Empirical moral psychology is sometimes dismissed as normatively insignificant because it plays no decisive role in settling ethical disputes. But that conclusion, even if it is valid for normative ethics, does not extend to bioethics. First, in contrast to normative ethics, bioethics can legitimately proceed from a presupposed moral framework. Within that framework, moral psychology can be shown to play four significant roles: it can improve bioethicists’ understanding of the decision situation, the origin and legitimacy of their moral concepts, efficient (...) options for implementing decisions, and how to change and improve some parts of their moral framework. Second, metaethical considerations suggest that moral psychology may lead to the radical revision of entire moral frameworks and thus prompt the radical revision of entire moral frameworks in bioethics. However, I show that bioethics must either relinquish these radical implications of moral psychology and accept that there are limits to progress in bioethics based on moral psychology or establish an epistemic framework that guides radical revision. (shrink)

In the burgeoning philosophical literature on conceptual engineering improving our concepts is typically portrayed as the hallmark activity of the field. However, Herman Cappelen has challenged the idea that we can know how and why conceptual changes occur well enough to actively intervene in revising our concepts; the mechanisms of conceptual change are typically inscrutable to us. If the ‘inscrutability challenge’ is correct, the practical aspect of conceptual engineering may seem to be undermined, but I argue that endorsing such pessimism (...) would be a mistake. Even if the inscrutability challenge is correct, conceptual engineers often have good reasons to try to preserve existing concepts. I examine several cases where concept preservation is important and draw lessons about this activity for conceptual engineers. (shrink)

The time has come to consider whether experimental philosophy’s (“x-phi”) early arguments, debates, and conceptual frameworks, that may have worn well in its early days, fit with the diverse range of projects undertaken by experimental philosophers. Our aim is to propose a novel taxonomy for x-phi that identifies four paths from empirical findings to philosophical consequences, which we call the “fourfold route.” We show how this taxonomy can be fruitfully applied even at what one might have taken to be the (...) furthest edges of possible applications of x-phi in metaphysics and formal philosophy. Ultimately, the fourfold route helps us understand a different kind of empirical fact: the development of x-phi itself. (shrink)

The conservative idea that it is a philosopher’s job to clarify common sense beliefs about ordinary concepts is being weeded out from the population and replaced by a revisionist agenda: philosophers should not merely describe but also analyze and suggest ways to improve our concepts. This project is called "conceptual engineering." The conceptual engineering literature is growing rapidly as more philosophers undertake normative conceptual work. However, many philosophers are practicing conceptual engineering untethered to an explicit methodology. Analyses addressing how we (...) should engineer a concept and what should be considered successful are scarce. The thesis of this dissertation is that Carnapian Explication solves this methodological deficiency. (shrink)

Much recent work on philosophical methodology has focused on whether we should accept evidence: the claim that philosophers use intuitive judgments about cases as evidence for/against philosophical theories. This paper outlines a new way of thinking about the philosophical method of appealing to cases such that evidence is true but not as it is typically understood. The idea proposed is that, when philosophers appeal to cases, they are engaged in a project of conceptual engineering and that, within that project, intuitions (...) about cases provide evidence as to the normative constraints which are relevant within that project. The paper demonstrates that this is a feasible interpretation of the way that cases are appealed to in recent journal issues, and makes the case that this would be a better way to think of what philosophers are doing when they appeal to cases. (shrink)

We present evidence from a pre-registered experiment indicating that a philosophical argument––a type of rational appeal––can persuade people to make charitable donations. The rational appeal we used follows Singer’s well-known “shallow pond” argument (1972), while incorporating an evolutionary debunking argument (Paxton, Ungar, & Greene 2012) against favoring nearby victims over distant ones. The effectiveness of this rational appeal did not differ significantly from that of a well-tested emotional appeal involving an image of a single child in need (Small, Loewenstein, and (...) Slovic 2007). This is a surprising result, given evidence that emotions are the primary drivers of moral action, a view that has been very influential in the work of development organizations. We did not find support for our pre-registered hypothesis that combining our rational and emotional appeals would have a significantly stronger effect than either appeal in isolation. However, our finding that both kinds of appeal can increase charitable donations is cause for optimism, especially concerning the potential efficacy of well-designed rational appeals. We consider the significance of these findings for moral psychology, ethics, and the work of organizations aiming to alleviate severe poverty. (shrink)

Feminist socially constitutive conceptions of autonomy make the presence of idealized social conditions necessary for autonomy. I argue that such conceptions cannot, when applied under nonideal conditions, play two key feminist theoretical roles for autonomy: the roles of anti-oppressive character ideal and paternalism-limiting concept. Instead, they prescribe action that reinforces oppression. Treated as character ideals, socially constitutive conceptions of autonomy ask agents living under nonideal ones to engage in self-harm or self-subordination. Moreover, conceptions of autonomy that make idealized social conditions (...) a requirement of autonomy yield the conclusion that oppressed agents are appropriate objects of paternalism. (shrink)

Several authors in bioethics literature have expressed the view that a whole brain conception of death is philosophically indefensible. If they are right, what are the alternatives? Some authors have suggested that we should go back to the old cardiopulmonary criterion of death and abandon the so-called Dead Donor Rule. Others argue for a pluralist solution. For example, Robert Veatch has defended a view that competent persons should be free to decide which criterion of death should be used to determine (...) their death. However, there is very little data on people’s preferences about death determination criteria. We conducted online vignette-based survey with Latvian participants. The data suggest that the pluralist solution fits best with the way our study participants think about death determination—widely differing preferences concerning death determination criteria were observed. Namely, most participants choose one of the three criteria discussed in the literature: whole brain, higher brain, and cardiopulmonary. Interestingly, our data also indicate that study participants tend to prefer less restrictive criteria for determination of their own deaths than for determination of deaths of their closest relatives. Finally, the preferences observed in our sample are largely in accord with the Dead Donor Rule for organ procurement for transplantation. (shrink)