In this paper I argue that Joel Feinberg was wrong to suppose that liberals must oppose any criminalization of “harmless immorality”. The problem with a theory that permits criminalization only on the basis of his harm and offense principles is that it is underinclusive, ruling out laws that most liberals believe are justified. One objection (Arthur Ripstein’s) is that Feinberg’s theory is unable to account for the criminalization of harmless personal grievances. Another (Larry Alexander’s and Robert George’s) is that it (...) cannot account for public decency laws. I shall reject both of these underinclusiveness objections in favor of one that focuses on the “free floating evil” of corpse desecration. Liberals need “pure” legal moralism (PLM) to explain their support for a criminal ban on mistreatment of the dead. I also argue that while deterrence is plausibly regarded as the primary rationale for criminalizing and punishing wrongs like murder or rape, it is not plausibly regarded as any part of the rationale for criminalizing free floating evils. The point of punishing corpse desecrators has to be either retribution or the promotion of virtue/discouraging of vice. Finally, I consider Feinberg’s reason for rejecting all PLM, namely, that competent adults have a right to personal sovereignty or autonomy, and the state’s duty to respect that right trumps the desirability of punishing or reducing the vice associated with harmless immorality. I argue that Feinberg’s argument here fails because it exaggerates the right’s strength and scope. (shrink)

The respect for one’s conscience is rooted in a broader respect for the human person. The conscience represents a person’s ability to identify the values and goods that inform her moral identity. Ignoring or overriding a person’s conscience can lead to significant moral and emotional distress. Refusals to respect a person’s conscientious objection to cases of killing are a source of incisive distress, since judgments that it is impermissible to kill so-and-so are typically held very strongly and serve as central (...) moral commitments in one’s moral identity. I think it is wrong for a college basketball coach to pay his players, but I think it is really wrong to kill people. This article argues that any and all arguments for not respecting a conscientious objection to abortion commit a deontic fallacy. Briefly, arguments for the permissibility of abortion are structurally such that abortion is at best permissible, not obligatory. Now, arguments to justify overriding or ignoring a person’s objection to performing action (α) must understand action (α) as being obligatory. Thus, arguments for ignoring conscientious objections to performing abortion are incongruent with the actual philosophical justifications for abortion. Such arguments, then, commit a deontic fallacy. (shrink)

Bioethics can be considered as a topic, an academic discipline, a field of study, an enterprise in persuasion. The historical specificity of the forms bioethics takes is significant, and raises questions about some of these approaches. Bioethics can also be considered as a governance practice, with distinctive institutions and structures. The forms this practice takes are also to a degree country specific, as the paper illustrates by drawing on the author’s UK experience. However, the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics can (...) provide a starting point for comparisons provided that this does not exclude sensitivity to the socio-political context. Bioethics governance practices are explained by various legitimating narratives. These include response to scandal, the need to restrain irresponsible science, the accommodation of pluralist views, and the resistance to the relativist idea that all opinions count equally in bioethics. Each approach raises interesting questions and shows that bioethics should be studied as a governance practice as a complement to other approaches. (shrink)

Protecting claims of conscience can function to fairly balance burdens among relevant parties without first having to resolve an underlying and intractable moral disagreement. Recently, a number of theorists have argued that the relevant criteria for protecting negative appeals to conscience in health care can (suitably modified) be equally well-satisfied in cases of positive appeals. I argue that, when it comes to certain practices, the justification of positive appeals to conscience does in fact depend upon contested claims in the debate (...) over the moral permissibility of those practices. This fact threatens to undermine one of the central functions of protecting appeals to conscience: that we can agree to disagree. (shrink)

In this paper I look at moral debates about animal disenhancement. In particular, I propose that given the particular social institutions in which such disenhancement will operate, we ought to reject animal disenhancement. I do this by introducing the issue of animal disenhancement and presenting arguments in support of it, and showing that while these arguments are strong, they are unconvincing when we look at the full picture. Viewing animal disenhancement in a context such as high intensity food production, we (...) see that the arguments in support of it fall short of other ethical considerations, leading me to conclude that the moral and pragmatic reasons weigh against animal disenhancement. (shrink)

Synthetic biology opens up the possibility of producing new entities not found in nature, whose classification as organisms or machines has been debated. In this paper we are focusing on the delimitation of the moral value of synthetic products, in order to establish the ethically right way to behave towards them. In order to do so, we use personalism as our ethical framework. First, we examine how we can distinguish between organisms and machines. Next, we discuss whether the products of (...) synthetic biology can be considered organisms at all and assess what their moral value is and how should we behave towards them. Finally, we discuss the hypothetical case of synthetic humans. (shrink)

Leprosy has taken on many names throughout human history. But none of its nomenclature has adequately captured the essence of what it has historically meant to live with the disease like the Hawaiian term ma`i ho`oka`awale, or “the separating sickness.” The appropriateness of this term is twofold: on the one hand, it accurately reflects the physical isolation imposed on leprosy patients as a result of stigmatization and quarantine policies; on the other, it seems fitting to use the language of the (...) culture and race that leprosy so disproportionately affected in nineteenth and twentieth century Hawai`i. This essay offers an ethical analysis of the treatment of leprosy patients in Hawai`i to identify mistakes made in the sphere of public health to better guide the management of infectious diseases today. It provides an historical overview of leprosy in order to contextualize its journey to the Hawaiian Islands, with a particular focus on the horrific century-long isolation of leprosy patients to the remote Kalaupapa settlement. It then presents two contrasting normative claims about the banishment and isolation practices by using two different theories of justice: utilitarianism and Rawls’ justice as fairness. In doing so, this essay illustrates the ways in which stigmatization and racism could likely affect the abhorrent treatment of leprosy patients by disproportionately appealing to the “greater good.” However, I contend that this dichotomization of justice brings us to a moral impasse in the context of public health. Rather, considering infectious diseases with a “patient as victim and vector” approach may prove more beneficial, especially in tandem with a schema of justice that promotes self-respect as a primary good to combat the deleterious effects of stigma. This historical reflection may thus allow medical professionals and policy makers alike to draw upon valuable ethical lessons for contemporary initiatives in public health. (shrink)