This paper attempts to show how certain approaches in Values Based Practice duplicate key moves in liberal political theory.

An important feature of some recent jurisprudential writings is the tendency to reject the precept of liberal individualism which affirms the priority of the principles of the "right conduct" over the substantive conceptions of "the good". This rejection, explicit in a recent book by Rogers M. Smith, and implicit in a recent work by Guido Calabresi, leads to strikingly illiberal consequences; hence, this provides indirect confirmation that the priority of the right over the (...) good constitutes the most reliable defense of individual liberty against majoritarian oppression. In Smith, an attempt to replace this priority with the principle of "rational liberty" leads to the disappearance of the guarantees of minority rights against orthodox majorities; in Calabresi, the doctrine of weighing and balancing competing moral principles of "the good" fails to provide an explanation for the strongly held moral intuition that some external preferences have to be disqualified at the outset, before they enter the forum of moral bargaining. (shrink)

In Love as a Moral Emotion David Velleman rejects the conative analysis of love arguing instead for a conception which is modelled after Kantian respect. The general problem associated with conative views of love according to Velleman is that they cut love loose from morality, sometimes characterizing its aims as in conflict with morality.

The paper analyses Rawls's teleology/deontology distinction, and his concept of priority of the right. The first part of the paper aims both 1) to clarify what is distinctive about Rawls's deontology/teleology distinction (thus sorting out some existing confusion in the literature, especially regarding the conflation of such distinction with that between consequentialism and nonconsequentialism); and 2) to cash out the rich taxonomy of moral theories that such a distinction helpfully allows us to develop. The second part of the (...) paper examines the concept of priority of the right. It argues that such a concept should not be identified with that of deontology— indeed, deontological theories do not necessarily assign priority to the right over the good. However, it contends that the concept of priority of the right is essential to explaining what specific kind of deontological theory "justice as fairness" is. Justice as fairness is a deontological theory which assigns priority to the right as a consequence of its commitment to a neutral position with respect to different accounts of what is ultimately valuable and good. (shrink)

Rawls's view that the right is prior to the good has been criticized by various scholars from divergent points of view. Some contend that Rawls's teleological/deontological distinction based on the priority of the right is misleading while others claim that no plausible ethical theory can determine what is right prior to the good. There is no consensus on how to interpret the priority of right to the good; nor is there an (...) agreement on the criteria of teleological/deontological distinction. In this article, I argue that the critics' interpretations of the principle of the priority of right to the good as well as their conceptions of the teleological/deontological distinction have serious shortcomings to the extent that they ignore rich theoretical resources we find in Kant's moral and political philosophy. Kant's conception of human dignity and his division of the doctrine of virtue and the doctrine of right supply powerful arguments to clarify and sustain the idea of the priority of right to the good and the teleological/deontological division. (shrink)

Rawls's view that the right is prior to the good has been criticized by various scholars from divergent points of view. Some contend that Rawls's teleological/deontological distinction based on the priority of the right is misleading while others claim that no plausible ethical theory can determine what is right prior to the good. There is no consensus on how to interpret the priority of right to the good; nor is there an (...) agreement on the criteria of teleological/deontological distinction. In this article, I argue that the critics' interpretations of the principle of the priority of right to the good as well as their conceptions of the teleological/deontological distinction have serious shortcomings to the extent that they ignore rich theoretical resources we find in Kant's moral and political philosophy. Kant's conception of human dignity and his division of the doctrine of virtue and the doctrine of right supply powerful arguments to clarify and sustain the idea of the priority of right to the good and the teleological/deontological division. (shrink)

Rawls's view that the right is prior to the good has been criticized by various scholars from divergent points of view. Some contend that Rawls's teleological/deontological distinction based on the priority of the right is misleading while others claim that no plausible ethical theory can determine what is right prior to the good. There is no consensus on how to interpret the priority of right to the good; nor is there an (...) agreement on the criteria of teleological/deontological distinction. In this article, I argue that the critics' interpretations of the principle of the priority of right to the good as well as their conceptions of the teleological/deontological distinction have serious shortcomings to the extent that they ignore rich theoretical resources we find in Kant's moral and political philosophy. Kant's conception of human dignity and his division of the doctrine of virtue and the doctrine of right supply powerful arguments to clarify and sustain the idea of the priority of right to the good and the teleological/deontological division. (shrink)

I claim that the revisions John Rawls made to his theory of justice—as seen in his political conception of justice as fairness in the revised edition of Political Liberalism and Justice as Fairness: A Restatement—result in him being able to secure justice for all persons even in their private lives. Thus, I defend his theory against common communitarian and feminist criticisms, viz the lack of moral community and inability to secure justice for individuals in the private domain. I demonstrate that (...) justice is secured from the categorical requirement that all associational life and moral doctrines must adhere to the constraints of justice, by (what Rawls terms) the indirect application of the first principle of justice. The implications of and necessity for this indirect application are precisely what I interrogate in this thesis. I suggest that this indirect application requires unconditional acknowledgement and internalisation of the values of liberty and equality (political values of the first principle) into all aspects of civil society. I claim that Rawls realised this necessity for the congruence between the moral powers of persons, the spheres of society, and the right and the good and, as such, developed a complementary relation between these three features. Coherence between these three aspects is essential; without coherence, citizens would have a split moral personality, the public and the non-public spheres would be in conflict, and the political values and the moral doctrines of individuals would undermine one another. The significance of this strict coherence is that it can ensure the adequate development of individuals’ capacity for citizenship during the three stages of moral development. This results in citizens being able to form bonds of civic friendship necessary for justice as reciprocity to be realised. Thus, in this thesis, I position my argument against theorists such as Nancy Rosenblum, who argue for a more relaxed congruence between political institutions and civil society, as according to her illiberal forms of associational life can help form the necessary bonds of love and care needed for mutual cooperation in a liberal society. In opposition to this, I claim that strict congruence is necessary; without it, a stable liberal society is not possible as the citizens would not be able to able to respect one another on free, equal, and mutually beneficial terms. I rely on Hochschild’s sociological evidence to demonstrate that civic friendship has not been developed, due to a lack of reciprocity, impacting the negative development of one’s sense of justice. I then illustrate how this lack of reciprocity is amplified by digital and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. The significance of this thesis is that I claim, firstly, Rawls’s last revisions and works before his death demonstrate that justice is a collective non-comprehensive good that results by constraining individuals’ associational life and their partial comprehensive doctrines to Rawlsian demands of justice. Thus, Rawls takes seriously the feminist and communitarian critiques he received. Secondly, I claim that this interpretation of Rawls’s theory of justice cannot be conceptualised in terms of a binary presentation of the priority of the right versus the good debate and, instead, I argue for a reconceptualisation of the priority of the right versus the good as ranges on a continuum of structural relations between the right and the good. (shrink)

Abstract. A special legal status is accorded to human rights within Western liberal democracies: They enjoy a priority over other human goods and are not subjected to the majoritarian principle. The underlying assumption—the idea that there are some human values that deserve special protection—implies the need for both a normative and a conceptual justification. This paper claims that neither can be provided. The normative justification is needed to support the priority of human rights over other human (...) goods and to rank and balance conflicting human rights, but it can't be provided because of the fact of pervasive value pluralism, the fact that human values are many, incompatible and incommensurable. The conceptual justification is needed to avoid arbitrariness in the interpretation of human rights at the adjudication stage. Such a justification is impossible, however, as the concept of human rights, and the concepts used to justify them and to solve their conflicts are "essentially contested concepts." The paper concludes that, provided that the interpretation of human rights presupposes value judgements and political choices, the special legal status accorded to human rights is not justified. (shrink)

Legal philosophy must be based on a set of substantive political values about such fundamental matters as the nature of the political community and the meaning of human freedom. This general thesis is illustrated by the analysis of moral discourse about the justification and limits of liberty-rights and equality-rights.The most effective way of arguing about the liberal conception of individual liberties (consistent with the Millian Harm Principle) is by recourse to the priority of the right over the (...) good. But this conception is little more than a restatement of the Harm Principle itself hence, a more fundamental justification for it is required. This can be provided by a substantive conception of equality of individuals as moral agents who are capable of choosing, pursuing and changing their own conceptions of the good, within the parameters of avoiding harm to others. (shrink)

This paper responds to material from Scott Soames’s wide ranging book The World Philosophy Made, material which I am actually tempted to overlook. Soames adds a detail to a criticism H.L.A. Hart makes of John Rawls, but I argue that Soames cannot consistently endorse this criticism, given his acceptance of trickle-down economics and his aspiration to cohere with a dominant strand of right-wing American philosophy.

The article deals with relations between the individual and human rights on the one hand, and the State on the other, in the context of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland. The author poses the question whether the idea of subordination of the State to the individual is really a central idea of that constitution. He puts forward many arguments against such suggestion. These arguments relate, above all, to the arrangement of the constitution: a chapter concerning human rights is (...) chapter II, while chapter I deals with foundation of the State; the goals of the State are specified in the preamble including the following initial phrase “the existence and future of Poland as our Homeland” and in Article 5 where human rights are as subject of protection by the State is mentioned after independence and integrity of [its] territory; a general concept of human rights protection adopted in the constitution is dominated by the structures typical of law in its objective sense; the way of regulation admissible limitations on human rights differs from international standards; possibility of claiming human rights is constitutionally guaranteed, mostly by constitutional complaint which is above all aimed at correction of legal system, rather than claiming of rights by the individual; Article 1 (“The Republic of Poland shall be the common good of all its citizens”) interpreted as referring to Article 1 paragraph 1 of the April Constitution of 1935, one of the main ideas of which was precedence of the State over the individual. He also analyses the arguments in favour of the recognition of the idea of subordination of the State. Nevertheless, they cannot be accepted as resolving the question of whether it is a central idea of the constitution. These arguments include in particular: the principle of subsidiarity contained in the preamble, even if it has not been appropriately emphasized there; recognition of inherent and inalienable dignity of the person, but it was not until Article 30 that this provision has been contained and it does not determine the relations between the human dignity and rights and the State. The author suggests that the only conclusive way to justify the subordination of the State in relation to the individual as a central idea of the constitution is by means of Article 1. Taking into account, above all, preparatory work, we should reject the interpretation of that article referring to the April (1935) Constitution. Essential interpretative context may be found in preparatory work and social teachings of the Catholic Church, referred to therein. In that case, the common good means the entirety of the conditions of social life which favour the human development. These conditions include above all the respect for human dignity. Such interpretation of Article 1 gives priority to proposals on what the State should be to serve the individual rather than to safeguard obligations of citizens in relation to the State. (shrink)

By the late twentieth century, the liberal definition of a citizen as an individual with equal rights under the protection of the law has failed to respond to the demands of the members of contemporary plural societies. The recent discussions in political philosophy between Kantian liberal approaches and their communitarian and republican critics are relevant to this challenge. These criticisms are, in one way or another, related to the main principles of Western liberal thought. The communitarians take a stand against (...) the priority of rights over conceptions of the good in liberal politics. They also criticize the ontological assumption of the individual as an "unencumbered" self. The absence of a substantive common good and the separation of politics and morality are the shortcomings of liberalism that are stressed by both communitarians and republicans. In contrast to liberals' emphasis on rights, republicans underline the role of duties and active participation as the constitutive elements of citizenship. In fact, they reverse the relation between rights and politics as it is understood in liberalism: they regard rights as the products of the political process, rather than its presuppositions. (shrink)

By the late twentieth century, the liberal definition of a citizen as an individual with equal rights under the protection of the law has failed to respond to the demands of the members of contemporary plural societies. The recent discussions in political philosophy between Kantian liberal approaches and their communitarian and republican critics are relevant to this challenge. These criticisms are, in one way or another, related to the main principles of Western liberal thought. The communitarians take a stand against (...) the priority of rights over conceptions of the good in liberal politics. They also criticize the ontological assumption of the individual as an "unencumbered" self. The absence of a substantive common good and the separation of politics and morality are the shortcomings of liberalism that are stressed by both communitarians and republicans. In contrast to liberals' emphasis on rights, republicans underline the role of duties and active participation as the constitutive elements of citizenship. In fact, they reverse the relation between rights and politics as it is understood in liberalism: they regard rights as the products of the political process, rather than its presuppositions. (shrink)

David Nelsen [[sic]] follows the well-trodden path beaten by those who object to an over-universalized and over-deductive version of St. Thomas Aquinas's ethics. Focusing on the "priority" of prudence and the virtues vis à vis more speculative considerations of natural law, the book admirably stresses the role of prudence in enhancing human knowledge of ends. Inasmuch as one end is often ordered in act to another, prudence--which rightly concerns means-nonetheless clearly extends to the deepening and enrichment of (...) our acquaintance with the right order of ends. Basing his case for the priority of prudence upon the indeterminacy of the will regarding any created good and the presumed consequent lack of any natural ordering save to the final end, Nelsen argues that knowledge of the primary precepts of the natural law is too vague and abstract to be helpful in determining action. According to this interpretation, St. Thomas does not intend natural law considerations as "a source of concrete moral information" supplementing a prudential ethics of virtue. (shrink)

The ipsilesional arm of stroke patients often has functionally limiting deficits in motor control and dexterity that depend on the side of the brain that is lesioned and that increase with the severity of paretic arm impairment. However, remediation of the ipsilesional arm has yet to be integrated into the usual standard of care for upper limb rehabilitation in stroke, largely due to a lack of translational research examining the effects of ipsilesional-arm intervention. We now ask whether ipsilesional-arm training, tailored (...) to the hemisphere-specific nature of ipsilesional-arm motor deficits in participants with moderate to severe contralesional paresis, improves ipsilesional arm performance and generalizes to improve functional independence. We assessed the effects of this intervention on ipsilesional arm unilateral performance [Jebsen–Taylor Hand Function Test ], ipsilesional grip strength, contralesional arm impairment level [Fugl–Meyer Assessment ], and functional independence [Functional independence measure ]. Intervention occurred over a 3 week period for 1.5 h/session, three times each week. All sessions included virtual reality tasks that targeted the specific motor control deficits associated with either left or right hemisphere damage, followed by graded dexterity training in real-world tasks. We also exposed participants to 3 weeks of sham training to control for the non-specific effects of therapy visits and interactions. We conducted five test-sessions: two pre-tests and three post-tests. Our results indicate substantial improvements in the less-impaired arm performance, without detriment to the paretic arm that transferred to improved functional independence in all three posttests, indicating durability of training effects for at least 3 weeks. We provide evidence for establishing the basis of a rehabilitation approach that includes evaluation and remediation of the ipsilesional arm in moderately to severely impaired stroke survivors. This study was originally a crossover design; however, we were unable to complete the second arm of the study due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We report the results from the first arm of the planned design as a longitudinal study. (shrink)

What is the connection between moral rights and the good? While familiar normative theories give justificatory precedence to one notion over the other, this paper explores a neglected alternative: when properly specified, the notion of moral rights and of the good conceptually depend on each other.1.

I am extremely grateful to the three commentators for their instructive and challenging criticisms and for giving me the opportunity to make my position more plausible and, where it is bound to remain controversial, clearer than it is in my book.1 In doing so, I will sometimes be concerned simply to clear up what I consider to be misunderstandings on the part of my commentators, in full awareness that my own lack of clarity or emphasis may well have contributed to (...) them. This I take to be worthwhile in its own right, but especially for the sake of locating more precisely the issues where real disagreement exists and facilitating useful engagement on these issues. As the line between these tasks is seldom sharp... (shrink)

This book represents the most comprehensive account to date of an important but widely contested approach to ethics--intuitionism, the view that there is a plurality of moral principles, each of which we can know directly. Robert Audi casts intuitionism in a form that provides a major alternative to the more familiar ethical perspectives. He introduces intuitionism in its historical context and clarifies--and improves and defends--W. D. Ross's influential formulation. Bringing Ross out from under the shadow of G. E. Moore, he (...) puts a reconstructed version of Rossian intuitionism on the map as a full-scale, plausible contemporary theory. A major contribution of the book is its integration of Rossian intuitionism with Kantian ethics; this yields a view with advantages over other intuitionist theories and over Kantian ethics taken alone. Audi proceeds to anchor Kantian intuitionism in a pluralistic theory of value, leading to an account of the perennially debated relation between the right and the good. Finally, he sets out the standards of conduct the theory affirms and shows how the theory can help guide concrete moral judgment. The Good in the Right is a self-contained original contribution, but readers interested in ethics or its history will find numerous connections with classical and contemporary literature. Written with clarity and concreteness, and with examples for every major point, it provides an ethical theory that is both intellectually cogent and plausible in application to moral problems. (shrink)

:The main point of contention between “naturalistic” and “political” theories of human rights concerns the need to invoke the notion of moral human rights in justifying the system of human rights included in the international practice. Political theories argue that we should bypass the question of the justification of moral human rights and start with the question of which norms and principles should be adopted to regulate the practice. Naturalistic theories, by contrast, claim that a convincing answer to the latter (...) question will have to presuppose some answer to the former. An adequate justification of the system of human rights included in the international practice, according to naturalistic approaches, will ultimately have to rely on some appeal to moral human rights. I call this view the “Priority of the Moral over the Political.” In this essay, I argue that the Priority of the Moral is harder to dismiss than political theories of human rights suggest, and that before we can assess the plausibility of these theories, they need to say more in defense of their claim that they can do without this view. I then consider the two main objections that seem to have motivated many philosophers to abandon the naturalistic approach to the justification of human rights in favor of the political one. I conclude by suggesting that a variant of naturalistic justification, the basic-needs account, has the resources to address these objections. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to present the critical approaches made by Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor to the priority of the right over the good on Habermas’ dicourse ethics, criticisms that depart from the consideration that the moral agent, historical and socially conditioned, acts for reasons other than (only) the impartial consideration of all individuals. Claiming that the priority of the right over the good would disconnect individuals of their motivations, (...) abstracting them from their cultural background and contingencies often determinants of their ethical life, the objections also claim that the choice of a particular set of conditions to be fulfilled for the validity of moral norms bind discourse ethics to a particular ethos, permeated of values shaped historically by a kind of society whose practices are not universals. (shrink)

A child is a developing person with evolving capacities that include autonomy, mental capacity and capacity to assume responsibility. Hence, children are entitled to participatory rights in South Africa as observed in the Children’s Act 38 of 2005. According to section 129 of the Act a child may consent to his or her own medical treatment provided that he or she is over the age of 12 years and is of sufficient maturity and decisional capacity to understand the various (...) implications of the treatment including the risks and benefits thereof. However, the Act does not provide a definition for what qualifies as ‘sufficient maturity’ nor does it stipulate how health professionals ought to assess the decisional capacity of a child. In addition, South Africa is a culturally diverse country. The Western liberal notion of autonomy may not necessarily find equal prominence in the mores of people with a different worldview. Hence we demonstrate a few salient comparisons between legal liberal moral theory and African communitarianism as pertinent to the autonomy of the child. Children are rights-holders by virtue of their humanity. Their dignity as individual human persons affords them the entitlement to human rights as contemplated under the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. However, contrary to the traditional Western notion of individual autonomous persons African societies hold a communalistic notion of person hence there is less regard for individual autonomy and rights with more emphasis on the communal good and maintaining the continuity of relationships and interdependencies shared within a community. A child considered in this view is not regarded as a full person. This implies that decisions concerning the child, including consent to medical treatment are discussed and determined by the community to which the child belongs. Lastly, in this article, we draw on the notion of capacity for responsibility to produce a pragmatic definition of sufficient maturity. It seems reasonable to suggest a move away from a general legal age of consent for medical treatment toward more individualised, context-specific approaches in determining the maturity of a child patient to consent to medical treatment. Perhaps, decision-making with respect to consent to the medical treatment of a child belonging to a traditional African community where the notion of a person is embedded in communitarianism ought to involve the child’s parents/guardians/caregivers where possible provided that the best interests of the child are awarded priority. (shrink)

The key focus in ethics should be on victims. Victims are those that suffer from unnecessary and preventable pain and misery. Non-human animals can also suffer and should therefore be included in the moral circle. Ethical living is striving to avoid harm to others and striving to help alleviate or prevent suffering. Being good isn't easy.Export citation.

This article explores the cooperation of government and the private sector to tackle the ethical dimension of artificial intelligence. The argument draws on the institutionalist approach in philosophy and business ethics defending a ‘division of moral labor’ between governments and the private sector. The goal and main contribution of this article is to explain how this approach can provide ethical guidelines to the AI industry and to highlight the limits of self-regulation. In what follows, I discuss three institutionalist claims. First, (...) principles of AI ethics should be validated through legitimate democratic processes. Second, compliance with these principles should be secured in a stable way. Third, their implementation in practice should be as efficient as possible. If we accept these claims, there are good reasons to conclude that, in many cases, governments implementing hard regulation are in principle the best instruments to secure an ethical development of AI systems. Where adequate regulation exists, firms should respect the law. But when regulation does not yet exist, helping governments build adequate regulation should be businesses’ ethical priority, not self-regulation. (shrink)

In this article an attempt is made of presenting the deontological feature of A Theory of Justice under a new light. Through an exploration of the meaning of the priority of the good over the right and of the significance and function of the argument of the congruence between justice and individual good, the differences between teleology and deontology are displayed. Deontology seems to have several advantages: a) it allows for pluralism of values and a (...) richer and deeper understanding of practical reason, b) is rooted in a very compelling account of agency, c) points towards an attractive conception of value. Besides, once it is properly understood that the normative content of justice as fairness is to be applied strictly only to an ideal situation and cannot be taken as straightforwardly action-guiding in the real world, we are led to an understanding of deontology that parts from ethical absolutism, makes room for a proper consideration of consequences and avoids the stiffness often imputed to deontological theories. Finally it is suggested that the development of a normative conception of character along Rawlsian lines offers promising prospects towards a proper balancing between an ethic of conviction and an ethic of responsibility. (shrink)

The article explores the scope and the limits of virtue ethics from the perspective of critical theory and critical realism. Based on new research in moral sociology and anthropology, it ponders how the self-realization of each can be combined with the self-determination of all. The article adopts an action-theoretical perspective on morality and defends the priority of the right over the good. It suggests that in plural and polarized societies, there no longer exists a consensus on (...) any version of the good life. It therefore limits the scope of virtue ethics to personal life and pleads for a minima moralia at the social and political level. (shrink)

Contemporary tort theory is dominated by a debate between legal economists and corrective-justice theorists. Legal economists suppose that tortfeasors and tortious wrongs are false targets for cheapest cost-avoiders and avoidable future losses. Corrective-justice theorists argue powerfully that the economic account of tort as search for cheapest cost-avoiders with respect to future accidents does not capture the most fundamental fact about tort adjudication, namely, that the reason we hold defendants liable in tort is that they have wronged their victims and should (...) therefore repair the harm they have done. Deterring cheapest cost-avoiders from committing future harms no more justifies imposing liability in tort than deterring future crime justifies hanging the innocent. This is a powerful critique of the economic theory of tort, but it overshoots the mark. As an account of tort law, corrective justice puts the cart before the horse Tort is a law of wrongs, not just a law of redress for wrongs. Repairing harm wrongly done is the next best way of complying with an obligation not to do harm wrongly in the first place. Rights and remedies form a unity in which rights have priority. Corrective justice is thus an essential but subordinate aspect of tort. This paper develops this line of criticism of corrective-justice theory and offers an alternative account of tort that places primary norms of harm avoidance and respect for rights at its center. On this conception, tort isa law of wrongs, but its distinctiveness lies in the content and character of the wrongs with which it is concerned. At its core, tort is concerned with protecting essential conditions of individual agency. (shrink)

This article argues that considerations about the role and predictability of intellectual innovation make the protection of intellectual property morally obligatory even when it greatly reduces short-term welfare. Since the provision of good new ideas is the only productive input not subject to decreasing marginal productivity, welfarist considerations require that no impediment to its maximal provision be erected and the potentially substantial welfare losses imposed by a patent system be mitigated by taxation of other sources of wealth and income. (...) Key Words: patent system • welfarism • decreasing marginal productivity. (shrink)

Federico Zuolo | : Most contemporary Western laws regarding the treatment of animals in livestock farming and animal slaughter are primarily concerned with the principle that animal suffering during slaughter should be minimized, but that animal life may be taken for legitimate human purposes. This principle seems to be widely shared, intuitively appealing and capable of striking a good compromise between competing interests. But is this principle consistent? And how can it be normatively grounded? In this paper I discuss (...) critically this principle. I argue that this principle can be justified on the ground of respect for the value commitment toward animal welfare, which is held by many people. The advantage of this perspective is its inclusiveness: it can justify without contradiction the principle at stake and allow for the admissibility of religious slaughter while promoting animals’ interest in not suffering. This justification also has the advantage of being compatible with the cultural and religious pluralism of contemporary societies. | : La plupart des lois contemporaines portant sur le traitement des animaux, leur élevage et les techniques d’abattage en usage en Occident se préoccupent principalement du principe selon lequel la souffrance des animaux doit être minimisée durant l’abattage, mais reconnaissent que les animaux peuvent être tués à des fins humaines légitimes. Ce principe semble être largement accepté par la société, séduisant intuitivement et susceptible de constituer un bon compromis entre des intérêts concurrents. Mais ce principe est-il cohérent? Et quel peut être son fondement normatif? Dans cet article, j’aborde ce principe de manière critique. J’affirme que ce principe peut être justifié dans le cadre du respect de l’engagement envers le bien-être des animaux, lequel est soutenu par de nombreuses personnes. L’avantage de cette perspective est son caractère inclusif : elle permet de justifier de manière non contradictoire le principe en question et rend acceptable l’abattage rituel tout en faisant la promotion de l’intérêt des animaux à la non-souffrance. Cette justification présente également l’avantage d’être compatible avec le pluralisme culturel et religieux qui caractérise les sociétés contemporaines. (shrink)

The association of emotions as kinds of affections is not unusual. This essay, however, considers whether the tight association between affections and emotions is conceptually satisfactory and advantageous. Does an emphasis on the boundedness of affections and emotions inadvertently mask their distinctive natures? In turning to Gustafson, Aquinas, and, ultimately, Edwards, I propose that, while affections are not emotionless, noticing their differences can reveal the limitations of the emotions for moral deliberation and draw greater attention to the moral significance of (...) the affections. (shrink)

The Right and the Good, a classic of twentieth-century philosophy by the great scholar Sir David Ross, is now presented in a new edition with a substantial introduction by Philip Stratton-Lake, a leading expert on Ross. Ross's book is the pinnacle of ethical intuitionism, which was the dominant moral theory in British philosophy for much of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Intuitionism is now enjoying a considerable revival, and Stratton-Lake provides the context for a proper understanding of (...) Ross's great work today. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on the appetite for self-preservation and its central role in Francis Bacon’s natural philosophy. In the first part, I introduce Bacon’s classification of universal appetites, showing the correspondences between natural and moral philosophy. I then examine the role that appetites play in his theory of motions and, additionally, the various meanings accorded to preservation in this context. I also discuss some of the sources underlying Bacon’s ideas, for his views about preservation reveal traces of Stoicism, Telesian natural (...) philosophy, the natural law tradition, as well as late-scholastic ideas. Bacon assumes the existence of two kinds of preservation: self-preservation and preservation of the whole. The appetite through which the whole preserves itself overpowers individual appetites for self-preservation. In Bacon’s theory of motions, the primacy of global preservation – that is, the preservation of the whole – is evidenced by the way matter resists being annihilated, while self-preservation at a local and particular level is revealed through other kinds of motion. Bacon’s notion of appetite reflects a specific metaphysics of matter and motion, in which the preservation of natural bodies follows teleological patterns shared by both nature and humanity: the preservation of the whole is the highest goal, both in moral and natural philosophy. In this chapter, I argue that in Bacon’s natural philosophy different kind of things, including nature and humans, are ruled by patterns that are constitutive of correlated orders, neither of which is reducible to the other: there is no priority of the natural order over the moral, or vice versa. Thus, at a more general level, both are expressions of the same type of divinely imposed, law-like behaviour. (shrink)

Jiwei Ci's Moral China in the Age of Reform is a landmark in our attempt to understand, diagnose, and provide solutions to the moral crisis in post-Mao China. It is difficult not to be deeply impressed by the perceptive observations, provocative claims, and sophisticated arguments Ci presents in this book. In my brief comment, I shall think with Ci on the relationship between the democratic and liberal components of a liberal democratic society on the one hand and that between the (...) right and the good on the other.Ci makes the claim that in the very idea of liberal democracy the liberal component has priority over the democratic component. What he means by this is that "members of a modern society … pursue... (shrink)

In this analysis we discuss the change in criteria for triage of patients during three different phases of a pandemic like COVID-19, seen from the critical care point of view. Availability of critical care beds has become a hot topic, and in many countries, we have seen a huge increase in the provision of temporary intensive care bed capacity. However, there is a limit where the hospitals may run out of resources to provide critical care, which is heavily dependent on (...) trained staff, just-in-time supply chains for clinical consumables and drugs and advanced equipment. In the first phase, we can still do clinical prioritisation and decision-making as usual, based on the need for intensive care and prognostication: what are the odds for a good result with regard to survival and quality of life. In the next, the resources are mostly available, but the system is stressed by many patients arriving over a short time period and auxiliary beds in different places in the hospital being used. We may have to abandon admittance of patients with doubtful prognosis. In the last phase, usual medical triage and priority setting may not be sufficient to decrease inflow and there may not be enough intensive care unit beds available. In this phase different criteria must be applied using a utilitarian approach for triage. We argue that this is an important transition where society, and not physicians, must provide guidance to support triage that is no longer based on medical priorities alone. (shrink)

A standard criticism of utilitarianism is that it is only indirectly concerned with the distribution of welfare between individuals and, therefore, does not take adequate account of the separateness between individuals. This has led some to conclude that the utilitarian must either downplay the moral significance of distinct identities (e.g. Parfit) or concede that justice represents a prior and independent constraint on the pursuit of the good (e.g. Rawls). An intriguing alternative presents itself if we accept that intrinsic value (...) for the world is independently generated by the receipt of welfare and the degree to which receipt accords with the demands of justice. Fred Feldman, for example, argues that an action is right if and only if it maximizes the sum of both these sources of intrinsic value. The proposal retains the aggregative structure of utilitarianism and takes into account the morally relevant differences between individuals. In response I argue that justice-adjusted utilitarianism collapses into a deontological theory because (i) the axiology assigns lexical priority to justice and (ii) the alleged intrinsic value of justice is entirely derivative. (shrink)

The institution of the family and its importance have recently received considerable attention from political theorists. Leading views maintain that the institution’s justification is grounded, at least in part, in the non-instrumental value of the parent-child relationship itself. Such views face the challenge of identifying a specific good in the parent-child relationship that can account for how adults acquire parental rights over a particular child—as opposed to general parental rights, which need not warrant a claim to parent one’s (...) biological progeny. I develop a view that meets this challenge. This Project View identifies the pursuit of a parental project as a distinctive non-instrumentally valuable good that provides a justification for the family and whose pursuit is necessary and sufficient for the acquisition of parental rights. This view grounds moral parenthood in a normative relation as opposed to a biological one, supports polyadic forms of parenting, and provides plausible guidance in cases of assisted reproduction. (shrink)

Researchers have frequently complained that the NHS ethical review system stifles good research. At last measures are being put in place to address this criticism, but will they undermine the protection of research participants? The Declaration of Helsinki recognizes that medicine will not progress without good quality research, but also demands that the well-being of research participants takes precedence over the interests of science and society. This article examines the implications of the ongoing reform of the NHS (...) research ethics review system for researchers, ethics committees and research participants. (shrink)

This dissertation offers a critical discussion of the prioritisation of ‘the right’ in John Rawls’s theory of justice. Rawls’s theory of justice – ‘justice as fairness’ – is arguably one of the best illustrations of the prioritisation of ‘the right’ in current political literature. However, his theory has been criticised by a diversity of thinkers for its implied structural relation between ‘the right’ and ‘the good’. Some theorists argue that conceptually ‘the good’ can never be (...) derived from ‘the right’; others argue that, even if it were possible, the social implications of such a conceptualisation would devastating as it would result in a so-called “community of strangers” (Rorty 1988, 273). In this dissertation, I argue that be on the one hand, theories that prioritise ‘the right’– such as ‘justice as fairness’ – enable the attractive possibility of the multiple coexistence of ‘comprehensive goods’. This is attractive as it upholds the liberating ethos: ‘I have the freedom to determine my own ends’. This possibility is attributed to the fact of neutrality, which characterises the priority of ‘the right’. The claim of neutrality is embedded in the ideal that political principles can be developed prior to and independently of any content of ‘the good’. This is then supposed to justify the claim that political principles are non-reliant on comprehensive moral ideals. In this way, the prioritisation of ‘the right’, as evident in ‘justice as fairness’, supposedly enables citizens to construct impartial universal principles that govern their society. Yet, on the other hand, I question the degree of neutrality present in ‘justice as fairness’. I argue that ‘justice as fairness’, although its justification is independent of a singular moral truth, is not neutral concerning ‘the good’. In fact, the moral values encapsulated in the priority of ‘the right’, I argue, set the conditions of justification of all doctrines of ‘the good’ because any idea of ‘the good’ that embodies contradictory values to those encapsulated in the priority of ‘the right’ would necessarily be excluded from a Rawlsian society. Therefore, I argue that Rawls’s theory of justice cannot be said to take into account “a diversity of conflicting and irreconcilable yet reasonable comprehensive doctrines” (Rawls 2001, 34); as moral values are already implied in the prioritising of ‘the right’. In light of how Rawls’s theory of justice is simultaneously neutral and prescriptive regarding ‘the good’, I suggest a re-problematisation of the debate on the relationship between ‘the right’ and ‘the good’. The literature on theories that prioritise ‘the right’ or ‘the good’ seems to imply such theories either embody the one or the other methodological approach. I argue that this debate has been presented as a false dichotomy and, as such, the debate itself seems to be exhausted, because it creates a kind of natural impasse. Therefore, I suggest recasting the debate in terms of representing ‘the right’ and ‘the good’ as two methodological positions on a continuum, that are at the same time both more or less gradually similar and divergent from one another. The purpose of this continuum is to demonstrate that notions such as neutrality, objectivity and comprehensiveness are not clear-cut. (shrink)