Professor Gideon Yaffe’s recent, intricately argued book, The Age of Culpability: Children and the Nature of Criminal Responsibility, argues against the nearly uniform position in both law and scholarship that the criminal justice system should give juveniles a break because on average they have different capacities relevant to responsibility than adults. Professor Yaffe instead argues that kid should be given a break because juveniles have little say about the criminal law, primarily because they do not have a (...) vote. For Professor Yaffe, age has political rather than behavioral significance. The book has many excellent general analyses about responsibility, but all are in aid of the central thesis about juveniles, which is the central focus of this essay review. After addressing a few preliminary issues, the essay discusses Professor Yaffe’s negative argument against the validity of the behavioral difference rationale for giving juveniles a break. If the negative case fails, which the essay argues it does, then the only issue is whether the book’s alternative is desirable. Again, the essay argues that it is not, and concludes by offering three positive arguments for the traditional rationale: coherence and simplicity; a benignly definitional argument that survives the negative argument and supports giving juveniles a break in the exceedingly unlikely event that the empirical assumptions of the traditional rationale are proven incorrect; and a proposal for individualization of the culpability assessments of juveniles so that the criminal justice system blames and punishes them proportionately to their culpability. (shrink)

This paper criticises the current orthodoxy that people who engage with fiction fils are exercising their imagination.

Patristic teaching about sin and disease allows supplementing well-acknowledged conditions for a Christian medicine with further personal challenges, widely disregarded in Western Christianities. A proper appreciation of man's vocation toward (not just achieving forgiveness but) deification reveals the need to cooperate with the Holy Spirit's offer of grace toward restoring man's prefallen nature. Ascetical exercises designed at re-establishing the spirit's mastery over the soul distance persons from (even supposedly harmless) passion. They thus inspire the struggle towards emulating Christ's (self-crucifying) kenotic (...) love, and to accept even secularly “undeserved” suffering as spiritually deserved in view of his (forever) lacking fervor in that struggle. Only in the spirit of that love can the evil Adam's sin brought into this world work its therapeutic impact, the eschatological purpose of which explains God's lovingly permitting that evil. This therapeutic impact is physically manifested already in this life through the transforming energies granted the saints of the church. (shrink)

Suppose we want to do the most good we can with a particular sum of money, but we cannot be certain of the consequences of different ways of making use of it. This article explores how our attitudes towards risk and ambiguity bear on what we should do. It shows that risk-avoidance and ambiguity-aversion can each provide good reason to divide our money between various charitable organizations rather than to give it all to the most promising one. It (...) also shows how different attitudes towards risk and ambiguity affect whether we should give to an organization which does a small amount of good for certain or to one which does a large amount of good with some small or unknown probability. (shrink)

When clinical ethicists are called upon to give a recommendation regarding patient care, they may be faced with a dilemma of their own. If their own personal opinion is not widely shared, the ethicist will have three options. These include: (1) giving their own opinion; (2) giving the widely shared opinion; and (3) giving both opinions, leaving the physician to select which opinion to accept. The intentions of this article are to evaluate strengths and weaknesses of these three alternatives (...) and to suggest that ethics consultants recognize and deal with this issue. Two cases are presented to explore the limitations of each option. The author suggests that when the views of ethics consultants differ from the consensus view, the consultant should give the consensus view, their own dissenting view and the arguments in support of each position. (shrink)

In our commentary we briefly review the work on the neurological differences between the rational ethical analysis used in professional contexts and the reflexive emotional responses of our daily moral reasoning, and discuss the implications for the claim that our normative arguments should not rely on the emotion of repugnance.

What is a human life worth? You may not want to put a price tag on a it. But if we really had to, most of us would agree that the value of a human life would be in the millions. Consistent with the foundations of our democracy and our frequently professed belief in the inherent dignity of human beings, we would also agree that all humans are created equal, at least to the extent of denying that differences of sex, (...) ethnicity, nationality and place of residence change the value of a human life. (shrink)

In this paper it is argued that we should not give money to beggars. Rather than spending our welfare budget on the people whom we happen to pass by on the street, we should spend it on those who are genuinely poor and who can be helped the most with each pound that we give. A pound given to a beggar in a Western country, it is argued, is a pound spent on someone who is relatively (...) well off. That pound, if spent better, could have rescued the life of a starving child in another part of the world. (shrink)

Recent work in cognitive science of religion (CSR) is beginning to converge on a very interesting thesis—that, given the ordinary features of human minds operating in typical human environments, we are naturally disposed to believe in the existence of gods, among other religious ideas (e.g., seeAtran [2002], Barrett [2004; 2012], Bering [2011], Boyer [2001], Guthrie [1993], McCauley [2011], Pyysiäinen [2004; 2009]). In this paper, we explore whether such a discovery ultimately helps or hurts the atheist position—whether, for example, it lends (...) credence to atheism by explaining away religious belief or whether it actually strengthens some already powerful arguments against atheism in the relevant philosophical literature.We argue that the recent discoveries of CSR hurt, not help, the atheist position—that CSR, if anything, should not give atheists epistemic assurance. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 8, August 2020, Page 78-79.

Recent ethical literature has called attention to subtle yet profound difficulties in determining what types of generosity are moral, and what situations call for generosity. This article contributes to this discussion by advancing a perspective drawn from Christian theology, according to which philanthropic endeavours must follow a downwards trajectory, modelled on God’s self-donation. Once this model is understood, potentially problematic rhetorical frameworks of generosity—such as that of Anselm of Canterbury—can be identified. This article further argues that the downwards trajectory of (...) generosity has important implications for institutions that use philanthropic rhetoric in their fundraising, as well as for philosophers seeking to establish conditions for ethical generosity. (shrink)

Growing data on the socioeconomic determinants of health pose a challenge to analysis and application of fairness in health. In Just health: meeting health needs fairly, Norman Daniels argues for a change in the population end of our thinking about just health. What about clinical care? Given our knowledge of the importance of wealth, education or social status to health, is fairness in medicine served better by continuing to avoid considering our patients’ social status in setting clinical priorities, or by (...) attempting to equalise existing health inequalities by giving priority to the socioeconomically disadvantaged at the point of care? In this article, I argue that doctors should not attempt the latter. Granted, giving priority to low status would go some way towards compensating unjust health inequalities and the impression of being left aside in other social spaces. It would represent reverse discrimination, but could still be justified inasmuch as disadvantaged groups could be identifiable, and as long as the intent was compensation rather than retribution. However, under current circumstances such priority would risk being attributed arbitrarily, would represent a form of medical proselytising, risk leaving the worst-off with less by alienating the powerful, and require teaching doctors to act in strongly counter-cultural ways—possibly at great cost. Crucially, however, we protect both equal health and equal regard by treating all alike: priority to low status would promote the first somewhat, but at the expense of sacrificing the second. (shrink)

Life-sustaining treatment is sometimes withdrawn or withheld from critically ill newborn infants with poor prognosis. Guidelines relating to such decisions place emphasis on the best interests of the infant. However, in practice, parental views and parental interests are often taken into consideration.In this paper I draw on the example of newborn infants with severe muscle weakness (for example spinal muscular atrophy). I provide two arguments that parental interests should be given some weight in decisions about treatment, and that they (...) should be given somewhat more weight in decisions about newborns than for older children. Firstly, the interests of the infant and of parents intersect, and are hard to separate. Parents’ views about treatment may be relevant to an assessment of the infant’s interests, and they may also affect those interests. Secondly, the interests of the infant in her future are relatively reduced by her developmental immaturity. In some situations parents’ welfare interests outweigh those of the infant. However, I argue that this would not justify treatment limitation except in the setting of severe impairment. (shrink)

A spectre is haunting legal positivists – and perhaps jurisprudes more generally – the spectre of the normativity of law. Whatever else law is, it is sometimes said, it is normative, and so whatever else a philosophical account of law accounts for, it should account for the normativity of law[1]. But law is at least partially a social matter, its content at least partially determined by social practices. And how can something social and descriptive in this down-to-earth kind of (...) way be normative?[2] This is presumably a problem for any theory of law, but it is especially acute for legal positivism, according to which (roughly speaking) all there is to facts about legality are such descriptive social facts. If this is so, the thought goes, the task of accommodating the law’s normativity immediately becomes both more daunting, and more urgent[3]. Unfortunately, though, it is entirely unclear what the problem of the normativity of law is supposed to be. Indeed, I suspect that there is no one problem here, as different people seem to have in mind different problems when they use this unhelpful phrase[4]. At least one family of issues people seem to have in mind when they talk about the normativity of law is a host of issues pertaining to the reason-giving force of the law. The law, it is sometimes said, gives reasons for action, and a theory of law should accommodate this obvious fact. But even when we focus just on questions regarding the reason-giving force of the law (and from now on I will restrict myself to just those, leaving other things people may have in mind when they talk about the normativity of law for another occasion), it is still not clear what the problem is. Indeed, my main purpose in this paper is to make some progress in understanding the relevant question here. And my conclusion is going to be somewhat skeptical: Once we are clear on what reason-giving in general consists in, and on what reason-giving powers the law actually has, there is not much by way of a problem here that needs to be solved, not a deep and interesting phenomenon here that theories of law need to accommodate, and that therefore places adequacy constraints on plausible theories of the nature of law.. (shrink)

I present ideas about human suffering that are salient among the black peoples of sub-Saharan Africa, reconstruct them in order to make them relevant to an international audience with philosophical interests, and urge that audience to give them consideration as alternatives or correctives to some dominant Western approaches. I first recount views commonly held by sub-Saharans about the nature, causes and cures of suffering, and then draw on them to articulate an account of it qua enervation, which rivals a (...) neuro-physical perspective that friends of Western science would readily adopt. Then, I address the way one morally should respond to suffering, appealing to judgments about the value of community that are influential among Africans. I show that, upon theoretical refinement, an Afro-communitarianism entails an ethical analysis of suffering that seriously competes with those entailed by standard Western moral philosophies. This view instructs moral agents neither to make others suffer because they deserve it, as per Kantian retributivism, nor to do whatever will minimize suffering, à la utilitarianism. Instead, it roughly prescribes responding to suffering out of love, which can require increasing the amount of suffering in the world by taking it upon oneself, instead of leaving it to others to bear on their own. (shrink)

The subject that we have tried to mention in this article mainly intensifies on the meta-ontological or metaphysical field. Although we cannot know the real existence of objects, at least, we say something that cannot be expressed. Then, we should not ignore that our judgments belonging to the unknown field can be interpreted, more or less, on account of the relation to the area of the facts we know them. It is clear that trying to get the meaning of (...) the world in itself or noumenon through the image of the concrete world is useless. Nevertheless, this condition does not mean that it should not make inquiries concerning the noumenon world and discontinue thinking about what the field of existence in itself is. Interpretations on this field of existence in itself cannot be expressed by mere knowledge of the actual area or the real notions. Because, in our image of the real world, there seems a situation that continually changes and which converts its meaning in each change. (shrink)

In the past few decades the question of the meaning of life has received renewed attention. However, much of the recent literature on the topic reduces the question of the meaning of life to the question of meaning in life. This raises the problem: How should we think about the meaning of life? The paper tries to give an answer to this problem.

During the last half of the twentieth century, legal philosophy (or legal theory or jurisprudence) has grown significantly. It is no longer the domain of a few isolated scholars in law and philosophy. Hundreds of scholars from diverse fields attend international meetings on the subject. In some universities, large lecture courses of five hundred students or more study it. The primary aim of the Law and Philosophy Library is to present some of the best original work on legal philosophy from (...) both the Anglo-American and European traditions. Not only does it help make some of the best work avail able to an international audience, but it also encourages increased awareness of, and interaction between, the two major traditions. The primary focus is on full-length scholarly monographs, although some edited volumes of original papers are also included. The Library editors are assisted by an Editorial Advisory Board of internationally renowed scholars. Legal philosophy should not be considered a narrowly circumscribed field. (shrink)

On 20 October 2010, the European Parliament proposed to give all women in the European Union (EU) minimally 20 weeks fully paid maternity leave, and to introduce a legal right for all fathers to 2 weeks fully paid paternity leave. In many other countries, individuals and groups are advocating for longer maternity leave, longer paternity leave, and/or longer parental leave. In this paper, I argue for two principles that proposals of maternity/paternity/parental leave systems should respect: the ?principle of (...) non-discrimination? and the ?principle of balancing the interests of all affected parties?. The principle of non-discrimination requires that women should receive paid leave for the number of weeks that are needed as part of their pregnancy and to recover from childbirth, but that any additional weeks should be seen as birth leave rather than maternity leave, and be given on equal terms to men and women. The principle of balancing the interests of all parties suggests that it would be good for newborns, their parents, and for employers and society at large, that parents have enough time to spend with their children. To illustrate its practical relevance, I apply these principles to the current situation in the Netherlands and to the European Parliament's proposal to introduce a minimum of 20 weeks maternity leave and 2 weeks paternity leave. (shrink)

The current international asylum regime recognizes only persecuted persons as rightful asylum applicants. The Geneva Convention and Protocol enumerate specific grounds upon which persecution is recognized. Claimants who cannot demonstrate a real risk of persecution based on one of the recognized grounds are unlikely to be granted asylum. This paper aims to relate real-world practices to normative theories, asking whether the Convention’s restricted preference towards persecuted persons is normatively justified. I intend to show that the justifications of the persecution criterion (...) also apply to grounds currently lacking recognition. My main concern will be persecution on the grounds of gender.The first section introduces the dominant standpoints in theories of asylum, which give different answers to the question of who should be granted asylum, based on different normative considerations. Humanitarian theories base their claims on the factual neediness of asylum-seekers, holding that whoever is in grave danger of harm or deprivation should be granted asylum. Political theories base their justifications on conceptions of legitimacy and membership, holding that whoever has been denied membership in their original state should be granted asylum. Under political theories, Matthew Price’s theory will be discussed, which provides a normative justification of the currently recognized persecution criterion. The second section provides a descriptive definition of persecution based on Kuosmanen, and evaluates the normative relevance of the different elements of this definition based on the theories presented previously. The third section is devoted to the examination of the normative justifiability of the nexus clause’s exclusive list of the bases upon which persons might be persecuted. The section argues that while the clause does not recognize that persecution might be based on gender, in fact many women experience harms based on gender that fulfil all the normatively relevant definitive conditions constituting persecution. The conclusion shows that although the current law’s preferences towards the persecuted are justifiable, the nexus clause’s limiting enumeration of grounds is not. This applies especially to the exclusion of gender as grounds for granting asylum.Article first published online: 21 DEC 2015. (shrink)

Yet this is precisely what I intend to do. As a way of conferring some initial legitimacy Perhaps the most fundamental axiom of upon this enterprise, I would like to start out modern economic science is that there simply by appealing to the “no free lunch” is no such thing as a free lunch. It is principle. To adopt productivity growth as a this axiom that gives us the concept of opporsocial priority is to set aside other objectives tunity cost, (...) an idea that has led to enormous that we might like to pursue. Therefore, one gains in the clarity of our understanding of cannot maintain rational adherence to a proindividual and societal choice. But while congram of increased productivity without a clear tinuing to endorse this fundamental axiom, sense of what the benefits of such a program many economists have also been extremely are likely to be, compared to the other things attracted by the appeal of increased economic that we might choose to do. The bulk of this efficiency. Efficiency gains are often treated, paper consists of an attempt to evaluate the if not exactly as a free lunch, certainly about size and scope of these benefits. More controas close to a free lunch as one can get in this versially, I will try to show that these benesublunar realm. As a result, economists often fits are often exaggerated. react with a certain incredulity when some- The conclusion that I draw on the basis one questions the need for such gains. It is of this survey will strike many as complacent. tempting to suppose that the critic simply But it is a principled complacency. I argue misunderstands the relevant concepts, or else that we have good reason, as a society, to strive fails to grasp the full set of constraints under for productivity gains, but that there is nothwhich economic activity occurs. ing urgent about this objective. Furthermore, Productivity growth is widely regarded we should not strive to maximize productivity as a subset of the efficiency gains that can be gains, nor should we be overly concerned realized in our economy. (shrink)

Utilitarianism directs us to act in ways that impartially maximize welfare or utility or at least aim to do that. Some find this view highly compelling. Others object that it has intuitively repugnant results; that it condones evildoing and injustice; that it is excessively imposing and controlling; that it is alienating; and that it fails to offer meaningful practical guidance. In this 'Little Debates' volume, James Lenman argues that utilitarianism's directive to improve the whole universe on a cosmic time scale (...) is apt to lead it down a path of imperious moral overreach. Lenman further maintains that the project ultimately shipwrecks upon an extreme lack of epistemic humility in framing the determinants of what is morally right and wrong beyond the limits of what we can ever hope to know. Utilitarianism thus leaves us morally clueless. In contrast, Ben Bramble seeks to develop and defend an original form of utilitarianism, less vulnerable than other, more familiar versions to a number of important objections (including those raised by Lenman). Bramble's form of utilitarianism aims to avoid other unappealing results by presenting it as a claim about what we have the most reason to do and not as a theory of right action (which Bramble urges we should understand quite differently by referencing what would motivate virtuous people). The two authors debate various forms of this longstanding ethical theory, arguing for very different conclusions, in a way that is sure to leave readers with new views of their own moral thoughts and lives. Key Features: Focuses on one of the dominant ethical theories debated by moral philosophers today Clearly written, free of jargon and technicality, highly accessible to students Accessibly addresses questions of great importance to anyone wishing to grow in understanding of human moral life Provides a glossary of key terms that are bolded in the main text Includes section summaries that give an overview of the main arguments and a comprehensive bibliography for further reading Important issues discussed include: welfare; value; right action; virtue; impartiality; obligations to non-human animals; the badness of human extinction; the happiness of future people; the ethics of climate change; the long term future; and the moral significance of the limits to what we can know. (shrink)

The troubling ethics and politics of philanthropy Is philanthropy, by its very nature, a threat to today’s democracy? Though we may laud wealthy individuals who give away their money for society’s benefit, Just Giving shows how such generosity not only isn’t the unassailable good we think it to be but might also undermine democratic values and set back aspirations of justice. Big philanthropy is often an exercise of power, the conversion of private assets into public influence. And it is (...) a form of power that is largely unaccountable, often perpetual, and lavishly tax-advantaged. The affluent—and their foundations—reap vast benefits even as they influence policy without accountability. And small philanthropy, or ordinary charitable giving, can be problematic as well. Charity, it turns out, does surprisingly little to provide for those in need and sometimes worsens inequality. These outcomes are shaped by the policies that define and structure philanthropy. When, how much, and to whom people give is influenced by laws governing everything from the creation of foundations and nonprofits to generous tax exemptions for donations of money and property. Rob Reich asks: What attitude and what policies should democracies have concerning individuals who give money away for public purposes? Philanthropy currently fails democracy in many ways, but Reich argues that it can be redeemed. Differentiating between individual philanthropy and private foundations, the aims of mass giving should be the decentralization of power in the production of public goods, such as the arts, education, and science. For foundations, the goal should be what Reich terms “discovery,” or long-time-horizon innovations that enhance democratic experimentalism. Philanthropy, when properly structured, can play a crucial role in supporting a strong liberal democracy. Just Giving investigates the ethical and political dimensions of philanthropy and considers how giving might better support democratic values and promote justice. (shrink)

Liberal institutions should respect citizens as autonomous agents. But what does this mandate require and how should it shape the demands of liberal legitimacy? I trace the contemporary disagreement between liberal perfectionist and anti-perfectionist accounts of legitimacy back to this requirement to respect the autonomy of citizens in order to weigh up how well each approach fulfils this mandate. I argue that further reflection over the nature of respect for the value of personal autonomy gives liberals reason to (...) favour moderate forms of perfectionism and be sceptical of criticisms of perfectionism grounded in concerns over respect. (shrink)

:To what extent, if any, should minors have a say about whether they participate in research that offers them no prospect of direct benefit? This article addresses this question as it pertains to minors who cannot understand enough about what their participation would involve to make an autonomous choice, but can comprehend enough to have and express opinions about participating. The first aim is to defend David Wendler and Seema Shah’s claim that minors who meet this description should (...) not be offered a choice about whether they participate. The second aim is to show, contra Wendler and Shah, that the principle of nonmaleficence requires more with respect to giving these minors a say than merely respecting their dissent. Additionally, it requires that investigators obtain affirmation of their non-dissent. This addresses intuitive concerns about denying children a choice, while steering clear of the problems that arise with allowing them one. (shrink)

In debates about genetic testing of children, as well as about disclosing unsolicited findings (UFs) of pediatric exome sequencing, respect for future autonomy should be regarded as a prima facie consideration for not taking steps that would entail denying the future adult the opportunity to decide for herself about what to know about her own genome. While the argument can be overridden when other, morally more weighty considerations are at stake, whether this is the case can only be determined (...) in concrete cases. Importantly, when children grow into adolescents, respect for future autonomy will have to give way to respecting their emerging autonomy. When pediatric exome sequencing is done for complex conditions not involving developmental delay, respect for the child’s future or emerging autonomy should be a primary consideration for those charged with deciding on behalf of the child. Building on what Emanuel and Emanuel have termed the ‘deliberative model’ of shared decision making, we argue that if parents fail to give these considerations their due, professionals should actively invite them to do so. Taking a directive stance may be needed in order to make sure that the future or emerging autonomy of the child are duly considered in the decision-making process, but also to help the parents and themselves to shape their respective roles as responsible care-givers. (shrink)

ABSTRACTSeveral philosophers have inquired into the metaphysical limits of conceptual engineering: ‘Can we engineer? And if so, to what extent?’. This paper is not concerned with answering these questions. It does concern itself, however, with the limits of conceptual engineering, albeit in a largely unexplored sense: it cares about the normative, rather than about the metaphysical limits thereof. I first defend an optimistic claim: I argue that the ameliorative project has, so far, been too modest; there is little value theoretic (...) reason to restrict the project to remedying deficient representational devices, rather than go on a more ambitious quest: conceptual improvement. That being said, I also identify a limitation to the optimistic claim: I show that the ‘should’ in ameliorative projects suffers from a ‘wrong-kind-of-reasons’ problem. Last but not least, I sketch a proposal of normative constraining meant to address both the above results. The proposal gives primacy to epistemic constraints: accordingly, a concept should be ameliorated only insofar as this does not translate into epistemic loss. (shrink)

To give valid informed consent to participate in clinical research, potential participants should understand the risks, potential benefits, procedures, and alternatives. Potential participants also should understand that they are being invited to participate in research. Yet it is unclear what potential participants need to understand to satisfy this particular requirement. As a result, it is unclear what additional information investigators should disclose about the research; and it is also unclear when failures of understanding in this respect (...) undermine the validity of potential participants' informed consent. An analysis of individuals' interests suggests that potential participants need to understand three additional facts to understand that they are being invited to participate in research: 1) research contribution: those who enroll in the study will be contributing to a project designed to gather generalizable knowledge to benefit others in the future; 2) research relationship: the investigators will rely on participants' efforts to gather the generalizable knowledge to benefit others; and 3) research impact: the extent to which participating in the study will alter what participants do and what happens to them. (shrink)

Due to the increasing cost of health care and the diminishing resources available, priority of health care resources has become a most important political and ethical issue. What principles should guide the decisions of priorities? The Swedish Commission of Priorities in Health Care proposed in 1995 that priorities in health care should be based on a Principle of Human Dignity . Later, the recommendations of the commission were implemented in Swedish law.The question I will try to answer in (...) this article is whether a principle of human dignity is helpful when establishing priorities in health care. What implications, if any, will it have for the decisions on how to make priorities?It is often said that human life has intrinsic value and that human beings are inviolable. When applied to normative ethics, these views are the bases for a Sanctity of Life Principle and a Principle of Human Dignity , ethical standards that have a long history in the western tradition. The principles stating the intrinsic value of human life have been interpreted in different ways and there are a large number of definitions of concepts like `sanctity of life' and `human dignity' . The concept `sanctity of life' is often used by authors in a religious tradition, while `human dignity' is usually used by secular authors. Immanuel Kant, using the concept `dignity' is one example of the latter.To establish a priority is to make a choice to do one thing before something else. In health care it means in practice in some cases a choice to treat one patient first. It seems that if human life is of intrinsic value and inviolable, one should always give priority to life-saving treatment and critical care. Thus, a duty always to save human lives would follow from the PHD and saving human life would be primary in an ordering of priorities. As a consequence, one could question an allocation of health care resources to other ends than saving human lives.One objection against this application is that it leaves out of account the distinction between direct and indirect ways of saving human lives. Some minor illnesses may in the long run become grave, if they are not treated when they are just minor. Thus, to treat them at an early stage is an indirect way of saving the life of the patient. And it may also be a more cost-efficient way. The treatment at an early stage may be much easier and cheaper than at a late stage in the development of the illness.On the other hand, the objection based on the distinction between direct and indirect ways of saving human lives applies only to some of the minor illnesses. There are others, among them fractures, which in the long run do not threaten the life of the patient if not treated.The PHD has been under forceful attack in recent discussions in medical ethics. It is said to imply indefensible consequences and stands accused of being a remnant of a moral tradition no longer relevant. Does the PHD imply that saving human life is primary in an ordering of priorities? Is the principle relevant for the discussion on priorities in health care? In order to answer these questions I will examine some different views of the PHD and ways of applying the principle to decisions on priorities. I will start with the report from the Swedish Commission on Priorities in Health Care that claimed that the PHD should be the most basic principle for priorities. Than, I will examine some theological and philosophical views in support of, or questioning, the PHD. I will relate the application of these views to the moral aspects of establishing priorities in health care. Finally, I will answer the question whether the PHD really has any relevance for decisions on priorities in health care. (shrink)

The central question of ontology has long been thought to be ‘What is there?’. The central way of answering it has been to consider which entities we must posit as part of a best total explanatory theory. This paper argues against this ‘explanatory’ conception of metaphysics, by showing that it relies on an unarticulated assumption that all the terms at issue in these metaphysical debates serve an explanatory function. Making use of work in systemic functional linguistics enables us to identify (...) the many different functions played by terms of interest in metaphysics. And that makes it clear that ‘contribution of explanatory power’ should be rejected as an across-the-board criterion in ontology. This work in functional linguistics also enables us to see why it is useful to have a language that entitles us to use redundant inferences to introduce terms for properties, numbers, and the like, giving us new reason to accept ‘easy’ inferences that there are such things. As a result, we should give up thinking that ‘what is there?’ provides a deep and interesting question for a discipline called ‘ontology’ to answer, and give up thinking that the task for ontology is to determine which entities to ‘posit’ as part of a best total explanatory theory. (shrink)

Consent ought to be required to withhold treatment that is in a patient’s best interests to receive. Do not resuscitate orders are examples of best interests assessments at the end of life. Such assessments represent value judgments that cannot be validly ascertained without patient input. If patient input results in that patient dissenting to the DNR order then individual physicians are not justified in overriding such dissent. To do so would give unjustifiable primacy to the values of the individual (...) physician. Therefore patient consent is effectively required to write a DNR order. Patient dissent to a DNR order should trigger a fair process mechanism to resolve the dispute. (shrink)

Should an institutional scheme prioritize the rectification or compensation of harms it has wrongfully caused over provision of aid to persons it has not harmed? Some who think so rely on an analogy with the view that persons should give higher priority to rectification than to aid. Inference from the personal view to the institutional view would be warranted if either (i) the correct moral principles for institutional assessment are nearest possible equivalents of the correct personal moral (...) principles, or (ii) the moral principles which ground the personal view also ground the institutional view. Neither claim can be justified. I briefly assess some alternative ways of defending the view that institutions should prioritize rectification over aid. (shrink)

Extreme impacts from climate change are already being felt around the world. The policy choices that we make now will affect not only how high global temperatures rise but also how well-equipped future economies and infrastructures are to cope with these changes. The interests of future generations must therefore be central to climate policy and practice. This raises the questions:Whoshould represent the interests of future generations with respect to climate change? And according to whichcriteriashould we judge whether a particular candidate (...) would make an appropriate representative for future generations? In this essay, we argue that potential representatives of future generations should satisfy what we call a “hypothetical acceptance criterion,” which requires that the representative could reasonably be expected to be accepted by future generations. This overarching criterion in turn gives rise to two derivative criteria. These are, first, the representative'sepistemic and experiential similarity to future generations, and second, his or hermotivation to act on behalf of future generations. We conclude that communities already adversely affected by climate change best satisfy these criteria and are therefore able to command the hypothetical acceptance of future generations. (shrink)

The search for a universal theory of reading is misguided. Instead, theories should articulate general principles of neural computation that interact with language-specific learning environments to explain the full diversity of observed reading-related phenomena across the world's languages.

Suppose a woman can carry to term only one of two viable embryos. One has the genetic potential to become a normal child. The other has a gene that gives it the potential for both the artistic genius and the severe manic-depression of the painter Vincent Van Gogh. I think it would be permissible to select either embryo. But I also believe that it would be impermissible to intervene to turn an embryo that has the potential to be normal into (...) a potential Van Gogh, and vice versa. The paper aims to resolve the tension between these beliefs. (shrink)

This paper proposes a game-theoretic solution of the surprise examination problem. It is argued that the game of “matching pennies” provides a useful model for the interaction of a teacher who wants her exam to be surprising and students who want to avoid being surprised. A distinction is drawn between prudential and evidential versions of the problem. In both, the teacher should not assign a probability of zero to giving the exam on the last day. This representation of the (...) problem provides a diagnosis of where the backwards induction argument, which “proves” that no surprise exam is possible, is mistaken. (shrink)

For Charles Mills, the "Racial Contract" is a set of meta-agreements between whites to categorize nonwhites as subpersons of inferior moral and legal status relative to whites. This "contract" gives whites the right to exploit non-whites and deny them opportunities provided to whites. It portrays non-whites as designated to serve whites much as non-humans were designated by God to serve the benefit of humans. Mills argument helps make clear how, for most of the modern era, whites have had as little (...) obligation to recognize the rights of non-whites as they have had to recognize the rights of non-humans. (shrink)

Longtermism is the view that the most urgent global priorities, and those to which we should devote the largest portion of our resources, are those that focus on (i) ensuring a long future for humanity, and perhaps sentient or intelligent life more generally, and (ii) improving the quality of the lives that inhabit that long future. While it is by no means the only one, the argument most commonly given for this conclusion is that these interventions have greater expected (...) goodness per unit of resource devoted to them than each of the other available interventions, including those that focus on the health and well-being of the current population. In this paper, I argue that, even if we grant the consequentialist ethics upon which this argument depends, and even if we grant one of the axiologies that are typically paired with that ethics to give the argument, we are not morally required to choose an option that maximises expected utility; indeed, we might not even be permitted to do so. Instead, I will argue, if the argument's consequentialism is correct, we should choose using a decision theory that is sensitive to risk, and allows us to give greater weight to worse-case outcomes than expected utility theory does. And, I will show, such decision theories do not always recommend longtermist interventions. Indeed, sometimes, they recommend exactly the opposite: sometimes, they recommend hastening human extinction. Many, though not all, will take this as a reductio of the consequentialism or the axiology of the argument. I remain agnostic on the conclusion we should draw. (shrink)

It is often claimed that science should be "value-free in that ethical, political, and social values have no legitimate role in the justification of scientific theories. Although such values may influence which hypotheses are pursued, or whether some application of scientific theories is desirable, they play no legitimate role in scientific reasoning. ;I argue against the view that all science ought to be value-free. Examining a range of cases from biology, epidemiology, pathology, and atmospheric sciences I show that ethical (...) and political values can operate in cases widely agreed to be "good science." Drawing on recent work by Helen Longino and Phillip Kitcher, I argue that in many research contexts the goals of scientific research cannot be separated from ethical and political interests. As a result, there are at least four ways ethical and political value judgments can play a legitimate role in the justification of scientific theories. First, in certain research contexts, ethical and political values help justify and apply criteria for theory choice . Second, ethical and political aims of inquiry can give scientists reason to adopt conceptual frameworks that contain ethical or political normative content. In these contexts, ethical and political value judgments play a legitimate role as auxiliary hypotheses in generating evidential relations. Third, when scientific research has implications for public policy, scientists must weigh ethical values in determining which risks are "acceptable" in classifying data. Finally, ethical and political considerations can be relevant to evaluating whether an interpretation of data is biased. ;A consequence of my view is that, in some contexts, "value-free" science is not only impossible, but also epistemologically irresponsible. Good science will sometimes require scientists to weigh the ethical and political values at stake in their research. As a result, scientists should be trained to think critically about the ethical and political dimensions of their work. (shrink)

We received a message about your somewhat incomprehensible attitude towards the teaching of religious studies at higher educational institutions. If your experience at Lviv University gives you a reason to conclude that there is atheism, this is far from the case. I do not have the opportunity to get into the details, but only to add to this letter our work "Academic Religious Studies," the content of which will give you an opportunity to understand what kind of problems (...) class='Hi'>should be taught by those who are the teacher of religious studies. One can agree with you that many of those who taught atheism at one time failed to overcome themselves and realize that religious studies may be intertwined with an ideological paradigm - atheistic or theological, but it can and should be academic, the basic principles of which are objectivity, historicism, non-confessionalism, polyspectry and tolerance. (shrink)

It is commonly thought that morality applies universally to all human beings as moral targets, and our general moral obligations to people will not, as a rule, be affected by their views. I propose and explore a radical, alternative normative moral theory, ‘Designer Ethics’, according to which our views are pro tanto crucial determinants of how, morally, we ought to be treated. For example, since utilitarians are more sympathetic to the idea that human beings may be sacrificed for the greater (...) good, perhaps it is permissible to give them ‘priority’ as potential victims. This odd idea has manifold drawbacks but I claim that it also has substantial advantages, that it has some affinities to more commonly accepted moral positions, and that it should be given a significant role in our ethical thinking. (shrink)