Partiality is the special concern that we display for ourselves and other people with whom we stand in some special personal relationship. It is a central theme in moral philosophy, both ancient and modern. Questions about the justification of partiality arise in the context of enquiry into several moral topics, including the good life and the role in it of our personal commitments; the demands of impartial morality, equality, and other moral ideals; and commonsense ideas about supererogation. This (...) paper provides an overview of the debate on the ethics of partiality through the lens of the domains of permissible and required partiality. After outlining the conceptual space, I first discuss agent-centred moral options that concern permissions not to do what would be impartially optimal. I then focus on required partiality, which concerns associative duties that go beyond our general duties to others and require us to give special priority to people who are close to us. I discuss some notable features of associative duties and the two main objections that have been raised against them: the Voluntarist and the Distributive objections. I then turn to the justification of partiality, focusing on underivative approaches and reasons-based frameworks. I discuss the reductionism and non-reductionism debate: the question whether partiality is derivative or fundamental. I survey arguments for ‘the big three’, according to which partiality is justified by appeal to the special value of either projects, personal relationships, or individuals. I conclude by discussing four newly emerging areas in the debate: normative transitions of various personal relationships, relationships with AI, epistemic partiality, and negative partiality, which concerns the negative analogue of our positive personal relationships. (shrink)

Aggregative consequentialism and several other popular moral theories are threatened with paralysis: when coupled with some plausible assumptions, they seem to imply that it is always ethically indifferent what you do. Modern cosmology teaches that the world might well contain an infinite number of happy and sad people and other candidate value-bearing locations. Aggregative ethics implies that such a world contains an infinite amount of positive value and an infinite amount of negative value. You can affect only a finite (...) amount of good or bad. In standard cardinal arithmetic, an infinite quantity is unchanged by the addition or subtraction of any finite quantity. So it appears you cannot change the value of the world. Modifications of aggregationism aimed at resolving the paralysis are only partially effective and cause severe side effects, including problems of “fanaticism”, “distortion”, and erosion of the intuitions that originally motivated the theory. Is the infinitarian challenge fatal? (shrink)

In this article, I question the plausibility of Metz’s African moral theory from an oft-neglected moral topic of partiality. Metz defends an Afro-communitarian moral theory that posits that the rightness of actions is entirely definable by relationships of identity and solidarity (or, friendship). I offer two objections to this relational moral theory. First, I argue that justifying partiality strictly by invoking relationships (of friendship) ultimately fails to properly value the individual for her own sake – this is called (...) the ‘focus problem’ in the literature. Second, I argue that a relationship-based theory cannot accommodate the agent-related partiality since it posits some relationship to be morally fundamental. My critique ultimately reveals the inadequacy of a relationship-based moral theory insofar as it overlooks some crucial moral considerations grounded on the individual herself in her own right. (shrink)

This article contends that an ethics of care has a particular moral ontology that makes it suitable to argue for the normative significance of relational responsibilities within professional health care. This ontology is relational. It means that moral choices always have to account for the web of relationships, the relational networks and responsibilities that are an essential part of particular moral circumstances. Given this ontology, the article investigates the conditions for health care professionals to be partial and to act (...) on the basis of particular responsibilities to their patients. We will argue that priorities could be partial in three ways: first, because there may be exceptional circumstances that allow for giving priority to one patient over another; second, because the integrity of the patient and a health care worker may be connected in special ways; and, finally, even if impartiality is essential, the institutional basis of health care must always give ample space for an ethically qualified individual and personal care for patients. Even if difficult priorities may be necessary, the conditions of institutional health care should always seek to create the prerequisites for nurses and doctors to administer proper care. (shrink)

Recent results from neuroimaging appear to indicate that some patients in a vegetative state have partially intact awareness. These results may demonstrate misdiagnosis and suggest the need not only for alternative forms of treatment, but also for the reconsideration of end-of-life decisions in cases of disorders of consciousness. This article addresses the second consequence. First, I will discuss which aspects of consciousness may be involved in neuroimaging findings. I will then consider various factors relevant to ethical end-of-life decision-making, and analyse (...) whether and to what extent the above consequence applies to these factors. It will be shown that knowledge of the existence of partial awareness in patients with disorders of consciousness only influences end-of-life decision-making if certain background assumptions are made. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the question of partiality and impartiality in the application of triage. Triage is a process in medical research which recommends that patients should be sorted for treatment according to the degree or severity of their injury. In employing the triage protocol, however, the question of partiality arises because socially vulnerable groups will be neglected since there is the likelihood that the social determinants of a patient's health may diminish her chance of survival. As (...) a process that is based on the severity of a patient's injury, triage will be unfair, and hence negatively partial, to socially vulnerable people. Thus, I aim in this paper to show that the triage protocol fails as an impartial evaluative process because its only aim is to maximize survivability. I contend that: (i) triage would lead to the neglect of the social condition of patients or victims, and (ii) it will only serve the utilitarian purpose of maximization of outcomes which may not be justified in some cases. (shrink)

This chapter is a survey of the ethics of belief. It begins with the debate as it first emerges in the foundational dispute between W. K. Clifford and William James. Then it surveys how the disagreements between Clifford and James have shaped the work of contemporary theorists, touching on topics such as pragmatism, whether we should believe against the evidence, pragmatic and moral encroachment, doxastic partiality, and doxastic wronging.

Since the Supreme Court upheld the partial birth abortion ban in 2007, more U.S. abortion providers have begun performing intraamniotic digoxin injections prior to uterine dilation and evacuations. These injections can cause medical harm to abortion patients. Our objective is to perform an in-depth bioethical analysis of this procedure, which is performed mainly for the provider’s legal benefit despite potential medical consequences for the patient.

What should we do when faced with powerful theoretical arguments that support a severe change in our personal beliefs and commitments? For example, what should new parents do when confronted by unanswered anti-natalist arguments, or two lovers vexed by social theory that apparently undermines love? On the one hand, it would be irrational to ignore theory just because it’s theory; good theory is evidence, after all. On the other hand, factoring in theory can be objectifying, or risks unraveling one's life, (...) fracturing one's identity or social relations. Sometimes, then, following the evidence where it apparently leads would mean not merely changing what we think but who we are. Some might say that there’s something right about the thought that theory can bear on what we ought to believe, it’s just that when we work with full beliefs, only then do we seriously risk having to substantially alter our doxastic economy when pressed by exceptional theoretical arguments. When we work with partial beliefs, however, this risk is greatly diminished. Others will say that we can advocate or champion revisionary positions whilst rationally retaining our pre-theoretical personal convictions. Still others will argue that we should adopt a Moorean posture towards the revisionary arguments. I argue that each response is inadequate, and argue instead that we are permitted to bracket certain kinds of theoretical evidence against our beliefs because of the personal and ethical risks born out of giving them serious consideration. In turn, some of philosophy's doxastic influence is constrained by its attendant ethical risks: the personal enjoys a partial insulation from the theoretical. I close by addressing what this means for practicing philosophers. (shrink)

John Cottingham; I *—The Presidential Address: The Ethical Credentials of Partiality, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 98, Issue 1, 1 June 1998.

Most of the literature on doxastic voluntarism has concentrated on the question of the voluntariness of belief and the issue of how our actual or possible control of our beliefs bears on our justification for holding them and on how, in the light of this control, our intellectual character should be assessed. This paper largely concerns a related question on which less philosophical work has been done: the voluntariness of the grounding of belief and the bearing of various views about (...) this matter on justification, knowledge, and intellectual virtue. In part, my concern is the nature and extent of our voluntary control over our responses to reasons for believing—or over what we take to be such reasons. This paper provides a partial account of such control and, on the basis of the account, will clarify the criteria for appraising intellectual virtue. (shrink)

In this article, I question the plausibility of Metz’s African moral theory from an oft neglected moral topic of partiality. Metz defends an Afro-communitarian moral theory that posits that the rightness of actions is entirely definable by relationships of identity and solidarity. I offer two objections to this relational moral theory. First, I argue that justifying partiality strictly by invoking relationships ultimately fails to properly value the individual for her own sake – this is called the ‘focus problem’ (...) in the literature. Second, I argue that a relationship-based theory cannot accommodate the agent-related partiality since it posits some relationship to be morally fundamental. My critique ultimately reveals the inadequacy of a relationship-based moral theory insofar as it overlooks some crucial moral considerations grounded on the individual herself in her own right. (shrink)

This article explores the debate between partiality and impartiality from an African perspective. I take one influential instance of a defence of impartiality in the African tradition, ‘sympathetic impartiality’, by Kwasi Wiredu, as a foil to represent African ethics. I argue that impartiality fails to cohere with three centrally defining features of African moral thought: the high regard attributed to the family, the veneration of ancestors and the notion of personhood. I merely highlight the first two aspects of (...) African thought; I base my argument largely on the latter feature. (shrink)

This dissertation contains a philosophical project and a psychological project. Together, they explore two central themes, and the relation between them: (1) doxastic control and the ethics of belief, and (2) the moral and epistemic import of close personal relationships. The philosophical project (Chapters 1 and 2) concerns a central puzzle in the ethics of belief: how can we make sense of apparent obligations to believe for moral or practical reasons, if we lack the ability to form beliefs (...) in response to such reasons? I draw on empirical work in emotion regulation to make progress on this problem of doxastic control. The psychological project (Chapters 3 and 4) concerns the role of relational closeness in moral judgment: though empirical moral psychology has traditionally focused on judgments about anonymous strangers, I contribute to a growing body of work showing how personal relationships can dramatically affect moral reasoning. Chapter 1, “Acceptance and the Ethics of Belief,” develops an empirically plausible and mechanistically detailed account of acceptance, the attitude classically characterized as “taking a proposition as a premise in practical reasoning and action.” I argue that acceptance centrally involves preventing a belief from playing its characteristic role in guiding cognition, reasoning, and action, that this centrally involves a “cognitive gating” operation, and that this view gains empirically plausibility by its analogy to well-studied strategies in emotion regulation. Ultimately, I defend acceptance as doxastic response modulation. I propose that this account holds promise for addressing puzzles in the ethics of belief—a domain plagued by the central theoretical challenge of our inability to believe for non-evidential reasons. Chapter 2, “Reframing Epistemic Partiality,” applies my account of acceptance to a specific debate in the ethics of belief: the epistemic partiality debate, which asks whether we sometimes ought to believe against the evidence regarding our friends. Though compelling, the partialist view has been plagued by serious objections. I argue that the debate has been focused on the wrong doxastic attitude: recasting our duties of friendship as duties of acceptance, rather than belief, satisfies the partialist intuitions, without falling prey to the varied objections against the view. Chapter 3, “What We Would (but Shouldn’t) Do for Those We Love” builds on prior work demonstrating that people say they are far more likely to report a distant other, compared to a close other, who commits a serious moral transgression. Across four studies, I demonstrate that people not only say they would protect close others more than distant others, but also that they say it is morally right to show such partiality towards close others. Furthermore, I show that people say that they would protect close others more than they think they should—suggesting that moral decisions involving those closest to us may be a context in which people are particularly likely to fail to do what they think is right. Chapter 4, “How Relationship Affects Adolescents’ Decisions to Report Moral Transgressions,” investigates how 6th-9th graders respond to the transgressions of close versus distant others. Given the social importance of peer relationships in adolescence, the role of relationship is central to understanding this stage of moral development. I show that adolescents—like adults—are more likely to report distant others who transgress than close others, and more likely to report serious moral transgressions than minor ones. (shrink)

(2000). Caring at a Distance: (Im)partiality, Moral Motivation and the Ethics of Representation - Introduction. Ethics, Place & Environment: Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 303-309. doi: 10.1080/713665900.

It is plausible to think that practices of caring are partly constituted by a caregiver's commitment to a cared-for. However, discussions of caring often contain no explicit discussion of such commitments, and do not attempt to draw any philosophical conclusions from the nature of caring relations as committed. A discussion of caring practices that emphasizes the importance of commitment therefore has the potential to generate important new insights for our understanding of caring. This essay begins that project by arguing that (...) a commitment-centric conception of caring entails the truth of moral partialism. Although many care-ethicists are sympathetic to partialism, the arguments in its defense remain controversial. As I show in this article, however, partialism is necessarily true given the committed nature of caring. This is because the concept of commitment is itself a necessarily partial one: to say that we are equally committed to everyone or everything is equivalent to saying that we are not committed to anything. Thus, when viewed as a species of commitment, it is part of the concept of caring that it requires us to put the needs of those we care for before the needs of those unknown to us. (shrink)

(2000). Caring at a Distance: (Im)partiality, Moral Motivation and the Ethics of Representation - Partiality, Distance and Moral Obligation. Ethics, Place & Environment: Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 309-313. doi: 10.1080/713665894.

. Caring at a Distance: partiality, Moral Motivation and the Ethics of Representation - Asylum and the Principle of Proximity. Ethics, Place & Environment: Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 313-317.

(2000). Caring at a Distance: (Im)partiality, Moral Motivation and the Ethics of Representation - Manipulation and Exploitation? Western Media and the Third World. Ethics, Place & Environment: Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 317-319. doi: 10.1080/713665895.

. Caring at a Distance: partiality, Moral Motivation and the Ethics of Representation - Moral Motivation - How Far Can You Travel in Five Minutes? Ethics, Place & Environment: Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 319-322.

This volume provides a framework for approaching and understanding mental normativity. It presents cutting-edge research on the ethics of belief as well as innovative research beyond the normativity of belief—and towards an ethics of mind. By moving beyond traditional issues of epistemology the contributors discuss the most current ideas revolving around rationality, responsibility, and normativity. -/- The book’s chapters are divided into two main parts. Part I discusses contemporary issues surrounding the normativity of belief. The essays here cover (...) topics such as control over belief and its implication for the ethics of belief, the role of the epistemic community for the possibility of epistemic normativity, responsibility for believing, doxastic partiality in friendship, the structure and content of epistemic norms, and the norms for suspension of judgment. In Part II the focus shifts from the practical dimensions of belief to the normativity and rationality of other mental states—especially blame, passing thoughts, fantasies, decisions, and emotions. These essays illustrate how we might approach an ethics of mind by focusing not only on belief, but also on debates about responsibility, rationality, These essays illustrate how we might approach an ethics of mind by focusing not only on belief, but also more generally on debates about responsibility and rationality, as well as on normative questions concerning other mental states or attitudes. -/- The Ethics of Belief and Beyond paves the way towards an ethics of mind by building on and contributing to recent philosophical discussions in the ethics of belief and the normativity of other mental phenomena. It will be of interest to upper-level students and researchers working in epistemology, ethics, philosophy of action, philosophy of mind, and moral psychology. (shrink)

This essay counteracts that trend [regarding the debate about whether partiality can be justified, those supporting impartiality have generally been on the offensive arguing that morality calls for impartiality] by taking a closer look at the moral complexity of our social practices of partiality. My adoption of this approach does not represent an endorsement of current notions of impartiality. The ideal of impartiality, in my view, should be substantially reformulated. However, that the concept of partiality is transparently (...) defensible. In this discussion, I focus on the aspects of partiality that complicate the philosophical defense of it. In the first part of the discussion, I argue that the moral value of partiality depends partly on the moral value of the relationships it helps to sustain. It matters to the philosophical issues at stake that personal relationships can be abusive and oppressive. In Section II, I refer to the vastly unequal social distribution of the means for favoring loved ones. Because many people have inadequate resources for caring for their loved ones, our conventional relationship practices of partiality-practices by which we care only for our ``own''-can be disasterous for many people. This seriously complicates the defense of partiality. The paper ends with a discussion, in Section III, of ``global moral concern'' and the resistance which most partialists show to it. (shrink)

The main aim of the paper is critical reflection of the ethics of social consequences. The reflection is based on two partially related positions. Ethics of social consequences is, on the one hand, characterized as a contemporary ethical theory and, on the other, as a specific form of consequentialism. Methodology of criticism is based on the works of a homogenous group of modern-day consequentialist authors (though these are of diverse platforms): Pettit, Singer, Sen, Shaw. The purpose of this (...) paper is to provide objective reflection on the ethics of social consequences which may possibly become the base for further development and / or improvement of this original Slovak ethical theory. (shrink)

The problem of nonideal theory has been widely discussed in political philosophy in recent times. The problem has received much less attention, however, at the level of individual morality. Since the real world is a nonideal one, the problem is extremely relevant, if moral theory is to guide our action as moral agents. My purpose in this paper is mainly conceptual. I first clarify the distinction between different kinds of nonideal situation (natural accidents or limitations and partial compliance with morality) (...) and how different moral theories face those different kinds of imperfections. Secondly, I try to show that the distinction between the two main sources of imperfection is less straightforward and more complex than might be expected. Finally, I suggest that the role of partial compliance in nonideal moral theory is much more modest and difficult to defend than we might at first think. (shrink)

According to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, big data reality means, “The days of having a different image for your co-workers and for others are coming to an end, which is good because having multiple identities represents a lack of integrity.” Two sets of questions follow. One centers on technology and asks how big data mechanisms collapse our various selves (work-self, family-self, romantic-self) into one personality. The second question set shifts from technology to ethics by asking whether we want the kind (...) of integrity that Zuckerberg lauds, and that big data technology enables. The negative response is explored by sketching three ethical conceptions of selfhood that recommend personal identity be understood as dis-integrating. The success of the strategies partially depends upon an undermining use of big data platforms. (shrink)

Illustrating the tensions and possibilities that the notion of the ethic of care as a democratic and citizenship issue may have in discourses of citizenship education in western states is the focus of this article. I first consider some theoretical debates on the definition of an ethic of care, especially in relation to issues of justice and (im)partiality. Then, I discuss the reconceptualization of care on the basis of two related but distinct themes: the reconciliation of justice and care, (...) and the rethinking of citizenship. Following this, I lay out some implications for citizenship education and answer the question of what learning and teaching for/about a reconceptualized ethic of care can contribute to changing current perceptions of and actions towards immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers. (shrink)

The body in need of care is the subaltern of the neoliberal epistemic order: it is that which cannot be heard, and that which is muted, partially so even in care ethics. In order to read the writing by which the needy body writes the world, a new ethics must be articulated. Building on Jacques Derrida’s philosophy of deconstruction, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s notions of subalternity and epistemic violence, critical disability scholarship, and corporeal care theories, in this article I (...) develop an ethics of needs. This is an ethical position that seeks to read the world that care needs write with the relations they enact. The ethics of needs deconstructs the world with a focus on those care needs that are presently responded to with neglect, indifference, or even violence: the absence of care. Specifically, the ethics of needs opens a space—a spacing, an aporia—for a more ethical politics of life than neoliberal biopolitics can ever provide, namely, the politics of life of needs. (shrink)

The article deals with a contemporary debate on Hippocratic ethics. Both the opponents and proponents of Hippocratic medical ethics seem to ignore the complexity of the said ethical system. The ethics of the Corpus Hippocraticum can be properly understood only in relation to physiological, psychological, and other factors. Therefore, the ongoing debate only partially represents ethical issues, and a number of arguments in it cannot be considered as valid. Moreover, the complexity of Hippocratic ethics reveals that (...) quite a few of its principles are still valid today and deserve to be further analyzed. In addition, some of its principles have been incontestably incorporated into contemporary medical ethics. (shrink)

This article explores the ethics of access in relation to globalization, feminism and information society. It argues that the virtual settings of information and communication technologies (ICTs) are beginning to place significant emphasis on sociospatial as well as geospatial understandings of the world and the interactions that take place within it. The article examines the extreme material and other associated inequalities of contemporary globalization, and the concentration of technological development and power in the rich economies. Historical developments related to (...) these factors are discussed, including the gendered nature of technologies and social processes shaping their production, application and use. It is argued that feminist theory and practice is relevant to broad debates about inequality of access in the information age, as well as to those concentrating specifically on gender and women. The tension between liberal/neoliberal focus on 'equality' and the 'grotesque' levels of contemporary inequality is raised. It is argued that feminism's long-standing and extensive critique of the problematic masculinist and partial nature of liberal/neoliberal theory, and its framing of agency, offers a major contribution in addressing this. Cyberfeminism works in theory and practice on horizontal networks and consciousness-raising about their potential, arguing that the era of the cybercitizen raises new and important risks of marginalization, on the basis of gender and other factors, and new forms of empowerment. (shrink)

The dissertation traces the development of what I call “the problem of partiality” through the work of certain key figures in the British Moralist tradition: John Locke, Catharine Trotter Cockburn, Anthony Ashley Cooper (the Third Earl of Shaftesbury), Francis Hutcheson, John Gay, David Hume, Joseph Butler, and Adam Smith. On the one hand, we are committed to impartiality as a constitutive norm of moral judgment and conduct. On the other hand, we are committed to the idea that it is (...) permissible, or even obligatory, to expend disproportionate resources promoting the good of our loved ones over the good of strangers. However, these two commitments conflict with one another. This problem challenges us to provide an account of the scope and limits of reasonable partiality that does justice to both commitments. I argue that confronting this tension is a central project of early modern ethics. I offer a rereading of the British Moralist tradition, centered on debates about partiality, and thereby shift discussion of the tradition away from concerns about meta-ethics and moral epistemology, to issues of practical ethics. The topic of partiality remains central in contemporary ethics, as is evident in ongoing debates about the place of empathy in moral judgment, and the role of love in shaping our moral commitments. Though the aim of the dissertation is not to settle questions about the scope and limits of reasonable partiality, the focus here remains fixed on how the concept of partiality was problematized in our ethical thought, and how it informs our discussions in normative ethics and moral psychology. Alongside building a bridge between early modern scholarship and recent work in ethics, the dissertation casts light on two understudied figures in the British Moralist tradition – Cockburn and Gay – who contributed greatly to debates about partiality. By examining their contributions, I reconsider their place in the history of modern ethics and therefore provide a more contextualized account of philosophical thought in the period. (shrink)

Armstrong describes the rise of a new mode of medical practice that he calls in the following terms: Surveillance medicine gives rise to a novel and underexplored aspect of the long-standing tension between the different goals of clinical medicine and public health.

This paper analyzes the ethical themes and theory portrayals by particular characters in Star Trek: Into Darkness. It is concluded that the film can be understood as explicating the pros and cons of both "male" and "female" ethical perspectives, and that a comprehensive understanding of morality requires some synthesis of both perspectives.

ABSTRACTThe search for universal ethics among journalists has yet to receive general acceptance because previous attempts have sought a code of ethics to which all journalists around the globe could agree. Yet, starting with the universal principle of caring for others leads to seeing the feminist approach to ethics, namely the ethics of care and feminist discursive ethics, as a partial approach toward a universal ethic for journalists. Building on the work of Gilligan, Steiner, Buzzanell (...) and others, we argue that such an approach would have universal appeal. The implications of this for the training of journalists include getting journalists to recognizie the universality of caring for others and apply the 6 steps toward ethical public discourse. The migration crisis in Europe in 2015 provides an example of how this could lead to more compassion in the coverage of those who are most vulnerable in modern societies. (shrink)

In 2011, for the first time ever, two scientific journals were asked not to publish research papers in full detail. The research in question was on the H5N1 influenza virus (bird flu), and the concern was that the expected public health benefits of disseminating the findings did not outweigh the potential harm should the knowledge be misused for malicious purposes. This constraint raises important ethical concerns as it collides with scientific freedom and openness. In this article, we argue that constraining (...) the dissemination of dual-use knowledge can in certain cases be justified because, for example: scientists have a responsibility for potentially harmful consequences of their research; the public need not always know of all scientific discoveries; uncertainty about the risks of harm may warrant precaution; and expected benefits do not always outweigh potential harm. However, the constraints in question are not absolute but can be both temporary and partial. We propose three core aspects for an ethics of dual-use dissemination: dual-use awareness, precaution, and acknowledgment of conflicting values. Additionally, to help scientists understand when constraints on dissemination may be justified we suggest three corresponding conditions that prompt scientists to recognize dual-use material or research, consider the potential impact of dual-use knowledge dissemination, and acknowledge and respond to external dissemination concerns. (shrink)

In the last decades the ethics of virtue became the central issue of ethical research. This leads to the question, whether the ethics of virtue is an alternative or a complementary theory to the deontological ethics. The question then is, whether the ethics of virtue can be fully independent of moral rules and which of the issues of the ethics of virtue can not, due to their specific character, be resolved in the frame of deontological (...) ethics. The attention is paid to the vigorous aspects as well as to the blind spots of this theory. The deontological approaches and the approaches based on virtue are seen by the author as two different, limited, partially overlapping, but mutually independent ethical perspectives. For her the discussions about whether these ethical systems are alternative or complementary are the discussions concerning the grounds of ethics. (shrink)

This book presents the views of leading researchers from across Europe and North America, from both normative and empirical disciplines, in the multidisciplinary debate on the current state of research on the ethical, legal and social implications of personalised medicine. The work partially draws on a four year collaborative research project funded by the German Ministry for Education and Research, and at a time when future health care is a topic of much discussion this book provides valuable policy recommendations for (...) the way forward. (shrink)

Harm-reduction approaches are used to reduce the burden of risky human behaviour without necessarily aiming to stop the behaviour. We discuss what an introduction of harm reduction for doping in sports would mean in parallel with a relaxation of the antidoping rule. We analyse what is ethically at stake in the following five levels: (1) What would it mean for the athlete (the self)? (2) How would it impact other athletes (the other)? (3) How would it affect the phenomenon of (...) sport as a game and its fair play basis (the play)? (4) What would be the consequences for the spectator and the role of sports in society (the display)? and (5) What would it mean for what some consider as essential to being human (humanity)? For each level, we present arguments for and against doping and then discuss what a harm-reduction approach, within a dynamic regime of a partially relaxed antidoping rule, could imply. We find that a harm-reduction approach is morally defensible and potentially provides a viable escape out of the impasse resulting from the impossibility of attaining the eradication of doping. The following question remains to be answered: Would a more relaxed position, when combined with harm-reduction measures, indeed have less negative consequences for society than today9s all-out antidoping efforts that aim for abstinence? We provide an outline of an alternative policy, allowing a cautious step-wise change to answer this question and then discuss the ethical aspects of such a policy change. (shrink)

This article is an exploration of the ways in which maternal subjectivity is negotiated and defined in the context of the act or process of giving birth. As such, it is offered as a contribution to and discussion of recent feminist evaluation of childbirth management systems. Written from the partial perspective of my own experiences of pregnant and maternal embodiment, the article considers whether the ethic of the birth plan is a satisfactory representation of consumer needs and participation in contemporary (...) maternity care. By way of a selective personal account of various models of consumer-orientated and woman-centred childbirth management services that exist in Australia and New Zealand, I draw on ideas from feminist theories of corporeality and the dialogical tradition of social thought in order to rethink the ethical encounter between the labouring woman or consumer and her care provider or practitioner. (shrink)

Any threat to use nuclear weapons inherently carries the possibility of escalation to a level such that both parties in a conflict, and likely many others, would be destroyed. Yet nuclear weapons are also seen as necessary for securing the very things that would be destroyed if the weapons were ever used. The fix for this nuclear dilemma relies on the strategy of deterrence. Deterrence provides a rationale for why nuclear weapons are necessary, even though they may seem dangerous. But (...) the practice of deterrence involves less intentionality and agency than is usually assumed. The success of deterrence relies partially on luck as well as unrealistic assumptions about human behavior. Rather than a strategic necessity, deterrence may be an institutionalized behavior, accepted because it has always been practiced rather than because it makes sense. Assessing the ethics of deterrence and nuclear weapons requires engaging with these issues. (shrink)

Most plausible moral theories must address problems of partial acceptance or partial compliance. The aim of this paper is to examine some proposed ways of dealing with partial acceptance problems as well as to introduce a new Rule Utilitarian suggestion. Here I survey three forms of Rule Utilitarianism, each of which represents a distinct approach to solving partial acceptance issues. I examine Fixed Rate, Variable Rate, and Optimum Rate Rule Utilitarianism, and argue that a new approach, Maximizing Expectation Rate Rule (...) Utilitarianism, better solves partial acceptance problems. (shrink)

In this paper I critique the ethical implications of automating CCTV surveillance. I consider three modes of CCTV with respect to automation: manual, fully automated, and partially automated. In each of these I examine concerns posed by processing capacity, prejudice towards and profiling of surveilled subjects, and false positives and false negatives. While it might seem as if fully automated surveillance is an improvement over the manual alternative in these areas, I demonstrate that this is not necessarily the case. In (...) preference to the extremes I argue in favour of partial automation in which the system integrates a human CCTV operator with some level of automation. To assess the degree to which such a system should be automated I draw on the further issues of privacy and distance. Here I argue that the privacy of the surveilled subject can benefit from automation, while the distance between the surveilled subject and the CCTV operator introduced by automation can have both positive and negative effects. I conclude that in at least the majority of cases more automation is preferable to less within a partially automated system where this does not impinge on efficacy. (shrink)

Attention is given to a background idea that is often invoked in discussions about reasonable partiality: the idea of a moral division of labour. It is not only a right, but also a duty for professionals to attend (almost) exclusively to the interests of their own clients, because their partial activities are part of an impartial scheme providing for an allocation of professional help to all clients. To clarify that idea, a difference is made between two kinds of division (...) of labour, a technical one and a social one. In order to assess the applicability of the idea of a moral division of labour to professional ethics, journalism is contrasted with other professions. (shrink)

In the case of synthetic biology, the responsibility of humanity for the creation of new technologies that interfere with the processes of natural selection and evolution of species can be invoked, thus annihilating the complex ecological balances and possibly leading to uncontrollable genetic mutations. The big ethical questions are raised by the fact that viral genetic material is hybridized with synthetic genetic material, as well as with the genetic material that underlies the DNA of various living cells, that might interfere (...) with synthetic genetic material - either due to errors in the handling of genetic content or the inability to predict the evolution of synthetic biological systems, an evolution beyond any mathematical modeling that would allow the estimation of biological risks given by the appearance of new species - partially or totally synthetic - and especially by their spread in ecosystems. In this article we will plead for an ethical modeling of technology and a wider communication between ethicist and bio-engineers in order to estimate the directions of technological evolution, especially in the case of synthetic biology. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the consideration of the general principles of understanding of human development by N. F. Fedorov and F. Nietzsche. The article considers Fedorov’s philosophy of the common task to be a partial continuation of the general contours of Nietzsche's thought about the will to power. Nietzsche’s position is viewed through the prism of the concept of the will to power as a vital force overcoming the nihilistic devaluation of values. The concept of Fedorov is considered, first (...) of all, from the point of view of his understanding of human self-improvement as the elevation of the power of human will over the blind natural elements. In this context, the question of the legitimacy of understanding Fedorov as an advocate of scientific and technological progress is considered. In the article, along with the parallels between Nietzsche and Fedorov, another idea of kinship of their philosophical optics through the understanding of philosophy as ethics is also carried out. (shrink)