This paper takes on several distinct but related tasks. First, I present and discuss what I will call the “Ignorance Thesis,” which states that whenever an agent acts from ignorance, whether factual or moral, she is culpable for the act only if she is culpable for the ignorance from which she acts. Second, I offer a counterexample to the Ignorance Thesis, an example that applies most directly to the part I call the “Moral Ignorance Thesis.” Third, I argue for a (...) principle—Don’t Know, Don’t Kill—that supports the view that the purported counterexample actually is a counterexample. Finally, I suggest that my arguments in this direction can supply a novel sort of argument against many instances of killing and eating certain sorts of animals. (shrink)

In this article, I present a new interpretation of the pro-life view on the status of early human embryos. In my understanding, this position is based not on presumptions about the ontological status of embryos and their developmental capabilities but on the specific criteria of rational decisions under uncertainty and on a cautious response to the ambiguous status of embryos. This view, which uses the decision theory model of moral reasoning, promises to reconcile the uncertainty about the ontological status of (...) embryos with the certainty about normative obligations. I will demonstrate that my interpretation of the pro-life view, although seeming to be stronger than the standard one, has limited scope and cannot be used to limit destructive research on human embryos. (shrink)

Many authors in ethics, economics, and political science endorse the Lottery Requirement, that is, the following thesis: where different parties have equal moral claims to one indivisible good, it is morally obligatory to let a fair lottery decide which party is to receive the good. This article defends skepticism about the Lottery Requirement. It distinguishes three broad strategies of defending such a requirement: the surrogate satisfaction account, the procedural account, and the ideal consent account, and argues that none of these (...) strategies succeed. The article then discusses and discharges some remaining grounds for resistance to these skeptical conclusions, as well as the possibility of defending a weaker version of a normative lottery principle. The conclusion is that we have no reason to believe that where equal claims conflict, we are morally required to hold a lottery, as opposed to simply picking one of the parties on more subjective grounds or out of pure whim. In addition to the practical consequences of this skeptical view, the article sketches some theoretical implications for debates about saving the greater number and about axiomatic utilitarianism. (shrink)

We are often uncertain how to behave morally in complex situations. In this controversial study, Ted Lockhart contends that moral philosophy has failed to address how we make such moral decisions. Adapting decision theory to the task of decision-making under moral uncertainly, he proposes that we should not always act how we feel we ought to act, and that sometimes we should act against what we feel to be morally right. Lockhart also discusses abortion extensively and proposes new ways to (...) deal with the ethical and moral issues which surround it. (shrink)

I defend normative externalism from the objection that it cannot account for the wrongfulness of moral recklessness. The defence is fairly simple—there is no wrong of moral recklessness. There is an intuitive argument by analogy that there should be a wrong of moral recklessness, and the bulk of the paper consists of a response to this analogy. A central part of my response is that if people were motivated to avoid moral recklessness, they would have to have an unpleasant sort (...) of motivation, what Michael Smith calls “moral fetishism”. (shrink)

Konserwatywni przeciwnicy prowadzenia badań naukowych na ludzkich embrionach argumentują, że od momentu poczęcia mają one status moralny równy statusowi ludzi dorosłych: zarodki mają takie samo prawo do życia jak dorośli. W artykule przedstawiam oryginalną argumentację za tym stanowiskiem, której źródła można znaleźć w XVII-wiecznej teologii moralnej i współczesnej teorii decyzji. Argumentacja ta nie odwołuje się do statusu ontologicznego embrionów, ale do pewnego typu rozumowania praktycznego na temat tego, co należy robić w rozmaitych sytuacjach niepewności. Na pierwszy rzut oka wydaje się (...) ona wzmacniać stanowisko konserwatywne, ponieważ nie zależy od kontrowersyjnych metafizycznych założeń na temat statusu zarodków czy kwestii ich potencjalności. W artykule pokażę jednak, że argumentacja ta obarczona jest poważnymi wadami, które sprawiają, że nie da się jej zastosować do uzasadnienia sprzeciwu wobec moralnej czy prawnej dopuszczalności np. badań na zarodkowych komórkach macierzystych. (shrink)

One of the perennial challenges of ethical theory has been to provide an answer to a number of views that appear to undermine the importance of ethical questions. We may refer to such views collectively as “deflationary ethical theories.” These include theories, such as nihilism, according to which no action is better than any other, as well as relativistic theories according to which no ethical theory is better than any other. In this article I present a new response to such (...) deflationary ethical views. Drawing a distinction between acceptance and rejection, on the one hand, and belief and disbelief, on the other, I argue that we have strong reason to reject these theories, even if we do not have reason to disbelieve them. In Section I, I clarify the question of what ethical theory we should accept, and I argue for the central importance of this question. In Section II, I discuss what I call “absolutely deflationary” ethical theories. These are theories according to which it matters not at all what we do or not at all what ethical theory we accept. I argue that it is generally rational to reject any theory of this kind. In Section III, I discuss what I call “relatively deflationary” ethical theories. These are theories according to which it matters little what we do or what ethical theory we accept. I argue that we have strong pro tanto reason to reject theories of this kind. And then, in Sections IV and V, I reply to some common objections to my arguments. Throughout, I will be arguing not that deflationary ethical theories are false but only that we should reject them from the practical point of view as a basis for guiding our actions. (shrink)

Abortion critics have argued that one should err on the side of life and prohibit abortion since the status of the fetus is uncertain. David Boonin has criticized this precautionary argument, but his criticism has been ignored. The aim is to elaborate on the precautionary argument by responding to Boonin’s criticism. Boonin considers three versions of the precautionary argument—the disaster avoidance argument, the maximin argument, and the expected utility argument; yet all three are judged unsuccessful for the same reasons: they (...) lead to unacceptable implications, they lead to conclusions that are too weak, and they undermine the integrity of moral reasoning. I respond to this criticism by arguing that one can avoid unacceptable implications by considering a criterion of realism, that the weaker conclusions are rather an advantage, and that the application of the precautionary principle makes room for considerations which maintain the integrity of moral reasoning. I also consider some criticism beyond Boonin’s objections. (shrink)

It is natural for those with permissive attitudes toward abortion to suppose that, if they have examined all of the arguments they know against abortion and have concluded that they fail, their moral deliberations are at an end. Surprisingly, this is not the case, as I argue. This is because the mere risk that one of those arguments succeeds can generate a moral reason that counts against the act. If this is so, then liberals may be mistaken about the morality (...) of abortion. However, conservatives who claim that considerations of risk rule out abortion in general are mistaken as well. Instead, risk-based considerations generate an important but not necessarily decisive reason to avoid abortion. The more general issue that emerges is how to accommodate fallibilism about practical judgment in our decision-making. (shrink)

Many people have moral qualms about embryo research, feeling that embryos must deserve some kind of protection, if not so much as is afforded to persons. This paper will show that these qualms serve to camouflage motives that are really prudential, at the cost of also obscuring the real ethical issues at play in the debate concerning embryo research and therapeutic cloning. This in turn leads to fallacious use of the Actions/Omissions Distinction and ultimately neglects the duties that we have (...) towards future persons. (shrink)

It has been argued by several philosophers that a morally motivated rational agent who has to make decisions under conditions of moral uncertainty ought to maximize expected moral value in his choices, where the expectation is calculated relative to the agent's moral uncertainty. I present a counter-example to this thesis and to a larger family of decision rules for choice under conditions of moral uncertainty. Based on this counter-example, I argue against the thesis and suggest a reason for its failure (...) – that it is based on the false assumption that inter-theoretical comparisons of moral value are meaningful. (shrink)

One of the principles on how to act under moral uncertainty, My Favourite Theory, says roughly that a morally conscientious agent chooses an option that is permitted by the most credible moral theory. In defence of this principle, we argue that it prescribes consistent choices over time, without relying on intertheoretic comparisons of value, while its main rivals are either plagued by moral analogues of money pumps or in need of a method for making non-arbitrary intertheoretic comparisons. We rebut the (...) arguments that have been levelled against My Favourite Theory and offer some arguments against intertheoretic comparisons of value. (shrink)

In “Rejecting Ethical Deflationism,” Jacob Ross argues that a rational decision maker is permitted, for the purposes of practical reasoning, to assume that nihilism is false. I argue that Ross’s argument fails because the principle he relies on conflicts with more plausible principles of rationality and leads to preference cycles. I then show how the infectiousness of nihilism, and of incomparability more generally, poses a serious problem for the larger project of attempting to incorporate moral uncertainty into expected value maximization (...) style reasoning. (shrink)

Many people have moral qualms about embryo research, feeling that embryos must deserve some kind of protection, if not so much as is afforded to persons. This paper will show that these qualms serve to camouflage motives that are really prudential, at the cost of also obscuring the real ethical issues at play in the debate concerning embryo research and therapeutic cloning. This in turn leads to fallacious use of the Actions/Omissions Distinction and ultimately neglects the duties that we have (...) towards future persons. (shrink)