A standard way to explain the connection between ethical claims and motivation is to say that these claims express motivational attitudes. Unless this connection is taken to be merely a matter of contingent psychological regularity, it may seem that there are only two options for understanding it. We can either treat ethical claims as expressing propositions that one cannot believe without being at least somewhat motivated (subjectivism), or we can treat ethical claims as nonpropositional and as having their semantic content (...) constituted by the motivational attitudes they express (noncognitivism). In this paper, we argue that there is another option, which can be recognized once we see that there is no need to build the expression relation between ethical claims and motivational states of mind into the semantic content of ethical claims. (shrink)

Beneficence is a foundational ethical principle in medicine. To provide benefit to a patient is to promote and protect the patient’s wellbeing, to promote the patient’s interests. But there are different conceptions of wellbeing, emphasizing different values. These conceptions of wellbeing are contrary to one another and give rise to dissimilar ideas of what it means to benefit a patient. This makes the concept of beneficence ambiguous: is a benefit related to the patient’s goals and wishes, or is it a (...) matter of objective criteria that constitute wellbeing? This paper suggests a unified conception of wellbeing for use in medicine to determine what counts as a benefit. Two components of wellbeing are identified: (1) objective functioning/health and (2) the patient’s view of her own good. The paper explores how to apply, balance, and weigh these components in clinical situations to determine what counts as a benefit to a patient. (shrink)

This book is an assault on the notion that it is empirically accurate and legally and philosophically satisfactory to see humans as atomistic entities. It contends that our welfare is inextricably entangled with that of others, and accordingly law and ethics, in determining our best interests, should recognise the central importance of relationality, the performance of obligations, and (even apparently injurious) altruism.