Effective altruism is committed to Altruistic Maximization – the claim that any impact of giving to charities ought to be maximized at the margins and counterfactually. This may lead to counterintuitive or contradictory conclusions in certain cases. For instance, when we can bring about a substantial benefit to few or a tiny benefit to a larger number at the same cost, spreading of benefits across a great number of recipients can compensate substantial loss for fewer people. However, sometimes the perspective (...) of widely spreading tiny benefits instead than giving substantial benefits to small groups is counterintuitive, and repugnantly wrong. Call this the ‘Altruistic Repugnant Conclusion.’ Standard solutions to the Repugnant Conclusion do not work if applied to the Altruistic Repugnant Conclusion. The Altruistic Repugnant Conclusion can be rebutted by giving up on the idea that judgements on such cases should be precise. But imprecision undermines Altruistic Maximization. Hence a dilemma for effective altruists follows: either they accept some strongly counterintuitive judgments—weakening the attractiveness of their position—or they give up on the maximizing requirement, thus admitting sub-optimal contributions. (shrink)

Liberal theory seems to be caught in an impasse. On the one hand, since it has social order as its object, it appears to be committed to resolving the problem of disagreement between the various conceptions; on the other, insofar as it is philosophical theory, it seems destined to cause conflict. How, then, can liberalism offer a solution which guarantees the duration in time of a society, without, however, proposing a theory that would merely be one among others? And how (...) can it do this without adopting reductionist strategies, and by trying to remain faithful to the idea that a society should be ordered by a conception of justice? This is the paradox of liberal political philosophy. And this same paradox is the theme that Rawls confronts in Political Liberalism. (shrink)

"L'uomo è un essere che non sta nella propria pelle, una natura che non sta dentro se stessa. Ogni singola esistenza si situa al punto di incontro di condizioni già date: fisiche, biologiche, ambientali, sociali, economiche, storiche, culturali, spirituali. Ma ogni vita umana non è mai la semplice somma o il mero prodotto di esse. L'uomo le eccede e vi si rapporta in maniera plastica, con una spiccata attitudine trasformatrice e generatrice. L'eccedenza è il contrassegno della condizione umana. "Senso", "erranza", (...) "parola", "silenzio", "narrazione", "sequela", "resistenza", "amore", "desiderio", "suono": sono questi i fenomeni e gli atti umani in cui si è cercato di intercettare rifrazioni dell'eccedenza. Il volume raccoglie i contributi presentati tra l'ottobre del 2019 e il maggio del 2020 a un corso di aggiornamento per docenti promosso dal Liceo Scientifico Seguenza di Messina. L'insieme di questi contributi è soltanto la raccolta di qualche frammento di una fenomenologia dell'eccedenza, forse utile a contrastare visioni monodimensionali dell'essere umano". (shrink)

In the past decade, scholars such as Samuel Freeman, Martin O’Neill, Alan Thomas and others have argued that no matter how widely Rawls’s theory of justice (TJ) was understood as a defence of the welfare state (WS), the socio-economic system Rawls defends and always defended is property-owing democracy (POD). In this article I present the argument that Rawls did not defend POD in TJ. However, while the claim that it was POD the socio-economic system implied by the principle of difference (...) generated heated reactions by defenders of the WS, the argument I raise differs from most of them. In the article I maintain that, for Rawls, principles of justice underdetermine the choice of social systems, and that although this is true of both principles, it is especially true of the difference principle, whose ability to arbitrate between different social and economic policies is limited. I show how the attempt to uniquely determine the set of social and economic policies authorized by the difference principle clashes with what Rawls explicitly states in TJ and contrasts with central aspects of his sociological and political conception of socio-economic decision-making. Although my aim is to show that the difference principle itself does not discriminate among socio-economic systems, this does not preclude that additional reasons can help in narrowing the range of socio-economic systems allowed. With reference to the ideal of social union that Rawls expounds in the third part of TJ, I argue that TJ does, in fact, offer additional reasons to appraise the WS as preferable to POD. I maintain that the centrality Rawls attributes to the social unity of a just society provides the basis for an understanding of Rawls’s position towards POD after TJ. (shrink)

Im this paper I argue that Rawls distinguishes two different ways in which a system can be inconsistent with justice as fairness. The first concerns those systems that are based on principles that simply deny justice as fairness, as in the case of capitalism. The second concerns systems that, while pursuing aims similar to those of justice as fairness, are structured in ways that cause them to work very differently from their intended aims. Following Esping-Andersen’s identification of different “worlds” of (...) welfare states, I will show which specific kind of welfare state falls under Rawls’s first argument. (shrink)

This Handbook offers a broad yet unified treatment of all the philosophical issues connected with climate change, ranging from foundational puzzles to detailed applications. It addresses the philosophical foundations of the discussion on the ethical, social, political and legal impacts of climate change. It covers all branches of philosophy that are relevant to the understanding of the premises and implications of the impacts on human, animal and natural life on Earth. More specifically, the Handbook examines the scientific accounts of climate (...) change as well as its causes. It explores the tools offered by social sciences and humanities to study the societal impact of climate change. It studies the ethical and political issues connected with and resulting from climate change, and puts it all in an environmental and historical context. In addition, the book offers solutions to the main philosophical puzzles and problems, and provides paths of interaction between philosophy and other disciplines. The discussion about climate change and the mitigation/adaptation policies spans many areas and levels – from abstract science and philosophy to current on-the-ground politics. However, climate change is also a great a philosophical puzzle. Indeed, its existential and practical relevance can be thought to largely derive from the philosophical complications it engenders. Climate change is applied philosophy par excellence. Preventing dangerous anthropogenic climate change needs very good philosophy applied to concrete and specific practical issues. Climate change is an area where scholars from very different provenances should cooperate on equal terms, having in view a common, and really important, purpose – contribute to preventing great burdens and even the extinction of humankind and the destruction of hospitable and valuable non-human nature. (shrink)

: Artificial intelligences and robots increasingly mimic human mental powers and intelligent behaviour. However, many authors claim that ascribing human mental powers to them is both conceptually mistaken and morally dangerous. This article defends the view that artificial intelligences can have human-like mental powers, by claiming that both human and artificial minds can be seen as extended minds – along the lines of Chalmers and Clark’s view of mind and cognition. The main idea of this article is that the Extended (...) Mind Model is independently plausible and can easily be extended to artificial intelligences, providing a solid base for concluding that artificial intelligences possess minds. This may warrant viewing them as morally responsible agents. Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Mind; Moral Responsibility; Extended Cognition Intelligenze artificiali come menti estese. Perché no? Riassunto: Intelligenze artificiali e robot simulano in misura sempre crescente le capacità mentali e i comportamenti intelligenti umani. Molti autori, tuttavia, sostengono che attribuire loro capacità mentali umane sia concettualmente errato e moralmente pericoloso. In questo lavoro si difende l’idea per cui le intelligenze artificiali possano avere capacità mentali simili a quelle umane, sostenendo che menti umane e artificiali possano essere considerate come menti estese – sulla scorta della prospettiva di Chalmers e Clark circa la mente e la cognizione. L’idea principale alla base di questo lavoro è che il Modello della Mente Estesa abbia plausibilità a prescindere e che possa essere facilmente esteso alle intelligenze artificiali, fornendo una base solida per concludere che le intelligenze artificiali possiedano delle menti e si possano considerare come agenti moralmente responsabili. Parole chiave: Intelligenza artificiale; Mente; Responsabilità morale; Conoscenza estesa. (shrink)

According to some scholars, while sets of greenhouse gases emissions generate harms deriving from climate change, which can be mitigated through collective actions, individual emissions and mitigation activities seem to be causally insufficient to cause harms. If so, single individuals are neither responsible for climate harms, nor they have mitigation duties. If this view were true, there would be collective responsibility for climate harms without individual responsibility and collective mitigation duties without individual duties: this is puzzling. This paper explores a (...) way to solve this puzzle. First, it will be argued that individual emissions, though not proper and full-fledged causes, causally contribute to raise the probability of climate harms. As a consequence, individuals are in fact responsible for their expected contributions to climate harms – this is contributive responsibility for likely outcomes. Second, it will be argued that people have responsibility also for the possible impacts of their individual emissions on climate harms. People can plausibly be regarded as individually responsible for the possible outcomes of their actions in close possible alternative worlds – this is robust responsibility. Non-causal individual responsibility for climate harms is plausible, and the puzzle may be solved. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The paper shows textual and non-textual evidence that Henry Sidgwick endorses a version of the guise of the good doctrine and a version of the guise of the reasons view. He also rejects the guise of the pleasant doctrine, criticizing Mill’s views of the relations between pleasure, desire and desirability. Sidgwick also anticipates the guise of the apparent good view, i.e. the claim that desire connects with evaluative appearances, not with evaluative full-fledged judgments.

The article has two aims. First, it provides a view of why the standard liberal-democratic political theory is unfit for the Anthropocene. Then, it defends two claims: that the fittest politics for the Anthropocene is to be fully non-anthropocentric and that the best model of a non-anthropocentric political theory is to be grounded in the notion of ‘ecological citizenship’, which can be easily extended to non-human living beings and even to non-living objects, such as ecosystems. The latter claim is defended (...) by endorsing and enlarging Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka’s views of animal citizenship rights and by putting forward a view of the Anthropocene as an age of massive domestication of non-human nature. (shrink)

Il saggio introduce le tematiche di questo numero, soffermandosi in parti- colare sulla rilevanza etica e politica del cambiamento climatico. Dopo una rapida spiegazione dell'effetto serra naturale e artificiale, si ripercorrono le teorie che concepiscono il cambiamento climatico come un problema di giustizia distributiva. Secondo alcuni autori queste teorie non sono suffi- cienti per dare strumenti adeguati, perché il cambiamento climatico rappre- senta un problema etico nuovo, che richiede una strumentazione etica ine- dita. Il saggio approfondisce alcune delle caratteristiche nuove (...) dell'etica del cambiamento climatico, soprattutto in relazione all'impatto che le scelte presenti avranno sulla qualità della vita delle generazioni future.It is an introduction to the topic of the present issue of "La società degli in- dividui", dealing with the ethical and political relevance of climate change. After a brief account of the greenhouse effect, various approaches to clima- te change as a matter of distributive justice are considered. According to many authors, these approaches are inadequate, because climate change is a new issue, requiring new tools. The paper focusses on some of the new fea- tures of climate ethics, mainly in connection with the effects that our pre- sent choices may have on the quality of life of future generations. (shrink)

Il saggio introduce le tematiche di questo numero, soffermandosi in particolare sulla rilevanza etica e politica del cambiamento climatico. Dopo una rapida spiegazione dell'effetto serra naturale e artificiale, si ripercorrono le teorie che concepiscono il cambiamento climatico come un problema di giustizia distributiva. Secondo alcuni autori queste teorie non sono sufficienti per dare strumenti adeguati, perché il cambiamento climatico rappresenta un problema etico nuovo, che richiede una strumentazione etica inedita. Il saggio approfondisce alcune delle caratteristiche nuove dell'etica del cambiamento climatico, (...) soprattutto in relazione all'impatto che le scelte presenti avranno sulla qualitÀ della vita delle generazioni future. (shrink)