In light of the variety of uses of the term autonomy in recent bioethics literature, in this paper, I suggest that competence, not being as contested, is better placed to play the anti-paternalistic role currently assigned to autonomy. The demonstration of competence, I will argue, can provide individuals with robust spheres of non-interference in which they can pursue their lives in accordance with their own values. This protection from paternalism is achieved by granting individuals rights to non-interference upon demonstration of (...) competence. In this paper, I present a risk-sensitive account of competence as a means of grounding rights to non-interference. On a risk-sensitive account of competence individuals demonstrate their competence by exercising three capacities to the extent necessary to meet a threshold determined by the riskiness of the decision. These three capacities are the capacity to acquire knowledge, use instrumental rationality, and form and revise a life plan. (shrink)

The contemporary confluence of globalization and ethical pluralism is at the origin of many ethical challenges that confront business nowadays, both in practice and in theory. One of the challenges arising from the development of globalization has to do with respect for cultural diversity. It is often said that the success of economic globalization tends towards social and cultural homogeneity. To the extent that cultural diversity is usually seen as a valuable reality, that global trend seems to contradict our efforts (...) to respect ethical pluralism, both personal and cultural, within society. In this paper I argue that (a) ethical minimalism, despite its emphasis on tolerance and justice, does not take pluralism seriously into account in present-day society, and (b) ethical minimalism is not suited to balancing the homogenizing trend of globalization. Certainly ethical norms are necessary, but by no means are they sufficient in themselves to encourage either justice or tolerance; nor are they sufficient to inspire and encourage good practices and sound regulations. Instead, virtue-based ethics has the capacity of inspiring and encouraging good practices. Particularly, virtue-based ethics is able to inspire a serious dialogue about ethical and legal issues both in the public arena and within organizations. (shrink)

Forgiveness typically becomes an issue where an offender has wronged a victim. What the offender and his victim are concerned with when engaging in a process of asking for and granting forgiveness includes the social relations that previously existed between them. It is against the background of these relations that the question arises whether there can be a duty for a victim to forgive and a right for an offender to be forgiven. I suggest distinguishing between personal and moral relations (...) between people; the latter bind every rational agent to the community of all moral agents, whereas the former are a personal matter. Accordingly, I distinguish between personal and moral forgiveness. And I argue that the offender has a right to be morally forgiven, either by the victim herself or by another member of the community of moral agents; but the victim does not have a duty to forgive the offender personally. (shrink)

While philosophers have discussed the emotion of contempt from antiquity to the present day, contempt has received less attention in psychological research. We review the defining features of contempt, both as a short-term emotion and as a more long-lasting sentiment. Contempt is similar to anger in that it may occur after social or moral transgressions, but it differs from anger in its appraisals, actions, and emotivational goals. Unlike anger, contempt arises when a person’s or group’s character is appraised as bad (...) and unresponsive to change, leading to attempts to socially exclude the target. We discuss associative, self-regulatory, and social distancing functions of contempt and present a dynamic social model of contempt versus anger. (shrink)

Voyeurism seems creepy. This paper considers whether these feelings are well-founded. It identifies a variety of ethically troubling features, including harmful consequences, deceit, and the violation of various religious, legal, and conventional norms. Voyeurism is something of a moral misdemeanor that seems worrisome when associated with these other failings. However, because voyeurism remains troubling even in the absence of harm or deceit, we must pay special attention to the ways complex social conventions can be used to show disrespect for others. (...) The discussion centers on the famous case of Lady Godiva and Peeping Tom, but much of the analysis applies to voyeurism more generally. (shrink)

We continuously talk about autonomous technologies. But how can words qualifying technologies be the very same words chosen by Kant to define what is essentially human, i.e. being autonomous? The article focuses on a possible answer by reflecting upon both etymological and philosophical issues, as well as upon the case of autonomous vehicles. Most interestingly, on the one hand, we have the notion of “autonomy”, meaning that there is a “law” that is “self-given”, and, on the other hand, we have (...) the notion of “automation”, meaning that there is something “offhand” that is “self-given”. Yet, we are experiencing a kind of twofold shift: on the one hand, the shift from defining technologies in terms of automation to defining technologies in terms of autonomy and, on the other hand, the shift from defining humans in terms of autonomy to defining humans in terms of automation. From a philosophical perspective, the shift may mean that we are trying to escape precisely from what autonomy founds, i.e. individual responsibility of humans that, in the Western culture, have been defined for millennia as rational and moral decision-makers, even when their decisions have been the toughest. More precisely, the shift may mean that we are using technologies, and in particular emerging algorithmic technologies, as scapegoats that bear responsibility for us by making decisions for us. Moreover, if we consider the kind of emerging algorithmic technologies that increasingly surround us, starting from autonomous vehicles, then we may argue that we also seem to create a kind of technological divine that, by being always with us through its immanent omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence and inscrutability, can always be our technological scapegoat freeing us from the most unbearable burden of individual responsibility resulting from individual autonomy. (shrink)

Drawing on unpublished and published sources from 1926-1932, this chapter builds on John Dewey’s naturalistic pragmatic pluralism in ethical theory. A primary focus is “Three Independent Factors in Morals,” which analyzes good, duty, and virtue as distinct categories that in many cases express different experiential origins. The chapter suggests that a vital role for contemporary theorizing is to lay bare and analyze the sorts of conflicts that constantly underlie moral and political action. Instead of reinforcing moral fundamentalism via an outdated (...) quest for the central and basic source of normative justification, we should foster theories with a range of idioms and emphases which, while accommodating monistic insights, better inform decision-making by opening communication across diverse elements of moral and political life, placing these elements in a wider context in which norms gain practical traction in non-ideal conditions, and expanding prospects for social inquiry and convergence on policy and action. (shrink)

The kantian idea according to which only people can claim respect and only for them can moral rights exist, yet, at the same time, not all human beings are people in this strict prescriptive sense, contains considerable potential of exclusion. From this view, the present article reconstructs the architecture of Kant’s moral philosophy and investigates thescope and the limits of the different proposals of solution based on his theory.

Helen Frowe has recently offered what she calls a “practical” account of self-defense. Her account is supposed to be practical by being subjectivist about permissibility and objectivist about liability. I shall argue here that Frowe first makes up a problem that does not exist and then fails to solve it. To wit, her claim that objectivist accounts of permissibility cannot be action-guiding is wrong; and her own account of permissibility actually retains an objectivist (in the relevant sense) element. In addition, (...) her attempt to restrict subjectivism primarily to “urgent” situations like self-defense contradicts her own point of departure and is either incoherent or futile. Finally, the only actual whole-heartedly objectivist account she criticizes is an easy target; while those objectivist accounts one finds in certain Western European jurisdictions are immune to her criticisms. Those accounts are also clearly superior to hers in terms of action-guidingness. (shrink)