In this paper, I explore three theories of value to illuminate how nontheistic and theistic accounts may differ in grounding human dignity: neo- Aristotelian ethical naturalism, Kantian constructivism, and a theistic account of good simpliciter. The theistic account of good simpliciter that I offer adapts Robert Adams’s notion of the transcendent Good as the Excellent. In this account, I explain how Adams’ thesis that goodness is a property consisting in a sort of resemblance to God may be understood in a (...) new way, using ideas drawn from contemporary mathematics and quantum mechanics. On my account, we must value human beings neither because such valuing would be beneficial or necessary for human flourishing nor because it is a logical outcome of anything we care to value. Rather it is because we recognize the property of self-similarity in all of us, which may be understood as a resemblance to God as good simpliciter. (shrink)

Although egalitarianism has been the dominant orthodoxy in Anglophone social and political philosophy for many decades, there have been surprisingly few attempts to account for the axiom on which it rests, namely that human moral worth does not come in degrees. This article begins by rehearsing and evaluating two families of approaches to the grounding problem. The first favours accounts that seek to preserve consistency with metaphysical naturalism, while the second relies on more philosophically contentious claims about the metaphysical status (...) of the human person. I then outline reasons for supposing that none of these accounts of basic equality offers a convincing theoretical foundation for egalitarianism. I conclude by sketching permutations of a theological account before arguing that one of these variations satisfies many of the explanatory criteria that a successful solution requires. (shrink)

Given resource constraints in healthcare, demands justice and equity require the constant development of material principles for resource distribution. In many cases, such material principles are formulated as mid-level principles, well-adapted to handle healthcare distribution but suffering from aspects outside the healthcare context that affect their application. In healthcare, factors outside the healthcare system will sometimes affect patients’ equal opportunity to receive treatment and achieve health. Examples of such factors might include an individual’s economic means, the cost of drugs, geography, (...) etc. This article explores whether the formal equality principle could help us address such problems. It is argued that the traditional (thin) formal equality principle can aid in priority setting, both as a heuristic tool to aid in consistency and also in handling under-determined cases. However, it appears to be too ‘thin’ to handle problems caused by factors outside the healthcare context. In the article, I explore a more robust version of the formal equality principle and argue that such a principle can be used to address such cases. However, even a more comprehensive formal equality principle will need to consider whether some other actors have a moral responsibility to address the problem or whether the issue could be solved more effectively by others. Furthermore, such a principle needs to consider whether the opportunity cost of achieving ‘thick’ formal equality is acceptable, given the material principles of distribution. (shrink)

In this essay, I propose a phenomenological alternative to the established candidates of what grounds moral status, namely the experience of being claimed in immediate response to an Other. Drawing from late-Wittgensteinian moral philosophy, I develop this alternative in critical juxtaposition to theories that aim to derive moral status from values grounded in independently accountable empirical properties. Against such theories, I expound how meaningful talk of moral status must instead be understood to be rooted in the individuals’ morally charged immediate (...) responsiveness to Others, a responsiveness that preconditions the very possibility of separating value and fact. If my analysis is sound, then the empirical property or set of properties that is commonly taken to qualify as a candidate for a ground of moral status in fact presupposes a phenomenological dimension of ‘ethical encounter’. The recognition of this deeper phenomenological level would, while not disposing with the notion of moral status, transform its meaning and, thus, how much of the philosophical debate on moral status is conducted. (shrink)

In an age in which anthropocentrism is increasingly under fire, the investment of the artistic tradition in that paradigm deserves particular attention. Portraiture is especially significant, as it seems to be the anthropocentric art form par excellence. It seems to reinforce key features of anthropocentrism: the distinction of the human from the nonhuman and the superiority of the former over the latter. We can pursue these questions most effectively if we distinguish descriptive (“weak”) anthropocentrism from normative (“strong”) anthropocentrism. The former (...) involves some sort of focus on humans, the latter combines this with claims about their superiority over the nonhuman. Certain works by influential portraitists, such as Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, and Ana Mendieta, contest both weak and strong anthropocentrism. Other portraits seem to be involved in weak anthropocentrism, but not necessarily strong anthropocentrism. Considering the artwork of Alice Neel and the philosophy of Judith Butler, I argue that such works have an important ethical role to play in orienting us in our relationships with humans, precisely in resisting strong anthropocentrism even in expressing weak anthropocentrism. (shrink)

Vulnerability as a critique of the one-sidedness of the principle of autonomy is at risk of overemphasizing the positive dimension of vulnerability. Moreover, in the discourse on vulnerability, the threat of dehumanization (or moral vulnerability) has not been scrutinized enough ethically. Therefore, the ethics of vulnerability is insufficient when faced with the force of war that requires the conceptualization of vulnerability for political-ethics. The Russian war in Ukraine demonstrates this weakness in a striking way: the called-for openness to the other (...) as well as an active form of nonviolence, as promoted by Judith Butler, may not be an option in times of war. Continuing Jessica Benjamin’s psychoanalytic approach to mutual recognition, the essay shows that the task of morality does not rest upon broadening one’s vulnerability, but rather in understanding vulnerable agency as the dialectic of vulnerability and agency. For the further development of this dialectic, the triadic figuration is emphasized, complementing the dyadic relation of self and other. While the Third can take multiple figurations in the psychoanalytical setting, I understand the Third within the political-ethical context as the possibility of a “moral world” of nonviolence and respect. During war, the role of the bystander is to become a witness who, through the process of witnessing, advocacy, diplomacy, and justice, allows for the moral Third to reemerge. Among others, the ethics of vulnerability must spells out the price for the failure of taking on this responsibility, namely the eclipse of morality. (shrink)

Sex work or prostitution marks a controversial topic for Protestant sexual ethics. It is also a multifaceted phenomenon because it can occur in very different forms: the spectrum ranges from poverty, emergency and procurement prostitution to the self-determined and insured sex worker with all imaginable shades in between. In the current economic system, goods and services are exchanged, traded, sold, acquired and paid for, so sex work can also be understood as work. For the purposes of this article, we will (...) therefore start from an understanding of sex work as care work. Care work can be understood as the satisfaction of needs and interests of third parties and the self. If sex work is discussed as care work, this has a variety of consequences. These include the fact that questions of vulnerability and integrity come to the fore. Integrity can be comprehended as self-realisation or autonomy and thus as potentially vulnerable, taking up Axel Honneth’s early reflections on the issue of recognition. Integrity in Axel Honneth’s sense can - according to a first approximation - play a role for sex work on three levels: physical or corporeal level, structural level and lifestyle or way of life level. Finally, the essay discusses the concept of negotiated or consensual morality as a contribution of Protestant ethics. (shrink)

This paper presents a social-theologically informed interpretation of the term integrity, as it occurs in fundamental law. It explores the manifestations of integrity violations and proceeds to draw an inference: an integrity violation can directly emanate from a misconception regarding integrity itself, as well as the implementation of protective measures that follow it. Integrity in its wholeness dimension is understood as open-endedness and non-seclusion rather than as a substantial, clearly definable characteristic of a person. This open-endedness and non-seclusion results from (...) the relational constitution of an individual. Consequently, it follows that a violation of integrity occurs when the open-endedness and non-seclusion of a person and their relational Becoming is hindered. The new definition of integrity is particularly important when it comes to the governance of new health technologies, especially Digital Twins that can become representatives of a person. Human integrity is non-violated only when it is understood as open to relational Becoming and this Becoming shows its expression in the mutual enabling and support of self-articulation. (shrink)

This study focuses on the question of how Muslim chaplains can, through their interventions, exert an influence on the situation of refugees, characterised by vulnerability and loss of home. Based on definitions in social work and anthropology studies, home can be conceptualised as a key anthropological need, comprised of spatial, temporal, relational and spiritual dimensions. Referring to an empirical study on asylum chaplaincy in Switzerland, this study analyses how five Muslim chaplains accompany refugees, how their styles of chaplaincy differ in (...) practice and what effects their interventions have. These empirical results are then brought into conversation with a theoretical framework, to explore the connections between counselling and vulnerability. While it could be argued that referring to the vulnerable situation of refugees reinforces an image of passivity, the co-construction of a home represents a collaborative effort and empowers refugees by mobilising both forces and resources. Chaplains, in particular, can contribute to the relational and spiritual dimensions of home. For refugees, articulating their religious concerns and working together with Muslim chaplains, means they can address the limits of the existing asylum system and demand recognition of cultural diversity. (shrink)

This paper asks how to account for vulnerable integrity in the temporal dynamism of human lives without relying on a subtractive vision of integral human nature, borrowing from presumed past or future rationality and maturity, or depending on an external attribution of dignity. Illustrating the challenges with vignettes from the author’s life, it argues inductively that human integrity includes morally inviolable vulnerability to others with whom we are in interdependent relationship and without whom we cannot develop or maintain our selves. (...) Others reside at the core of our integrity, for better and for worse, and we reside at theirs. Augustine’s accounts of memory, time, and the narrative self; Whiteheadian process thought’s understanding of continuity through change; and feminist theories of narrative all provide theological and philosophical justifications for this vision of integrity. John Wall’s and Johan Brännmark’s non-foundational approaches to integrity and human rights lead us to the same conclusion without entailing theological anthropological claims, ensuring its relevance in a pluralist culture. (shrink)

This paper considers the obligation higher income countries have to lower and middle income countries during a global pandemic. Further considers which reforms are needed to the global supply-chain of medical resources. The short-comings in distribution and medical infrastructure have exacerbated the health crisis in developing countries. Global justice demands radical redistribution of medical resources in order to prevent mass casualties. This is argued first by highlighting that the COVID-19 pandemic should be acknowledged as an issue of global justice, secondly, (...) higher income countries ought to account for distribution inequity as a matter of rectifying past injustices, and thirdly argue for reform in distribution while considering the vaccine rollout as a prime example. We aim to show how the differences from country to country in response capabilities are a result of the economic foundation colonialism established and a direct result of cyclical poverty, which wealthy countries perpetuate to this day. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to study the relationship between Epicureanism and pandemic priority-setting and to explore whether Epicurus's philosophy is compliant with the later developed utilitarianism. We find this aim interesting because Epicurus had a different way of valuing death than our modern society does: Epicureanism holds that death—understood as the incident of death—cannot be bad (or good) for those who die (self-regarding effects). However, this account is still consistent with the view that a particular death can be (...) bad for everyone else but those who die, such as family, friends, and society (other-regarding effects). During the pandemic, the focus has been on the number of deaths more than on the suffering and reduced well-being of those infected and the rest of society. However, since the pandemic requires prioritization, it is, on a utilitarian account, important to consider priorities that do the most good overall. In this article, we approach the harm of death from an Epicurean point of view, seeking to flesh out potential implications for pandemic priority-setting, and healthcare in general, using a case study of COVID-19 priority-setting. We also explore whether this would conflict with utilitarianism. We conclude that an Epicurean pandemic priority-setting approach would be different but, surprisingly, not radically different from many of the actual priority-setting decisions we saw under the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

During the recent debates on whether to prioritize health care workers for COVID-19 vaccines, two main lines of arguments emerged: one centered on maximizing health and one centered on reciprocity. In this article, we scrutinize the argument from reciprocity. The notions of fittingness and proportionality are fundamental for the act of reciprocating. We consider the importance of these notions for various arguments from reciprocity, showing that the arguments are problematic. If there is a plausible argument for reciprocity during the pandemic, (...) this is most likely one that centers on the risk that health care workers take on while working. We argue that the scope of this argument is not plausibly extended only to health care workers. Other essential workers at risk are in the position to make the same arguments. We also argue that there is no compelling argument from reciprocity that makes reciprocating with vaccines, rather than by other means, necessary. Furthermore, allocating vaccines based on reciprocity will conflict with utility-maximizing. Given the weak state of the arguments, overriding concerns for utility seem unreasonable. (shrink)

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has transgressed biomedical categories. According to Horton, it turned out to be a 'syndrome' that infected virtually all spheres of social life. The pandemic has created toxic social atmosphere highly unfavorable to clinical and clinic-ethical decision making. Constraints and pressures related to micro-, meso-, exo- and macro-environments framing doctors, nurses, and medical students in training were identified. These factors exacerbated moral distress (moral injury) amongst clinicians. In a joint Polish-Lithuanian project (IDUB 2020-2022) we examined predictors of moral (...) distress in pandemic clinical contexts. A survey-based, real-time, correlational and comparative study was conducted in Poland and Lithuania after the first year of pandemic with N=227 participants. Unexpected differences on regular and pandemic-type moral distress levels were found between the two national samples. Polish participants showed significantly higher moral distress levels than their Lithuanian counterparts. The following article discusses these findings and recommends the reinforcement of resilient medical decision making. (shrink)