Janet Radcliffe Richards’ The Ethics of Transplants outlines a novel framework for moral inquiry in practical contexts and applies it to the topic of paid living kidney donation. In doing so, Radcliffe Richards makes two key claims: that opponents of organ markets bear the burden of proof, and that this burden has not yet been satisfied. This paper raises four related objections to Radcliffe Richards’ methodological framework, focusing largely on how Radcliffe Richards uses this framework in (...) her discussion of kidney sales. We conclude that Radcliffe Richards’ method of inquiry hinders our ability to answer the very question that it ought to help us resolve: What is there best reason to do, all things considered? (shrink)

Peter van Inwagen's Direct Argument (DA) for incompatibilism purports to establish incompatibilism with respect to moral responsibility and determinism without appealing to assumptions that compatibilists usually consider controversial. Recently, Michael McKenna has presented a novel critique of DA. McKenna's critique raises important issues about philosophical dialectics. In this article, we address those issues and contend that his argument does not succeed.

Should people include beef in their diet? This chapter argues that the answer is “no” by reviewing what is known and not known about the presence in cattle of three psychological traits: pain, desire, and self-consciousness. On the basis of behavioral and neuroanatomical evidence, the chapter argues that cattle are sentient beings who have things they want to do in the proximal future, but they are not self-conscious. The piece rebuts three important objections: that cattle have injury information but not (...) pain; that cattle have goal-directed behavior but not desire; and that the absence of evidence for bovine self-consciousness should not be taken as evidence that cattle lack self-consciousness. In sum, what is known about cattle cognition shifts the moral burden of proof on to the beef eaters. (shrink)

In order to perform certain actions – such as incarcerating a person or revoking parental rights – the state must establish certain facts to a particular standard of proof. These standards – such as preponderance of evidence and beyond reasonable doubt – are often interpreted as likelihoods or epistemic confidences. Many theorists construe them numerically; beyond reasonable doubt, for example, is often construed as 90 to 95% confidence in the guilt of the defendant. -/- A family of influential cases (...) suggests standards of proof should not be interpreted numerically. These ‘proof paradoxes’ illustrate that purely statistical evidence can warrant high credence in a disputed fact without satisfying the relevant legal standard. In this essay I evaluate three influential attempts to explain why merely statistical evidence cannot satisfy legal standards. (shrink)

How is the burden of proof to be distributed among individuals who are involved in resolving a particular issue? Under what conditions should the burden of proof be distributed unevenly? We distinguish attitudinal from dialectical burdens and argue that these questions should be answered differently, depending on which is in play. One has an attitudinal burden with respect to some proposition when one is required to possess sufficient evidence for it. One has a dialectical (...) class='Hi'>burden with respect to some proposition when one is required to provide supporting arguments for it as part of a deliberative process. We show that the attitudinal burden with respect to certain propositions is unevenly distributed in some deliberative contexts, but in all of these contexts, establishing the degree of support for the proposition is merely a means to some other deliberative end, such as action guidance, or persuasion. By contrast, uneven distributions of the dialectical burden regularly further the aims of deliberation, even in contexts where the quest for truth is the sole deliberative aim, rather than merely a means to some different deliberative end. We argue that our distinction between these two burdens resolves puzzles about unevenness that have been raised in the literature. (shrink)

The concept of burden of proof is used in a wide range of discourses, from philosophy to law, science, skepticism, and even in everyday reasoning. This paper provides an analysis of the proper deployment of burden of proof, focusing in particular on skeptical discussions of pseudoscience and the paranormal, where burden of proof assignments are most poignant and relatively clear-cut. We argue that burden of proof is often misapplied or used as a (...) mere rhetorical gambit, with little appreciation of the underlying principles. The paper elaborates on an important distinction between evidential and prudential varieties of burdens of proof, which is cashed out in terms of Bayesian probabilities and error management theory. Finally, we explore the relationship between burden of proof and several (alleged) informal logical fallacies. This allows us to get a firmer grip on the concept and its applications in different domains, and also to clear up some confusions with regard to when exactly some fallacies (ad hominem, ad ignorantiam, and petitio principii) may or may not occur. (shrink)

Various studies have reported that moral intuitions about the permissibility of acts are subject to framing effects. This paper reports the results of a series of experiments which further examine the susceptibility of moral intuitions to framing effects. The main aim was to test recent speculation that intuitions about the moral relevance of certain properties of cases might be relatively resistent to framing effects. If correct, this would provide a certain type of moral intuitionist with the (...) resources to resist challenges to the reliability of moral intuitions based on such framing effects. And, fortunately for such intuitionists, although the results can’t be used to mount a strident defence of intuitionism, the results do serve to shift the burden of proof onto those who would claim that intuitions about moral relevance are problematically sensitive to framing effects. (shrink)

The debate on the ethical permissibility of autonomous weapon systems (AWS) is deadlocked. It could therefore benefit from a differentiated assignment of the burden of proof. This is because the discussion is not purely philosophical in nature, but has a legal and security policy component and aims to avoid the most harmful outcomes of an otherwise unchecked development. Opponents of a universal AWS ban must clearly demonstrate that AWS comply with the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC). This requires (...) extensive testing of specific models to verify compliance in realistic combat situations; working on appropriate testing regimes is also one of the most important future tasks for AWS ethics. In this context, however, it is easy to refute the claim put forward by prohibitionists that AWS violate LOAC a priori. A state’ s right to ensure security and the protection of human rights through military capacity has a high ethical value. Other arguments against the use of AWS that are not based on LOAC conformity must therefore meet a substantial burden of proof, as they call on governments to abandon a military technology which is at least potentially transformative. None of those objections meet this standard. They include not only culturally or even individually divergent norms and ideas regarding the use of weapons, but also consequentialist (security policy) concerns on the one hand and so-called deontological arguments on the other. While the former at least point to the need for essential regulation, the latter are based on rather dubious premises. For the purposes of solutions beneficial to humanity, prohibitionist should formulate narrower and more specific points of criticism. (shrink)

The adage, “one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter,” is offered as a plausible example of evoking moral relativism. Moral relativists recognize no transcultural moral facts. So, for them, even the concept of harm would be subjective or context-sensitive. Yet one can appeal to cogent transcultural moral reasons to distinguish between deliberately and unjustifiably harming impeccably innocent people and those who might engage in justifiably harming those guilty of grave crimes. In the face of the (...) preventable evil acts that terrorists frequently perpetrate against impeccably innocent people, it is argued that moral relativists have a substantive burden of proof to demonstrate that no cogent transcultural moral reasons exist against the practice of terrorism. In the absence of such a demonstration, it is reasonable to believe that the practice of terrorism, while not totally defeating moral relativism, seems to undermine its credibility. (shrink)

A dogma accepted in many ethical, religious, and legal frameworks is that the reasons behind conscientious objection (CO) in healthcare cannot be evaluated or judged by any institution because conscience is individual and autonomous. This paper shows that this background view is mistaken: the requirement to reveal and explain the reasons for conscientious objection in healthcare is ethically justified and legally desirable. Referring to real healthcare cases and legal regulations, this paper argues that these reasons should be evaluated either ex (...) ante or ex post and defends novel conceptual claims that have not been analyzed in the debates on CO. First, a moral threshold requirement: CO is only justified if the reasons behind a refusal are of a moral nature and meet a certain threshold of moral importance. Second, this paper considers the rarely discussed conceptual similarities between CO in healthcare and the legal regulations concerning military refusals that place the burden of proof on conscientious objectors. This paper concludes that conscientious objection in healthcare can be accommodated only in some cases of destroying or killing human organisms. (shrink)

The paper proposes two logical analyses of (the norms of) justification. In a first, realist-minded case, truth is logically independent from justification and leads to a pragmatic logic LP including two epistemic and pragmatic operators, namely, assertion and hypothesis. In a second, antirealist-minded case, truth is not logically independent from justification and results in two logical systems of information and justification: AR4 and AR4¢, respectively, provided with a question-answer semantics. The latter proposes many more epistemic agents, each corresponding to a (...) wide variety of epistemic norms. After comparing the different norms of justification involved in these logical systems, two hexagons expressing Aristotelian relations of opposition will be gathered in order to clarify how (a fragment of) pragmatic formulas can be interpreted in a fuzzy-based question-answer semantics. (shrink)

I discuss two types of evidential problems with the most widely touted experiments in evolutionary psychology, those performed by Leda Cosmides and interpreted by Cosmides and John Tooby. First, and despite Cosmides and Tooby's claims to the contrary, these experiments don't fulfil the standards of evidence of evolutionary biology. Second Cosmides and Tooby claim to have performed a crucial experiment, and to have eliminated rival approaches. Though they claim that their results are consistent with their theory but contradictory to the (...) leading non-evolutionary alternative, Pragmatic Reasoning Schemas theory, I argue that this claim is unsupported. In addition, some of Cosmides and Tooby's interpretations arise from misguided and simplistic understandings of evolutionary biology. While I endorse the incorporation of evolutionary approaches into psychology, I reject the claims of Cosmides and Tooby that a modular approach is the only one supported by evolutionary biology. Lewontin's critical examinations of the applications of adaptationist thinking provide a background of evidentiary standards against which to view the currently fashionable claims of evolutionary psychology. (shrink)

Presumption is a complex concept in law, affecting the dialogue setting. However, it is not clear how presumptions work in everyday argumentation, in which the concept of “plausible argumentation” seems to encompass all kinds of inferences. By analyzing the legal notion of presumption, it appears that this type of reasoning combines argument schemes with reasoning from ignorance. Presumptive reasoning can be considered a particular form of reasoning, which needs positive or negative evidence to carry a probative weight on the conclusion. (...) For this reason, presumptions shift the burden of providing evidence or explanations onto the interlocutor. The latter can provide new information or fail to do so: whereas in the first case the new information rebuts the presumption, in the second case, the absence of information that the interlocutor could reasonably provide strengthen the conclusion of the presumptive reasoning. In both cases the result of the presumption is to strengthen the conclusion of the reasoning from lack of evidence. As shown in the legal cases, the effect of presumption is to shift the burden of proof to the interlocutor; however, the shift a presumption effects is only the shift of the evidential burden, or the burden of completing the incomplete knowledge from which the conclusion was drawn. The burden of persuasion remains on the proponent of the presumption. On the contrary, reasoning from definition in law is a conclusive proof, and shifts to the other party the burden to prove the contrary. This crucial difference can be applied to everyday argumentation: natural arguments can be divided into dialectical and presumptive arguments, leading to conclusions materially different in strength. -/- . (shrink)

Students sometimes profess moral relativism or skepticism with retorts like ‘how can we know?’ or ‘it’s all relative!’ Here I defend a pedagogical method to defuse moral relativism and moral skepticism using phenomenal conservatism: if it seems to S that p, S has defeasible justification to believe that p; e.g., moral seemings, like perceptual ones, are defeasibly justified. The purpose of defusing moral skepticism and relativism is to prevent these metaethical views from acting as stumbling (...) blocks to insightful ethical inquiry in the classroom. This approach puts the burden of proof on the relativist or skeptic (to justify their view, contrary to appearances), and makes their views costlier: if we reject moral seemings as a kind, we must reject other less objectionable seemings too (e.g. intellectual seemings). Finally, this approach improves learning outcomes by ‘hooking onto’ student familiarity with seemings, e.g. seeing is (defeasibly justified) believing. (shrink)

Many distributive egalitarians do not endorse strict equality of goods. Rather, they treat an equal division as having a special status such that departures from equality must be justified. They claim, then, that an equal division is “presumptively” just. Though the idea that equality is presumptively just and that departures from it may be just has intuitive appeal, making a case for this idea proves difficult. I argue, first, that extant “presumption arguments” are unsound. Second, I distill two general philosophical (...) morals: luck egalitarians have not adequately defended the presumption of equality and they face serious obstacles in doing so; Rawls has defended it, but only indirectly via the contract apparatus. This approach narrows the presumption’s appeal. Third, I consider and reject two alternative ways of understanding the presumption of equality that might avoid the problems revealed by my examination of extant views. The first appeals to the idea of value pluralism. The second treats the presumption as a view about the burden of proof. I conclude, ultimately, that it is misleading to think of distributive egalitarianism as typically having the form of a presumption argument. (shrink)

In this paper, it is argued that terrorism undermines the justification of perspective relativism. The cliché, “one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter,” is offered as an example of perspective relativism. Perspective relativists argue that moral principles and judgments have no universal moral import. Those who defend the cliché expression presuppose that the evaluation of terrorism is necessarily perspectival. For them, there are no morally objective differences, e.g., between deliberately killing combatants and deliberately killing innocent noncombatants. Yet (...) there are morally objective differences between these two acts. While the first act might be justified, the second act is considered murder. Hence, the evaluation of terrorism is not necessarily perspectival. Therefore, in the face of the evil that terrorists bring about, it is argued that perspective relativists have a substantive burden of proof to show that there are no transcultural moral values. (shrink)

We review the definition of the Full Bayesian Significance Test (FBST), and summarize its main statistical and epistemological characteristics. We review also the Abstract Belief Calculus (ABC) of Darwiche and Ginsberg, and use it to analyze the FBST’s value of evidence. This analysis helps us understand the FBST properties and interpretation. The definition of value of evidence against a sharp hypothesis, in the FBST setup, was motivated by applications of Bayesian statistical reasoning to legal matters where the sharp hypotheses were (...) defendants statements, to be judged according to the Onus Probandi juridical principle. (shrink)

Deepfakes and other forms of synthetic media are widely regarded as serious threats to our knowledge of the world. Various technological responses to these threats have been proposed. The reactive approach proposes to use artificial intelligence to identify synthetic media. The proactive approach proposes to use blockchain and related technologies to create immutable records of verified media content. I argue that both approaches, but especially the reactive approach, are vulnerable to a problem analogous to the ancient problem of the criterion—a (...) line of argument with skeptical implications. I argue that, while the proactive approach is relatively resistant to this objection, it faces its own serious challenges. In short, the proactive approach would place a heavy burden on users to verify their own content, a burden that is exacerbated by and is likely to exacerbate existing inequalities. (shrink)

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is one of the best dispute settlement mechanisms in the world. Under WTO rules, aggrieved parties must establish a “prima facie” case before the panel can call on the offending party to respond to the claims. The objective of the present study is to critically evaluate the application of the concept of burden of proof underWTOdispute settlement mechanism.

It is a fact that there is ethical criticism about art. Art critics, the general public and even artists point out moral flaws in artworks while evaluating them. Philosophers, however, have maintained a hot debate on the meaning of such criticism. This debate can be understood as a disagreement about the kind of relation between the artistic value of artworks and their alleged moral value. While some claim that moral value can contribute to artistic value (moralism), others (...) claim that there cannot be such a contribution (autonomism). Since at least some works of architecture are artworks, that debate also concerns architecture. A moderate moralist view claims that some works of architecture have moral flaws/merits that bear on their artistic evaluation. In an apparently promising version, the contention is that some moral flaws/merits are aesthetically relevant. In this paper I argue against such contention and defend an autonomist view. Following some taxonomy remarks I distinguish the views in the debate and present two points in favour of autonomism: its simplicity and not having the burden of proof. Then I discuss Carroll’s merited response argument for moralism and I argue that in its best interpretation either it begs the question against autonomism or it is compatible with it. I conclude with some possible objections that may help further investigations on the subject. (shrink)

Reliance on intuitive and emotive responses is widespread across many areas of bioethics, and the current debate on biotechnological human enhancement is particularly interesting in this respect. A strand of “bioconservatives” that has explicitly drawn connections to the modern conservative tradition, dating back to Edmund Burke, appeals explicitly to the alleged wisdom of our intuitions and emotions to ground opposition to some biotechnologies or their uses. So-called bioliberals, those who in principle do not oppose human bioenhancement, tend to rely on (...) rational arguments and to see intuitions and emotions mostly as sources of biases. This approach often translates into shifting the burden of proof onto bioconservatives and challenging them to provide arguments against the proposed enhancement to back what bioliberals perceive as merely intuitive, emotive, and irrational reactions. -/- In this article, I am going to show that the methodological divide between bioliberals and bioconservatives is less significant than at first glance it appears to be and less significant than it is often taken to be. I will do so by defending two theses. The first is that reliance on intuitions and emotions is not a prerogative of bioconservatives: bioliberals have their typical intuitions and emotive responses and are for this reason exposed to potential biases in the same way as bioconservatives are. The second thesis is that reliance on intuitions and emotions is not necessarily antithetic to reason and rationality. This latter thesis has been philosophically defended with particular reference to the debate on biotechnologies, while the former is perhaps more controversial and more difficult to accept—at least for bioliberals. In both cases, I will support the claims by drawing on resources from the field of moral psychology and the sciences of the mind and, particularly, by applying to some positions in the enhancement debate recent findings about the role of intuitions and emotions in human moral assessment. This new empirically informed perspective holds promises for solving the methodological controversy between bioconservatives and bioliberals, thus enabling proper dialogue and debate between the two sides. (shrink)

In my replies to some of my critics I argue that while the practice of terrorism is never justified, I concede that it is rarely but sometimes excused. As result, those who engage in excusable terrorism has a substantial burden of proof. They need to offer a compelling argument to show that the harm caused by their terrorist violence is actually excused by the extenuating circumstances and the goal that they are trying to achieve, so they will not (...) be morally or legally blameworthy for bringing about such harm. I am assuming that they will need to demonstrate that the alleged harm is excusable because it is necessary to accomplish a worthy goal and there is no other reasonable way to obtain such a worthy goal without deliberately harming those who can be reasonably conceived of as impeccably or objectively innocent. That is, those who are innocent beyond reasonable doubt. (shrink)

To what extent are authors morally culpable for harms caused by their published work? Can authors be culpable even if their ideas are misused, perhaps because they failed to take precautions to prevent harmful misinterpretations? Might authors be culpable even if they do take precautions—if, for example, they publish ideas that others can be reasonably expected to put to harmful uses, precautions notwithstanding? Although complete answers to these questions depend upon controversial views about the right to free speech, this paper (...) argues that five notions from philosophy of law and legal practice—liability, burden of proof, legal causation, mens rea, and reasoning by precedent—can be adapted to provide an attractive moral framework for determining whether an author’s work causes harm, whether and how culpable the author is for causing such harm, steps authors may take to immunize themselves from culpability, and how to responsibly develop new rules for publishing ethics. (shrink)

Peter van Inwagen's Direct Argument (DA) purports to establish the incompatibility of determinism and moral responsibility, without appealing to the notion of avoidability, a notion on whose analysis compatibilists and incompatibilists disagree. Van Inwagen intended DA to refute compatibilism, or at least to shift the burden of proof onto the compatibilist. In this paper, we offer a critical assessment of DA. We examine a variety of objections to DA due to John Fischer and Mark Ravizza, Ishtiyaque Haji, (...) Seth Shabo, Michael McKenna, and David Widerker. We divide these objections into those based on dialectical considerations (section 1), and objections in the form of counterexamples to a central principle which the Direct Argument employs (sec 2). The conclusion we reach is that the proponent of DA can deal plausibly with these objections, thus establishing DA as a powerful argument in favor of incompatibilism. (shrink)

A classic objection to act-consequentialism is that it is overdemanding: it requires agents to bear too many costs for the sake of promoting the impersonal good. I develop the complementary objection that act-consequentialism is underdemanding: it fails to acknowledge that agents have moral reasons to bear certain costs themselves, even when it would be impersonally better for others to bear these costs.

Peter van Inwagen's Direct Argument (DA) purports to establish the incompatibility of determinism and moral responsibility, without appealing to the notion of avoidability, a notion on whose analysis compatibilists and incompatibilists disagree. Van Inwagen intended DA to refute compatibilism, or at least to shift the burden of proof onto the compatibilist. In this paper, we offer a critical assessment of DA. We examine a variety of objections to DA due to John Fischer and Mark Ravizza, Ishtiyaque Haji, (...) Seth Shabo, Michael McKenna, and David Widerker. We divide these objections into those based on dialectical considerations (section 1), and objections in the form of counterexamples to a central principle which the Direct Argument employs (sec 2). The conclusion we reach is that the proponent of DA can deal plausibly with these objections, thus establishing DA as a powerful argument in favor of incompatibilism. (shrink)

The first part of this paper surveys five perspectives in Kant’s philosophy on the quantity of retribution to be inflicted on wrongdoers, ordered by two dimensions of difference – whether they are theoretical or practical perspectives, and the quantity of retribution they prescribe: (1) theoretical zero, the perspective of theoretical philosophy; (2) practical infinity, the perspective of God and conscience; (3) practical equality, the perspective of punishment in public law; (4) practical degrees, the perspective we adopt in private relations to (...) others and (5) practical zero, a perspective I argue is entailed by Kant’s doctrine of strict right, which is his justification of coercing compliance with public law. Kant acknowledges 1–4 but not 5. The second part draws on Kant’s account of the burden of proof in criminal law to argue that Kant is wrong to adopt 3 in responding to criminals, and that we ought to adopt 5 instead. (shrink)

Our beliefs about which actions we ought to perform clearly have an effect on what we do. But so-called “Humean” theories—holding that all motivation has its source in desire—insist on connecting such beliefs with an antecedent motive. Rationalists, on the other hand, allow normative beliefs a more independent role. I argue in favor of the rationalist view in two stages. First, I show that the Humean theory rules out some of the ways we ordinarily explain actions. This shifts the (...) class='Hi'>burden of proof onto Humeans to motivate their more restrictive, revisionary account. Second, I show that they are unlikely to discharge this burden because the key arguments in favor of the Humean theory fail. I focus on some of the most potent and most recent lines of argument, which appeal to either parsimony, the teleological nature of motivation, or the structure of practical reasoning. (shrink)

This paper challenges one of the main contributions of Political Liberalism (PL), namely the burdens of judgment (BoJ), on the grounds that it is superfluous to the project of excluding matters of the good from politics and it makes PL susceptible to a scepticism objection. From Rawls’s PL, we can extract two arguments for epistemic restraint in the public realm. The first is a moral argument based on the principles of fairness and reciprocity. The second is an epistemic argument (...) derived from the idea of the insurmountability of BoJ. The second of these arguments, I contend, is superfluous for two reasons: (i) BoJ, as a descriptive claim cannot itself explain why citizens should uphold a form of toleration that requires them to honor their epistemic restraint in politics. (ii) The moral argument alone is sufficient to justify epistemic constraint in the public realm through the reasonable exercise of political power. -/- Moreover, acceptance of the BoJ is incompatible with subscribing to a reasonable comprehensive doctrine (RCD) with a degree of certainty that is required to be convinced of any such doctrine. The relation between BoJ and scepticism has been addressed before but these thinkers assume that it is the implication of BoJ namely, reasonable disagreement that entails scepticism. This paper lays new sceptical challenges at the doorstep of PL and these new challenges focus on the very idea of the insurmountability of BoJ. Furthermore, it argues that scepticism is not an appropriate epistemic commitment for PL as it is incompatible with the aim of freestanding political conception of justice. Also, it is subversive of the purpose of an overlapping consensus because the idea underpinning an overlapping consensus is that citizens should not only appreciate liberal political principles as reasonable but they should also accept them as true on the basis of their own religious or philosophical reasons. Provided that BoJ entails scepticism, BoJ makes citizens’ religious and philosophical truth claims utterly irrelevant to the stability of society. Accordingly, I argue that the Rawlsian account of reasonableness must relinquish the epistemic component, BoJ; instead it should articulate how the moral component of reasonableness entails the principles of epistemic restraint in politics and acting from public reasons. (shrink)

According to a common conception of legal proof, satisfying a legal burden requires establishing a claim to a numerical threshold. Beyond reasonable doubt, for example, is often glossed as 90% or 95% likelihood given the evidence. Preponderance of evidence is interpreted as meaning at least 50% likelihood given the evidence. In light of problems with the common conception, I propose a new ‘relevant alternatives’ framework for legal standards of proof. Relevant alternative accounts of knowledge state that a (...) person knows a proposition when their evidence rules out all relevant error possibilities. I adapt this framework to model three legal standards of proof—the preponderance of evidence, clear and convincing evidence, and beyond reasonable doubt standards. I describe virtues of this framework. I argue that, by eschewing numerical thresholds, the relevant alternatives framework avoids problems inherent to rival models. I conclude by articulating aspects of legal normativity and practice illuminated by the relevant alternatives framework. (shrink)

The standard of proof applied in civil trials is the preponderance of evidence, often said to be met when a proposition is shown to be more than 50% likely to be true. A number of theorists have argued that this 50%+ standard is too weak – there are circumstances in which a court should find that the defendant is not liable, even though the evidence presented makes it more than 50% likely that the plaintiff’s claim is true. In this (...) paper, I will recapitulate the familiar arguments for this thesis, before defending a more radical one: The 50%+ standard is also too strong – there are circumstances in which a court should find that a defendant is liable, even though the evidence presented makes it less than 50% likely that the plaintiff’s claim is true. I will argue that the latter thesis follows naturally from the former once we accept that the parties in a civil trial are to be treated equally. I will conclude by sketching an alternative interpretation of the civil standard of proof. (shrink)

Two problems are considered here. One relates to who has moral status, and the other relates to who has moral responsibility. The criteria for mattering morally have long been disputed, and many humans and nonhuman animals have been considered “marginal cases,” on the contested edges of moral considerability and concern. The marginalization of humans and other species is frequently the pretext for denying their rights, including the rights to health care, to reproductive freedom, and to bodily autonomy. (...) There is broad agreement across cultural and philosophical traditions about the capacities and responsibilities of moral agents. I propose an inclusive and expansive way of thinking about moral status, situating it not in the characteristics or capacities of individuals, but in the responsibilities and obligations of moral agents. Moral agents, under this view, are not privileged or entitled to special treatment but rather have responsibilities. I approach this by considering some African communitarian conceptions of moral status and moral agency. I propose that moral agency can also be more expansive and include not just individual moral agents but collective entities that have some of the traits of moral agents: power, freedom, and the capacity to recognize and act on the demands of morality and acknowledge and respect the rights of others. Expanding who and what is a moral agent correspondingly extends moral responsibility for respecting rights and fostering the conditions for the health and well-being of humans and animals onto the collective entities who uniquely have the capacity to attend to global-scale health threats such as pandemics and human-caused climate change. (shrink)

The starting point of the paper is the frequent ascription of moral duties to states, especially in the context of problems of global justice. It is widely assumed that industrialized or wealthy countries in particular have a moral obligation or duties of justice to shoulder burdens of poverty reduction or climate change adaptation and mitigation. But can collectives such as states actually hold moral duties? If answering this affirmatively: what does it actually mean to say that a (...) state has moral obligations or duties of justice? In this paper I argue that states can be considered collective agents which can hold moral duties. If a collective holds moral duties this entails duties for its individual members. I show how depending on their position within the collective these duties differ. (shrink)

The paper considers contemporary models of presumption in terms of their ability to contribute to a working theory of presumption for argumentation. Beginning with the Whatelian model, we consider its contemporary developments and alternatives, as proposed by Sidgwick, Kauffeld, Cronkhite, Rescher, Walton, Freeman, Ullmann-Margalit, and Hansen. Based on these accounts, we present a picture of presumptions characterized by their nature, function, foundation and force. On our account, presumption is a modal status that is attached to a claim and has the (...) effect of shifting, in a dialogue, a burden of proof set at a local level. Presumptions can be analysed and evaluated inferentially as components of rule-based structures. Presumptions are defeasible, and the force of a presumption is a function of its normative foundation. This picture seeks to provide a framework to guide the development of specific theories of presumption. (shrink)

Autonomous and automatic weapons would be fire and forget: you activate them, and they decide who, when and how to kill; or they kill at a later time a target you’ve selected earlier. Some argue that this sort of killing is always wrong. If killing is to be done, it should be done only under direct human control. (E.g., Mary Ellen O’Connell, Peter Asaro, Christof Heyns.) I argue that there are surprisingly many kinds of situation where this is false and (...) where the use of Automated Weapons Systems would in fact be morally required. These include cases where a) once one has activated a weapon expected then to behave lethally, it would be appropriate to let it continue because this is part of a plan whose goodness one was best positioned to evaluate before activating the weapon; b) one expects better long-term consequences from allowing it to continue; c) allowing it to continue would express a decision you made to be resolute, a decision that could not have advantaged you had it not been true that you would carry through with it; d) the weapon is mechanically not recallable, so that, to not allow it to carry through, you would have had to refrain from activating it in the first place, something you expected would have disastrous consequences; e) you must deputize necessary killings to autonomous machines in order to protect yourself from guilt you shouldn’t have to bear; f) it would be morally better for the burden of responsibility for the killing to be shared among several agents, and the agents deputizing killing to machines can do this, especially where it’s not predictable which machine will be successful; g) a killing would be morally better done with elements of randomness and lack of deliberation, and a (relatively stupid) machine could do this where a person could not; h) the machine would be acting as a Doomsday Device, so that it could not have had its hoped for deterrent effect had you not ensured that you would be unable to recall it if enemy action activated it; i) letting it carry through is a necessary part of its own learning process, and you expect that this learning will have salutary effects later on; j) human intervention in the machine’s operation would disastrously impair its precision, or its speed and efficiency; k) using non-automated methods would require human resources you just don’t have in a task that nevertheless must be done (e.g., using land-mines to protect remote installations); l) the weapon has such horrible and indiscriminate power that it is doubtful whether it could be actually used in ways compatible with International Humanitarian Law and the Laws of War, which require that weapons be used only in ways respecting distinctness, necessity and proportionality, but its threat of use could respect these principles in affording deterrence provided human error cannot lead to their accidental deployment, this requiring that they be controlled by carefully designed autonomous and automatic systems. I then consider objections based on conceptions of human dignity and find that very often dignity too is best served by autonomous machine killing. Examples include saving your village by activating a robot to kill invading enemies who would inflict great indignity on your village, using a suicide robot to save yourself from a less dignified death at enemy hands, using a robotic drone to kill someone otherwise not accessible in order to restore dignity to someone this person killed and to his family, and using a robot to kill someone who needs killing, but the killing of whom by a human executioner would soil the executioner’s dignity. I conclude that what matters in rightful killing isn’t necessarily that it be under the direct control of a human, but that it be under the control of morality; and that could sometimes require use of an autonomous or automated device. (This paper was formerly called "Fire and Forget: A Defense of the Use of Autonomous Weapons in War" on Philpapers; the current title is the title of the published version.). (shrink)

In this article, we identify three key design dimensions along which cryptocurrencies differ -- privacy, censorship-resistance, and consensus procedure. Each raises important normative issues. Our discussion uncovers new ways to approach the question of whether Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies should be used as money, and new avenues for developing a positive answer to that question. A guiding theme is that progress here requires a mixed approach that integrates philosophical tools with the purely technical results of disciplines like computer science and (...) economics. Note: this article is the second entry within a two-part sequence on the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics of Cryptocurrency. (shrink)

Introduction to the Scientific Proof of the Natural Moral Law This paper proves that Aquinas has a means of demonstrating and deriving both moral goodness and the natural moral law from human nature alone. Aquinas scientifically proves the existence of the natural moral law as the natural rule of human operations from human nature alone. The distinction between moral goodness and transcendental goodness is affirmed. This provides the intellectual tools to refute the G.E. Moore (...) (Principles of Ethics) attack against the natural law as committing a "naturalistic fallacy". This article proves that instead Moore commits the fallacy of equivocation between moral goodness and transcendental goodness in his very assertion of a "naturalistic fallacy" by the proponents of the natural moral law. In the process the new deontological/kantian theory of natural law as articulated by John Finnis, Robert George, and Germain Grisez is false historically and philosophically. Ethical naturalism is affirmed as a result. (shrink)

The essay argues that while there is no general agreement on whether moral realism is true, there is general agreement on at least some of the moral obligations that we have if moral realism is true. Given that moral realism might be true, and given that we know some of the things we ought to do if it is true, we have a reason to do those things. Furthermore, this reason is itself an objective moral (...) reason. Thus, if moral realism might be true, then it is true. (shrink)

Michael Huemer claims to give an ontological proof of robust moral realism, the influential view that we have non-selfish, categorical, observer-independent reasons for action. This paper argues that one of Huemer’s premises – that knowing that baby torture is not objectively wrong would provide us with no first-person reasons to torture babies – is false of agents with sadistic desires. This in turn falsifies Huemer’s further premise that the premises of his “Antitorture Argument” are true independent of interests, (...) desires, or other attitudes. My refutation is then shown to not only deepen extant doubts about whether robust realists can adequately account for the first-person normative authority of morality. It also suggests that realists about categorical moral reasons must either complete a project – moral constructivism – which has never clearly succeeded, or else defend views on the nature of categorical reasons that strain credulity and beg the question against their opponents. (shrink)

Berger (forthcoming) states that moral intimacy is important in applying the best interests standard. But what he calls moral intimacy requires that someone has overcome epistemic burdens needed to represent the patient. We argue elsewhere that good surrogate decision-making is first and foremost a matter of overcoming epistemic burdens, or those obstacles that stand in the way of a surrogate decision-maker knowing what a patient wants and how to satisfy those preferences. Berger’s notion of moral intimacy depends (...) on epistemic intimacy: the fact that a surrogate's epistemic burdens with respect to the best interests of the incapacitated patient have been adequately surmounted, plus some other feature. Thus, where a particular patient-surrogate relationship fails to be morally intimate, what is lacking is either epistemic intimacy or this second feature. Furthermore, Berger uses the notion of moral intimacy as an explanans for the application of the best interests standard. We argue that the notions of epistemic intimacy and epistemic burdens not only help to explain the notion of moral intimacy, but also better explain the application of the best interests standard. Given the role of epistemic burdens and the epistemic intimacy that overcoming them enables, bioethicists and physicians should consider a surrogate’s epistemic standing relative to the patient’s best interests before pronouncing on the former’s ethical probity. (shrink)

The standard of proof in criminal trials in many liberal democracies is proof beyond a reasonable doubt, the BARD standard. It is customary to describe it, when putting a number on it, as requiring that the fact finder be at least 90% certain, after considering the evidence, that the defendant is guilty. Strikingly, no good reason has yet been offered in defense of using that standard. A number of non-consequentialist justifications that aim to support an even higher standard (...) have been offered; all are morally unsound. Meanwhile, consequentialist arguments plausibly support a substantially lower standard — in some cases so low as to undermine the idea that punishment is what is at stake. In this paper, I offer a new retributive justification that supports excluding the instrumental benefits of punishment from the balance that sets the standard. The resulting balance supports a standard arguably in the ballpark of the customary understanding of BARD: a standard requiring that the fact finder have a high, though not maximally high, degree of confidence that the defendant is guilty. (shrink)

This paper attempts to deconstruct and undercut the so-called problem of evil from a multitude of perspective. It patches works of scholars from both Christian and Muslim traditions to give the response anyone needs. It also highlights the vagueness of atheism.

In the Dedicatory Letter of the Meditations, René Descartes claims that he will offer a proof of the soul’s immortality, to be accomplished by reason alone. This proof is also promised by the title page of the first edition of the Meditations, which includes the words “in which the existence of God and the immortality of the soul are demonstrated.” But in the Synopsis, and later in his replies to objections, Descartes gives a more nuanced account of the (...) possibility of proving immortality and whether an attempt is even to be found in the Meditations. To confuse matters further, the title page of the second edition no longer mentions a demonstration of immortality but promises only to prove the distinction between body and soul. The question arises, therefore, whether the Meditations contains a purely philosophical demonstration of the immortality of the soul. (shrink)

Sentencing outcomes turn on moral and evaluative determinations. For example, a finding of “irreparable corruption” is generally a precondition for juvenile life without parole. A finding that the “aggravating factors outweigh the mitigating factors” determines whether a defendant receives the death penalty. Should such moral determinations that expose defendants to extraordinary penalties be subject to a standard of proof? A broad range of federal and state courts have purported to decide this issue “in the abstract and without (...) reference to our sentencing case law,” as the Supreme Court recently put it. Kansas v. Carr, 577 U.S. 108, 119 (2016). According to these courts, “it would mean nothing” to ask whether the defendant “deserves mercy beyond a reasonable doubt” or “more-likely-than-not deserves it” because moral questions are not “factual.” Instead, moral determinations are highly subjective “value calls” to which concepts of doubt and certainty do not intelligibly apply. -/- Implicit in these rulings is a controversial view of the nature of moral judgment. This Article traces the contours of the view and argues that it is out of step with the way the broader public thinks about morality and fails to address the issues defendants have raised. Courts should avoid wading into such controversial waters for two reasons. First, the judiciary has historically maintained neutrality on issues of significant public concern. Second, even if moral determinations are not factual, applying a standard of proof to at least some moral decisions at sentencing would change the outcome of the sentencer’s deliberations, and improve the legitimacy of the legal system. For the reasonableness of doubt depends on context; and moral questions—"are you certain the defendant deserves death?”—make salient the stakes relative to which a person should decide what to believe about ordinary empirical matters. On the resulting view, reasonable doubt in the final moral analysis is not just intelligible, but essential for correcting a bias in the structure of the bifurcated criminal trial that systematically disadvantages defendants: the tendency for de-contextualized "factual findings” in the guilt phase to control outcomes at sentencing. (shrink)

On a common characterization, moral luck occurs when factors beyond agents’ control affect their moral responsibility. The existence of moral luck is widely contested, however. In this paper, I present a new challenge for deniers of moral luck. It seems that some factors beyond agents’ control—such as moral principles about blame- and praiseworthiness—clearly affect moral responsibility. Thus, moral luck deniers face a dialectical burden that has so far gone unnoticed. They must either (...) point to a relevant difference between factors like moral principles and the kind of factors that according to them do not affect moral responsibility or show how they can avoid having to point to such a difference. I argue that no obvious way to meet the challenge presents itself and that it thus amounts to a serious worry for deniers of moral luck. (shrink)

This article presents an ontological proof that God is impossible.I define an ‘impossibility’ as a condition which is inconceivable due to its a priori characteristics (e.g. a ‘square circle’). Accordingly, said conditions will not ever become conceivable, as they could in instances of a posteriori inconceivability (e.g. the notion that someone could touch a star without being burned). As the basis of this argument, I refer to an a priori observation (Primus, 2019) regarding our inability to imagine inconsistency (difference) (...) within any point of space. This observation renders the notion of absolute power to be inconceivable, a priori.I briefly discuss the moral implications of religious faith in the context of Purism: a moral rationalist paradigm. I conclude that whilst belief in God can be aesthetically expressed it should not be possessed as a material purpose, due to the illogicality of the latter category of belief and/or expression. With this article I provide conceptual delineation between harmless religious belief and expression—which, I argue, should be protected from persecution, as per any other artistic expression— and religious belief and expression which is materially harmful to society. Whilst I aim to protect religious freedom of expression on one hand, I duly aim to reduce instances of material faith in God(s) on the other. Finally, I aim to bring hope in the possibility for human salvation via technology—such that they should exist indefinitely as ‘demigods,’ defined by conditional, relative power over their environment. (shrink)

The idea that technologies can change moral beliefs and practices is an old one. But how, exactly, does this happen? This paper builds on an emerging field of inquiry by developing a synoptic taxonomy of the mechanisms of techno-moral change. It argues that technology affects moral beliefs and practices in three main domains: decisional (how we make morally loaded decisions), relational (how we relate to others) and perceptual (how we perceive situations). It argues that across these three (...) domains there are six primary mechanisms of techno-moral change: (i) adding options; (ii) changing decision-making costs; (iii) enabling new relationships; (iv) changing the burdens and expectations within relationships; (v) changing the balance of power in relationships; and (vi) changing perception (information, mental models and metaphors). The paper also discusses the layered, interactive and second-order effects of these mechanisms. (shrink)

Kant’s “moral proof” for the existence of God has been the subject of much criticism, even among his most sympathetic commentators. According to the critics, the primary problem is that the notion of the “highest good,” on which the moral proof depends, introduces an element of contingency and heteronomy into Kant’s otherwise strict, autonomy-based moral thinking. In this paper, I shall argue that Kant’s moral proof is not only more defensible than commentators have (...) typically acknowledged, but also has some very interesting implications (e.g. the moral proof is “circular” and thus implicitly self-validating). My account shall proceed in five stages: 1. Preliminary Discussion of the Moral Proof 2. the Argument of the Moral Proof 3. Critics of the Moral Proof 4. Defense of the Moral Proof 5. Implications of the Moral Proof: Circularity and Self-referentiality.” . (shrink)

Numerous high-profile ethics scandals, rising inequality, and the detrimental effects of climate change dramatically underscore the need for business schools to instill a commitment to social purpose in their students. At the same time, the rising financial burden of education, increasing competition in the education space, and overreliance on graduates’ financial success as the accepted metric of quality have reinforced an instrumentalist climate. These conflicting aims between social and financial purpose have created an existential crisis for business education. To (...) resolve this impasse, we draw on the concept of moral self-awareness to offer a system-theoretical strategy for crowding-in a culture of ethics within business schools. We argue that to do so, business schools will need to (1) reframe the purpose of business, (2) reframe the meaning of professional success, and (3) reframe the ethos of business education itself. (shrink)

Moral disagreement arises when two agents assign conflicting truth values to a moral statement, such as whether lying is ever permissible. While moral universalists argue that such disagreements result from at least one party being mistaken about an objective moral truth, their approach faces an epistemological challenge: the need to identify the true moral theory. In contrast, moral relativists claim that the truth of moral statements depends on the perspectives of attributors, enabling coexistence (...) but raising questions about how to justify resolutions across divergent perspectives. This essay proposes an alternative explanation: approximate interpretation. This approach avoids the universalists' epistemological burden of finding objective moral truths while offering a framework for justifiable resolutions based on the quality of interpretative approximations. Unlike relativists, who maintain that truth values do not converge, and universalists, who argue they do, this explanation remains neutral on the convergence debate. The essay demonstrates the orthogonality between the universalism-relativism debate and the challenge of explaining moral disagreements, concluding that neither universalism nor relativism offers a definitive resolution to the phenomenon of widespread moral disagreement. (shrink)