This paper raises three objections to the argument presented by Ostritsch in The amoralist challenge to gaming and the gamer’s moral obligation, in which the amoralist’s mantra “it’s just a game” is viewed as an illegitimate rebuttal of all moral objections to video games. The first objection focuses on Ostritsch’s ‘strong sense’ of player enjoyment, which I argue is too crude, given the moral work it is meant to be doing. Next, I question the legitimacy of Ostritsch’s claim that (...) certain video games are immoral. I examine what is involved in making this claim and what would be required for a normative position to be established: none of which is addressed by Ostritsch. Finally, I challenge the legitimacy of his claim that players are obliged not to play certain video games in certain ways. I distinguish between immoral and suberogatory actions, arguing that the latter is in fact more applicable to cases Ostritsch has in mind, and that one is not obliged not to engage in these actions. (shrink)

Typically, a refusal to provide a medical service is an instance of conscientious objection only when the medical service is legal, professionally accepted, and clinically appropriate. That is, conscientious objection typically occurs only when practitioners reject prevailing norms or practices. Insofar as refusing to provide antibiotics for a viral infection does not violate prevailing clinical norms, there is no need for the physician in Case 1 to justify his refusal to provide antibiotics by appealing to his conscience.1 By contrast, insofar (...) as emergency contraception is legal and does not violate prevailing norms of good medical practice, the physician in Case 6 cannot justify his refusal to provide EC by... (shrink)

Many philosophers hold that whether an act is overall morally obligatory is an ‘objective’ matter, many that it is a ‘subjective’ matter, and some that it is both. The idea that it is or can be both may seem to promise a helpful answer to the question ‘What ought I to do when I do not know what I ought to do?’ In this article, three broad views are distinguished regarding what it is that obligation essentially concerns: the (...) maximization of actual value, the maximization of expected value, and the perceived maximization of actual value. The first and third views are rejected; the second view is then refined and defended. The unfortunate upshot is that there may be no very helpful answer to the question just mentioned. As to the question posed in the title of the article, the answer unsurprisingly depends on what ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ are taken to mean. (Published Online November 24 2006). (shrink)

Many authors hold that collectives, as well as individuals can be the subjects of obligations. Typically these authors have focussed on the obligations of highly structured groups, and of small, informal groups. One might wonder, however, whether there could also be collective obligations which fall on everyone – what I shall call ' global collective obligations '. One reason for thinking that this is not possible has to do with considerations about agency : it seems as though an entity can (...) only be the subject of obligations if it is an agent. In this paper, I try to show that the argument from agency is not a good reason for being sceptical about the existence of global collective obligations : it derives whatever plausibility it has from the idea that claims about obligation need to be addressable to some agent. My suggestion is that we should accept this principle about the addressability of obligations, but deny that the addressee of an obligation need be the subject of that obligation. The collective obligations of unstructured collections of individuals, including global collective obligations, meet the addressability requirement insofar as they require something of the individuals who make up the collective. (shrink)

In response to physicians who refuse to provide medical services that are contrary to their ethical and/or religious beliefs, it is sometimes asserted that anyone who is not willing to provide legally and professionally permitted medical services should choose another profession. This article critically examines the underlying assumption that conscientious objection is incompatible with a physician’s professional obligations (the “incompatibility thesis”). Several accounts of the professional obligations of physicians are explored: general ethical theories (consequentialism, contractarianism, and rights-based theories), internal morality (...) (essentialist and non-essentialist conceptions), reciprocal justice, social contract, and promising. It is argued that none of these accounts of a physician’s professional obligations unequivocally supports the incompatibility thesis. (shrink)

Nicholas Rescher presents an original pragmatic defense of the issue of objectivity. Rescher employs reasoned argumentation in restoring objectivity to its place of prominence and utility within social and philosophical discourse. By tracing the source of objectivity back to the very core of rationality itself, Rescher locates objectivity's reason for being deep in our nature as rational animals. His project rehabilitates the case for objectivity by subjecting relativistic and negativistic thinking to close critical scrutiny, revealing the flaws and fallacies at (...) work in the deliberations of those who dismiss objectivity as obsolete and untenable. Rescher takes to task the cultural relativism of contemporary social science and social theory, as well as that of liberalistic political correctness and the postmodern aversion to the normative. In holding such relativistic thinking up to the light of rational argument, he demonstrates that a rejection of objectivity is in fact unreasonable. Rescher further reveals that a relativistic apathy to truth and rightness actually destroys, in effect, the very conception it presumably elucidates. (shrink)

The opinion of the American Medical Association (AMA) Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs (CEJA) on the accommodation of conscientious objectors among medical doctors aims to balance fairly patients’ rights of access to care and accommodating doctors’ deeply held personal beliefs. Like similar documents, it fails. Patients will not find it persuasive, and neither should they. The lines drawn aim at a reasonable compromise between positions that are not amenable to compromise. They are also largely arbitrary. This article explains why (...) that is the case. The view that conscientious objection accommodation has no place in modern medicine is defended. (shrink)

Theological stateist theories, the most well-known of which is Divine Command Theory (DCT), ground our moral obligations directly in some state of God. The prior obligations objection poses a challenge to theological stateism. Is there a moral obligation to obey God’s commands? If no, it is hard to see how God’s commands can generate any moral obligations for us. If yes, then what grounds this prior obligation? To avoid circularity, the moral obligation must be grounded independent of (...) God’s commands; and therefore DCT fails to ground all moral obligations in God’s commands. I argue that DCT proponents should embrace “metaethical DCT.” On this view, there is no moral obligation to obey God. God creates our moral obligations out of normative nothingness. I argue that this helps DCT proponents to escape the prior obligations objection. Other theological stateist theories can modify their theory similarly to meet this objection. (shrink)

To support her divine motivation theory of the good, which seeks to ground ethics in motives and emphasize the attractiveness of morality over against the compulsion of morality, Linda Zagzebski has proposed an original account of obligations which grounds them in motives. I argue that her account renders obligations objectionably person-relative and that the most promising way to avoid my criticism is to embrace something quite close to a divine command theory of obligation. This requires her to combine her (...) desired emphasis on the imitation of God with a contrasting emphasis on submission to God. I conclude that her divine motivation theory of the good, if it is to have an adequate account of obligation, is dependent on a divine will or divine command theory of obligation. (shrink)

Tomasello strives to understand the underlying psychology behind the human sense of obligation, but he only addresses a specific kind of obligation: to other human beings. We argue that in order to account for the psychological underpinning of human behavior, one should also consider people's sense of commitment to non-human entities, such as ideals, values, and moral principles.

Although sociologists conceive obligation as an objective force (the social) that compels individuals to act and think according to pre-defined norms of conduct and ways of reasoning, philosophers view it as an imperative that is met through the agent’s deliberation. The aim of this article is to undermine the standard dichotomy between the deterministically sociological and the moral–philosophical views of obligation by way of contending that Wittgenstein’s view on blind obedience (as analyzed by Meredith Williams) bears a (...) conception of the social. I will then argue that Wittgenstein’s notion of forms of life and the sociological notion of situation refer to the same encompassing phenomenon: obligation. I will finally claim that this phenomenon should be re-specified in terms of impersonality to devise a shared dynamic conception of obligation admitting that a plurality of contextual normative orders monitor collective and individual action in ordinary life. (shrink)

In his recent and suitably provocative book on The Object of Morality G. J. Warnock argues that the fundamental moral concern is with what he sums up as the ‘amelioration of the human predicament’, a predicament which is made even more pressing by the natural limitations of our human sympathies. The distinctively moral virtues, Warnock concludes, will be those dispositions which tend to countervail these natural limitations, especially non-maleficence, fairness, beneficence, and non-deception; and from these fundamental moral virtues we can (...) derive, in turn, four fundamental moral standards or principles. The theory of morality—and it is thank heaven a theory of morality, not of moral language—which I have crudely summarised here seems to me correct as far as it goes, but it also seems to me that Warnock’s concentration on the predicament of the individual human being leads him to ignore what is at least as fundamental, the essentially social and interpersonal aspect of much morality. (shrink)

This paper has two main aims. The first is to examine our normative relations to artworks and cultural artefacts threatened by damage or destruction. The second aim is to develop an argument for the notion of aesthetic obligation, offering an alternative model of explanation of our normative relations to artworks and cultural artefacts which relies neither exclusively on the object of appreciation (‘object-oriented approach’) nor on the appreciating subject (‘subject-oriented approach’). Instead, an aesthetic obligation is held to be (...) directed primarily towards the community which appreciates the object on the grounds of its aesthetic value. That which unites an aesthetic community is the practice of valuing an object for its aesthetic character. The notion of aesthetic obligation thus relies both on the community of subjects which holds an object in high aesthetic regard and that same object’s aesthetic value. (shrink)

Critiques social contract theory from the perspective of feminist psychoanalytic and psychological theory and develops an alternative feminist understanding of obligation as rooted in an epistemology of connection. Utilizes a feminist standpoint theory approach, and contains a discussion of the relevance of postmodernism to feminist philosophy in general and standpoint theory in particular.

In this paper I develop an account of member obligation: the obligations that fall on the members of an obligated collective in virtue of that collective obligation. I use this account to argue that unorganized collections of individuals can constitute obligated agents. I argue first that, to know when a collective obligation entails obligations on that collective’s members, we have to know not just what it would take for each member to do their part in satisfying the (...) collective obligation, but also what they should do if they cannot do their part because others will not do theirs. I go on to argue (contra recent proposals) that it is not good enough for members in this situation to reasonably believe that others will not do their part. Rather, for a member of an obligated collective to permissibly escape doing her part in a collective obligation, she must both reasonably doubt that others will do their part and stand ready to act in case others do as well. -/- This necessary condition for collective obligation points the way to plausible sufficient conditions – conditions that, I argue, allow unstructured collectives to bear obligations. For (a) if a collective’s members are individually obligated to be ready to do their part, in a given collective action, and (b) if that individual readiness makes it sufficiently likely that the collective will in fact act, then it is hard to see what could block an attribution of collective obligation. In particular, in that case there ought to be no additional objection that there is no existing, organized “agent” on which the obligation might fall. For agents are, simply, things that can act. To be able to act is just to be able to succeed by trying. Unstructured collectives try to do something, I argue, when each member acts on their willingness to do their part in that thing if others do theirs; sometimes they succeed, producing a collective action. Some unstructured collectives, therefore, can succeed by trying; therefore, they can act; therefore they are agents. (shrink)

The Problem of Obligation is the problem of how to explain the features of moral obligations that distinguish them from other normative phenomena. Two recent accounts, the Second-Personal Account and the Relational Account, propose superficially similar solutions to this problem. Both regard obligations as based on the claims or legitimate demands that persons as such have on one another. However, unlike the Second-Personal Account, the Relational Account does not regard these claims as based in persons’ authority to address them. (...) Advocates of the Relational Account accuse the Second-Personal Account of falling prey to the Problem of Antecedence. According to this objection, the Second-Personal Account is committed to the implausible claim that we have an obligation to φ only if, and because, others demand that we φ. Since the Relational Account’s proposed solution to the Problem of Obligation does not face the Problem of Antecedence, its advocates argue that it is dialectically superior to the Second-Personal Account. In this paper, I defend the Second-Personal Account by arguing that, first, the Relational Account does not actually solve the Problem of Obligation and, second, the Second-Personal Account does not fall prey to the Problem of Antecedence. (shrink)

Some philosophers hold that objective consequentialism is false because it is incompatible with the principle that “ought” implies “can”. Roughly speaking, objective consequentialism is the doctrine that you always ought to do what will in fact have the best consequences. According to the principle that “ought” implies “can”, you have a moral obligation to do something only if you can do that thing. Frances Howard-Snyder has used an innovative thought experiment to argue that sometimes you cannot do (...) what will in fact have the best consequences because you do not know what will in fact have the best consequences. Erik Carlson has raised two objections against Howard-Snyder’s argument. This paper examines Howard-Snyder’s argument as well as Carlson’s objections, arguing that Carlson’s objections do not go through but Howard-Snyder’s argument fails nonetheless. Moreover, this paper attempts to show that objective consequentialism and other objectivist moral theories are compatible with the principle that “ought” implies “can”. Finally, this paper analyses a special kind of inability: ignorance-induced inability. (shrink)

In Globalization and Global Justice , Nicole Hassoun offers advice on practical ways to fulfill obligations to the poor. Our recommendations must be well informed by empirical evidence, and so important research on poverty that suggests we sometimes focus inadvertently on the wrong objects in our attempted assistance efforts, deserves consideration here. We also need guidelines on how to choose from among plausible policy options on how to help the poor. I offer one and explain why some of Hassoun s (...) policy recommendations do not meet these criteria. (shrink)

Access to abortion services in the United States continues to decline. It does so not because of significant changes in legislation or court rulings but because fewer and fewer physicians wish to perform abortions and because most states now have "conscientious objection" legislation that makes it easy for physicians to refuse to do so. We argue in this paper that physicians have an obligation to perform all socially sanctioned medical services, including abortions, and thus that the burden of justification (...) lies upon those who wish to be excused from that obligation. That is, such persons should have to show how requiring them to perform abortions would represent a serious threat to their fundamental moral or religious beliefs. We use current California law as an example of legislation that does not take physicians' obligations into account and thus allows them too easily to declare conscientious objection. (shrink)

Michael J. Zimmerman explores whether and how our ignorance about ourselves and our circumstances affects what our moral obligations and moral rights are. He rejects objective and subjective views of the nature of moral obligation, and presents a new case for a 'prospective' view.

Theories of intergenerational justice are a very common and popular way to conceptualise the obligations currently living people may have to future generations. After briefly pointing out that these theories presuppose certain views about the existence, number and identity of future people, I argue that the presuppositions must themselves be ethically investigated, and that theories of intergenerational justice lack the theoretical resources to be able to do this. On that basis, I claim it is necessary to do the ‘ethics of (...) metaphysics’ in order to fully comprehend what, if anything, we may owe future generations. I defend these claims against some important objections. (shrink)

Is there a prima facie obligation to produce additional individuals whose lives would be worth living? In his paper ‘Is it Good to Make Happy People?’, Stuart Rachels argues not only that there is, but, also, that precisely as much weight should be assigned to the quality of life that would be enjoyed by such potential persons, if they were to be actualized, as to the quality of life enjoyed by actually existing persons. In response, I shall argue, first, (...) that Rachels’ view is exposed to very serious objections, and secondly, that his arguments in support of his position involve a crucial assumption, which cannot be sustained, concerning the relation between, on the one hand, propositions about good‐making and bad‐making properties, and, on the other, propositions about right‐making and wrong‐making ones. I shall then argue that there is a very plausible position concerning the conditions under which an action can be morally wrong which entails the following asymmetry: there is a prima facie obligation not to bring into existence individuals whose lives are not worth living, but there is no corresponding obligation to create additional individuals whose lives would be worth living. (shrink)

Any complete theory of “what we owe to each other” must be able to adequately accommodate directed or bipolar obligations, that is, those obligations that are owed to a particular individual and in virtue of which another individual stands to be wronged. Bipolar obligations receive their moral importance from their intimate connection to a particular form of recognition respect that we owe to each other: respect of another as a source of valid claims to whom in particular we owe certain (...) treatment and, at the very least, an apology if we fail to accord that treatment. While some of the most prominent accounts of interpersonal morality fail to adequately accommodate bipolar obligations, I here investigate a recent proposal that explicitly seeks to improve on these accounts—Stephen Darwall’s second-personal theory of morality. Ultimately, I object to Darwall’s theory on the grounds that his second-personal theory normatively ties bipolar obligations too closely to non-directed moral obligations or those that we are under, period. The problem for Darwall’s account is that any obligations that at first appear to be bipolar and owed to someone in particular turn out to be instances of non-directed moral obligations period that have their normative source in the representative authority of the moral community. Adequately accommodating bipolar obligations requires taking seriously a novel second-personal approach, according to which we locate the normative sources of our interpersonal obligations in the claims and demands particular persons and deliberate from what I call the pairwise or bipolar standpoint. (shrink)

Many philosophers accept that ought implies can (OIC), but it is not obvious that we have a good argument for that principle. I consider one sort of argument for it, which seems to be a development of an Aristotelian idea about practical deliberation and which is endorsed by, amongst others, R. M. Hare and James Griffin. After briefly rehearsing some well-known objections to that sort of argument (which is based on the supposed pointlessness of impossible obligations), I present a further (...) objection, based on a maximally charitable reading of the argument, and conclude that nobody ought to think that it gives them a reason to accept OIC. (shrink)

In this article I investigate the nature and extent of filial obligations. The question what (adult) children owe their parents is not only philosophically interesting, but also of increasing relevance in ageing societies. Its answer matters to elderly people and their adult children, and is relevant to social policy issues in various ways. I present the strongest arguments for and against three models of filial obligations: the ‘past parental sacrifices’ model, the ‘special relationship’ model, and the conventionalist model. There is (...) something to be said—and after consideration of objections something remains to be said—for all three models. In other words: filial obligations have more than one source, and an adequate model of filial obligations should reflect this. On its own, each of the above models is one-sided. They also fail to show the connections between the question of filial obligations and various other issues, such as issues of gender justice, the extent of institutionalization of eldercare, and social conventions regarding filial responsibility. Therefore, I integrate what I think we should keep from the aforementioned models into a contextual, pluralist model, which places filial obligations in a broader social and cultural context and relates them to issues of social justice. The model also highlights the difference between general and specific filial obligations, and the factors that determine their nature and extent, thus enabling a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of filial obligations. (shrink)

A common presupposition in metaethical theory is that moral assessment comes in two flavors, one of which is sensitive to our epistemic circumstances, the second of which is not so sensitive. Though this thought is popular, a number of questions arise. In this paper, I limit my discussion to what I dub the "explanatory question": how one might understand the construction of subjective moral assessment given an explanatorily prior objective assessment. I argue that a proper answer to this question (...) is important not simply for its own sake, but because it also sheds new light on important challenges to the existence of both objective and subjective moral obligations. (shrink)

Samuel Scheffler has identified two important objections to associative obligations, the voluntarist objection and the distributivist objection. The voluntarist is concerned about protecting the autonomy of the agent who is supposed to have associative obligations. However, the appropriate account of the source of associative obligations reveals that they pose no threat to autonomy, if we understand autonomy in a weak rather than a strong sense. The distributivist is worried about the claims of outsiders being ignored as the result of insiders (...) having associative obligations to one another. This objection loses much of its force when we understand the genuine implications of associative obligations. (shrink)

Pharmacists who refuse to provide certain services or treatment for reasons of conscience have been criticized for failing to fulfil their professional obligations. Currently, individual pharmacists in Great Britain can withhold services or treatment for moral or religious reasons, provided they refer the patient to an alternative source. The most high-profile cases have concerned the refusal to supply emergency hormonal contraception, which will serve as an example in this article.I propose that the pharmacy profession's policy on conscientious objections should be (...) altered slightly. Building on the work of Brock and Wicclair, I argue that conscientious refusals should be acceptable provided that the patient is informed of the service, the patient is redirected to an alternative source, the refusal does not cause an unreasonable burden to the patient, and the reasons for the refusal are based on the core values of the profession. Finally, I argue that a principled categorical refusal by an individual pharmacist is not morally permissible. I claim that, contrary to current practice, a pharmacist cannot legitimately claim universal exemption from providing a standard service, even if that service is available elsewhere. (shrink)

The focal objection of Nietzsche’s critique of morality is that morality is disvaluable because antagonistic to the highest forms of human excellence. Recent advances in Nietzsche commentary have done much to unpack this objection – an objection which, at first blush, shares certain affinities with worries developed by a number of more recent morality critics. Some, though, have sought to disassociate Nietzsche from these more recent critics, claiming that his critique is directed mainly against moralized culture and that it cannot (...) be successfully reapplied to moral theory. The aim of this paper is to show that there is a viable Nietzschean objection to obligation-centred moral theory – and, in particular, to those undermanding versions that resist the more recent morality critics’ worries. The paper develops two sets of arguments, according to which (respectively) complying with an undemanding moral theory is both inimical to and incompatible with realizing Nietzschean excellence. Thus, even undemanding moral theories generate the effects to which Nietzsche objects. (shrink)

It is common for moral philosophers to reject a moral theory on the basis that its verdicts are unreasonably demanding—it requires too much of us to be a correct account of our moral obligations. Even though such objections frequently strike us as convincing, they give rise to two challenges: Are demandingness objections really independent of other objections to moral theories? Do standard demandingness objections not presuppose that costs borne by the comfortably off are more important than costs borne by the (...) poor? These challenges have led some writers to question whether there really can be convincing demandingness objections, notwithstanding their strong initial appeal. David Sobel has argued that standard demandingness objections are ‘impotent’, Liam Murphy that they can be ‘dissolved’. In this paper, I aim to vindicate the possibility of demandingness objections by addressing these two challenges. (shrink)

Skeptical theism claims that the probability of a perfect God’s existence isn’t at all reduced by our failure to see how such a God could allow the horrific suffering that occurs in our world. Given our finite grasp of the realm of value, skeptical theists argue, it shouldn’t surprise us that we fail to see the reasons that justify God in allowing such suffering, and thus our failure to see those reasons is no evidence against God’s existence or perfection. Critics (...) object that skeptical theism implies a degree of moral skepticism that even skeptical theists will find objectionable and that it undermines moral obligations that even skeptical theists will want to preserve. I discuss a version of the first objection and defend a version of the second. (shrink)

Onora O'Neill recently argued that environmental ethics could and should be reformulated in terms of a search for the obligations held by moral agents towards each other, with respect to the non-human world. The more popular alternative, which seeks to establish the intrinsic value of the non-human, is plagued with various theoretical difficulties attaching to the concept of value. It is here argued that O'Neill's attempt to determine fundamental obligations of moral agents on the basis of a non-universalisability criterion does (...) not succeed. It is further claimed that such an approach, in spite of the advantages which O'Neill sees it as having, is itself open to serious objection from the viewpoint of environmental ethics, especially as human beings are able in principle to release each other from mutual obligations. It is concluded that, in spite of the difficulties involved, postulations of (intrinsic) value to non-human nature do seem to be indispensable to environmental ethics. (shrink)

Many actions we perform affect the chances of fulfilling our moral obligations. The moral status of such actions is important and deeply neglected. In this paper, I begin rectifying this neglect by asking: under what conditions, if any, is it morally wrong to perform an action that will lower the chance of one fulfilling a moral obligation? In §1, I introduce this question and motivate concern with its answer. I argue, in §2, that certain actions an agent has good (...) reason to believe will drastically lower their chances of fulfilling a moral obligation in the future, relative to at least one alternative action available, are pro tanto morally wrong. This answer, I argue, captures our intuitions in a range of cases, avoids the problems that other views considered here face, and can be plausibly defended against some independent objections. I conclude in §3 by noting some consequences for normative and practical ethics of the moral wrongness of at least some actions that lower the chances of fulfilling our moral obligations, and by raising a series of important questions regarding these actions for future consideration. (shrink)

In this paper I attempt to show how an appeal to a particular kind of collective obligation - a collective obligation falling on an unstructured collective consisting of the world’s population as a whole – can be used to undermine recently influential objections to the idea that there is a human right to health which have been put forward by Gopal Sreenivasan and Onora O’Neill. -/- I take this result to be significant both for its own sake and (...) because it helps to answer a challenge often put to Those who argue for the existence of collective obligations: namely, to explain why the question of whether there are any such obligations might matter from a practical point of view. One way of introducing the objection is to focus on questions of agency. Here I'll argue both that there can be obligations on groups that are not themselves collective agents, and that these can play an important explanatory and clarifcatory role in accounting for obligations which fall on individuals. (shrink)

This essay presents a challenge to the parental obligation objection. This objection is usually made by abortion opponents who argue that because child support laws hold men postnatally responsible for children they helped bring into existence, women too have prenatal parental responsibilities that should prevent them from ending pregnancies through abortions. My essay draws on recent publications in bioethics that distinguish procreative from parental responsibilities. This distinction was originally developed to clarify the duties of third-party participants in assisted reproduction. (...) However, the distinction inadvertently poses a problem for the parental obligation objection, for it raises questions about whether women who do not wish to carry a child to term have parental rather than procreative responsibilities. It does not necessarily follow that the objection must be wrong. But rather, that there is an explanatory gap in it. If abortion violates procreative responsibilities, then drastic changes must be made to fertility medicine. Conversely, there does not appear to be non-question-begging criteria that would explain why pregnant women must have parental responsibilities, in addition to procreative ones, whereas third-party participants in assisted reproduction, such as fertility doctors, embryologists, gamete donors, and surrogates, have only procreative responsibilities. (shrink)

Intergenerational justice gives present citizens obligations to past as well as future generations. Present members of a political society have an obligation to respect the contributions of their predecessors. But respect for past generations also means taking their intergenerational objectives into account in political decision-making—giving them weight in determining intergenerational policies—and thus treating past generations as participants in intergenerational policymaking. Neither the inability of the dead to have experiences, nor epistemological difficulties in determining their interests, nor the entitlement of (...) present citizens to make political decisions are reasons for ignoring or discounting the intergenerational concerns of past generations. (shrink)

In a common example of the non-identity problem, a person deliberately conceives a child who she knows will have incurable blindness but a life well worth living. Although Wilma’s decision seems wrong, it is difficult to say why. This paper develops and defends a version of the “indirect strategy” for solving the NIP. This strategy rests on the idea that it is wrong to deliberately make it impossible to fulfill an obligation; consequently, it is wrong for Wilma to create (...) Pebbles because doing so makes it impossible to fulfill her obligation to protect her child from harms like blindness. A challenge for the indirect strategy is the well-known “rights waiver problem”: Since Pebbles’s very existence depends on Wilma’s having made herself unable to fulfill an obligation to Pebbles, Pebbles is likely to waive that obligation. I address this problem by recasting the indirect strategy in terms of a non-grievance evil. I argue that deliberately making it impossible to fulfill a moral obligation manifests a defective attitude toward morality—an attitude which sees moral obligations as things to be dodged whenever they are inconvenient. Next, I argue that acting on this attitude is a wrong-making feature that is independent of any wrong that might be done to Pebbles. I conclude that Wilma’s decision remains wrong even if Pebbles waives any objection to it. (shrink)

God and moral obligations -- What is a divine command theory of moral obligation? -- The relation of divine command theory to natural law and virtue ethics -- Objections to divine command theory -- Alternatives to a divine command theory -- Conclusions: The inescapability of moral obligations.

It is uncontroversial that our engagement with artworks is constrained by obligations; most commonly, these consist in obligations to other persons, such as artists, audiences, and owners of artworks. A more controversial claim is that we have genuine obligations to artworks themselves. I defend a qualified version of this claim. However, I argue that such obligations do not derive from the supposed moral rights of artworks – for no such rights exist. Rather, I argue that these obligations are instances of (...) duties of love: obligations that one incurs in virtue of loving some object, be it a person or, in this case, an artwork. (shrink)

Can we have a real obligation to the dead, just as we do to the living, or is such a notion merely sentimental or metaphorical? Starting with the example of making a promise, I try to show that we can, since the dead, as well as the living, can have interests, not least because the notion of a person is, in part, a moral construction. ‘The dead’, then, are not merely dead, but particular dead persons, members of something like (...) the sort of ‘transgenerational community’ proposed by Avner de–Shalit. More generally, I argue, we have an obligation to the dead that goes beyond the particularities of promise–making, on account of their role in having made us who we are. I then suggest, though only embryonically, that such obligations may appropriately be discharged by remembering the dead, who they were and what they did. Finally, I consider some possible objections. (shrink)

Political debate is a distinctive domain in argumentation, characterized by these features: it is about proposals for action, not about propositions that may have a truth value; there may be good arguments on both sides; neither the proposal nor its rejection follows by necessity or inference; the pros and the cons generally cannot, being multidimensional and hence incommen- surable, be aggregated in an objective way; each audience member must subjectively compare and balance arguments on the two sides; eventual consensus (...) between the debaters is not a reasonable requirement. From all this follows a view of the rhetor’s special obligation in democratic, deliberative rhetoric on which it becomes crucial, in the interest of the audience, that political debaters acknowledge good arguments on the opposite side and explain why, on balance, they deem the arguments favoring their own side to be stronger. (shrink)

Objective To explore attitudes towards conscientious objections among medical students in the UK. Methods Medical students at St George's University of London, Cardiff University, King's College London and Leeds University were emailed a link to an anonymous online questionnaire, hosted by an online survey company. The questionnaire contained nine questions. A total of 733 medical students responded. Results Nearly half of the students in this survey stated that they believed in the right of doctors to conscientiously object to any (...) procedure. Demand for the right to conscientiously object is greater in Muslim medical students when compared with other groups of religious medical students. Discussion Abortion continues to be a contentious issue among medical students and this may contribute to the looming crisis in abortion services over the coming years. This project sheds some light on how future doctors view some of their ethical rights and obligations. Using empirical evidence, it reveals that conscientious objection is an issue in the UK medical student body today. These data could help anticipate problems that may arise when these medical students qualify and practise medicine in the community. Conclusion Clearer guidance is needed for medical students about the issue of conscientious objection at medical school. (shrink)

In this paper, I outline and defend a commonly-held moral view which has received surprisingly little sustained philosophical attention. This view, which I call the ‘authority of conscience,’ states that believing ourselves to have moral obligations to act in a certain way does in fact create an obligation to act in that way. Although I do not provide a positive case for the principle of authoritative conscience, beyond its popularity and intuitive force, I defend it against several prima facie (...) objections. I then go on to demonstrate that the principle does not entail any anti-realist metaethical commitments, and is therefore compatible in particular, and contrary to appearances, with plausible formulations of moral realism. (shrink)

This article argues that practitioners have a professional ethical obligation to dispense emergency contraception, even given conscientious objection to this treatment. This recent controversy affects all medical professionals, including physicians as well as pharmacists. This article begins by analyzing the option of referring the patient to another willing provider. Objecting professionals may conscientiously refuse because they consider emergency contraception to be equivalent to abortion or because they believe contraception itself is immoral. This article critically evaluates these reasons and concludes (...) that they do not successfully support conscientious objection in this context. Contrary to the views of other thinkers, it is not possible to easily strike a respectful balance between the interests of objecting providers and patients in this case. As medical professionals, providers have an ethical duty to inform women of this option and provide emergency contraception when this treatment is requested. (shrink)

Conscience is typically invoked in healthcare to defend a right to conscientious objection, that is, the refusal by healthcare professionals to perform certain activities in the name of personal moral or religious views. On this approach, freedom of conscience should be respected when the individual is operating in a professional capacity. Others would argue, however, that a conscientious professional is one who can set aside one’s own moral or religious views when they conflict with professional obligations. The debate on conscientious (...) objection has by and large crystallised around these two positions, with compromise positions aiming at striking a balance between the two, for instance, by arguing for referral requirements by objecting healthcare professionals.In this article, I suggest that the debate on conscientious objection in healthcare could benefit from being reframed as a problem around demandingness rather than one about freedom of conscience and moral integrity. Being a professional, and a healthcare professional specifically, typically requires taking on additional burdens compared with non-professionals. For instance, healthcare professionals are expected to take on themselves higher risks than the rest of the population. However, it is also widely agreed that there are limits to the additional risks and burdens that healthcare professionals should be expected to take on themselves. Thus, a question worth exploring is whether, among the extra burdens that healthcare professionals should be expected to take on themselves as a matter of professional obligation, there is the burden of acting against one’s own conscience. (shrink)