Gyngell and colleagues consider that the recent Nuffield Council report does not go far enough: heritable genome editing is not just justifiable in a few rare cases; instead, there is a moral imperative to undertake it. We agree that there is a moral argument for this, but in the real world it is mitigated by the fact that it is not usually possible to ensure a better life. We suggest that a moral imperative for HGE can currently (...) only be concluded if one first buys into an overly deterministic view of a genome sequence, and the role of variation within in it, in the aetiology of the disease: most diseases cannot simply be attributed to specific genetic variants that we could edit away. Multiple, poorly understood genetic and environmental factors interact to influence the expression of diseases with a genetic component, even well understood ‘monogenic’ disorders. Population-level genome analyses are now demonstrating that many genetic ’mutations' are much less predictive than previously thought 1. Furthermore, HGE might introduce new risks just as it reduces old ones; or remove protections not yet clearly delineated. (shrink)

The moral argument for the existence of God is really a family of arguments. What they have in common is Kant’s insistence that philosophical theology proceed by drawing out the presuppositions of moral reasoning. Kant’s own favorite version of the argument is widely rejected today. Kant maintained that the summum bonum, the perfect unison of virtue and happiness, is the aim of rational action. Because it ought to be achieved it is possible, as the ought implies the (...) ability to bring it about. The moral faith is that God’s existence and human immortality enable continued moral progress after death and the enjoying of happiness appropriate to it, thus making the arrival at the summum bonum possible. Kant also urged that the categorical commands of the moral conscience suggested the existence of a cosmic lawgiver and commander, and there are a number of nineteenth-century arguments which proceed along those lines. (shrink)

How are we to understand the fact that the philosophical debate over nanotechnologies has been reduced to a clash of seemingly preprogrammed arguments and counterarguments that paralyzes all rational discussion of the ultimate ethical question of social acceptability in matters of nanotechnological development? With this issue as its starting point, the study reported on here, intended to further comprehension of the issues rather than provide a cause-and-effect explanation, seeks to achieve a rational grasp of what is being said through (...) the appeals made to this or that principle in the range of arguments put forward in publications on the subject. We present the results of the study’s analyses in two parts. In the first, we lay out the seven categories of argument that emerged from an analysis of the literature: the arguments based on nature, dignity, the good life, utility, equity, autonomy, and rights. In the second part, we present the background moral stances that support each category of argument. Identifying the different categories of argument and the moral stance that underlies each category will enable a better grasp of the reasons for the multiplicity of the arguments that figure in discussions of the acceptability of nanotechnologies and will ultimately contribute to overcoming the tendency towards talking past each other that all too often disfigures the exchange. Clarifying the implications of the moral arguments deployed in the debate over nanotechnologies may make it possible to reduce the confusion observable in these exchanges and contribute to a better grasp of the reasons for their current unproductiveness. (shrink)

An Argument From Evolutionary Naturalism An Argument from Personal Dignity References.

Some people (e.g., Drs. Paul and Susan Lim) and, with them, organizations (e.g., the National Embryo Donation Center) believe that, morally speaking, the death of a frozen human embryo is a very bad thing. With such people and organizations in mind, the question to be addressed here is as follows: if one believes that the death of a frozen embryo is a very bad thing, ought, morally speaking, one prevent the death of at least one frozen embryo via embryo adoption? (...) By way of a three‐premise argument, one of which is a moral principle first introduced by Peter Singer, my answer to this question is: at least some of those who believe this ought to. (Just who the “some” are is identified in the paper.) If this is correct, then, for said people, preventing the death of a frozen embryo via embryo adoption is not a morally neutral matter; it is, instead, a morally laden one. Specifically, their intentional refusal to prevent the death of a frozen embryo via embryo adoption is, at a minimum, morally criticizable and, arguably, morally forbidden. Either way, it is, to one extent or another, a moral failing. (shrink)

In the Critique of Judgment Kant had declared the moral will to be the purpose of the world, thus subordinating teleology to morality. But in his final notes, published in the Opus Posthumum, morality is increasingly emphasized as a source of religious inspiration. Some passages clearly contradict all that Kant wrote on the autonomy of the moral law in the Critique of Practical Reason and anticipate what was to become the moral argument. Thus he maintains that the (...) religious interpretation of all duties is not an addition subsequent to their perception as duties but is immediately and necessarily given with it. This means, as Kemp Smith points out, that “the categorical imperative leads directly to God and affords surety of his reality.” “The categorical imperative of the command of duty is grounded in the idea of an imperantis, who is all-powerful and holds universal sway. This is the Idea of God.”. (shrink)

Examines the nature of moral argument and how arguments might be brought to a conclusion. It is argued that moral reasoning is a kind of exploration akin to Karl Popper's concept of deduction; the only inferences that take place are deductive. This approach allows for the defence of the neutrality of ethics, which appears to be ruled out by its practical relevance. It lays the ground for the possibility of moral reasoning in terms of moral (...) rules, corresponding to prescriptivity and universalizability. These are taken to task in the context of a concrete example of a moral conflict. (shrink)

Within this paper, I examine Godless normative realism, a naturalistic explanation of morality given by Erik Wielenberg and determine whether the theory poses a threat to abductive moral arguments for the existence of God. In particular, I argue that Wielenberg’s theory is a possible explanation for the existence of moral facts and that it offers a motivation for one to act morally, but that theism, as a whole, remains a better explanation for the moral aspects of (...) the world. To do so, I defend the legitimacy of weak forms of DCT, identify a few areas in which Godless normative realism fails to explain moral aspects of the world, and conclude with a few reasons for thinking that the explanatory scope of theism is superior to that of Wielenberg’s theory. I conclude that abductive moral arguments for the existence of God remain largely unscathed by Godless normative realism. (shrink)

This study analyses how online participants of celebrity gossip position themselves in relation to their audience through forms of moral argumentation and thereby contribute to social hierarchies. In this study, forms of moral argumentation are seen as enthymemes, that is, claim-reason units based on moral norms as premises. The material consists of a total of 900 asynchronous online comments in English and 900 in Finnish. In addition to rhetorical argumentation analysis, the study investigates the dependency of (...) class='Hi'>moral argumentation on three contextual variables: gendered violence as the topic of discussion, as the shared culture of participants and a media institution as the moderator of online discourse. Four forms of moral argumentation were found in the material: 1) theoretical, 2) practical, 3) categorical and 4) digital enthymeme. Theoretical, practical and categorical enthymemes are rhetorical in a traditional sense because they include the hierarchical idea of moral norms as the shared, more or less authoritarian, basis of a community. Digital enthymemes, conversely, are texts without clear borders or any notion of moral norms. Such arguments characterized especially user-generated, English-language discussions concerning female celebrities’ fights. This indicates that the digital enthymeme is particularly prevalent where there is a lack of obvious hierarchies in the context of argumentation. As this study argues, however, the seemingly non-hierarchical and individualistic participation through digital enthymemes is a mere illusion, for these enthymemes are based on crowd behaviour supportive of sexist and class-bound domination. (shrink)

It has been argued that there is something morally objectionable about moral realism: for instance, according to realism, we are justified in believing that genocide is wrong only if a certain moral fact obtains, but it is objectionable to hold our moral commitments hostage to metaphysics in this way. In this paper, I argue that no version of this moral argument against realism is likely to succeed. More precisely, minimal realism―the kind of realism on which realist (...) theses are understood as internal to moral discourse―is immune to this challenge, contrary to what some proponents of the moral argument have suggested, while robust non-naturalist realists might have good answers to all versions of the argument as well, at least if they adopt a certain stance on how to form metaphysical beliefs in the moral domain. (shrink)

SummaryThis paper presents a reconstruction and discussion of Holm Tetens’ new moral argument for theistic belief. The argument is a pragmatic one in that it intends to show that believing in God is rational because it has some morally desirable consequences. It asserts that the suffering of countless victims of evil in this world causes in atheists who try to be moral some morally questionable states of mind. By contrast, theists who have certain beliefs about the afterlife, judgment, (...) and reconciliation are not subject to these bad states of mind. Therefore, Tetens argues, theistic belief is more rational than disbelief. (shrink)

The thesis is advanced by R. M. Hare that a judgment on an action or state of affairs is a moral judgment only if the person who makes it accepts some universal moral principle which, together with some true statement about the non-moral characteristics of the situation originally judged, entails the original judgment.1 Instances of this thesis would take some such form as saying that someone who says ‘You ought not to have done what you did’ cannot (...) be expressing a moral judgment by this unless he accepts something of the form ‘Actions which are A are wrong and what you did was A’ or ‘People who are A ought not to perform actions which are B, and you are A and what you did was B’. Hare claims that it is analytic that every moral judgment is so supported; he claims, that is, that ‘universalisable’ is part of the meaning of ‘moral’. I think that Hare is perfectly right about this, but the question of truth is not what I am now primarily concerned to discuss. What I wish to bring out here is something of what can be built on the basis of Hare's thesis, for I think that it is important in ways which Hare has not publicly discussed. Furthermore, there is something to be said for the view that the best way to argue for the truth of the thesis is to bring out clearly what makes it important. It is sometimes urged that the thesis is true but trivial. It is said: ‘If Hare's thesis is that my judgment qualifies as a moral one only if it is an application of some universal moral principle which I accept, then the thesis allows any prima facie case of a moral judgment to qualify as a genuine moral judgment: nothing could fail to qualify. For it is always possible to form a universal principle of the form ‘Anything which is [complete description of the subject of the original judgment] is [moral characterisation as given in the original judgment]’, and to claim honestly enough that one accepts this ‘universal principle’ - to claim, indeed, that accepting the original judgment was accepting the ‘universal principle’.. (shrink)

[Comment] Donald Trump’s executive order on energy limits the costs and benefits of carbon to domestic sources. The argument for this executive order is that carbon policies should not be singled out from other policies as globally inclusive. Two independent arguments are offered for adopting a global social cost of carbon. The first is based on reinforcing norms in the face of commons tragedies. The second is based on the limitations of consequentialist analyses. We can distinguish consequences for which (...) probabilistic indifference is appropriate. The mechanisms for global effects for carbon are well-understood, whereas most policy effects are primarily domestic. [Open access]. (shrink)

This inquiry hopes to develop the moral argument for migration rights. It begins with the historical context of world poverty, that is, the unequitable distribution of global resources which is rooted in the economic as well as the structural injustices in the world. While weak internal structures are a determinant in the lack of human development in the Third World, political exclusion and economic domination are actually to be blamed for extreme poverty. The theoretical attempt to solve this problem (...) through Rawls and the Capability Approach is also examined. Gaps are present. It is noted that Thomas Pogge’s argument for a global difference principle is inadequate. The study distinguishes between economic migrants and refugees. The first should be dealt with from an economic point of view and the latter from a political vantage point. It is argued that economic and moral justifications exist in order to accommodate both. Migrant workers contribute to the economies of developed countries. Refugees, in contrast, may be allowed entry as a matter of negative duty to protect them from violence. The fear of the citizens of host countries that migrants are a security concern may be due to the unfair bias against people who are considered as outsiders. Justice, however, is a matter of fair treatment that all human beings deserve. (shrink)

Much recent research on moral judgment making has focused on quick one-shot judgments. Explicit reasoning has been shown to play a minor role in these cases. However, these results do not generalize to real moral conduct that often includes the iterative adaptation of long-term behavioral strategies. I suggest using school bullying as an ecologically valid model for moral conduct and refer to studies that show that moral reasoning competence is negatively correlated to immoral aggressive behavior. Taken (...) together, these results suggest a rather strict division of labor between reasoning on the one hand and automatic processes on the other hand. I suggest that moral reasoning is part of a long-term learning process, which sets the parameters for quick intuitive deci- sion making. Philosophical ethics can play an important role by systematizing and reflecting this learning process. (shrink)

After an opening chapter, in which he defends an objectivist theory of moral discourse against various forms of emotivism and pragmatism by locating the ordinary import of moral ascriptions in their reference to persons rather than situations, Owen proceeds to generalize this requirement so that moral imperatives are regarded as making sense only if they issue from a personal source. "Making sense" admittedly does not mean that there is any logical contradiction involved in denying that a relation (...) of persons is presupposed by moral conduct and implied by moral discourse; negatively put, stoicism is the only consistent alternative to theism: but stoicism neglects evidence for the existence of God that it need not. Thus, while there is a "gap" between the premisses and the conclusion of the moral argument which can only be bridged by a "leap," this "leap" of faith is far from being blind. While most of this book amounts simply to an incisive and extremely well-ordered restatement of the Kantian moral argument for the existence of God, the author's use of the notion of person and pari passu community as integral features of the argument revise it sufficiently to give it a prima facie better based cognitive appeal than Kant's.—E. A. R. (shrink)

This paper presents a moral argument in support of the view that the mind is a nonphysical object. It is intuitively obvious that we, the bearers of conscious experiences, have an inherent value that is not reducible to the value of our conscious experiences. It remains intuitively obvious that we have inherent value even when we represent ourselves to have no physical bodies whatsoever. Given certain assumptions about morality and moral intuitions, this implies that the bearers of conscious (...) experiences—the objects possessing inherent value—are not physical objects. This moral evidence is corroborated by introspective evidence. (shrink)

The platonist who argues that the moral life has no religious implications is mistaken. If one ought to aspire to become as good as one can become, then, since the identity of this goal depends in part on whether or not it is possible to enter into a conscious, loving relation with God, one ought to try to figure out whether or not God exists. But then one needs to get a clearer understanding of what it is to be (...) God. So one ought to turn one's attention to what it is to be God. (shrink)

We offer a relatively simple and straightforward argument that each of us ought to be vegan. We don’t defend this position by appealing to ‘animal rights’ or the view that animals and humans are ‘moral equals’. Rather, we argue that animal agriculture causes serious harms to other animals (such as pain, suffering and death) and these harms are morally unjustified or caused for no good reason. This is true for both ‘factory farming’ and smaller, so-called ‘humane’ farms. We argue (...) that attempts to justify these harms don’t succeed, and conclude that raising and killing animals for food is wrong. -/- In the second part of our essay we explain how this argument relates to the choices of individuals to buy and consume animal products. Since most people don’t raise and kill animals themselves, the argument above doesn’t directly address individuals’ daily choices. To address this concern, we offer a plausible, general moral principle that describes when consumers should not purchase or consume a product: most simply, we should not support those who act wrongly by seriously harming others, provided we can safely and easily do so. Since, for most people, it is safe and relatively easy to not support those who do wrong by raising and killing animals so they can be eaten, we should not buy or consume animal food products. -/- After making our case that we ought to be vegan, we respond to some of the more challenging objections to our argument. We argue that these objections don’t succeed and so, given our previous argument, nearly everyone is morally obligated to eat a vegan diet. (shrink)

L’argumentation morale implique de donner des raisons de soutenir des conclusions normatives, et quand le fondement de ces raisons est mis en question, un effort de justification systématique est alors exigé. L’article discute trois modèles de justification philosophique : le modèle des « décisions de principe » proposé par Richard Hare ; deux versions de l’intuitionnisme philosophique ; le modèle de l’équilibre réflexif de John Rawls. Il défend la thèse qu’une version modifiée de « l’équilibre réflexif large », en dépit (...) des critiques qui lui ont été adressées sur la base d’études empiriques portant sur les jugements moraux, reste la stratégie la plus sûre pour fournir des justifications aux propositions morales. (shrink)

Taking a unique approach that emphasizes careful reasoning, this cutting-edge reader is structured around twenty-seven landmark arguments that have provoked heated debates on current ethical issues. Contemporary Moral Arguments: Readings in Ethical Issues, Second Edition, opens with an extensive two-chapter introduction to moral reasoning and moral theories that provides students with the background necessary to analyze the arguments in the following chapters. Chapters 3-12 present seventy-six readings that are organized--in the conventional way--into ten topical (...) areas: abortion; drugs and autonomy ; euthanasia and assisted suicide; genetic engineering and cloning; the death penalty; war, terrorism, and torture; pornography; economic justice and health care; animal rights and environmental duties; and global obligations to the poor.Offering a special feature not found in other anthologies, the selections are also organized in an unconventional way, by argument, so that students can more easily see how philosophers have debated each other on these critical issues. Each argument opens with an introduction that outlines the argument's key points, provides context for it, and reviews some of the main responses to it. Each introduction is followed by two to four essays that present the argument's classic statement, critiques and defenses of it, and related debates. (shrink)

Moral arguments were the type of theistic argument most characteristic of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. More recently they have become one of philosophy’s abandoned farms. The fields are still fertile, but they have not been cultivated systematically since the latest methods came in. The rambling Victorian farmhouse has not been kept up as well as similar structures, and people have not been stripping the sentimental gingerbread off the porches to reveal the clean lines of argument. This (...) paper is intended to contribute to the remedy of this neglect. It will deal with quite a number of arguments, because I think we can understand them better if we place them in relation to each other. This will not leave time to be as subtle, historically or philosophically, as I would like to be, but I hope I will be able to prove something more than my own taste for Victoriana. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Theistic Arguments in General Difficulties with Moral Arguments Types of Moral Arguments Kant's Practical Moral Argument Some Contemporary Moral Arguments Works cited.

If what is morally right or wrong were ultimately a function of our opinions, then even such reprehensible actions as genocide and slavery would be morally right, had we approved of them. Many moral philosophers find this conclusion objectionably permissive, and to avoid it they posit a moral reality that exists independently of what anyone thinks. The notion of an independent moral reality has been subjected to meticulous metaphysical, epistemological and semantic criticism, but it is hardly ever (...) examined from a moral point of view. In this essay I offer such a critique. I argue that the appeal to an independent moral reality as a ground for moral obligations constitutes a substantive moral mistake. However, I do not conclude from this that we must therefore embrace the opposite view that moral truths are ultimately dependent on our attitudes. Rather, I suggest that we reject both of these views and answer the classic meta-ethical question “Is what we morally ought to do ultimately a function of our actual attitudes, or determined independently of them?” with Neither. (shrink)

The following argument is presented and defended: We ought to aspire to become as good as we can be, and this requires that we do good deeds with not just any emotional attitude, but with joy (a lively, hopeful feeling), even in difficult circumstances. Theism (of the right sort) offers us the best prospects for achieving a fully joyful moral life. And so it is morally good for those of us who are not theists to undertake theism-to commit ourselves (...) to the religious project of coming to believe that God exists. (shrink)

In this article I discuss the moral-coherence reading of Kant’s moral argument offered by Allen Wood in his recent book _Kant and Religion_, display some of the challenges that it faces and suggest that a moral-psychological formulation is preferable.

_Bioethics, Public Moral Argument, and Social Responsibility_ explores the role of democratically oriented argument in promoting public understanding and discussion of the benefits and burdens of biotechnological progress. The contributors examine moral and policy controversies surrounding biomedical technologies and their place in American society, beginning with an examination of discourse and moral authority in democracy, and addressing a set of issues that include: dignity in health care; the social responsibilities of scientists, journalists, and scholars; and the language (...) of genetics and moral responsibility. (shrink)

After some preliminaries ("I") I examine the merits of an argument which is sometimes used in an attempt to show that nuclear deterrence is morally unacceptable ("II-V"). This is the argument that deterrence is wrong because it involves a threat to do something which it is wrong to do. My conclusion is that there is something to this argument, that it is sufficient to establish a "prima facie" case against nuclear deterrence, but that it is not sufficient to establish a (...) conclusive case against nuclear deterrence. (shrink)

I offer a new deductive formulation of the Moral Argument for the existence of God which shows how one might argue for the conclusion that, if one affirms moral realism (traditionally understood as a metaethical view which acknowledges the existence of objective moral truths), one should affirm theism. The new formulation shows that these objective moral truths are either brute facts, or they are metaphysically grounded in an impersonal entity, a non-divine personal entity, or a divine (...) personal entity i.e., God. I illustrate how the alternatives to God can in principle be excluded based on the essential characteristics of those alternative hypotheses and of certain objective moral truths. I demonstrate that my deductive formulation is better than other formulations, and that it is helpful for future work on the Moral Argument. (shrink)

This essay tries to show that there exist several passages where Kierkegaard (and his pseudonyms) sketches an argument for the existence of God and immortality that is remarkably similar to Kant's so-called moral argument for the existence of God and immortality. In particular, Kierkegaard appears to follow Kant's moral argument both when it comes to the form and content of the argument as well as some of its terminology. The essay concludes that several passages in Kierkegaard overlap significantly (...) with Kant's moral argument, although Kierkegaard ultimately favors revealed faith over natural theology in general and Kant's moral faith in particular. Whereas Kant uses the moral argument to postulate the existence of God and immortality, Kierkegaard mainly uses it as a reductio ad absurdum of non-religious thinking. (shrink)

The moral argument for the existence of God is a popular and rhetorically effective element of natural theology, but both its traditional ontological and epistemological forms rely upon controversial premises. This article proposes a new variant—the phenomenological moral argument, or PMA—that is exclusively empirical in form. The PMA notes several empirical aspects of moral experience that cohere much more naturally with a theistic than with an atheistic account of conscience’s origins. It therefore concludes that divine creation best (...) explains the nature of moral experience, and thus, that God exists. (shrink)