It is widely accepted that morality does not demand that we do our very best, but our most significant moral traditions do not easily accommodate this intuition. I will argue that the underlying problem is not specific to any particular tradition. Rather, it will be difficult for any moral theory to account for binary moral concepts like permissible/impermissible while also accounting for scalar moral concepts like better/worse. If only the best is considered permissible, morality will seem either unreasonably demanding or (...) implausibly minimal. But if we draw a line of duty below the optimal, then we must explain how the act that is worse is nonetheless permissible. Some have tried to explain this by appealing to non-moral considerations, and others have appealed to agent-relative moral considerations. I argue that no such approach will work. We should instead exploit the distinction between reasons for performing an act and reasons for holding someone accountable for an act’s performance. This approach will also help to clear up a confusion regarding the notion of a moral demand. (shrink)

This paper analyses the thorny interpretative puzzle surrounding the connection between humanity and the good will. It discusses this puzzle: if the good will is the only good without qualification, why does Kant claim that humanity is something possessing an absolute value? It explores the answers to this question within Kantian scholarship; answers that emanate from a commitment to the human capacity for freedom and morality and to actual obedience to the moral law. In its final analysis, it endorses Richard (...) Dean’s good will reading as the most reflective of Kant’s ethics. It claims that in order for a person to reach the moral ideal of acting rightly and giving priority to moral law, he must always honour his duties to himself. Accordingly, it argues that before a person can be deemed as an object of respect, he must first respect the right of humanity in his own person. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant e Adam Smith foram dois filósofos historicamente próximos, afinal, foram dois pensadores modernos de reconhecida importância. Além da proximidade temporal, Adam Smith foi amigo pessoal e interlocutor daquele que foi o filósofo que, possivelmente, mais impressionava Kant, a saber, David Hume. Não é então de se estranhar que existam pontos de contato entre as obras de Kant e Smith, a menos que nos esqueçamos que, além de ser um pioneiro da ciência econômica, Smith foi também um importante filósofo (...) moral. Essa mera possibilidade de uma relação é reforçada por registros da admiração de Kant por Smith em escritos não publicados do primeiro. Dado o apreço de Kant pela investigação de Smith sobre o conhecimento moral do homem, este trabalho explora um paralelo entre o modo como Smith compara a virtude da justiça à virtude da beneficência na obra A Teoria dos Sentimentos Morais e o modo como Kant distingue os deveres jurídicos dos deveres éticos ou de virtude em sua Metafísica dos Costumes. A hipótese que temos em vista é que Smith poderia ter apresentado a Kant o conhecimento moral comum que haveria de ser formulado em princípios metafísicos por Kant. Na verdade, mais do que sabermos se foi de Smith que Kant retirou distinções e análises conceituais tão caras a sua própria filosofia moral, importa exatamente notar como o pensamento dos dois filósofos poderia bem guardar a referida relação um para o outro, de tal forma que um possa ser usado para iluminar o outro. (shrink)

Big Data has amplified some challenges in the healthcare context. One significant challenge is how to use healthcare big data in ways that honor individual rights to informed consent or privacy. Careful analysis from diverse backgrounds will be vital in contributing ethical guidelines that can adequately address healthcare Big Data's growing complexities globally. Especially, the study argues that an under-explored African philosophy of Ubuntu can usefully influence big data practices in ways that address this challenge without undermining its benefits. Ubuntu (...) emphasizes harmonious relationships. Harmonious relations entail identifying with one another and exhibiting solidarity to each other. One can identify or exhibit solidarity with others through psychological attitudes such as thinking of oneself as part of a “we” and acting in ways that will more likely improve the quality of life of others. The African relational philosophy of Ubuntu deserves to be given an audience not only for epistemic justice but also because the continued absence of African perspective in the discourse on ethical use of HBD science represents a missed opportunity to enrich ethical thinking about HBD from diverse backgrounds. Research is, however, required to provide greater specificity on how Ubuntu values may be integrated into HBD analytic techniques. (shrink)

In this paper, I attempt to address a fundamental challenge for machine intelligence: to understand whether and how a machine’s internal states and external outputs can exhibit original non-derivative intentionality. This question has three aspects. First, what does it take for a machine to exhibit original de dicto intentionality? Second, what does it take to exhibit original de re intentionality? Third, what is required for the machine to defer to the external objective world by respecting the word-to-world direction of fit? (...) I attempt to answer the first challenge by providing a constitutive counts-as understanding of de dicto intentionality. This analysis involves repurposing Kant’s vision of a self-legislating agent as a specification of a machine that reprograms itself. I attempt to answer the second and third challenges by extending Kant’s synchronic model of de dicto intentionality with Brandom’s interpretation of Hegel’s diachronic model of de re intentionality, using Hegel’s notion of recollection to provide an understanding of what is involved in achieving deference to the external world. (shrink)

A central debate in the philosophy of love is whether people can love one another for good reasons. Reasons for love seem to help us sympathetically understand and evaluate love or even count as loving at all. But it can seem that if reasons for love existed, they could require forms of love that are presumably illicit. It might seem that only some form of wishful thinking would lead us to believe reasons for love could never do this. However, if (...) we focus on why reasons for love as such motivate us to love, we find evidence that reasons for love as such do not require or even justify it: all they do is favor it. This result is fine, however, since love never stands in need of justification. We would think otherwise only if we somehow conflate reasons and justifications, or value and permissibility. We must give up such background assumptions if we are to appreciate reasons for love. (shrink)

Philosophers have highlighted a dilemma for the criminal law. Unjust, racist policies in the United States have produced conditions in which the dispossessed are more likely to commit crime. This complicity undermines the standing of the state to blame their offenses. Nevertheless, the state has reason to punish those crimes in order to deter future offenses. Tommie Shelby proposes a way out of this dilemma. He separates the state’s right to condemn from its right to punish. I raise doubts about (...) Shelby’s proposed resolution. So long as punishment is widely and reasonably understood to condemn crime, Shelby’s proposal does not resolve the dilemma. Moreover, there is reason to think the blaming aspect of punishment plays a role in the justification of its hard treatment. I conclude by considering some other ways out of the dilemma, focusing especially on how the United States might take responsibility for its complicity. (shrink)

One of the most pervasive criticisms of nudges has been the claim that they violate, undermine or decrease people’s autonomy. This claim, however, is seldom backed up by an explicit and detailed conception of autonomy. In this paper, we aim to do three things. First, we want to clear up some conceptual confusion by distinguishing the different conceptions used by Cass Sunstein and his critics in order to get clear on how they conceive of autonomy. Second, we want to add (...) to the existing discussion by distinguishing between ‘autonomy’ as the ability to set your own ends and ‘autocracy’ as the ability to actually realize those ends. This will allow for a more careful ethical evaluation of specific nudge interventions. Third, we will introduce the idea of ‘perimeters of autonomy’ in an attempt to provide a realistic account of personal autonomy and we will argue that it can alleviate most of the worries about nudging being autonomy-undermining. (shrink)

The hoary philosophical tradition of hedonism – the view that pleasure is the basic ethical or normative value – suggests that it is at least reasonably and roughly intuitive. But philosophers no longer treat hedonism that way. For the most part, they think that they know it to be obviously false on intuitive grounds, much more obviously false on such grounds than familiar competitors. I argue that this consensus is wrong. I defend the intuitive cogency of hedonism relative to the (...) dominant desire-based and objectivist conceptions of well-being and the good. I argue that hedonism is still a contender, and indeed that our current understanding of commonsense intuition on balance supports it. (shrink)

The hoary philosophical tradition of hedonism – the view that pleasure is the basic ethical or normative value – suggests that it is at least reasonably and roughly intuitive. But philosophers no longer treat hedonism that way. For the most part, they think that they know it to be obviously false on intuitive grounds, much more obviously false on such grounds than familiar competitors. I argue that this consensus is wrong. I defend the intuitive cogency of hedonism relative to the (...) dominant desire-based and objectivist conceptions of well-being and the good. I argue that hedonism is still a contender, and indeed that our current understanding of commonsense intuition on balance supports it. (shrink)

A type of transcendental argument for libertarian free will maintains that if acting freely requires the availability of alternative possibilities, and determinism holds, then one is not justified in asserting that there is no free will. More precisely: if an agent A is to be justified in asserting a proposition P (e.g. "there is no free will"), then A must also be able to assert not-P. Thus, if A is unable to assert not-P, due to determinism, then A is not (...) justified in asserting P. While such arguments often appeal to principles with wide appeal, such as the principle that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’, they also require a commitment to principles that seem far less compelling, e.g. the principle that ‘ought’ implies ‘able not to’ or the principle that having an obligation entails being responsible. It is argued here that these further principles are dubious, and that it will be difficult to construct a valid transcendental argument without them. (shrink)

In the Groundwork Kant dismisses theistic principles, along with all other competitors to his Categorical Imperative, claiming that they are heteronomous. By contrast, he asserts, the fundamental moral principle must be a principle of autonomy. I argue that the best case for this Kantian conclusion conflates our access to the reasons for our commitments with an ability to state these reasons such that they could figure in an argument. This conflation, in turn, results from a certain Kantian conception of inclination, (...) and its role in our moral psychology. These are views that we ought to reject. Having done so we will see that a theistic ethics based on desire or love for God would not face a distinctive problem of heteronomy. (shrink)

Kant’s political theory stands in the social contract tradition, but departs significantly from earlier versions of social contract theory. Most importantly Kant holds, against Hobbes and Locke, that we have not merely a pragmatic reason but an obligation to exit the state of nature and found a state. Kant holds that each person has an innate right to freedom, but it is possible to simultaneously honor everyone’s right only under the rule of law. Since we are obligated to respect each (...) person’s right to freedom, and can do so only in a state, we are obligated to submit to the authority of the state if we have one, and to establish one if we do not. In the first half of the essay I reconstruct this argument in more detail. In the second half I survey four points of controversy: (i) What is the relationship between Kant’s political philosophy and his moral philosophy? (ii) How does the innate right to freedom support the postulate that we are permitted to acquire property and other private rights? (iii) How does the postulate support an obligation to found the state? (iv) How should we understand Kant’s views about political revolutions? (shrink)

Ripstein’s Kantian argument for the authority of the state purports to demonstrate that state authority is a necessary condition of each individual’s freedom. Ripstein regards an individual as free just in case her entitlement to control what is hers is not violated. After questioning whether his approach adequately distinguishes standards of legitimacy from standards of ideal justice, I argue for the superiority of an alternative conception of freedom. On the view that I defend a person is free just in case (...) she is able to move her body in space unimpeded by others. I argue that this conception allows for a more convincing version of the Kantian argument. (shrink)

Retributivism may seem wholly uninterested in the fit between penal policy and public opinion, but on one rendition of the theory, here called ‘popular retributivism,’ deserved punishments are constituted by the penal conventions of the community. This paper makes two claims against this view. First, the intuitive appeal of popular retributivism is undermined once we distinguish between context sensitivity and convention sensitivity about desert. Retributivism in general can freely accept context sensitivity without being committed to the stronger notion of convention (...) sensitivity. Second, it is not obviously a merit of popular retributivism that it admits a gradual lowering of punishments by softening public opinion. Retributivists have reason to be skeptical of softening public opinion if it comes at the price of undermining the extent to which offenders are thought to deserve censure. In sum, in this paper, I argue that there are ways of making retributivism sensitive to public opinion without arriving at the conclusion that popular penal conventions should govern retributive justice itself. (shrink)

Norbert Elias’s early work – specifically ‘Idea and Individual’ – offers a positive account of philosophy’s potential contribution towards historically oriented concrete sociological investigation. His later work, on the other hand, characterizes philosophical investigation as little more than a distraction from the myth-exposing vocation of the sociologist. This later ‘post-philosophical’ account of figurational sociology predominates today. Within this article, however, I suggest it has come to prominence through a series of dubious rhetorical strategies, most notably subtextual hearsay and disingenuous caricature. (...) By dispensing with the post-philosophical rhetoric, I argue, figurational sociologists might again, following the Elias of ‘Idea and Individual’, take the possibility of a philosophically grounded sociology seriously. If the article does not convince figurational sociologists to revisit philosophy as a potentially positive sociological resource, however, my effort will not have been wasted for as long as it demonstrates the presently dubious nature of their post-philosophical rhetoric. (shrink)

For years business ethics has limited the moral duties of enterprises to negative duties. Over the last decade it has been argued that positive duties also befall commercial agents, at least when confronted with large scale public problems and when governments fail. The argument that enterprises have positive duties is often grounded in the political nature of commercial life. It is argued that agents must sometimes take over governmental responsibilities. The German republican tradition argues along these lines as does Nien-Hé (...) Hsieh. Agents in commercial life are bound by positive duties because at some point they become citizens that must take on the responsibilities of the state. In this paper we leave undisputed the claim that corporations must acknowledge positive duties. However, we demonstrate that the political grounding fails, at least in the sense that this theory insufficiently acknowledges a long standing liberal tradition that vindicates apolitical markets and clear borderlines between politics and economics. We carve out an alternative route to the grounding of one specific positive duty—the duty to further justice. Our argument is based on the moral nature of commercial agents and tries to demonstrate that the duty to further justice ensues from liberalism. Taking a Kantian perspective, it conceptualizes the duty to further justice as a moral duty, orientated toward the political domain. It is grounded in the obligation to attain moral autonomy in the civil condition. (shrink)

To be more than a meta-ethical stance, moral phenomenology must provide an account of moral norms. This paper unites two sorts of phenomenological considerations. The first considers the teleological character of intentional experiences as ordered toward "truthfulness" in all the spheres of reason and toward a notion of self-responsibility for our beliefs, attitudes, and actions as the flourishing of rational agents. The second considers the phenomenological tradition's identification of empathy as the experience in which we encounter others as conscious agents (...) like me but irreducibly different from me and that grounds the emotions of respect and sympathy. Respect grasps the other conscious agent as an irreducibly different cognizing, rational, reflection-capable being, as making articulated judgments of value, and as making articulated choices about what activities conduce to what ends. Respect for others cannot be separated from a sympathetic care for others, a sympathy that inclines one toward caring for and aiding the other person in developing her own rational capacities. Sympathy, in brief, complements respect. At the same time, respect complements sympathy insofar as sympathy runs the risk of transmuting into paternalism. This is why, just as we need sympathy in relation to respect, we need respect in relation to sympathy. The paper introduces a distinction between first-order goods for an agent and the second-order goods associated with truthfulness. The second-order goods, the paper argues, necessarily override first-order goods when they prevent the attainment of the second-order goods for anyone. (shrink)

: This essay attempts to show that sophisticated consequentialism is able to accommodate the concerns that have traditionally been raised by feminist writers in ethics. Those concerns have primarily to do with the fact that consequentialism is seen as both too demanding of the individual and neglectful of the agent's special obligations to family and friends. Here, I argue that instrumental justification for partiality can be provided, for example, even though an attitude of partiality is not characterized itself in instrumental (...) terms. (shrink)

This essay attempts to show that sophisticated consequentialism is able to accommodate the concerns that have traditionally been raised by feminist writers in ethics. Those concerns have primarily to do with the fact that consequentialism is seen as both too demanding of the individual and neglectful of the agent's special obligations to family and friends. Here, I argue that instrumental justification for partiality can be provided, for example, even though an attitude of partiality is not characterized itself in instrumental terms.

Most academic papers on ethics in pandemics concentrate on the duties of healthcare professionals. This paper will consider non-professional healthcare workers: do they have a moral obligation to work during an influenza pandemic? If so, is this an obligation that outweighs others they might have, e.g., as parents, and should such an obligation be backed up by the coercive power of law? This paper considers whether non-professional healthcare workers—porters, domestic service workers, catering staff, clerks, IT support workers, etc.—have an obligation (...) to work during an influenza pandemic. It uses data collected as part of a study looking at the attitudes of healthcare workers to working during a pandemic to suggest the philosophical arguments explored. These include: being in a position to do good, the ethics of work, competing obligations to family members and in particular to children and the obligations of citizens in a state of national emergency. We also look at whether compulsory measures are justified to support a national health service during a health emergency. We conclude that even if they are, compulsion should not be restricted to non-professionals who happen to be working in the health service at the time. Rather, compulsion involving a larger pool of people with the relevant skills and abilities is more equitable. (shrink)

This essay defends subjectivism about reasons of love. These are the normative reasons we have to treat those we love especially well, such as the reasons we have to treat our close friends or life partners better than strangers. Subjectivism about reasons of love is the view that every reason of love a person has is correctly explained by her desires. I formulate a version of subjectivism about reasons of love and defend it against three objections that have been made (...) to this kind of view. Firstly, it has been argued that the phenomenology of our focus when we have reasons of love does not fit with subjectivism about those reasons. Secondly, it has been argued that the phenomenology of our motivations when we have reasons of love does not fit with subjectivism about those reasons. Thirdly, it has been argued that subjectivism about reasons of love has deeply counterintuitive implications about what our reasons of love are. I argue that none of these objections succeeds. (shrink)

Consider the Strong Beneficence Principle (SBP): Persons of affluent means ought to give to those who might fail basic human subsistence until the point at which they must give up something of comparable moral importance. This principle has been the subject of much recent discussion. In this paper, I argue that no coherent interpretation of SBP can be found. SBP faces an interpretive trilemma, each horn of which should be unacceptable to fans of SBP; SBP is either (a) so strong (...) as to be patently absurd; (b) implausible given its acceptance of a form of numbers skepticism; (c) drained of all its demanding force. In the conclusion, I show how the problems with SBP generalize to all similarly demanding principles of beneficence. (shrink)

This journal recently published a special issue on Kant, evil, moral perfection and education. The essays included in the special issue discussed the vulnerably and imperfection of human be...

This paper discusses Kant’s assessment of the religious idea of grace in relation to autonomous ethical practice. Following Kant’s own explanation of his methods and goals in interpreting religious ideas, my focus is on the ethical import of inherited religious concepts for human beings, rather than on literal theological dogmas concerning supernatural matters. I focus on how Kant’s inquiry into the ethical significance of the idea of grace is intertwined with another less recognized concept, that of favor. The latter concept (...) plays a crucial role in understanding Kant’s analyses, because it establishes a criterion by which to adjudicate historically-formed ideas of grace. Insofar as grace is understood in ways that assimilate it to endeavors to win favor, it works against our capacity to follow the moral law. On the constructive side, insofar as the concept of grace is understood to support ethical practice based on the moral law, it can be a vehicle for what Kant calls rational religion. This two-sided analysis of grace is a key component of the project of the Religion and other related writings, wherein Kant offers both critical and constructive investigations of historically-formed religious ideas found in scripture, ecclesiastical institutions and other sources. (shrink)

This essay enquires into the implications for criminal law of Derrida’s analysis in the Death Penalty seminars. The seminars include a reading of Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals, specifically Kant’s reflections on the sovereign right to punish, which is read in conjunction with the reflections of Freud and Reik on the relation between the unconscious and crime, as well as Nietzsche’s reflections on morality, punishment and cruelty. What comes to the fore in Derrida’s analysis is a system of economic exchange operating (...) on an unconscious level, of which criminal law forms an intrinsic part. Derrida’s analysis of the ‘origin’ of crime in the seminars poses serious questions to the assumption of freedom underlying modern criminal law. The link, which he posits between punishment and political theology, likewise challenges the existing theories and forms of punishment. What the seminars call for, in the name of the Kantian Enlightenment, is a radical break with economic circularity as it operates in respect of crime and punishment. (shrink)

The paper examines the current debates regarding the grounding of human rights in a pluralistic, culturally diverse world. It analyses the challenges which come today from certain policies of human rights which instrumentalize them under the pretext of a “global war on terror” and redefi ne them in terms of democracy promotion and regime change, as well as those challenges which come from ideologies which question the core principles of human rights and provoke the so called “crisis of legitimization.” The (...) paper argues for the necessity of restoring the genuine meaning of human rights and of the role of citizens in striving for their implementation. At the heart of the analysis is Kant’s concept of human rights as freedom. With Kant as its backdrop, the paper shows that the claim that religious worldviews provide the only intelligible foundation, as in Nicholas Wolterstorff, faces serious challenges in a pluralistic, culturally diverse world. The paper then analyzes the non-religious philosophical concepts which seek to develop an account of human rights that does not depend upon controversial metaphysical or religious doctrines. It examines an account of human rights from the perspective of discourse ethics as developed by Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas. It also analyses the concepts of human dignity and “emerging morality” by Arturo Roig and the “ethics of liberation” by Enrique Dussel. The analysis shows the ongoing relevance of Kant’s ideas and their recent development by the theorists of discourse ethics and of dialogical and democratic cosmopolitanism. (shrink)

Abstract In this paper I set the debate between Kant and Schiller in terms of the role that an ideal of life can play within an autonomist ethic. I begin by examining the critical role Schiller gives to emotions in tackling specific motivational concerns in Kant's ethics. In the Kantian response I offer to these criticisms, I emphasise the role of metaphysics for a proper understanding of Kant's position whilst allowing that with respect to moral psychology, Kant and Schiller are (...) in agreement about the importance of emotions in our moral lives. I conclude by returning to the themes broached in the introduction to consider the extent to which the teleological concerns that motivate Schiller can be addressed within Kant's autonomist ethics. (shrink)

This paper explores the ambiguous notion of bodily integrity, focusing on male and female circumcision. In the empirical part of the study we describe and analyse the various meanings that are given to the notion of bodily integrity by people in their daily lives. In the philosophical part we distinguish (1) between a person-oriented and a body-oriented approach and (2) between four levels of interpretation, i.e. bodily integrity conceived of as a biological wholeness, an experiential wholeness, an intact wholeness, and (...) as an inviolable wholeness. We argue that bodily integrity is a prima facie principle in its own right, closely connected with, but still fundamentally different from, the principle of personal autonomy, that is, autonomy over the body. (shrink)

advanced directivesend-of-life decisionsharming the deadposthumous reproductiontransplant ethics.

The stigmatization of some groups of people, whether for some characteristic they possess or some behavior they engage in, will initially strike most of us as wrong. For many years, academic work in public health, which focused mainly on the stigmatization of HIV-positive individuals, reinforced this natural reaction to stigmatization, by pointing out the negative health effects of stigmatization. But more recently, the apparent success of anti-smoking campaigns which employ stigmatization of smokers has raised questions about whether stigmatization may sometimes (...) be justified, because of its positive effects on public health. Discussion of the issue so far has focused on consequences, and on some Kantian considerations regarding the status of the stigmatized. In this article, I argue that further Kantian considerations regarding the treatment of the general public (the potential stigmatizers) also count against any public health policy involving stigmatization. Attempts to encourage stigmatization are likely to fail to appeal to the rational decision-making abilities of the general public, and the creation of stigmatized groups (even if they are stigmatized for their voluntary behavior) is an obstacle to the self-improvement of members of the general public. (shrink)

Joshua Greene has argued that several lines of empirical research, including his own fMRI studies of brain activity during moral decision-making, comprise strong evidence against the legitimacy of deontology as a moral theory. This is because, Greene maintains, the empirical studies establish that “characteristically deontological” moral thinking is driven by prepotent emotional reactions which are not a sound basis for morality in the contemporary world, while “characteristically consequentialist” thinking is a more reliable moral guide because it is characterized by greater (...) cognitive command and control. In this essay, I argue that Greene does not succeed in drawing a strong statistical or causal connection between prepotent emotional reactions and deontological theory, and so does not undermine the legitimacy of deontological moral theories. The results that Greene relies on from neuroscience and social psychology do not establish his conclusion that consequentialism is superior to deontology. (shrink)

Although stakeholder theory is concerned with stakeholder engagement, substantive operational barometers of engagement are lacking in the literature. This theoretical paper attempts to strengthen the accountability aspect of normative stakeholder theory with a more robust notion of stakeholder engagement derived from the concept of good faith. Specifically, it draws from the labor relations field to argue that altered power dynamics are essential underpinnings of a viable stakeholder engagement mechanism. After describing the tenets of substantive engagement, the paper draws from the (...) labor relations and commercial law literatures to describe the characteristics of good faith as dialogue, negotiation, transparency, and totality of conduct; explains how they can be adapted and applied to the stakeholder context; and suggests the use of mediation and non-binding arbitration. The paper concludes by addressing anticipated objections and shortcomings and discussing implications for theory and research. (shrink)

Republicanism may seem to be a nostalgic politics of place that is incapable of responding to the challenges of globalization.The burden of this essay is to demonstrate that this view is both right and wrong - right in regarding republicanism as a politics of place, butwrong in thinking that such a form of politics is irrelevant to an increasingly interconnected world. On the contrary, the republican concern for place provides the basis for the responsible, public-spirited action that cosmopolitan theorists need (...) to sustain their visions of global politics. (shrink)

This paper is focused on the analysis of two documents (the Council of Europe's Bioethics Convention and the Additional Cloning Protocol) inasmuch as they refer to the relationship between human dignity and human genetic engineering. After presenting the stipulations of the abovementioned documents, I will review various proposed meanings of human dignity and will try to identify which of these seem to be at the core of their underlying assumptions. Is the concept of dignity proposed in the two documents coherent? (...) Is it morally legitimate? Is it, as some might assume, of Kantian origin? Does it have any philosophical roots? (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to offer some remarks about how teachers, especially teachers of moral theories and arguments, should respond to insulting messages about disability that may be expressed in their courses. While there is a strong prima facie presumption for instructors to convey the truth as they see it, this is not an absolute requirement when the views they teach have a tendency to be insulting. I investigate some circumstances in which a moral view embeds and expresses (...) an insulting message about disability and I argue that affording due respect to their students requires ethics instructors to be alert to disparaging messages about disability and to send counter-messages when the views they teach give such messages. (shrink)

Kantian moral theories must explain how their most basic moral values of dignity and autonomy should be interpreted and applied to human conditions. One place Kantians should look for inspiration is, surprisingly, the utilitarian tradition and its emphasis on generally accepted, informally enforced, publicly known moral rules of the sort that help us give assurances, coordinate our behavior, and overcome weak wills. Kantians have tended to ignore utilitarian discussions of such rules mostly because they regard basic moral principles as a (...) priori requirements that cannot be tailored to human foibles and limitations. I argue that Kantian moral theories should incorporate public moral rules as mid-level moral requirements for embodied and socially embedded human agents. I explain how certain specific moral judgments about how we ought to act are justified by public moral rules, which are themselves justified by more fundamental moral requirements. (shrink)

The leading accounts of respect for others usually assume that persons have a rational nature, which is a marvelous thing, so they should be respected like other objects of ‘awesome’ value. Kant's views about the ‘value’ of humanity, which have inspired contemporary discussions of respect, have been interpreted in this way. I propose an alternative interpretation in which Kant proceeds from our own rational self‐regard, through our willingness to reciprocate with others, to duties of respect for others. This strategy, which (...) shares some similarities with moral contractualism, offers a way to justify other‐regarding moral requirements from self‐regarding rational dispositions. (shrink)

Kant offers the following argument for the formula of humanity (FH): Each rational agent necessarily conceives of her own rational nature as an end in itself and does so on the same grounds as every other rational agent, so all rational agents must conceive of one another's rational nature as an end in itself. As it stands, the argument appears to be question-begging and fallacious. Drawing on resources from the formula of universal law (FUL) and Kant's claims about the primacy (...) of duties to oneself, I propose a contractualist reconstruction of this puzzling line of reasoning. (shrink)

Carrying out research on brains is important for medical advances in various diseases. However, such research ought not be carried out on human brains because the benefits do not outweigh the potential risks. A possible alternative is the use of brain surrogates. Nevertheless, some scholars who uphold a threshold account of moral status suggest the possibility that, with technological advances in the near future, more advanced brain surrogates will have very similar features to humans. This may suffice for these having (...) the same moral status as humans, and as a result, the situation may have implications for brain research, indeed, leading to the implication that this ought also not to be carried out upon brain surrogates. In this article, we present a relational approach to moral status which upholds that brain surrogates do not have the same moral status as human beings. Hence, brain research ought not be rejected on the grounds of equality of moral status between humans and brain surrogates. (shrink)

Teaching business ethics classes can often be difficult because many students memorize enough of the moral theories to pass their tests, but never understand the motivating spirit underlying the theories. The result is that students are able to apply the moral principles to various situations, but produce the wrong results due to their illicit biases and rationalizations.What is needed is a practical test, which will strip away as many biases and rationalizations as possible, while at the same time emotionally connecting (...) the students to why morality is important in business. My suggestion is the Moral Paradigm Test, which is a version of the Ideal Person Standard. (shrink)

The American tort system regularly conducts a sort of lottery in which plaintiffs try to name as many defendants in a tort action as they can in order to collect a large judgment from at least one of them. This procedure is encouraged under strict joint and several liability, which permits plaintiffs to recover greater damages from defendants - usually businesses - with less moral culpability for the tort than poorer defendants, who bear greater culpability. In a case involving the (...) Disney Corporation and a negligent amusement park rider, for instance, Disney was forced to pay 86% of the court award to the plaintiff, even though the jury found the company to be only 1% liable for the injury. The legal principle of joint and several liability violates morality in several different ways. Even though the principle appears to be better in the short run for plaintiffs, I will show that it fails not only to satisfy utilitarianism, but compensatory justice as well. Hence, the legal principle of joint and several liability should be eliminated in favor of a better, fairer law, which I will briefly sketch at the end. (shrink)

One of the arguments against conducting human subject trials in the Third World adopts a distributive justice principle found in a commentary of the CIOM'S Eighth Guideline for international research on human subjects. Critics argue that non-participant members of the community in which the trials are conducted are exploited because sponsoring agencies do not ensure that the products developed have been made reasonably available to these individuals. I argue that the distributive principle's wording is too vague and ambiguous to be (...) used to criticize any trial. Furthermore, the mere fact that an experiment does not fulfill this particular distributive justice principle does not entail that it is unethical. (shrink)

It has been argued that, on Kantian grounds, pedophiles, rapists and murderers are morally obligated to take their own lives prior to committing a violent action that will end their moral agency. That is, to avoid destroying the agent's moral life by performing a morally suicidal action, the agent, while he still is a moral agent, should end his body's life. Although the cases of dementia and the morally reprehensible are vastly different, this Kantian interpretation might be useful in the (...) debate on the permissibility of suicide for those facing dementia's effects. If moral agents have a duty to act as moral agents, then those who will lose their moral identity as moral agents have an obligation to themselves to end their physical lives prior to losing their dignity as persons. (shrink)