In Intricate Ethics, Kamm questions the moral importance of some non-consequentialist distinctions and then introduces and argues for the moral importance of ...

Morality, Mortality as a whole deals with certain aspects of ethical theory and with moral problems that arise primarily in contexts involving life‐and‐death decisions. The importance of the theoretical issues is not limited to their relevance to these decisions; however, they are, rather, issues at the heart of basic moral and political theory. This first volume comprises three parts. Part I, Death: From Bad to Worse, has with four chapters, and an appendix, discussing death and why it is bad for (...) the person who dies. Part II, Saving Lives: General Issues, has six chapters, and explores a cluster of moral problems that arise in saving lives. The general question raised is whether we should always, in aiding life, act so as to save the greater number of lives or to produce the greatest amount of good. Part III, Scarce Resources: Theoretical Issues, Specific Recommendations, and Organ Transplants, has five chapters, and deals with the problem of the acquisition and distribution of organs for transplantation. It allows us to apply the theoretical discussion of saving lives and relevant/irrelevant utilities presented in the previous parts. However, the discussion can be understood independently of the first two parts, and the conceptual issues and procedures on which it focuses are relevant to dealing with any scarce resource, including money and time, which are needed to use other plentiful resources. Although the book contains much theoretical and methodological argument, it is firmly grounded in practical ethical issues, and is illustrated throughout by examples. (shrink)

This volume continues the examination of issues of life and death which F.M. Kamm began in Morality, Mortality, Volume I. Kamm continues her development of a non-consequentialist ethical theory and its application to practical ethical problems. She looks at the distinction between killing and letting die, and between intending and foreseeing, and also at the concepts of rights, prerogatives, and supererogation. She shows that a sophisticated non-consequentialist theory can be modelled which copes convincingly with practical ethical issues, and throws considerable (...) light on some of the key distinctions and concepts of ethical discourse. (shrink)

In “Divine Freedom,” I argue that morally significant incompatibilist freedom is a great good. So God possesses morally incompatibilist freedom. So, God can do wrong or at least can do worse than the best action He can do. So, God is not essentially morally perfect. After careful consideration of numerous objections, I conclude that this argument is undefeated.

A common kind of explanation in cognitive neuroscience might be called functiontheoretic: with some target cognitive capacity in view, the theorist hypothesizes that the system computes a well-defined function (in the mathematical sense) and explains how computing this function constitutes (in the system’s normal environment) the exercise of the cognitive capacity. Recently, proponents of the so-called ‘new mechanist’ approach in philosophy of science have argued that a model of a cognitive capacity is explanatory only to the extent that it reveals (...) the causal structure of the mechanism underlying the capacity. If they are right, then a cognitive model that resists a transparent mapping to known neural mechanisms fails to be explanatory. I argue that a functiontheoretic characterization of a cognitive capacity can be genuinely explanatory even absent an account of how the capacity is realized in neural hardware. (shrink)

Despite his unassailable heritage, the passionate thinker to whom Levinas dedicated Totalité et infini has today nearly been forgotten outside France. This forgetting is the shared premise of two books published in recent years. The first is William C. Hackett and Jeffrey Hanson’s edition and translation of Wahl’s Existence humaine et transcendance : Human Existence and Transcendence, and the second is a volume of selections from Wahl’s philosophical writings edited by Alan D. Schrift and Ian Alexander Moore: Jean Wahl: (...) Transcendence and the Concrete Selected Writings. (shrink)

This article examines arguments concerning enhancement of human persons recently presented by Michael Sandel (2004). In the first section, I briefly describe some of his arguments. In section two, I consider whether, as Sandel claims, the desire for mastery motivates enhancement and whether such a desire could be grounds for its impermissibility. Section three considers how Sandel draws the distinction between treatment and enhancement, and the relation to nature that he thinks each expresses. The fourth section examines Sandel's views about (...) parent/child relations and also how enhancement would affect distributive justice and the duty to aid. In conclusion, I briefly offer an alternative suggestion as to why enhancement may be troubling and consider what we could safely enhance. (shrink)

Based on a non-consequentialist ethical theory, this book critically examines the prevalent view that if a fetus has the moral standing of a person, it has a right to life and abortion is impermissible. Most discussion of abortion has assumed that this view is correct, and so has focused on the question of the personhood of the fetus. Kamm begins by considering in detail the permissibility of killing in non-abortion cases which are similar to abortion cases. She goes on to (...) consider the case for the permissibility of abortion in many types of pregnancies, including ones resulting from rape, voluntary pregnancy, and pregnancy resulting from a voluntary sex act, even if the fetus is considered a person. This argument emerges as part of a broader theory of creating new people responsibly. Kamm explores the implications of this argument for informed consent to abortion; responsibilities in pregnancy that is not aborted, and the significance of extra-uterine gestation devices for the permissibility of abortion. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to investigate how cultural meanings associated with the left ventricular assist device inform acceptance and experience of this innovative technology when it is used as a destination therapy. We conducted open-ended, semistructured interviews with family caregivers and patients who had undergone LVAD-DT procedures at six U.S. hospitals. A grounded theory approach was used for the analysis. Thirty-nine patients and 42 caregivers participated. Participants described a sense of obligation to undergo the procedure because of its (...) promise for salvation. However, once the device was implanted, patients described being placed into a liminal state of being neither sick nor healthy, with no culturally scripted role. Consideration of end-of-life decisions was complicated by the uncertainties about how patients with LVADs die. Pre-implantation communications among patient, family, and clinicians should take into account the impact of the technology on meaning, identity, and patient experience. (shrink)

Many philosophers are sceptical about the power of philosophy to refute commonsensical claims. They look at the famous attempts and judge them inconclusive. I prove that, even if those famous attempts are failures, there are alternative successful philosophical proofs against commonsensical claims. After presenting the proofs I briefly comment on their significance.

When is industry self-regulation (ISR) a legitimate form of governance? In principle, ISR can serve the interests of participating companies, regulators and other stakeholders. However, in practice, empirical evidence shows that ISR schemes often under-perform, leading to criticism that such schemes are tantamount to firms marking their own homework. In response, this paper explains how current management theory on ISR has failed to separate the pragmatic legitimacy of ISR based on self-interested calculations, from moral legitimacy based on normative approval. The (...) paper traces three families of management theory on ISR and uses these to map the pragmatic and moral legitimacy of ISR schemes. It identifies tensions between the pragmatic and moral legitimacy of ISR schemes, which the current ISR literature does not address, and draws implications for the future theory and practice of ISR. (shrink)

Philosophers often find themselves in disagreement with contemporary philosophers they know full well to be their epistemic superiors on the topics relevant to the disagreement. This looks epistemically irresponsible. I offer a detailed investigation of this problem of the reflective epistemic renegade. I argue that although in some cases the renegade is not epistemically blameworthy, and the renegade situation is significantly less common than most would think, in a troublesome number of cases in which the situation arises the renegade is (...) blameworthy in her disagreement with recognized epistemic superiors. I also offer some thoughts on what it would mean for philosophical practice for us to refrain from being renegades. Finally, I show how a new kind of radical skepticism emerges from modest theses regarding the renegade. (shrink)

Prior studies have provided explanations for the presence, use and dissemination of codes of corporate ethics or codes of corporate conduct of business corporations. Most such explanations are functional in nature, and are descriptive as they are derived from the codes and their associated documents. We search for more underlying explanations using two complementary theories: first, social contract theories explaining the exogenous and endogenous reasons of organizational behavior, and then institutional theory explaining why organizations take similar measures in response to (...) institutional pressures. Based on our explanations, we contend that the codes and their use and dissemination are arising from underlying social and institutional pressures for firms to continuously validate their existence in the face of increasing changes and recurrent uncertainties. (shrink)

In this article I am concerned with whether it could be morally significant to distinguish between doing something 'in order to bring about an effect' as opposed to 'doing something because we will bring about an effect'. For example, the Doctrine of Double Effect tells us that we should not act in order to bring about evil, but even if this is true is it perhaps permissible to act only because an evil will thus occur? I discuss these questions in (...) connection with a version of the so-called Trolley Problem known as the Loop Case. I also consider how these questions may bear on whether a rational agent must aim at an event which he believes is causally necessary to achieve an end he pursues. (shrink)

This paper presents results found through searching publicly available U.S. data sources for information about how to handle incidental fndings (IF) in human subjects research, especially in genetics and genomics research, neuroimaging research, and CT colonography research. We searched the Web sites of 14 federal agencies, 22 professional societies, and 100 universities, as well as used the search engine Google for actual consent forms that had been posted on the Internet. Our analysis of these documents showed that there is very (...) little public guidance available for researchers as to how to deal with incidental fndings. Moreover, the guidance available is not consistent. (shrink)

Phenomenology is a well‐founded qualitative methodology that is frequently used by nurse researchers and considered of value when addressing research questions in nursing practice and nurse education. However, at present, nurse researchers using phenomenology tend to divide phenomenological methodology into the descriptive and interpretive formats. The nursing literature suggests that there is a deep divide between researchers following the methodological underpinnings and basic precepts pertaining to these two camps. If we are to reach a clearer understanding of the theory underlying (...) phenomenological methods it would be more helpful if we started to recognise that there are also important associations between transcendental and interpretive phenomenology. One such association is that a paradigm of movement exists that is not unique to transcendental and interpretive phenomenology but is common to them, as well as being inherent within a variety of fields of study. If we consider the universality of such imagery, looking to examples through parallel texts, we can obtain insights into phenomenology and its transposition into a workable scientific method that can be of use to the nurse researcher. (shrink)

Hunger continues to be one of humanity's greatest challenges despite the existence of a more-than-adequate global food supply equal to 2,800 kilocalories for every person every day. In measuring progress, policy-makers and concerned citizens across the globe rely on information supplied by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), an agency of the United Nations. In 2010 the FAO reported that in the wake of the 2007–2008 food-price spikes and global economic crisis, the number of people experiencing hunger worldwide since 2005–2007 (...) had increased by 150 million, rising above 1 billion in 2009. However, in itsState of Food Insecurity in the World 2012(SOFI 12) the FAO presented new estimates, having revamped its methods and reinterpreted its hunger data back to 1990. The revised numbers for the period 1990–1992 to 2010–2012 reverse the trend to a steadily falling one. Based on the FAO's new calculations, extreme undernourishment peaked in 1990 at a record-breaking one billion, followed by a significant decline through 2006, when progress stalled but did not reverse (see chart below). (shrink)

The computational theory of mind construes the mind as an information-processor and cognitive capacities as essentially representational capacities. Proponents of the view claim a central role for representational content in computational models of these capacities. In this paper I argue that the standard view of the role of representational content in computational models is mistaken; I argue that representational content is to be understood as a gloss on the computational characterization of a cognitive process.Keywords: Computation; Representational content; Cognitive capacities; Explanation.

In their important paper “Autonomous Agents”, Floridi and Sanders use “levels of abstraction” to argue that computers are or may soon be moral agents. In this paper we use the same levels of abstraction to illuminate differences between human moral agents and computers. In their paper, Floridi and Sanders contributed definitions of autonomy, moral accountability and responsibility, but they have not explored deeply some essential questions that need to be answered by computer scientists who design artificial agents. One such question (...) is, “Can an artificial agent that changes its own programming become so autonomous that the original designer is no longer responsible for the behavior of the artificial agent?” To explore this question, we distinguish between LoA1 (the user view) and LoA2 (the designer view) by exploring the concepts of unmodifiable, modifiable and fully modifiable tables that control artificial agents. We demonstrate that an agent with an unmodifiable table, when viewed at LoA2, distinguishes an artificial agent from a human one. This distinction supports our first counter-claim to Floridi and Sanders, namely, that such an agent is not a moral agent, and the designer bears full responsibility for its behavior. We also demonstrate that even if there is an artificial agent with a fully modifiable table capable of learning* and intentionality* that meets the conditions set by Floridi and Sanders for ascribing moral agency to an artificial agent, the designer retains strong moral responsibility. (shrink)

The Doctrine of Double Effect and the Principle of Do No Harm raise important theoretical and practical issues, some of which are discussed by Boyle, Donagan, and Quinn. I argue that neither principle is correct, and some revisionist, and probably nonabsolutist, analysis of constraints on action and omission is necessary. In making these points, I examine several approaches to deflection of threat cases, discuss an argument for the permissibility of voluntary euthanasia, and present arguments relevant to medical contexts which justify (...) intentionally hanning some to aid others, with and without the consent of those harmed. Keywords: consent, double effect, euthanasia, harming, organ transplantation, scarce resources, trolley problem CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

The rise, in the 1980s, of what is now labelled appropriation-photography can be understood as the full absorption of the logic of the ready-made into photographic art. Like its Duchampian predecessor, the deployment of the ready-made was used to question the nature of institutionalized art-photography: was art inherent to the photo's medium; was it an auratic attribute of the author; conferred by the institution; or ratified by its consumption? It also enabled a critique of the politics of representation at stake (...) in photographic practice outside of the immediate institutions of art. However, the correlation of appropriation-photography and a politics of representation relies upon the reduced logic of the subversive effect of a re-presented image. David Levinthal's photographs of mass-produced toys extends the reduced logic of the ready-made cultural artefact through their playful configuration, as well as through the more complex forms of photographic technique this allows. This enables a distinctive critical re-presentation of cultural myth. However, Levinthal also introduces a number of photographic techniques, which would seem to renege on the avant-garde claims of appropriation-photography, such as the reintroduction of pictorial composition and the use of large-scale Polaroids that emphatically reassert the unique and the expertly crafted image. This article examines this ambiguity in Levinthal's work, particularly with respect to its presentation of myth, and diagnoses it as symptomatic of the conditions of recent art-photography. (shrink)

This book provides a foundation to the principles of psychology. It draws upon the natural sciences, avoiding metaphysics, for the basis of its information. According to James, this book, assuming that thoughts and feelings exist and are vehicles of knowledge, thereupon contends that psychology, when it has ascertained the empirical correlation of the various sorts of thought or feeling with definite conditions of the brain, can go no farther as a natural science.

Philosophers may play the role of insider, e.g., serving as advisor to government commissions, or of outsider, commenting on the work of such commissions. Each role may raise dilemmas. It is argued that as insider the philosopher's primary duties should be to clarify and inform, as well as philosophize with the commissioners, and help them stay on a course in which moral considerations are given their proper weight. Fulfilling these duties means that the philosopher will sometimes have to help produce (...) a weaker intellectual document than he would prefer, or lose a chance to directly promote the public good. The insider philosopher will also have to consider whether it is appropriate for a policy proposal from a commission to differ from much current government policy, and how morally appropriate compromise can be reached among commissioners. Given his understanding of how an insider philosopher should function and how commission reports are constructed, the outsider philosopher can comment both on how close a report comes to being perfect of its type, and how far short of an ideal philosophical analysis even a perfect government report is. It may be appropriate for him to give greater weight to the public good, if his comments are very likely to affect it, than the insider philosopher. Examples for discussion are drawn from government reports on organ transplantation, embryo research, terminating care, and compensation for research subjects. Keywords: embryo research, government commissions, moral conflict, moral compromise, organ transplants, philosophers and public policy CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

In this article I am concerned with whether it could be morally significant to distinguish between doing something 'in order to bring about an effect' as opposed to 'doing something because we will bring about an effect'. For example, the Doctrine of Double Effect tells us that we should not act in order to bring about evil, but even if this is true is it perhaps permissible to act only because an evil will thus occur? I discuss these questions in (...) connection with a version of the so-called Trolley Problem known as the Loop Case. I also consider how these questions may bear on whether a rational agent must aim at an event which he believes is causally necessary to achieve an end he pursues. (shrink)

One of the foremost objections to theological voluntarism is the contingency objection. If God’s will fixes moral facts, then what if God willed that agents engage in cruelty? I argue that even unrestricted theological voluntarists should accept some logical constraints on possible moral systems—hence, some limits on ways that God could have willed morality to be—and these logical constraints are sufficient to blunt the force of the contingency objec­tion. One constraint I defend is a very weak accessibility requirement, related to (...) (but less problematic than) existence internalism in metaethics. The theo­logical voluntarist can maintain: Godcouldn’t have loved cruelty, and even though he could have willed behaviors we find abhorrent, he could only have done so in a world of deeply alien moral agents. We cannot confidently declare such a world unacceptable. (shrink)

Externalism about the mind holds that the explanation of our representational capacities requires appeal to mental states that are individuated by reference to features of the environment. Externalists claim that ‘narrow’ taxonomies cannot account for important features of psychological explanation. I argue that this claim is false, and offer a general argument for preferring narrow taxonomies in psychology.