In 2006, a paper in the journal Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine described a novel case of growth attenuation therapy and other treatments carried out on Ashley, a severely cognitively, neurologically and physically disabled 6-year-old girl. Some of the moral arguments that have sprung up in respect of the so-called “Ashley treatment” are considered, and it is suggested that they all miss something—that the proper treatment of Ashley may have as much to do with doctors’ duties to (...) themselves as with their duties to her. It is suggested that the Ashley treatment may have been in violation of doctors’ self-regarding duties and that this possibility is worthy of further investigation. (shrink)

In this paper, I assess critically the recent debate on corrective duties across moral and legal philosophy. Two prominent positions have emerged: the Kantian rights-based view (holding that what triggers corrections is a failure to respect others' right to freedom) and the so-called continuity view (correcting means attempting to do what one was supposed to do before). Neither position, I try to show, offers a satisfactory explanation of the ground (why correct?) and content (how to correct?) of (...) corrective duties. In the final section, I suggest that it is probably better to restrict the label “corrective duties” to duties generated by interpersonal wronging. (shrink)

In The Right and the Good, W. D. Ross commits himself to the view that, in addition to being distinct and defeasible, some prima facie duties are more binding than others. David McNaughton has argued that there appears to be no way of making sense of this claim that is both coherent and consistent with Ross's overall picture. I offer an alternative way of understanding Ross's remarks about the comparative stringency of prima facie duties, which, in addition (...) to being compatible with his view as presented in the text, provides us with a coherent, and indeed plausible, account of what it means for some duties to be more binding than others. (shrink)

Contemporary theorists tend to think that the basic justification of human rights is instrumental, as efficient means for producing the theorist's preferred ultimate value or values. Contemporary theorists also tend to think that human rights have a distinctive normative force, correlating with categorical duties. This article shows that instrumentalist accounts of human rights face a dilemma. The very structure of any instrumentalist account means that such an account faces extraordinary difficulties accommodating categorical duties to respect the human (...) rights of others. If so, one should either reject instrumentalism about human rights or do away with categorical duties. But doing away with categorical duties comes at a high cost. The dilemma, then, should question the prevalent assumption that instrumentalist accounts of human rights can accommodate categorical duties. The dilemma should serve either to sharpen instrumentalist theories or to motivate non-instrumentalism about human rights. (shrink)

This series of articles have explored the need that society has for clinical research to be done and the consequent sets of duties that call on the one hand upon investigators to carry it out and on the other upon patients to be subjects of it. The purpose of the discussions has been to understand what should be the relationship between investigators and patient-subjects in order that both might meet their obligations effectively, efficiently, safely and with mutual respect. (...) Here I reach my conclusions. (shrink)

The tendency towards analysis and criticism, realism and pluralism, which has been evident in general philosophy during the present century has had important effects on recent ethical discussion. Its influence is to be seen in the two theories which on account of their prominence and the number of their disciples may be said to be most characteristic of the period—Ideal Utilitarianism and the New Intuitionism—theories which no less an authority than Sir David Ross described as the rival theories. However different (...) these theories are in many respects they have a tendency towards ethical pluralism, if not atomism—a tendency not only to emphasize distinctions but even to harden the distinguishable elements into independent, if not even unrelated, entities. The one leaves us with a series of independent goods and the other with a series of prima facie duties, with the result that neither gives us any unitary principle to help us in one of the principal tasks of the moral life, the attempt to discover what in particular circumstances we ought to do. (shrink)

In this paper I suggest that there is a way to make sense of blameworthiness for morally problematic actions even when there is no bad will behind such actions. I am particularly interested in cases where an agent acts in a biased way, and the explanation is socialization and false belief rather than bad will on the part of the agent. In such cases, I submit, we are pulled in two directions: on the one hand non-culpable ignorance is usually an (...) excuse, but in the case of acting in a biased way we feel some pull to find the agent blameworthy. I argue that agents are sometimes blameworthy, (where I really mean that they are blameworthy, and not just that it is permissible to reproach them), even if they do not have any bad will. I argue that although the paradigmatic account of blameworthiness is based on quality of will, we can and should be willing to allow that there are non-paradigmatic cases. I argue that the zone of responsibility can be extended to include acts that we are not fully in control of, and acts whose moral status we are non-culpably ignorant about at the time of acting. This extension of responsibility happens through a voluntary taking of responsibility. I argue that there are certain conditions under which we should take responsibility, and that when we do so, we genuinely are responsible. (shrink)

Fiduciary duty is not restricted merely to the property of shareholders but includes ethical obligations to a wider constituency stakeholders in terms of power. Several approaches to corporate social responsibility (CSR) are considered in terms of their respective orientations to the external world. Robert Greenleaf's notion of "service to others" or "servant-leadership" is considered as a case of the fifth level approach to CSR. An historical perspective offers a precedent for reclaiming corporate charter grants as a means for reinstating (...) the corporation's responsibilities to the wider community. Two propositions are offered to help us revision corporations in ways that would enable their total service obligations to all constituencies. (shrink)

How ought we respond to advance directives that appear to fly in the face of a severely mentally impaired patient's quality of life? An advance directive is a legal instrument wherein a person records instructions regarding the medical treatment that she is to receive in the event that she becomes persistently incapable of refusing or giving informed consent to treatment. Where these instructions are legally binding, they enable a person to exercise control over her future medical treatment. This has been (...) welcomed by some on the grounds that it increases patient autonomy, but there has also been concern that in cases in which a patient is left conscious but severely mentally impaired, the person's advance .. (shrink)

The confrontation of the dominant perspectives on the ethics of the relationship between humans and other animals with the Kantian proposal shows that its situation is not significantly worse than that of its competitors. First, many criticisms of Kant’s ethics are based on a selective reading of his works, and some of those criticisms show little knowledge of Kant’s actual views. Secondly, demands to adapt moral theory to selected moral intuitions uncritically assume that these intuitions are sound. Thirdly, many critics (...) require that the ethics of the relationship between human and non-human animals satisfy theoretical demands which are not the only plausible way of including non-human animals in a human moral perspective. This is particularly true of the question of the directness of obligations to non-human animals. A consideration of the question of the moral significance of non-human animals and of the nature of human obligations to them against the background of Kant’s non-naturalistic approach to the good and of his view of the role of embodiment in the realization of the good shows that Kantian ethics contains theoretical resources which are sufficient for a serious moral treatment of non-human animals and for the articulation of many contemporary moral intuitions concerning those animals. (shrink)

The fact that Kantian beneficence is constrained by Kantian respect appears to seriously restrict the Kantian's moral response to agents who have embraced self-destructive ends. In this paper I defend the Kantian duties of love and respect by arguing that Kantians can recognize attempts to get an agent to change her ends as a legitimate form of beneficence. My argument depends on two key premises. First, that rational nature is not identical to the capacity to set ends, (...) and second, that an agent's conception of her happiness is not identical to the satisfaction of her ends. (shrink)

Many feminist philosophers have been highly critical of Kant’s ethics, either because of his rationalism or because of particular claims he makes about women in his writings on anthropology and political philosophy. In this paper, I call attention to the aspects of Kant’s ethical theory that make it attractive from a feminist standpoint. Kant’s duties to oneself are rich resource for feminism. These duties require women to act in ways that show respect for themselves as rational human (...) agents by, e.g., avoiding servility, self-deception, self-mutilation, and sexual self-degradation, and cultivating their natural talents (as well as their virtue). Duties to others demand that other people treat women respectfully by requiring that they avoid mocking, degrading, or acting arrogantly toward others. Indeed, even when one sets out to promote others’ happiness, Kant’s ethics requires that one not act paternalistically. Kant’s ethics insists that every rational agent recognize the equality and dignity of all rational agents. Thus, it pushes women to respect themselves and to demand respect from others; and it pushes men to respect women as a basic moral requirement. (shrink)

When our choice affects some other person and the outcome is unknown, it has been argued that we should defer to their risk attitude, if known, or else default to use of a risk‐avoidant risk function. This, in turn, has been claimed to require the use of a risk‐avoidant risk function when making decisions that primarily affect future people, and to decrease the desirability of efforts to prevent human extinction, owing to the significant risks associated with continued human survival. I (...) raise objections to the claim that respect for others' risk attitudes requires risk‐avoidance when choosing for future generations. In particular, I argue that there is no known principle of interpersonal aggregation that yields acceptable results in variable population contexts and is consistent with a plausible ideal of respect for others' risk attitudes in fixed population cases. (shrink)

Child Versus Childmaker investigates a "person-affecting" approach to ethical choice. A form of consequentialism, this approach is intended to capture the idea that agents ought both do the most good that they can and respect each person as distinct from each other. Focusing on cases in which a conflict of interest arises between "childmakers"—parents, infertility specialists, embryologists, and others engaged in the task of bringing new people into existence—and the children they aim to create, the author considers what (...) we today owe those who will come into existence tomorrow. (shrink)

A challenging question regarding compensation for historic injustices like slavery or colonialism is whether there is anyone to whom it would be just to ascribe duties of compensation given that allegedly all the perpetrators--the guilty parties--are dead. Some answer this question negatively, arguing it is wrong to ascribe to anyone compensatory duties for injustices committed by others who died multiple generations ago. This objection to compensation for historic injustice, which I call the Historical Responsibility Objection (HRO), takes (...) as its core premises (1) that one must be guilty of wrongdoing with respect to a given historic injustice in order to bear a duty to compensate for the injustice, and (2) that no one alive today can be considered so guilty because no one alive today was alive when the historic injustice occurred. The result is that we cannot ascribe compensatory duties to anyone for any historic injustic. While all arguments I am aware of that refute HRO reject premise (1), this paper sketches a novel refutation of HRO by exploring the implications of rejecting premise (2). Doing so would invoke the state as a collective agent, distinct from its constitutive individual agents, liable to acquire compensatory duties for wrongs it commits that none of its constitutive individuals bear. To the extent that states that are collective agents committed historic injustices, such states have duties to compensate for historic injustice. (shrink)

An important element in the criticism of liberalism by some communitarians and feminists is the notion of our embeddedness in relationships of dependence. The criticism in general is that liberal theory is deficient in that it generally attaches no special meaning to such relations, thus justifying a social structure that weakens them. However, the questions of precisely what sort of moral significance these relationships have, why they are morally significant, and what types of dependence relationships possess this significance, have largely (...) gone unasked. This article attempts to explore these questions. I will begin by considering duties that may arise from being depended on by others. (shrink)

In contrast to multicultural theory, which in discussions of respect for difference has primarily focussed on the state as the agent of respect, multicultural policy has instead tended to focus on citizens themselves as the potential agents of this sort of respect. This article examines the plausibility of this type of respect (which is advocated by some theorists too), and argues that is not a reasonable or necessary demand. While there are several different ways of understanding (...) respect — most of which focus on respecting persons — none seem capable of doing the work required for it to enable either the adequate or reasonable accommodation of diversity in a liberal society. More specifically, I use Darwall's influential distinction between appraisal and recognition respect — the latter in a broad non-moralised sense — to make my case. While appraisal respect for difference may be theoretically easy to dismiss, it is not uncommon in multicultural policy. On the other hand, recognition respect — which is more behavioural than attitudinal — may appear a more plausible candidate. Yet it too remains overly demanding for individual citizens, especially, and most importantly, in difficult cases. I conclude that tolerance of difference (coming out of respect for citizenship) is a more appropriate demand on the individual. (shrink)

Yasha Rohwer and Emma Marris argue that we do not have a prima facie duty to preserve the genetic integrity of species. Rohwer and Marris take the duty to preserve genetic integrity as being equal...

By combining normative philosophy and empirical social science, we craft a research framework for assessing differential expectations embodied in normative conceptions of the economic social contract in the United States. We argue that there are distinctviews of such a contract grounded in individualist and communitarian philosophical ideologies. We apply this framework to organizational downsizing, postulating that certain human resource practices, in combination with the respective ideological orientations, will affect perceptions of the justice of downsizing policies.Living up to one’s word is (...) a decisive measure of moral character. Within the microsocial realm of the family, promises and commitments derive their social force and cultural meaning from the idea that love or biology binds people together in an absolute way. But outside of this world, in the larger society, the only thing binding people together is a sense that there is a social contract, a set of common obligations held collectively by society as a whole. But today’s workers say no one seems to care whether these promises are kept. (shrink)

This paper evaluates an argument for immigration restrictions that appeals to the costs that immigration imposes on the citizens of a recipient state. According to this argument, citizens have associative duties to protect each other’s interests, immigration can damage these interests in certain cases, and the associative duties between compatriots justify immigration restrictions in these cases. Call this: the partiality argument for immigration restrictions. I argue that the partiality argument is unsound. Immigration restrictions violate negative duties to (...) refrain from interfering with people’s liberties and these duties silence compatriots’ associative duties to one another. Furthermore, I argue that compatriots lack associative duties to one another in virtue of the fact that the relationships between compatriots reliably cause injustice to outsiders. (shrink)

1. Aim and Scope of this Paper.—In this paper I shall try to show that “duty” derives its significance from its relation to “interest,” and that the former concept cannot be understood when taken apart from its relation to the latter. Such a doctrine is, I am aware, rejected by some contemporary philosophers; and I shall, I trust, make it sufficiently clear in the sequel why I am unable to accept their view.I am not, however, concerned primarily with criticism of (...) other theories. This paper represents an attempt to interpret a particular province of “the common moral consciousness” and to elicit the principles there implied. I begin by accepting the view that, like natural science, ethics has its data, and that it is the business of ethics to interpret these data which are the contents of the “moral consciousness.” In Section A I discuss various methods which may be used for the discovery of the relevant data, and suggest that initial enquiries can most fruitfully be pursued in the field of law and custom. In Section B I undertake an analysis of the principles of the law relating to promise-keeping. As a result of what is there found, it becomes necessary, in Section C, to discuss the nature of rights and their relation to interests, and, in Section D, the nature of duties and their relation to rights. (shrink)

The non-identity problem arises when an intervention or behavior changes the identity of those affected. Delaying pregnancy is an example of such a behavior. The problem is whether and in what ways such changes in identity affect moral considerations. While a great deal has been written about the non-identity problem, relatively little has been written about the implications for physicians and how they should understand their duties. We argue that the non-identity problem can make a crucial moral difference in (...) some circumstances, and that it has some interesting implications for when it is or is not right for a physician to refuse to accede to a patient's request. If a physician is asked to provide an intervention (identity preserving) that makes a person worse off, then such harm provides a good reason for the physician to refuse to provide the intervention. However, in cases where different (identity-altering) interventions result in different people having a better or worse life, physicians should normally respect patient choice. (shrink)

There is a class of views about our moral relations with non-human animals that share the idea that animals do not matter directly for ethical purposes: whatever duties or obligations we have with respect to animals are indirect, connected somehow to other duties or obligations – to other human beings, for example – in which the well-being or interests of animals do not figure. Criticisms of indirect duty theories have often focused either upon denying the link that (...) is supposed to exist between how we treat animals and how or whether we discharge other obligations or upon denying that the indirect duty theorist has an adequate account of the animal-related duties we are confident that we have. I shall not pursue either of these options. Instead, I shall argue, first, that there is a tension within the indirect duty theorist’s view that makes it doubtful that anything will enable him to get what he wants from a theory, and second, that even if the necessary link between the way animals and humans are treated is assumed to be present, it will turn out that its best explanation will imply that there are direct duties to animals after all. (shrink)

According to an influential view about directed expressive duties (e.g., duties to express gratitude to benefactors, remorse to victims, forgiveness to wrongdoers), these duties do not have rights as their correlates, because they are not demandable and enforceable. The chapter argues that this view is mistaken. Like other directed duties, directed expressive duties are demandable and enforceable. While this does not entail that these duties have rights as their correlates, it does create a strong (...) presumption of this being the case. This shifts the burden of proof from those who hold that expressive duties correlate with rights to those who deny it. (shrink)

This article defends a novel type of institutionalized mass deliberation: Citizen Duty. Citizen Duty would legally require every citizen to engage in one day of diverse, moderated political deliberation prior to major elections. This deliberation would realize a variety of benefits, including wiser electoral decisions and a more respectful electoral process, while avoiding the dangers of citizen deliberation. A comparison with jury duty and with non-deliberative alternatives suggests that Citizen Duty’s substantial economic and liberty costs are justified. Finally, an examination (...) of citizen attitudes towards politics and deliberation suggests that Citizen Duty is not as quixotic as it first appears. (shrink)

McNaughton and Rawling present a view on which practical reasons are facts, such as the fact that the rubbish bin is full. This is a non-normative fact, but it is a reason for you to do something, namely take the rubbish out. They see rationality as a matter of consistency. And they see duty as neither purely a matter of rationality nor of practical reason: on the one hand, the rational sociopath is immoral; but, on the other, morality does not (...) require that we always act on the weightiest moral reasons. McNaughton and Rawling criticize various forms of internalism, including Williams’s, and they tentatively propose a view of duty that is neither purely subjective in Prichard’s sense, nor purely objective. (shrink)

Ever since the publication of Singer’s (1972) article on ‘Famine, Affluence, and Morality’ have debates about duties to the distant needy been marked by a high degree of controversy. Most contributors discuss how duties are established or influenced by the fact that those in need of help can be geographically close or distant. In other words, they debate the problem of duty and distance from the perspective of duties. Here, we change tack and put the concept of (...) distance at the centre of the analysis. We ask: what precisely is the definition and role of geographical distance in the different contributions? We argue that a distinction between empirical and moral disagreement over geographical distance clarifies several important aspects of the debate. The analysis also sheds new light on duties in the current European refugee crisis. (shrink)

This is a paper about two philosophers who wrote to each other. One is famous; the other is not. It is about two practical standpoints, the strategic and the human, and what the famous philosopher said of them. And it is about friendship and deception, duty and despair. That is enough by way of preamble.

Conceptual engineering is the process of assessing and improving our conceptual repertoire. Some authors have claimed that introducing or revising concepts through conceptual engineering can go as far as expanding the realm of thinkable thoughts and thus enable us to form beliefs, hypotheses, wishes, or desires that we are currently unable to form. If true, this would allow conceptual engineers to contribute to solving stubborn problems – problems that cannot be solved with our current ways of thinking. We call this (...) kind of conceptual engineering heavy-duty conceptual engineering. As exciting as the idea of heavy-duty conceptual engineering sounds, it has never been developed or defended. In this paper, we pursue a two-fold goal. First, to offer a theory of heavy-duty conceptual engineering that distinguishes it from other kinds of conceptual engineering; second, to show that heavy-duty conceptual engineering is possible, both in theory and in practice, and to explain how it can be applied in the service of solving stubborn problems. The central idea is that heavy-duty conceptual engineering can enhance the semantic expressive power of a conceptual system by the use of bootstrapping processes. (shrink)

In this essay I rethink a view that I developed in my Kantian Ethics Almost Without Apology , concerning how ethical theory should handle the phenomena that are standardly classified as supererogatory acts. The view I elaborated rejects the standard contemporary picture, according to which ethics needs to draw a line separating duty from what is "beyond duty"--the supererogatory. On the Kantian picture, beneficent acts are not beyond duty, for we are required to help others, but we are not (...) required to help whenever possible, and so it is not the case that each individual beneficent act is required by duty. Helping is required; helping here and now is not. After contrasting this view with the standard picture and explaining that much of what contemporary philosophers wanted to capture with the notion of the supererogatory can be captured with the Kantian notion of imperfect duties together with attention to the agent's character, I raise some problems for my view and try to address them. First, what about heroic actions that are not in character? Don't we need the notion of supererogatory acts to recognize their greatness? Second, isn't virtue doing all the conceptual work? Is there even any need to appeal to the notion of imperfect duties? Third, although I claimed in my book that it is an advantage of the Kantian view that moral excellence comes in many varieties, arguably it is too pluralistic. In dem Beitrag überdenke ich eine Auffassung, die ich in meinem Buch Kantian Ethics Almost Without Apology entwickelt habe. Sie betrifft die Frage, wie ethische Theorien das Phänomen behandeln sollen, das üblicherweise als "Supererogation" bezeichnet wird. Die von mir ausgearbeitete Auffassung verwirft das heute gängige Bild, nach dem Ethik abgrenzen muß zwischen dem, was Pflicht ist, und dem, was "jenseits der Pflicht" steht -- dem Supererogatorischen. Nach Kants Vorstellung sind wohltätige Handlungen nicht jenseits der Pflicht, da wir verpflichtet sind, anderen zu helfen. Wir müssen jedoch nicht in jeder möglichen Situation helfen, und daher ist es nicht der Fall, daß jede einzelne wohltätige Handlung Pflicht ist. Hilfe zu leisten , ist geboten; Hilfe hier und jetzt zu leisten, nicht. In einer Gegenüberstellung dieser Auffassung mit der gängigen Vorstellung zeige ich, daß vieles von dem, was moderne Philosophen mit dem Begriff des Supererogatorischen erklären wollen, auch mit Kants Begriff der unvollkommenen Pflichten, verbunden mit einem Blick auf den Charakter des Handelnden, erklärt werden kann. Danach werfe ich einige Probleme auf, die sich meiner Auffassung stellen, und versuche, Antworten zu geben. Erstens: Wie steht es mit heldenhaften Handlungen, die nicht dem Charakter des Handelnden entsprechen? Brauchen wir nicht den Begriff des supererogatorischen Handelns, um ihre Größe zu erkennen? Zweitens: Genügt nicht der Begriff der Tugend? Besteht irgendeine Notwendigkeit, auf den Begriff der unvollkommenen Pflicht zurückzugreifen? Drittens: Obwohl ich in meinem Buch behaupte, es sei ein Vorteil der Kantischen Sicht, daß moralische Vortrefflichkeit viele Gesichter hat, ist Kants Auffassung doch vielleicht zu pluralistisch. (shrink)

This paper examines H.A. Prichard's defense of the view that moral duty is underivative, as reflected in his argument that it is a mistake to ask “Why ought I to do what I morally ought?”, because the only possible answer is “Because you morally ought to.” This view was shared by other philosophers of Prichard's period, from Henry Sidgwick through A.C. Ewing, but Prichard stated it most forcefully and defended it best. The paper distinguishes three stages in Prichard's argument: one (...) appealing to his conceptual minimalism, one an epistemological argument that parallels Moore's response to skepticism about the external world, and one arguing that attempts to justify moral duties on non-moral grounds distort the phenomena by giving those duties the wrong explanation or ground. The paper concludes by considering Prichard's critique of ancient ethics and in particular the ethics of Aristotle. The paper is broadly sympathetic to Prichard's position and arguments; its aim is partly to make a case for him as a central figure in the history of ethics. (shrink)

Building on her previous work (2004, 2012, 2013), Christine Korsgaard’s recent book Fellow Creatures (2018) has provided the most highly developed Kantian account of duties towards animals. I raise two issues with the results of this account. First, the duties that Korsgaard accounts for are duties “towards” animals in name only. Since Korsgaard does not reject the Kantian conception in which direct duties towards others require mutual moral constraint, what she calls duties “towards” animals (...) are merely Kantian duties regarding animals, verbally repackaged. Hence, Korsgaard’s account is best understood as an expansion (albeit a substantial one) of Kant’s own view of an indirect duty regarding animals. Second, the expansion does not take us quite as far as Korsgaard hopes. She aims for a conception in which our duties towards animals and humans are equally important, but her argument does not support this conclusion. I point out the potential for a more radical revision of Kant’s anthropocentrism that rejects his underlying assumption that duties towards others are based on mutual constraint. (shrink)

Stephanie Collins’ Group Duties offers interesting new arguments and brings together numerous interconnected issues that have hitherto been treated separately. My critical commentary focuses on two particularly original and central claims of the book: (1) Only groups that are united under a group-level decision-making procedure can bear duties. (2) Attributions of duties to other groups should be understood as attributions of “coordination duties” to each member of the group, duties to take steps responsive to the (...) others with a view to the group’s φ-ing or express willingness to do so. In support of the first claim, Collins argues that only groups that can make decisions can bear duties, and that the ability to make decisions requires the relevant sort of decision-making procedure. I suggest that both parts of this argument remain in need of further support. I furthermore argue that Collins’ account of coordination duties gets certain kinds of cases wrong, and suggest that attributions of duties to groups without decision-making procedures are more plausibly understood as attributing shared duties. (shrink)

The societal benefits derived from competitive markets certainly depend upon participants conforming to generally accepted notions of moral duty. These notions include negative duties such as those against fraud, deception, and coercion and also positive duties such as those that favor beneficence but with limits. This investigation examines the extent that product, capital, and internal-labor markets are capable of imposing conformance to society’s expectations of duty through both formally and informally organized boycotts. A categorization of classic and recent (...) boycotts into those motivated by (i) establishing new norms, or (ii) enforcing existing generally accepted norms is provided. This categorization helps to explain why some boycotts are successful, and others not. Through this exploration, a contribution to the resolution of the so called “Adam Smith problem” concerning the morality-enforcing capability of the invisible hand is offered. (shrink)

This article engages with Jaffey's recent contribution on the nature of no-prior-duty remedial obligations. Jaffey's use of a right-liability relation and his challenge to Hohfeld's analytical scheme are rejected as unsound. An alternative model distinguishing three pathways to account for remedial obligations and other legal consequences is proposed. This draws on the Hohfeldian scheme but extends it to permit the full expression of reflexive liabilities, mutually correlative liabilities, and the operation of nonhuman conditions. The proposed approach also recognizes a weaker (...) form of a Hohfeldian power, which is required in considering the way that the law deals with the allocation and realization of risk. (shrink)

This is the second volume of a two volume study on ethical issues concerning death. Volume 2 is subtitled Death and Whom to Save from It. In this second volume, Kamm deals with rights, duties, and status, developing an account of when it is permissible to harm others, especially when it is permissible to kill others. There is, however, a third book that must be considered if we are to fully understand the import of Volume 2 of (...) Morality, Mortality. This third book is entitled Creation and Abortion. It was originally intended to be included in Morality, Mortality, but, on account of considerations of length, the material on abortion was published separately by Oxford University Press in 1992. Creation and Abortion was prompted by Kamm's attempt to understand and modify Judith Thomson's "A Defense of Abortion.". (shrink)

This article presents a revised version of negative utilitarianism. Previous versions have relied on a hedonistic theory of value and stated that suffering should be minimized. The traditional rebuttal is that the doctrine in this form morally requires us to end all sentient life. To avoid this, a need-based theory of value is introduced. The frustration of the needs not to suffer and not to have one’s autonomy dwarfed should,prima facie, be decreased. When decreasing the need frustration of some would (...) increase the need frustration of others, the case is deferred and a fuller ethical analysis is conducted. The author’s perceptions on murder, extinction, the right to die, antinatalism, veganism, and abortion are used to reach a reflective equilibrium. The new theory is then applied to consumerism, material growth, and power relations. The main finding is that the burden of proof should be on those who promote thestatus quo. (shrink)

Leading American film critics, including, among others, Tony Williams and Robert Miklitsch, have claimed that both World for Ransom and Macao reflect an orientalist, racist, and reactionary worldview. In this article I argue that, on the contrary, these 1950s films noir portray Asian and American characters alike actually carrying out their moral duties. To be sure, these American films employ aesthetic techniques to help illustrate the ethical ambiguities for which film noir is justly celebrated. Still, where the fulfillment (...) of moral duties is concerned, the films’ resolutions are clear. This article enlists the thought of moral philosophers H.L.A. Hart and Daniel Statman to vindicate the ethical outlook of these works, which reward characters who fulfill imperfect, perfect, and/or supererogatory moral obligations. The American protagonists transcend their given circumstances by carrying out high-stake duties in an Asian setting, while forming amorous alliances tested by the aesthetics of film noir. Moreover, I show that none of the protagonists’ moral duties involves maligning Asia. Indeed, were these films noir to disparage Asia, they would diminish the very milieu breathing life into their finest characters. (shrink)

In meeting legal or professional fiduciary obligations, a fiduciary can sometimes come to share a special moral relationship with her beneficiary. Special moral relationships produce special moral obligations. Sometimes the obligations faced by a fiduciary as a result of her moral relationship with her beneficiary go beyond the obligations involved in the initial fiduciary relationship. How such moral obligations develop is sometimes under the control of the beneficiary, or of an outside party. As a result, the fiduciary can be the (...) target of a distinctive kind of moral manipulation; it is sometimes possible to force a fiduciary to perform a particular act by placing her into circumstances under which she is morally obliged to perform it, because all her other options are morally unacceptable. This is moral blackmail. Moral blackmail is a powerful force within many sorts of human interactions. By understanding the ways in which fiduciaries become vulnerable to moral blackmail, we can better understand the pressures faced by fiduciaries in keeping their personal and professional lives separate, the dynamics of certain kinds of employment negotiations, and the injustice that results when women take on the bulk of the work within caring professions. (shrink)

The first part of Chapter 2.21 of the Arthaśāstra deals with the activities of the Customs Superintendent, containing recommendations regarding the collection of customs duty. Scholars have encountered several difficulties in understanding the meaning and purposes of the activities described. An auction-like procedure described in the text has been analyzed by some as the normal operation of a market, with the payments to the treasury mentioned there taken as a hitherto-unknown market tax—the price of trading in the market. Other paragraphs (...) in the text describe seemingly self-contradictory trader actions. Interpretations of these actions have involved the imbuing of traders with complex psychological beliefs regarding the actions of other traders. This article proposes an economic model of the underlying market structure, which leads to a different and integrated reading of the text. In this reading, the author of the text, recognizing the incentive for importers to undervalue their goods, suggests the auction procedure and accom- panying penalty payments to elicit truthful revelation of importers’ valuations and to maximize customs levy collections. By comparing the procedure in the Arthaśāstra to modern-day regulations intended to combat tax evasion, the article provides early evidence of the use of sophisticated mechanisms to elicit truthful value revelation. (shrink)

In recent decades, concepts of group agency and the morality of groups have increasingly been discussed by philosophers. Notions of collective or joint duties have been invoked especially in the debates on global justice, world poverty and climate change. This paper enquires into the possibility and potential nature of moral duties individuals in unstructured groups may hold together. It distinguishes between group agents and groups of people which – while not constituting a collective agent – are nonetheless capable (...) of performing a joint action. It attempts to defend a notion of joint duties which are neither duties of a group agent nor duties of individual agents, but duties held jointly by individuals in unstructured groups. Furthermore, it seeks to illuminate the relation between such joint duties on the one hand and individual duties on the other hand. Rebutting an argument brought forward by Wringe, the paper concludes that it is not plausible to assume that all humans on earth can together hold a duty to mitigate climate change or to combat global poverty given that the members of that group are not capable of joint action. (shrink)

There is a long tradition in moral philosophy which maintains that a necessary condition for moral goodness is that one act from a sense of duty. Kant is perhaps the best known and most discussed representative of this view, but one finds others prior to Kant, such as Butler and Price, and Kant's contemporaries, such as Reid, expressing similar ideas. Price, for example writes, ". . . what I have chiefly insisted on, is, that we characterize as virtuous no (...) actions flowing merely from instinctive desires, or from any principle except a regard to virtue itself.'' In this paper, I shall defend a version of this thesis. (shrink)

The value of autonomy is generally stated to be of prime importance in relation to health care. Arising out of this, rights of the patient to and in health care have been extensively discussed and stated, and have found expression in law. There have been minimal statements of the rights of others involved in health care, such as caregivers, and minimal discussion of duties and responsibilities in relation to rights claimed and conferred. The author suggests that no claim (...) to rights in health care should now be accepted without consideration of related duties and responsibilities. (shrink)

Leading American film critics, including, among others, Tony Williams and Robert Miklitsch, have claimed that both World for Ransom and Macao reflect an orientalist, racist, and reactionary worldview. In this article I argue that, on the contrary, these 1950s films noir portray Asian and American characters alike actually carrying out their moral duties. To be sure, these American films employ aesthetic techniques to help illustrate the ethical ambiguities for which film noir is justly celebrated. Still, where the fulfillment (...) of moral duties is concerned, the films’ resolutions are clear. This article enlists the thought of moral philosophers H.L.A. Hart and Daniel Statman to vindicate the ethical outlook of these works, which reward characters who fulfill imperfect, perfect, and/or supererogatory moral obligations. The American protagonists transcend their given circumstances by carrying out high-stake duties in an Asian setting, while forming amorous alliances tested by the aesthetics of film noir. Moreover, I show that none of the protagonists’ moral duties involves maligning Asia. Indeed, were these films noir to disparage Asia, they would diminish the very milieu breathing life into their finest characters. (shrink)

This issue’s “Legal Briefing” column, one product of a Greenwall Foundation grant, reviews recent developments concerning compulsory reporting duties.1 Most licensed clinicians in the United States are “mandated reporters.” When these clinicians discover certain threats to the safety of patients or the public, they are legally required to report that information to specified government officials. Over the past year, several states have legislatively expanded the scope of these reporting duties. In other states, new court cases illustrate the vigorous (...) enforcement of already existing duties. I have organized all these legal developments into the following eight categories: 1. Overview of Mandatory Reporting Duties 2. Controversy over the Benefits of Mandatory Reporting 3. New and Expanded Duties to Report 4. Criminal Penalties for Failing to Report 5. Civil Liability for Failing to Report 6. Disciplinary Penalties for Failing to Report 7. Legal Immunity for Good-Faith Reporting 8. Protection against Employers’ Retaliation. (shrink)

Concern regarding overly demanding duties has been a prominent feature of moral debate ever since the possibility was famously sounded out by Bernard Williams nearly fifty years ago. More recently, some theorists have attempted to resolve the issue by reconsidering its underlying structure, drawing attention to the possibility that the duties to respond to large-scale moral issues like global poverty, systemic racism, and climate change may be fundamentally collective duties rather than indi- vidual ones. On this view, (...) the relationship between potentially overly demanding individual duties and large-scale moral issues is mediated by the fact that the duties are, first and foremost, ours together rather than each of ours on our own. We believe this theoretical shift constitutes an important development for moral theory regarding large-scale moral problems, but in this paper we focus on two dis- tinct reasons to think that the interplay between collective duties and demanding- ness is more complicated than has typically been appreciated. First, we argue that in cases in which risks or burdens are indivisible, the move to collectivize duties fails to fulfill its promise to alleviate demandingness concerns, and moreover that those kinds of cases are far more widespread than they may initially appear to be. Sec- ond, we argue that if concerns over individual demandingness could block a putative obligation from becoming an actual moral duty, then, in some cases at least, con- cerns over collective demandingness could do so as well. These complications help elucidate the fact that while the move to collectivize duties can address demanding- ness concerns in a particular subset of cases, in others doing so may merely relo- cate—or even exacerbate—the problem. (shrink)

This article argues that congregations should be seen as grassroots public moral agents, on the ground working to bring what they discern as God's preferred future into being. Deliberations among congregations of all social backgrounds are a way of doing ethics "polycentrically," without a dominant center. Because cultural and social boundaries are permeable and people in various social groups can imaginatively enter the worlds of people unlike themselves, they can engage those perspectives morally on an equal footing. The essay addresses (...) ethicists' participation in congregations' moral deliberation and action, and concludes with a plea for theological ethicists to consider congregations in their work. (shrink)

Many epistemologists agree that there are things we epistemically shouldn’t believe, i.e., that we have negative epistemic duties. But it is a matter of controversy whether we have any positive epistemic duties, i.e., whether we epistemically should have certain beliefs. In this paper, I argue that, in certain cases in which one acquires counterevidence against what one believes (p), one epistemically should give up one's belief by reasoning in a way that involves forming a belief in its negation (...) (in not-p). In these cases, one epistemically should believe not-p and thus has a positive epistemic duty. I reinforce this argument by showing how our negative epistemic duties depend on our facts about how we should reason. I go on to argue for positive epistemic duties in other cases, including ones in which one trying to make up one’s mind. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between a person's claim right not to be harmed and the duties this claim confers on others. I argue that we should reject Jonathan Quong's evidence-based account of this relationship, which holds that an agent A's possession of a claim against B is partly determined by whether it would be reasonable for A to demand B's compliance with a correlative duty. When B's evidence is that demanding compliance would not be reasonable, A cannot (...) have a claim against B. I suggest that some of the putatively problematic cases that Quong identifies can be resolved by plausibly narrowing the scope of the right not to be harmed. I also argue that Quong's view leads to implausible conclusions, and that his account of what happens to A's claim in the face of lesser-evil justifications is inconsistent with his broader view. I then defend the view that agents are required, and not merely permitted, to act on lesser-evil justifications. I further argue that A may not defend herself against the infliction of harms that are justified on lesser-evil grounds. However, she may defend herself in cases where B is only evidentially, and not objectively, justified in harming her. (shrink)