I argue that riskier killings of innocent people are, other things equal, objectively worse than less risky killings. I ground these views in considerations of disrespect and security. Killing someone more riskily shows greater disrespect for him by more grievously undervaluing his standing and interests, and more seriously undermines his security by exposing a disposition to harm him across all counterfactual scenarios in which the probability of killing an innocent person is that high or less. I argue that the salient (...) probabilities are the agent’s sincere, sane, subjective probabilities, and that this thesis is relevant whether your risk-taking pertains to the probability of killing a person or to the probability that the person you kill is not liable to be killed. I then defend the view’s relevance to intentional killing; show how it differs from an account of blameworthiness; and explain its significance for all-things-considered justification and justification under uncertainty. (shrink)

Philip Pettit offers a new insight into moral psychology. He shows that attachments such as love, and certain virtues such as honesty, require their characteristic behaviours not only as things actually are, but also in cases where things are different from how they actually are. He explores the implications of this idea for key moral issues.

This volume collects Jeremy Waldron's challenging and influential work on the moral, political and legal issues surrounding the response to terrorism since 9/11. The volume will be essential reading for all those engaged with contemporary politics and security law, and the continuing struggle for an ethical response to terrorism.

Challenging, with several powerful arguments, some of our deepest beliefs about rationality, morality, and personal identity, Parfit claims that we have a false view about our own nature. It is often rational to act against our own best interersts, he argues, and most of us have moral views that are self-defeating. We often act wrongly, although we know there will be no one with serious grounds for complaint, and when we consider future generations it is very hard to avoid conclusions (...) that most of us will find very disturbing. (shrink)

This groundbreaking book revisits the writings of classic theorists in an effort re-evaluate the importance and influence the psychology of esteem has on the economy. The authors explore ways the economy of esteem may be reshaped to improve overall social outcomes and offer new ways of thinking about how society works and may be made to work.

With respect to questions of fact, people use heuristics – mental short-cuts, or rules of thumb, that generally work well, but that also lead to systematic errors. People use moral heuristics too – moral short-cuts, or rules of thumb, that lead to mistaken and even absurd moral judgments. These judgments are highly relevant not only to morality, but to law and politics as well. Examples are given from a number of domains, including risk regulation, punishment, reproduction and sexuality, and the (...) act/omission distinction. In all of these contexts, rapid, intuitive judgments make a great deal of sense, but sometimes produce moral mistakes that are replicated in law and policy. One implication is that moral assessments ought not to be made by appealing to intuitions about exotic cases and problems; those intuitions are particularly unlikely to be reliable. Another implication is that some deeply held moral judgments are unsound if they are products of moral heuristics. The idea of error-prone heuristics is especially controversial in the moral domain, where agreement on the correct answer may be hard to elicit; but in many contexts, heuristics are at work and they do real damage. Moral framing effects, including those in the context of obligations to future generations, are also discussed. (shrink)