Actualists hold that contrary-to-duty scenarios give rise to deontic dilemmas and provide counterexamples to the transmission principle, according to which we ought to take the necessary means to actions we ought to perform. In an earlier article, I have argued, contrary to actualism, that the notion of ‘ought’ that figures in conclusions of practical deliberation does not allow for deontic dilemmas and validates the transmission principle. Here I defend these claims, together with my possibilist account of (...) class='Hi'>contrary-to-duty scenarios, against Stephen White’s recent criticism. (shrink)

I argue that normative requirements should be interpreted as the conditional obligations of dyadic deontic logic. Semantically, normative requirements are conditionals understood as restrictors, the prevailing view of conditionals in linguistics. This means that Modus Ponens is invalid, even when the premises are known.

Many philosophers have objected to Kant’s account of duties regarding non-human nature, arguing that it does not ground adequate moral concern for non-human natural entities. However, the traditional interpretation of Kant on this issue is mistaken, because it takes him to be arguing merely that humans should abstain from animal cruelty and wanton destruction of flora solely because such actions could make one more likely to violate one’s duties to human beings. Instead, I argue, Kant’s account of duties regarding nature (...) grounds much stronger limitations on how humans may treat non-human animals and flora, since such duties are rooted in the imperfect duty to increase one’s own moral perfection. This duty proscribes actions affecting non-human nature that decrease one’s moral perfection, such as those that cause organisms unnecessary harm. Moreover, the duty to moral perfection prescribes (but does not strictly require) actions affecting non-human nature that increase one’s moral perfection, such as those that benefit organisms. Given this interpretation, I show that, contrary to a widely held view, Kant’s moral philosophy can ground a coherent and robust approach to environmental ethics. (shrink)

Is there is a moral obligation to militarily intervene in another state to stop a genocide from happening (if this can be done with proportionate force)? My answer is that under exceptional circumstances a state or even a non-state actor might have a duty to stop a genocide (for example if these actors have promised to do so), but under most circumstances there is no such obligation. To wit, “humanity,” states, collectives, and individuals do not have an obligation to (...) make such promises in the first place or to create institutions that would impose a legal obligation of intervention upon them. Nor do states or persons or humanity “collectively” have – originally, without specifically creating such duties by contracts or promises – any pro tanto or special duties to save strangers at considerable cost to themselves or their own citizens (including their soldiers). That is, these costs do not merely override a duty to intervene, but rather there is no such duty to begin with – as shown by the fact that in such cases of non-intervention agents would not owe those they let die any compensation: if I do not save someone’s life because saving him would have cost me my arm or would have come with a high risk of losing my own life or would have forced me to kill innocent bystanders, I do not owe this person compensation. Thus the point of this chapter is that there is no “natural” or “general” or “original” duty to militarily intervene (or to create a legal obligation) to stop a genocide. I will consider and refute a number of arguments to the contrary, for example by Lango, Tan, and Pattison. (shrink)

Mark Murphy has argued that the relationship between a creator and their creatures is not a special relationship that generates new moral obligations for the creator. Murphy’s position is grounded, in part, on his claim that there are no good arguments to the contrary and that the creator-creature relationship is not a relationship between equals. I argue that there are good reasons to think that a creator and creature being equals is not required for such an obligation. I offer (...) an argument for such an obligation based on the moral significance of thrusting upon sentient or rational beings significant, unsought, and wholly new circumstances. More specifically, I argue that it is reasonable to conclude that a creator enters into a duty-generating special relationship with their creatures to promote their creatures’ well-being, when the creator is the voluntary source of the creatures’ wholly new and unconsented to circumstances from which to flourish or languish and it would cost the creator virtually nothing to promote the creatures’ welfare. (shrink)

My goal in this paper is to show that it is not the case that positive duties can be derived from Kant’s so-called universalizability tests. I begin by explaining in detail what I mean by this and distinguishing it from a few things that I am not doing in this paper. After that, I confront the idea of a maxim contradictory, a concept that is advanced by many com- mentators in the attempt to derive positive duties from the universalizability tests. (...) I ex- plain what a maxim contradictory is and how the concept is used to derive positive duties. Then I argue that the notion of a maxim contradictory presupposes an objectionable form of maxim realism. I move from there to the idea of a maxim contrary and the deliberative field. These two ideas are used in tandem by commentators who do not appeal to maxim contradictories. I explain how these concepts are used to derive positive duties and then I argue that there is a systematic error in the derivations that enables one to see that they cannot work. (shrink)

In this book, Toby Svoboda develops and defends a Kantian environmental virtue ethic, challenging the widely-held view that Kant's moral philosophy takes an instrumental view toward nature and animals and has little to offer environmental ethics. On the contrary, Svoboda posits that there is good moral reason to care about non-human organisms in their own right and to value their flourishing independently of human interests, since doing so is constitutive of certain virtues. Svoboda argues that Kant’s account of indirect (...) duties regarding nature can ground a compelling environmental ethic: the Kantian duty to develop morally virtuous dispositions strictly proscribes unnecessarily harming organisms, and Svoboda argues that this duty compels us to act in ways that benefit non-human organisms, given that doing so can enhance one’s virtues. Svoboda’s argument engages the recent literature on environmental virtue and provides an original argument for an environmental virtue ethic firmly rooted in Kant’s moral philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper I am going to raise a problem for recent attempts to derive positive duties from Kant’s universalizability tests. In particular, I argue that these recent attempts are subject to reductio and that the most obvious way of patching them renders them impracticable. I begin by explaining the motivation for these attempts. Then I describe how they work and begin my attack. I conclude by considering some patches.

Kant uses ‘wish’ as a technical term to denote a strange species of desire. It is an instance in which someone wills an object that she simultaneously knows she cannot bring about. Or in more Kantian garb: it is an instance of the faculty of desire’s (or will’s) failing insofar as a desire (representation) cannot be the cause of the realization of its corresponding object in reality. As a result, Kant originally maintained it to be antithetical to morality, which deals (...) with ‘ought implies can’. However, Kant’s notion of wish is not static. On the contrary, I argue in this article that Kant re-evaluated the capacity to wish as (to some extent) causally efficacious and, further, of moral relevance. This re-evaluation has not been discussed in the literature, yet has been lurking in plain sight in a subtle but decisive shift evident in two versions of a footnote from the *Critique of the Power of Judgement* (KU). (shrink)

Since it was presented in 1963, Chisholm’s paradox has attracted constant attention in the deontic logic literature, but without the emergence of any definitive solution. We claim this is due to its having no single solution. The paradox actually presents many challenges to the formalization of deontic statements, including (1) context sensitivity of unconditional oughts, (2) formalizing conditional oughts, and (3) distinguishing generic from nongeneric oughts. Using the practical interpretation of ‘ought’ as a guideline, we propose a linguistically motivated logical (...) solution to each of these problems, and explain the relation of the solution to the problem of contrary-to-duty obligations. (shrink)

Many readers of Kant’s ethical writings take him to be primarily concerned with offering guidelines for action. At the least, they write about Kant as if this were the purpose of his ethical writings. For example, Christine Korsgaard, in her influential article Kant’s Analysis of Obligation: The Argument of Groundwork I, writes that, ‘‘the argument of Groundwork I is an attempt to give what I call a ‘motivational analysis’ of the concept of a right action, in order to discover what (...) that concept applies to, that is, which actions are right.’’ Similar comments are not hard to find in the secondary literature. This, however, is a fundamentally misguided way of reading Kant, since he repeatedly asserts that we do not need to do moral philosophy in order to discover which actions are right. We already know how to behave morally and do not need philosophers to tell us this. ‘‘Common human reason,’’ Kant argues, ‘‘knows very well how to distinguish in every case that comes up what is good and what is evil, what is in conformity to duty or contrary to duty.’’ Because people with pre-philosophical understanding know how to act morally, the purpose of moral philosophy cannot be to provide us with a set of rules for correct behavior. If we take Kant’s claims about common human reason seriously, then his aim in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals cannot be to discover which actions are right. (shrink)

Recent debate in the literature on political obligation about the principle of fairness rests on a mistake. Despite the widespread assumption to the contrary, a person can have a duty of fairness to share in the burdens of sustaining some cooperative scheme even though that scheme does not represent a net benefit to her. Recognizing this mistake allows for a resolution of the stalemate between those who argue that the mere receipt of some public good from a scheme (...) can generate a duty of fairness and those who argue that only some voluntary action of consent or acceptance of the good can generate such a duty. I defend a version of the principle of fairness that holds that it is the person’s reliance on a scheme for the provision of some product or service that generates duties of fairness to share in the burdens of sustaining the scheme. And, on this version, the principle of fairness is politically significant: regardless of whether the citizen has a duty to obey the law, she will still have important political duties of fairness generated by her reliance on the various public goods provided by those society-wide cooperative schemes sustained by the sacrifices of her fellow citizens. (shrink)

The most plausible line of anti-doping argumentation starts with the fact that performance enhancing substances are harmful and put at considerable risk the health and the life of those who indulge in the overwhelming promises these substances hold. From a liberal point of view, however, this is not a strong reason neither to morally reject doping altogether, nor to put a blanket ban on it; on the contrary, allowing adult, competent and informed athletes to have access to performance enhancement (...) drugs is often showcased as a liberty-related right of noninterference. In this article I will first discuss doping from the liberal point of view, especially in the light of the harm principle as it was introduced by Mill and elaborated by his successors, most notably by Joel Feinberg. Then I will examine whether – and to what degree – one’s decision to receive performance enhancement drugs would mean to use humanity in one’s own person only as a means, which would be self-defeating in the light of Kantian ethics. From this I will move one step backwards to what I consider as the core question concerning the ethics of doping, the one that is logically prior to any other in my view, and concerns the consistency of the thesis that doping may be compatible with sport. I will argue that there is an inherent logical antinomy between doing sport and using performance enhancement drugs, one that presents any argumentation in favor of doping as essentially self-contradictory. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant infamously denies that non-rational entities--a class that includes all non-human animals (hereafter “animals”)--have moral standing. He claims that human beings have only indirect duties with regard to animals. Roughly put, on his view we can have moral reasons to treat animals in certain ways, but these reasons depend entirely on duties we owe to ourselves and other human beings. Arguably because of this stance, most animal ethicists have had little use for Kant. Christine Korsgaard’s most recent book, Fellow (...) Creatures: Our Obligations to the Other Animals, aims to show that Kant’s moral philosophy provides compelling grounds for recognizing direct duties to animals, contrary to what Kant himself and his critics believe. (shrink)

According to the brain drain argument, there are good reasons for states to limit the exit of their skilled workers (more specifically, healthcare workers), because of the negative impacts this type of migration has for other members of the community from which they migrate. Some theorists criticise this argument as illiberal, while others support it and ground a duty to stay of the skilled workers on rather vague concepts like patriotic virtue, or the legitimate expectations of their state and (...) co-citizens. In this article, on the contrary, we suggest that the liberal conception of states’ legitimate political authority demands, and not just permits, that developing states from which migration of skilled workers occurs set up contractual mechanisms. These mechanisms will ensure that state-funded training in the health sector is provided against a commitment on the part of future professionals to reciprocate with their services for the benefits obtained. If one of the conditions for the state to maintain legitimate political authority is to provide basic services such as healthcare to its subjects (while respecting at the same time their autonomy and freedom), then this is what developing states affected by the brain drain ought to do. What we call the authority-based approach to the brain drain also helps to clarify the obligations that other states have not to interfere with these contractual mechanisms when they exist, and not to profit from their absence. Inspired by FIFA’s legal instruments of training compensation and solidarity mechanism for the transfer of players, we conclude by suggesting a plausible global policy to complement this authority-based approach. (shrink)

In this essay I argue that Ridley Scott's first feature film, The Duelists, which is an adaptation of a Joseph Conrad novella, contains his deepest meditation on honor in his entire career. The film may be said to answer the following question about honor: is being bound to do something by honor, when it is contrary to one's self-interest, a good thing, or a bad thing? It may be said to give the answer that it may be either good (...) or bad. It is bad that D'Hubert is bound by honor to duel with Feraud; it is good that, in the end, Feraud is bound by honor to cease dueling with D'Hubert. In this way, Kant was correct that "the inclination to honor" may light "upon that which is in fact in the common interest and in conformity with duty," or it may light upon what is contrary to duty. (shrink)

Among the most widely discussed of William of Ockham’s texts on ethics is his Quodlibet III, q. 14. But despite a large literature on this question, there is no consensus on what Ockham’s answer is to the central question raised in it, specifically, what obligations one would have if one were to receive a divine command to not love God. (Surprisingly, there is also little explicit recognition in the literature of this lack of consensus.) Via a close reading of the (...) text, I argue, contrary to much of the literature, that Ockham believes that if one were given this command, one would be obligated to refrain from loving God and would also be able to fulfill this obligation without any moral wrongdoing. Among other results, this study will help clarify Ockham’s much-discussed claim that loving God is “a necessarily virtuous act.”. (shrink)

Some legal theorists say that legal entrapment to commit a crime is incoherent. So far, there is no satisfactorily precise statement of this objection in the literature: it is obscure even as to the type of incoherence that is purportedly involved. (Perhaps consequently, substantial assessment of the objection is also absent.) We aim to provide a new statement of the objection that is more precise and more rigorous than its predecessors. We argue that the best form of the objection asserts (...) that, in attempting to entrap, law-enforcement agents lapse into a form of practical incoherence that involves the attempt simultaneously to pursue contrary ends. We then argue that the objection, in this form, encompasses all cases of legal entrapment only if it is supplemented by appeal to the premise that law-enforcement agents have an absolute duty never to create crimes. (shrink)

It is well known that systems of action deontic logic emerging from a standard analysis of permission in terms of possibility of doing an action without incurring in a violation of the law are subject to paradoxes. In general, paradoxes are acknowledged as such if we have intuitions telling us that things should be different. The aim of this paper is to introduce a paradox-free deontic action system by (i) identifying the basic intuitions leading to the emergence of the paradoxes (...) and (ii) exploiting these intuitions in order to develop a consistent deontic framework, where it can be shown why some phenomena seem to be paradoxical and why they are not so if interpreted in a correct way. (shrink)

Nosso objetivo neste trabalho é apresentar uma proposta de solução a paradoxos relacionados à lógica deôntica presentes na literatura, reunidos sob o que é chamado de dilemas deônticos - situações nas quais duas obrigações conflitantes estão presentes num mesmo sistema normativo. Situações deste tipo, quando formalizadas (em SDL - standard deontic logic - ou em outras lógicas relacionadas), levam a uma inconsistência. Nossa proposta baseia-se em relações de preferência que geram uma ferramenta de escolha dentre as duas soluções normativas conflitantes, (...) o que evita a inconsistência e permite o pleno cumprimento do sistema. Justificativas filosóficas são fornecidas as ferramentas lógicas, bem como as suas implicações. (shrink)

Kant famously made a distinction between actions from duty and actions in conformity with duty claiming that only the former are morally worthy. Kant’s argument in support of this thesis is taken to rest on the claim that only the motive of duty leads non-accidentally or reliably to moral actions. However, many critics of Kant have claimed that other motives such as sympathy and benevolence can also lead to moral actions reliably, and that Kant’s thesis is false. (...) In addition, many readers of Kant find the claim that we should deny moral worth to a dutiful action performed from friendly inclination highly counterintuitive. Moreover, Kantian commentators disagree about the status of actions in conformity with duty, some claim that these can be taken as equally morally worthy as those performed from duty, while others argue that they are not even permissible. -/- It has also been claimed that Kant’s theory of moral worth should be related to the theory of the Gesinnung developed in the Religion. Thus, some authors claim that, in order for an action to possess moral worth, the agent has to be unconditionally committed to morality, that is, the agent must possess a virtuous character or good fundamental maxim (i.e. a good Gesinnung). However, according to Kant’s radical evil thesis (that is, the thesis that man is evil by nature ), the default position for man is to possess an evil Gesinnung, i.e. a Gesinnung which is only conditionally committed to morality insofar as morality does not demand a great sacrifice of our own happiness. So, an unwelcome consequence of this line of interpretation is that in Kantian ethics morally worthy actions become very rare indeed. -/- The paper is divided in two parts. The first part aims to clarify why Kant thought that only actions from duty are morally worthy, replying to some common objections against Kant’s view. I argue that Kant’s non-accidental condition should not be understood in terms of reliability because such interpretation is incompatible with Kant’s theory of motivation and rational agency. I propose an alternative interpretation which supports Kant’ s claim that only the motive of duty leads nonaccidently to dutiful actions, and thus only actions from duty possess moral worth. I end by showing that although actions in conformity with duty are worthless from the moral point of view, they are not (in many cases) impermissible. The first part concludes that the criterion for the permissibility of actions is different to the criterion for the ascription of moral worth. Thus, rightness, which pertains to actions performed on maxims that can be willed as universal laws, and moral worth, which pertains to actions performed from a sense of duty, should be understood as two different levels of moral assessment. -/- The second part of the paper examines Kant’s conception of virtue with the aim of showing that although only agents with a virtuous character (good Gesinnung) will reliably act from duty, a person with an evil character (evil Gesinnung) could on frequent occasions act from duty. I argue that we should not deny moral worth to actions performed from duty even when the agent has an evil Gesinnung. Goodness of Gesinnung is not a necessary condition of the action of an agent possessing moral worth; reliability of motivation is necessary for the ascription of virtue but not for the ascription of moral worth. It follows that virtue, which refers to the agent’s character or fundamental maxim (i.e. the agent’s Gesinnung), and moral worth are also two different levels of moral assessment. The paper concludes that three levels of moral assessment can be distinguished in Kant’s ethical system: (i) rightness, (ii) moral worth and (iii) moral virtue. Moral virtue is the highest level of moral perfection for a human being. Striving towards virtue requires constant progress and effort and ultimately a ‘revolution of the heart.’ The important point is that even when we are still striving to achieve virtue (i.e. an unconditional commitment to morality), we can ascribe moral worth to actions performed by a genuine sense of duty. It turns out that, contrary to many influential interpretations, Kantian ethics is not merely concerned with the rightness or wrongness of particular actions nor is Kantian ethics primarily an ethic of virtue. Instead, Kant’s ethical system is complex and allows for different levels of moral assessment in which both an action-centred and agent-centred perspective can be integrated. (shrink)

In this book chapter I argue that, contrary to what is said by Paul Guyer in his book Kant (Routledge, 2006), Kant's moral philosophy prohibits the bystander from throwing the switch to divert the runaway trolley to a side track with an innocent person on it, in order to save more people who are in the path of the trolley, in the "Trolley Problem" case made famous by Judith Jarvis Thomson (1976; 1985). Furthermore, Thomson herself (2008) came to agree (...) that it would be wrong to throw the switch, just as it is wrong to push the person off the bridge to stop the trolley (1976; 1985). In changing her mind about this case, Thomson came to agree with Kant, as well as with Philippa Foot (1967), who argued in original paper that a negative duty not to harm one healthy patient outweighed a positive duty to give aid to five other patients by transplanting the healthy person's organs. (shrink)

This paper argues that public statues of persons typically express a positive evaluative attitude towards the subject. It also argues that states have duties to repudiate their own historical wrongdoing, and to condemn other people’s serious wrongdoing. Both duties are incompatible with retaining public statues of people who perpetrated serious rights violations. Hence, a person’s being a serious rights violator is a sufficient condition for a state’s having a duty to remove a public statue of that person. I argue (...) that this applies no less in the case of the ‘morally ambiguous’ wrongdoer, who both accomplishes significant goods and perpetrates serious rights violations. The duty to remove a statue is a defeasible duty: like most duties, it can be defeated by lesser-evil considerations. If removing a statue would, for example, spark a violent riot that would risk unjust harm to lots of people, the duty to remove could be outweighed by the duty not to foreseeably cause unjust harm. This would provide a lesser-evil justification for keeping the statue. But it matters that the duty to remove is outweighed, rather than negated, by these consequences. Unlike when a duty is negated, one still owes something in cases of outweighing. And it especially matters that it is outweighed by the predicted consequences of wrongful behaviour by others. (shrink)

There is much philosophical literature on the duty to rescue. Individuals who encounter and could save, at relatively little cost to themselves, a person at risk of losing life or limb are morally obligated to do so. Yet little has been said about the other side of the issue. There are cases in which the need for rescue could have been reasonably avoided by the rescuee. We argue for a duty to take rescue precautions, providing an account of (...) the circumstances in which it arises. This novel duty has important implications for public policy. We apply it to the situation of some of the uninsured in the United States. Given the US clinician's duty to provide emergency care to all people regardless of ability to pay, some of the uninsured have a moral duty to purchase health insurance. We defend the duty against objections, including the possibility that a right to rescue can be waived, thus undermining a duty to take rescue precautions, that the duty of many professionals is voluntarily incurred, and that a distinction between actively assumed and passively assumed risks matters morally. (shrink)

Some people oppose abortion on the grounds that fetuses have full moral status and thus a right to not be killed. We argue that special obligations that hold between mother and fetus also hold between parents and their children. We argue that if these special obligations necessitate the sacrifice of bodily autonomy in the case of abortion, then they also necessitate the sacrifice of bodily autonomy in the case of organ donation. If we accept the argument that it is obligatory (...) to override a woman’s bodily autonomy for the sake of an unborn child’s survival, we must continue to override the bodily autonomy of parents to ensure the survival of their living children, until the parent no longer has a special obligation to their child to the same degree as their special obligation to the fetus. And if the life of a child is truly more important than the bodily autonomy of its parents, as must be the case to force women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, this should remain true until such a time that their children are no longer considered their responsibility. Thus, parity of reasoning suggests that policies compelling the gestation of a fetus should be accompanied by policies compelling organ donation. (shrink)

Debates on humanitarian intervention have focused on the permissibility question. In this paper, I ask whether intervention can be a moral duty, and if it is a moral duty, how this duty is to be distributed and assigned. With respect to the first question, I contemplate whether an intervention that has met the "permissibility" condition is also for this reason necessary and obligatory. If so, the gap between permission and obligation closes in the case of humanitarian intervention. (...) On the second question, I propose 'institutionalizing" the duty to intervene. In this way, an otherwise imperfect obligation to intervene can be made "perfect" and specific to some agent. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the relationship between Kant and the traditional view of dignity. I argue that some amendments to Sensen’s description of the traditional paradigm enable us to see more clearly both where Kant adheres to the latter and where his view is original. First, a consideration of Pufendorf’s use of dignity suggests (1) that, contrary to Sensen’s reconstruction, the traditional paradigm does not entail a connection between dignity and duties to oneself, and (2) that Pufendorf’s understanding of (...) dignity as a kind of esteem, as opposed to price, provides a crucial mediation between the traditional view and Kant’s view. Finally, I argue that the traditional understanding of dignity also includes a subordinate justificatory element that helps to explain Kant’s use of dignity in the Doctrine of Virtue. (shrink)

Most advanced industrial societies are ‘work-centered,’ according high value and prestige to work. Indeed, belief in an interpersonal moral duty to work is encoded in both popular attitudes toward work and in policies such as ‘workfare’. Here I argue that despite the intuitive appeal of reciprocity or fair play as the moral basis for a duty to work, the vast majority of individuals in advanced industrialized societies have no such duty to work. For current economic conditions, labor (...) markets, and government policies entail that the conditions for a reciprocity-based argument to apply to most workers are not usually met. More specifically, many workers fail to provide valuable goods through working or their working does not result in net social benefit. Concurrently, many workers do not receive adequate benefits from working in that they neither have their basic needs met or do not even enjoy an improvement in welfare thanks to working. Hence, workers neither provide nor receive the benefits needed for a reciprocity-based duty to work to apply to them. Furthermore, these conditions are conditions over which workers themselves have very little control. Most workers therefore could not fulfill their ostensible duty to work even if they made conscientious efforts to do so. In most cases, a person who fails to work morally wrongs no one, and in the case of any particular individual or worker, the defeasible presumption ought to be that she has no duty to work. (shrink)

The paper defends the thesis that our epistemic duty is the duty to proportion our beliefs to the evidence we possess. An inclusive view of evidence possessed is put forward on the grounds that it makes sense of our intuitions about when it is right to say that a person ought to believe some proposition P. A second thesis is that we have no epistemic duty to adopt any particular doxastic attitudes. The apparent tension between the two (...) theses is resolved by applying the concept of duty to belief indirectly. (shrink)

Many political theorists argue that immigration restrictions are unjust and defend broadly open borders. In this paper, I examine the implications of this view for individual conduct. In particular, I argue that the citizens of states that enforce unjust immigration restrictions have duties to disobey certain immigration laws. States conscript their citizens to help enforce immigration law by imposing legal duties on these citizens to monitor, report, and refrain from interacting with unauthorized migrants. If an ideal of open borders is (...) true, these laws are unjust. Furthermore, if citizens comply with their legal duties, they contribute to violating the rights of migrants. We are obligated to refrain from contributing to rights-violations. So, citizens are obligated to disobey immigration laws. I defend the moral requirement to disobey immigration laws against the objection that disobedience to the law is excessively risky and the objection that citizens have political obligations to obey the law. (shrink)

During the recent Ebola epidemic, some commentators and stakeholders argued that it would be unethical to carry out a study that withheld a potential treatment from affected individuals with such a serious, untreatable disease. As a result, the initial trials of experimental treatments did not have control arms, despite important scientific reasons for their inclusion. In this paper, we consider whether the duty to rescue entails that it would be unethical to withhold an experimental treatment from patient-participants with serious (...) diseases for which there are no effective treatments, even when doing so is scientifically necessary to test the effectiveness of the treatment. We argue that the duty to rescue will rarely apply. The context of medical research also throws new light on the content of the duty to rescue, since the interests of future patients—who stand to benefit from the fruits of medical research—are relevant to whether the duty applies. (shrink)

Lachlan Umbers defends democracy against Jason’s Brennan’s competence objection, by showing that voting even incompetently does not violate the rights of others, as the risk imposed is negligible, and furthermore lower than other permissible actions, e.g. driving. I show there are costs in taking this line of argument. Accepting it would make arguing for the duty to vote more difficult in two ways: since voting incompetently is permissible, and not voting imposes less risk than not voting, then not voting (...) is permissible; in terms of fairness, voting incompetently is worse than not voting, if voting incompetently is permissible, then there cannot be a fairness-based duty to vote. (shrink)

This paper is the introduction to a collection I guest-edited called 'Positive Duties to Wild Animals'. The collection contains single-authored contributions from Catia Faria, Josh Milburn, Eze Paez, and Jeff Sebo; and co-authored contributions from Mara-Daria Cojocaru and Alasdair Cochrane, and Oscar Horta and Dayrón Terán. It's forthcoming as a special issue of Ethics, Policy and Environment.

The literature on reparative justice focuses for the most part on the grounds and limits of wrongdoers' duties to their victims. An interesting but relatively neglected question is that of what - if anything - victims owe to wrongdoers. In this paper, I argue that victims are under a duty to accept wrongdoers' apologies. To accept an apology is to form the belief that the wrongdoer's apologetic utterance or gesture has the requisite verdictive, commissive and expressive dimensions; to communicate (...) as much to him; and to recognise that his apology changes one's normative status in relation to him, and to comport oneself accordingly. I then offer a Kantian argument for the duty to accept and qualify that argument in the light of some hard cases. I end the paper by addressing the objection that victims do not owe it to wrongdoers to engage in any form of reparative encounter. (shrink)

Clinicians and health researchers frequently encounter opportunities to rescue people. Rescue cases can generate a moral duty to aid those in peril. As such, bioethicists have leveraged a duty to rescue for a variety of purposes. Yet, despite its broad application, the duty to rescue is under-analyzed. In this paper, we assess the state of theorizing about the duty to rescue. There are large gaps in bioethicists’ understanding of the force, scope, and justification of the two (...) most cited duties to rescue—the individual duty of easy rescue and the institutional rule of rescue. We argue that the duty of easy rescue faces unresolved challenges regarding its force and scope, and the rule of rescue is indefensible. If the duty to rescue is to help solve ethical problems, these theoretical gaps must be addressed. We identify two further conceptions of the duty to rescue that have received less attention—an institutional duty of easy rescue and the professional duty to rescue. Both provide guidance in addressing force and scope concerns and, thereby, traction in answering the outstanding problems with the duty to rescue. We conclude by proposing and propose research priorities for developing accounts of duties to rescue in bioethics. (shrink)

Philosophers have long argued that duties to oneself are paradoxical, as they seem to entail an incoherent power to release oneself from obligations. I argue that self-release is possible, both as a matter of deontic logic and of metaethics.

Many people find the manipulation of the human germline—editing the DNA of sperm or egg cells such that these genetic changes are passed to the resulting offspring—to be morally impermissible. In this paper, I argue for the claim that editing the human germline is morally permissible. My argument starts with the claim that outcome uncertainty regarding the effects of germline editing shows that the duty to not harm cannot ground the prohibition of germline editing. Instead, if germline editing is (...) wrong, it is wrong because it violates a duty to protect. However, we also have an epistemic duty to gather evidence regarding the effects of editing the human germline which overrides any moral duty to protect future generations. Thus, we have a duty to gather evidence regarding the effects of editing the human germline, which is to say that we have a duty to edit the human germline. (shrink)

According to Kant, if an agent acts according to his/her conscience, then s/he has done all that s/he ought as far as morality is concerned. But Kant thinks that agents can be mistaken in their subjective determinations of their duties. That is, Kant thinks it is possible for an agent to believe that some action X is right even though it is an objective truth that X is not right; according to Kant, agents do not have infallible knowledge of right (...) and wrong. In this paper, I explore this doctrine in order to determine whether it is defensible. In particular, I confront the blameworthiness of acting contrary to fallible knowledge and the blamelessness of acting according to fallible judgment. (shrink)

A challenge to Kant’s less known duty of self-knowledge comes from his own firm view that it is impossible to know oneself. This paper resolves this problem by considering the duty of self-knowledge as involving the pursuit of knowledge of oneself as one appears in the empirical world. First, I argue that, although Kant places severe restrictions on the possibility of knowing oneself as one is, he admits the possibility of knowing oneself as one appears using methods from (...) empirical anthropology. Second, I show that empirical knowledge of oneself is fairly reliable and is, in fact, considered as morally significant from Kant’s moral anthropological perspective. Taking these points together, I conclude that Kant’s duty of self-knowledge exclusively entails the pursuit of empirical self-knowledge. (shrink)

In Group Duties, Stephanie Collins proposes a ‘tripartite’ social ontology of groups as obligation-bearers. Producing a unified theory of group obligations that reflects our messy social reality is challenging and this ‘three-sizes-fit-all’ approach promises clarity but does not always keep that promise. I suggest considering the epistemic level as primary in determining collective obligations, allowing for more fluidity than the proposed tripartite ontology of collectives, coalitions and combinations.

In this paper, I will discuss a children’s rights-based argument for the duty of states, as a joint effort, to establish an effective program to help bring children out of conflict zones, such as parts of Syria, and to a safe haven. Children are among the most vulnerable subjects in violent conflicts who suffer greatly and have their human rights brutally violated as a consequence. Furthermore, children are also a group whose capacities to protect themselves are very limited, while (...) their chance to flee is most often only slim. I will then discuss three counterarguments: the first counterargument would be that, instead of getting the children out of a particular country, it would be better to improve their situation in their home countries. A second counterargument could be that those states, which have such a duty to bring children to a safe haven, would be overburdened by it. Finally, the third counterargument I want to discuss states that such a duty would also demand a military intervention, which could worsen the situation even further. (shrink)

In the practice of jury nullification, a jury votes to acquit a defendant in disregard of the factual evidence, on the grounds that a conviction would result in injustice, either because the law itself is unjust or because its application in the particular case would be unjust. The practice is widely condemned by courts, which strenuously attempt to prevent it. Nevertheless, the arguments against jury nullification are surprisingly weak. I argue that, pursuant to the general ethical duty to avoid (...) causing unjust harms to others, jurors are often morally obligated to disregard the law. (~7400 words). (shrink)

We respond to open peer commentaries on our target article, "Health Research Priority Setting: The Duties of Individual Funders".

The harms associated with wireless mobile devices (e.g. smartphones) are well documented. They have been linked to anxiety, depression, diminished attention span, sleep disturbance, and decreased relationship satisfaction. Perhaps what is most worrying from a moral perspective, however, is the effect these devices can have on our autonomy. In this article, we argue that there is an obligation to foster and safeguard autonomy in ourselves, and we suggest that wireless mobile devices pose a serious threat to our capacity to fulfill (...) this obligation. We defend the existence of an imperfect duty to be a ‘digital minimalist’. That is, we have a moral obligation to be intentional about how and to what extent we use these devices. The empirical findings already justify prudential reasons in favor of digital minimalism, but the moral duty is distinct from and independent of prudential considerations. (shrink)

This paper straightforwardly addresses one of the strongest, from an ethical perspective, objections presented to the duty to die, the one concerned with the lack of a normative theory to support it, offered by Seay in his paper Can there be a “duty to die” without a normative theory? The aim of the paper is to provide strong metaethical grounds to support the duty to die without the need of a moral normative theory. First, the definition and (...) main argument for the duty to die will be presented. Second, Seay’s objection will be described and clearly explained. Third, our metaphysical assumptions and a preliminary metaethical discussion will be offered to situate and understand the context. Finally, we will show how the duty to die can be integrated within the metaethical approach previously presented, defending that there is no need of a normative theory to provide good justification and strong ethical grounds for the duty to die, because they will have already been provided by our metaethical argument. (shrink)

In order to at least begin addressing the extensive the problem of moral clarity in aiding the deprived to some degree, I first argue that the duty to aid the deprived is not merely a charitable one, dependent on the discretion, or the arbitrary will, of the giver (1). Then, before further analysing the individual duty to aid, I critically examine whether deprivation is better alleviated or remedied through the duties of corrective justice. I argue that the perspective (...) of corrective justice is important, but not sufficient when it comes to dealing with deprivation (2). I then argue that non-domination cannot serve as a first-order principle of justice. It is too minimalistic, since it would not require duties of justice where deprivation exists, but dominating relations and institutions do not. (3). Going back to the individual duty to help, I argue that the duties to aid the needy must be assessed according to the situation at hand (4). In order to avoid meaninglessness and morality’s excessive demands, one should be able to identify the responsible agents by constructing a shared and, in the last resort, institution-based duty to help (5). The institutional approach in this paper argues that we should create and reform institutions in order to realize the pre-existing requirement to alleviate global deprivation. This is a form of “global political justice” that does not start with politics, but ends with global political institutions. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I explicate some of the moral duties we have to future humans. I defend the view that (DV1) we have pro tanto duties of nonmaleficence and beneficence to and regarding at least some future humans; (DV2) in the present circumstances, this duty of nonmaleficence grounds reasons for us to refrain from damaging certain features of the natural environment; and (DV3) in the present circumstances, this duty of beneficence grounds reasons for at least some of us (...) to bring future humans into existence. I refer to the view consisting of (DV1) - (DV3) as the Duties to Future Humans View (DV). In defense of DV1, I argue that future humans have moral standing, and that their having moral standing is sufficient for our having pro tanto duties of nonmaleficence and beneficence to and regarding them. I take a duty of nonmaleficence to be a duty to refrain from harming and a duty of beneficence to be a duty to benefit. In defense of DV2, I argue that increases in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and numerous species extinctions are harms for future humans. In defense of DV3, I argue that having a life worth living is a benefit to the person who lives that life. One objection to DV is the non-identity problem. In response, I defend substantive accounts of harming and benefiting. The account of harming holds that for any individual having moral standing, S, and any state of affairs, A, (1) A is a harm for S just in case if it were true that both S existed and A did not obtain, then S would have a higher level of lifetime well-being; (2) an action or event harms S just in case it causes a harm for S to obtain; (3) other things being equal, the reason against harming S is stronger, the more similar the world would be if A did not obtain. I argue for a similar account of benefiting. I also argue for a metaphysical distinction between causes and mere conditions. (shrink)

This paper is about the implications of a common view on global justice. The view can be called the Minimalist View, and it says that we have no positive duties to help the poor in foreign countries, or that if we do, they are very minimal. It might seem as if, by definition, the Minimalist View cannot require that we do very much about global poverty. However, in his book World Poverty and Human Rights, Thomas Pogge pointed out that this (...) conclusion is at least up for debate. Although Minimalism countenances very few positive duties to the global poor, it certainly countenances negative duties not to harm. Perhaps one can argue that these negative duties are somehow being violated, and thus even a Minimalist must make substantial compensation to the global poor. However, in this paper I argue that Pogge’s argument about Minimalism does not succeed. The second half of the paper offers ways to revise and improve the argument in order to make the case for assistance to the global poor. (shrink)

The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was designed to increase health insurance coverage in the United States. Its most controversial feature is the requirement that US residents purchase health insurance. Opponents of the mandate argue that requiring people to contribute to the collective good is inconsistent with respect for individual liberty. Rather than appeal to the collective good, this Viewpoint argues for a duty to buy health insurance based on the moral duty individuals have to reduce (...) certain burdens they pose on others. When some people have a duty to rescue, others may have a duty to take rescue precautions, in this case, to purchase health insurance to cover acute and emergency care needs. Requiring that individuals meet this obligation is consistent with respect of individual liberty. (shrink)

Several philosophers argue that individuals have an interest-protecting right to parent; specifically, the interest is in rearing children whom one can parent adequately. If such a right exists it can provide a solution to scepticism about duties of justice concerning distant future generations and bypass the challenge provided by the non-identity problem. Current children - whose identity is independent from environment-affecting decisions of current adults - will have, in due course, a right to parent. Adequate parenting requires resources. We owe (...) duties of justice to current children, including the satisfaction of their interest-protecting rights; therefore we owe them the conditions for rearing children adequately in the future. But to engage in permissible parenting they, too, will need sufficient resources to ensure their own children's future ability to bring up children under adequate conditions. Because this reasoning goes on ad infinitum it entails that each generation of adults owes its contemporary generation of children at least those resources that are necessary for sustaining human life indefinitely at an adequate level of wellbeing. (shrink)