Objective: To explore the experiences of people with a “terminal illness”, focusing on the patients’ perspective of euthanasia and assisted suicide.Method: A qualitative study using narrative interviews was conducted throughout the UK. The views of the 18 people who discussed euthanasia and assisted suicide were explored. These were drawn from a maximum variation sample, who said that they had a “terminal” illness, malignant or non-malignant.Results: That UK law should be changed to allow assisted suicide or voluntary euthanasia was felt strongly (...) by most people. Those who had seen others die were particularly convinced that this should be a right. Some had multiple reasons, including pain and anticipated pain, fear of indignity, loss of control and cognitive impairment. Those who did not want to be a burden also had other reasons for wanting euthanasia. Suicide was contemplated by a few, who would have preferred a change in the law to allow them to end their lives with medical help and in the company of family or friends. The few who opposed a change in UK law, or who felt ambivalent, focused on involuntary euthanasia, cited religious reasons or worried that new legislation might be open to abuse.Conclusion: Qualitative research conducted on people who know they are nearing death is an important addition to the international debate on euthanasia and assisted suicide. Those who had seen others die were particularly convinced that the law should be changed to allow assisted death. (shrink)

The revival of Aristotelian virtue ethics can be seen as a response to the modern problem of disenchantment, that is, the perceived loss of meaning in modernity. However, in Virtue and Meaning, David McPherson contends that the dominant approach still embraces an overly disenchanted view. In a wide-ranging discussion, McPherson argues for a more fully re-enchanted perspective that gives better recognition to the meanings by which we live and after which we seek, and to the fact that human (...) beings are the meaning-seeking animal. In doing so, he defends distinctive accounts of the relationship between virtue and happiness, other-regarding demands, and the significance of linking neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics with a view of the meaning of life and a spiritual life where contemplation has a central role. This book will be valuable for philosophers and other readers who are interested in virtue ethics and the perennial question of the meaning of life. (shrink)

This paper argues for ethical veganism: the thesis that it is typically wrong to consume animal products. The paper first sets out an intuitive case for this thesis that begins with the intuitive claim that it is wrong to set fire to a cat. I then raise a methodological challenge: this is an intuitive argument for a revisionary conclusion. Even if we grant that we cannot both believe that it is permissible to drink milk, and that it is wrong to (...) set fire to cats, this leaves open the question of which of these judgments we should abandon. I consider and reject three strategies for addressing this question: more methodologically naïve moral theorizing, appeal to systematic normative theory, and attacking non-moral presuppositions. I argue that philosophically satisfying the resolution of the conflict requires debunking our grounds for belief in one of the conflicting claims. Finally, I argue that ethical veganism is supported by consideration of the most salient debunking arguments available. (shrink)

In this essay, I explore the prospects for a virtue ethic approach to business. First, I delineate two fundamental criteria that I believe must be met for any such approach to be viable: viz., the virtues must be exercised for the sake of the good of one’s life as a unitary whole (contra role-morality approaches) and for the common good of the communities of which one is a part as well as the individual good of their members (contra egoist approaches). (...) Second, I argue that these two criteria can be met only if we are able to reconceive and transform the nature of work within contemporary business organizations. In particular, what is needed, I argue, is a retrieval of something like the older ideal of work as a “vocation”, or “calling”, whereby work can be viewed as a specific aspect of a more general calling to pursue, through the practice of the virtues, “the good life” both for ourselves and for others. Lastly, I consider some important challenges to this “vocational virtue ethic” approach to work within contemporary business organizations and offer a few suggestions for how they might be met. (shrink)

We assess J. Baird Callicott’s attempt in Earth’s Insights to reconcile his land ethic with the “environmental ethics” of indigenous peoples. We critique the rejection of ethical pluralism that informs this attempted rapprochement. We also assess Callicott’s strategy of grounding his land ethic in a postmodern scientific world view by contrasting it with the roles of “respect” and narrative in indigenous “ethics.”.

Recently, some philosophers have suggested that a form of robust realism about ethics, or normativity more generally, does not face a significant explanatory burden in metaphysics. I call this view metaphysically quietist normative realism . This paper argues that while this view can appear to constitute an attractive alternative to more traditional forms of normative realism, it cannot deliver on this promise. I examine Scanlon’s attempt to defend such a quietist realism, and argue that rather than silencing metaphysical questions about (...) normative reasons, his defense at best succeeds only in shifting the focus of metaphysical enquiry. I then set aside the details of Scanlon’s view, and argue on general grounds that that the quietist realist cannot finesse a crucial metanormative task: to explain the contrast between the correct normative system and alternative putatively normative standards. (shrink)

This paper argues for what I call modest ethical veganism: the view that it is typically wrong to use or eat products made from or by animals such as cows, pigs, or chickens. The argument has three central parts. First, I argue that a central explanation for the wrongness of causing suffering rests upon what it is like to experience such suffering, and that we have good reasons to think that animals suffer in ways that are relevantly analogous to humans. (...) Second, I argue that animals can have better and worse lives, and that a central explanation for the wrongness of killing is that it deprives the victim of the valuable life that they would otherwise have had. Third, I argue that it is wrong to cooperate with massive wrongdoing. By consuming animal products, we typically support institutions that engage in massive and systematic wrongful treatment of animals. We thus ought to become vegan. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that the ethical supervenes on the natural, where this is roughly the claim that it is impossible for two circumstances to be identical in all natural respects, but different in their ethical respects. This chapter refines and defends the traditional thought that this fact poses a significant challenge to ethical non-naturalism, a view on which ethical properties are fundamentally different in kind from natural properties. The challenge can be encapsulated in three core claims which the chapter (...) defends: that a defensible non-naturalism is committed to the supervenience of the ethical, that this commits the non-naturalist to a brute necessary connection between properties of distinct kinds, and that commitment to such brute connections counts against the non-naturalist’s view. Each of these claims has recently been challenged. Against Nicholas Sturgeon’s recent doubts about the dialectical force of supervenience, this chapter defends a supervenience thesis as deserving to be common ground among ethical realists. It is then argued that attempts to explain supervenience on behalf of the non-naturalist either fail as explanations, generate near-identical explanatory burdens elsewhere, or appeal to commitments that are inconsistent with core motivations for non-naturalism. The chapter concludes that, suitably refined, the traditional argument against nonnaturalism from supervenience is alive and well. (shrink)

This chapter offers an analysis of the authoritatively normative concept PRACTICAL OUGHT that appeals to the constitutive norms for the activity of non-arbitrary selection. It argues that this analysis permits an attractive and substantive explanation of what the distinctive normative authority of this concept amounts to, while also explaining why a clear statement of what such authority amounts to has been so elusive in the recent literature. The account given is contrasted with more familiar constitutivist theories, and briefly shows how (...) it answers “schmagency”-style objections to constitutivist explanations of normativity. Finally, the chapter explains how the account offered here can help realists, error theorist, and fictionalists address central challenges to their views. (shrink)

In the last section of his article Professor Kellenberger says that Professor Flew misunderstands the nature of religious utterances. These are affirmations of belief or trust, whereas Flew treats them as if they were hypotheses. If ‘God loves us’ is held by someone as an hypothesis then it would be proper to ask what justifies him in holding it, and, equally, what would have to happen for him to feel that he could no longer justifiably hold it. But if ‘God (...) loves us’ is said by someone as an affirmation of trust such questions seem out of place. (shrink)

This chapter explores two central questions in the conceptual ethics of normative inquiry. The first is whether to orient one’s normative inquiry around folk normative concepts (like KNOWLEDGE or IMMORAL) or around theoretical normative concepts (like ADEQUATE EPISTEMIC JUSTIFICATION or PRO TANTO PRACTICAL REASON). The second is whether to orient one’s normative inquiry around concepts whose normative authority is especially accessible to us (such as OUGHT ALL THINGS CONSIDERED), or around concepts whose extension is especially accessible to us (such as (...) BETRAYAL). The chapter aims to make vivid and plausible a range of possible answers to these questions, and important forms of argument that can be used to favor certain answers over others. (shrink)

This paper argues for ethical veganism: the thesis that it is typically wrong to consume animal products. The paper first sets out an intuitive case for this thesis that begins with the intuitive claim that it is wrong to set fire to a cat. I then raise a methodological challenge: this is an intuitive argument for a revisionary conclusion. Even if we grant that we cannot both believe that it is permissible to drink milk, and that it is wrong to (...) set fire to cats, this leaves open the question of which of these judgments we should abandon. I consider and reject three strategies for addressing this question: more methodologically naïve moral theorizing, appeal to systematic normative theory, and attacking non-moral presuppositions. I argue that philosophically satisfying the resolution of the conflict requires debunking our grounds for belief in one of the conflicting claims. Finally, I argue that ethical veganism is supported by consideration of the most salient debunking arguments available. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper addresses a central positive claim in Matti Eklund’s Choosing Normative Concepts: that a certain kind of metaphysically ambitious realist about normativity – the ardent realist – is committed to the metasemantic idea that the distinctive inferential role of normative concepts suffices to fix the extension of those concepts. I argue first that commitment to this sort of inferential role metasemantic view does nothing to secure ardent realism. I then show how the ardent realist can address Eklund’s leading (...) challenge without appeal to distinctively metasemantic commitments. (shrink)

Controversy about the credibility of normative realism is endemic to contemporary metaethics. Some take realism to be “obviously, the default position,” while others, to put it mildly, do not., In the face of such persistent controversy, it can be valuable to step back from the myriad arguments for and against realism, and seek to understand the challenges that face this view in their deepest and most general form. This paper aims to achieve this deeper understanding with respect to a pair (...) of familiar challenges to normative realism in the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Human beings seek to transcend limits. This is part of our potential greatness, since it is how we can realize what is best in our humanity. However, the limit-transcending feature of human life is also part of our potential downfall, as it can lead to dehumanization and failure to attain important human goods and to prevent human evils. Exploring the place of limits within a well-lived human life this work develops and defends an original account of limiting virtues, which are (...) concerned with recognizing proper limits in human life. The limiting virtues that are the focus are humility, reverence, moderation, contentment, neighborliness, and loyalty, and they are explored in relation to four kinds of limits: existential limits, moral limits, political limits, and economic limits. These virtues have been underexplored in discussions about virtue ethics, and when they have been explored it has not been with regard to the general issue of the place of limits within a well-lived human life. The account of the limiting virtues provided here, however, is intended as a counter to other prominent approaches to ethics: namely, autonomy-centered approaches and consequentialist (or maximizing) approaches. This account is also used to address a number of important contemporary issues such as genetic engineering, distributive justice, cosmopolitanism vs. patriotism, and the ethical status of growth-based economics. (shrink)

The attitude of the impartial spectator has seemed to some to be the appropriate one for a moral philosopher: the philosopher should disengage himself from the moral battle and try to understand it; the academic moral philosopher's responsibility is to write about morality rather than to recommend moral positions—and, indeed, where an ideological standpoint is presupposed in academic moral philosophy, it is commonly not consciously presupposed.

The standard liberal sexual ethic maintains that consent is the only requirement for ethical sexual relations. While consent is certainly necessary for an adequate sexual ethic (and it’s important to know what it involves), I argue that it’s far from sufficient. The key claims that I advance are the following: (1) The consent-only model of sexual ethics affirms a “casual” view of sex and therefore it can’t make sense of and properly combat what’s worst in the sexual domain: namely, the (...) grave evil of sexual violence. (2) The consent-only model of sexual ethics fails properly to recognize the special significance of human sexuality and the nature of erotic love and its role in human sexual fulfillment and therefore it can’t make sense of and properly support what’s best in the sexual domain: namely, a committed erotic loving relationship. A more adequate sexual ethic, I maintain, would be a more traditionalist one that involves the following: it would give proper recognition to the special significance of human sexuality, avoid dehumanization in sexual desire, and encourage and support committed erotic love and its role in human fulfillment. Moreover, it would regard this as requiring that we cultivate sexual virtues such as chastity, modesty, and fidelity, and that we encourage and support life-long monogamous marriage as the proper context for human sexual relationship. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that the ethical supervenes on the natural, where this is roughly the claim that it is impossible for two circumstances to be identical in all natural respects, but different in their ethical respects. This chapter refines and defends the traditional thought that this fact poses a significant challenge to ethical non-naturalism, a view on which ethical properties are fundamentally different in kind from natural properties. The challenge can be encapsulated in three core claims which the chapter (...) defends: that a defensible non-naturalism is committed to the supervenience of the ethical, that this commits the non-naturalist to a brute necessary connection between properties of distinct kinds, and that commitment to such brute connections counts against the non-naturalist’s view. Each of these claims has recently been challenged. Against Nicholas Sturgeon’s recent doubts about the dialectical force of supervenience, this chapter defends a supervenience thesis as deserving to be common ground among ethical realists. It is then argued that attempts to explain supervenience on behalf of the non-naturalist either fail as explanations, generate near-identical explanatory burdens elsewhere, or appeal to commitments that are inconsistent with core motivations for non-naturalism. The chapter concludes that, suitably refined, the traditional argument against non-naturalism from supervenience is alive and well. (shrink)

Philosophers have offered several apparently powerful arguments against the permissibility of eating meat. However, the idea that it is okay to eat meat can seem like a bit of ethical common sense. This paper examines the attempt to adapt one of the most influential philosophical defenses of common sense –G. E. Moore’s case against the skeptic andthe idealist –in support of the omnivore. I first introduce and explain Moore’s argument against the skeptic. I then explain how that argument can be (...) adapted to address two influential philosophical arguments against the omnivore, due to Tom Regan and James Rachels. The adapted Moorean arguments appear strikingly similar to the original. However, I argue that we should not simply assume that all Moorean arguments are created equal. Instead, I propose a set of principled criteria that can be used to test Moorean arguments on a case-by-case basis. Those criteria give the Moorean reason for optimism against the skeptic, but suggest that the Moorean’s case is much weaker against the ethical vegetarian. I conclude that the Moorean omnivore’s argument has potentially uncomfortable implications for all sides in debates about ethical vegetarianism, and illuminates important and neglected questions about the force of philosophical arguments in applied ethics. (shrink)

This paper addresses a central positive claim in Matti Eklund’s Choosing Normative Concepts: that a certain kind of metaphysically ambitious realist about normativity – the ardent realist – is committed to the metasemantic idea that the distinctive inferential role of normative concepts suffices to fix the extension of those concepts. I argue first that commitment to this sort of inferential role metasemantic view does nothing to secure ardent realism. I then show how the ardent realist can address Eklund’s leading challenge (...) without appeal to distinctively metasemantic commitments. (shrink)

This essay articulates a kind of conservatism that it argues is the most fundamental and important kind of conservatism, viz. existential conservatism, which involves an affirmative and appreciative stance towards the given world. While this form of conservatism can be connected to political conservatism, as seen with Roger Scruton, it need not be, as seen with G. A. Cohen. It is argued that existential conservatism should be embraced whether or not one embraces political conservatism, though it is also shown that (...) existential conservatism imposes constraints on our political thinking. In particular, it is argued that Cohen's ‘luck egalitarianism’ stands at odds with his existential conservatism and that one should be a sufficientarian rather than an egalitarian with regard to economic justice. (shrink)

Some philosophers have been attracted to the idea that morality is an autonomous domain. One version of this idea is the thesis that non-moral claims are irrelevant to the justification of fundamental normative ethical theories. However, this autonomy thesis appears to be in tension with a pair of apparent features of metaethical theorizing. On one hand, metaethics seemingly aims to explain how morality fits into our broader conception of the world. On the other, metaethical theorizing appears to have potential normative (...) ethical implications. This apparent tension may help to explain some contemporary worries about metaethics as a philosophical project. This paper examines three responses to this tension. The first response seeks to resolve the tension by claiming that metaethical theories must be neutral between normative ethical theories. The second response seeks to eliminate the tension by appealing to a deep divide between practical and theoretical reasoning. I show that each of these responses would require a radical reconception of metaethics. I argue that such a reconception is not required in order to resolve the apparent tension between metaethics and the autonomy thesis. I show that this tension is merely apparent, and can be dissolved without casting doubt on metaethics as a project. I argue that on the picture that results, whether the autonomy thesis is true itself depends upon metaethical fact. (shrink)

The past few decades have witnessed an extraordinary revival of interest in metanormative non-naturalism. Despite this interest, it is still unclear how to understand the distinctive metaphysical commitments of this view. We illustrate the relevant difficulties by examining what is arguably the most prominent class of contemporary attempts to formulate non-naturalism’s metaphysical commitments. This class of proposals, exemplified in work by Gideon Rosen and Stephanie Leary, characterizes the distinctive metaphysical commitments of non-naturalism in terms of metaphysical grounding and essence. We (...) argue that these proposals overgeneralize: they either misclassify intuitively naturalistic hypotheses about the metaphysics of normativity as “non-naturalist”, or misclassify hypotheses in other areas of metaphysics. We argue that this problem stems from features of grounding itself. We suggest a more promising alternative for formulating non-naturalism, which revolves around the notion of objective similarity between classes of properties. We conclude by drawing some general lessons for inquiry about the metaphysics of normativity, and about metaphysics in general. (shrink)

One important activity in conceptual ethics and conceptual engineering involves proposing to associate a new semantics with an existing word. Many philosophers think that one important way to evaluate such a proposal concerns whether it preserves the “topic” picked out by the existing word, and several have offered competing proposals concerning what is required to preserve topic. Our paper is focused on the conceptual ethics question of how conceptual engineers should use the term ‘topic continuity’. We provide and defend a (...) context- sensitive answer to this question. Our answer is motivated by the idea that there are several distinct considerations that we can reasonably care about (and which many conceptual engineers already do care about) in thinking about “topic continuity”, and, moreover, that how best to weigh them against each other can vary from context to context. On our proposal, ‘topic continuity’ can function as a useful representational device that enables coordination by inquirers with respect to these concerns. We conclude by locating our account in a broader way of thinking about topic continuity across a range of inquiries. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:‘Race’ has long searched for a stable, suitable idea, with no consensus on a master meaning in sight. What I call deflationary pluralism about the existence of race recognizes that various meanings may be true as far as they go but avoids murky disputes over whether there are races in some sense. Once we have rejected the notion that racial essences yield innate cognitive differences, there is little point to arguing over the race idea. In its place, I propose the (...) idea of socioancestry, which jettisons racial thinking yet recognizes the social dynamics of color. For example, Black Americans, many of whom have traceable non-African ancestry, constitute an Africa-identified, socioancestrally black subgroup. ‘Race’ talk is not needed to sustain legitimate color-conscious approaches to social identity and social justice. Long-standing fixation on the race idea has obscured the simple truth that visible continental ancestry is the root of the social reality of color consciousness. (shrink)

The conceptual ethics of normativity involves normative reflection on normative thought and talk. One motive for engaging in this project is to seek to either vindicate or improve one’s existing normative concepts. This paper clarifies and addresses a deep challenge to the conceptual ethics of normativity, when it is motivated in this way. The challenge arises from the fact that we need to use some of our own normative concepts in order to evaluate our normative concepts. This might seem objectionably (...) circular, akin to trying to verify the accuracy of a ruler by checking it against itself. We dub this the vindicatory circularity challenge. If the challenge cannot be met, it would suggest that all normative inquiry (not just the conceptual ethics of normativity) rests on worryingly arbitrary foundations. We defend a way of answering the challenge that adapts anti-skeptical resources from epistemology. Along the way, we reject several alternative replies to the challenge. These include dismissing the challenge because it cannot be formulated with our concepts, answering it by appeal to a distinctive normative concept, and answers that appeal to certain metaphysical or metasemantic resources. (shrink)

Many of us care about the existence of ethical facts because they appear crucial to making sense of our practical lives. On one tempting line of thought, this idea can also play a central role in justifying our belief in those facts. David Enoch has developed this thought into a formidable new proposal in moral epistemology: that the deliberative indispensability of ethical facts gives us epistemic justification for believing in such facts. This chapter argues that Enoch’s proposal fails because it (...) conflicts with a central fact about epistemic justification: that the norms of epistemic justification have the content that they do in part because of some positive connection between those norms and the truth of the beliefs that these norms govern. Alternatives to Enoch’s attempt to defend the idea that deliberative indispensability confers epistemic justification fail for parallel reasons. The chapter concludes that deliberative indispensability does not provide epistemic justification. (shrink)

The convergence of computing, sensing, and communication technology will soon permit large-scale deployment of self-driving vehicles. This will in turn permit a radical transformation of traffic control technology. This paper makes a case for the importance of addressing questions of social justice in this transformation, and sketches a preliminary framework for doing so. We explain how new forms of traffic control technology have potential implications for several dimensions of social justice, including safety, sustainability, privacy, efficiency, and equal access. Our central (...) focus is on efficiency and equal access as desiderata for traffic control design. We explain the limitations of conventional traffic control in meeting these desiderata, and sketch a preliminary vision for a next-generation traffic control tailored to address better the demands of social justice. One component of this vision is cooperative, hierarchically distributed self-organization among vehicles. Another component of this vision is a priority system enabling selection of priority levels by the user for each vehicle trip in the network, based on the supporting structure of non-monetary credits. (shrink)

This volume introduces a wide range of important views, questions, and controversies in and about contemporary metaethics. It is natural to ask: What, if anything, connects this extraordinary range of discussions? This introductory chapter aims to answer this question by giving an account of metaethics that shows it to be a unified theoretical activ- ity. According to this account, metaethics is a theoretical activity characterized by an explanatory goal. This goal is to explain how actual ethical thought and talk—and what (...) (if anything) that thought and talk is distinctively about—fits into reality. We begin by introducing and developing this account, and illustrating it via discus- sion of a simple illustrative metaethical theory: Simple Subjectivism. We then explain important upshots of the characterization. Our account is novel and controversial, as is the status of metaethics as a theoretically fruitful project. We thus compare our account to competing characterizations of the field, and explain how our account permits us to address certain challenges to the theoretical significance of a distinctively metaethical project. In the conclusion, we explain why, given our account, one might think that meta- ethics matters, and explain how we understand the history and future of self-conscious metaethical theorizing. As we will emphasize, we should expect new ways of approaching the explanatory project at the heart of metaethics to emerge in the coming years, as the tools and resources we have for tackling that project expand. Our hope is that by empha- sizing the centrality of the explanatory project itself, rather than just focusing narrowly on the views that have been developed so far by those engaged in that project, we can help encourage and facilitate the development of new questions, arguments, and views that help move the field forward. (shrink)

Normative realists might be assumed to have few worries about semantics. After all, a realist might initially hope to simply adopt the best semantic theory about ordinary descriptive language. However, beginning with the non-cognitivist appropriation of the open question argument, a number of philosophers have posed serious objections to the realist’s ability to offer a plausible semantic theory. This paper introduces the two most influential semantic challenges to normative realism: the open question argument, and the Moral Twin Earth argument. It (...) explains the major replies to these challenges offered by realists, and locates these challenges within the broader debate over what sort of semantic theories might be plausible candidates for a normative realist to adopt. (shrink)

Moral non-cognitivists hope to explain the nature of moral agreement and disagreement as agreement and disagreement in non-cognitive attitudes. In doing so, they take on the task of identifying the relevant attitudes, distinguishing the non-cognitive attitudes corresponding to judgements of moral wrongness, for example, from attitudes involved in aesthetic disapproval or the sports fan’s disapproval of her team’s performance. We begin this paper by showing that there is a simple recipe for generating apparent counterexamples to any informative specification of the (...) moral attitudes. This may appear to be a lethal objection to non-cognitivism, but a similar recipe challenges attempts by non-cognitivism’s competitors to specify the conditions underwriting the contrast between genuine and merely apparent moral disagreement. Because of its generality, this specification problem requires a systematic response, which, we argue, is most easily available for the non-cognitivist. Building on premisses congenial to the non-cognitivist tradition, we make the following claims: (1) In paradigmatic cases, wrongness-judgements constitute a certain complex but functionally unified state, and paradigmatic wrongness-judgements form a functional kind, preserved by homeostatic mechanisms. (2) Because of the practical function of such judgements, we should expect judges’ intuitive understanding of agreement and disagreement to be accommodating, treating states departing from the paradigm in various ways as wrongness-judgements. (3) This explains the intuitive judgements required by the counterexample-generating recipe, and more generally why various kinds of amoralists are seen as making genuine wrongness-judgements. (shrink)

In “Modern Moral Philosophy,” Elizabeth Anscombe makes a “disenchanting” move: she suggests that secular philosophers abandon a special “moral” sense of “ought” since she thinks this no longer makes sense without a divine law framework. Instead, she recommends recovering an ordinary sense of ought that pertains to what a human being needs in order to flourish qua human being, where the virtues are thought to be central to what a human being needs. However, she is also concerned to critique consequentialist (...) views for their rejection of absolute prohibitions. This raises the question of whether the disenchanted form of Aristotelian ethical naturalism that she recommends to secular philosophers can support such absolute prohibitions. Anscombe expresses skepticism on this point and seems ultimately to recommend a divine law ethic, at least as a supplement to a neo-Aristotelian virtue ethic. This chapter takes issue with Anscombe’s view, in part: the author agrees that the disenchanted form of Aristotelian virtue ethics cannot support absolute prohibitions, but disagrees that appeal to divine law is the best way to understand these prohibitions since it misses the intrinsic reasons for them: namely, they concern that which is sacred or reverence-worthy and thus should be regarded as inviolable and as involving a “special moral ought.” This means that a neo-Aristotelian virtue ethic that can properly recognize moral absolutes will need a reenchanting move: namely, it needs to recognize the special normative demands of the sacred. This chapter also explores the question of what “moral ontology” can best make sense of the moral phenomenology of the sacred, but the main aim is to show the significance of a common anti-consequentialist form of moral perception that involves a sense of the sacred. (shrink)

This article examines the historical construction of depression over about a hundred years, employing the social life of methods as an explanatory framework. Specifically, it considers how emerging methodologies in the measurement of psychological constructs contributed to changes in epistemological approaches to mental illness and created the conditions of possibility for major shifts in the construction of depression. While depression was once seen as a feature of psychotic personality, measurement technologies made it possible for it to be reconstructed as changeable (...) and treatable. Different types of scaling techniques (Likert versus dichotomous scales) enabled the separation of depressive personality from reactive depression, paving the way for measuring the severity and intensity of emotions. Techniques to test sensitivity to change provided a means of demonstrating the efficacy of new psychoactive drug treatments. Later, more advanced techniques of precision scaling enabled the management of a new measurement problem, clinician unreliability, associated with the growing number of professionals involved in mental health care. Through statistical management of unreliability, the construct of depression has dramatically reduced over this period from hundreds of questionnaire items to potentially just two. Exploring the history of depression through this lens produces an alternative narrative to those that have emerged as a result of medicalisation and the actions of individuals and pressure groups. (shrink)

John Rawls’ method of reflective equilibrium is the most influential methodology in contemporary ethics.This paper argues that this influence is undeserved, for two reasons. First, reflective equilibrium fails to accomplish two tasks that give us reason to care about methodology. On the one hand, it fails to explain how (or whether) moral knowledge is possible.This is because the method is explicitly oriented towards the distinct (and less interesting) task of characterizing our moral sensibilities. On the other hand, the method fails (...) to provide an informative way of adjudicating central methodological debates in ethics. Second, where Rawls’ method –and the background methodology he uses to motivate it –do have substance, that substance is implausible. The role of dispositions in the method entails that it endorses obviously irrational inferences. Further, the method makes substantively implausible distinctions between the dispositions that are allowed to play a methodological role. Rawls' background methodology appeals to the idea of a psychology in ‘wide reflective equilibrium’. However, both formal and empirical path-dependence considerations strongly suggest that there is nothing even minimally determinate that is someone’s psychology in ‘wide reflective equilibrium’. I close by exploring salient attempts to salvage the spirit of reflective equilibrium by abandoning elements of Rawls’ approach. I argue that none of these attempts succeed. I conclude that appeal to the method of reflective equilibrium is not a helpful means of addressing pressing methodological questions in ethics. In a slogan, reflective equilibrium is methodologically irrelevant. (shrink)

: Pharmacogenetics offers the prospect of an era of safer and more effective drugs, as well as more individualized use of drug therapies. Before the benefits of pharmacogenetics can be realized, the ethical issues that arise in research and clinical application of pharmacogenetic technologies must be addressed. The ethical issues raised by pharmacogenetics can be addressed under six headings: regulatory oversight, confidentiality and privacy, informed consent, availability of drugs, access, and clinicians' changing responsibilities in the era of pharmacogenetic medicine. We (...) analyze each of these categories of ethical issues and provide policy approaches for addressing them. (shrink)

This chapter examines the ethical case that can be mounted for veganism. Because there has been comparatively little discussion in ethics focused directly on veganism, the central aim of this chapter is threefold: to orient readers to (some of) the most important philosophical literature relevant to the topic, to provide a clear explanation of the current state of the ethical case for veganism, and to focus attention on the most important outstanding or underexplored questions in this domain. The chapter examines (...) the range of positions that deserve to be called ethical veganism, and some of the types of reasons that philosophers can potentially appeal to in arguing for veganism. It then spells out the core of the most promising case for veganism, which argues directly for the wrongness of making animals suffer and die. The chapter then considers three ways of arguing from this conclusion to an ethical defense of the vegan lifestyle, which appeal respectively to the ethical significance of the effects of individual use of animal products, of group efficacy, and of complicity with wrongdoing. The chapter concludes by examining several neglected complications facing the ethical case for veganism. (shrink)

Innocence is a notion that can prove controversial. Claims of innocence typically support not imposing burdens on the innocent when their conduct is relevantly unobjectionable. This paper examines innocence in the context of violent conflict between states or groups. Many thinkers about the morality of such violence want to establish a principle that would protect innocent civilians. Yet the common view in just war theory does not affirm the moral innocence of civilians. Similarly, the common view that soldiers have an (...) equal right to kill does not affirm their equal moral culpability. (shrink)

Common sense supports the idea that we can have morally significantreasons for giving priority to the interests of persons for whom wehave special concern. Yet there is a real question about the natureof such reasons. Many people seem to believe that there are biologicalor metaphysical special relations, such as family, race, religion orpersonal identity, which are in themselves morally important and thussupply reasons for special concern. I maintain that there are nogrounds for accepting this. What matters morally, I argue, is (...) thesubstance of personal or wider social relationships. My ``substantivist''account of the source of morally salient reasons for special concernis positioned between nonreductionist and strong voluntarist views ofspecial responsibilities. Substantivism is more plausible than theseviews and has important implications for how we approach morallyweighing personal versus impartial reasons. (shrink)

This paper argues for the value of distinguishing two projects concerning our normative and evaluative thought and talk, which we dub “metanormative inquiry” and “the conceptual ethics of normativity” respectively. The first half of the paper offers a substantive account of each project and of the relationship between them. Roughly, metanormative inquiry aims to understand actual normative and evaluative thought and talk, and what (if anything) it is distinctively about, while the conceptual ethics of normativity engages in normative or evaluative (...) reflection on normative and evaluative thought and talk. We explore how certain theories of content determination complicate the distinction between these projects, but argue that both the distinction and its significance survive these complications. The second half of the paper argues that attention to the distinction between these projects can promote progress in both projects in three ways. First, it can transform our understanding and evaluation of views that are routinely classified as part of “metaethics”. Second, it can help us to identify important theoretical options that otherwise tend to remain obscure. And, third, it can help us to avoid tempting but fallacious arguments which can easily arise if the projects are not distinguished. (shrink)

Ethical non-naturalists often charge that their naturalist competitors cannot adequately explain the distinctive normativity of moral or more broadly practical concepts. I argue that the force of the charge is mitigated, because non-naturalism is ultimately committed to a kind of mysterianism about the metaphysics of practical norms that possesses limited explanatory power. I then show that focusing on comparative judgments about the explanatory power of various metaethical theories raises additional problems for the non-naturalist, and suggest grounds for optimism that a (...) naturalistic realist about practical normativity will ultimately be able to explain the distinctive normativity of practical norms. I then show that radical pluralism or particularism about the structure of normative ethics would complicate the naturalistic strategy that I defend. This suggests a perhaps surprising way in which the resolution of the debate between ethical naturalists and non-naturalists may rest in part on the answers to substantive normative questions. (shrink)

The situational context within which an activity takes place, as well as the personality characteristics of individuals shape the types of strategies people choose in order to regulate their emotions, especially when confronted with challenging or undesirable situations. Taking self-regulation as the framework to study emotions in relation to learning and performing chamber music canon repertoire, this quasi-experimental and intra-individual study focused on the self-rated emotional states of a professional classical cellist during long-term sustained practice across 100-weeks. This helped to (...) develop greater awareness of different emotions and how they vary over artistic events. Data analysis included traditional psychometric measurements to test the internal consistency of the time series data as well as the relationship between variables. The study mapped the cellist’s flexible regulation of 17 different positive and negative emotions empirically linked to learning and achievement while practicing within the social context of performing music publicly at a high level. Findings arising from the study help with understandings of how to support musicians to maximize their artistic potential by reducing emotion dysregulation and strengthening the types of adaptive methods that enable them to manage their own emotions. (shrink)

Ethical issues in healthcare and biomedical research are often a matter of public debate. This entry will explore several prominent views on how such debate should be conducted within pluralistic democratic societies. It begins by considering John Rawls’s account of public reason. It then examines how this account applies to the controversial issues of abortion and physician-assisted suicide, where one can see why some have objected to this view, especially with regard to the way it requires citizens to bracket their (...) comprehensive moral, religious, and philosophical doctrines. Next, this entry will consider some alternative approaches that endorse more expansive forms of public reason that allow greater room for appeals to comprehensive doctrines. While one might expect that many of the controversial issues in bioethics will continue to be a matter of public debate going forward, it will be seen that a necessary step towards making progress in these debates is to get clear on how such debate should be conducted. (shrink)

Most critics of Butler's ethics have ignored the text of the Analogy, and have confined their attention to the short Dissertation on Virtue which is printed as an appendix to that work. This is a mistake. The Dissertation can only be really understood when it is read in its proper context. Butler tells us that the Dissertation was originally intended to form part of the third chapter of the first part of the Analogy. It is indeed an integral part of (...) that chapter, as that chapter is an integral part of the book. The whole work must be considered if we would know Butler's mind at this time.In seeking to follow Butler's thoughts on ethics as set out in the Analogy we are met with fewer inconsistencies than are to be found in the Sermons, but a good deal more in the way of obscurity and difficult phrasing. Butler reasons very closely, and gives few concessions to the hasty reader. Also, his cautious mind leads him to qualify his statements lest he commit himself to more than he is prepared to say, with the result that his sentences often contain many dependent clauses which cloud his meaning. But, although there may be passages of a contrary tendency, the view which will be developed here seems to represent the general drift of the Analogy. (shrink)