Can literary fictions convey significant philosophical views, understood in terms of propositional knowledge? This study addresses the philosophical value of literature by examining how literary works impart philosophy truth and knowledge and to what extent the works should be approached as communications of their authors. Beginning with theories of fiction, it examines the case against the prevailing ‘pretence’ and ‘make-believe’ theories of fiction hostile to propositional theories of literary truth. Tackling further arguments against the cognitive function and value of literature, (...) this study illustrates how literary works can contribute to knowledge by making assertions and suggestions and by providing hypotheses for the reader to assess. Through clear analysis of the concept of the author, the role of the authorial intention and the different approaches to the ‘meaning’ of a literary work, this study provides an historical survey to the cognitivist—anti-cognitivist dispute, introducing contemporary trends in the discussion before presenting a novel approach to recognizing the cognitive function of literature. An important contribution to philosophical studies of literature and knowledge. (shrink)

Although people who endorse conspiracy theories related to medicine often have negative attitudes toward particular health care measures and may even shun the healthcare system in general, conspiracy theories have received rather meager attention in bioethics literature. Consequently, and given that conspiracy theorizing appears rather prevalent, it has been maintained that there is significant need for bioethics debate over how to deal with conspiracy theories. While the proposals have typically focused on the effects that unwarranted conspiracy theories have in the (...) public health context, Nathan Stout's recent argument concentrates on the impacts that such theories have at the individual level of clinical decision‐making. In this article, I maintain that duly acknowledging the impacts of conspiracy theories that raise Stout's concern does not require bioethics debate over the proper response to the influence of conspiracy theories in healthcare. Having evaluated two possible objections, I conclude by briefly clarifying the purported import of the response to Stout. (shrink)

Among the different approaches to questions of biomedical ethics, there is a view that stresses the importance of a patient’s right to make her own decisions in evaluative questions concerning her own well-being. This approach, the autonomy-based approach to biomedical ethics, has usually led to the adoption of a subjective theory of well-being on the basis of its commitment to the value of autonomy and to the view that well-being is always relative to a subject. In this article, it is (...) argued that these two commitments need not lead to subjectivism concerning the nature of well-being. (shrink)

The view that voluntary active euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide should be made available for terminal patients only is typically warranted by reference to the risks that the procedures are seen to involve. Though they would appear to involve similar risks, the commonly endorsed end-of-life practices referred to as passive euthanasia are available also for non-terminal patients. In this article, I assess whether there is good reason to believe that the risks in question would be bigger in the case of voluntary (...) active euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide than in that of passive euthanasia. I propose that there is not. On that basis, I suggest that limiting access to voluntary active euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide to terminal patients only is not consistent with accepting the existing practices of passive euthanasia. (shrink)

It is often argued that the fact that intellectual objects—objects like ideas, inventions, concepts, and melodies—can be used by several people simultaneously makes intellectual property rights impossible or particularly difficult to morally justify. In this article, I assess the line of criticism of intellectual ownership in connection with a central category of intellectual property rights, economic rights to intellectual property. I maintain that it is unconvincing.

It has been proposed that reoffending could be reduced by manipulating the neural underpinnings of offenders’ criminogenic mental features with what have been called neurocorrectives. The legitimacy of such use of neurotechnology – criminal neurorehabilitation, as the use is called – is usually seen to presuppose valid consent by the offenders subjected to it. According to a central criticism of nonconsensual criminal neurorehabilitation, nonconsensual use of neurocorrectives would express a degrading attitude towards offenders. In this article, I consider this criticism (...) of nonconsensual criminal neurorehabilitation. By using cases of autonomous persons who lead a subservient existence as an example, I propose that nonconsensual criminal neurorehabilitation need not express a more degrading attitude towards offenders than consensual criminal neurorehabilitation. The argument of this article does not show that nonconsensual criminal neurorehabilitation is morally or legally acceptable. Yet, in view of the argument, criticizing nonconsensual criminal neurorehabilitation for expressing a degrading attitude towards offenders is not compatible with simultaneously endorsing consensual criminal neurorehabilitation. (shrink)

Directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) constitute a qualitative representation for conditional independence (CI) properties of a probability distribution. It is known that every CI statement implied by the topology of a DAG is witnessed over it under a graph-theoretic criterion of d-separation. Alternatively, all such implied CI statements are derivable from the local independencies encoded by a DAG using the so-called semi-graphoid axioms. We consider Labeled Directed Acyclic Graphs (LDAGs) modeling graphically scenarios exhibiting context-specific independence (CSI). Such CSI statements are modeled (...) by labeled edges, where labels encode contexts in which the edge vanishes. We study the problem of identifying all independence statements implied by the structure and the labels of an LDAG. We show that this problem is coNP-hard for LDAGs and formulate a sound extension of the semi-graphoid axioms for the derivation of such implied independencies. Finally we connect our study to certain qualitative versions of independence ubiquitous in database theory and teams semantics. (shrink)

In contemporary medical ethics, it is widely accepted that concern for individual autonomy provides the ethical foundation for the doctrine of informed consent. It is taken that treating a competent patient is morally acceptable only if she has given her informed consent to being treated, because failing to secure the patient’s informed consent to her treatment would violate the patient’s autonomy. In a recent issue of this journal, James Stacey Taylor argues that this conventional view is mistaken. Taylor maintains that (...) a patient lacking information relevant to her medical decisions can be fully autonomous with respect to such decisions, because a person suffers from a diminution in her autonomy with respect to her medical decisions only if she is deliberately kept ignorant or deceived by her healthcare provider. In Taylor’s view, the patient’s autonomy would thus not be compromised if her healthcare provider fails to secure her informed consent to her treatment as a result of negligently omitting to provide relevant information to her. However, since it is intuitively plausible that the healthcare provider is still morally culpable for her negligence, it should, Taylor writes, be taken that the ethical foundation of informed consent is concern for patient wellbeing. While there is reason to be sympathetic to the conclusion that informed consent should be taken to be based on the value of wellbeing, Taylor’s argument does not support that result. (shrink)

In this article, I consider whether the advance directive of a person in minimally conscious state ought to be adhered to when its prescriptions conflict with her current wishes. I argue that an advance directive can have moral significance after its issuer has succumbed to minimally conscious state. I also defend the view that the patient can still have a significant degree of autonomy. Consequently, I conclude that her advance directive ought not to be applied. Then I briefly assess whether (...) considerations pertaining to respecting the patient's autonomy could still require obedience to the desire expressed in her advance directive and arrive at a negative answer. (shrink)

Challenging existing methodological conceptions of the analytic approach to aesthetics, Jukka Mikkonen brings together philosophy, literary studies and cognitive psychology to offer a new theory on the cognitive value of reading fiction. -/- Philosophy, Literature and Understanding defends the epistemic significance of narratives, arguing that it should be explained in terms of understanding rather than knowledge. Mikkonen formulates understanding as a cognitive process, which he connects to narrative imagining in order to assert that narrative is a central tool for (...) communicating understanding. Demonstrating the effects that literary works have on their readers, he examines academic critical analysis, responses of the reading public and nonfictional writings that include autobiographical testimony to their writer's influences and attitudes to life. In doing so, he provides empirical evidence of the cognitive benefits of literature and of how readers demonstrate the growth of their understanding. -/- By drawing on the written testimony of the reader, this book is an important intervention into debates on the value of literature that incorporates understanding in new and imaginative ways. (shrink)

With the advent of evolutionary developmental research, or EvoDevo, there is hope of discovering the roles that the genetic bases of development play in morphological evolution. Studies in EvoDevo span several levels of organismal organization. Low-level studies identify the ultimate genetic changes responsible for morphological variation and diversity. High-level studies of development focus on how genetic differences affect the dynamics of gene networks and epigenetic interactions to modify morphology. Whereas an increasing number of studies link independent acquisition of homoplastic or (...) convergent morphologies to similar changes in the genomes, homoplasies are not always found to have identical low-level genetic underpinnings. This suggests that a combination of low- and high-level approaches may be useful in understanding the relationship between genetic and morphological variation. Therefore, as an empirical and conceptual framework, we propose the causality horizon to signify the lowest level that allows linking homoplastic morphologies to similar changes in the development. A change in a system below the causality horizon cannot be generalized. In more concrete terms, homoplastic morphologies cannot be reduced to the same change in gene regulation when that change occurs below the causality horizon; rather, a higher-level mechanism should be identified. (shrink)

Introduction Cholbi, Michael (et al.) Pages 1-10 -/- Assisted Dying and the Proper Role of Patient Autonomy Bullock, Emma C. Pages 11-25 -/- Preventing Assistance to Die: Assessing Indirect Paternalism Regarding Voluntary Active Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide Schramme, Thomas Pages 27-40 -/- Autonomy, Interests, Justice and Active Medical Euthanasia Savulescu, Julian Pages 41-58 -/- Mental Illness, Lack of Autonomy, and Physician-Assisted Death Varelius, Jukka Pages 59-77 -/- Euthanasia for Mental Suffering Raus, Kasper (et al.) Pages 79-96 -/- Assisted Dying (...) for Individuals with Dementia: Challenges for Translating Ethical Positions into Law Downie, Jocelyn (et al.) Pages 97-123 -/- Clinical Ethics Consultation and Physician Assisted Suicide Adams, David M. Pages 125-147 -/- License to Kill: A New Model for Excusing Medically Assisted Dying? Huxtable, Richard (et al.) Pages 149-168 -/- Medically Enabled Suicides Cholbi, Michael Pages 169-184 -/- Saving Lives with Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia: Organ Donation After Assisted Dying Shaw, David M. Pages 185-192 -/- Implanted Medical Devices and End-of-Life Decisions Gill, Michael B. Pages 193-215 -/- Everyday Attitudes About Euthanasia and the Slippery Slope Argument Feltz, Adam Pages 217-237 -/- “You Got Me Into This…”: Procreative Responsibility and Its Implications for Suicide and Euthanasia Weinberg, Rivka Pages 239-252 . (shrink)

In this paper, the author argues that literary works have distinct cognitive significance in changing their readers’ beliefs. In particular, he discusses ‘philosophical fictions’ and truthclaims that they may imply. Basing himself broadly on Aristotle’s view of the enthymeme, he argues that a work of literary fiction persuades readers of its truths by its dramatic structure, by illustrating or implying the suppressed conclusion. Further, he suggests that it is exactly this ‘literary persuasion’ which distinguishes literary works from merely didactic works (...) prone to overt ‘argumentation’ and instruction. (shrink)

This bibliography aims to gather together studies in the philosophy of literature by Finnish researchers. It consists of articles and monographs which treat i) philosophical literary theory, ii) philosophical literature, or iii) literary philosophy and philosophers’ use of literary devices. The bibliography, collected by requests of publication data and from several Finnish publication databases, is not intended inclusive. Nevertheless, it is being throughout updated, and all kinds of suggestions, updates and corrections are most welcome.

Emancipatory aesthetics : Eino Krohn as a critic of art and literature.

It is commonly accepted that voluntary active euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide can be allowed, if at all, only in the cases of patients whose conditions are incurable. Yet, there are different understandings of when a patient’s condition is incurable. In this article, I consider two understandings of the notion of an incurable condition that can be found in the recent debate on physician-assisted dying. According to one of them, a condition is incurable when it is known that there is no (...) cure for it. According to the other, a condition is incurable when no cure is known to exist for it. I propose two criteria for assessing the conceptions and maintain that, in light of the criteria, the latter is more plausible than the former. (shrink)

The fundamental ethical problem in bankruptcy is that insolvents have promised to pay their debts but can not keep their promise. The Ethics of Bankruptcy examines the morality of bankruptcy. The author compares and contrasts the Humean doctrine of promises as useful conventions with the Kantian view of autonomous agency constituting promissory obligations; he explores ethical concerns raised by forgiveness, utilitarianism and distributive justice and the moral aspects of insolvents' contractual, fiduciary, tortious and criminal liability. Finally, the author assesses recent (...) bankruptcy law reforms. Bankruptcies severly hurt creditors and society. For the insolvents and their families the experience is painful and stigmatising, yet philosophers have paid little attention to the moral aspects of this violent social phenomenon. The Ethics of Bankruptcy is the first comprehensive study that employs the tools of ethics to examine the controversies surrounding insolvency, which makes valuable and sometimes controversial reading in a decade recovering from the Recession. (shrink)

A moral problem arises when a patient refuses a treatment that would save her life. Should the patient be treated against her will? According to an influential approach to questions of biomedical ethics, certain considerations pertaining to individual autonomy provide a solution to this problem. According to this approach, we should respect the patient’s autonomy and, since she has made an autonomous decision against accepting the treatment, she should not be treated. This article argues against the view that our answer (...) to the question of whether or not the refusing patient ought to be treated should be based on these kinds of considerations pertaining to individual autonomy and maintains that finding a plausible answer to this question presupposes that we resolve questions concerning subjectivity and objectivity of individual wellbeing. (shrink)

By issuing an advance treatment directive, an autonomous person can formally express what kinds of treatment she wishes and does not wish to receive in case she becomes ill or injured and unable to autonomously decide about her treatment. While many jurisdictions and medical associations endorse them, advance treatment directives have also been criticized. According to an important criticism, when a person irreversibly loses her autonomy what she formerly autonomously desired ceases to be of importance in deciding about her treatment. (...) The medical ethical debate regarding different possible ways of solving the problem on which the criticism is based has grown exceedingly intricate. Instead of assessing the developments made in the debate so far, I present a thought experiment—built around a suicide case—which suggests that the problem is not as intractable as it has generally been deemed to be. (shrink)

In this article, I assess the position that voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide ought not to be accepted in the cases of persons who suffer existentially but who have no medical condition, because existential questions do not fall within the domain of physicians’ professional expertise. I maintain that VE and PAS based on suffering arising from medical conditions involves existential issues relevantly similar to those confronted in connection with existential suffering. On that basis I conclude that if VE and PAS (...) based on suffering arising from medical conditions is taken to fall within the domain of medical expertise, it is not consistent to use the view that physicians’ professional expertise does not extend to existential questions as a reason for denying requests for VE and PAS from persons who suffer existentially but have no medical condition. (shrink)

It has been suggested that neuroenhancements could be used to improve the abilities of criminal justice authorities. Judges could be made more able to make adequately informed and unbiased decisions, for example. Yet, while such a prospect appears appealing, the views of neuroenhanced criminal justice authorities could also be alien to the unenhanced public. This could compromise the legitimacy and functioning of the criminal justice system. In this article, I assess possible solutions to this problem. I maintain that none of (...) them qualifies as a satisfactory general solution to it, a solution that could reasonably be taken to solve the problem or to suffice for dealing with it in at least most cases. Yet I also suggest that, depending on contingent empirical circumstances, the responses – either singly or together – can sometimes amount to a sufficient answer to it. (shrink)

We argue that the idea of ECC is more in line with libertarian than liberal thinking. The basic idea of ECC is the dislocation of the provider of citizenship rights from governments to corporations: corporations provide and administrate the same citizenship rights, which governments provided earlier, before the political processes started the privatization of these entitlements . According to John Rawls’ liberal viewpoint, citizens’ relations to the public structures of society are supposed to be fundamentally different from their relations to (...) private associations like business corporations. In libertarian thinking , instead, citizens relations to public institutions do not significantly differ from their relations to business corporations. Both are based on voluntary agreements, bringing forth the idea of a contract-society. Since ECC is backed up by this kind of contractsociety, it brings forth libertarian interpretations of the most central political matters - like the basic structure of society, and the concepts of freedom and democracy. (shrink)

Several authors have recently suggested that the suffering caused by mental illness could provide moral grounds for physician-assisted dying. Yet they typically require that psychiatric-assisted dying could come to question in the cases of autonomous, or rational, psychiatric patients only. Given that also non-autonomous psychiatric patients can sometimes suffer unbearably, this limitation appears questionable. In this article, I maintain that restricting psychiatric-assisted dying to autonomous, or rational, psychiatric patients would not be compatible with endorsing certain end-of-life practices commonly accepted in (...) current medical ethics and law, practices often referred to as ‘passive euthanasia’. (shrink)

Conspiracy theorizing can sometimes have regrettable features that speak for suppressing it. Yet, given that an adequately knowledgeable citizenry is a prerequisite of a healthy democracy, the public should be informed about politically important events, including political conspiracies. In this article, I focus on the relationship between informing citizens about political conspiracies and the kind of conspiracy theorizing that arguably should be suppressed. More precisely, I maintain that informing citizens about political conspiracies threatens to lead to the kind of conspiracy (...) theorizing there is reason to suppress, and I examine how the potential drawback ought to be dealt with. I propose that informing citizens about political conspiracies should both proceed in light of pertinent research on conspiracy theorizing and pay heed to adequate knowledge about the circumstances in which conspiracies are publicized. (shrink)

It has been suggested that neuroenhancements could be used to improve the abilities of criminal justice authorities. Judges could be made more able to make adequately informed and unbiased decisions, for example. Yet, while such a prospect appears appealing, the views of neuroenhanced criminal justice authorities could also be alien to the unenhanced public. This could compromise the legitimacy and functioning of the criminal justice system. In this article, I assess possible solutions to this problem. I maintain that none of (...) them qualifies as a satisfactory general solution to it, a solution that could reasonably be taken to solve the problem or to suffice for dealing with it in at least most cases. Yet I also suggest that, depending on contingent empirical circumstances, the responses – either singly or together – can sometimes amount to a sufficient answer to it. (shrink)

Consider that an individual improves her capacities by neuroscientific means. It turns out that, besides altering her in the way(s) she intended, the enhancement also changes her personality in significant way(s) she did not foresee. Yet the person endorses her new self because the neuroenhancement she underwent changed her. Can the person’s approval of her new personality be autonomous? While questions of autonomy have already gathered a significant amount of attention in philosophical literature on human enhancement, the problem just described—henceforth (...) referred to as the question whether selfvalidating neuroenhancement can be autonomous—would not appear to have received due consideration. This article takes a step towards remedying the shortage. I start by explicating the main points of departure of its argument. In the subsequent sections of the article, I consider several possible reasons for deeming self-validating neuroenhancement incompatible with autonomy. On the basis of the consideration, I propose that self-validating neuroenhancement can be autonomous. (shrink)

The fundamental ethical problem in bankruptcy is that insolvents have promised to pay their debts but can not keep their promise. _The Ethics of Bankruptcy_ examines the morality of bankruptcy. The author compares and contrasts the Humean doctrine of promises as useful conventions with the Kantian view of autonomous agency constituting promissory obligations; he explores ethical concerns raised by forgiveness, utilitarianism and distributive justice and the moral aspects of insolvents' contractual, fiduciary, tortious and criminal liability. Finally, the author assesses recent (...) bankruptcy law reforms. Bankruptcies severly hurt creditors and society. For the insolvents and their families the experience is painful and stigmatising, yet philosophers have paid little attention to the moral aspects of this violent social phenomenon. _The Ethics of Bankruptcy_ is the first comprehensive study that employs the tools of ethics to examine the controversies surrounding insolvency, which makes valuable and sometimes controversial reading in a decade recovering from the Recession. (shrink)

Energy system planning becomes essential in order to match demand and supply, where cost minimization is a primary objective. In addition, it is also of great significance in assessing the proper mix of energy sources so that energy systems meet the given load profile in a most efficient and cost-effective way. Lately, climate change has brought an increased amount of challenge for energy systems planners. As a result, there are varieties of planning methods and tools available today, either commercially or (...) noncommercially. However, from the literature it is evident that most of these tools are targeted primarily for the developed world, thus leaving the developing world behind, where the energy issue is even more critical. Hence, the principal focus of this article is on the study of rural energy systems planning tools that have been developed so far and an assessment of their features. In a nutshell, this article presents a background review on rural electrification studies from the perspective of available planning and modeling tools. First, an overview of the energy models and their classifications are briefly discussed in general. Afterward, various rural energy models developed so far are reviewed. This review article will give a quick and broad picture of rural energy models and assist researchers, policy makers, and energy planners who are working with energy systems in the developing world. (shrink)

Suicidal ideation would often appear to relate to ideas about life’s meaninglessness. In this chapter, I consider the suicidal thoughts of an elderly person in light of the recent philosophical discussion on the meaning of life. I start by distinguishing between two importantly different questions about life’s meaning and explaining how they differ from certain other issues sometimes treated as questions about the meaning of life. Then I address the two questions about life’s meaning in turn, connecting them to the (...) example case. After that, I briefly consider how the elderly person’s committing suicide would appear from the viewpoint of the philosophical debate on life’s meaning. I conclude by summing up how the philosophical discussion on the meaning of life I have referred to might help a person like the one in the example case. (shrink)

Global climate change has been characterised as the crisis of reason (Val Plumwood), imagination (Amitav Ghosh) and language (Elizabeth Rush), to mention some. The 'everything change', as Margaret Atwood calls it, arguably also impacts on how we aesthetically perceive, interpret and appreciate nature. This article looks at philosophical theories of nature appreciation against global environmental change. The article examines how human-induced global climate change affects the 'scientific' approaches to nature appreciation which base aesthetic judgment on scientific knowledge and the competing (...) 'non-scientific' approaches which emphasise the role of emotions, imagination and stories in the aesthetic understanding of environment. The author claims that both approaches are threatened by global climate change and cannot continue as usual. In particular, he explores aesthetic imagination in contemporary times when our visions about environment are thoroughly coloured by worry and uncertainty and there seems to be little room for awe and wonder, which have traditionally characterised the aesthetic experience of nature. Finally, he proposes that art could stimulate environmental imagining in this age of uncertainty. (shrink)

The concept of dignity figures prominently in legal and moral discussion on such topics as human rights, euthanasia, abortion, and criminal punishment. Yet the notion has been criticized for being indeterminate and either insufficient or redundant (or both) in justifying the kinds of legal and moral rights and views its proponents use it to vindicate. The criticisms have inspired some novel conceptions of dignity. One of them is Tarunabh Khaitan’s proposal that dignity should be understood as an expressive norm. In (...) this article, I assess Khaitan’s suggestion. I maintain that it faces two challenges that its advocates should be able to solve for the proposal to be plausible. (shrink)

Appeals to the actual author's intention in order to legitimate an interpretation of a work of literary narrative fiction have generally been considered extraneous in Anglo-American philosophy of literature since Wimsatt and Beardsley's well-known manifesto from the 1940s. For over sixty years now so-called anti-intentionalists have argued that the author's intentions – plans, aims, and purposes considering her work – are highly irrelevant to interpretation. In this paper, I shall argue that the relevance of the actual author's intentions varies in (...) different approaches to fiction, and suggest that fictions are legitimately interpreted intentionally as conversations in a certain kind of reading. My aim is to show that the so-called conversational approach is valid when emphasizing the cognitive content of a fiction and truths it seem to convey, for example, in a philosophical approach to fictions which contain philosophical purport using Sartre's fictional works as paradigmatic, and that anti-intentionalists' arguments against intentionalism do not threaten such an approach. (shrink)

Bayesian paradigm has been widely acknowledged as a coherent approach to learning putative probability model structures from a finite class of candidate models. Bayesian learning is based on measuring the predictive ability of a model in terms of the corresponding marginal data distribution, which equals the expectation of the likelihood with respect to a prior distribution for model parameters. The main controversy related to this learning method stems from the necessity of specifying proper prior distributions for all unknown parameters of (...) a model, which ensures a complete determination of the marginal data distribution. Even for commonly used models, subjective priors may be difficult to specify precisely, and therefore, several automated learning procedures have been suggested in the literature. Here we introduce a novel Bayesian learning method based on the predictive entropy of a probability model, that can combine both subjective and objective probabilistic assessment of uncertain quantities in putative models. It is shown that our approach can avoid some of the limitations of the earlier suggested objective Bayesian methods. (shrink)

Kommentoin artikkelissa Hanna Meretojan The Ethics of Storytelling -teoksessa esittämiä näkemyksiä kaunokirjallisten kertomusten eettisestä arvosta. Kritisoin Meretojan edustamaa lähestymistapaa, jossa kaunokirjallisten teosten vaikutuksista teoretisoidaan ilman empiirisiä viitepisteitä taikka pohdintaa siitä, mistä väitteille voitaisiin löytää tukea tai kuinka teoriaa voitaisiin koetella. Lisäksi esitän huomioita muun muassa kaunokirjallisten kertomusten soveltamisesta arkeen sekä kertomusten kontingenteista vaikutuksista.

In contemporary Western biomedical ethics, informed consent practices are commonly justified in terms of the intrinsic value of patient autonomy. James Stacey Taylor maintains that this conception of the moral grounding of medical informed consent is mistaken. On the basis of his reasoning to that effect, Taylor argues that medical informed consent is justified by the instrumental value of personal autonomy. In this article, I examine whether Taylor's justification of medical informed consent is plausible.

This articles assesses the arguments that bioethicists have presented for the view that patient’ autonomy has value over and beyond its instrumental value in promoting the patients’ wellbeing. It argues that this view should be rejected and concludes that patients’ autonomy should be taken to have only instrumental value in medicine.

ABSTRACT:Within corporate social responsibility (CSR), the exploration of the political role of firms (political CSR) has recently experienced a revival. We review three key periods of political CSR literature—classic, instrumental, and new political CSR—and use the Rawlsian conceptualization of division of moral labor within political systems to describe each period’s background political theories. The three main arguments of the paper are as follows. First, classic CSR literature was more pluralistic in terms of background political theories than many later texts. Second, (...) instrumental CSR adopted classical liberalism and libertarian laissez-faire as its structural logic. Third, new political CSR, based on a strong globalist transition of responsibilities and tasks from governments to companies, lacks a conceptualization of division of moral labor that is needed to fully depart from a classical liberalist position. We end by providing a set of recommendations to develop pluralism in political CSR. (shrink)