ABSTRACT Refugees, as forced migrants, have suffered displacement under conditions not of their own choosing. In 2000 there were thought to be 22 million refugees of whom 6 million were HIV positive. While the New Zealand government has accepted a number of HIV positive refugees from sub‐Saharan Africa, this hospitality is under threat due to negative public and political opinion. Epidemic conditions raise the social stakes attached to sexual exchanges, contagion becomes a major figure in social relationships and social production, (...) and the fears of the contagious nature of those ‘just off the plane’ connect refugees to an equally deep‐seated fear of racial miscegenation. Jacques Derrida’s notion of unconditional hospitality is a dream of a democracy which would have a cosmopolitan form. This means that one cannot decide in advance which refugees one might choose to resettle. This paper will use Derrida’s notion of unconditional hospitality to emphasise the fragility of HIV positive refugees’ position, caught between becoming newly made New Zealand subjects while at the same time having that subjecthood threatened. For Derrida, both ethics and politics demand both an action and a need for a thoughtful response (a questioning without limit). (shrink)

The term “value of life” can refer to life’s intrinsic dignity: something nonincremental and time-unaffected in contrast to the fluctuating, incremental “value” of our lives, as they are longer or shorter and more or less flourishing. Human beings are equal in their basic moral importance: the moral indignities we condemn in the treatment of e.g. those with dementia reflect the ongoing human dignity that is being violated. Indignities licensed by the person in advance remain indignities, as when people might (...) volunteer their living, unconscious bodies for surrogacy or training in amputation techniques. Respect for someone’s dignity is significantly impacted by a failure to value that person’s very existence, whatever genuine respect and good will is shown by wanting the person’s life to go well. Valuing and respecting life is not, however, vitalism: there can be good and compelling reasons for eschewing some means of prolonging life. (shrink)

This book posits three ethical principles by which the concept of equal worth can be used in a practical manner to resolve conflicts and wars. Shamoo argues that once the principle of equal worth is adopted in foreign policy, humanity will be able to achieve peace.

Despite their differences, the two Greek notions of justice, dike and dikaiosune, share a common framework which is built around the empirical concept of individual worth. Their Hellenistic feature forms an interesting contrast to modern egalitarian justice. An historical reevaluation of the latter, as this paper suggests, might cast a shadow on its current prestige.

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)

One of the most central ideas of secular, humanistic morality is the thesis of intrinsic and equal human worth. Paradoxically, it is very hard to place this thesis in a secular worldview, because an indifferent universe can not make room for intrinsic values and a priori human rights. Nevertheless, it would not be a good solution to jettison the whole human rights discourse. Therefore, this paper proposes the stance of moral fictionalism: to believe that the discourse entails or (...) embodies a theory that is false, but to carry on employing the discourse, as if this were not the case, because it is useful to do so. As such, the ideas of intrinsic and equal human worth can be the subject of ëdisbelieving acceptanceí by the secular moral philosopher. (shrink)

Pregnancy leave and comparable worth deal with differences between female and male employees. In each case feminists are divided as to whether special treatment for women will promote equality or reinforce sex stereotypes and gender based segregation in the workplace. A radical restructuring of the workplace is necessary, to make possible a more human life for men and women. This restructuring is articulated in terms of the concepts of equality as "participation" or "incorporation" of all individuals into a community, (...) and androgyny. (shrink)

Tom Regan's seafaring dog that is justifiably thrown out of the lifeboat built for four to save the lives of four humans has been the topic of much discussion. Critics have argued in a variety of ways that this dog nips at Regan's Achilles heel. Without reviewing previous discussions, with much of which I certainly agree, this article develops an unexplored approach to exposing the vulnerability of the position that Regan takes on sacrificing the dog to save the humans. It (...) argues that when dealing with the seafaring dog, Regan abandons his own principles, and that this is exactly what he should do. Regan should abandon his view that all subjects-of-a-life have equal inherent worth. (shrink)

The death of a person is a tragedy while the explosion of a lifeless galaxy is a mere firework. The moral difference is grounded in the nature of humans: humans have intrinsic worth, a worth that makes their fate really matter. This is the worth proposed as the foundation of ethics. Ethics in the usual sense of right and wrong actions, rights and virtues, and how to live a good life, is founded on something more basic that (...) is not itself about actions, namely the worth of persons. Human moral worth arises from certain properties that distinguish humans from the rest of creation (though some animals share a lesser degree of those properties): rationality, consciousness, the ability to act for reasons, emotional structure and love, individuality. This complex package makes humans the "piece of work" of which Hamlet says, “How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty." The Worth of Persons establishes a foundation for ethics in the equal worth of persons, which makes ethics absolutely objective and immune to relativist attacks because it is based on the metaphysical truth about humans. Endless debate about ethical dilemmas, rules, and principles fails to connect with what is really important ethically, that is, what makes humans matter. (shrink)

Although thinkers of the past might have started from presumptions of fundamental difference and inequality between (say) the genders, or people of different races, this is no longer the case. At least in mainstream political philosophy, we are all now presumed to be, in some fundamental sense, basic equals. Of course, what follows from this putative fact of basic equality remains enormously controversial: liberals, libertarians, conservatives, Marxists, republicans, and so on, continue to disagree vigorously with each other, despite all presupposing (...) some kind of basic equality. They may argue about who gets what, how much, and why, but the starting point - that all people are in some sense deserving of prima facie equal consideration - has become an axiom of our moral and political thinking. But why? Why are we basic equals? The trouble is that as soon as one asks for an explanation of this foundational premise, it begins to look shaky. After all, on any conceivable metric human beings are notably unequal, and often to striking degrees. Philosophers in this area tend to talk of equal worth, but often without trying to specify what exactly that means. Philosophically, basic equality is neither acceptable nor rejectable. It is not rejectable because we appear to be, as a matter of fact, profoundly committed to the truth of the claim that we are all one another's basic equals. But to the extent that there appear to be no philosophical arguments for believing in the truth of basic equality, it is not acceptable either. The aim of this book is to try and show why basic equality is acceptable. To do so, however, it will also contend that we need to approach the question rather differently to how it has mostly been handled so far. What's required is an exercise in what Bernard Williams called 'impure philosophy': it must include insights from other areas of human intellectual endeavour, whether psychology and history or even what we learn from how we go about practicing basic equality in our collective lives. (shrink)

Contemporary political philosophers often take for granted that for political purposes all humans are to be considered of equal worth. The difficulty, as Bernard Williams observed, is to find an interpretation of this claim that does not collapse into absurdity or triviality. I show that the principal attempts to solve this problem all beg the question against an Aristotelian proponent of natural hierarchy. I then explore existing proposals for dissolving the problem of basic equality, whether by denying the (...) need for justification altogether or by reframing justification in either ostensive or coherentist fashion, showing that each fails to account for our sense that basic equality is objectively true. In response, I outline a Hegelian approach that treats the commitment to basic equality as a social fact that constrains philosophical reasoning in contemporary liberal democracies. By itself that might suggest complacent conservatism or cultural relativism, but I argue that practices and institutions that reflect and foster a commitment to basic equality have a distinct value in permitting reciprocal recognition and thereby enabling us to make a distinct class of normative claims on one another. This Hegelian resolution of the problem is dialectically superior to its rivals and therefore warrants further development. (shrink)

I argue that the often-heard claim that all serious present-day political philosophers subscribe to the principle of equal respect and concern or to the doctrine of equal moral status or are in some other fundamental sense egalitarians is wrong. Also wrong is the further claim that the usual methods currently used in political philosophy presuppose basic equality. I further argue that liberal egalitarianism itself is wrong. There is no universal duty “of equal respect and concern” towards every (...) person, for one does not owe one’s nice sister and a serial rapist equal respect and concern. There is also no duty of the state to respect all citizens equally, for a state need not be equally concerned about murderous criminals on the one hand and their innocent victims on the other. The potential maneuver of saving liberal egalitarianism by claiming that people have equal rights is unsuccessful. Human beings clearly do not have equal rights, nor are they born with equal rights; and merely having an equality of some rights, for example of “basic” or human ones, would not suffice for egalitarianism. Appeals to “recognition respect” and related concepts are also to no avail. Trying to go back still a step further and to claim that certain rights inequalities or justified discriminatory rules are themselves “grounded” in equal respect and concern at some deeper, norm-generating level (like, for example, the original position or a discourse-ethical principle of justification) is also futile. Finally, I argue that the “This is not what we mean”-strategy of escaping the above arguments reduces egalitarianism to triviality and empty rhetoric. Liberal egalitarianism should be abandoned. (shrink)

Pursuing equality is an important challenge for any modern democratic society but this challenge faces two sets of difficulties: the theoretical question of what sort of equality to pursue and for whom; and the practical question concerning which legal and political institutions are the most appropriate vehicles for implementing egalitarian social policy and thus realizing egalitarian justice. This book offers original and innovative contributions to the debate about equality of opportunity. The first part of the book sets out a theory (...) of equality of opportunity that presents equal opportunities as a normative device for the regulation of competition for scarce resources. The second part shifts the focus to the consideration of the practical application by courts or legislatures or public policy makers of policies for addressing racial, class or gender injustices. The author examines standardized tests, affirmative action, workfare, universal health-care, comparable worth, and the economic consequences of divorce. (shrink)

By fundamental equality is meant the idea of the equal worth of human beings understood as a constitutive principle of morality. The paper is concerned with how this principle may be justified. Attempts to justify it in an objectivist way by citing some quality of human beings in virtue of which they are supposed to be of equal worth are rejected. Such approaches in fact justify inequality to the extent that some people possess the quality to (...) a greater degree than others. The endeavour to avoid this trap, by attributing an inherent worth to each individual by virtue of their possession of the quality, succeeds only in generating a deep tension between the absolute principle of inherent worth and the relative principle of equal worth which the absolute principle is supposed to justify. The idea that the relation of equality as such is inherently valuable independently of any other consideration is also rejected. The paper then adopts a subjectivist view of equality grounded in an antirealist perspective on value. The argument for equality follows a Rawlsian contractarian procedure but not the Rawlsians' simple assumption of equality. Equality is shown to offer a stable principle of co-operation and so is more advantageous to the subjectivist contractors than the only alternative – to each according to his relative bargaining power. However, the appeal to advantage is necessary but not sufficient. An existential commitment to co-operate on the basis of mutual respect as equals is also required. (shrink)

Consider: You can save either a human or a normal adult dog from a burning building (with no risk to yourself and at little cost), but not both. However, the human is a human with a severe intellectually disability (or, as we shall say, a “SID”). -/- Which one should you save? There is disagreement in the literature about which this issue. Two opposing camps exist, which we call “the intrinsic property camp ” and “the special relations camp.” Those in (...) the intrinsic property camp think that in most cases it is equally permissible to save either the dog or the human, and that in fact in some cases you should save the dog and not the human. Those in the special relations camp, by contrast, maintain that you should always save the human and not the dog. There is disagreement between these two camps about the answer to this question because there is disagreement between them about the moral significance of SIDs. Those in the intrinsic property camp believe that the moral value of a human with a SID is equal to (and in some cases less than) the moral value of a nonhuman animal such as a dog. (They thus believe that the value of a human with a SID is strictly less than the value of a normal adult human.) Those in the special relations camp believe that the value of a human with a SID is strictly higher than the value of a nonhuman animal. (But they are not thereby committed to, but may nonetheless believe, that a human with a SID has equal moral value to a normal adult human.) The questions we address in this chapter include: 1. Why do those in each camp hold the view that they do? 2. Which camp is right? (shrink)

This thesis argues that a particular version of equal opportunity for welfare is the best way of meeting the joint demands of three liberal egalitarian ideals: distributional equality, responsibility, and respect for individuals’ differing reasonable judgements of their own good. It also examines which social choice rules best represent these demands. Finally, it defends the view that achieving equal opportunity for welfare should not only be a goal of formal public institutions, but that just citizens should also sometimes (...) be guided by it in their everyday life. The version of equal opportunity for welfare it defends differs from some well-known contemporary versions in the following ways. First, it rejects a definition of welfare as the degree of satisfaction of a person’s preferences, because, it argues, this conception of welfare cannot adequately deal with preference change. Instead, it suggests that we should adopt a conception of welfare based on a list of goods and conditions that are recognised as valuable from the perspective of a variety of different conceptions of the good. Second, it argues that individuals’ prima facie claim to an equally valuable share of the world’s resources—a claim which is based on their equal moral worth—is limited to situations in which giving one person a more valuable share means that someone else ends up with a less valuable share. It also argues that in situations where we can improve at least one person’s situation without worsening anyone else’s, we generally do not fail to respect each person’s equal moral worth by doing so, even if this leads to inequalities. Third, it defends a distinct view of responsibility, which justifies social arrangements that give people certain options with reference to the value that individuals can achieve (but don’t necessarily achieve) through their choices from these options. (shrink)

The idea of equality exerts considerable influence on our moral imaginations, yet it has remained philosophically elusive. Although men and women have thought equality worth dying for, philosophers have been largely unable to give any systematic account of its importance as a moral ideal, or of its function in moral and political theory.

Name any valued human trait—intelligence, wit, charm, grace, strength—and you will find an inexhaustible variety and complexity in its expression among individuals. Yet we insist that such diversity does not provide grounds for differential treatment at the most basic level. Whatever merit, blame, praise, love, or hate we receive as beings with a particular past and a particular constitution, we are always and everywhere due equal respect merely as persons. -/- But why? Most who attempt to answer this question (...) appeal to the idea that all human beings possess an intrinsic dignity and worth—grounded in our capacities, for example, to reason, reflect, or love—that raises us up in the order of nature. Andrea Sangiovanni rejects this predominant view and offers a radical alternative. -/- To understand our commitment to basic equality, Humanity without Dignity argues that we must begin with a consideration not of equality but of inequality. Rather than search for a chimerical value-bestowing capacity possessed to an equal extent by each one of us, we ought to ask: Why and when is it wrong to treat others as inferior? Sangiovanni comes to the conclusion that our commitment to moral equality is best explained by a rejection of cruelty rather than a celebration of rational capacity. He traces the impact of this fundamental shift for our understanding of human rights and the norms of anti-discrimination that underlie it. (shrink)

In this paper I criticize the standard argument for deontological egalitarianism, understood as the thesis that there is a moral claim to have an equal share of well-being or whatever other good counts. That argument is based on the idea that equals should be treated equally. I connect the debate over egalitarianism with that over comparative justice. A common theme is a general skepticism against comparative claims. I argue (i) that there can be no claim to equality based simply (...) on the fact of equal worth as that fact itself does not have any value for the supposed claim holder; and (ii) intuitions that suggest otherwise can be explained away without appealing to comparative claims. (shrink)

The principle of human moral equality is poorly understood. I criticize standard accounts and propose a mildly subversive alternative based in a certain view of the phenomenology of conceptual thought. First, a formulation of the principle: -/- (E) Every person has a basic moral worth equal to that of any other. -/- E is vague, as it should be. It is neutral regarding rival theories of the nature of the equalizing property or its value, or how we recognize (...) either. But I impose two constraints on the principle that seem to reflect a universal consensus among its proponents: E asserts a kind of worth (or status or value) that (i) is indifferent to ordinary moral judgments of character, merit, or desert and (ii) forbids political arrangements we intuitively judge to be at odds with the spirit of basic equality. The first constraint protects against absurdity or nihilism, the second against vacuity. (shrink)

I formulate and defend a theory of special procreative duties in the context of a liberal egalitarian theory of justice. I argue that (1) the only special duty that procreators owe their offspring is that of ensuring that their life prospects are non-negative (worth living), and (2) the only special duty that procreators owe others is that of ensuring that they are not disadvantaged by the procreators’ offspring (a) violating their rights or (b) adversely affecting their equality rights and (...) duties. (shrink)

Tom Regan holds that all subjects-of-a-life possess equal inherent value, and thus have an equal right to be treated with respect. In this chapter, I consider an apparent implication of Regan's principle: that we have an obligation to rescue prey from their predators. This apparent implication is counterintuitive to many people who otherwise accept Regan's principle, so it is worth considering whether it is indeed implied by Regan's principle. Regan argues that his principle does not imply we (...) have an obligation to rescue prey from their predators; I consider this argument, and show that it does not succeed. Instead, I offer a different argument, inspired by a eudaimonist approach, but compatible with Regan's rights-centered framework. (shrink)

Artificial agents such as robots are performing increasingly significant ethical roles in society. As a result, there is a growing literature regarding their moral status with many suggesting it is justified to regard manufactured entities as having intrinsic moral worth. However, the question of whether artificial agents could have the high degree of moral status that is attributed to human persons has largely been neglected. To address this question, the author developed a respect-based account of the ethical criteria for (...) the moral status of persons. From this account, the paper employs an empirical test that must be passed in order for artificial agents to be considered alongside persons as having the corresponding rights and duties. (shrink)

All humans have an equal basic moral status. They possess the same fundamental rights, and the comparable interests of each person should count the same in calculations that determine social policy. Neither supposed racial differences, nor skin color, sex, sexual orientation, ethnicity, intelligence, nor any other differences among humans negate their fundamental equal worth and dignity. These platitudes are virtually universally affirmed. A white supremacist racist or an admirer of Adolf Hitler who denies them is rightly regarded (...) as beyond the pale of civilized dialogue. However, a very simple line of argument developed by Peter Singer challenges our understanding of these platitudes and forces us to rethink the basis and nature of the moral equality of all humans. What I call the “Singer Problem” arises if one accepts that the morally significant cognitive capacities that are relevant to the determination of the fundamental moral status of a being vary from individual to individual by degree. The problem is to specify a moral principle determining fundamental moral status that assigns a superior status to humans compared to other animals on the basis of the superior cognitive capacities of humans but also assigns all human persons an equal fundamental moral status regardless of their differing cognitive capacities. More broadly posed, the problem is to specify moral principles that yield intuitively satisfactory implications for the treatment of human individuals and other individual animals given that cognitive capacities differ across species and individuals. A search for a resolution of the Singer problem leads to disappointing results. (shrink)

The work of Dan Brock and Helga Kuhse is typical of the current stream of thought rejecting the validity of sanctity of life appeals to instill objective inviolable worth in human life regardless of the quality of life of the patient. The context of a person's life is supremely important. In their systems life can have high value, yet the value of life can be outweighed by the force of other disvalues. The notion of quality of life has increasingly (...) come to signify the measurement of the worth of a person's life itself. Having a life equals personal life. Any objectivity to life resides in 'personal', 'biographical', or 'creative' life, not mere biological life. Personal life represents the minimal threshold for any objective worth. In responding to this challenge, John Finnis has argued extensively that life is an intrinsic good – a basic human good. Following from our grasp of human life as a basic incommensurable good, it cannot be practically reasonable both to affirm that (a) 'human life is a basic human good', and (b) that 'human life qua human life can be intentionally acted against to its destruction'. Yet, if the good of human life can be considered self-evident, the self-evidence of the basic human good qua good does not mean that dialectical reasoning cannot be engaged in to indirectly support the practical reasonableness of respecting the good of human life in the deliberative choices that persons make concerning their actions. It is to the use of such dialectical reasoning, supportive of the status of human life as such a basic human good, that the article is primarily concerned to draw out and articulate. (shrink)

It has become somewhat a commonplace in recent political philosophy to remark that all plausible political theories must share at least one fundamental premise, ‘that all humans are one another's equals’. One single concept of ‘basic equality’, therefore, is cast as the common touchstone of all contemporary political thought. This paper argues that this claim is false. Virtually all do indeed say that all humans are ‘equals’ in some basic sense. However, this is not the same sense. There are not (...) one but two concepts of basic equality, and they reflect not a grand unity within political philosophy but a deep and striking division. I call these concepts ‘Equal Worth’ and ‘Equal Authority’. The former means that each individual’s good is of equal moral worth. The latter means that no individual is under the natural authority of anyone else. Whilst these two predicates are not in themselves logically inconsistent, I demonstrate that they are inconsistent foundation stones for political theory. A theory that starts from Equal Worth will find it near impossible to justify Equal Authority. And a theory that starts from Equal Authority will find any fact about the true worth of things, including ourselves, irrelevant to justifying legitimate action. This helps us identify the origin of many of our deepest and seemingly intractable disagreements within political philosophy, and directs our attention to the need for a clear debate about the truth and/or relationship between the two concepts. In short, my call to arms can be summed up in the demand that political philosophers never again be allowed to claim ‘that all human beings are equals’ full stop. They must be clear in what dimension they claim that we are equals—Worth or Authority. (shrink)

It is argued that the policy of excluding from further life some human gametes and pre-embryos as "unfit" for existence is not at odds with a defensible idea of human equality. Such an idea must be compatible with the obvious fact that the "functional" value of humans differs, that their "use" to themselves and others differs. A defensible idea of human equality is instead grounded in the fact that as this functional difference is genetically determined, it is nothing which makes (...) humans deserve or be worthy of being better or worse off. Rather, nobody is worth a better life than anyone else. This idea of equality is, however, not applicable to gametes and pre-embryos, since they are not human beings, but something out of which human beings develop. (shrink)

In the post‐civil rights era in the United States, it is common to see included in a job announcement a declaration of the following sort: “we are an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer.” The ideal of equal opportunity has a complex relationship to the idea and practice of affirmative action, which is taken for granted in a typical job ad. I will explore the notion of equal opportunity insofar as it has figured in feminist philosophical writings about practical (...) agendas and programs for change, such as affirmative action, pregnancy and maternity leave, and comparable worth. As the concept of equal opportunity has gained moral and legal authority, social theorists have concentrated on what is practically required to guarantee equal opportunity. Identifying and articulating the practical requirements depends upon some conception of the obstacles to equal opportunity, such as discrimination based on race and sex, poverty, unequal needs and abilities, and so on. I will especially concentrate on how feminist philosophers have grappled with sex‐based discrimination and needs in proposing or advocating programs intended to broaden women's opportunities. (shrink)

Moral equality—the idea that ‘we’ all have equal moral worth, our interests ought to count for the same, and we possess the same bundle of basic rights—is one of the most central principles of liberal thought, being regularly drawn on as a presupposition of moral and political inquiry. Perhaps because it is so often relied on as a presupposition, however, moral equality is more often assumed than argued for. When moral equality is argued for, the most common tactic (...) is to appeal to some inherent property. As is well established, however, such property-based defenses of moral equality face two significant challenges: the problem of exclusion and the problem of inequality. In light of these challenges, in this article I put forward a new, revisionist account of moral equality. Taking inspiration from recent work in the social metaphysics of human kinds, I argue that moral equality ought to be seen as a component of a status that we confer on one another, rather than (grounded in) a property inherent in certain individuals. Conceiving of moral equality this way, I argue, side-steps both the problem of exclusion and the problem of natural equality. (shrink)

The Doctrine of Religious Restraint is the claim that citizens and officials in a liberal democracy should not support coercive laws that they know to require a religious rationale. The most prominent argument for the Doctine of Religious Restraint appeals to the claim that we ought to treat each person as having basic worth: citizens and officials ought to obey the Doctrine of Religious Restraint because doing so is required in order for them to respect their compatriots as persons (...) who have equal moral standing. But this argument is not persuasive: citizens and officials who support coercive laws that they know require some religious justification need not thereby disrespect their compatriots. The article focuses throughout on the figure of an `Agapic Pacifist' who has sectarian religious reasons to oppose government's use of lethal military force. (shrink)

The “expressivist objection” argues that prenatal screening leading to termination of embryos or fetuses with disabilities sends a harmful message to people with disabilities, such as the message that their lives are not worth living. I first argue that whether it sends such a message depends on how a reasonable person would see the motives behind the screening. I then argue that a reasonable person would see a harmful message, not when individuals terminate embryos, and not for severe disabilities, (...) but when the state allows the screening and termination of embryos with less severe conditions, such as Down syndrome. This sends the message that it is permissible not to pay a higher cost to support people with disabilities, when there is an abled alternative. This attitude is harmful to the welfare, rights and self-worth of people with disabilities because it reinforces the refusal to provide them with equal opportunity. The state therefore has a strong pro tanto reason to ban prenatal screening for less severe disabilities. (shrink)

The idea that all human beings have equal moral worth has been challenged by insisting that this is utterly counter-intuitive in the case of individuals like, for instance, Hitler on the one hand and Schweitzer on the other. This seems to be confirmed by a hypothetical in which one can only save one of the two: intuitively, one clearly should save Schweitzer, not Hitler, even if Hitler does not pose a threat anymore. The most natural interpretation of this (...) intuition appeals to unequal moral worth. Jeremy Waldron has recently tried to meet this challenge by giving a different interpretation, thereby trying to explain away the counter-intuitive implications of the basic equality doctrine in this case, and by suggesting that the rejection of basic equality comes with counter-intuitive implications of its own. I shall argue that Waldron’s response to the challenge fails on both counts. (shrink)

Secular arguments for equal and exclusively human worth generally tend to follow one of two strategies. One, which has recently gained renewed attention because of a novel argument by S. Matthew Liao, aims to directly ground worth in an intrinsic property that all humans have in common, whereas the other concedes that there is no morally relevant intrinsic difference between all humans and all other animals, and instead appeals to the membership of all humans in a special (...) kind. In this article, I argue that both strategies necessitate drawing a line that is both arbitrary and implausibly opens a moral gulf between individuals whose difference from one another in terms of empirical reality is entirely unremarkable, providing reasons to reject them that go beyond the standard objections in the literature. I conclude that, if all humans are to be included in the community of equals, we must lay to rest the idea that we can do so without also including a wide range of non-human animals. (shrink)

Plato is commonly credited with a much more enlightened view concerning the equality of women and their political rights than Aristotle. This is due to the fact that he acknowledges, in the Republic, the possibility that women possess abilities that are equal to those of men and therefore assigns to them the same functions in the state. Plato’s principle of equality is, however, limited to the women of the upper classes in the Republic, and it is, at least in (...) part, a consequence of the separation of the classes. Because these conditions no longer obtain in the “second-best state” designed in the Laws, women are assigned, there, a much inferior role. In the Timaeus, women are treated not only as the weaker but also as the decadent form of humankind in the cycle of births and rebirths. Plato’s views on the worth of women change, if not with time, then with context.Aristotle throughout supports the traditional view on the exclusion of women from politics and public life. He does so because he ascribes to women only a limited form of practical rationality. Though he ascribes to women the status of citizens, he regards them as citizens that stand in need of a permanent rule by their male superiors, in public as well as in the family. Aristotle never questions whether the same kind education would lead to the intellectual equality of men and women. The rigidity of Aristotle’s position in that respect seems to be based on a kind of “conservative naturalism.” He accepts as constituted by nature the social conditions that are observable throughout the world as he knew it. This not only explains his view on the natural inferiority of women, but also his justification of slavery as a natural institution. (shrink)

Comparative valuation of different policy interventions often requires interpersonal comparability of benefit. In the field of health economics, the metric commonly used for such comparison, quality adjusted life years (QALYs) gained, has been criticized for failing to respect the equality of all persons’ intrinsic worth, including particularly those with disabilities. A methodology is proposed that interprets ‘full quality of life’ as the best health prospect that is achievable for the particular individual within the relevant budget constraint. This calibration is (...) challenging both conceptually and operationally as it shifts dramatically when technology or budget developments alter what can be achieved for incapacitated individuals. The proposal nevertheless ensures that the maximal achievable satisfaction of one person’s preferences can carry no more intrinsic value than that of another. This approach, which can be applied to other domains of social valuation, thus prevents implicit discrimination against the elderly and those with irremediable incapacities. (shrink)

As today's battles rage between those who march under the banner of liberty and those who unfurl the flag of equality, even an engaged partisan might be forgiven for occasionally wondering whether the game is, after all, worth the candle. For one thing, neither party simply rejects the other's principle – properly understood. Egalitarians routinely emphasize that their concern for equality is, also, a concern for true liberty; thus Michael Walzer, writing “In Defense of Equality,” finds it “worth (...) stressing that equality as I have described it does not stand alone, but is closely related to the idea of liberty.” 1 Libertarians tend to be less enthusiastic in their embrace of equality, but almost all endorse some form of equality or other – for example, equality of political rights or equality before the law. It would seem, then, that the differences between egalitarians and libertarians are really over the meaning and scope of equality and liberty, and that putting the issue as one of equality vs. liberty may be misleading. More important, one can wonder whether either the egalitarian or the libertarian combination of the principles of liberty and equality is worthy of support. What society has exalted personal liberty, has taken rights more seriously, than ours? Yet who can easily dismiss Solzhenitsyn's charge that our worship of freedom has resulted in “destructive and irresponsible freedom” being granted “boundless scope,” leaving us defenseless against “the corrosion of evil”? 2 The cause of liberty against tyranny surely continues to command our support; but what conclusion ought we to draw from the facts that liberty in absentia seems so markedly more attractive than liberty in practice, and that the qualities manifested in the struggle for liberty seem so superior to those that come to the fore once liberty is secured? (shrink)

Do differences in income or wealth matter, morally speaking? This essay addresses a broader issue than this question seems to pose. But this broader issue is, I believe, the salient philosophical issue which this question actually poses. Let me explain. Narrowly read, the question at hand is concerned only with inequality of income or wealth. It asks us to consider whether inequality of income or wealth as such is morally problematic. On this construal, the question invites us to consider whether (...) the bare fact that Joshua has a greater income or net worth than Rebekah is a morally defective social state of affairs. Is there at least a significant moral presumption on behalf of equality of income or wealth such that, if an inequality of income or wealth obtains vis-à-vis Joshua and Rebekah, that inequality ought to be nullified unless some impressive positive justification for the inequality can be provided? On this narrow reading, the salient issue is whether there exists in particular an egalitarian presumption with respect to income or wealth. But I believe that the genuinely salient issue here is whether there exists in general an egalitarian presumption with respect to whatever factual condition of individuals one is supposed to attend to when assessing social states of affairs. The crucial question is not whether income or wealth or utility or well-being is the condition the unequal distribution of which is as such morally problematic. (shrink)

It is plausible that we have moral reasons to become better at conforming to our moral reasons. However, it is not always clear what means to greater moral conformity we should adopt. John Harris has recently argued that we have reason to adopt traditional, deliberative means in preference to means that alter our affective or conative states directly—that is, without engaging our deliberative faculties. One of Harris’ concerns about direct means is that they would produce only a superficial kind of (...) moral improvement. Though they might increase our moral conformity, there is some deeper kind of moral improvement that they would fail to produce, or would produce to a lesser degree than more traditional means. I consider whether this concern might be justified by appeal to the concept of moral worth. I assess three attempts to show that, even where they were equally effective at increasing one’s moral conformity, direct interventions would be less conducive to moral worth than typical deliberative alternatives. Each of these attempts is inspired by Kant’s views on moral worth. Each, I argue, fails. (shrink)

In recent years philosophers have done impressive work explicating the nature and moral importance of a kind of self-respect Darwall calls “recognition self-respect,” which involves valuing oneself as the moral equal of every other person, regarding oneself as having basic moral rights and a legitimate claim to respectful treatment from other people just in virtue of being a person, and being unwilling to stand for having one’s rights violated or being treated as something less than a person. It is (...) generally agreed that such self-respect is something all persons have a right to and ought to have and that it is morally objectionable for a person or a society to preclude or injure someone’s self-respect. But scant attention has been paid to another kind of self-respect, the kind that has to do not with the fact that you are a person but with the kind of person you are, that has to do not with rights but with character. I call this kind of self-respect “evaluative self-respect.” The central task of this paper is to explicate the moral value of evaluative self-respect. I do this by looking at the role it plays in the life of someone who is sincerely concerned to be a good person. This is not to deny that evaluative self-respect can go wrong, and I look at how it can go wrong. In particular, evaluative self-respect is, like everything else in human life, vulnerable to the distorting forces of oppression. But, I argue, evaluative self-respect can have moral value even when it goes wrong, and it can be a liberatory resource in the lives of the oppressed. (shrink)

This chapter defines the neutral value for extending life. This is the level of a person’s temporal wellbeing at which it is just worth the person’s continuing to live: extending the life is equally as good for the person as not extending it. The chapter examines and rejects the view that extending a person’s life is normally ethically neutral. This view is analogous to the neutrality intuition about adding a person to the population. It implies that every level of (...) wellbeing is neutral. It may be attributed to Epicurus, who argues that death generally does not harm the person who dies. The chapter considers Epicurus’ arguments. (shrink)