Unprecedented advances in medicine, genetic engineering, and demographic forecasting raise new questions that strain the categories and assumptions of traditional ethical theories. Heyd's approach resolves many paradoxes in intergenerational justice, while offering a major test case for the profound problems of the limits of ethics and the nature of value.

David Heyd's study will stimulate philosophers to recognise the importance of the rather neglected topic of the distinctiveness of supererogation and the ...

Actions that go 'beyond the call of duty' are a common though not commonplace part of everyday life - in heroism, self-sacrifice, mercy, volunteering, or simply in small deeds of generosity and consideration. Almost universally they enjoy a high and often unique esteem and significance, and are regarded as, somehow, peculiarly good. Yet it is not easy to explain how - for if duty exhausts the moral life there is no scope to praise supererogatory acts, and if the consequentialist is (...) right there are no grounds for awarding them a special status. However, despite the distinctiveness of supererogation and the difficulty of accounting for it, philosophers have paid surprisingly little attention to the concept, and until now no thorough and systematic treatment of it has been proposed. This is what David Heyd offers in this book. His study will stimulate philosophers to recognise the importance of this rather neglected topic, and to take a fresh critical look at their theories in the light of its singular importance. (shrink)

If we are to understand the concept of toleration in terms of everyday life, we must address a key philosophical and political tension: the call for restraint when encountering apparently wrong beliefs and actions versus the good reasons for interfering with the lives of the subjects of these beliefs and actions. This collection contains original contributions to the ongoing debate on the nature of toleration, including its definition, historical development, justification, and limits. In exploring the issues surrounding toleration, the essays (...) address a variety of provocative questions. Is toleration a moral virtue of individuals or rather a pragmatic political compromise? Is it an intrinsically good principle or only a "second best-solution" to the dangers of fanaticism to be superseded one day by the full acceptance of others? Does the value of toleration lie in respect to individuals and their autonomy, or rather in the recognition of the right of minority groups to maintain their communal identity? Throughout, the contributors point to the inherent indeterminacy of the concept and to the difficulty in locating it between intolerant absolutism and skeptical pluralism. Religion, sex, speech, and education are major areas requiring toleration in liberal societies. By applying theoretical analysis, these essays show the differences in the argument for toleration and its scope in each of these realms. The contributors include Joshua Cohen, George Fletcher, Gordon Graham, Alon Harel, Moshe Halbertal, Barbara Herman, John Horton, Will Kymlicka, Avishai Margalit, David Richards, Thomas Scanlon, and Bernard Williams. (shrink)

Actions that go 'beyond the call of duty' are a common though not commonplace part of everyday life - in heroism, self-sacrifice, mercy, volunteering, or simply in small deeds of generosity and consideration. Almost universally they enjoy a high and often unique esteem and significance, and are regarded as, somehow, peculiarly good. Yet it is not easy to explain how - for if duty exhausts the moral life there is no scope to praise supererogatory acts, and if the consequentialist is (...) right there are no grounds for awarding them a special status. However, despite the distinctiveness of supererogation and the difficulty of accounting for it, philosophers have paid surprisingly little attention to the concept, and until now no thorough and systematic treatment of it has been proposed. This is what David Heyd offers in this book. His study will stimulate philosophers to recognise the importance of this rather neglected topic, and to take a fresh critical look at their theories in the light of its singular importance. (shrink)

In his recent work, Parfit returns to the examination of the non-identity problem, but this time not in the context of a theory of value but as part of a Scanlonian theory of reasons for action. His project is to find a middle ground between pure impersonalism and the narrow person-affecting view so as to do justice to some of our fundamental intuitions regarding procreative choices. The aim of this article is to show that despite the sophisticated and challenging thought (...) experiments and conceptual suggestions , Parfit’s project fails and that we are left with the stark choice between personalism and impersonalism. (shrink)

In his classical article, ‘Saints and Heroes’, James Urmson single-handedly revived the idea of supererogation from it astonishingly long post-Reformation slumber. During the first two decades after its publication, Urmson's challenge was taken up almost exclusively by either utilitarians or deontologists of some sort. On the face of it, neither classical utilitarianism nor Kant's categorical imperative makes room for action which is better than the maximizing requirement, on the one hand, or beyond the requirement of duty, on the other. Nevertheless, (...) both utilitarians and Kantians, as well as deontic logicians, offered more flexible and sophisticated versions of their respective theories which could accommodate supererogatory action. In my 1982 book on supererogation I tried to address the question whether virtue ethics could capture that new category of actions which are praiseworthy though not strictly required. But the focus of my discussion was mostly Aristotle and accordingly more interpretive in nature. However, that was just before the tremendous surge of interest in virtue ethics and the vast literature debating the merits of agent-based vs. action-based approaches in moral theory. It turned out that fitting supererogation into virtue-based moral theory proved to be a more difficult task than doing so in consequentialist and deontological theories. Some argued that supererogation could nevertheless be accounted for in aretaic terms; others held that it could not and that this fact attested to either a theoretical weakness – even if not a refutation – of virtue-based ethics, or to the incoherence of the concept of supererogation. (shrink)

'May one be pardon’ d and retain the offence?’ asks King Claudius in his tormented monologue in Hamlet. Forgiveness appears incompatible with the retention of the offence, both in the sense of enjoying its consequences and in the sense of the subsistence of the attitude which underlay the offensive act. There are, however, views which allow for, even admire, an attitude of forgiveness towards people who have ‘retained’ their offense in some way. This idea of forgiveness is harder to justify, (...) since no change has taken place in the agent. We suggest that the concept of toleration can serve as an illuminating clue in such an analysis. The tolerant attitude involves a certain kind of reconciliation with people who not only have done something wrong in the past, but insist on sticking to their objectionable conduct in the present and the future. Tolerance, in other words, is not conditioned by repentance or by commitment to behavioral transformation; it is a kind of unconditional ‘forgiveness’ in advance. (shrink)

Solidarity is analysed in contradistinction from two adjacent concepts - justice and sympathy. It is argued that unlike the other two, it is essentially local , partial and reflective . Although not to be confused with justice, solidarity is presented as underlying any contract-based system of justice, since it defines the contours of the group within which the contract is taking place. Finally, due to the fact that health is a typically universal value and being a primary good it is (...) something which should be distributed justly, solidarity seems not to have any central role in bioethics. (shrink)

The article discusses the issue of the justification of experimenting on human subjects from the point of view of the individual participant. The discussion is conducted on three levels, which can be viewed as a hierarchy:I. Rationality: does one have good self-regarding reasons to subject oneself to medical experimentation?II. Justice: does one have a duty or an obligation to take part in medical research?III. Virtue: ought one contribute to the long-term attempt to promote medical knowledge and the overall health of (...) human beings?Rationality is shown to have only a limited force in such a justification, since many experiments cannot be shown to serve the interests of the participant in any way. Justice fares slightly better, since it is based on the idea of a social contract which goes beyond individual prudence. But, since many medical experiments promote the health only of future generations, the condition of mutuality, which is one of the bases of a social contract, is not satisfied. Thus, the ultimate reason to take part in medical research is associated with the supererogatory volunteering of people, who are motivated by the wish to contribute to a highly valuable enterprise with no expectation of return.The three types of reasons are complementary rather than exclusive, and the potential failure of all of them may lead to the undesirable commercialization of the field. Der Beitrag untersucht die Frage, ob und wie medizinische Versuche an Menschen aus der Sicht des einzelnen Teilnehmers gerechtfertigt werden können. Die Diskussion dieser Frage wird auf drei Ebenen geführt, die sich in einem Stufenverhältnis darstellen lassen,I. der Ebene der Zweckrationalität: Gibt es gute Gründe, und zwar durchaus des individuellen Eigennutzes, sich selbst für medizinische Versuche zur Verfügung zu stellen?II. der Ebene der Gerechtigkeit: Besteht eine Pflicht oder eine Verbindlichkeit zur Teilnahme an medizinischer Forschung?III. der Ebene der Tugend: Soll man zu dem auf lange Sicht angelegten Versuch beitragen, das medizinische Wissen und die Gesundheit der Menschen insgesamt zu fördern?Es wird gezeigt, daß das Argument der Zweckrationalität für eine mögliche Rechtfertigung nur von begrenzter Bedeutung ist. Denn viele Experimente dienen den Interessen des unmittelbaren Teilnehmers nachweislich in keiner Weise. Das Argument der Gerechtigkeit hat zwar eine etwas größere Kraft, weil Gerechtigkeit auf der Idee eines Gesellschaftsvertrags beruht, die über den Horizont individueller Klugheit hinausreicht. Da aber viele medizinische Experimente nur die Gesundheit zukünftiger Generationen fördern, ist die Bedingung der Gegenseitigkeit, die eine der Grundlagen des Gesellschaftsvertrags bildet, nicht erfüllt. Der dritte und letzte Grund für eine Teilnahme an medizinischer Forschung steht deshalb in enger Verbindung mit dem freiwilligen supererogatorischen Verhalten von Leuten, die durch den Wunsch motiviert sind, ohne Aussicht auf Gegenleistung zu einer höchst wertvollen Unternehmung etwas beizutragen.Die drei Arten von Gründen ergänzen sich mehr, als daß sie sich ausschließen. Ein mögliches Scheitern aller dieser Gründe könnte zu einer unerwünschten Kommerzialisierung der Teilnahme an medizinischen Experimenten führen. (shrink)

Some modern critics of Kant, like Bernard Williams, argue that his ideal of morality is a form of action which lies beyond any empirical determination. The aim of this article is to show that Kant was not only fully aware of the role of contingent elements in moral action, but that his fundamental conception of practical rationality is itself partly constituted by contingent factors. Practical rationality cannot be separated from its exercise and hence from the necessary empirical conditions of human (...) psychology and historical circumstances. Without a maxim there can be no manifestation of practical reason. Without a human character there is no room for moral virtue. Without achievement no moral action can be complete . Thus, human agency extends beyond the realm of pure motive. These themes reflecting Kant's recognition of the importance of contingency in his general theory of rational action are discussed primarily in the light of the Metaphysics of Morals, which in its structure and program explicitly sets out to tie together the a priori and contingent elements in a unified theory. Legality without morality is blind; morality without legality is vacuous. Einige moderne Kritiker Kants wie Bernard Williams behaupten, Kants Sittlichkeitsideal weise auf eine Handlungsform, die außerhalb alles empirisch Feststellbaren liege. Ziel dieses Beitrags ist es zu zeigen, daß Kant sich der Rolle kontingenter Elemente im moralischen Handeln nicht nur voll bewußt war, sondern daß sein grundlegender Entwurf praktischer Vernunft selbst teilweise auf kontingente Faktoren gegründet ist. Praktische Vernunft kann nicht von ihrer Anwendung getrennt werden und also auch nicht von den notwendig empirischen Bedingungen menschlicher Psychologie und von den historischen Umständen des Handelns. Ohne eine Maxime gibt es keine praktische Vernunft. Ohne einen menschlichen Charakter gibt es keine moralische Tugend. Ohne ein erreichtes Ziel kann keine moralische Handlung vollständig sein. Menschliches Handeln überschreitet die Grenzen des Bereichs bloßer Motive.Die Themen zeigen, daß Kant in seiner allgemeinen Theorie vernünftigen Handelns die Kontingenz ernst nimmt. Sie werden hauptsächlich im Lichte der Metaphysik der Sitten diskutiert, die sich in ihrem Programm und in ihrer Struktur explizit vornimmt, apriorische und kontingente Elemente in einer einheitlichen Theorie zu verbinden. Legalität ohne Moralität ist blind; Moralität ohne Legalität ist leer. (shrink)

The concept of tact has so far received only little theoretical attention. The present article suggests three levels on which the idea of tact may be approached: (1) The epistemological problem: the etymology of the term ?tact? is taken seriously, namely its relation to the sense of touch and tactility. An analysis of the position of touch in the ranking of the five senses according to various parameters is shown to be highly relevant to the understanding of the idea of (...) tact. (2) The logical problem: tact is described as a skill which cannot be exhausted in the knowledge of principles or general rules. Like ?judgment? it is concerned with the particular, with sensitivity (analogical to that of the sense of touch) to the uniqueness of a human situation. (3) The ethical problem: tact is shown to lie between ethics and etiquette, that is to say it is more than just a rule of politeness or good manners, but it is ?less? than a fully fledged moral duty or principle. Its position between the obligatory and the merely conventional opens the way to characterize it as supererogatory. (shrink)

Beyond the well‐known ethical issues involved in medical experimentation on human subjects, experimenting with embryos raises unique and particularly hard problems. Beside the psychological obstacles connected with the fear of ‘‘playing God" and the awe with which we hold the process of the creation of human beings, there are three philosophical problems which are the main subject of the article:1. The logical problem of circularity: the morality of experimenting on embryos is dependent on the status of the embryo, which in (...) turn is partly decided by experimentation.2. The metaphysical problem: experiments are justified by the benefits they bring to human subjects; but it is doubtful whether an early embryo is a ‘‘subject" and whether coming into being is a ‘‘benefit".3. The moral problem: the standard constraint on medical experiments is that they benefit either the individual subject or at least members of a relevantly defined group of patients suffering from the same syndrome. But embryo experimentation is often associated with potential cure to people of a completely different category .Finally, the article discusses the limits of the force of philosophical arguments in the formation of actual policies for regulating such practices as experimenting with embryos. The widely‐shared fourteen‐day limit is shown to be a sound practical compromise despite the difficulties in justifying it philosophically. (shrink)

The article examines the arguments for and against the practice of sex selection for non-medical reasons in the light of the new technology of Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis . It distinguishes between arguments about the risks to the future child, the mother and society, on the one hand, and the inherent wrongness of the practice as an illegitimate interference in the natural course of reproduction, on the other. The article tries to show that at least in the well defined context of (...) sex selection by PGD, when IVF was performed for independent medical reasons, there is no danger to either the child or the mother and hence that the practice should be permitted. Furthermore, the alleged dangers to society are demonstrated to be mostly illusory. On the one hand, the demographic danger is usually overstated and lacks historical support.On the other hand, the feminist claim that sex selection is necessarily discriminatory is found to be both theoretically and empirically groundless. The article’s conclusion is that despite widespread intuitive objection to the practice of sex selection, it can be justified in terms of parental autonomy and falls within the value of family planning. This liberal view does not, however, imply that having a child of the desired sex is the parents’ right, nor does it apply to sex selection in later phases of gestation. (shrink)

The concept of human nature played an important role in the Aristotelian attempt to characterize the specific difference of humans from other animals and serves as a normative guide. But with the positivistic turn in the modern conception of nature and the denaturalization of reason (typically since Kant), the essential characteristic of human beings can no more be thought of as "natural". The idea of human nature is more commonly conceived as open-ended, and is associated, since Pico della Mirandola, with (...) the human power of self-shaping or transcendence of one's nature. This rift between the human and the natural undermines the coherence of the traditional concept of human nature. Since the concept of human nature is often used in the debates about the moral legitimacy of contemporary genetic technologies, the critical analysis suggested in the first part of the article is used in the second part to assess the force of the argument from human nature in the context of germ line genetic manipulation, genetic engineering, eugenics, and cloning. (shrink)

This article opens with a disclaimer: I am not a scientist, and the science of synthetic biology is beyond my comprehension. I am a philosopher and an ethicist interested in moral issues in reproductive medicine. In my past research I have raised theoretical questions about the normative constraints on the creation of human beings, especially in the context of the debates on genetic screening and genetic engineering, on both the individual level and the collective, namely that pertaining to the intervention (...) in the human genome.Moral norms usually apply to our relations with other human beings. The questions of reproductive medicine are problematic, since although they relate to human beings, these human beings are .. (shrink)

Die Berufung auf das Prinzip der Menschenwürde ist im gegenwärtigen Diskurs über die Ethik der Genetik weit verbreitet, insbesondere wenn es darum geht, ein schlagkräftiges Argument gegen bestimmte Formen der genetischen Forschung und Praxis wie der Genmanipulation und des Klonens zur Verfügung zu haben. Das Prinzip der Menschenwürde ist indes sehr vage und unbestimmt. Der Beitrag verfolgt die Entwicklung des Prinzips der Menschenwürde von einem gesellschaftlichen Konzept - der Art und Weise, wie Individuen einander betrachten - zu den modernen Konzepten (...) eines inneren Wertes des Menschen als Mensch. Das moderne Verständnis des Konzepts der Menschenwürde stammt von Pico della Mirandola und - selbstverständlich von Kant. Die zentrale These des Beitrags läuft darauf hinaus, daß die genetische Forschung und Praxis in der Regel das Prinzip der Menschenwürde nicht verletzt, und zwar weder auf der Ebene der Individuen noch auf der Ebene der menschlichen Gattung. Genetische Forschung und Praxis benutzt Menschen nicht bloß als Mittel, ohne sie als Zweck zu achten, gentechnologische Kontrolle unterminiert nicht den inneren Wert des Menschen und gentechnische Analyse als solche beeinträchtigt nicht die Integrität von Individuen. Viele der Einwände gegen die Gentechnologie, die sich auf das Prinzip der Menschenwürde berufen, beruhen auf der sogenannten Theorie absoluter, nicht personenbezogener Werte, die behauptet, daß Werte in abstracto auf die Welt angewendet werden können. Diese Sicht ist typischerweise in der religiösen Tradition verwurzelt. Wenn wir demgegenüber von einer "personenbezogenen" Konzeption der Werte ausgehen, was bedeutet, daß Werte nur auf aktuell existierende Personen bezogen werden können, verliert die Argumentation gegen genetische Interventionen das meiste von ihrer Überzeugungskraft. Auf dieser zweiten Konzeption basiert der vorliegende Beitrag. (shrink)

Regulierung ist ein Kennzeichen für Rationalität bei dem Versuch, Verhaltensweisen im Lichte von Normen zu leiten. Ihre Funktion ist es, sowohl das Verhalten der Individuen in einem bestimmten Bereich ihres Handelns zu koordinieren als auch dieses Verhalten auf wünschenswerte Ziele hin auszurichten. Nach Regulierung wird insbesondere auf neuartigen Feldern sozialen Verhaltens gerufen, so vor allem im Hinblick auf gentechnische Forschung und Praxis. Aber die Genetik ist deshalb ein schwieriger Fall, weil sie Ziele und Werte betrifft, die in hohem Maße kontrovers (...) sind. Darüberhinaus ist schon die Frage, ob und, wenn ja, in welchem Maße der Bereich der Genetik einer Regulierung unterworfen werden sollte, diskussionswürdig. Als ein wissenschaftliches Projekt verlangt die Genetik nach maximaler Freiheit; als eine potentiell gefährliche Praxis erfordert sie gesellschaftliche Eingrenzung. Im vorliegenden Artikel werden die vier Ebenen einer möglichen Regulierung von Genetik diskutiert: die institutionelle, die gouvernementale, die legislative und die internationale. Dabei wird Israel als Testfall für die komplexe Beziehung zwischen diesen Ebenen der Regulierung herangezogen. Aus einer philosophischen Perspektive wird die inhärente Spannung untersucht, die einerseits zwischen der Kraft der theoretischen Argumentation, die oftmals den Gedanken der Freiheit unterstützt, und andererseits dem Druck der praktischen und gesellschaftlichen Überlegungen besteht, die regelmäßig nach einer begrenzenden Regulierung rufen. Diese Spannung wird typischerweise in den verschiedensten Formen von nicht prinzipiengeleiteten Kompromissen aufgelöst, die aus teilweisen Regulierungen, ministeriellen Entscheidungen, zeitweiligen Richtlinien, institutionellen Selbstbeschränkungen und der Unterscheidung zwischen legitimer und illegitimer gentechnischer Praxis bestehen. Damit wird die Regulierung der gentechnischen Praxis zugleich zu einem erhellenden Beispiel für die prekäre Lage der "Angewandten Ethik" zwischen Theorie und gesellschaftlicher Praxis.Regulation is a hallmark of rationality in the attempt to guide behavior in the light of norms. Its function is both to coordinate individuals' behavior in a particular field of action and to subject it to desirable goals. Regulation is called for especially in new realms of social conduct, such as genetic research and practice. Yet genetics is a difficult case since it involves goals and values that are highly controversial. Furthermore, the question whether and to what extent the sphere of genetics should be at all regulated is debatable. As a scientific project it calls for maximal freedom; as a potentially harmful practice it calls for social restraint. The paper discusses the four levels of genetic regulation: the institutional, the governmental, the legislative, and the international. It takes Israel as a test case for the complex inter-relation between these regulative levels. On the philosophical level it demonstrates the inherent tension between the force of theoretical arguments and the pressure of practical and social considerations . This tension is typically resolved in various forms of unprincipled compromise, consisting of partial regulation, ministerial discretion, temporary guidelines, institutional self-restraint and distinctions between legitimate and illegitimate genetic practices. Thus, regulation of genetic practice is an illuminating case of the precarious position of "applied ethics" between philosophical theory and social practice. (shrink)

Margaret R. Holmgren. Forgiveness and Retribution: Responding to Wrongdoing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012, vii +297 pp. In the Old Testament, forgiveness is a divine prerogative. Onl...