This chapter contains sections titled: Eeew! Sucks to be a Porn Star! Get Out Of My Bed! Ways of Valuing Lives Climax: Happy Slaves, Oppression, and Quality of Life Afterglow Notes.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Literature, Imagination, and Human RightsWillie van Peer“the poet’s function is to describe, not the thing that has happened, but a kind of thing that might happen”Aristotle: Poetics, 1451aAristotle’s dictum has been of vital importance to the development of literary theory, and its significance can still be felt today. It is the foundation of the distinction we make between journalism and literature, between history and fiction. Literature, Aristotle proposes, (...) is about things that could happen, not about things that have taken place in reality. Literature is thus inscribed in the realm of the imagination. However, imagination does not operate in an epistemological vacuum. A fictional text entertaining no relation with the world would have no meaning. Perhaps giants, dragons and witches do not really exist, and perhaps it is not really possible to cover seven miles with each step of those wonderful boots that Tom Thumb discovered. But we have no difficulty in imagining those things, precisely because they entertain an intimate relationship with forms and things, events and actions that happen in daily life. The details of the relationship between reality and fiction are less important for the present argument than the fact that fiction is embedded in our pragmatic attitudes. 1 Ernst Bloch has given this human tendency a name: The Hope Principle. Our desire for a better world expresses itself in hope, a distinctive feature of the species Homo Sapiens. The importance of the imagination in the project of humanity has received eloquent and systematic treatment in the philosophical work of Hans Vaihinger and Helmuth Plessner. 2 Imagination also gives impetus to history, because it drives us toward the realization of aims and plans that initially lived only in our hearts and minds: “Someone dreaming never remains in the same place.” 3 [End Page 276]Similar things have been asserted about literature, by Horace, Sidney, Matthew Arnold, and others. Reading is supposed to make us better humans, heightening our awareness, increasing our sensibility, and thus indirectly guiding our actions toward the establishment of a better world. Sometimes noble motives are associated with this function. Reading literature, it is then assumed, makes the reader more socially tolerant, more perceptive about other humans, and more politically conscious. This is the so-called Edification Hypothesis. Anthony Savile sums up this view when he submits the thesis that literature has a unique power to make us understand the thoughts and feelings of other human beings. This ethical perspective on literature has been expressed since Greek Antiquity. 4 It will be remembered that Plato condemned literature precisely for this reason: because it diverts our attention from the real world, itself already an imperfect reflection of Pure Ideas. Aristotle rejects this view and develops a theory squarely opposed to that of his teacher. According to him, literature contributes to the elevation of mankind, to paideia. By showing us that which is possible, and by involving us in the inescapable passage of tragic events, readers and spectators are drawn into emotions of fear and compassion, emotions that lead to katharsis, a process that purifies us of megalomania (hubris), safeguarding democratic government and protecting us from unrestrained tyranny. 5The Aristotelian view that literature has an edifying effect had been generally present in Western tradition till about 1800. Until then literature was viewed almost universally as an ethical category. Consider, for instance, the self-evident way in which Richardson prefaces Pamela: “If to divert and entertain, and at the same time to instruct and improve the minds of the YOUTH of both sexes: If to inculcate religion and morality in so easy and agreeable a manner, as shall render them equally delightful and profitable: If to set forth in the most exemplary lights, the parental, the filial, and the social duties....” 6The embarrassment a modern reader may feel when confronted with such overt claims to morality is largely a product of the nineteenth century, when literature came to be seen as a predominantly aesthetic category, eluding all attempts at moral categorization. This movement has resulted in a liberation of literature from moralism. At the same time, it has created nontrivial difficulties in thinking about ethical and political issues, so... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Literature, Imagination, and Human RightsWillie van Peer“the poet’s function is to describe, not the thing that has happened, but a kind of thing that might happen”Aristotle: Poetics, 1451aAristotle’s dictum has been of vital importance to the development of literary theory, and its significance can still be felt today. It is the foundation of the distinction we make between journalism and literature, between history and fiction. Literature, Aristotle proposes, (...) is about things that could happen, not about things that have taken place in reality. Literature is thus inscribed in the realm of the imagination. However, imagination does not operate in an epistemological vacuum. A fictional text entertaining no relation with the world would have no meaning. Perhaps giants, dragons and witches do not really exist, and perhaps it is not really possible to cover seven miles with each step of those wonderful boots that Tom Thumb discovered. But we have no difficulty in imagining those things, precisely because they entertain an intimate relationship with forms and things, events and actions that happen in daily life. The details of the relationship between reality and fiction are less important for the present argument than the fact that fiction is embedded in our pragmatic attitudes. 1 Ernst Bloch has given this human tendency a name: The Hope Principle. Our desire for a better world expresses itself in hope, a distinctive feature of the species Homo Sapiens. The importance of the imagination in the project of humanity has received eloquent and systematic treatment in the philosophical work of Hans Vaihinger and Helmuth Plessner. 2 Imagination also gives impetus to history, because it drives us toward the realization of aims and plans that initially lived only in our hearts and minds: “Someone dreaming never remains in the same place.” 3 [End Page 276]Similar things have been asserted about literature, by Horace, Sidney, Matthew Arnold, and others. Reading is supposed to make us better humans, heightening our awareness, increasing our sensibility, and thus indirectly guiding our actions toward the establishment of a better world. Sometimes noble motives are associated with this function. Reading literature, it is then assumed, makes the reader more socially tolerant, more perceptive about other humans, and more politically conscious. This is the so-called Edification Hypothesis. Anthony Savile sums up this view when he submits the thesis that literature has a unique power to make us understand the thoughts and feelings of other human beings. This ethical perspective on literature has been expressed since Greek Antiquity. 4 It will be remembered that Plato condemned literature precisely for this reason: because it diverts our attention from the real world, itself already an imperfect reflection of Pure Ideas. Aristotle rejects this view and develops a theory squarely opposed to that of his teacher. According to him, literature contributes to the elevation of mankind, to paideia. By showing us that which is possible, and by involving us in the inescapable passage of tragic events, readers and spectators are drawn into emotions of fear and compassion, emotions that lead to katharsis, a process that purifies us of megalomania (hubris), safeguarding democratic government and protecting us from unrestrained tyranny. 5The Aristotelian view that literature has an edifying effect had been generally present in Western tradition till about 1800. Until then literature was viewed almost universally as an ethical category. Consider, for instance, the self-evident way in which Richardson prefaces Pamela: “If to divert and entertain, and at the same time to instruct and improve the minds of the YOUTH of both sexes: If to inculcate religion and morality in so easy and agreeable a manner, as shall render them equally delightful and profitable: If to set forth in the most exemplary lights, the parental, the filial, and the social duties....” 6The embarrassment a modern reader may feel when confronted with such overt claims to morality is largely a product of the nineteenth century, when literature came to be seen as a predominantly aesthetic category, eluding all attempts at moral categorization. This movement has resulted in a liberation of literature from moralism. At the same time, it has created nontrivial difficulties in thinking about ethical and political issues, so... (shrink)

Koplin and Wilkinson argue for the sociological claim that many believe that the moral uncertainty argument provides significant moral reasons against farming human–pig chimaeras for their organs but that there no are significant moral reasons against farming non-chimeric pigs for food. And yet, K&W argue for the ethical claim, that if the moral uncertainty argument provides significant moral reasons against farming for organs then there are similar moral reasons against farming for food. The (...) class='Hi'>moral uncertainty argument appears to be an application of what I have called ‘the moral status framework’ to farming for organs.1–3 According to the moral status framework, human–animal chimaera research should be evaluated as to its risk of enhancing the moral status of an animal to that of a normal human while continuing to treat the animal as animals are usually treated in biomedical research.4 In status-enhancing research, ‘sacrificing the fundamental interests of the chimeric research subject as they would have been sacrificed in any other animal research is the moral equivalent of sacrificing the fundamental interests of a fully functional adult human being. On all but the most extreme animal rights views, this makes status-enhancing research much worse than other biomedical research on animals, and on any plausible view, makes it absolutely unacceptable’.5 K&W similarly say that, according to the moral uncertainty argument, ‘It would be gravely wrong to treat humans the same way we do animal …. (shrink)

This guide accompanies the following article: Matthew Kieran, ‘Art, Morality and Ethics: On the (Im)moral Character of Art Works and Inter‐Relations to Artistic Value’. Philosophy Compass 1/2 (2006): pp. 129–143, doi: 10.1111/j.1747‐9991.2006.00019.x Author’s Introduction Up until fairly recently it was philosophical orthodoxy – at least within analytic aesthetics broadly construed – to hold that the appreciation and evaluation of works as art and moral considerations pertaining to them are conceptually distinct. However, following on from the idea that artistic (...) value is broader than aesthetic value, the last 15 years has seen an explosion of interest in exploring possible inter‐relations between the appreciative and ethical character of works as art. Consideration of these issues has a distinguished philosophical history but as the Compass survey article suggests (‘Art, Morality and Ethics: On the (Im)Moral Character of Art Works and Inter‐Relations to Artistic Value.’Philosophy Compass 1.2 (2006): 129–43), it is only very recently that figures in the field have returned to it to develop more precisely what they take the relationships to be and why. Consensus is, unsurprisingly, lacking. The reinvigoration of the issues has led sophisticated formalists or autonomists to mount a more considered defence of the idea that aesthetic and literary values are indeed conceptually distinct from the justification or otherwise of the moral perspective or views endorsed in a work (Topic I). The challenges presented by such a defence are many but amongst them are appeals to critical practice (Lamarque and Olsen), scepticism about whether or not art really can give us bona fide knowledge (Stolnitz) and the recognition that truth often seems to be far removed from what it is we value in our appreciation of works (Lamarque). One way to motivate consideration of the relevance of a work’s moral character to its artistic value concerns the phenomena of imaginative resistance. At least sometimes it would seem that, as Hume originally suggested, we either cannot or will not enter imaginatively into the perspective solicited by a work due to its morally problematic character (Topic II). In some cases, it would seem that as a matter of psychological fact, we cannot do so since it is impossible for us to imagine how it could be that a certain attitude or action is morally permissible or good (Walton). The question then is whether or not this is a function of morality in particular or constraints on imaginative possibility more generally and what else is involved. At other times, the phenomena seem to be driven by a moral reluctance to allow ourselves to enter into the dramatic perspective involved (Moran) or evaluation of the attitude expressed (Stokes). Nonetheless, it is far from obvious that this is so of all the attitudes or responses we judge to be morally problematic. After all, it looks like we can and indeed often do suspend or background particular cognitive and moral commitments in engaging with all sorts of works (Nichols and Weinberg). If the moral character of a work interacts with how we appreciate and evaluate them, then the pressing question is this: is there any systematic account of the relationship available to us? One way is to consider the relationship between our emotional responses to works and their moral character (Topic III). After all, art works often solicit various emotional responses from us to follow the work and make use of moral concepts in so doing (Carroll). Indeed, whether or not a work merits the sought for emotional responses often seems to be internally related to ethical considerations (Gaut). Yet, it is not obvious that we should apply our moral concepts or respond emotionally in our imaginative engagement with works as art as we should in real life (Kieran, Jacobson). A different route is via the thought that art can convey knowledge (Topic IV). There might be particular kinds of moral knowledge art distinctively suited to conveying (Nussbaum) or it may just be that art does so particularly effectively (Carroll, Gaut, Kieran). Either way where this can be tied to the artistic means and appreciation of a work it would seem that to cultivate moral understanding contributes to the value of a work and to betray misunderstanding is a defect. Without denying the relevance of the moral character of a work some authors have wanted to claim that sometimes the immoral aspect of a work can contribute to rather than lessen its artistic value (Topic V). One route is to claim that there is no systematic theoretical account of the relationship available and what the right thing to say is depends on the particular case involved (Jacobson). Another involves the claim that this is so when the defect connects up in an appropriate way to one of the values of art. Thus, it has been claimed, only where a work reveals something which adds to intelligibility, knowledge or understanding in virtue of its morally problematic aspect can this be so (Kieran). The latter position looks like it could in principle be held whilst nonetheless maintaining that the typical or standard relationship is as the moralists would have it. Yet perhaps allowing valence change for such reasons is less a mark of principled explanation and more a function of downright inconsistency or incoherence (Harold). The topics themselves and suggested readings given below follow the structure articulated above as further amplified in the Compass survey article. The design and structure given below can be easily compressed or expanded further. Author Recommends 1 Carroll, Noël. ‘Art, Narrative and Moral Understanding.’Aesthetics and Ethics: Essay at the Intersection. Ed. Jerrold Levinson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. 126–60. 2 This article develops the idea that engaging with narrative art calls on moral concepts and emotions and can thereby clarify our moral understanding. 2 Carroll, Noël. Beyond Aesthetics: Philosophical Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009. 4 Part IV consists of six distinct essays on questions concerning the inter‐relations between art and morality including the essay cited above and the author’s articulation and defence of moderate moralism. 3 Gaut, Berys. ‘The Ethical Criticism of Art.’Aesthetics and Ethics: Essay at the Intersection. Ed. Jerrold Levinson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. 182–203. 4 Gaut, Berys. Art, Emotion and Ethics. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007. 7 This monograph provides the most exhaustive treatment of the issues and defends the claim that, where relevant, whenever a work is morally flawed it is of lesser value as art and wherever it is morally virtuous the work’s value as art is enhanced. Chapters 7 and 8 defend concern ethical knowledge and chapter 10 is a development of the article cited above concerning emotional responses. Chapter 3 also gives a useful conceptual map of the issues and options in the debate. 5 Jacobson, Daniel. ‘In Praise of Immoral Art.’Philosophical Topics 25 (1997): 155–99. 9 A wide ranging and extended treatment of relevant issues which objects to generalising moral treatments of our responses to art works and defends the idea that particular works can be better because of rather than despite their moral defects. 6 Kieran, Matthew. ‘Forbidden Knowledge: The Challenge of Cognitive Immoralism.’Art and Morality. Ed. Sebastian Gardner and José Luis Bermúdez. London: Routledge, 2003. 56–73. 11 A general argument for immoralism is elaborated by outlining when, where and why a work’s morally problematic character can contribute to its artistic value for principled reasons (through enhancing moral understanding). 7 Kieran, Matthew. Revealing Art. London: Routledge, 2005. Chapter 4. 13 This chapter argues against both aestheticism and straightforward moralism about art, elaborating a defence of immoralism in relation to visual art whilst ranging over issues from pornographic art to the nature and demands of different genres in art. 8 Lamarque, Peter. ‘Cognitive Values in the Arts: Marking the Boundaries.’ Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Ed. Matthew Kieran. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006, 127–39. 15 This article concisely outlines and defends a sophisticated aestheticism that denies the importance of truth to artistic value. 9 Stolnitz, Jerome. ‘On the Cognitive Triviality of Art.’British Journal of Aesthetics 32.3 (1992): 191–200. 17 This article articulates and defends the claim that no knowledge of any interesting or significant kind can be afforded by works appreciated and evaluated as art. 10 Walton, Kendall. ‘Morals in Fiction and Fictional Morality, I.’Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Suppl. 68 (1994): 27–51. 19 This article builds on some comments from Hume to develop the idea that when engaging with fictions it seems impossible imaginatively to enter into radically deviant moral attitudes. Online Materials ‘Aesthetics and Ethics: The State of the Art.’American Society of Aesthetics online (Jeffrey Dean):. ‘Art, Censorship and Morality’ downloadable podcast of Nigel Warburton interviewing Matthew Kieran at Tate Britain (BBC/ou Open2.net as part of the Ethics Bites series):. ‘Art, Morality and Ethics: On the (Im)Moral Character of Art Works and Inter‐Relations to Artistic Value.’Philosophy Compass 1.2 (2006): 129–43 (Matthew Kieran):. ‘Ethical Criticism of Art.’Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Ella Peek):. ‘Fascinating Fascism.’New York Review of Books Piece Discussing Leni Riefenstahl (Susan Sontag):. ‘The Beheading of St. John the Baptist (1450s), Giovanni de Paolo’ (Tom Lubbock):. Vladimir Nabokov and Lionel Trilling discuss Lolita (CBS):. Sample Syllabus Topic I Autonomism/aestheticism • Anderson, James C. and Jeffrey T. Dean. ‘Moderate Autonomism.’British Journal of Aesthetics 38.2 (1998): 150–66. • Beardsley, Monroe. Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1958. Chapter 12. • Kant, Immanuel. The Critique of Judgement.Trans. James Creed Meredith. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1952 [1790]. • Lamarque, Peter. ‘Cognitive Values in the Arts: Marking the Boundaries.’Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Ed. Matthew Kieran. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006, 127–39. • ——. ‘Tragedy and Moral Value.’Australasian Journal of Philosophy 73.2 (1995): 239–49. • Lamarque, Peter and Stein Olsen. Truth, Fiction and Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. Chapter 10. • Stolnitz, Jerome. ‘On the Cognitive Triviality of Art.’British Journal of Aesthetics 32.3 (1992): 191–200. Topic II Imaginative Capacities, Intelligibility and Resistance • Moran, Richard. ‘The Expression of Feeling in Imagination.’Philosophical Review 103.1 (1994): 75–106. • Nichols, Shaun. ‘Just the Imagination: Why Imagining Doesn’t Behave Like Believing’. Mind & Language 21.4 (2006): 459–74. • Stokes, Dustin. ‘The Evaluative Character of Imaginative Resistance’. British Journal of Aesthetics 46.4 (2006): 387–405. • Tanner, Michael. ‘Morals in Fiction and Fictional Morality, II’. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Suppl. Vol. 68 (1994): 51–66. • Walton, Kendall (1994). ‘Morals in Fiction and Fictional Morality, I’. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Suppl. Vol. 68 (1994): 27–51. • Weinberg, Jonathan. ‘Configuring the Cognitive Imagination.’New Waves in Aesthetics. Eds. K. Stock and K. Thomson‐Jones. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. 203–23. Topic III Moralism and Emotions • Carroll, Noël. ‘Moderate Moralism.’British Journal of Aesthetics 36.3 (1996): 223–37. • Carroll, Noël. ‘Art, Narrative and Moral Understanding.’Aesthetics and Ethics: Essay at the Intersection. Ed. Jerrold Levinson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998.126–60. • Gaut, Berys. Art, Emotion and Ethics. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007. Chapter 10. • ——. ‘The Ethical Criticism of Art.’Aesthetics and Ethics: Essay at the Intersection. Ed. Jerrold Levinson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. 182–203. • Hume, David. ‘Of the Standard of Taste.’Selected Essays. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993 [1757]. 133–53. • Kieran, Matthew. ‘Emotions, Art and Immorality.’Oxford Handbook to the Philosophy of Emotions. Ed. Peter Goldie. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009. 681–703. • Tolstoy, Leo. What is Art?. London: Penguin, 2004. Chapters 5 and 15. Topic IV Moralism and Knowledge • Aristotle. Poetics. Trans. M. Heath. London: Penguin, 1996 [367–322 BC]. • Carroll, Noël. ‘The Wheel of Virtue: Art, Literature and Moral Knowledge.’Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 60.1 (2002): 3–26. • Gaut, Berys. Art, Emotion and Ethics. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007. Chapters 7 and 8. • Gaut, Berys. ‘Art and Cognition.’Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Ed. Matthew Kieran. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. 115–26. • Kieran, Matthew. ‘Art, Imagination and the Cultivation of Morals.’Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 54.4 (1996): 337–51. • Nussbaum, Martha. ‘Finely Aware and Richly Responsible: Literature and the Moral Imagination.’Love’s Knowledge. New York: Oxford UP, 1990. 148–68. • Plato. The Republic. Trans. D. Lee. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974. Book 10. Topic V Immoralist Contextualism • Harold, James. ‘Immoralism and the Valence Constraint.’British Journal of Aesthetics 48.1 (2008): 45–64. • Jacobson, Daniel. ‘In Praise of Immoral Art.’Philosophical Topics 25 (1997): 155–99. • ——. ‘Ethical Criticism and the Vices of Moderation.’Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Ed. Matthew Kieran. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. 342–55. • John, Eileen. ‘Artistic Value and Moral Opportunism.’Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Ed. Matthew Kieran. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. 331–41. • Kieran, Matthew. ‘Forbidden Knowledge:The Challenge of Cognitive Immoralism.’Art and Morality. Ed. Sebastian Gardner and José Luis Bermúdez. London: Routledge, 2003. 56–73. • Kieran, Matthew. Revealing Art. London: Routledge, 2005. Chapter 4. • Patridge, Stephanie. ‘Moral Vices as Artistic Virtues: Eugene Onegin and Alice.’Philosophia 36.2 (2008): 181–93. Focus Questions 1 What is the strongest argument for the claim that the moral character of a work is not relevant to its artistic value? Does artistic or literary criticism tend to concern itself with the truth or morality of works? If so, in what ways? If not, why do you think this is? 2 What different explanations might there be for difficulty with or resistance to imaginatively entering into attitudes you take to be immoral? How might this relate to the way our imaginings work as contrasted with belief? How might different literary or artistic treatments of the same subject matter make a difference? 3 How do narrative works draw on our moral concepts and responses? Can we suspend our normal moral commitments or application of moral concepts in responding emotionally to art works? Should we respond emotionally to art works as we ought to respond to real world events we witness? Why? Why not? 4 How, if at all, do art works convey moral understanding? How, if at all, is this related to the kinds of moral knowledge art works can teach or reveal to us? When, where and why might this be tied to the artistic value of a work? How can we tell where a work enhances our moral understanding as opposed to misleading or distorting it? 5 What art works do you value overall as art which commend or endorse moral values and attitudes that you do not? Is appreciation of them always marred or lessened by the morally dubious aspect? If not, what explains the differences in evaluation? What, if anything, might you learn by engaging with works which endorse moral attitudes or apply moral concepts different from those you take to be justified? How, if at all, might this connect up with what makes them valuable as art? (shrink)

Publishers love titles that begin How or Why. Better still, How and Why, combining edification with utility. The target group is that overlap between the self-help audience and the idly curious—which is to say, most of us. And since emotions are very much about self-help and self-harm, they offer rich pickings in a burgeoning market. Flanagan's How to Do things with Emotions is a philosopher's take on moral emotions, the allusion to J. L. Austin's How to Do Things with (...) Words chiming with the self-help milieu. Reviewing cases, Flanagan points out that most scientific work in this field derives from experiments on psychology students, about as unrepresentative a slice of humanity as you could find. For Flanagan, they are too WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) to tell us much about the non-weird majority. To learn to “do emotions better,” he argues, we have to look farther afield. Although the emotional lives of cultural others are surely different from those taking Psychology 101, at some functional level they might be similar. Work out the conceptual logic and practical rationale of culturally elaborated emotions—Minangkabau “shame,” Ifaluk “righteous anger,” American “road rage”—and there is scope for comparison. Indeed, anthropology has shown as much, and it is from anthropology that Flanagan takes his cues. To mention two famous cases, what can we learn about anger management from Utku igloo-dwellers and Ilongot headhunters? Mutually dependent for survival in their snowy isolation, the Utku cannot risk getting angry. (They mercilessly tease their children into learning the futility of anger.) In the jungles of Luzon, Ilongot youths cast away their anger in externally directed violence: headhunting as cathartic sport. We can think of parallels closer to home.Flanagan's vigorously argued book, a tour de force of its kind, is both an anatomizing of anger and shame—two moral emotions we tend to “do badly”—and a proposal to “change how we do these emotions.” Indignation is fine, but anger that is vengeful or “pain-passing,” rather than righteous, is irrational and socially harmful. Shame can be incapacitating and cruel (the undeserved burn of a Twitter pile-on). What we need is reflective anger directed at injustice and a “mature sense of shame” that reminds us of the social contract and stops us misbehaving.In its How-and-Why format, the book combines theory and practice, metaethics with moralism. Here is how a prof should do self-help. But if the diagnosis is well made, the remedy is hard to imagine. As Flanagan recognizes, moral sentiments and practices are embedded in intricate forms of life and not readily detachable. Anger Utku-style is not a transferable skill, nor are educative routines forged in social ecologies remote from our own. Lacking serviceable models, Flanagan falls back on the anthropological justification that knowledge of cultural diversity expands our sense of human possibility, of other roads taken. In a globalizing world, difference is its own reward. For me, an anthropologist, that maxim is enough. Yet difference bedevils comparison, jinxing the units, warping criteria. Most languages lack a word for emotion or an equivalent umbrella concept; nor do emotion words translate well across languages. Emotion may be an incoherent notion, or at best a heuristic.Flanagan's use of the WEIRD tag makes things a bit too easy. Does it cover farmhands and factory workers? Are we so democratic, anyway? More damagingly, a typological approach blurs the circumstances of family, community, and biography that define an emotional episode and shape its phenomenology, the way it is felt and experienced—what a violent outburst or fearful exit means in the context of a life. Take Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim, who flees a scene of failure and derails his life. It requires a long narrative to unravel the implications of his jumping ship and the paralyzing shame he experiences before the judgment of society. Or consider the scene in Anna Karenina in which the dignified and self-important Karenin, apprised of Anna's adulterous liaison, agonizes over the threat to his existence. To call his response jealousy would not scratch the surface. Characteristically for Tolstoy, the emotions go unnamed. Instead, we witness Karenin's fervid deliberations (emotions involve thoughts), vacillations (emotions have action tendencies), anguished calculations of impending scandal (emotions are appraisals), and bodily changes (emotions are cognized feelings). We shudder at the brutal metaphors through which he grasps his predicament and its cure: like rooting out a bad tooth, he decides. That welter of particularities escapes the theorist who needs clear-cut, comparable units, formulaic instances of jealousy or anger. But what are you left with if you omit the details? What would remain of Karenin's existential crisis?The novelist's privileged access to subjectivity is, of course, unavailable to the scientist, but the larger context of plot and character—a history of relations that gives emotional episodes their shape and power—has its analog in the ethnographic domain. Emotions are public as well as private events, their meanings and effects depending on a fit with social reality, a clash of perspectives. In thought and feeling, we are never really alone. All of which suggests that narrative, fictional or nonfictional, can capture the ongoing moment in a way that eludes other methods. If what we are after is living emotion, it is the movie, not the snapshot, that surely matters. No point in comparing “emotions” no one ever really experienced outside of an experiment.But there's the rub. In generalization—the goal of emotion theory—an emotion's social meaning, personal significance, pragmatic function, and narrative context get stripped out. All that makes it what it is! Even in doggedly empirical anthropology, detailed emotional episodes are rare (Jean Briggs's Utku ethnography Never in Anger, published in 1970, is still unsurpassed). Instead we get recollections and summary examples, lacking the constitutive detail, real-time evolutions, and consequences of the real thing. Yet these must serve for comparison, fodder for countless theoretical speculations. Are we at risk of analyzing faux emotions and building theories on cardboard constructions?An empty Arctic stage, a handful of characters, life simplified to survival: Briggs is a hard act to follow. Bare life does not make for basic emotions. On the white set, emotions prove hard to parse. That gruff hesitation, that flashing glint—are they tokens of anger? Empathy will not suffice. As Briggs shows, narrative context is all. And in our more cluttered emotional worlds, the value of backstory, interwoven biographies, and emotional plots is all the greater. Flanagan is right; we must do emotions better. (shrink)

The distinctive feature of a hybrid view (such as Nozick’s “utilitarianism for animals, Kantianism for people”) is that it divides moral patients into two classes: call them dersons and uersons. Dersons have a deontological kind of moral status: they have moral rights against certain kinds of optimific harms. Uersons, by contrast, have a utilitarian kind of moral status: their interests are morally important (in proportion to the magnitude of those interests), but uersons do not have (...) deontological moral rights or any other kinds of deontological protections. In this paper, we discuss and critically evaluate three ways of supporting a hybrid view: a case-based argument; an autonomy-based rationale; and a rationale based in a capacity for what we call deep commitments. Finally, we discuss a way in which considerations about the moral significance of relationships might support an approximation of a hybrid view. (shrink)

In present-day political and moral philosophy the idea that all persons are in some way moral equals is an almost universal premise, with its defenders often claiming that philosophical positions that reject the principle of equal respect and concern do not deserve to be taken seriously. This has led to relatively few attempts to clarify, or indeed justify, 'basic equality' and the principle of equal respect and concern. Such clarification and justification, however, would be direly needed. After all, (...) the ideas, for instance, that Adolf Hitler and Nelson Mandela have equal moral worth, or that a rape victim owes equal respect and concern to both her rapist and to her own caring brother, seem to be utterly implausible. Thus, if someone insists on the truth of such ideas, he or she owes his or her audience an explanation. The authors in this volume - which breaks new ground by engaging egalitarians and anti-egalitarians in a genuine dialogue - attempt to shed light into the dark. They try to clarify the concepts of "basic equality", "equal moral worth","equal respect and concern", "dignity," etc; and they try to justify-or to refute-the resulting clarified doctrines. The volume thus demonstrates that the claim that all persons have equal moral worth, are owed equal concern and respect, or have the same rights is anything but obvious. This finding has not only significant philosophical but also political implications. (shrink)

Both the defenders and critics of judicial review assume tacitly that there is a special moral capacity needed for a correct articulation of constitutional (explicit or implied) rights, and they only disagree about who is likely to possess this moral capacity to a higher degree. In this working paper I challenge this unstated assumption. It is not the case that the reasoning oriented towards rights articulation is more moral than many non-rights-oriented authoritative public decisions in the society. (...) Further, I suggest that rights-related reasoning cannot be shown to be differently moral in a way which would support the idea that this relevant difference may justify why some political agents (such as judges) may be more suited to performing this particular type of moral reasoning than others (such as legislators). The best argument for such a distinction refers to the opportunity for and habit of conducting "moral thought experiments" which is what, as part of their professional duties, judges normally do, and which they can therefore instinctively do also when they engage in a "concrete" judicial review of a statute. But there is no good moral reason to believe that "moral thought experiments" triggered by specific fact-situations should be privileged as a method of moral reasoning, compared to an unashamedly abstract, principle-based moral reasoning. If anything, a good case may be made (referring to the need to openly acknowledge moral conflict, secure impartiality, equality and legitimacy) for deliberately abstracting from specific cases and focusing on the abstract and general level, only modifying it later, if one is compelled to such modifications by considering evidence from specific instances. Not even one half (the bottom-up half) of the Rawlsian famous "reflective equilibrium" apparatus can be of help in this regard. (shrink)

Many believe that severe intellectual impairment, blindness or dying young amount to serious harm and disadvantage. It is also increasingly denied that it matters, from a moral point of view, whether something is biologically normal to humans. We show that these two claims are in serious tension. It is hard explain how, if we do not ascribe some deep moral significance to human nature or biological normality, we could distinguish severe intellectual impairment or blindness from the vast (...) list of seemingly innocent ways in which we fail to have as much wellbeing as we could, such not having super-intelligence, or not living to 130. We consider a range of attempts to draw this intuitive normative distinction without appealing to normality. These, we argue, all fail. But this doesn't mean that we cannot draw this distinction or that we must, implausibly, conclude that biological normality does possess an inherent moral importance. We argue that, despite appearances, it is not biological normality but rather statistical normality that, although lacking any intrinsic moral significance, nevertheless makes an important moral difference in ways that explain and largely justify the intuitive distinction. (shrink)

Many believe that severe intellectual impairment, blindness or dying young amount to serious harm and disadvantage. It is also increasingly denied that it matters, from a moral point of view, whether something is biologically normal to humans. We show that these two claims are in serious tension. It is hard explain how, if we do not ascribe some deep moral significance to human nature or biological normality, we could distinguish severe intellectual impairment or blindness from the vast (...) list of seemingly innocent ways in which we fail to have as much wellbeing as we could, such not having super‐intelligence, or not living to 130. We consider a range of attempts to draw this intuitive normative distinction without appealing to normality. These, we argue, all fail. But this doesn't mean that we cannot draw this distinction or that we must, implausibly, conclude that biological normality does possess an inherent moral importance. We argue that, despite appearances, it is not biological normality but rather statistical normality that, although lacking any intrinsic moral significance, nevertheless makes an important moral difference in ways that explain and largely justify the intuitive distinction. (shrink)

IBERTARIANS hold that we have such duties as: not to directly and significantly harm others or their property, to keep agreements, to refrain from lying and certain other sorts of deception, and to compensate those whom we wrong. They also hold that we have a duty not to interfere with the liberty of others as long as they are fulfilling these duties. This duty of non-interference, they have thought, has protected the privacy of the home, and hence parental autonomy, for (...) it insures that others have no authority over or responsibility for (except in extreme circumstances) how parents raise or treat their children. (Why parental autonomy has been held to be protected by this duty of non—in_terference should be clear enough: for if (as is surely plausible) the main effect of that duty is to secure for adults the liberty (within limits) to live their private lives as they choose, then, on the natural assumption that the matter of how to raise one`s children falls within the domain of the private lives of adults, intervention by others, and in particular by the state, for the purpose of ensuring that children get raised in one way rather than another, would be impermissible.) More specifically to our purposes now, libertarians have supposed that the duty of non-interference leaves intact parents` perogative to decide if, and in what way, their children are to be educated. That this is crucial both to the degree and to the point of parental autonomy is clear enough. For it goes both to the matter of keeping out of the private home those who would provide education for children (if such is the wish of the parents), and to the matter of parents` entitlement to instill in their children the values that they (the parents) wish their children to have. Libertarians, however, have not had very much specific to say about the moral status of children. Are children owned by their parents? Do they have all the rights and duties that normal adults have'? Or is their status somewhere in between these extremes? Given that libertarians haven't said, there are different possible ways of extending traditional libertarian theory so as to cover children.. (shrink)

:It has been argued that moral bioenhancement is desirable even if it would make it impossible for us to do what is morally required. Others find this apparent loss of freedom deplorable. However, it is difficult to see how a world in which there is no moral evil can plausibly be regarded as worse than a world in which people are not only free to do evil, but also where they actually do it, which would commit us (...) to the seemingly paradoxical view that, under certain circumstances, the bad can be better than the good. Notwithstanding, this view is defended here. (shrink)

abstract This paper begins by accepting, for argument's sake, a number of the central criticisms raised regarding the US led war in Iraq. In the remainder of the paper, it is argued that even if these criticisms are assumed to be true, the resort to war was still morally justified, both prospectively and retrospectively. The argument is made within the context of the just war tradition. It is argued that the resort to war met the conditions of sufficient just (...) cause, last resort and proportionality, and that any failings in regards to legitimate authority and right intention do not undermine the morality of that resort. More specifically, the case is made that: humanitarian considerations provided a sufficient just cause, questions of international law do not undermine the moral legitimacy of the US led coalition, and that concerns about the intentions of the US, even if valid, would not impact on moral judgements about the act of resorting to war. In arguing for the last point, it is determined that the right intention condition should not be included among the set of conditions that form the basis of the just war tradition. (shrink)

According to the Principle of Double Effect (PDE), there are conditions under which it would be morally justifiable to cause some harm as a foreseen side-effect of one's action even though it would not be justifiable to form and execute the intention of causing the same harm. If we take the kind of justification in question to be that of moral permissibility, this principle correctly maps common intuitions about when it would be permissible to act in certain ways. (...) T.M. Scanlon argues that the PDE so interpreted is problematic, as it returns implausible verdicts in other scenarios. Scanlon is unable to account for the common pattern of moral reasoning that we employ in the relevant cases. I argue that we can account for this pattern while avoiding implausible verdicts if we interpret the PDE as a principle about when it is licit to inflict harm rather than when it is permissible to do so, and if we connect the concept of the licit with that of the permissible in the right way. (shrink)

Background: Moral distress, which is especially high in critical care nurses, has significant negative implications for nurses, patients, organizations, and healthcare as a whole. Aim: A moral distress workshop and follow-up activities were implemented in an intensive care unit in order to decrease levels of moral distress and increase nurses’ perceived comfort and confidence in ethical decision-making. Design: A quality improvement (QI) initiative was conducted using a pre- and post-intervention design. The program consisted of a four-hour interactive (...) workshop, followed by two individual self-reflection activities at 2–3 weeks and 5–6 weeks after the workshop. Participants: Critical care nurses working in a heart and vascular intensive care unit at a large academic medical center. Ethical Considerations: This study was deemed to be a QI project by the institution’s Institutional Review Board. Participation was voluntary. Findings: Nurses experienced a significant decrease in moral distress. The participants’ average ethical confidence increased in four areas (ability to identify the conflicting values at stake, knowing role expectations, feeling prepared to resolved ethical conflict, and being able to do the right thing), with knowledge of role expectations and feeling prepared to resolve ethical conflict yielding statistically significant increases. Qualitative findings resulted in consistent themes related to causes of moral distress and ways nurses approached addressing moral distress. Discussion: This study reinforces previous evidence on moral distress and its causes in critical care nurses, and provides a mechanism for improving moral distress and ethical confidence. Conclusions: This QI study demonstrates the effectiveness of an evidence-based program for decreasing critical care nurses’ moral distress and increasing their ethical confidence. The strategies described in this paper can replicated by nursing leaders who wish to effect change at their local level, or adapted and expanded to other professions and clinical care units. (shrink)

When a woman or girl finds herself pregnant, is it morally permissible for her to end that pregnancy? One dominant tradition says “no”; its close cousin says “rarely” - exceptions may be made where the burdens on the individual girl or woman are exceptionally dire, or, for some, when the pregnancy results from rape. On both views, though, there is an enormous presumption against aborting, for abortion involves the destruction of something we have no right to destroy. Those (...) who reject this claim, it is said, do so by denying the dignity of early human life - and imperiling their own. I think these views are deeply flawed. They are, I believe, based on a problematic conception of how we should value early human life; more than that, they are based on a profoundly misleading view of gestation and a deontically crude picture of morality. I believe that early abortion is fully permissible, widely decent, and, indeed, can be honorable. This is not, though, because I regard burgeoning human life as “mere tissue”: on the contrary, I think it has a value worthy of special respect. It is, rather, because I believe that the right way to value early human life, and the right way to value what is involved in and at stake with its development, lead to a view that regards abortion as both morally sober and morally permissible. Abortion at later stages of pregnancy becomes, for reasons I shall outline, multiply more complicated; but it is early abortions - say, abortions in the first half of pregnancy - that are most at stake for women. (shrink)

When you don’t know what to do, you’d better find out. Sometimes the best way to find out is to ask for advice. And when you don’t know what the right thing to do is, it’s sometimes good to rely on moral advice. This straightforward thought spells serious trouble for a popular and widespread approach to moral worth: on this approach, agents deserve moral praise for a right action only if they are acting on (...) class='Hi'>right-making reasons. The first part of this paper argues that cases of moral advice present right-making reasons accounts with a dilemma: depending on how we make the right-making relation precise, we either have to deny that agents who seek out and follow moral advice are morally praiseworthy or we have to credit morally wrong actions by unsavory characters with moral worth. This casts doubt on the claim that acting on right-making reasons can be both necessary or sufficient for moral worth. The second half of the paper explores an alternative proposal: what’s required for moral worth is moral knowledge. This idea has been unpopular in recent literature. My aim is to show that it deserves serious consideration. (shrink)

It is commonly recognized that not all actions are candidates for moral evaluation. For instance, morality is silent on the issue whether to tie one's right shoe before one's left shoe or the other way around. This shoe-tying action is not a candidate for moral appraisal. The matter is amoral, for neither alternative is morally required nor forbidden, and both are permissible. It is not commonly recognized that not all actions are candidates for prudential evaluation. I (...) shall argue, however, that there are cases of individual action over time, as well, that are aprudent in the sense that none of the alternatives under consideration are required or forbidden by prudence, but all of them are permissible. These are cases in which there is no fact of the matter as to what is the best choice for one. There are at least two such cases: first, cases in which the alternative courses of action open to one are incommensurable; and second, cases in which one's values are not yet determined and one is deciding what values to adopt, what sort of person to become, or what ideals to pursue. In these cases, prudence is silent on the question of what one ought to do. Indeed, I go on to argue prudence can even be silent on the question whether to act according to the values one currently holds or to pursue an entirely different course that will result in changes to one's values, which is the third case of aprudent choice. (shrink)

Governments around the world collect huge amounts of personal data from their citizens for counterterrorist purposes. While mining this data has arguably increased the security of populations, the practices through which these data are currently collected in many countries have been criticised for violating individuals’ rights to privacy. Yet it is not clear what a permissible data collection regime would look like and thus also how we could reform existing regimes to make them morally acceptable. This article explores a (...) number of ways in which we might justify a data collection regime to those affected in spite of the setbacks to their privacy. In contrast to existing justifications, I argue that individuals can be asked to surrender their personal data as a requirement of reciprocity in a cooperative system in which they gain security from others doing likewise. Relying on this justification, though, has significant implications for how we should reform existing data collection regimes. In particular, more stringent limits will need to be placed on the forms which these regimes can legitimately take. (shrink)

I argue that there are some situations in which it is praiseworthy to be motivated only by moral rightness de dicto, even if this results in wrongdoing. I consider a set of cases that are challenging for views that dispute this, prioritising concern for what is morally important in moral evaluation. In these cases, the agent is not concerned about what is morally important, does the wrong thing, but nevertheless seems praiseworthy rather than blameworthy. I argue (...) that the views under discussion cannot accommodate this, and should be amended to recognise that it is often praiseworthy to be motivated to do what is right. (shrink)

This paper examines two models of thinking relating to the issue of the right to die in dignity: one takes into consideration the rights and interests of the individual; the other supposes that human life is inherently valuable. I contend that preference should be given to the first model, and further assert that the second model may be justified in moral terms only as long as it does not resort to paternalism. The view that holds that certain patients (...) are not able to comprehend their own interests in a fully rational manner, and therefore ‘we’ know what is good for these patients better than ‘they’ do, is morally unjustifiable. I proceed by refuting the ‘quality of life’ argument, asserting that each person is entitled to decide for herself when it is worth living and when it is not. In this connection, a caveat will be made regarding the role of the family. (shrink)

On the traditional view, moral distress arises only in cases where an individual believes she knows the morally right thing to do but fails to perform that action due to various constraints. We seek to motivate a broader understanding of moral distress. We begin by presenting six types of distress that fall outside the bounds of the traditional definition and explaining why they should be recognized as forms of moral distress. We then propose and defend (...) a new and more expansive definition of moral distress and examine how it can enable the development of a taxonomy of moral distress. (shrink)

Father Williams explains how the conscience is formed through our training and experiences and informed by the Holy Spirit, making it an essential tool for daily living. He uses familiar and surprising characters to illustrate the positive choices conscience can direct--and the disaster that results when a conscience is undeveloped or ignored. Questions he tackles include "Is it more important to be smart or good?""Is there a morally right thing to do in every situation?" and "Is the Christian (...) moral life an exciting adventure, or a necessary burden?" Rich, provocative, and practical for everyday decision making, KNOWING RIGHT FROM WRONG is a must-read for all who hunger for personal holiness. (shrink)

Discussions of whistleblowing whether in academic literature or in more popular media have tended to very one-sided assessments of the moral worth of the act. Indeed, much of the current literature concentrates on psychological or managerial aspects of whistleblowing while taking for granted this or that moral position or eschewing any normative commitment on the question. The purpose of this article is firstly to reemphasise the importance and complexity of the normative foundations of whistleblowing acts; and secondly, through (...) a moral philosophical analysis of the component decisions that make up any act of whistleblowing, to contribute to a more balanced and less polarised treatment of the topic. It is argued that the polarisation of views on the topic is in part due to a failure to decompose the act of whistleblowing into a number of inevitable component moral decisions leading up to the act. It is furthermore argued on the basis of the analysis that it is impossible to state a priori as a matter of general principle that whistleblowing is always morally right or morally wrong . The article will close with a reflection on the degree to which the weighing up of good and bad in the act of whistleblowing differs sharply among cultures; and with a conjecture as to a possible relation to a people's history which may serve as a pointer to interesting future empirical research on the topic. (shrink)

This book investigates the role and significance that examples play in shaping arguments and thought, both in philosophy and in everyday life. It addresses questions about how our moral thinking is informed by our conceptual practices, especially in ways related to the relationship between ethics and literature, post-Wittgensteinian ethics, or meta-philosophical concerns about the style of philosophical writing. Written in an accessible and non-technical style, the book uses examples from real-life events or pieces of well-known fictional stories to (...) introduce its discussions. In doing so, it demonstrates the complex way examples, rather than exemplifying philosophical points, inform and condition how we approach the points for which we want to argue. The author shows how examples guide or block our understanding in certain directions, how they do this by stressing morally relevant aspects or dimensions of the terms, and how the sense of moral seriousness allows us to learn from examples. The final chapter explores whether these kinds of engagement with examples can be understood as "thinking primarily through examples." Examples and Their Role in Our Thinking will be of interest to scholars and graduate students working in ethics and moral philosophy, philosophy of language, and philosophy of literature. (shrink)

The present work lays the foundations for a proposed longer work in which I shall defend an answer to the question whether immoral action is necessarily irrational. Here I first examine the traditional formulations, by Hume and Kant, of the crucial positions in the controversy over whether reason does or does not require us to do right or act well, or forbid us to do wrong or be villainous, and I criticize the views of each of these philosophers. I (...) then show how this issue has been transformed in contemporary philosophy, and address myself specifically to one subsidiary issue, whether there necessarily is a reason for every person to do each act that he or she ought, morally, to do. I then develop and defend an analysis of reasons for action based on our common sense notion of reasons, an account according to which there can be a reason for someone to act even though he or she does nor recognize it. Some moral reasons scepticism is based on the assumption that in order for there to be a reason for someone to act, he must have a desire that he can expect to satisfy by so acting. Consequently I next provide a detailed analysis of the relationship between reasons for action and desires, and argue that, contrary to this assumption, desire-independent reasons are possible, and a number of considerations appear to function this way. I then suggest a new approach to the issue of reasons to be moral, using the results obtained so far and the idea of a pattern of nongoal practical reasoning that it is rational for someone to have. I sketch arguments that might be offered within this approach and some difficulties that will arise, and conclude that, given an objective theory of human values, it will support moral rationalism or something close to it, but without such a theory it will support moral reasons scepticism. (shrink)

Moral philosophers and theologians have long debated the classic moral dilemma of lying to an intruder in order to save a refugee. This dilemma presents an especially difficult challenge to those who reject consequentialist reasoning. Many contemporary defenders of Thomas Aquinas have argued that lying is never permissible under any circumstances, but none has offered a satisfactory answer to the question of what one ought to do when facing such a dilemma. I argue that there can be no (...) morally satisfying answer to this question, because every possible action will involve some degree of sin, even if lying is the least sinful action. This should not lead us to redefine what it means to tell a lie, nor to say that lying to the intruder is a good or right action; rather, it should lead us to acknowledge the tragic dimension of life in a fallen world. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume's Moral Sentimentalism Daniel Shaw In chapter 7 ofhis book, Hume, Barry Stroud considers and rejects a number of standard interpretations of Hume's sentimentalism and then argues for his own 'projectionist' interpretation.1 In this paper I shall commentbriefly on all thesereadings, raise objectionsto Stroud's proposal, and, finally, argue in favour of what I shall call the 'power* interpretation ofHume's sentimentalism. Hume maintains that the vice or virtue ofan (...) action is not a matter offact about the action that can be inferred from anything, by causal orinductive reasoningalone, nor afact that canbe discovered by direct perception ofan action, but that, rather, vice and virtue are matters of moral sentiment. Hume writes, Take any action allow'd to be vicious: Wilful murder, for instance. Examine it in all lights, and see ifyou can find that matter of fact, or real existence, which you call vice. In which-ever way you take it, you find only certain passions, motives, voUtions and thoughts. There is no other matter of fact in the case. The vice entirely escapes you, as long as you consider the object. You never can find it, till you turn your reflexion into your own breast, and find a sentiment of disapprobation which arises in you, towards this action. Here is a matter of fact; but 'tis the object of feeling, not of reason. It lies in yourself, not in the object. So that when you pronounce any action or character to be vicious, you mean nothing, but thatfrom the constitution ofyour nature youhave a feeling or sentiment ofblame from the contemplation of it. Vice andvirtue, therefore, maybe compar'd to sounds, colours, heat and cold, which, according to modern philosophy, are not quaUties in objects, but perceptions in the mind.2 Stroud gives the following explanation ofthis passage: [W]hat we believe or 'pronounce' when we regard an action as vicious is different from and more than anything we can discover by perception of the action or by inference from its observed characteristics to other matters of fact about it. Hume grants that there are certain observable characteristics an action can be known to possess such that when we know Volume XIX Number 1 31 DANIEL SHAW that the action has them we inevitably regard it as vicious. (H 178) In a case of wilful murder, for example, we can discover by (roughly) causal reasoning that one man deliberately and unnecessarily destroyed a human life, and caused great suffering, pain and hardship both to the victim and to others. (H 177) And Hume would grant that when we know that the man's action has these characteristics we inevitably regard it as vicious. But, he quiterightlyinsists that that does notimply thatregarding that action as vicious is simply believing that it has those observable [and inferrable] characteristics. He thinks that pronouncing an action to be vicious is something different and that is why he says that the vice entirely escapes you as long as you consider only the object thought to be vicious. (H 178) Why does Hume think that, for example, believing an act of wilful murder to be vicious cannot consist simply and entirely in beUeving it to possess the observable and inferrable characteristics of being a deliberate and unnecessary destruction of human life which caused great suffering, pain, etc.? Surely, one might think, to believe all that ofan action is all there need be for believing the action to be a morally vicious action. But, of course, Hume would argue that since the above beliefis itselfmerely a conclusion ofperception and causal reasoning, which in itself has no motivating power, and since, by contrast, the judgement that the act is morally vicious, being a moral judgement, must in itselfbe capable ofmotivating us to act, that is, to refrain from murder and do all we can to prevent murder, the latter active motivational moraljudgement must involve something over and above the former inert conclusion ofreason. I would agree with Stroud that Hume is right about this. Imagine a case ofa psychopath whose ability to argue and draw valid inferences is in perfectly good working order but whose motivational and emotional derangement is so severe that... (shrink)

This paper examines two models of thinking relating to the issue of the right to die in dignity: one takes into consideration the rights and interests of the individual; the other supposes that human life is inherently valuable. I contend that preference should be given to the first model, and further assert that the second model may be justified in moral terms only as long as it does not resort to paternalism. The view that holds that certain patients (...) are not able to comprehend their own interests in a fully rational manner, and therefore ‘we’ know what is good for these patients better than ‘they’ do, is morally unjustifiable. I proceed by refuting the ‘quality of life’ argument, asserting that each person is entitled to decide for herself when it is worth living and when it is not. In this connection, a caveat will be made regarding the role of the family. (shrink)

Morality can be painfully demanding so much so that we sometimes question the wisdom of complying with it. Indeed, according to H. A. Prichard, making this argument work is the central preoccupation of moral philosophy. But Prichard also believes that to the extent this is true, the whole subject of moral philosophy rests on a mistake. Moreover, the consensus is not only that we should call these things moral but also that we should be these things, which (...) gives us a clue to the word's meaning. When a person refers to an act by saying, “That's immoral” listeners normally understand the speaker to be saying there is reason not to do the act. This way of understanding the term's use may not fully capture the term's meaning, any more than a set of injunctions to be kind, honest, and peaceful fully covers morality's extension. (shrink)

The aim of the dissertation is to examine critically the nature of, and objections to treating persons as sex objects. My thesis is that the sex object is treated as an object, body, or animal but not also in some other appropriate way, viz. as a moral equal to persons. The sex object is treated as lacking some or all of the rights to well-being and freedom that other persons enjoy. In this way, the sex object is dehumanized in (...) her sexual relations with others. ;The analysis begins with three cases of women who complain about being treated as sex objects by men. A characterization of sex objectification as dehumanization is then introduced to explain both the behavior of the sex objectifier and the specific complaints the sex object makes. An investigation follows detailing any special problems or significance dehumanization in sexual relations might have which it would not in other spheres of personal relations. ;The analysis continues with an examination of the claim that treating women as sex objects is an instance of sexism; also briefly considered are the ways in which a person might be held morally responsible for treating someone as a sex object in a society which fosters certain sexual role expectations for both sexes. A description follows of a variety of cases of treating persons as sex objects, such as treating men as sex objects and treating oneself as a sex object, in order to test and refine the preliminary characterization of sex objectification introduced earlier. ;Finally, I consider what reasons one might have for consenting to one's own sex objectification, and whether, in contemporary western society, it is ever morally permissible for a woman to do so. It is argued that the sex objectification of women perpetuates and legitimizes a negative sexual stereotype of women as the sexual subordinates of men. And I conclude that for men to stop treating women as sex objects would mean a radical restructuring of both our sexual attitudes and the power structures inherent in our larger socio-economic institutions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Commentary on “Sanity and Irresponsibility”Lloyd Fields (bio)AbstractI make two criticisms of Wilson’s proposal to dispense with a loaded axiological criterion of sanity. First, Edwards’s axiological criterion of sanity, which Wilson accepts, involves the requirement of impartiality, which at least excludes some standards of right and wrong. Second, value pluralism applies only to morally acceptable forms of life and thus presupposes a standard of right and wrong. (...) I conclude by noting that mental illnesses are not sufficiently characterised by extreme and persistent deviance from practical rationality, as conceived by Edwards and Wilson.KeywordsSanity, responsibility, mental illness, value pluralismWilson’s paper is set in an important tradition of which Susan Wolf is a notable exemplar. He tackles the crucially important issue of how practical rationality is related to mental health and of how certain forms of irrationality are connected with mental illness. This issue must be taken into account in order to avoid infecting the criteria of sanity with “idiosyncratic or culturally biased norms.” Like Wolf (1989, 137–151), Wilson holds that sanity is a necessary condition of responsibility. But Wilson rejects the second of Wolf’s two criteria of sanity on the grounds that it invokes a definite normative theory of right and wrong. He proposes instead that whether an agent is sane should be decided on the basis of whether s/he displays practical rationality, as defined by Edwards’s list of seven items. Following Edwards, Wilson implicitly equates “sanity” with “mental health” and “insanity” with “mental illness.” By rejecting an axiological criterion of sanity that depends on a normative theory of right and wrong, Wilson is able to ensure that individuals like JoJo are not judged to be insane and hence not morally responsible for their actions. Wilson is right to stress the importance of our not applying notions such as “mental illness” or “insanity” too widely, especially in such a way as to allow blameworthy persons to escape blame and punishment.But are Wilson’s own criteria of sanity free from dependence on a normative theory, or a normative standard, of right and wrong? First, let us note that Wilson states Edwards’s seventh condition of practical rationality as follows: “holding values that are or would be adopted under the conditions of (negative) freedom.” Edwards’s own formulation of this condition is the following: “having values which have been (or would be) adopted under conditions of freedom, enlightenment and impartiality” (1982, 315). Wilson explains “freedom” as the absence of coercion. It is uncertain what “enlightenment” means in this context. Impartiality would seem to include being impartial between oneself and others and between one’s own tribe, nation or race and that of others. Although this requirement is perhaps too general to be regarded as a sufficient standard [End Page 303] of right and wrong, it is at least part of such normative theories as utilitarianism and Kant’s moral theory, while it is inconsistent with ethical egoism, i.e., the view that an action is right or wrong depending on whether it serves or frustrates the agent’s overall best interests. One could dispute Wilson’s claim, therefore, that Edwards’s seventh item is not a “loaded” axiological criterion.Second, Wilson maintains that we can avoid assuming a loaded axiological criterion for sanity by adopting the position of value pluralism. Wolf’s axiological criterion for sanity is that the agent should be capable of knowing the difference between right and wrong. Wilson holds that this criterion, as presented, invokes a normative theory of right and wrong. The criterion would not do so if it were applied in accordance with value pluralism, which, Wilson says, “rejects the notion that there is one monolithic theory of right and wrong without denying that an actor may behave virtuously or viciously.” Wilson appears to assume that an “unloaded” version of Wolf’s axiological criterion would be more or less equivalent to Edwards’s seventh condition of practical rationality.Value pluralism maintains that there are incompatible forms of life that display distinct virtues. “Whichever form of life one is pursuing there are virtues which elude one because they are available only to people pursuing alternative and... (shrink)

In 2010, the Venter lab announced that it had created the first bacterium with an entirely synthetic genome. This was reported to be the first instance of ‘artificial life,’ and in the ethical and policy discussions that followed it was widely assumed that the creation of artificial life is in itself morally significant. We cast doubt on this assumption. First we offer an account of the creation of artificial life that distinguishes this from the derivation of organisms from existing (...) life and clarify what we mean in asking whether the creation of artificial life has moral significance. We then articulate and evaluate three attempts to establish that the creation of artificial life is morally significant. These appeal to the claim that the creation of artificial life involves playing God, as expressed in three distinct formulations; the claim that the creation of artificial life will encourage reductionist attitudes toward the living world that undermine the special moral value accorded to life; and the worry that artificial organisms will have an uncertain functional status and consequently an uncertain moral status. We argue that all three attempts to ground the moral significance of the creation of artificial life fail, because none of them establishes that the creation of artificial life is morally problematic in a way that the derivation of organisms from existing life forms is not. We conclude that the decisive moral consideration is not how life is created but what non-genealogical properties it possesses. (shrink)

Suppose there are two people having a moral disagreement about, say, abortion. They argue in a familiar way about whether fetuses have rights, whether a woman’s right to autonomy over her body overrides the fetus’s welfare, and so on. But then suppose one of the people says “Oh, it’s all just a matter of opinion; there’s no objective fact about whether fetuses have rights. When we say that something is morally forbidden, all we’re really doing is expressing (...) our disapproval of it.” The other person protests: “No!—that’s totally wrong. Of course there are objective moral truths.” And suppose their dispute now settles on this new matter of whether there are objective moral facts, and the debate continues. They’ve now stopped discussing abortion, and are discussing the nature of any moral debate about abortion; they’ve stopped doing ethics, and started doing metaethics. If wondering about what one morally ought to do is to engage in ethical thought, then wondering about what one is doing when one wonders about what one morally ought to do is to engage in metaethical thought. When we make public moral judgments are we stating facts, or are we just expressing our opinions? And if there are moral facts, then what kind of fact are they? Can moral judgments be true or false? Can moral judgments be justified, and if so how? These kinds of questions are the domain of metaethics. (I’m not saying that there is a crisp and principled line to be drawn between meta-ethics and regular ethical discourse; but it is, if nothing else, a pedagogically useful division of labor.). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Proof and Persuasion in the Philosophical Debate about AbortionChris KaposyPhilosophers involved in debating the abortion issue often assume that the arguments they provide can offer decisive resolution.1 Arguments on the prolife side of the debate, for example, usually imply that it is rationally mandatory to view the fetus as having a right to life, or full moral standing.2 Such an account assumes that philosophical argument can compel (...) the reader to see the fetus in a certain way and that dissent risks irrationality.I wish to question this image of the use of philosophical argument in the abortion debate. I focus on the question of fetal moral standing, which is one of the subproblems in the debate. I am especially concerned with prolife arguments for fetal moral standing, since the prolife side must argue for a position that is compulsory. The prochoice side, in contrast, typically holds that people are entitled to believe what they want about the fetus’s moral standing.My position is that philosophical arguments should be understood as tools for persuasion in the abortion debate rather than as a method for discovering decisive proofs about the morality of abortion. I argue that because any one position on the moral standing of fetuses cannot be established decisively, law and policy should favour the prochoice position. In support of these conclusions, I present two common argumentative strategies used to suggest that the prolife view of the fetus is rationally [End Page 139] mandatory, and I illustrate why arguments involving these strategies do not compel us to view the fetus as having full moral standing.Framing the IssueIn order to show that abortion is wrong (in cases in which it is considered wrong), one must first establish that fetuses have full moral standing.3 It is a serious moral wrong to take the life of someone with full moral standing—this is part of what it means to have this status. The possessor of full moral standing is entitled to have his or her life protected. If abortion is wrong, then the fetus must have full moral standing, because without such standing, killing a fetus could be justified by the pregnant woman’s strong interest in ending an unwanted pregnancy. Those arguing against the moral permissibility of abortion must show that it is mandatory (in some way) to view the fetus as having full moral standing. There are a range of positions one could take with regard to the fetus’s status, from viewing the fetus as an incipient organism with no moral standing to seeing the fetus as gaining moral standing as the pregnancy progresses. But if it is mandatory to view the fetus as having full moral standing, all other positions must then be mistaken, incorrect, or somehow unjustified.This paper analyzes why philosophers opposed to abortion think it is mandatory to attribute full moral standing to fetuses. There are two popular argumentative strategies offering different accounts of the source of this obligation. The first strategy suggests that fetal full moral standing derives from morally relevant facts about the fetus. According to this line of argument, we are rationally obligated to view the fetus as having full moral standing because we cannot deny (without courting irrationality) that there are properties, characteristics, or attributes of the fetus that entitle it to this status.The second strategy is to claim that the fetus has full moral standing because this position is most consistent with our intuitions in cases unrelated to abortion. Philosophers taking this approach are fond of analogies comparing fetuses to comatose adults or to people at the end of life, for example. This strategy of appealing to your interlocutor’s sense of consistency I call the “shared-value” strategy.The two strategies map very well onto the distinction some have made between argumentum ad rem and argumentum ad hominem. The philosopher of rhetoric Henry Johnstone Jr. draws this distinction in very clear terms, and others in the history of philosophy make note of the difference [End Page 140] between these two types of arguments as well.4 The appeal to the facts (or argumentum ad rem) seeks to establish the truth of its... (shrink)

In this paper, I wish to examine the plausibility of two distinct but interrelated claims that might arise out of reading the Mozi . First, I want to examine the plausibility of understanding Mohist philosophy as quite naturalistic, notwithstanding the Mozi’s apparent discussion of a Heaven (tian 天) that has desires, likes, and dislikes and ghosts and spirits who do Heaven’s bidding. In this vein, I wonder if the Mohists think that it is simply a fact of the universe that (...) Heaven cares for all humans impartially, in much the same way that certain other thinkers in the Chinese tradition understand Heaven as having a set of regularities that can be understood and acted upon. Arising from this may be the idea that the right thing to do, in a hypothetical rather than categorical sense, is to accord with Heaven. -/- This then leads to the second part of this paper – questioning the substantive moral normativity often ascribed to the Mozi. Once we remove the supra-natural understanding of Heaven from Mohist thought, we may understand the normativity within as a non-moral normativity. Perhaps it is not that we morally ought to accord with Heaven’s will and act impartially or morally ought to accord with the natural world and follow the Dao. Rather, these can simply be seen as success criteria. Insofar as we wish to have a strong, flourishing, and prosperous state – or, in the Mozi’s terms a wealthy, populous and well-ordered state – it is necessary to accord with how the world is actually structured. (shrink)

Much contemporary art seems morally out of control. Yet, philosophers seem to have trouble finding the right way to morally evaluate works of art. The debate between autonomists and moralists, I argue, has turned into a stalemate due to two mistaken assumptions. Against these assumptions, I argue that the moral nature of a work's contents does not transfer to the work and that, if we are to morally evaluate works we should try to conceive of (...) them as moral agents. Ethical autonomism holds that art's autonomy consists in its demand that art appreciators take up an artistic attitude. A work's agency then is in how it merits their audiences' attitudinal switch. Ethical autonomism allows for the moral assessment of art works without giving up their autonomy, by viewing artistic merit as a moral category and art-relevant moral evaluation as having the form of art criticism. (shrink)

While the unprecedented lockdown measures were at the heart of the debate in the first year of the pandemic, the focus since then has shifted to vaccination issues. The reason, of course, is that vaccines and vaccinations have become available by now. All experts agree: If mankind had failed to develop vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, the death toll would have been much higher. This issue seeks to explore what could be described as a “generational approach to vaccinations”. The question “What can (...) we do to avoid future pandemics?” is related to different aspects of the failures and successes of humanity’s vaccination strategy against SARS-CoV-2. Pathogens are among the existential risks to humanity that could potentially kill a large part of it in a very short time. For all the tragedy and horror it has brought upon the world, the Corona virus has not been lethal on such a large, all-encompassing scale. But it could serve as a wake-up call for more and better prevention in the future, put differently: as a call to build a “preventive society”. When people look back to the year 2022 from the year 2200, will they think of the absence of mandatory vaccination as a dangerous anachronism? And will the unequal global distribution of vaccines be seen as an unbearable vice of our epoch? And will “human infection studies” still be dismissed as unethical if a dangerous new virus boards human bodies? If intergenerational justice means improving the life chances and living conditions of future generations to the largest possible extent, then its link to (the avoidance) of infectious diseases is obvious. We should protect future generations from foreseeable damage if we have the power to do so. “We” is humankind in its entirety. Politically, humanity is divided into many single nations. But biologically, as members of the same species, we share the same vulnerability regardless of ethnicity. The regular reader of this journal might wonder why this issue of IGJR has a different structure. An unprecedented pandemic calls for an unprecedented reaction and therefore IGJR 1/2021 and 2/2021 are special issues that deal with this disruptive event. We have invited several health experts, politicians and scholars alike to share their perspectives in short opinion pieces (instead of regular peer-reviewed articles). And we are exploring something new: the publication of a FRFG policy paper. This policy paper starts off with a historical overview on how pandemics have afflicted humanity in the past. It separates moral from legal duties and formulates “epidemiological imperatives” – the way of thinking of a responsible and solidary individual facing the task of preventing an outbreak of epidemics in a community. With the discovery of vaccines, and their availability, the catalogue of duties is increased by one more: to get the jabs as an act of solidarity with others, including future generations. This would prevent states from being forced to take disease control measures that bring about drastic collateral damage. During the first two years of the Corona pandemic, states have imposed lockdowns. The closure of schools has put a special burden on the youngest members of society. This could have been prevented during the second and the further waves. The policy paper also calls for more government funding for prophylactic vaccine research and for the designation of vaccines as “global public goods”. The issue then moves on to a section dedicated to opinion papers by various different authors. The first paper, written by Agnes Binagwaho and Kedest Mathewos (both from University of Global Health Equity, Rwanda), focuses on the issue of health inequity, a concern which has gained more and more traction during the Covid-19 pandemic. The paper examines how vaccine distribution during the pandemic was mainly focused on the global north and how such actions might affect future generations’ perception of what is just, fair and morally correct. The second paper, by Samantha Vanderslott (University of Oxford), focuses on the right and wrongdoings connected to pandemic preparedness and response. The third paper, authored by Rajeev Sadanandan (Health Systems Transformation Platform, India), talks about the lessons that can and should be drawn from child immunisations. The fourth paper, by Adriano Mannino (LMU and Parmenides Foundation, Munich), delves into the question how future generations will assess our actions and our response to the current pandemic. The fifth and final paper, written by Jörg Tremmel (FRFG and University Tübingen), is centered around the question whether human infection studies could have been implemented during the early stages of the pandemic to minimise deaths and severe infections. The issue concludes with two reviews on recent books by Alberto Giubilini and Katie Wright. In his review of Giubilini’s The Ethics of Vaccination, Marius Kunte notes that it contains a “thought-provoking plea” for individual, collective and institutional obligations to reach high vaccination rates. Judith Kausch-Zongo concludes her review of Wright’s Gender, Migration and the Intergenerational Transfer of Human Wellbeing with a special emphasis on the book’s empirical findings, and praises it in its entirety as “undoubtedly important”. Both books serve as poignant reminders of how sustainable societies can only emerge once the challenges revolving around its most vulnerable members have been properly addressed. (shrink)

Conventionalism about property is the view that all moral duties correlative to property rights depend essentially either on the existence of a convention that assigns conventional ownership of objects, or on the existence of a body of positive law that confers legal property rights. It has been objected that, if Conventionalism about property is true, then it is impossible for someone to have her property right violated by someone who is not a member of the community in which (...) her conventional property right is assigned. But it is possible. When Christopher Columbus sailed up to the island of Hispaniola in 1492, he and his sailors wronged the inhabitants by forcing them off their land. So, Conventionalism is false. This is the Outsider Challenge for Conventionalism. The Outsider Challenge (and its first premise, in particular) receives support from the Benefit Condition, according to which one can be morally obligated to comply with a conventional rule only if one benefits or has one’s interests protected by the convention of which it is a part. Despite its provenance and plausibility, however, I think that the Benefit Condition should be rejected. Doing so in a principled way allows us to square Conventionalism with our moral intuitions and, thus, address the Outsider Challenge. My main aim in this essay is to reject the Benefit Condition in one such principled way by providing a Contractualist answer to the question of when, and why, someone is morally required to respect another’s conventional property right. One is morally required to respect the conventional property rights of another when and because failing to do so would run afoul of the Principle of Established Practices (pep) – a principle for which I give a Contractualist justification. Roughly, the pep requires us to comply with sufficiently just social practices in the absence of special justification, and the fact that one’s interests are not protected by a property convention is not always a sufficiently strong reason for one to violate the duties assigned by that convention. Since the fact that one’s interests are not protected by a property convention is not necessarily a special justification for violating the pep, the pep gives us reason to reject the Benefit Condition and, thus, the Outsider Challenge, too. (shrink)

One of the central claims of most religious people is that morality is based upon religion or, more specifically, on a belief in God. A morality which is not God-centred not only cannot provide a genuine basis for moral beliefs but is really and truly groundless. For without a belief in the sovereignty of God, there can be no genuine adequate foundation for moral beliefs. In his recent book, Ethics Without God , Kai Nielsen claims that this view (...) is grossly mistaken. According to Nielsen, morality cannot be based on religion because moral claims cannot be derived from religious cosmological claims such as ‘God is Creator’, or ‘God exists’. ‘God wills X’, ‘God commands X’, do not entail ‘X ought to be done’, or ‘I ought to do X’. It is perfectly in order for someone to say that God wills X, but is X good? It is also perfectly in order for someone to say that God commands me to do X, but why should I obey God? Surely it cannot be because God is powerful and, if I do not obey his commands, he will punish me. It may be prudent and expedient to obey God because I am afraid of punishment, but this is surely not a morally good reason for obeying him. Moral obligations follow God's commands only if it is assumed that God is morally perfect or that he is good or that his commands are right . But I cannot know that God is good without an understanding of what it is for something to be good. To be sure, ‘God is good’, is a truth of language, but in order to understand it we must have a prior understanding of goodness- an understanding which is ‘logically prior to, and independent of, any understanding or acknowledgement of God’ . Moreover, Nielsen argues, the religious quest is a quest to find a being that is ‘worthy of worship’, but it is by our own moral insight that we decide that any being, any Z, is ‘worthy of worship’. The decision that there is a Z such that Z is worthy of worship is a moral judgment which is in no way dependent upon the will of God. But more than this, ‘God’, in ‘God is worthy of worship’, is, in most cases, used analytically so that anyone who is brought to say ‘My God’, or ‘My Lord and my God’, is using ‘God’ evaluatively and by implication making a moral judgment - a moral judgment which is logically prior to the will or command of God. This leads Nielsen to conclude. (shrink)

I propose that shock can be morally significant independently of its consequences but only as part of an ongoing commitment to certain norms, in particular norms that constitute recognizing another as a person. When we witness others in agony, or being severely wronged, or when we ourselves severely wrong or mistreat others, our shock can reflect our recognition of them as persons, a recognition constituted by our commitment to certain moral norms. However, if we do not in fact (...) respond to the suffering or wrong in accordance with these norms—if, for example, we do not act to relieve their suffering or to properly address the wrong done, and do not avoid or prevent its recurrence—then our commitment to the relevant norms is undermined. When we consistently violate the norms whose violation initially shocked us, our lingering shock upon repeated violations gradually loses its significance and becomes a mere impulse—a fossil of a past commitment, so to speak—before it disappears completely. The failure to be shocked in such instances marks the failure of our moral commitments, which is the failure to recognize others as persons. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Proof and Persuasion in the Philosophical Debate about AbortionChris KaposyPhilosophers involved in debating the abortion issue often assume that the arguments they provide can offer decisive resolution.1 Arguments on the prolife side of the debate, for example, usually imply that it is rationally mandatory to view the fetus as having a right to life, or full moral standing.2 Such an account assumes that philosophical argument can compel (...) the reader to see the fetus in a certain way and that dissent risks irrationality.I wish to question this image of the use of philosophical argument in the abortion debate. I focus on the question of fetal moral standing, which is one of the subproblems in the debate. I am especially concerned with prolife arguments for fetal moral standing, since the prolife side must argue for a position that is compulsory. The prochoice side, in contrast, typically holds that people are entitled to believe what they want about the fetus’s moral standing.My position is that philosophical arguments should be understood as tools for persuasion in the abortion debate rather than as a method for discovering decisive proofs about the morality of abortion. I argue that because any one position on the moral standing of fetuses cannot be established decisively, law and policy should favour the prochoice position. In support of these conclusions, I present two common argumentative strategies used to suggest that the prolife view of the fetus is rationally [End Page 139] mandatory, and I illustrate why arguments involving these strategies do not compel us to view the fetus as having full moral standing.Framing the IssueIn order to show that abortion is wrong (in cases in which it is considered wrong), one must first establish that fetuses have full moral standing.3 It is a serious moral wrong to take the life of someone with full moral standing—this is part of what it means to have this status. The possessor of full moral standing is entitled to have his or her life protected. If abortion is wrong, then the fetus must have full moral standing, because without such standing, killing a fetus could be justified by the pregnant woman’s strong interest in ending an unwanted pregnancy. Those arguing against the moral permissibility of abortion must show that it is mandatory (in some way) to view the fetus as having full moral standing. There are a range of positions one could take with regard to the fetus’s status, from viewing the fetus as an incipient organism with no moral standing to seeing the fetus as gaining moral standing as the pregnancy progresses. But if it is mandatory to view the fetus as having full moral standing, all other positions must then be mistaken, incorrect, or somehow unjustified.This paper analyzes why philosophers opposed to abortion think it is mandatory to attribute full moral standing to fetuses. There are two popular argumentative strategies offering different accounts of the source of this obligation. The first strategy suggests that fetal full moral standing derives from morally relevant facts about the fetus. According to this line of argument, we are rationally obligated to view the fetus as having full moral standing because we cannot deny (without courting irrationality) that there are properties, characteristics, or attributes of the fetus that entitle it to this status.The second strategy is to claim that the fetus has full moral standing because this position is most consistent with our intuitions in cases unrelated to abortion. Philosophers taking this approach are fond of analogies comparing fetuses to comatose adults or to people at the end of life, for example. This strategy of appealing to your interlocutor’s sense of consistency I call the “shared-value” strategy.The two strategies map very well onto the distinction some have made between argumentum ad rem and argumentum ad hominem. The philosopher of rhetoric Henry Johnstone Jr. draws this distinction in very clear terms, and others in the history of philosophy make note of the difference [End Page 140] between these two types of arguments as well.4 The appeal to the facts (or argumentum ad rem) seeks to establish the truth of its... (shrink)

One way to defend the Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP) against Frankfurt‐style cases is to challenge the claim that agents in these scenarios are genuinely morally responsible for what they do. Alternatively, one can grant that agents are morally responsible for what they do in these cases but resist the idea that they could not have done otherwise. This latter strategy is known as the flicker defense of PAP. In an argument he calls the W‐Defense, David Widerker adopts (...) the former approach. I argue that, while Widerker's argument does a poor job showing that these agents are not morally responsible for what they do, it does a very good job highlighting the alternative possibilities that remain open to agents in these cases and illustrating their moral significance (or robustness). In doing so, my aim is to co‐opt Widerker's argument to bolster the most promising versions of the flicker defense. (shrink)

Sexes are normally taken to be fundamental categories in biology – many sexually reproducing organisms fall under the categories of female/male. Much research aims at explaining differences between sexes. Sexual selection forms a central framework for explaining “typical” distributions of traits among sexes, and explicating circumstances leading to “reversal”. I claim sexual selection models needn’t make use of sexes, that sexes lack explanatory significance in such models. I offer a framework of reproductive dimorphism and argue it’s better than that (...) of sexes, because it (i) is more compatible with explanations of sexual selection and (ii) allows for their greater applicability. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe article uses the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in the same-sex marriage caseObergefell v. Hodgesas the springboard for a general enquiry into the nature and existence of a constitutional right to liberty under the American Constitution. The discussion is divided into two main parts. The first examines the meaning and the justifiability of there being a moral right to liberty as a matter of political philosophy. Two such rights are distinguished and defended: first, a right (...) not to be coerced by the state when the state is motivated by improper reasons ; and second, a right not to be coerced by the state when there are insufficient justifying reasons for the state to do so, irrespective of how such state coercion may be motivated. Neither right is regarded as “absolute,” and so it is morally permissible for the state to override such rights in certain circumstances. The second part of the article examines the distinct and additional considerations that must be taken into account when these two moral rights to liberty are fashioned into corresponding legal rights under American constitutional law. Both such rights survive the transformation, but each becomes altered somewhat in its content. This legal transformation includes recognition of the nonabsolute nature of moral rights, such recognition taking the form of some doctrine of “compelling state interests.” The discussion in these two main parts of the article is prefaced with a defense of the article's use of political philosophy to inform constitutional law, a defense motivated by Chief Justice Robert's denunciation of such an approach to constitutional law in his opinion inObergefell. (shrink)

In Chapter Seven of The Case for Animal Rights’ Tom Regan propounds and analyzes a concept of inherent value. He then argues that all humans and animals that satisfy what he calls the “subject-of-a-life criterion” have this kind of value and have it equally. In Chapter Eight of the book Regan draws a close connection between an individual’s having inherent value and its being a bearer of moral rights. I shall examine each of these points in turn in the (...) first two sections of this paper. The third and last section will discuss some aspects of the relation between duties and rights. Although my investigations raise certain criticisms of Regan’s views I do not wish to give the impression that his book as a whole is unworthy of serious attention. On the contrary, it seems to me that the book presents the most convincing and best-argued position yet published on the moral duties humans have to animals. What is more, many parts of the book make significant advances on a broad range of more traditional problems in normative ethics, including those that concern human relationships alone. (shrink)

Lisa Hill’s response to my critique of compulsory voting, like similar responses in print or in discussion, remind me how much a child of the ‘70s I am, and how far my beliefs and intuitions about politics have been shaped by the electoral conflicts, social movements and violence of that period. -/- But my perceptions of politics have also been profoundly shaped by my teachers, and fellow graduate students, at MIT. Theda Skocpol famously urged political scientists to ‘bring the state (...) back in’ to their analyses, and to recognise that political identities, interests and coalitions cannot be read off straightforwardly from people’s socio-economic position. In their different ways, this was the lesson that Suzanne Berger, Charles Sabel and Joshua Cohen tried to teach us, emphasising the ways that political participation and conflict, themselves, can change people’s identities, their sense of what it is desirable and possible, and their ability to recognise, or oppose, the freedom and equality of others. -/- I do not therefore take it as self-evident that the poor and seemingly powerless should be politically apathetic, unwilling to vote, or incapable of imagining a political solution to at least some of the problems confronting them. Nor do I suppose that non-voters are all-of-a-piece, and that their shared interests are, inevitably, more significant, morally or politically, than those which divide them. Such assumptions seem mistaken in the case of voters, and I see no reason why they should be true of non-voters. The people we find in these categories are not predestined to be in one rather than the other; they do not always stay where they start off; and at an individual level, the reasons why people fall into one group, rather than another, are likely to be complex and sometimes unpredictable. -/- Above all I see nothing in a commitment to democratic government, understood realistically or in more idealistic terms, that requires us to treat raising turnout at national elections (once every four years or so) as of such moral or political importance that we should make it legally mandatory. Realistically, it is an open question how far the ballot box is, for most people, the path to empowerment – important though it is that people should have an equal right to vote and to stand as candidates at national elections. On a more idealistic view of democratic politics it is hard to avoid the thought that the importance of national elections to self-government, posited by proponents of compulsory voting, reflects an alienated and alienating view of democracy, in which the choice of our leaders becomes more important than the development and exercise of our own capacities to lead; and in which our awe at the power our leaders might wield is matched only by our inability to imagine less intimidating, distant and centralised forms of politics. -/- But before saying a little more about these points, and their significance for compulsory voting, I would like to dispel some misunderstandings or misrepresentations of my views in Hill’s essay. I do not believe socio-economic disparities in turnout are not worrying for democratic politics, nor do I believe that abstention is generally synonymous with consent. I do not assume that people have a right not to vote, but try to explain why moral and legal rights to abstain are an important part of democratic politics, including electoral politics. (shrink)

A response to critical commentaries. Crookston begins her commentary by noting that my book would have been better with answers to “the following three questions: (1) Why is the harm principle the right principle upon which to base a theory of toleration? (2) How is Cohen thinking of the concept of volenti? (p. x ) Is interference (i.e., the abandonment of toleration) ever morally required by the harm principle?” (p. x ). She is right, and I address (...) these questions below in Sections 2, 3, and 4. That is the bulk of this essay. I then turn to Kelley's issues in Sections 6, 7, and 8; these have to do with “the link between toleration and relativism,” the way I distinguish “the concepts of toleration and endurance,” and a “question about moral toleration” (p. x ). Despite much agreement, there are points of contention and I try to make my position clearer in response . (shrink)

I argue that the existence of sexual dimorphism poses a profound challenge to those philosophers who wish to deny the moral significance of the idea of ‘normal human capacities’ in debates about the ethics of human enhancement. The biological sex of a child will make a much greater difference to their life prospects than many of the genetic variations that the philosophical and bioethical literature has previously been concerned with. It seems, then, that bioethicists should have something to (...) say about the choice between a male and a female embryo. Either, 1) parents have reason to choose boys over girls; (2) parents have reason to choose girls over boys; or, (3) parents have neither reason to choose girls over boys nor reason to choose boys over girls. Embracing either of the first two alternatives has strongly counterintuitive – and arguably morally repugnant – consequences. To motivate the third option we must either make reference to the idea of ‘normal human capacities’ or argue that parents should consider the interests of society when thinking about what sort of children they should bring into the world – an implication that should be extremely controversial in debates about the ‘new eugenics’. I conclude, then, that the idea of ‘normal human capacities’ is properly crucial to reasoning about the ethics of shaping future persons. (shrink)