This paper offers an imminent interpretation of Kant's political teleology in the context of his response to Moses Mendelssohn in Theory and Practice III concerning prospects of humankind's moral progress. The paper assesses the nature of Kant's response against his mature political philosophy in the Doctrine of Right . In `Theory and Practice III' Kant's response to Mendelssohn remains incomplete: whilst insisting that individuals have a duty to contribute towards humankind's moral progress, Kant has no conclusive answer as to (...) how individuals might act on that duty. `Theory and Practice III' lacks a clear conception of the distinctness of political morality from the domain of virtue; Kant's resort to teleological argumentation is indicative of his lack of an account of instituting Right. The latter can be found in the Doctrine of Right —yet Kant's earlier teleological arguments contribute crucially to the development of his mature morality of Right. Key Words: inborn duty • moral progress • political teleology • principles of Right. (shrink)

This article argues that congregations should be seen as grassroots public moral agents, on the ground working to bring what they discern as God's preferred future into being. Deliberations among congregations of all social backgrounds are a way of doing ethics "polycentrically," without a dominant center. Because cultural and social boundaries are permeable and people in various social groups can imaginatively enter the worlds of people unlike themselves, they can engage those perspectives morally on an equal footing. The essay addresses (...) ethicists' participation in congregations' moral deliberation and action, and concludes with a plea for theological ethicists to consider congregations in their work. (shrink)

This paper outlines a heuristic approach to Kant’s philosophy as a whole, attributing to him the special brand of rationalism that began with Descartes’s and Leibniz’s theories of human problemsolving, and which lives on, for instance, in Carnap’s theory of the logical construction of the world. The paper begins with a reconstruction of Kant’s account of pure reason as a general device inherent to human nature, which carries with it unavoidable tasks brought about by inborn a priori principles leading (...) to unavoidable or necessary problems. The paper then presents the necessary problems of pure reason according to their classification, hierarchy, mode of generation, their division into solvable or unsolvable, and the solution methods they require. Some additional comments are offered on the claim that the human problem-solving capacity should be cultivated as a duty of virtue. The paper also comments on the fact that over time Kant expanded his list of problems, and most likely did not think that he had exhausted the matter. Finally, Kant’s solutions to the necessary problems of pure reason are reviewed, and it is shown that his system of pure reason, which comprises various a priori doctrines developed successively, can be seen as the totality of those solutions organized and unified according to the order of the problems which itself was constituted as the critical work progressed. (shrink)

Love is one of the essential concepts of Maturidi's understanding of Morality. Although his conception of morality comprises will of act, there is remarkable linkage between love and action in his conceptualization. Maturidi's understanging of love is based on conscious of "love" which comes from God. Therefore, nature of humankind has love as part of his/her creation and seeks for beyond that love. Maturidi points out that each of us has inborn tendency for beauty and love for beauty. Each (...) has love of God, naturally. This natural sense becomes fundamental part of one's morality to seek God's love and His sake. The idea of a loving God is seen as an important element that directs people's moral actions that are praised. Knowing this fundamental understanding of love brings the groundwork for the person to turn into a virtue through which he can be exalted. In addition, the virtue of love (al-Fadl fi'l-Mavedde) includes the thought of doing it lovingly to please the Creator while performing an action, and to stay away from an action that he does not like because he will not be pleased. In general, in Māturīdī 's explanations, it is emphasized that "taqwa" in the sense of fear of Allah and in words derived from this root, this fear contains love. In addition, the situation of those who leave the middle way by falling into excess and understatement is equal to moving away from conformity with 'taqwa'. So, the deed that is suitable for "taqwa" is far from the excess and in the middle. It needs to be balanced. In addition, Māturīdī defines justice as "the middle way" and describes the middle way as being just. From another point of view, we can call it acting wisely in practice. According to Māturīdī, 'Wisdom' means grasp of things' purposes. He sees good behavior away from extremes. While Māturīdī states that the truth of the love in the heart cannot be known, he states that the feeling of affection in a person will only be for the person from whom he benefits, and that he cannot feel love for the person from whom he does not benefit. For him, it is an entity that tries to determine what it should be and is responsible for understanding how to live a virtuous life. When we look at the moral structure of the human being, we see that the important points such as the purpose of life, the determination of good and bad, duties and responsibilities are based on or should be based on a moral purpose which has divine roots in human existence. In this study, we will try to examine Māturīdī's understanding of morality, specifically his conceptualization of "love" from a philosophical perspective. (shrink)

An argument that nativism is true and important but mysterious, examining the particular case of ideas of sensible qualities. In this book, Colin McGinn presents a concise, clear, and compelling argument that the origins of knowledge are innate—that nativism, not empiricism, is correct in its theory of how concepts are acquired. McGinn considers the particular case of sensible qualities—ideas of color, shape, taste, and so on. He argues that these, which he once regarded as the strongest case for the empiricist (...) position, are in fact not well explained by the empiricist account that they derive from interactions with external objects. Rather, he contends, ideas of sensible qualities offer the strongest case for the nativist position—that a large range of our knowledge is inborn, not acquired through the senses. Yet, McGinn cautions, how this can be is deeply problematic; we have no good theories about how innate knowledge is possible. Innate knowledge is a mystery, though a fact. McGinn describes the traditional debate between empiricism and nativism; offers an array of arguments against empiricism; constructs an argument in favor of nativism; and considers the philosophical consequences of adopting the nativist position, discussing perception, the mind–body problem, the unconscious, metaphysics, and epistemology. (shrink)

Defects in man in four steps of 4‐aminobutyric acid (GABA) metabolism may interefere with the function of this major inhibitory neurotransmitter. Glutamic acid decarboxylase, 4‐aminobutyric acid aminotransferase, succinic semialdehyde dehydrogenase, and homocarnosinase are closely identified with the brain, but two of these enzymes are expressed in cultured peripheral cells, which may permit novel approaches to the study of the metabolism and regulation of GABA.

According to an influential view about directed expressive duties (e.g., duties to express gratitude to benefactors, remorse to victims, forgiveness to wrongdoers), these duties do not have rights as their correlates, because they are not demandable and enforceable. The chapter argues that this view is mistaken. Like other directed duties, directed expressive duties are demandable and enforceable. While this does not entail that these duties have rights as their correlates, it does create a strong presumption of this being the case. (...) This shifts the burden of proof from those who hold that expressive duties correlate with rights to those who deny it. (shrink)

Kant is well known for claiming that we can never really know our true moral disposition. He is less well known for claiming that the injunction "Know Yourself" is the basis of all self-regarding duties. Taken together, these two claims seem contradictory. My aim in this paper is to show how they can be reconciled. I first address the question of whether the duty of self-knowledge is logically coherent (§1). I then examine some of the practical problems surrounding the (...) duty, notably, self-deception (§2). Finding none of Kant's solutions to the problem of self-deception satisfactory, I conclude by defending a Kantian account of self-knowledge based on his theory of conscience (§3). (shrink)

Artykuł analizuje problem kosztów powstałych w wyniku realizacji obowiązku udzielenia pomocy osobie znajdującej się w niebezpieczeństwie. Autorzy prezentują trzy odmienne stanowiska dotyczące tego problemu, rozważając scenariusz, w którym osoba decyduje się, z własnej woli lub przymuszona za pomocą prawa, uratować inną osobę, w sytuacji, w której taka pomoc wiąże się z naruszeniem praw trzeciej strony. Przykładowo, A ratuje tonącego B, ale w trakcie ratowania narusza prawa C. Pytanie, które stawiają autorzy brzmi: zakładając, że istnieje obowiązek udzielenia pomocy osobie znajdującej się (...) w niebezpieczeństwie, kto powinien ponieść koszty odszkodowania za naruszenie praw trzeciej strony? Autorzy rozważają następujące możliwości: koszty pomocy powinny zostać poniesione przez (a) ratującego, (b) osobę, której prawa zostały naruszone, (c) ratowanego, (d) całe społeczeństwo. (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)

Moral duties are regularly attributed to groups. Does this make conceptual sense or is this merely political rhetoric? And what are the implications for these individuals within groups? Collins outlines a Tripartite Model of group duties that can target political demands at the right entities, in the right way and for the right reasons.

Evidence shows that outstanding talent is more than the product of determined effort by people of much the same inborn ability. Indications of inborn individual differences come from very early studies of childhood. No randomly selected child has ever reached world-class achievement by practice alone, which, though essential, cannot itself produce greatness.

this paper advances a novel account of part of what justifies killing in war, grounded in the duties we owe to our loved ones to protect them from the severe harms with which war threatens them. It discusses the foundations of associative duties, then identifies the sorts of relationships, and the specific duties that they ground, which can be relevant to the ethics of war. It explains how those associa- tive duties can justify killing in theory—in particular how they can (...) justify overrid- ing the rights to life of some of those who must be killed to win a war. It then shows how these duties can be operationalised in practice: first, showing how soldiers who fight on behalf of their community can act on reasons that apply to the members of that community; second, showing that the argument from associative duties does not prove too much—in particular, that it does not license the intentional killing of noncombatants in war. (shrink)

That we owe duties to others is a commonplace, the subject of countless philosophical treatises and monographs. Morality is interpersonal and other-directed, many claim. But what of what we owe ourselves? In Duty to Self, Paul Schofield flips the paradigm of interpersonal morality by arguing that there are moral duties we owe ourselves, and that in light of this, philosophers need to significantly rethink many of their views about practical reason, moral psychology, politics, and moral emotions. -/- Among these (...) views is the idea that divisions within a person's life enable her to relate to herself second-personally--that is, as though she were relating to a distinct other person--in the way required by morality. Further, there exist political duties owed to the self, which the state may coerce persons to perform. This amounts to a novel argument for paternalistic law, which appeals to considerations of right, justice, and freedom in order to justify coercing a person for their own sake--a liberal justification for an idea typically thought to be deeply at odds with liberalism. -/- Schofield untangles how this view would impact various issues in applied ethics and political philosophy, for example, financial prudence and risk, the pursuit of the good life, and medical ethics. Duty to Self is essential for anyone working in moral and political philosophy or political theory. (shrink)

In recent decades, concepts of group agency and the morality of groups have increasingly been discussed by philosophers. Notions of collective or joint duties have been invoked especially in the debates on global justice, world poverty and climate change. This paper enquires into the possibility and potential nature of moral duties individuals in unstructured groups may hold together. It distinguishes between group agents and groups of people which – while not constituting a collective agent – are nonetheless capable of performing (...) a joint action. It attempts to defend a notion of joint duties which are neither duties of a group agent nor duties of individual agents, but duties held jointly by individuals in unstructured groups. Furthermore, it seeks to illuminate the relation between such joint duties on the one hand and individual duties on the other hand. Rebutting an argument brought forward by Wringe, the paper concludes that it is not plausible to assume that all humans on earth can together hold a duty to mitigate climate change or to combat global poverty given that the members of that group are not capable of joint action. (shrink)

What are our responsibilities in the face of injustice? How far should we go to fight it? Many would argue that as long as a state is nearly just, citizens have a moral duty to obey the law. Proponents of civil disobedience generally hold that, given this moral duty, a person needs a solid justification to break the law. But activists from Henry David Thoreau and Mohandas Gandhi to the Movement for Black Lives have long recognized that there (...) are times when, rather than having a duty to obey the law, we have a duty to disobey it. -/- Taking seriously the history of this activism, A Duty to Resist wrestles with the problem of political obligation in real world societies that harbor injustice. Candice Delmas argues that the duty of justice, the principle of fairness, the Samaritan duty, and political association impose responsibility to resist under conditions of injustice. We must expand political obligation to include a duty to resist unjust laws and social conditions even in legitimate states. -/- For Delmas, this duty to resist demands principled disobedience, and such disobedience need not always be civil. At times, covert, violent, evasive, or offensive acts of lawbreaking can be justified, even required. Delmas defends the viability and necessity of illegal assistance to undocumented migrants, leaks of classified information, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, sabotage, armed self-defense, guerrilla art, and other modes of resistance. There are limits: principle alone does not justify law breaking. But uncivil disobedience can sometimes be not only permissible but required in the effort to resist injustice. (shrink)

Aristotle believes that an agent lacks virtue unless she enjoys the performance of virtuous actions, while Kant claims that the person who does her duty despite contrary inclinations exhibits a moral worth that the person who acts from inclination lacks. Despite these differences, this chapter argues that Aristotle and Kant share a distinctive view of the object of human choice and locus of moral value: that what we choose, and what has moral value, are not mere acts, but actions: (...) acts done for the sake of ends. Morally good actions embody a kind of intrinsic value that inspires us to do them from duty (in Kant) or for the sake of the noble (in Aristotle). The chapter traces the difference in their attitudes about doing one's duty with pleasure to a difference in their attitudes towards pleasure itself: Aristotle sees it as a perception of the good, while Kant thinks of it as mere feeling. (shrink)

It has become increasingly common to point out that African morality is under-represented in ethical theorizing. However, it is less common to find arguments that this under-representation is unjustified. This latter claim tends to be simply assumed. In this paper I draw together arguments for this claim. In doing so, I make the case that the relative lack of attention paid to African moral ideas conflicts with epistemic and ethical values. In order to correct these shortcomings, moral theorists, broadly construed (...) as including descriptive and normative disciplines, have a duty to engage with and actively explore African moral ideas. I claim that Moral Foundations Theory is well suited to a descriptive exploratory project, and could provide a significant contribution to normative, African-derived moral theories that could be epistemically and ethically superior to their Western counterparts. (shrink)

In World Poverty and Human Rights, Thomas Pogge argues that the global rich have a duty to eradicate severe poverty in the world. The novelty of Pogges approach is to present this demand as stemming from basic commands which are negative rather than positive in nature: the global rich have an obligation to eradicate the radical poverty of the global poor not because of a norm of beneficence asking them to help those in need when they can at little (...) cost to themselves, but because of their having violated a principle of justice not to unduly harm others by imposing on them a coercive global order that makes their access to the objects of their human right to subsistence insecure. In this paper, I claim that although Pogge is right in arguing that negative duties are crucial in an account of global justice, he is wrong in saying that they are the only ones that are crucial. Harming the global poor by causing their poverty provides a sufficient but not a necessary condition for the global rich to have a duty of justice to assist them. After engaging in a critical analysis of Pogges argument, I conclude by suggesting the need for a robust conception of cosmopolitan solidarity that includes positive duties of assistance which are not mere duties of charity, but enforceable ones of justice. (shrink)

Este artículo estudia la visión que Ibn Hazm de Córdoba (m. 456 / 1064) tenía del concepto de fitra, que aparece en el Corán (azora XXX, aleya 30) y en algunas tradiciones exegéticas. Basándose en este texto, Ibn Hazm afirma que todos los seres humanos nacen musulmanes, incluso los idólatras y otras clases de infieles, y que todos han de ser considerados musulmanes hasta que alcancen la mayoría de edad. En ese momento de sus vidas han de elegir entre reafirmar (...) su fe y, si no son hijos de musulmanes, de elegir entre la religión en la que han nacido o renunciar a ella. Su decisión afectará a su destino en el Más Allá. La creencia de Ibn Hazm de que todos los niños son musulmanes hasta la edad en que puedan discernir y, por tanto, de que en caso de que mueran niños irán al Paraíso, tiene también implicaciones legales y, a través de ellas, se puede observar cómo actúan los principios zahiríes. Ibn Hazm muestra una tendencia a otorgar a los musulmanes la custodia de niños no musulmanes, así como a evitar que los nacidos musulmanes queden desvinculados de su religión. Este es el caso de los niños expósitos o cuya paternidad es dudosa. Aunque, en general, no requiere que los niños no musulmanes fallecidos, que en el fondo son considerados creyentes, sean enterrados de acuerdo con el rito islámico, ordena que un niño, cuyos padres no sean musulmanes y hayan sido hechos cautivos, reciba un entierro musulmán. Aunque, a primera vista, estas normas parezcan confirmar las afirmaciones de Goldziher sobre "el fananatismo personal contra los seguidores de otras religiones" de Ibn Hazm, se observa también que, según su punto de vista, la indemnización que se debía pagar por la lesión del feto de una mujer no musulmana era igual al que le correspondía a una musulmana que hubiese perdido su hijo en las mismas circunstancias. (shrink)

Directed duties are duties that an agent owes to some party – a party who would be wronged if the duty were violated. A ‘direction problem’ asks what it is about a duty in virtue of which it is directed towards one party, if any, rather than another. I discuss three theories of moral direction: control, demand and interest theories. Although none of these theories can be rejected out of hand, all three face serious difficulties.

Many philosophers accept the idea that there are duties to promote or create just institutions. But are the addressees of such duties supposed to be individuals – the members of the citizenry? What does it mean for an individual to promote or create just institutions? According to the ‘Simple View’, the citizenry has a collective duty to create or promote just institutions, and each individual citizen has an individual duty to do their part in this collective project. The (...) simple view appears to work well with regard to – you guessed it – ‘simple’ scenarios but it is riddled with further questions and problems. In this chapter, we raise five problems for the Simple View: (a) We suggest that one cannot develop a view concerning the citizenry’s duty to promote just institutions in isolation from a conception of the ontological relationship between the state and its citizens; (b) We argue that it is not obvious that the citizenry is the right entity to be attributed duties in the first place; (c) We show that a plausible account of collective duties to promote just institutions must not remain silent on the complexities and difficulties amorphous, unorganized group face in vis-à-vis collective action; (d) We contend that without allocation principles for contributory duties amongst the citizenry, or – alternatively – a method for practical deliberation that is action-guiding in collective action contexts, the claim that the citizens have a collective duty to promote just institutions remains moot; and, finally, (e) We demonstrate that the problem of reasonable disagreement is a serious threat to a collective duty to promote or create just institutions – it potentially undermines such a duty altogether and allows for conflicting contributory duties amongst the citizenry. We hope that our discussion will ultimately help improve existing theories and conceptual frameworks with a view to better understanding citizens’ obligations to promote justice under non-ideal conditions. (shrink)

abstract Most moral philosophers accept that we have obligations to provide at least some aid and assistance to distant strangers in dire need. Philosophers who extend rights and obligations to nonhuman animals, however, have been less than explicit about whether we have any positive duties to free‐roaming or ‘wild’ animals. I argue our obligations to free‐roaming nonhuman animals in dire need are essentially no different to those we have to severely cognitively impaired distant strangers. I address three objections to the (...) view that we have positive duties to free‐roaming nonhuman animals, and respond to the predation objection to animal rights. (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)

In this article I argue that humans have a pro tanto duty to cognitively enhance some animals threatened with extinction. I will use as a case study a particular set of animals: smaller Australian marsupials. Many of these animals are on the brink of extinction thanks to the introduction of the fox and the domestic cat to the continent of Australia. Ecologists conjecture that these marsupials do not have the behavioural flexibility to cope with these introduced predators. By introducing (...) predators, humans performed a wrong action because it led to the extinction of species and continues to threaten many marsupials species such as woylies, Gilbert's potoroos, numbats and mountain pygmy possums. This wrong action gives rise to an obligation to intervene to prevent further species loss. Traditional means of conservation do not seem sufficient to address this obligation; therefore, there is a duty to cognitively enhance these creatures as soon as the technology is sufficiently researched and safe. (shrink)

Duties to oneself are allegedly incoherent: if we had duties to ourselves, we would be able to opt out of them. I argue that there is a constraint on one’s ability to release oneself from duties to oneself. The release must be autonomous in order to be normatively transformative. First, I show that the view that combines the division of the self with the second-personal characterization of morality is problematic. Second, I advance a fundamental solution to the problem of the (...) incoherence of duties to oneself, one that does not rely on any division of the self, temporal or otherwise. I build upon the prevalent idea that, in releasing others from duties, we exercise the power of consent. The transformative force of consent partly derives from our autonomy. Invoking a plausible characterization of autonomy, I argue that release from duties requires the right kind of mental state. (shrink)

In “Epistemological Duties,” Richard Feldman uses three main questions to illuminate the topic of epistemological duties. What are our epistemological duties? After suggesting that epistemological duties pertain to the development of appropriate cognitive attitudes, Feldman asks What makes a duty epistemological? and How do epistemological duties interact with other kinds of duties? His pursuit of contributes to his response to in that he uses it to argue that a concept of distinctly epistemological duty must exclude practical and moral (...) duties that pertain to belief, and include only duties that pertain to epistemological success. (shrink)

Nonprofit organizations play a crucial role in society. Unfortunately, many such organizations are chronically underfunded and struggle to meet their objectives. These facts have significant implications for corporate philanthropy and Kant’s notion of imperfect duties. Under the concept of imperfect duties, businesses would have wide discretion regarding which charities receive donations, how much money to give, and when such donations take place. A perceived problem with imperfect duties is that they can lead to moral laxity; that is, a failure on (...) the part of businesses to fulfill their financial obligations to nonprofit organizations. This article argues the problem of moral laxity rests on a misinterpretation of Kantian ethics and, therefore, is really not a problem at all. As such, we argue corporate philanthropy while an imperfect duty should be interpreted more akin to perfect duties and, as a consequence, moral laxity does not arise for those corporations committed to acting on the basis of the moral law. More specifically, firms have duty-based obligations on the basis of benevolence, and as good corporate citizens, to help fund non-profit organizations. (shrink)

Stephanie Collins’ Group Duties offers interesting new arguments and brings together numerous interconnected issues that have hitherto been treated separately. My critical commentary focuses on two particularly original and central claims of the book: (1) Only groups that are united under a group-level decision-making procedure can bear duties. (2) Attributions of duties to other groups should be understood as attributions of “coordination duties” to each member of the group, duties to take steps responsive to the others with a view to (...) the group’s φ-ing or express willingness to do so. In support of the first claim, Collins argues that only groups that can make decisions can bear duties, and that the ability to make decisions requires the relevant sort of decision-making procedure. I suggest that both parts of this argument remain in need of further support. I furthermore argue that Collins’ account of coordination duties gets certain kinds of cases wrong, and suggest that attributions of duties to groups without decision-making procedures are more plausibly understood as attributing shared duties. (shrink)

_Kant, Duty and Moral Worth _is a fascinating and original examination of Kant's account of moral worth. The complex debate at the heart of Kant's philosophy is over whether Kant said moral actions have worth only if they are carried out from duty, or whether actions carried out from mixed motives can be good. Philip Stratton-Lake offers a unique account of acting from duty, which utilizes the distinction between primary and secondary motives. He maintains that the moral (...) law should not be understood as a normative moral reason but as playing a transcendental role. Thus a Kantian account of moral worth is one where the virtuous agent may be responsive to concrete particular considerations, whilst preserving an essential role for universal moral principles. _Kant, Duty and Moral Worth _is a lucid examination of Kant's moral thought that will appeal to Kant scholars and anyone interested in moral theory. (shrink)

The idea that jobs should be awarded purely on merit has become something of an axiom, but the moral basis of it remains elusive. If employers are under a duty to appoint the most qualified candidate, to whom exactly is this duty owed, and on what grounds? I distinguish two kinds of answers to this question. Candidate-centred arguments are those according to which qualifications generate entitlements for their bearer, such that the most qualified applicant for a job has (...) some moral claim or right to it. But of course job-seekers are not the only parties with a stake in personnel selection decisions. The existing employees of an organisation, its clients and creditors, its shareholders, and society more generally are also affected. The duty to hire on merit, one might argue, is owed ultimately to one or more of these “stakeholder” groups. I refer to arguments with this structure as stakeholder-centred. The purpose of the paper is to carefully distinguish, organise and scrutinise various arguments within these camps; to sketch a map of the ethical terrain, so to speak. What the sketch reveals is that both the scope and weight of the duty to hire on merit — the exceptions to it, and the stringency of it — vary depending on its grounds. The argumentative strategy that we adopt to justify meritocracy, then, is of both theoretical and practical importance. (shrink)

Heavy duty platonism is of great dialectical importance in the philosophy of mathematics. It is the view that physical magnitudes, such as mass and temperature, are cases of physical objects being related to numbers. Many theorists have assumed HDP’s falsity in order to reach their own conclusions, but they are only justified in doing so if there are good arguments against HDP. In this paper, I present all five arguments against HDP alluded to in the literature and show that (...) they all fail. In doing so, I establish two related truths: HDP has been unfairly ignored, and the arguments which take its falsity as a key premise should be re-assessed. (shrink)

There is virtually no philosophical consensus on what, exactly, imperfect duties are. In this paper, I lay out three criteria which I argue any adequate account of imperfect duties should satisfy. Using beneficence as a leading example, I suggest that existing accounts of imperfect duties will have trouble meeting those criteria. I then propose a new approach: thinking of imperfect duties as duties held by groups, rather than individuals. I show, again using the example of beneficence, that this proposal can (...) satisfy the criteria, explaining how something can both have the necessity characteristic of duty, while also allowing agents the latitude which seems to attach to imperfect duties. (shrink)

Duty and Healing positions ethical issues commonly encountered in clinical situations within Jewish law. The concept of duty is significant in exploring bioethical issues, and this book presents an authentic and non-parochial Jewish approach to bioethics, while it includes critiques of both current secular and Jewish literatures. Among the issues the book explores are the role of family in medical decision-making, the question of informed consent as a personal religious duty, and the responsibilities of caretakers. The exploration (...) of contemporary ethical problems in healthcare through the lens of traditional sources in Jewish law is an indispensable guide of moral knowledge. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to shed light on some of the most original elements of Fichte’s conception of morality as expressed in his account of specific obligations. After some remarks on Fichte’s original classification of ethical duties, the paper focuses on the prohibition of lying, the duty to communicate our true knowledge, and the duty to set a good example. Fichte’s account of those duties not only goes beyond the mere justification of universally acknowledged demands, but (...) also deploys different arguments than his contemporaries, most notably Kant. Fichte thereby sketches a conception of morality in which the agent is crucially required to contribute to the morality of others. The chapter explores the contrast between Fichte’s view and Kant’s thought of an end in itself and suggests that Fichte’s view of morality amounts to a form of normative perfectionism that is qualified by the underlying claim of the agent-neutral character of moral demands. (shrink)

One of the principal aims of Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals, especially of the Doctrine of Virtue, is to present a taxonomy of our duties as human beings. The basic division of duties is between juridical duties and ethical duties, which determines the division of the Metaphysics of Morals into the Doctrine of Right and the Doctrine of Virtue. Juridical duties are duties that may be coercively enforced from outside the agent, as by the civil or criminal laws, or other social (...) pressures. Ethical duties must not be externally enforced (to do so violates the right of the person coerced). Instead, the subject herself, through her own reason and the feelings and motives arising a priori from her rational capacities -- the feelings of respect, conscience, moral feeling and love of other human beings, must constrain herself to follow them (MS 6:399-404).1 Among ethical duties, the fundamental division is between duties to oneself and duties to others. Within each of these two main divisions of ethical duty, there is a further division between duties that are strictly owed, requiring specific actions or omissions, and whose violation incurs moral blame, and duties that are wide or meritorious, the specific actions not strictly owed, but deserving of moral credit or merit. Kant treats these latter as ‘duties’ (eschewing any category such as ‘supererogation’) because the actions in question are conceived as fit objects of self-constraint – things we can make ourselves do through the exercise of reason and the moral feelings arising from the application of practical reason to our faculty of desire. Regarding duties to oneself, this division is between ‘perfect’ and ‘imperfect’ duty; regarding duties to others, the strict or narrow... (shrink)

The non-identity problem arises when an intervention or behavior changes the identity of those affected. Delaying pregnancy is an example of such a behavior. The problem is whether and in what ways such changes in identity affect moral considerations. While a great deal has been written about the non-identity problem, relatively little has been written about the implications for physicians and how they should understand their duties. We argue that the non-identity problem can make a crucial moral difference in some (...) circumstances, and that it has some interesting implications for when it is or is not right for a physician to refuse to accede to a patient's request. If a physician is asked to provide an intervention (identity preserving) that makes a person worse off, then such harm provides a good reason for the physician to refuse to provide the intervention. However, in cases where different (identity-altering) interventions result in different people having a better or worse life, physicians should normally respect patient choice. (shrink)

Este artículo estudia la visión que Ibn Ḥazm de Córdoba tenía del concepto de fiṭra, que aparece en el Corán y en algunas tradiciones exegéticas. Basándose en este texto, Ibn Ḥazm afirma que todos los seres humanos nacen musulmanes, incluso los idólatras y otras clases de infieles, y que todos han de ser considerados musulmanes hasta que alcancen la mayoría de edad. En ese momento de sus vidas han de elegir entre reafirmar su fe y, si no son hijos de (...) musulmanes, de elegir entre la religión en la que han nacido o renunciar a ella. Su decisión afectará a su destino en el Más Allá. La creencia de Ibn Ḥazm de que todos los niños son musulmanes hasta la edad en que puedan discernir y, por tanto, de que en caso de que mueran niños irán al Paraíso, tiene también implicaciones legales y, a través de ellas, se puede observar cómo actúan los principios Ẓāhiríes. Ibn Ḥazm muestra una tendencia a otorgar a los musulmanes la custodia de niños no musulmanes, así como a evitar que los nacidos musulmanes queden desvinculados de su religión. Ese es el caso de los niños expósitos o cuya paternidad es dudosa. Aunque, en general, no requiere que los niños no musulmanes fallecidos, que en el fondo son considerados creyentes, sean enterrados de acuerdo con el rito islámico, ordena que un niño, cuyos padres no sean musulmanes y hayan sido hechos cautivos, reciba un entierro musulmán. Aunque, a primera vista, estas normas parezcan confirmar las afirmaciones de Goldziher sobre «el fanatismo personal contra los seguidores de otras religiones» de Ibn Ḥazm, se observa también que, según su punto de vista, la indemnización que se debía pagar por la lesión del feto de una mujer no musulmana era igual al que le correspondía a una musulmana que hubiese perdido su hijo en las mismas circunstancias. (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)

Scholars who favor shareholder primacy usually claim either that managers should not fulfill corporate duties of beneficence or that, if they are required to fulfill them, they do so by going against their obligations to shareholders. Distinguishing between structurally different types of duties of beneficence and recognizing the full force of the normative demands imposed on managers reveal that this view needs to be qualified. Although it is correct to think that managers, when acting on behalf of shareholders, are not (...) required to fulfill wide duties of charity, they are nevertheless required to fulfill a variety of narrow duties of beneficence. What is more, the obligation to fulfill these duties arises precisely because they are acting on behalf of shareholders. As such, this article 1) refines our understanding of the duties of corporate beneficence and 2) helps to identify which duties of beneficence are imposed on managers when they are acting on behalf of shareholders. (shrink)

The practice of official apology has a fairly poor reputation. Dismissed as ‘crocodile tears’ or cheap grace, such apologies are often seen by the public as an easy alternative to more punitive or expensive ways of taking real responsibility. I focus on what I call the role-playing criticism: the argument that someone who offers an apology in public cannot be appropriately apologetic precisely because they are only playing a role. I offer a qualified defence of official apologies against this objection, (...) considering them through the lens of fiduciary duties. This focus draws our attention to formal or impersonal relationships that are nevertheless normatively rich, capable of sustaining trust, concern, and care. At the same time, I highlight several pitfalls for fiduciary apologisers, including the tension between apology as a mode of truth telling and the duty of confidentiality. I consider whether the fiduciary apologiser, in reflecting on her fiduciary obligations, has ‘one thought too many’ for genuine apology, and argue that the issue of mixed motives is not limited to fiduciary contexts, cautioning against excessive idealism in our conception of apology. I conclude with some reflections on possible conflicts between fiduciary obligations and the conscientious desire to apologise. (shrink)

According to the objection from positive duties, Kant's Formula of Universal Law is flawed because it cannot be used to derive any affirmative moral requirements. This paper offers a response to that objection and proposes a novel way to derive positive duties from Kant's formula. The Formula of Universal Law yields positive duties to adopt our own perfection and others’ happiness as ends because we could not rationally fail to will those ends as universal ends.

This paper evaluates an argument for immigration restrictions that appeals to the costs that immigration imposes on the citizens of a recipient state. According to this argument, citizens have associative duties to protect each other’s interests, immigration can damage these interests in certain cases, and the associative duties between compatriots justify immigration restrictions in these cases. Call this: the partiality argument for immigration restrictions. I argue that the partiality argument is unsound. Immigration restrictions violate negative duties to refrain from interfering (...) with people’s liberties and these duties silence compatriots’ associative duties to one another. Furthermore, I argue that compatriots lack associative duties to one another in virtue of the fact that the relationships between compatriots reliably cause injustice to outsiders. (shrink)

Some harms are such that they cannot be prevented by a single individual because she lacks the requisite control. Because of this, no individual has the obligation to do so. It may be, however, that the harm can be prevented when several individuals combine their efforts. I argue that in many such situations each individual has a duty to join forces: to approach others, convince them to contribute, and subsequently make a coordinated effort to prevent the harm. A distinctive (...) feature of this proposal is that, in the first instance, it focuses on mobilizing others rather than on preventing the outcome. As it ultimately concerns a collective harm, the duty to join forces is irreducibly collective. Furthermore, once enough people have been mobilized, they have a collective obligation to prevent the harm that is irreducibly collective also because it applies to the collective as such. (shrink)