifists should focus on whether the harm it does to innocents is disproportionate to its benefits. (shrink)

A detailed, clear, and comprehensive overview of the current philosophical debate on. The question of when, and under what circumstances, the practice of torture might be justified has received a great deal of attention in the last decade in both academia and in the popular media. Many of these discussions are, however, one-sided with other perspectives either ignored or quickly dismissed with minimal argument. In On the Ethics of Torture, Uwe Steinhoff provides a complete account of the philosophical debate surrounding (...) this highly contentious subject. Steinhoff’s position is that torture is sometimes, under certain narrowly circumscribed conditions, justified, basing his argument on the right to self-defense. His position differs from that of other authors who, using other philosophical justifications, would permit torture under a wider set of conditions. After having given the reader a thorough account of the main arguments for permitting torture under certain circumstances, Steinhoff explains and addresses the many objections that have been raised to employing torture under any circumstances. This is an indispensible work for anyone interested in one of the most controversial subjects of our times. (shrink)

Philosophy and Literature is an internationally renowned refereed journal founded by Denis Dutton at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch. It is now published by the Johns Hopkins University Press. Since its inception in 1976, Philosophy and Literature has been concerned with the relation between literary and philosophical studies, publishing articles on the philosophical interpretation of literature as well as the literary treatment of philosophy. Philosophy and Literature has sometimes been regarded as iconoclastic, in the sense that it repudiates academic pretensions, (...) insidious jargon and institutional vogue. Dutton, who remains the editor, still writes a regular column. A distinctive feature of Philosophy and Literature was the annual Bad Writing Contest, held from 1995–98, which sought to identify (and publish) the ‘most stylistically lamentable passages’ of academic prose, often to great amusement. (shrink)

The paper suggests that there are two different ways in which a legal system restricts an individual’s rights. It can either grant a power that revokes the legal protection of the right or it can acknowledge the infringement of a legal right and yet justify such an infringement by means of a criminal law justification. The distinction proposed by the paper has both expressive and practical implications and is useful in solving dilemmas arising in emergencies when constitutional constraints make it (...) impossible to grant the power to revoke legal protection of a basic right. In some of these situations a criminal law justification might support infringement of such a right. This claim is demonstrated by analyzing the ruling of the German Constitutional Court concerning the shooting down of a hijacked airplane in circumstances similar to those of September 11. (shrink)

Justificatory defenses apply to actions that are generally wrong and illegal—mainly since they harm people—when they are justified—usually since they prevent harm to others. A strict conception of justification limits justificatory defenses to actions that reflect all pertinent principles in the optimal manner. A more relaxed conception of justification applies to actions that do not reflect all pertinent principles optimally due to mistake but are not too far from this optimum. In the paper, I consider whether justificatory defenses should reflect (...) the strict conception of justification or a more relaxed conception of justification. This question is important since often the relevant actions are not strictly justified, while the alternative of an excuse is frequently irrelevant or does not provide an appropriate solution. Reflection on this question raises the following dilemma: On the one hand, the strict interpretation seems too harsh, especially with regard to legal liability. On the other hand, it is difficult to explain the basis for a more relaxed conception of justification. I conclude, first, that justification—and accordingly wrongfulness—is a matter of degree and that the strictly justified action is merely the peak of a continuum, and, second, that a practical reaction is in place only with regard to actions whose wrongness is above a minimal threshold. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung. In der Auseinandersetzung um die Frage, ob aktive Sterbehilfe mit dem ärztlichen Ethos vereinbar ist, werden häufig deskriptive Unterscheidungen wie Tun vs. Unterlassen, aktiv vs. passiv oder auch intendieren vs. in Kauf nehmen benutzt, um eine kategorische moralische Differenz zwischen Töten und Sterbenlassen auszuweisen. Als zusätzliche Schwierigkeit erweist sich dabei zum einen, daß zentrale Begriffe zwischen einer deskriptiven und einer ethischen Bedeutung changieren, und zum anderen, daß die Kennzeichnung des Problems (z.B. Sterbehilfe) selbst ethisch nicht neutral ist. Nach der (...) Entwicklung einer ethisch neutralen Problemstellung werden kategorische Argumente gegen die ethische Zulässigkeit aktiver Sterbehilfe diskutiert und verworfen. Anschließend werden Begründungen diskutiert, die mittels intrinsischer oder extrinsischer Situationsmerkmale eine ethische Unzulässigkeit aktiver Sterbehilfe aufzuweisen versuchen. Dabei zeigt sich, daß graduelle ethische Unterschiede zwischen passiver, indirekt und direkt aktiver Sterbehilfe begründbar sind, die ein jeweils höheres Maß an Rechtfertigungsgründen erfordern. (shrink)

In war a soldier behaving properly should take into account a universal requirement not to kill, to be applied strictly in dealing with civilians, but at the same time to support the exception of taking the life of enemy combatants as an act of selfdefense. This is the usual way to distinguish morally the proper treatment to soldiers and civilians. In this article the author criticizes it and outlines a different way to understand and justify the moral distinction mentioned.

Peace plays a central role in the ethics of war and peace, but this proves to be an enormous challenge. In a recent article, Elisabeth Forster and Isaac Taylor grapple with this important topic. They argue that certain concepts in just war theory—aggression, legitimacy, and peace—are essentially contested and susceptible to manipulation. Because the rules are interpreted and applied by the very states that wage war, it is as if the fox is asked to guard the chicken coop—a recipe for (...) disaster. To avoid manipulation of the theory and make the goal of peace attainable, they defend “minimalism” in the ethics of war and peace. This paper responds to and builds on their article. After nuancing the analysis, I will argue that their minimalism does not solve the problem since the proposed alternative concept is equally prone to misuse, and that their minimalism is mistargeted. What I propose is to specify and ground the rules of war without raising the standard too high, to disentangle jus ad bellum and jus post bellum and see peace as guiding principle for jus post bellum, and to interpret that in a minimalist way. (shrink)

Can the global poor wage a just redistributive war against the global rich? The moral norms governing the use of force are usually considered to be very strict. Nonetheless, some philosophers have recently argued that violating duties of global justicecanbe a just cause for war. This paper discusses redistributive wars. It shows that the strength of these arguments is contingent on the underlying account of global distributive justice. The paper focuses on the “doing harm argument,” under the assumption that the (...) alternative “allowing harm argument” is a more difficult route to justify redistributive wars. After highlighting several preliminary problems, the paper breaks down and assesses in depth the “doing harm argument”: the empirical premise, the rights violation that constitutes the wrong, liability and degrees of responsibility, and the conditions for justified self-defense. By drawing on principles reflected in criminal law, this paper argues that a general “doing harm argument” for redistributive wars is unconvincing, while a reinterpretation of that argument could theoretically give rise to a just cause for war. (shrink)