The Journal of EthicsPub Date : 2021-01-01Epub Date: 2021-05-13DOI: 10.1007/s10892-020-09358-8
Rekha Nath
{"title":"Individual Responsibility, Large-Scale Harms, and Radical Uncertainty.","authors":"Rekha Nath","doi":"10.1007/s10892-020-09358-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-020-09358-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Some consequentialists argue that ordinary individuals are obligated to act in specific, concrete ways to address large-scale harms. For example, they argue that we should each refrain from meat-eating and avoid buying sweatshop-made clothing. The case they advance for such prescriptions can seem intuitive and compelling: by acting in those ways, a person might help prevent serious harms from being produced at little or no personal cost, and so one should act in those ways. But I argue that such reasoning often relies on an overly simplistic assessment of the costs and benefits of those prescriptions, one that misconstrues or neglects important issues. Indeed, a closer look at those costs and benefits reveals just how little we often know about a number of real-world matters that bear on the expected consequences of the prescribed individual actions. Our predicament is one of <i>radical uncertainty</i>: we currently lack a sound basis for concluding that the relevant actions are more likely to do good than to backfire. I distinguish this empirically grounded objection from others, which are not convincing-including one based on the mere conceivability of the actions in question backfiring and another based on the supposition that such actions cannot make a difference in addressing the massive problems at issue. The upshot is that, at least for now, consequentialist arguments for many specific individual actions aimed at addressing large-scale harms are inconclusive.</p>","PeriodicalId":514581,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Ethics","volume":"25 3","pages":"267-291"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s10892-020-09358-8","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"38991216","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Journal of EthicsPub Date : 2020-01-01Epub Date: 2020-09-12DOI: 10.1007/s10892-020-09341-3
Steve Clarke
{"title":"Huckleberry Finn's Conscience: Reckoning with the Evasion.","authors":"Steve Clarke","doi":"10.1007/s10892-020-09341-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-020-09341-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Huck Finn's struggles with his conscience, as depicted in Mark Twain's famous novel <i>The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn</i> (AHF) (1884), have been much discussed by philosophers; and various philosophical lessons have been extracted from Twain's depiction of those struggles. Two of these philosophers stand out, in terms of influence: Jonathan Bennett and Nomy Arpaly. Here I argue that the lessons that Bennett and Arpaly draw are not supported by a careful reading of AHF. This becomes particularly apparent when we consider the final part of the book, commonly referred to, by literary scholars, as 'the evasion'. During the evasion Huck behaves in ways that are extremely difficult to reconcile with the interpretations of AHF offered by Bennett and Arpaly. I extract a different philosophical lesson from AHF than either Bennett or Arpaly, which makes sense of the presence of the evasion in AHF. This lesson concerns the importance of conscious moral deliberation for moral guidance and for overcoming wrongful moral assumptions. I rely on an interpretation of AHF that is influential in literary scholarship. On it the evasion is understood as an allegory about US race relations during the 20-year period from the end of the US Civil War to the publication of AHF.</p>","PeriodicalId":514581,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Ethics","volume":"24 4","pages":"485-508"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s10892-020-09341-3","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"38598804","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Criminal Rehabilitation Through Medical Intervention: Moral Liability and the Right to Bodily Integrity.","authors":"Thomas Douglas","doi":"10.1007/s10892-014-9161-6","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10892-014-9161-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Criminal offenders are sometimes required, by the institutions of criminal justice, to undergo medical interventions intended to promote rehabilitation. Ethical debate regarding this practice has largely proceeded on the assumption that medical interventions may only permissibly be administered to criminal offenders with their consent. In this article I challenge this assumption by suggesting that committing a crime might render one morally liable to certain forms of medical intervention. I then consider whether it is possible to respond persuasively to this challenge by invoking the right to bodily integrity. I argue that it is not.</p>","PeriodicalId":514581,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Ethics","volume":"18 2","pages":"101-122"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4083266/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"32492465","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Is Neurolaw Conceptually Confused?","authors":"Neil Levy","doi":"10.1007/s10892-014-9168-z","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10892-014-9168-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In <i>Minds, Brains, and Law,</i> Michael Pardo and Dennis Patterson argue that current attempts to use neuroscience to inform the theory and practice of law founder because they are built on confused conceptual foundations. Proponents of neurolaw attribute to the brain or to its parts psychological properties that belong only to people; this mistake vitiates many of the claims they make. Once neurolaw is placed on a sounder conceptual footing, Pardo and Patterson claim, we will see that its more dramatic claims are false or meaningless, though it might be able to provide inductive evidence for particular less dramatic claims (that a defendant may be lying, or lacks control over their behavior, for instance). In response, I argue that the central conceptual confusions identified by Pardo and Patterson are not confusions at all. Though some of the claims made by its proponents are hasty and sometimes they are confused, there are no conceptual barriers to attributing psychological properties to brain states. Neuroscience can play a role in producing evidence that is more reliable than subjective report or behavior; it therefore holds out the possibility of dramatically altering our self-conception as agents and thereby the law.</p>","PeriodicalId":514581,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Ethics","volume":"18 2","pages":"171-185"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4083267/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"32492466","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Journal of EthicsPub Date : 2013-01-01Epub Date: 2013-10-24DOI: 10.1007/s10892-013-9151-0
Jonathan Pugh, Guy Kahane, Julian Savulescu
{"title":"Cohen's Conservatism and Human Enhancement.","authors":"Jonathan Pugh, Guy Kahane, Julian Savulescu","doi":"10.1007/s10892-013-9151-0","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10892-013-9151-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In an intriguing essay, G. A. Cohen has defended a conservative bias in favour of existing value. In this paper, we consider whether Cohen's conservatism raises a new challenge to the use of human enhancement technologies. We develop some of Cohen's suggestive remarks into a new line of argument against human enhancement that, we believe, is in several ways superior to existing objections. However, we shall argue that on closer inspection, Cohen's conservatism fails to offer grounds for a strong sweeping objection to enhancement, and may even offer <i>positive</i> support for forms of enhancement that preserve valuable features of human beings. Nevertheless, we concede that Cohen's arguments may suggest some plausible and important constraints on the <i>modality</i> of legitimate and desirable enhancements.</p>","PeriodicalId":514581,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Ethics","volume":"17 ","pages":"331-354"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3967878/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"32219904","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Selling yourself: Titmuss's argument against a market in blood.","authors":"David Archard","doi":"10.1023/a:1015852012719","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1015852012719","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article defends Richard Titmuss's argument, and Peter Singer's sympathetic support for it, against orthodox philosophical criticism. The article specifies the sense in which a market in blood is \"dehumanising\" as having to do with a loss of \"imagined community\" or social \"integration,\" and not with a loss of valued or \"deeper\" liberty. It separates two \"domino arguments\"--the \"contamination of meaning\" argument and the \"erosion of motivation\" argument--which support, in different but interrelated ways, the claim that a market in blood is \"imperialistic.\" Concentrating on the first domino argument the article considers the view that monetary and non-monetary meanings of the same good can co-exist given the robustness of certain kinds of relationship and joint undertakings within which gifts can figure. It argues that societal relationships are vulnerable or permeable to the effects of the market in a way that those constitutive of the personal sphere are not. General, more broadly political questions remain unanswered but the core of Titmuss's original and challenging argument remains and can be presented in a defensible form.</p>","PeriodicalId":514581,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Ethics","volume":"6 1","pages":"87-103"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2002-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1023/a:1015852012719","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"24134011","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Replies to Endicott, Kamm and Altman.","authors":"R Dworkin","doi":"10.1023/a:1012707324895","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1012707324895","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":514581,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Ethics","volume":"5 3","pages":"263-7"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2001-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1023/a:1012707324895","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"24134006","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ronald Dworkin on abortion and assisted suicide.","authors":"F M Kamm","doi":"10.1023/a:1012755208057","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1012755208057","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In the first part of this article, I raise questions about Dworkin's theory of the intrinsic value of life and about the adequacy of his proposal to understand abortion in terms of different ways of valuing life. In the second part of the article, I consider his argument in \"The Philosophers' Brief on Assisted Suicide\", which claims that the distinction between killing and letting die is morally irrelevant, the distinction between intending and foreseeing death can be morally relevant but is not always so. I argue that the killing/letting die distinction can be relevant in the context of assisted suicide, but also show when it is not. Then I consider why the intention/foresight distinction can be morally irrelevant and conclude by presenting an alternative argument for physician-assisted suicide.</p>","PeriodicalId":514581,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Ethics","volume":"5 3","pages":"221-40"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2001-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1023/a:1012755208057","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"24134002","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Keeping up with the cloneses--issues in human cloning.","authors":"B E Rollin","doi":"10.1023/a:1009775715165","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1009775715165","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The advent of cloning animals has created a maelstrom of social concern about the \"ethical issues\" associated with the possibility of cloning humans. When the \"ethical concerns\" are clearly examined, however, many of them turn out to be less matters of rational ethics than knee-jerk emotion, religious bias, or fear of that which is not understood. Three categories of real and spurious ethical concerns are presented and discussed: 1) that cloning is intrinsically wrong, 2) that cloning must lead to bad consequences, and 3) that cloning harms the organism generated. The need for a rational ethical framework for discussing biotechnological advances is presented and defended.</p>","PeriodicalId":514581,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Ethics","volume":"3 1","pages":"51-71"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"1999-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1023/a:1009775715165","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"25695107","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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