Since human reproduction is arguably both irrational and immoral, those who seek help before conceiving could be advised it is all right not to have children.

If genetic diagnosis and preimplantation selection could be employed to produce deaf children, would it be acceptable for deaf parents to do so? Some say no, because there is no moral difference between selecting a deaf embryo and deafening a hearing child, and because it would be wrong to deafen infants. It is argued in this paper, however, that this view is untenable. There are differences between the two activities, and it is perfectly possible to condone genetic selection for deafness (...) while condemning attempts to deafen infants at birth. (shrink)

In contemporary discussions on practical ethics, the concepts of autonomy and dignity have frequently been opposed. This tendency has been particularly visible in controversies regarding cloning, abortion, organ sales, and euthanasia. Freedom of research and freedom of choice, as instances of professional and personal autonomy, have been cited in arguments favouring these practices, while the dignity and sanctity of human life have been evoked in arguments against them. In the moral theory of Immanuel Kant, however, the concepts of autonomy and (...) dignity seem to coexist in mutual harmony. Respect for the freely chosen moral law and respect for the absolute value of humanity coincide, and give rise to a unified understanding of our duties toward ourselves and others. My question in this paper is, was Kant on to something here? Can autonomy and dignity, in the sense in which they are used in current debates, be brought together, and can the arguments be settled in a way that would satisfy both disagreeing parties? My answer to the question is, yes and no. Kant was definitely on to something in that he recognized two competing views in modern moral philosophy, and tried to consolidate them in an attempt to create a universal model of ethics. But in the end, he failed to fuse the two views together on equal terms. Instead, he sacrificed the modern idea of the self-governance of individuals on the altar of the premodern notion of the absolute inner worth of humanity. (shrink)

The ends and means of public health activities are suggested to be at odds with the values held by human individuals and communities. Although promoting longer lives in better health for all seems like an endeavour that is obviously acceptable, it can be challenged by equally self-evident appeals to autonomy, happiness, integrity and liberty, among other values. The result is that people’s actual concerns are not always adequately dealt with by public health measures and assurances.

In many Western jurisdictions cannabis, unlike most other psychoactive drugs, cannot be prescribed to patients even in cases where medical professionals believe that it would ease the patient’s pain or anxiety. The reasons for this prohibition are mostly ideological, although medical and moral arguments have been formulated to support it. In this paper, it is argued that freedom, properly understood, provides a sound ethical reason to allow the use of cannabis in medicine. Scientific facts, appeals to harm and autonomy, and (...) considerations of symbolic value cannot consistently justify prohibitions. (shrink)

People have concerns, and ethicists often respond to them with philosophical arguments. But can conceptual constructions properly address fears and anxieties? It is argued in this paper that while it is possible to voice, clarify, create and—to a certain extent—tackle concerns by arguments, more concrete practices, choices, and actions are normally needed to produce proper responses to people’s worries. While logical inconsistencies and empirical errors can legitimately be exposed by arguments, the situation is considerably less clear when it comes to (...) moral, cultural, and emotional norms, values, and expectations. (shrink)

If it is irrational to allow the worst outcome of our actions, and if it is immoral to cause suffering, then it is irrational and immoral to have children.I recently published in this journal a paper, entitled A rational cure for prereproductive stress syndrome, and was happy to see that three colleagues—Rebecca Bennett, Søren Holm, and Sahin Aksoy—had taken the time to critically examine it. This gave me an opportunity to briefly revisit the topic, and to clarify some of the (...) arguments I put forward.THE IRRATIONALITY OF HAVING CHILDRENIn my paper, A rational cure for prereproductive stress syndrome,1 I claimed that it is irrational to have children, if it is irrational to deliberately allow the worst outcome of our actions in a given situation, and if to have children allows this.I argued that having children allows the worst outcome of our reproductive choices , if it makes good sense to restrict the analysis to the comparative value of life versus non-existence of possible future individuals, as experienced by themselves, and if there are individuals who genuinely would prefer non-existence to their own life.My practical conclusion in the paper was modest: “Possible parents could be told that, according to at least one philosopher, it would be all right for them not to reproduce at all.”1 This was my suggested “rational cure for prereproductive stress syndrome”.“NOT STRONGLY IRRATIONAL”Holm argues against that it is not irrational to deliberately allow a low probability of the worst outcome.2 He starts from the premise that to make my argument work I would need to regard the maximin rule—the rule specified in claim —as the only criterion of rationality. If I do so, however, I …. (shrink)

When ethics committees evaluate the research proposals submitted to them by biomedical scientists, they can seek guidance from laws and regulations, their own beliefs, values and experiences, and from the theories of philosophers. The starting point of this paper is that philosophers can only be helpful to the members of ethics committees if they take into account in their models both the basic moral intuitions that most of us share and the consequences of people's choices. A moral view which can (...) be labelled as a consequentialist interpretation of mid-level principlism is developed, defended and applied to some real-life and hypothetical research proposals. (shrink)

M. Hayri Kırbasoglu is researcher who studies in the field of ḥadīth. Kırbasoglu’s latest work was on the famous orientalist Ignaz Goldziher, and in his book Understanding Goldziher, he claimed that Goldziher, who was criticized by Muslim researchers, was not understood correctly, a hate and smear campaign was carried out against him, and he suffered a great injustice. The reason for writing this article is to analyze the defense of Goldziher put forward by Kırbasoglu in the aforementioned study and to (...) evaluate whether he is right in his opinions and determinations. As a result of our research, it was seen that there was no other study that was critical of Kırbasoglu’s defense of Goldziher, and it was decided to write this article. The article is limited to Kırbasoglu’s aforementioned work, and it is aimed to introduce both him and Goldziher correctly, based on Kırbasoglu’s views here. At the end of the article, it was concluded that Kırbasoglu’s evaluations about the Jewish orientalist Goldziher were subjective, one-sided, biased, reactive, far from objectivity and superficial, in addition, it was concluded that most of his analyzes related to Goldziher do not correspond to the facts. (shrink)

This collection addresses a post-WWII shift in the hierarchy of scientific explanations, where the highest goal moves from reductionism towards some ...

With the considerable attention given to UNESCO's Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights, the time has come to take another look at the concept of dignity, on which this document is morally founded. The term “dignity” now appears in many national constitutions and international bioethical statements. It has also become popular among Continental European ethicists, many of whom wish to challenge the particularly American and overtly individualistic principles of “autonomy,” “justice,” “beneficence,” and “nonmaleficence.” a.

Health care services are constantly assessed by their ability to accommodate values popular in contemporary societies. Autonomy, justice, and human dignity have for some time been among such values in the affluent West. Relative newcomers in the field are the notions of and which seem to attract, in particular, Continental European ethicists. a.

Relativism is usually a derogatory word in philosophical bioethics in the West. If people make the mistake of trying to understand radically “different” points of view, an accusation of relativism is quickly forthcoming. But why should this be an accusation? My aim in this paper is to demonstrate that it should not.

For the theorists of crisis, the revolutionary state comes into existence through violence, and due to its inability to provide an authoritative katechon (restrainer) against internal and external violence, it perpetuates violence until it self-destructs. Writing during extreme economic depression and growing social and political violence, the crisis theorists––Joseph de Maistre, Juan Donoso Cortés, and Carl Schmitt––each sought to blame the chaos of their time upon the Janus-faced postrevolutionary ideals of liberalism and socialism by urging a return to pre-revolutionary moral (...) and religious values. They are united by three counterrevolutionary principles, all of which are purported to remedy revolutionary violence: traditional constitutional fidelity, the philosophy of the decision, and opposition to bourgeois liberalism. This essay is followed by the first complete English translation and publication of Donoso’s letter of October 24, 1851, which contains Donoso’s only reference to the “discussing class,” a political entity later popularized by Schmitt in his 1922 work Political Theology. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Can philosophers come up with persuasive reasons to allow or to ban human reproductive cloning? Yes. Can philosophers agree, locally and temporarily, which practices related to cloning should be condoned and which should be rejected? Some of them can. Can philosophers produce universally convincing arguments for or against different kinds of human cloning? No. This paper analyses some of the main arguments presented by philosophers in the cloning debate, and some of the most important objections against them. The clashes (...) between the schools of thought suggest that philosophers cannot be trusted to provide the public authorities, or the general public, a unified, universally applicable view of the morality of human reproductive cloning. (shrink)

Concepts that refer to trends like globalization and medicalization have, of late, become a hallmark of public debates. The logic of such concepts is that the same word can refer both to good and bad developments, partly depending on the chosen viewpoint. Hardly anyone opposes the global enforcement of human rights, but the global liberation of trade is sometimes viewed with suspicion. In a similar vein, advances in medicine are seldom seen as a bad thing, but medical solutions to social (...) issues can be seen as problematic. (shrink)

According to what one might call ‘indirect” forms of utilitarian thinking, the proper end of all human action is the greatest happiness of the greatest number of individuals, but due to the fallibility of moral agents this end cannot, and must not, be directly pursued. Instead, according to at least one version of the indirect theory, moral agents have a duty to act in conformity with a set of general rules which, in their turn, have been designed to promote the (...) greatest happiness of humankind. But acts which conform to such general rules can under exceptional circumstances occasion more suffering than happiness. This is clearly problematical to indirect utilitarians. If they follow the rules regardless of the evil consequences, it can be argued that they have abandoned the basic principles of utilitarianism. If, on the other hand, they refuse to follow the rules which normally promote the general good, their view can be seen to collapse into the direct form of the creed. (shrink)

_Liberal Utilitarianism and Applied Ethics_ explores the foundations of early utilitarianism and, at the same time, the theoretical bases of social ethics and policy in modern Western welfare states. Matti Hayry sees the main reason for utilitarianism's growing disrepute among moral philosophers is that its principles cannot legitimately be extended to situations where the basic needs of the individuals involved are in conflict. He is able to formulate a solution to this fundamental problem by arguing convincingly that by combining (...) a limited version of liberal utilitarianism and the methods of applied ethics, we are able to define our moral duties and rights. _Liberal Utilitarianism and Applied Ethics_ will appeal to students and teachers of philosophy who are interested in the doctrine of utilitarianism or in ethical decison-making. (shrink)

_Liberal Utilitarianism and Applied Ethics_ explores the foundations of early utilitarianism and, at the same time, the theoretical bases of social ethics and policy in modern Western welfare states. Matti Hayry sees the main reason for utilitarianism's growing disrepute among moral philosophers is that its principles cannot legitimately be extended to situations where the basic needs of the individuals involved are in conflict. He is able to formulate a solution to this fundamental problem by arguing convincingly that by combining (...) a limited version of liberal utilitarianism and the methods of applied ethics, we are able to define our moral duties and rights. _Liberal Utilitarianism and Applied Ethics_ will appeal to students and teachers of philosophy who are interested in the doctrine of utilitarianism or in ethical decison-making. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The authors analyse and assess the Universal Draft Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights published by UNESCO. They argue that the Draft has two main weaknesses. It unnecessarily confines the scope of bioethics to life sciences and their practical applications. And it fails to spell out the intended role of human dignity in international ethical regulation.

ABSTRACT The authors analyse and assess the Universal Draft Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights published by UNESCO. They argue that the Draft has two main weaknesses. It unnecessarily confines the scope of bioethics to life sciences and their practical applications. And it fails to spell out the intended role of human dignity in international ethical regulation.

Some theories of goodness are descriptively rich: they have much to say about what makes things good. Neo-Aristotelian accounts, for instance, detail the various features that make a human being, a dog, a bee good relative to facts about those forms of life. Famously, such theories of relative goodness tend to be comparatively poor: they have little or nothing to say about what makes one kind of being better than another kind. Other theories of goodness—those that take there to be (...) absolute goodness—are comparatively rich: they offer grounds for judging some types of things better than others because they have more absolute goodness. Moorean accounts, for example, can tell us that humans and human experiences are superior to bees and blades of grass. But such theories tend to be descriptively poor: they struggle to tell us in virtue of what this is so. In this essay we motivate and flesh out a view that splits the difference between accounts of goodness as relative and accounts of goodness as absolute. Such a view holds promise only if the mechanics of this kind of metaphysics of goodness can be worked out. Here we present a view on which the paradigm for absolute goodness is God and the paradigm for each kind of relative goodness is a divine idea. (shrink)

Many bioethical disputes are conceptual. This means that people quarrel about the use of words that they see as important. The underlying idea is that whoever wins the verbal argument will also be ethically right.

Blumenthal-Barby et al. (2022) present a nuanced and convincing case for the continued presence of moral and political philosophers in bioethics. We agree with the authors that philosophers should have a role in bioethical inquiry. However, we partly disagree on what that role should be. We assess the case taking our clues from a concern the authors mention – and another one that they do not directly address.

Health care services are constantly assessed by their ability to accommodate values popular in contemporary societies. Autonomy, justice, and human dignity have for some time been among such values in the affluent West. Relative newcomers in the field are the notions of “precaution” and “solidarity,” which seem to attract, in particular, Continental European ethicists. a.

There is a growing feeling in many Western countries that every human being has a right to health, or a right to health care. This feeling is reflected in a declaration of the World Health Organization (WHO) from 1976, which states: The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition. Our intention in the following is to use the WHO (...) declaration as a basis for considering the allocation of resources in health care. We shall first argue that most of the criteria suggested as grounds for fair allocation of scarce medical resources have their difficulties if one tries to apply them one by one to medical practices. We shall then go on to claim that, if we take the right of all human beings to health or health care even moderately seriously, increasing the resources would in most cases be more ethical than attempting to allocate them ‘fairly’. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Public health authorities sometimes have to make decisions about the use of preventive medical measures—e.g. vaccination programmes—which could, if realised, save millions of lives, but could also kill a certain (small) number of those subjected to the measures. According to a rough‐and‐ready utilitarian calculation, such measures should be taken, but there are also possible objections to this view. A liberal objection to the use of mandatory preventive measures which might harm human beings is that people have a right to (...) decide for themselves whether or not they want to participate in the programme. A further objection is based on the claims that first, the authorities are directly killing those who die because of, say, vaccination programmes, and second, directly killing human beings is forbidden (since every human being has a right to live). The latter objection is discussed at length in the present paper. The validity of three doctrines, the doctrines of the double effect, of acts and omissions, and of killing and letting die, are considered with reference to the use of preventive measures, and found inapplicable. The objection is, however, refuted by comparing some hypothetical examples, and the initial utilitarian calculation is reinforced. (shrink)

The Limits of Medical Paternalism defines and morally assesses paternalistic interventions, especially in the context of modern medicine and health care, particular emphasis is given to the analysis of the conceptual background of the paternalism issue. In this book an anti-paternalistic view is presented and defended.

Utilitarianism could still be a viable moral and political theory, although an emphasis on justice as distributing burdens and benefits has hidden this from current conversations. The traditional counterexamples prove that we have good grounds for rejecting classical, aggregative forms of consequentialism. A nonaggregative, liberal form of utilitarianism is immune to this rejection. The cost is that it cannot adjudicate when the basic needs of individuals or groups are in conflict. Cases like this must be solved by other methods. This (...) is not a weakness in liberal utilitarianism, on the contrary. The theory clarifies what we should admit to begin with: that ethical doctrines do not have universally acceptable solutions to all difficult problems or hard cases. The theory also reminds us that not all problems are in this sense difficult or cases hard. We could alleviate the plight of nonhuman animals by reducing meat eating. We could mitigate climate change and its detrimental effects by choosing better ways of living. These would imply that most people’s desire satisfaction would be partly frustrated, but liberal utilitarianism holds that this would be justified by the satisfaction of the basic needs of other people and nonhuman animals. (shrink)