This paper argues that ‘dirty hands’ (DH) scenarios, where an agent is forced to do wrong in order to do right, are conceptually coherent. The charge of incoherence is a widespread and common criticism made by deontologists and consequentialists alike. They argue that DH theorists erroneously assume the existence of real moral dilemmas and then compound this error by claiming that it is possible to engage in justified moral wrongdoing. However, such critics argue that there are only _prima facie_ moral (...) dilemmas and hence it is not only irrational and obtuse to argue for DH scenarios, but also undermines our search for sound moral judgments in very difficult situations. Given the gravity of these charges, surprisingly little has been written in defence of DH as a coherent and necessary part of our moral vocabulary. If there can be no successful defence of the possibility of DH, then all talk of such scenarios become futile. This paper responds to two influential and what initially appear to be strongly plausible arguments used by critics of DH. I call these the ‘Arguments from Deontic Logic’ and the ‘All-Things-Considered Argument’. I present three responses which seek to raise serious doubts about their efficacy. I then support the possibility of DH by exploring what we can learn about our moral reality from the moral emotion of ‘tragic remorse’. This approach endorses the role of emotions in determining moral knowledge. It also rejects the view that ethical theories ought to dismiss DH experiences as incoherent in favour of questionable theoretical a priori assumptions, which seek a reductionist account of our moral reality. (shrink)

Call the ethos understanding rightness in terms of spiritual purity and piety, and wrongness in terms of corruption and sacrilege, the “fetish ethic.” Jonathan Haidt and his colleagues suggest that this ethos is particularly salient to political conservatives and non-liberal cultures around the globe. In this essay, I point to numerous examples of moral fetishism in mainstream academic ethics. Once we see how deeply “infected” our ethical reasoning is by fetishistic intuitions, we can respond by 1) repudiating the fetishistic impulse, (...) by 2) “sublimating” our fetishism into liberal rationales, or by 3) accepting the fetishism on its own terms. Of these options, I argue that sublimating our fetishism is not advisable, and that embracing our ethical fetishism isn’t as obviously misguided as some suggest. (shrink)

Is it coherent to defend nuclear deterrence from an ethical and just-war point of view, given the likely devastating effects of an actual nuclear exchange? This article holds that the salutary effe...

I offer an argument for why torture, as an act of state-sponsored force to gain information crucial to the well-being of the common good, should be considered as a tactic of war, and therefore scrutinized in terms of just war theory. I argue that, for those committed to the justifiability of the use of force, most of the popular arguments against all acts of torture are unpersuasive because the logic behind them would forbid equally any act of mutilating or killing (...) in battle. I will also argue that looking at torture through the perspective of the just war tradition forces us to place strictures on the practice that make it hard to justify, helps us to see why torture should never be legalized, helps us to clarify when circumstances might justify torture, and suggests what sort of character is required to recognize when those circumstances have occurred. (shrink)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's thinking about ethics and Christianity is a fascinating attempt to combine different, and often conflicting, strands in the Christian intellectual tradition. In this article, I outline his thinking, analyse the advantages and disadvantages in his approach, and relate it to developments in contemporary philosophy. His critique of an excessive stress upon principles and abstraction in opposition to a concern for concrete circumstances is, I argue, best seen as a necessary critique of what I call moralism rather than morality. (...) It is also related to recent philosophical theories of particularism and the debates about ‘emergency ethics’ in current philosophy. On the negative side, Bonhoeffer has a tendency to treat non-Christian ethics as necessarily relativist and at times is excessively influenced by the elements in Christian theological tradition that are hostile to the natural and to non-Christian philosophy. In addition, his invocation of ‘the Divine mandates’ seems to have undesirable implications for some genuine values in liberal democratic theory and practice. (shrink)

The supreme emergency exemption proposed by Michael Walzer has engendered controversy because it permits violations of the jus in bello principle of discrimination when a state is faced with imminent defeat at the hands of a very evil enemy. Traditionalists among just war theorists believe that noncombatants should never be deliberately targeted in war whether or not there is a supreme emergency. Pacifists on the other hand reject war as immoral even in a supreme emergency. Unlike Walzer, neither just war (...) traditionalists nor pacifists make a special case for supreme emergencies. In this paper, I borrow Walzer’s concept to provide support for a different ethics of war that limits war to supreme emergencies. In non-supreme emergency situations, I agree with pacifists in rejecting war even if just war requirements are satisfied. But in supreme emergencies, I agree with just war traditionalists that war can be legitimately fought provided that moral constraints that protect noncombatants are respected. (shrink)

Argues that truth, moral right, political right, and aesthetic value may be understood as arising out of a naturalist account of humanity, if naturalism is rightly conceived.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Knud Ejler Løgstrup were WWII contemporaries: Lutheran theologians and religious figures in their respective German and Danish communities; both active in the anti-Nazi resistance. Being involved in the resistance, Bonhoeffer and Løgstrup were required to rethink what it meant to be ethical, in particular in relation to disclosure and the telling of truth, in a situation of war. In this paper, we consider the grounds on which both Løgstrup and Bonhoeffer acted, their belief in a duty or (...) requirement to resist, in light of the more general problem presented by resistance as action undertaken in a state of exception. We investigate the distinction between the normativity of ordinary or stable time, and action required in a state of exception, using the specific example of truth-telling as a normative demand and its conflict with the exceptional imperative to lie. The example of truth-telling raises important questions about the role of agency and phronetic judgment in a state of exception. In order to determine a foundation for such judgment, we turn to the framework adapted by both Bonhoeffer and Løgstrup to ground their requirement to lie: Luther’s concept of three estates. We consider how their respective concepts of mandates and laws of life/sovereign expressions of life both illuminate and highlight the more general problem of the relation between norm and exceptional action. (shrink)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Knud Ejler Løgstrup were WWII contemporaries: Lutheran theologians and religious figures in their respective German and Danish communities; both active in the anti-Nazi resistance. Being involved in the resistance, Bonhoeffer and Løgstrup were required to rethink what it meant to be ethical, in particular in relation to disclosure and the telling of truth, in a situation of war. In this paper, we consider the grounds on which both Løgstrup and Bonhoeffer acted, their belief in a duty or (...) requirement to resist, in light of the more general problem presented by resistance as action undertaken in a state of exception. We investigate the distinction between the normativity of ordinary or stable time, and action required in a state of exception, using the specific example of truth-telling as a normative demand and its conflict with the exceptional imperative to lie. The example of truth-telling raises important questions about the role of agency and phronetic judgment in a state of exception. In order to determine a foundation for such judgment, we turn to the framework adapted by both Bonhoeffer and Løgstrup to ground their requirement to lie: Luther’s concept of three estates. We consider how their respective concepts of mandates and laws of life/sovereign expressions of life both illuminate and highlight the more general problem of the relation between norm and exceptional action. (shrink)

International business faces a host of difficult moral conflicts. It is tempting to think that these conflicts can be morally resolved if we gained full knowledge of the situations, were rational enough, and were sufficiently objective. This paper explores the view that there are situations in which people in business must confront the possibility that they must compromise some of their important principles or values in order to protect other ones. One particularly interesting case that captures this kind of situation (...) is that of Google and its operations in China. In this paper, I examine the situation Google faces as part of the larger issue of moral compromise and integrity in business. Though I look at Google, this paper is just as much about the underlying or background views Google faces that are at work in business ethics. In the process, I argue the following: First, the framework Google has used to respond to criticisms of its actions does not successfully or obviously address the important ethical issues it faces. Second, an alternative ethical account can be presented that better addresses these ethical and human rights questions. However, this different framework brings the issue of moral compromise to the fore. This is an approach filled with dangers, particularly since it is widely held that one ought never to compromise one’s moral principles. Nevertheless, I wish to propose that there may be a place for moral compromise in business under certain conditions, which I attempt to specify. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungEiner weit verbreiteten Auffassung zufolge sind politische Verantwortung und moralische Unschuld auf Dauer unvereinbar. Wer Macht hat, so der Gedanke, wird früher oder später Schuld auf sich laden und seine moralische Integrität riskieren. Diese „These von den schmutzigen Händen“ lässt mindestens drei verschiedene Lesarten zu, die im ersten Teil des Textes unterschieden werden. Eine davon besagt, dass das Problem der schmutzigen Hände daraus resultiert, dass im Feld der Politik Konfliktsituationen unausweichlich sind, die den Akteuren keine andere Wahl lassen, als jemandem (...) Unrecht zu tun. Diese These wurde unter anderem von Michael Walzer vertreten. Sie wird häufig mit Verweis darauf zurückgewiesen, dass es solche dilemmatischen Konflikte nicht geben kann, da auszuschließen ist, dass bindende moralische Pflichten miteinander in Konflikt stehen. Ich möchte demgegenüber im Folgenden deutlich machen, inwiefern sich das Problem der schmutzigen Hände selbst dann vermeiden lässt, wenn derartige Konflikte möglich wären. Dazu erläutere ich kurz, worin in diesen Fällen aus meiner Sicht das wesentliche Problem besteht und unterscheide zwischen zwei verschiedenen Konfliktlösungsmodellen, dem effektiven und dem prozeduralen Modell. Im Anschluss daran mache ich deutlich, welche Rolle in diesem Zusammenhang die Bitte um Verzeihung spielt und worin ihre normative Funktion besteht. (shrink)

The article focuses on a passage from Carl Schmitt?s Ex Captivitate Salus - a book famously written in a Nurnberg prison in 1946 - in which he draws, from memory, on a story derived from Serbian epic poetry, to justify his understanding of historiography, victory, and the figure of the hero. Analyzing the entire Serbian epic poem from which Schmitt extracts the vignette in question, we show how the text of the poem presents a significantly more complicated and messy picture (...) of the figures of victor, victory, and hero, heroism. The anonymous Serbian poet, addressing himself to his contemporary audience, with which he is intimately familiar, really subverts simplistic expectations regarding the heroism and victory of the Serbian hero, Marko Kraljevic. Finally, the article contrasts these complex and at times paradoxical figures of victory and the hero in the poem with their presentation in Carl Schmitt?s writing. (shrink)

This article discusses gift authorship, the practice where co-authorship is awarded to a person who has not contributed significantly to the study. From an ethical point of view, gift authorship raises concerns about desert, fairness, honesty and transparency, and its prevalence in research is rightly considered a serious ethical concern. We argue that even though misuse of authorship is always bad, there are instances where accepting requests of gift authorship may nevertheless be the right thing to do. More specifically, we (...) propose that researchers may find themselves in a situation much similar to the problem of dirty hands, which has been frequently discussed in political philosophy and applied ethics. The problem of dirty hands is relevant to what we call hostage authorship, where the researchers include undeserving authors unwillingly, and only because they find it unavoidable in order to accomplish a morally important research goal. (shrink)

Just war theory − as advanced by Michael Walzer, among others − fails to take war seriously enough. This is because it proposes that we regulate war with systematic rules that are comparable to those of a game. Three types of claims are advanced. The first is phenomenological: that the theory's abstract nature interferes with our judgment of what is, and should be, going on. The second is meta-ethical: that the theory's rules are not, in fact, systematic after all, there (...) being inherent contradictions between them. And the third is practical: that by getting people to view war as like a game, the theory promotes its ‘aestheticization’ (play being a central mode of the aesthetic) such that those who fight are encouraged to act in dangerous ways. And war, it goes without saying, is already dangerous enough. (shrink)

The problem of “dirty hands” concerns the possibility that there are situations in which, no matter what one does, there is no way to avoid committing a moral wrong. By presenting a taxonomy, this paper contends that the different ways of responding to the problem correspond to different positions as regards the classic metaphysical theme of “the One and the Many.” It is then suggested that the best, because most realistic, response aligns with an approach that would have us move (...) “towards One, as Many.”. (shrink)

Drawing on the SAGE minutes and other documents, I consider the wider lessons for norms of scientific advising that can be learned from the UK’s initial response to coronavirus in the period January-March 2020, when an initial strategy that planned to avoid total suppression of transmission was abruptly replaced by an aggressive suppression strategy. I introduce a distinction between “normatively light advice”, in which no specific policy option is recommended, and “normatively heavy advice” that does make an explicit recommendation. I (...) argue that, although scientific advisers should avoid normatively heavy advice in normal times in order to facilitate democratic accountability, this norm can be permissibly overridden in situations of grave emergency. SAGE’s major mistake in early 2020 was not that of endorsing a particular strategy, nor that of being insufficiently precautionary, but that of relying too heavily on a specific set of “reasonable worst-case” planning assumptions. I formulate some proposals that assign a more circumscribed role to “worst-case” thinking in emergency planning. In an epilogue, I consider what the implications of my proposals would have been for the UK’s response to the “second wave” of late 2020. (shrink)

When should we interfere in the course of a stranger’s life? While philosophers have discussed at length extreme cases of assisting poor people in famine stricken countries, much less attention has been given to casual, everyday episodes. If I overhear two people discussing a place they are about to visit, and know that it is closed for renovation, should I interfere and tell them so? If I stand next to a customer who has not been given enough change in the (...) supermarket, should I point that out or mind my own business? Using the Kantian notions of love and respect, I answer such questions. I claim that Kant’s terminology is ill-suited for instructing us how to deal with others with whom we are personally involved, but is important for our encounters with strangers. I suggest that we take seriously Kant’s claim that we are “united in one dwelling place”. When around others, keep an open eye to the possibility that they might need help. If there is good reason to suppose that you may help, knock on their door. Let them decide whether they want to open it. They are totally entitled to decline the offer, but should keep in mind that it was given as part of the joint venture of living together with others. The interference should therefore not be regarded as an infringement of privacy. (shrink)

The ethics of bearing bad news has not yet been discussed by philosophers. How should the messenger feel? Is she, as Toni Morrison claimed in one of her novels, ‘corrupted’ by the message? And shou...

Deepens our understanding of power through a survey of how its dynamics have been understood from ancient times to the present. Frequently understood in simplistic and often highly negative terms, the concept of power has proven to be both uncommonly intriguing and maddeningly elusive. In Power, Raymond Angelo Belliotti begins by fashioning a general definition of power that is refined enough to capture the numerous types of power in all their multifaceted complexity. He then proceeds in a series of discrete (...) yet thematically connected meditations to explore the meaning of power in ancient, modern, and contemporary thought. In grappling with the critical questions surrounding the accumulation, distribution, and exercise of personal and social power, this work allows us to confront fundamental questions of who we are and how we might live better lives. “Power is an impressive project for its breadth and insight. Belliotti offers an exhaustive discussion of the philosophical notion of power, which deepens the reader’s understanding of power and provides a ‘powerful’ tool for assessing the proper uses of and abuses of social and dyadic power relations. The book is rich with material, expertly organized, and written in a clear and accessible style.” — Kimberly Blessing, Buffalo State, The State University of New York. (shrink)

The conscientious are morally conflicted when their moral dilemmas or incommensurabilities, real or apparent, have not been resolved. But such doublemindedness need not lead to ethical disintegration or moral insensitivity. For one may develop the moral virtue of doublemindedness, the settled power to deliberate and act well while morally conflicted. Such action will be accompanied by both moral loss (perhaps ‘dirty hands’) and ethical gain (salubrious agental stability). In explaining the virtue's moral psychology I show, among other things, its consistency (...) with wholeheartedness and the unity of the virtues. To broaden its claim to recognition, I show the virtue's consistency with diverse models of practical reason. In conclusion, Michael Walzer's interpretation of Hamlet's attitude toward Gertrude exemplifies this virtue in a fragmentary but nonetheless praiseworthy form. (shrink)

Common sense suggests that if a war is unjust, then there is a strong moral reason not to contribute to it. I argue that this presumption is mistaken. It can be permissible to contribute to an unjust war because, in general, whether it is permissible to perform an act often depends on the alternatives available to the actor. The relevant alternatives available to a government waging a war differ systematically from the relevant alternatives available to individuals in a position to (...) contribute to the war. Hence the conditions determining whether it is permissible for a government to wage a war often differ from the conditions determining whether it is permissible for others to promote that war. This difference is manifest most often in unjust wars with putatively humanitarian aims—an increasingly common type of war. (shrink)

Theodore Sider has argued that while there are some philosophical debates about which there is no fact of the matter, debates in normative ethics are likely not among them. This essay investigates a possible counterexample: the debate about so-called dirty hands. The essay first surveys several cases where No-Fact-of-the-Matter (NFM) claims have been made. Taking its cue from these cases, it then outlines two strategies that factualists about some domain can take, as well as two non-factualist counter strategies. Next, it (...) shows how an NFM claim can be defended for the debate about dirty hands. Finally, it argues that this NFM claim is at least as, if not more, plausible for normative ethics as it is for the other instances where NFM claims have been made. (shrink)

The problem of dirty hands concerns the apparently inevitable need for effective politicians to do what is ethically wrong. This essay discusses a related problem in democratic elections of politicians being unwilling to commit themselves to precise positions on controversial policy issues. Given certain plausible assumptions, I demonstrate using a simple game theoretic model that there is an incentive structure for political candidates that is damaging to the public good. I contrast this problem with the classic prisoner’s dilemma and then (...) go on to discuss some possible strategies for overcoming this problem by an improved system of political debates. (shrink)

In her new memoir, The Education of an Idealist, Samantha Power reflects on her eight years in the Obama administration. Although she claims that the experience did little to change her views, there is a considerable disjuncture between her point of view in her award-winning earlier book “A Problem from Hell,” in which she criticizes U.S. officials for not doing the right thing, and her point of view in The Education of an Idealist, in which she defends indifference of U.S. (...) officials under somewhat similar circumstances during the Obama years. The author of Problem could not have written Education, and the author of Education could not have written Problem. What does this tell us about the possibility for ethics in foreign policy? (shrink)

Should officeholders be held individually responsible for submitting to systemically corrupt institutional practices? We draw a structural analogy between individual action under coercive threat and individual participation in systemic corruption, and we argue that officeholders who submit to corrupt institutional practices are not excused by the existence of a systemic coercive threat. Even when they have good personal reasons to accept the threat, they remain individually morally assessable and, in the circumstances, they are also individually blameworthy for actions performed in (...) their institutional capacity. (shrink)

The paper examines the justification of warfare. The main thesis is that war is very difficult to justify, and justification by invoking “justice” is not the way to succeed it. Justification and justness are very different venues: while the first attempts to explain the nature of war and offer possible schemes of resolution, the second aims to endorse a specific type of warfare as correct and hence allowed – which is the crucial part of “just war theory.” However, “just war (...) theory,” somewhat Manichean in its nature, has very deep flaws. Its final result is criminalization of war, which reduces warfare to police action, and finally implies a very strange proviso that one side has a right to win. All that endangers the distinction between ius ad bellum and ius in bello, and destroys the collective character of warfare. Justification of war is actually quite different – it starts from the definition of war as a kind of conflict which cannot be solved peacefully, but for which there is mutual understanding that it cannot remain unresolved. The aim of war is not justice, but peace, i.e. either a new articulation of peace, or a restoration of the status quo ante. Additionally, unlike police actions, the result of war cannot be known or assumed in advance, giving war its main feature: the lack of control over the future. Control over the future, predictability, is a feature of peace. This might imply that war is a consequence of failed peace, or inability to maintain peace. The explanation of this inability forms the justification of war. Justice is always an important part of it, but justification cannot be reduced to it. The logic contained here refers to ius ad bellum, while ius in bello is relative to various parameters of sensitivity prevalent in a particular time, with the purpose to make warfare more humane and less expensive. (shrink)

Studies in collective intelligence have shown that suboptimal cognitive traits of individuals can lead a group to succeed in a collective cognitive task, in recent literature this is called mandevillian intelligence. Analogically, as Mandeville has suggested, the moral vices of individuals can sometimes also lead to collective good. I suggest that this mandevillian morality can happen in many ways in collaborative activities. Mandevillian morality presents a challenge for normative virtue theories in ethics. The core of the problem is that mandevillian (...) morality implies that individual vice is, in some cases, valuable. However, normative virtue theories generally see vice as disvaluable. A consequence of this is that virtue theories struggle to account for the good that can emerge in a collective. I argue that normative virtue theories can in fact accommodate for mandevillian emergent good. I put forward three distinctive features that allow a virtue theory to do so: a distinction between individual and group virtues, a distinction between motivational and teleological virtues, and an acknowledgement of the normativity of “vicious” roles in groups. (shrink)

The alleged problem of the dirty hands of politicians has been much discussed since Michael Walzer’s original piece (Walzer 1974). The discussion has concerned the precise nature of the problem or sought to dissolve the apparent paradox. However there has been little discussion of the putative complicity, and thus also dirtying of hands, of a democratic public that authorizes politicians to act in its name. This article outlines the sense in which politicians do get dirty hands and the degree to (...) which a democratic public may also get dirty hands. It separates the questions of secrecy, authorisation, and wrongfulness in order to spell out the extent of public complicity. Finally it addresses the ways in which those who do and those who do not acknowledge the problem of dirty hands erroneously discount or deny the problem of complicity by an appeal to the nature of democracy, a putatively essential need for political openness or to the scope of ideal theory. (shrink)

Michael Walzer argues that the just cause for humanitarian intervention is not met if there are only “ordinary” levels of human rights abuses within a state because he believes that respecting the right to collective self-determination is more morally important than protecting other individual rights. Several prominent critics of Walzer advocate for a more permissive account of a just cause. They argue that protecting individuals’ human rights is more morally important than respecting a right to collective self-determination. I argue that (...) these two accounts are far more similar than either Walzer or his critics realize because collective self-determination requires the protection of some human rights in order to allow each person the opportunity to participate in collective choices. Consequently, the just cause for intervention is met whenever at least some important human rights of one person are violated and others are being credibly threatened. The counter intuitive conclusion of my argument is that justified interventions can actually promote rather than undermine collective self-determination because just interventions allow innocents, who otherwise would have excluded from this process, the opportunity to contribute to collective choices. Of course, a just cause is insufficient in itself for intervention to be permissible because other just war precepts must also be met. (shrink)

It is often argued that Michael Walzer’s theory of social criticism, which underpins his theory of justice, is not much of a theory at all, but rather an impressionistic collection of historical anecdotes. Contrary to this perception, I argue that Walzer’s method can be accurately described as a version of John Rawls’ well-known method of wide reflective equilibrium. Through a systematic comparison it can be shown that the two methods are strikingly similar. This implies that, far from the critics’ claim, (...) Walzer’s method can be described as a philosophically sophisticated method. This also adds credibility to Walzer’s views on politics and justice. (shrink)

This article interrogates the bureaucratization of war, incarnate in the covert lethal drone. Bureaucracies are criticized typically for their complexity, inefficiency, and inflexibility. This article is concerned with their moral indifference. It explores killing, which is so highly administered, so morally remote, and of such scale, that we acknowledge a covert lethal program. This is a bureaucratized program of assassination in contravention of critical human rights. In this article, this program is seen to compromise the advance of global justice. Moreover, (...) the bureaucratization of lethal force is seen to dissolve democratic ideals from within. The bureaucracy isolates the citizens from lethal force applied in their name. People are killed, in the name of the State, but without conspicuous justification, or judicial review, and without informed public debate. This article gives an account of the risk associated with the bureaucratization of the State’s lethal power. Exemplified by the covert drone, this is power with formidable reach. It is power as well, which requires great moral sensitivity. Considering the drone program, this article identifies challenges, which will become more prominent and pressing, as technology advances. (shrink)

El debate acerca de la tortura puede dividirse, siguiendo la clasificación de McMahan, en dos niveles: teórico y práctico. En el primero se discute acerca de la permisibilidad moral de la tortura en circunstancias excepcionales y las características que la convierten en una práctica, prima facie, inmoral. En el segundo se evalúan las posibles consecuencias de diferentes modelos de legislación para dar una respuesta a las situaciones del mundo real. El presente trabajo se inscribe en este segundo nivel y se (...) propone analizar críticamente las propuestas legislativas de Jeff McMahan y Alan Dershowitz. Asimismo, busca ofrecer una exploración preliminar de las ventajas del modelo legalista. (shrink)

The social media industry lacks developed principles of professional ethics that it would need in order to better navigate the ethics of conforming to local media laws in authoritarian countries that lack meaningful protections for privacy, personal and political expression, and intellectual property. This chapter analyzes this question through three frameworks of professional ethics—journalism ethics, technology ethics, and business ethics—and the ways that social media resembles and crucially differs from these three industries.

If scientists violate principles and practices of routine science to quickly develop interventions against catastrophic threats, they are engaged in what I call fast science. The magnitude, imminence, and plausibility of a threat justify engaging in and acting on fast science. Yet, that justification is incomplete. I defend two principles to assess fast science, which say: fast science should satisfy as much as possible the reliability-enhancing features of routine science, and the fast science developing an intervention against a threat should (...) not depend on the same problematic assumptions as the fast science which estimates the magnitude, imminence, and plausibility of the threat. (shrink)

The volume Applied Ethics. Perspectives from Romania is the first contribution that aims at showing to the Japanese reader a sample of contemporary philosophy in Romania. At the same time a volume of contemporary Japanese philosophy is translated into Romanian and will be published by the University of Bucharest Press. -/- Applied Ethics. Perspectives from Romania includes several original articles in applied ethics and theoretical moral philosophy. It is representative of the variety of research and the growing interest in applied (...) ethics in the last few years in Romania. The philosophy practised here is at the same time an international activity, but also a kind of research deeply involved in Romanian realities. The contributors to the volume are Romanian philosophers from the most important Universities in the country, including members of the Romanian Academy, but also junior researchers. -/- This volume was made possible thanks to the relationship established between the Applied Ethics Centres of the University of Bucharest, Romania, and Hokkaido University, Japan. (shrink)

After decades of receiving a lot of attention on the epistemological level, the so-called ‘problem of intuitions’ is now in the center of debates on the metaphilosophical level. One of the reasons for this lies in the unfruitfulness of the epistemological discussions that recently subsided without producing any significant or broadly accepted theory of intuitions. Consequently, the metaphilosophical level of discussion of the ‘problem of intuitions’ inherits the same difficulties of the epistemological level. The significance of Max Deutsch’s book The (...) Myth of the Intuitive is his effort to resolve these problems in a clear and persuasive way. He is not only trying to debunk problems behind the vagueness of the ‘intuition-talk’ by drawing important distinctions that usually go under the radar in the contemporary literature, but also develops his own account of philosophical methodology. In this paper I will present some of his arguments against the traditional view of intuitional methodology, as well as his own solutions to the presented problems. Regardless of Deutsch’s insightful account of the ‘problem of intuitions’, I find that some difficulties in his own proposal are inherited from the unresolved issues of intuitions on the epistemological level. (shrink)

This article considers the relation between public and private morality as a stumbling block to a unified moral theory, and therefore as a source of skepticism about moral theory. It aims to show that some of the difficulties for theory in this area are a product of assuming that private morality has a certain priority over the public, and that moral life is unitary. These assumptions are questionable and perhaps question-begging. If they are dropped, the strength of the requirements of (...) public morality increases, and utilitarianism and other impersonal theories appear less problematic as theories of public life, and of the relation between public and private life. (shrink)

When questioning whether political deception can be ethically warranted, two competing intuitions jump to the fore. First, political deception is a fact of human life, used in the realpolitik of governance. Second, the ethical warrant of truth asserts itself as inexorably and indefatigably preferable to falsehood. Unfortunately, a cursory examination of the history of philosophy reveals a paucity of models to marry these basic intuitions. Some thinkers (e.g., Augustine, Aquinas, Grotius, Kant, Mill, and Rawls) privilege the truth by neglecting the (...) realpolitik, i.e., the truth is inviolate. Others (e.g., Machiavelli, Bentham, and the often infamous caché of 20th century dictators) focus upon the realpolitik to the exclusion of the primacy of the truth. A third group of critical thinkers (e.g., Arendt and Bok) examine the topic but offer no positive, systematic treatment of deception. Lacking are theories which simultaneously recognize that political untruth is often necessary, but that untruth is only justified when a) truth is politically impossible, b) the necessity of untruth is demonstrable, and c) the truth can be replaced with a minimally injurious untruth. Plato offers one such account in the Republic, arguing that deceit must be applied medicinally to the city. However, his account is problematic in detail. One of Plato’s inheritors, the 10th century thinker al-Fārābī, advanced Plato’s theoretical account, arguing that political governance requires restrained political deception. This deception, the expression of philosophical truths through the symbols of religion, meets the criteria mentioned above, being necessary, demonstrably necessary, and minimally injurious. But while al-Fārābī provides a valuable model for what justified political deception could look like, the lengths to which he must go in order to create a viable model for political deception reveals the untenability of the notion of justified political deception writ large. One must orchestrate an entire cosmos around the notion, notably a cosmos that does not match our own. One must adopt very specific conceptions of human nature, association, and happiness, as well as a particular metaphysics and epistemology. For, while al-Fārābī shows that political deception can be justifiable, he also reveals its unjustifiability outside an idealized setting. (shrink)

The ‘liberal-communitarian’ debate arose within anglophone political philosophy during the 1980s. This essay opens with an account of the main outlines of the debate, showing how liberals and communitarians tended to confront each other with opposing interpretations of John Rawls’ Theory of Justice (1999; originally published in 1971) and Political Liberalism (2005; originally published in 1993). The essay then proceeds to discuss four forms of ‘liberalism after communitarianism’: Michael Freeden’s account of liberalism as an ideology; Joseph Raz and Will Kymlicka’s (...) perfectionist liberalisms; the liberalism of value pluralists such as Isaiah Berlin and Bernard Williams; and Judith N. Shklar’s liberalism of fear. It concludes with the suggestion that there are times when liberals of every kind should set aside their ideology, even if only temporarily, in order to listen to their interlocutors with truly open minds. (shrink)

Natural disasters are social disruptions triggered by physical events. Every year, hundreds of natural disasters occur and tens of thousands of people are killed as a result. I maintain that everyone would want to be provided with assistance in the aftermath a natural disaster. If a national government is not providing post disaster assistance, then we expect that some other institution has the responsibility to provide it. Unfortunately, that is not the case currently. Therefore, in this thesis I argue that (...) in some situations the international community is required to intervene on behalf of those affected by the disaster caused by a natural hazard. Natural disaster intervention is a moral requirement: because the international community has a duty to provide the goods we are entitled to as per the human right to welfare, even in natural disaster scenarios. After making my argument as to why a natural disaster intervention policy should be developed I explain the basic principles of such a policy by applying the Just War criteria to natural disaster scenarios in which a national government is unable or unwilling to provide assistance to its people. (shrink)

Can compensation repair the moral harm of a previous wrongful act? On the one hand, some define the very function of compensation as one of restoring the moral balance. On the other hand, the dominant view on compensation is that it is insufficient to fully repair moral harm unless accompanied by an act of punishment or apology. In this paper, I seek to investigate the maximal potential of compensation. Central to my argument is a distinction between apologetic compensation and non-apologetic (...) compensation. Apologetic compensation, I argue, is an act that expresses regret and apology by means of some offer of money, goods, or services. Non-apologetic compensation is an act that seeks to restore loss or harm without expressing regret or apology. In the paper, I defend the view that acts of compensation can be apologetic and argue that such apologetic compensation is sufficient for moral repair. (shrink)

What is the moral law and what role does it and should it play in political theory and political practice? In this entry we will try to answer these important questions by first examining what the moral law is, before investigating the different ways in which the relationship between morality and politics can be conceptualized.

With AI permeating our lives, there is widespread concern regarding the proper framework needed to morally assess and regulate it. This has given rise to many attempts to devise ethical guidelines that infuse guidance for both AI development and deployment. Our main concern is that, instead of a genuine ethical interest for AI, we are witnessing moral diplomacies resulting in moral bureaucracies battling for moral supremacy and political domination. After providing a short overview of what we term ‘ethics washing’ in (...) the AI industry, we analyze the 2021 UNESCO Intergovernmental Meeting of Experts (Category II) tasked with drafting the Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence and show why the term ‘moral diplomacy’ is better suited to explain what is happening in the field of the ethics of AI. Our paper ends with some general considerations regarding the future of the ethics of AI. (shrink)