According to influential view, using the criminal law against innocent actions or agents is wrong. In this paper, I consider four related arguments against this view: a debunking argument that suggests that the intuitive appeal of this view may be due to a conflation of different ideas; a counterexamples argument that points out that there are many cases in which using the criminal law against innocent actions ("non mala" actions that are not even "mala prohibita") or agents is justified; a (...) theoretical argument, according to which the force of the reasons for and against using the criminal law is a matter of degree and it is therefore implausible to hold that the latter always defeat the former; and an analogy argument, which holds that it is implausible to maintain that harming innocents is often justified in other contexts but (almost) never in the context of the criminal law. (shrink)

The concept of moral innocence is frequently referenced in popular culture, ordinary language, literature, religious doctrine, and psychology. The morally innocent are often thought to be morally pure, incapable of wrongdoing, ignorant of morality, resistant to sin, or even saintly. In spite of, or perhaps because of this frequency of use the characterization of moral innocence continues to have varying connotations. As a result, the concept is often used without sufficient heed given to some of its (...) most salient attributes, especially those germane to moral agency and the moral community. In this article I intend to identify these attributes and propose that moral innocence is best defined as an inability to enter the moral community as a result of a trust in moral illusions. The content of the illusions pertains to several factors including one’s role in the moral community, one’s ability to wrong or harm others, the intricacies of one’s moral interaction with others, and the corresponding manifold complexities tangled up with the concepts of good and evil. Maintaining these illusions impedes or even prohibits an appropriate exchange of praise and blame with others. As membership in the moral community requires precisely this ability to engage in such an exchange, moral illusions necessarily give rise to an inability to participate in the moral community. (shrink)

Establishing a precise definition of moral innocence is a difficult task. Ordinarily philosophers explore the necessary and sufficient conditions of a term or concept in order to determine its meaning. Doing so with “moral innocence” proves difficult because the concept is mutable. The term is used in varying contexts to refer to ignorance, naiveté, sexual inexperience, legal and moral culpability, noncombatants in war, and moral purity. For our present purposes, we can exclude the contexts (...) of law and war because they are too specialized to aid us in identifying the commonalities present in the more general uses of the term. Once we take the other common uses into consideration—ignorance, naiveté, and sexual inexperience—a shared feature surfaces. Each of these conditions of character or states of being is a mode of immaturity. Now we are impelled to ask: what are the qualities of this immaturity? More specifically, what are the features of moral immaturity? To answer this question, the first section of this chapter argues that moral innocence ought to be interpreted in terms of illusion and inability. The innocent hold certain illusions about the moral order that make them unable to engage in practices constitutive of the moral community. Specifically, the morally innocent falsely believe that a life of moral purity—that is, a life devoid of wrongdoing—is possible to achieve. This illusion is based on the following three elements characteristic of an immature and rudimentary understanding of moral interaction: the belief that human nature has only a propensity for goodness; the belief that following ethical rules is sufficient to avoid transgressing moral values; and, the inability to see oneself as a perpetual source of wrongdoing. The subsequent sections establish why each of these elements hinders the development of a realistic and mature moral acumen. We will proceed by examining the thought of two figures in the history of philosophy who have not previously been associated with the notion of moral innocence, and yet through the present analysis and interpretation can provide insight into its nature. First, Immanuel Kant’s theory of radical evil demonstrates that the human propensity to evil is so pervasive that it is, practically speaking, unavoidable. Therefore, to believe that one can avoid acting upon temptations to evil is self-deception. The final section engages in a thorough analysis of Søren Kierkegaard’s philosophy and interprets it in a new way as a theory of moral maturity. The morally mature individual is one who questions ethical rules and who, through self-reflection, recognizes herself as a potential source of wrongdoing. As a result of these arguments, we will identify rule-questioning, self-reflection, and locating wrongdoing in terms of one’s own agency as essential features of moral maturity. We will determine the essential characteristics of moral innocence by examining its positive attributes before establishing it as a negative counterpart to moral maturity. (shrink)

Some philosophers believe that swearing is morally innocent insofar as it is non‐abusive and vulgarities are being used, such as when people exclaim “s**t!” or “f**k!” This article shows this view to be mistaken. I start by arguing that taking offense at non‐abusive vulgar swearing is not irrational, before arguing that, even if it were, such swearing would still not always be justified. The fact that many of us find it hard to overcome profanity‐induced offense, along with the fact that (...) its existence is necessary for swearing to be possible, is sufficient to render even non‐abusive vulgar swearing sometimes wrong. I go on to assess the opposite view, according to which swearing, including non‐abusive vulgar swearing, is never justified, whereby two objections to this activity are addressed. According to the instrumentalization objection, the fact that swearing is possible only if at least some people are sometimes offended by the words that are used means that swearers treat those who are offended by their profanity as mere means. And according to the Ersatz objection, the fact that we can use inoffensive words to raise the emotional content of our speech renders swearing gratuitously offensive. Neither objection is found to be convincing. (shrink)

Our lives are such that moral wrongdoing is sometimes inescapable for us. We have moral responsibilities to persons which may conflict and which it is wrong to violate even when they do conflict. Christopher W. Gowans argues that we must accept this conclusion if we are to make sense of our moral experience and the way in which persons are valuable to us. In defending this position, he critically examines the recent moral dilemmas debate. He maintains (...) that what is important in this debate is not whether there are irresolvable moral conflicts, but whether there are moral conflicts in which wrongdoing is unavoidable. Though it would be incoherent to conclude moral deliberation by deciding to perform incompatible actions, he argues that there is nothing incoherent in supposing that we have conflicting moral responsibilities. In this way, he shows that it is possible to capture the intuitions of those who have defended the idea of moral dilemmas while meeting the objections of those who have rejected this idea. Gowans carefully evaluates utilitarian and Kantian analyses of moral dilemmas. He argues that these approaches eliminate genuine moral conflict only by displacing persons as direct objects of moral concern. As an alternative, he develops a more concrete account in which moral responsibilities to persons are central. The book also includes discussions of Melville's Billy Budd, methodology in moral philosophy, moral pluralism, moral tragedy, and "dirty hands" in politics. (shrink)

The existence of predatory animals is a problem in animal ethics that is often not taken as seriously as it should be. We show that it reveals a weakness in Tom Regan's theory of animal rights that also becomes apparent in his treatment of innocent human threats. We show that there are cases in which Regan's justice-prevails-approach to morality implies a duty not to assist the jeopardized, contrary to his own moral beliefs. While a modified account of animal rights (...) that recognizes the moral patient as a kind of entity that can violate moral rights avoids this counterintuitive conclusion, it makes non-human predation a rights issue that morally ought to be subjected to human regulation. Jennifer Everett, Lori Gruen and other animal advocates base their treatment of predation in part on Regan's theory and run into similar problems, demonstrating the need to radically rethink the foundations of the animal rights movement. We suggest to those who, like us, find it less plausible to introduce morality to the wild than to reject the concept of rights that makes this move necessary to read our criticism either as a modus tollens argument and reject non-human animal rights altogether or as motivating a libertarian-ish theory of animal rights. (shrink)

The view that innocent beneficiaries of injustice bear special duties to victims of injustice has recently come under attack. Luck egalitarian theorists have argued that thought experiments focusing on the way innocent beneficiaries should distribute the benefits they’ve received provide evidence against this view. The apparent special duties of innocent beneficiaries, they hold, are wholly reducible to general duties to compensate people for bad brute luck. In this paper we provide empirical evidence in defense of the view that innocent beneficiaries (...) have genuine special duties to victims of injustice. Through a series of four experiments, we show that judgments about the kinds of cases that luck egalitarian critics have provided do not undermine but rather support this view. We also explore a number of other questions that theorists working in this area have yet to discuss and provide suggestions for further research on the moral significance of benefiting from injustice. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relation between the right to self-defense against an innocent attacker and the notion of moral luck. It argues that those who accept the existence of such a right rely on the assumption that mere agency makes a significant moral difference – which is precisely the assumption that underlies the view held by believers in moral luck. Those who believe in the right to self-defense against innocent attackers are thus (...) committed to the idea of moral luck much more than they usually acknowledge. The paper also argues that the arguments offered in support of moral luck, in particular the one based on the relation between agency and self-identity, might help to shed light on the rather puzzling above right. (shrink)

I begin with the story told by Herman Melville in his short novel, Billy Budd.The year is 1797. Britain is engaged in a long and bitter war against France, and the British war effort has been threatened by two naval mutinies: the Nore Mutiny and the mutiny at Spithead. The scene is His Majesty’s Ship, the Indomitable, and the central character is Billy Budd, sailor. Billy Budd is a young man of exceptional beauty, both physical and moral, whose only (...) flaw is a stammer. He is loved by all his fellow sailors except the master-at-arms, John Claggart. The incarnation of evil, Claggart recognises in Billy the incarnation of goodness, and is consumed by a jealousy which leads him to accuse Billy (falsely) of inciting the crew to mutiny. Alone with Claggart and the ship’s Captain, Edward Vere, Billy hears the lying charge against him. He is enraged, but his stammer prevents him from responding in words. He strikes Claggart, and the blow is fatal. Billy Budd, sailor, has killed the master-at-arms of one of His Majesty’s ships on active service, and the penalty for this is death. (shrink)

The contemporary philosophical debate on free will and moral responsibility is rife with appeal to a variety of allegedly intuitive cases and principles. As a result, some have argued that many strands of this debate end in “dialectical stalemates,” boiling down to bedrock, seemingly intractable disagreements about intuition . Here I attempt to carve out a middle ground between conventional reliance on appeal to intuition and intuitional skepticism in regards to the philosophical discussion of moral responsibility in particular. (...) The main goal of this paper is to propose and defend a new methodological assumption that I argue responsibility theorists can and should accept, one that serves to preserve a general skepticism about the proper role of intuition in our responsibility theorizing while marking a particular class of our responsibility judgments as having a privileged epistemic status such that they can play a role in constraining our responsibility theorizing. (shrink)

1. Introduction This essay deals with the hard topic of the permissible killing of the innocent. The relevance of this topic to the morality of war is obvious. For even the most defensive and just wars, i.e., the most defensive and just responses to existing or imminent large-scale aggression, will inflict harm upon – in particular, cause the deaths of – innocent bystanders. 1 The most obvious and relevant example is that of innocent Soviet noncombatants who would be killed by (...) even the most precise defensive strike against Soviet strategic weapons or troop formations that is now possible. Should there be no vindication or, at least, no excuse for some killings of such innocent bystanders, morality would dictate that even defensive counterforce measures against largescale attacks should be renounced. (shrink)

1. Introduction This essay deals with the hard topic of the permissible killing of the innocent. The relevance of this topic to the morality of war is obvious. For even the most defensive and just wars, i.e., the most defensive and just responses to existing or imminent large-scale aggression, will inflict harm upon – in particular, cause the deaths of – innocent bystanders. 1 The most obvious and relevant example is that of innocent Soviet noncombatants who would be killed by (...) even the most precise defensive strike against Soviet strategic weapons or troop formations that is now possible. Should there be no vindication or, at least, no excuse for some killings of such innocent bystanders, morality would dictate that even defensive counterforce measures against largescale attacks should be renounced. (shrink)

Private persons and entities are increasingly adopting aggressive “active defense” measures against Internet‐based attacks that can infringe the rights of innocent persons. In this paper, I argue that aggressive active defense cannot be justified by the Necessity Principle, which defines a moral liberty to infringe the right of an innocent person if necessary to achieve a significantly greater moral good. It is a necessary condition for justifiably acting under an ethical principle that we have adequate reason to believe (...) its application‐conditions are satisfied. Since, absent special knowledge, the victim of a hacker attack will not be able to reliably predict the direct or indirect consequences of aggressive countermeasures, she lacks adequate reason to think that those measures will achieve a good that significantly outweighs the evil that is done to innocent parties. (shrink)

Innocence is a notion that can prove controversial. Claims of innocence typically support not imposing burdens on the innocent when their conduct is relevantly unobjectionable. This paper examines innocence in the context of violent conflict between states or groups. Many thinkers about the morality of such violence want to establish a principle that would protect innocent civilians. Yet the common view in just war theory does not affirm the moral innocence of civilians. Similarly, the common (...) view that soldiers have an equal right to kill does not affirm their equal moral culpability. (shrink)

The place of moral innocence in politics is the central theme of Peter Johnson's subtle and original book.

In this paper, I argue that the certainty about the wrongness of killing must not be considered as a universal, but as a local one. Initially, I show that there exist communities in which the wrongness of killing innocents is not a moral certainty and that this kind of case cannot be justified by arguing that such people are psychopaths. Lastly, I argue that universal certainties do not admit of exceptions: thus, the fact that some exceptional cases affect the (...) certainty that killing innocents is wrong, leads me to conclude that it is a local certainty. (shrink)

Catholic moral philosophy requires an absolute prohibition against the direct killing of innocents. In this paper I consider some examples of justified actionswhich involve the killing of innocent persons and will present them as cases about which I am confident many others will share the same intuitions. I willthen try to show what conditions apply in such cases that justify those intuitions. I will argue that their justification is in accordance with a modified version of theFinnis, Grisez, Boyle interpretation (...) of the doctrine of double effect; it defends their interpretation of what is direct versus indirect in cases of double effect, and meets the proportionality condition in a way suggested by Philippa Foot regarding the virtues of justice and charity. (shrink)

Catholic moral philosophy requires an absolute prohibition against the direct killing of innocents. In this paper I consider some examples of justified actionswhich involve the killing of innocent persons and will present them as cases about which I am confident many others will share the same intuitions. I willthen try to show what conditions apply in such cases that justify those intuitions. I will argue that their justification is in accordance with a modified version of theFinnis, Grisez, Boyle interpretation (...) of the doctrine of double effect; it defends their interpretation of what is direct versus indirect in cases of double effect, and meets the proportionality condition in a way suggested by Philippa Foot regarding the virtues of justice and charity. (shrink)

In Stephen Nathanson’s important new book, he offers and defends a definition of terrorism that relies on a conception of innocence that blends both moral innocence and status innocence. I argue that this understanding of innocence needs to be modified in two ways. First, status innocence ought to incorporate the notion of opposition. It is not just in becoming a soldier that one sacrifices status innocence; it is in the context of war or (...) opposition. Second, I argue that moral innocence understood according to a liability-based notion of responsibility is insufficient. It does not address the various relational elements of responsibility. To remedy that gap, I suggest that we add a vulnerability-based notion of responsibility together with the liability-based model for a more complete account of moral innocence. (shrink)

In Stephen Nathanson’s important new book, he offers and defends a definition of terrorism that relies on a conception of innocence that blends both moral innocence and status innocence. I argue that this understanding of innocence needs to be modified in two ways. First, status innocence ought to incorporate the notion of opposition. It is not just in becoming a soldier that one sacrifices status innocence; it is in the context of war or (...) opposition. Second, I argue that moral innocence understood according to a liability-based notion of responsibility is insufficient. It does not address the various relational elements of responsibility. To remedy that gap, I suggest that we add a vulnerability-based notion of responsibility together with the liability-based model for a more complete account of moral innocence. (shrink)

abstract Michael Otsuka claims that it is impermissible to kill innocent threats because doing so is morally equivalent to killing bystanders. I show that Otsuka's argument conflates killing as a means with treating a person herself as a means. The killing of a person can be a means only if that person is instrumental in the threat to Victim's life. A permission to kill a person as a means will not permit killing bystanders. I also defend a permission to kill (...) innocent threats against Otsuka's Trolley Cases. Otsuka depicts a person tied to an oncoming trolley as a bystander. I argue that such characters are threats whom Victim can permissibly kill. (shrink)

ABSTRACTI offer an interpretation of Nietzsche's striking idea of ‘the innocence of becoming’, and a partial defense of its import, namely, that no one is ever morally responsible or guilty for what they do and that many of the so-called reactive attitudes are misplaced. I focus primarily, though not exclusively, on the arguments as set out in Twilight of the Idols. First, there is Nietzsche's hypothesis, partly psychological and partly historical or anthropological, that the ideas of ‘free’ action or (...) free will, and of responsibility for actions freely chosen or willed, were introduced primarily in order to justify punishment. Call this the Genetic Thesis about Free Will. Second, there is Nietzsche's claim that the moral psychology, or ‘psychology of the will” as he calls it, that underlies this picture is, in fact, false – that, in fact, it is not true that every action is willed or that it reflects a purpose or that it originates in consciousness. Call these, in aggregate, the Descriptive Thesis about the Will. Finally, there is articulation of a programmatic agenda, namely, to restore the ‘innocence of becoming’ by getting rid of guilt and punishment based on guilt – not primarily because ascriptions of guilt and responsibility are false, but because a world understood as ‘innocent’, one understood in terms of ‘natural’ cause and effect, is a better world in which to live. I focus in particular on a reactive attitude often ignored by philosophers, but of crucial importance for Nietzsche, namely, revenge. I aim to explain and defend Zarathustra's recommendation: ‘Enemy’ you shall say, but not villain; sick you shall say, but not scoundrel; fool you shall say, but not ‘sinner.’ Nietzsche's views are contrasted with those of important modern writers on these topics, especially P.F. Strawson and Derk Pereboom. (shrink)

In this book, Stuart Hampshire argues that no individual and no modern society can avoid conflicts between incompatible moral interests.

Philosophical Investigations, Volume 45, Issue 1, Page 77-90, January 2022.

Just war morality draws an important distinction between soldiers and civilians. Unlike soldiers, civilians may never be intentionally killed because they are innocent. But the prohibition on intentionally killing civilians cannot be adequately explained by the wrongness of killing the innocent. This paper examines several views on the meaning of innocence in war, exposes difficulties with each that warrant their rejection, and proposes an alternative view on the wrongness of killing civilians that is independent of the wrongness of killing (...) the innocent. It concludes by noting some concerns with the proposed alternative. (shrink)

A critic of utilitarianism, in a paper entitled “Innocence and Consequentialism” Laing argues that Singer cannot without contradicting himself reject baby farming (a thought experiment that involves mass-producing deliberately brain damaged children for live birth for the greater good of organ harvesting) and at the same time hold on to his “personism” a term coined by Jenny Teichman to describe his fluctuating (and Laing says, discriminatory) theory of human moral value. His explanation that baby farming undermines attitudes of (...) care and concern for the very young, can be applied to babies and the unborn (non-persons on his view) and contradicts positions that he adopts elsewhere in his work. (shrink)

The moral right to act in self-defense seems to be unproblematic: you are allowed to kill an aggressor if doing so is necessary for saving your own life. Indeed, it seems that from the moral standpoint, acting in self-defense is doing the right thing. Thanks, however, to works by George Fletcher and Judith Thomson, it is now well known how unstable the moral basis of the right to self-defense is. We are in the dark with regard to (...) one of the most basic problems raised by this right, namely: the problem of the innocent aggressor. The disturbing question is simple enough: Is a potential victim allowed to kill, in self-defense, a morally innocent aggressor? (shrink)

Of all moral conditions, innocence seems easily the best and most desirable, for it means the complete absence of error and regret and all the anxieties that go with these—anxieties about avoiding guilt and making amends for instance. Against the background of guilt and traffic with wrong, innocence is indisputably better, just as something clean is better than something soiled, something fresh better than something stale.

While it is impossible to transfigurephilosophical and Judaic thought of EmmanuelLevinas into a moral agenda for education orthe programmatic regularities of a pedagogicalmethodology, this paper argues for theimportance of his work for re-openingeducational questions. These questions engagethe problem of what it could mean to livehistorically, to live within an uprightattentiveness to traces of those who haveinhabited times and places other than one'sown. In this sense, I address the problem ofremembrance as a question of and for history,as a force of (...) inhabitation, as an inheritance weare obligated to live within, that intertwineswith our sense of limits and possibilities,hopes and fears, identities and distinctions.Substantively, this problem is manifest in howone attends to the experiences of others: howone reads, how one views, and how one listens,always historically specific normalizedpractices that in any given epoch are ingrainedin what it means to live in consort withothers, to live as though the lives of otherpeople mattered. The paper seeks to display thefecundity of the thought of Levinas forre-thinking such issues. (shrink)

In this paper I examine one line of argument against the claim that (some) suicide may be morally legitimate. This argument appeals to a putative moral principle that it is never licit to assault an innocent human life. I consider some related arguments in St. Augustine and St. Thomas, and I explore two possible senses of “innocent.” I argue that in one sense the putative moral principle is very implausible, and in neither sense is it true that all (...) suicides assault an innocent life. So this line of argument fails to establish the desired universal prohibition of suicide. (shrink)

Constrained instrumentalist theories of punishment – those that seek to justify punishment by its good effects, but limit its scope – are an attractive alternative to pure retributivism or utilitarianism. One way in which we may be able to limit the scope of instrumental punishment is by justifying punishment through the concept of duty. This strategy is most clearly pursued in Victor Tadros’ influential ‘Duty View’ of punishment. In this paper, I show that the Duty View as it stands cannot (...) find any moral distinction between the permissible punishment of the guilty and the permissible punishment of the innocent in extreme circumstances, therefore undermining one the key pillars of its intuitive appeal. I canvass several ways to respond to this problem, arguing that a rights forfeiture theory which employs the distinction between rights forfeiture and rights infringement is the best solution. (shrink)

Retributive restrictions are principles of justice according to which what a criminal deserves on account of his individual conduct and character restricts how states are morally permitted to treat him. The main arguments offered in defense of retributive restrictions involve thought experiments in which the state punishes the innocent, a practice known as telishment. In order to derive retributive restrictions from the wrongness of telishment, one must engage in moral argument from generalization. I show how generalization arguments of the (...) same form can be used subversively to derive morally unacceptable conclusions from other scenarios in which the state intentionally inflicts undeserved coercion. For example, our considered moral convictions approve of punishment policies that inflict collateral damage, such as the ubiquitous policy of excluding the family members of inmates from prison facilities outside visiting hours. I present a generalization argument for the conclusion that these policies are seriously unjust. If we firmly believe that these policies are not unjust, then we should put less stock in generalization arguments. We should not use them to support retributive restrictions. This conclusion has broad implications for the theory and practice of criminal justice. (shrink)

In this paper we introduce the nascent literature on Moral Uncertainty Theory and explore its application to the criminal law. Moral Uncertainty Theory seeks to address the question of what we ought to do when we are uncertain about what to do because we are torn between rival moral theories. For instance, we may have some credence in one theory that tells us to do A but also in another that tells us to do B. We examine (...) how we might decide whether or not to criminalize some conduct when we are unsure as to whether or not the conduct is morally permitted, and whether or not it is permissible to criminalize the conduct. We also look at how we might make sentencing decisions under moral uncertainty. We argue that Moral Uncertainty Theory can be an illuminating way to address these questions, but find that doing so is a lot more complicated than applying Moral Uncertainty Theory to individual conduct. (shrink)

There are at least five types of innocence. Innocence of various, but not all, types can be possessed, then lost, and later still regained or even surpassed. The most important of these I call “mature innocence,” which is a confirmed state of character, attained reflectively and by an individual’s exercise of effort and agency, that is highly resistant to sin and moral wrongdoing. Mature innocence can be either a secular or a specifically Christian ideal. To (...) surpass mature innocence is to attain a related ideal of purity of heart. (shrink)

In Free Will, Agency, and Meaning in Life, Derk Pereboom proposes an optimistic model of life that follows on the rejection of both libertarian and compatibilist beliefs in free will, moral responsibility, and desert. I criticize his views, focusing on punishment. Pereboom responds to my earlier argument that hard determinism must seek to revise the practice of punishment in the direction of funishment, whereby the incarcerated are very generously compensated for the deprivations of incarceration. I claimed that funishment is (...) a practical reductio: of hard determinism. Pereboom replies, but I claim that he misses a key component of my reductio, the idea that moving in the direction of funishment will considerably weaken the deterrence of potential criminals so that hard determinism becomes self-defeating in practice. Beyond the challenge of funishment, I raise various other difficulties with Pereboom’s model, concerning its deeply unintuitive implications, the harm it does to the motivation of potential criminals, its weakness in resisting utilitarian-like dangers, and more. Our conclusions should lead to a re-evaluation of the compatibilist interpretation of moral life, as a richer, more plausible, and safer interpretation than hard determinism. This needs to be combined with a true hard determinist acknowledgment of the deep injustice and tragedy involved in punishment in light of the absence of libertarian free will. Such a complex view will come closer to doing justice to notions of justice, morality, and decency. (shrink)