It is widely accepted that valid consent is a necessary condition for permissible sexual activity. Since non-human animals, children, and individuals who are severely cognitively disabled, heavily intoxicated or unconscious, lack the cognitive capacity to give valid consent, this condition explains why it is impermissible to have sex with them. However, contrary to common intuitions, the same condition seems to render it impermissible to have sex with robots, for they too are incapable of consenting to sex due to insufficient cognitive (...) capacitation. This paper explores whether the intuition that non-consensual sex with robots is permissible can be vindicated, whilst preserving valid consent as a general requirement for permissible sexual activity. I develop and evaluate four possible ways to argue that there is a morally significant difference between robots on the one hand, and insufficiently cognitively capacitated humans and non-human animals on the other hand, to substantiate and justify the intuition that it is permissible to have non-consensual sex with the former but not with the latter. (shrink)

In “Other-Sacrificing Options”, Benjamin Lange argues that, when distributing benefits and burdens, we may discount the interests of the people to whom we stand in morally negative relationships relative to the interests of other people. Lange’s case for negative partiality proceeds in two steps. First, he presents a hypothetical example that commonly elicits intuitions favourable to negative partiality. Second, he invokes symmetry considerations to reason from permissible positive partiality towards intimates to permissible negative partiality towards adversaries. In this paper, I (...) argue that neither the intuition elicited by Lange’s example nor the invoked symmetry considerations support a permission for negative partiality. This does not mean that negative partiality is unjustified. It means only that the justification, if there is one, must take a different form. I end by suggesting an alternative justification of negative partiality, one that mirrors gratitude-based justifications of positive partiality rather than justifications based on intimacy. (shrink)

Does the moral quality of someone’s past treatment of us, or of other people, change how we are morally permitted or required to treat them? Many philosophers think so. They argue, for instance, that someone’s supererogatory or impermissible behaviour can permit or require certain positive or negative attitudinal responses, such as gratitude or resentment. They also argue that someone’s impermissible behaviour can justify harming the person, either defensively or punitively, and that someone who is imperilled as a result of impermissible (...) behaviour might have a weaker claim to be aided than those who are innocently imperilled. This thesis has two aims. The first is to extend the scope of the idea that we can be morally required to have certain positive or negative attitudinal responses to someone’s supererogatory or impermissible behaviour; the second is to explore novel ways in which our required responses to such behaviour, or our failures to have these responses, can change what others owe to us when aiding. Papers 1-3 advance the first aim; papers 4-6 advance the second aim. In pursuing the two aims, the thesis brings together two philosophical domains that are not normally considered in conjunction: the philosophy of attitudes and deontological ethics. (shrink)