This paper criticizes the conception of applied ethics as the top-down application of a theory to practical issues. It is argued that a theory such as utilitarianism cannot override our intuitive moral perceptions. We cannot be radically mistaken about the kinds of considerations which count as practical reasons, and it is the task of theoretical ethics to articulate the basic kinds of considerations which we appeal to in practical discussions. Dworkin's model of doing ethics ‘from the inside out’ is used (...) to illustrate the appropriate role for theory in a broader sense. In conclusion, some sceptical questions are raised about how far theoretical ethics can contribute to public policy, especially if this requires a consensus. (shrink)

Why has autonomy been a leading idea in philosophical writing on bioethics, and why has trust been marginal? In this important book, Onora O'Neill suggests that the conceptions of individual autonomy so widely relied on in bioethics are philosophically and ethically inadequate, and that they undermine rather than support relations of trust. She shows how Kant's non-individualistic view of autonomy provides a stronger basis for an approach to medicine, science and biotechnology, and does not marginalize untrustworthiness, while also explaining why (...) trustworthy individuals and institutions are often undeservingly mistrusted. Her arguments are illustrated with issues raised by practices such as the use of genetic information by the police or insurers, research using human tissues, uses of new reproductive technologies, and media practices for reporting on medicine, science and technology. Autonomy and Trust in Bioethics will appeal to a wide range of readers in ethics, bioethics and related disciplines. (shrink)

For thirty years, Peter Singer's Practical Ethics has been the classic introduction to applied ethics. For this third edition, the author has revised and updated all the chapters and added a new chapter addressing climate change, one of the most important ethical challenges of our generation. Some of the questions discussed in this book concern our daily lives. Is it ethical to buy luxuries when others do not have enough to eat? Should we buy meat from intensively reared animals? Am (...) I doing something wrong if my carbon footprint is above the global average? Other questions confront us as concerned citizens: equality and discrimination on the grounds of race or sex; abortion, the use of embryos for research and euthanasia; political violence and terrorism; and the preservation of our planet's environment. This book's lucid style and provocative arguments make it an ideal text for university courses and for anyone willing to think about how she or he ought to live. (shrink)

This is a 1988 philosophical introduction to Aristotle, and Professor Lear starts where Aristotle himself starts. The first sentence of the Metaphysics states that all human beings by their nature desire to know. But what is it for us to be animated by this desire in this world? What is it for a creature to have a nature; what is our human nature; what must the world be like to be intelligible; and what must we be like to understand it (...) systematically? Through a consideration of these questions Professor Lear introduces us to the essence of Aristotle's philosophy and guides us through the central Aristotelian texts - selected from the Physics, Metaphysics, Ethics, Politics and from the biological and logical works. The book is written in a direct, lucid style which engages the reader with the themes in an active, participatory manner. (shrink)

It seems to me that, with an exception to be discussed presently, Hursthouse accomplishes the critical task which she sets for herself. She is particularly successful in pointing out how very complex the abortion issue is, and how the person view and utilitarianism overlook its complexities. Hursthouse notes that Thomson's position does not suffer from this latter shortcoming, but she also argues clearly and convincingly that the position should be rejected on other grounds—grounds pertaining primarily to various things Thomson says (...) about rights. Notwithstanding its many virtues, however, Hursthouse's critical discussion does strike me as problematic in a noteworthy respect. (shrink)

The present paper constitutes a development of the position that illness, whether bodily or mental, should be analyzed as an incapacitating failure of bodily or mental capacities, respectively, to realize their functions. The paper undertakes this development by responding to two critics. It addresses first Szasz’s continued claims that (1) physical illness is the paradigm concept of illness and (2) a philosophical analysis of mental illness does not shed any light on the social and legal role of the idea. Then, (...) in reply to Wakefield, the aim is to defend the account as an interpretation of Aristotle and to argue that this Aristotelian view of mental illness is preferable to one that rests on a supposed value free account of human function. More generally the discussion points to the fact that both Wakefield and Szasz rely on a number of metaphysical assumptions about the supposedly empirical nature of medical diagnosis, about the relation between facts and values, and about mind and body (among others), which are open to challenge. In particular the paper indicates an aristotelian approach to the fusion, in the natural world, of so-called facts and values, and the relevance of this fusion to the analysis of the concept of illness. This suggests the debate over distinct conceptions of that concept must both illumine and be illuminated by these deeper metaphysical questions. (shrink)

1. Presumably the point of, say, inculcating a moral outlook lies in a concern with how people live. It may seem that the very idea of a moral outlook makes room for, and requires, the existence of moral theory, conceived as a discipline which seeks to formulate acceptable principles of conduct. It is then natural to think of ethics as a branch of philosophy related to moral theory, so conceived, rather as the philosophy of science is related to science. On (...) this view, the primary topic of ethics is the concept of right conduct, and the nature and justification of principles of behaviour. If there is a place for an interest in the concept of virtue, it is a secondary place. Virtue is a disposition to behave rightly; the nature of virtue is explained, as it were, from the outside in. (shrink)

In the post-Gilligan debate about the differences, if any, between the ways in which people of different genders see the moral world in which they live, I detect two assumptions. These can be found in Gilligan's early work, and have infected the thought of others. The first, perhaps surprisingly, is Kohlberg's Kantian account of one moral perspective, the one more easily or more naturally operated by men and which has come to be called the justice perspective. This is the perspective (...) whose claims Gilligan initially found suspect, not because she thought it a distorted account of the way in which male subjects operated, but because she disputed its claims to be the only account or the best or dominant one. Throughout the ensuing debate Kohlberg's account has been left in place, and challenged not for correctness but only for uniqueness. (shrink)

The author presents and defends three theses: (1) "the first is that it is not profitable for us at present to do moral philosophy; that should be laid aside at any rate until we have an adequate philosophy of psychology." (2) "the second is that the concepts of obligation, And duty... And of what is morally right and wrong, And of the moral sense of 'ought', Ought to be jettisoned if this is psychologically possible...." (3) "the third thesis is that (...) the differences between the well-Known english writers on moral philosophy from sidgwick to the present day are of little importance." (staff). (shrink)

In his 1961 paper "Tithenai ta Phainomena",1 G. E. L. Owen addressed the problem of the relationship between science as preached in the Analytics and the practice of the Aristotelian treatises. However, he gave this venerable crux a novel twist by focusing on a different aspect of the issue. According to the Prior Analytics , it appears that the first premises of scientific demonstrations must be obtained from collections (historiai) of facts derived from empirical observation. However, many of the treatises (...) seem to make little use of empirical inquiry and instead concern themselves more with 'conceptual analysis.' This is especially true in the Metaphysics and the ethical treatises, but it is also very much characteristic of the Physics. How are these two kinds of inquiry related? (shrink)

Ethical concepts are, or purport to be, normative. They make claims on us: they command, oblige, recommend, or guide. Or at least when we invoke them, we make claims on one another; but where does their authority over us - or ours over one another - come from? Christine Korsgaard identifies four accounts of the source of normativity that have been advocated by modern moral philosophers: voluntarism, realism, reflective endorsement, and the appeal to autonomy. She traces their history, showing how (...) each developed in response to the prior one and comparing their early versions with those on the contemporary philosophical scene. Kant's theory that normativity springs from our own autonomy emerges as a synthesis of the other three, and Korsgaard concludes with her own version of the Kantian account. Her discussion is followed by commentary from G. A. Cohen, Raymond Geuss, Thomas Nagel, and Bernard Williams, and a reply by Korsgaard. (shrink)

This stimulating collection of essays in ethics eschews the simple exposition and refinement of abstract theories. Rather, the author focuses on everyday moral issues, often neglected by philosophers, and explores the deeper theoretical questions which they raise. Such issues are: Is it wrong to tell a lie to protect someone from a painful truth? Should one commit a lesser evil to prevent another from doing something worse? Can one be both autonomous and compassionate? Other topics discussed are servility, weakness of (...) will, suicide, obligations to oneself, snobbery, and environmental concerns. A feature of the collection is the contrast of Kantian and utilitarian answers to these problems. The essays are crisply and lucidly written and will appeal to both teachers and students of philosophy. (shrink)

Exploring Aristotle's philosophical method and the merits of his conclusions, Irwin here shows how Aristotle defends dialectic against the objection that it cannot justify a metaphysical realist's claims. He focuses particularly on Aristotle's metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and ethics, stressing the connections between doctrines that are often discussed separately.

I characterise moral intuitionism as the methodological claim that one may legitimately appeal to moral judgments in the course of moral reasoning even when those judgments are not supported by inference from other judgments. I describe two patterns of criticism of this method: ‘morally unserious’ criticisms, which hold that ‘morality is bunk’, so appeals to moral intuitions are bunk as well; and ‘morally serious’ criticisms, which hold that morality is not bunk, but that appeals to moral intuition are nonetheless misguided. (...) I consider morally serious criticisms of Kantian and Aristotelian provenance, but defend the intuitionist method from both. (shrink)

Casuistry and principlism are two of the leading contenders to be considered the methodology of bioethics. These methods may be incommensurable since the former emphasizes the examination of cases while the latter focuses on moral principles. Conversely, since both analyze cases in terms of mid-level principles, there is hope that these methods may be reconcilable or complementary. I analyze the role of principles in each and thereby show that these theories are virtually identical when interpreted in a certain light. That (...) is, if the gaps in each method are filled by a concept of judgment or Aristotelian practical wisdom, these methods converge. (shrink)

This essay focuses on how casuistry can become a useful technique of practical reasoning for the clinical ethicist or ethics consultant. Casuistry is defined, its relationship to rhetorical reasoning and its interpretation of cases, by employing three terms that, while they are not employed by the classical rhetoricians and casuists, conform, in a general way, to the features of their work. Those terms are (1) morphology, (2) taxonomy, (3) kinetics. The morphology of a case reveals the invariant structure of the (...) particular case whatever its contingent features, and also the invariant forms of argument relevant to any case of the same sort: these invariant features can be called topics. Taxonomy situates the instant case in a series of similar cases, allowing the similarities and differences between an instant case and a paradigm case to dictate the moral judgment about the instant case. This judgment is based, not merely on application of an ethical theory or principle, but upon the way in which circumstances and maxims appear in the morphology of the case itself and in comparison with other cases. Kinetics is an understanding of the way in which one case imparts a kind of moral movement to other cases, that is, different and sometimes unprecedented circumstances may move certain marginal or exceptional cases to the level of paradigm cases. In conclusion, casuistry is the exercise of prudential or practical reasoning in recognition of the relationship between maxims, circumstances and topics, as well as the relationship of paradigms to analogous cases. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article attempts to show a way in which social science research can contribute in a meaningful and equitable way to philosophical bioethics. It builds on the social science critique of bioethics present in the work of authors such as Renée Fox, Barry Hoffmaster and Charles Bosk, proposing the characteristics of a critical bioethics that would take social science seriously. The social science critique claims that traditional philosophical bioethics gives a dominant role to idealised, rational thought, and tends to (...) exclude social and cultural factors, relegating them to the status of irrelevancies. Another problem is the way in which bioethics assumes social reality divides down the same lines/categories as philosophical theories. Critical bioethics requires bioethicists to root their enquires in empirical research, to challenge theories using evidence, to be reflexive and to be sceptical about the claims of other bioethicists, scientists and clinicians. The aim is to produce a rigorous normative analysis of lived moral experience. (shrink)

This is a study of Aristotle's moral philosophy as it is contained in the Nicomachean Ethics. Hardie examines the difficulties of the text; presents a map of inescapable philosophical questions; and brings out the ambiguities and critical disagreements on some central topics, inclduing happiness, the soul, the ethical mean, and the initiation of action.

Interest in theories of virtue and the place of virtues in the moral life con­ tinues to grow. Nicolai Hartmann [7], George F. Thomas [20], G. E. M. Anscombe [1], and G. H. von Wright [21], for example, called to our atten­ tion decades ago that virtue had become a neglected topic in modem ethics. The challenge implicit in these sorts of reminders to rediscover the contribu­ tion that the notion of virtue can make to moral reasoning, moral character, and (...) moral judgment has not gone unattended. Arthur Dyck [3], P. T. Geach [5], Josef Pieper (16], David Hamed [6], and, most notably, Stanley Hauerwas [8-11], in the theological community, have analyzed or utilized in their work virtue-based theories of morality. Philosophical probings have come from Lawrance Becker [2], Philippa Foot [4], Edmund Pincoffs [17], James Wallace [22], and most notably, Alasdair MacIntyre [12-14]. Draw­ ing upon and revising mainly ancient and medieval sources, these and other commentators have ignited what appears to be the beginning of a sustained examination of virtue. (shrink)