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1
Moehler, Michael. Pure Instrumental Morality. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198785927.003.0004.
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This chapter discusses the domain of pure instrumental morality that represents the second level of the two-level contractarian theory. To this end, the chapter clarifies the features of the homo prudens model that underlies the derivation of the weak principle of universalization. Further, the chapter develops, in the form of the empathetic contractor theory, the hypothetical decision situation in which rational agents are placed to derive the weak principle of universalization. Finally, the chapter clarifies the features of the weak principle of universalization that, although its derivation does not rely on substantial moral premises as traditionally conceived, weakly expresses the moral ideals of autonomy, equality, impartiality, and reciprocity.
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Crisp, Roger. Richard Price on Virtue. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198817277.003.0015.
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This essay examines the position on virtue taken by the Welsh dissenting minister and philosopher Richard Price in his A Review of the Principal Questions in Morals, first published in 1758. Price speaks broadly of the ‘obligations of virtue’, seeing virtue as in effect equivalent to morality, obligation, or what is morally right; so an examination of his views on virtue will engage with his first-order or normative ethics as a whole. The essay reconstructs Price’s views on the nature and origin of virtue, virtue and the happiness of the agent, moral motivation, the role of the affections, consequentialism, and the unity of virtue. This reconstruction is compared with Terry Irwin’s interpretation and assessment of Price in The Development of Ethics.
3
Moehler, Michael. Minimal Morality. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198785927.001.0001.
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This book develops a novel multilevel social contract theory that, in contrast to existing theories in the liberal tradition, does not merely assume a restricted form of reasonable moral pluralism, but is tailored to the conditions of deeply morally pluralistic societies that may be populated by liberal moral agents, nonliberal moral agents, and, according to the traditional understanding of morality, nonmoral agents alike. To develop this theory, the book draws on the history of the social contract tradition, especially the work of Hobbes, Hume, Kant, Rawls, and Gauthier, as well as on the work of some of the critics of this tradition, such as Sen and Gaus. The two-level contractarian theory holds that morality in its best contractarian version for the conditions of deeply morally pluralistic societies entails Humean, Hobbesian, and Kantian moral features. The theory defines the minimal behavioral restrictions that are necessary to ensure, compared to violent conflict resolution, mutually beneficial peaceful long-term cooperation in deeply morally pluralistic societies. The theory minimizes the problem of compliance by maximally respecting the interests of all members of society. Despite its ideal nature, the theory is, in principle, applicable to the real world and, for the conditions described, most promising for securing mutually beneficial peaceful long-term cooperation in a world in which a fully just society, due to moral diversity, is unattainable. If Rawls’ intention was to carry the traditional social contract argument to a higher level of abstraction, then the two-level contractarian theory brings it back down to earth.
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Coady, C. A. J. The Hazards of Rescue. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198713258.003.0025.
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After briefly exploring the background to and nature of human rights, and endorsing their importance and significant universality, this chapter examines the problems that can afflict the humanitarian impulse to rescue people from human rights violations worldwide. These problems concern principally the implementation of programmes of rescue in complex circumstances involving nuanced political, cultural, and moral judgements. A besetting difficulty is that created by various forms of what the author calls “moralism” which is a distortion of morality, though political realists in genuine recognition of the difficulty often mistake moralism for morality itself. The chapter first discusses the problems of implementation for non-violent humanitarian aid and rescue operations, noting the criticisms and responses made by some aid practitioners themselves, and then examines, largely through the lens of moralism, the relevance of these difficulties to the more dramatic rescue efforts of violent military humanitarian intervention.
5
Moehler, Michael. Two-Level Contractarian Moral Theory. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198785927.003.0005.
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This chapter discusses the domain of traditional morality that represents the first level of the two-level contractarian theory. To this end, the chapter presents, in the form of Hume’s moral conventionalism and Gaus’ moral theory, two accounts of morality that, from the perspective of the two-level contractarian theory, help clarify the origin and general features of traditional first-level morality as understood in this book. Further, the chapter clarifies the reasons that the two-level contractarian theory is a two-level theory and not a two-stage theory, and that traditional first-level morality takes priority in regulating morally relevant types of social interaction. Finally, the chapter addresses some practical concerns that may arise in the application of the two-level contractarian theory, especially the application of the weak principle of universalization.
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Clayton, Matthew, and Andres Moles. Neurointerventions, Morality, and Children. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198758617.003.0014.
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Is the political community morally permitted to use neurointerventions to improve the moral conduct of children? Putting aside difficult questions concerning the institutionalization of moral enhancement, the authors address this question, first, by arguing that is not, in itself, always morally impermissible for the community to impose neurointerventions on adults. Although certain ideals, such as the ideal of individual autonomy, limit the permissible employment of neurointerventions, they do not generate a moral constraint that always forbids their use. Thereafter, they argue that because young children lack certain moral capacities that adults possess, the moral limits that pertain to the use of neurointerventions to improve their moral behaviour are, in principle, less restrictive than they are for adults.
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Quong, Jonathan. The Morality of Defensive Force. Oxford University Press, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198851103.001.0001.
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This book provides an account of the central moral principles that regulate the permissible use of defensive force. The book argues that we cannot understand the morality of defensive force until we ask and answer deeper questions about how the use of defensive force fits with a more general account of justice and moral rights. In developing this view the book offers original accounts of liability, proportionality, and necessity. It also argues, contra the dominant view in the literature, that self-defence can sometimes be justified on the basis of an agent-relative prerogative to give greater weight to one’s own life and interests. The book also provides a novel conception of individual rights against harm. Unlike some, who believe that our rights against harm are fact-relative, Quong argues that our rights against being harmed by others must, in certain respects, be sensitive to the evidence that others can reasonably be expected to possess. The final chapter provides an extended defence of the means principle, a principle that prohibits harmfully using other persons’ bodies or other rightful property unless those persons are duty bound to permit this use or have otherwise waived their claims against such use.
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MacAskill, William, Andreas Mogensen, and Toby Ord. Giving Isn’t Demanding. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190648879.003.0007.
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Peter Singer argues that middle-class members of affluent countries have an obligation to give away almost all their income to fight poverty in the developing world. Others, however, argue that this view is too demanding: it is asking more of us than morality truly requires. This chapter proposes a weaker principle, the very weak principle of sacrifice: Most middle-class members of affluent countries ought, morally, to use at least 10 percent of their income to effectively improve the lives of others. This principle is not very demanding at all, and therefore the “demandingness” objection has not even pro tanto force against it.
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Forst, Rainer. Realisms in International Political Theory. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198798873.003.0010.
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This chapter explores the concept of realism in political science. It examines challenges and critiques against realism in this field, particularly when compared to its opposite—moralism. The chapter goes on to illustrate the unrealistic nature of certain realisms applied to political science, by citing three examples: the “realistic utopian” theory, immanence to practice, and a realism driven by a Nietzschean critique of morality and insisting on the categorical difference between morality and politics. The realisms of these examples are then rejected, paving the way for a discussion into the principle of justification. Finally, the chapter elaborates on two components for critical realism with regard to justice and democracy in transnational contexts: normative and empirical.
10
Robertson, Simon. Nietzsche and Contemporary Ethics. Oxford University Press, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198722212.001.0001.
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Nietzsche is one of the most subversive ethical thinkers of the Western canon. This book offers a critical assessment of his ethical thought and its significance for contemporary moral philosophy. It develops a charitable but critical reading of his thought, pushing some claims and arguments as far as seems fruitful while rejecting others. But it also uses Nietzsche in dialogue with, so to contribute to, a range of long-standing issues within normative ethics, metaethics, value theory, practical reason, and moral psychology. The book is divided into three principal parts. Part I examines Nietzsche’s critique of morality, arguing that it raises well-motivated challenges to morality’s normative authority and value: his error theory about morality’s categoricity is in a better position than many contemporary versions; and his critique of moral values has bite even against undemanding moral theories, with significant implications not just for rarefied excellent types but also us. Part II turns to moral psychology, attributing to Nietzsche and defending a sentimentalist explanation of action and motivation. Part III considers his non-moral perfectionism, developing models of value and practical normativity that avoid difficulties facing many contemporary accounts and that may therefore be of wider interest. The discussion concludes by considering Nietzsche’s broader significance: as well as calling into question many of moral philosophy’s deepest assumptions, he challenges our usual views of what ethics itself is—and what it, and we, should be doing.
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Finkelstein, Claire. The Equality of Combatants in Asymmetric War. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198796176.003.0011.
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This chapter considers the relationship between the principle of distinction and the idea that combatants are “morally equal” on the battlefield. This relationship is of particular interest, as well as complexity, in so-called asymmetric warfare, namely warfare between traditional state actors and non-state actors such as ISIS or al-Qaeda. It argues that an essential concept for understanding the moral equality principle is that of role responsibility. The notion of role responsibility, where it applies, has the effect of isolating the rights and duties that pertain to the actor from other segments of morality and enables morality to be discontinuous across its various domains. The result is that two principles of right may conflict with one another across the various domains to which they apply. This explains how a combatant can be on the wrong side of a conflict and yet have the right to kill an opposing combatant in war. The idea is challenging to extend to asymmetric war.
12
McDermid, Douglas. Kames and the Argument from Perceptual Reliability. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198789826.003.0003.
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Critic and cousin to David Hume, Henry Home (1696–1782)—or Lord Kames, as he was known after his appointment to the Court of Session in 1752—had remarkably varied intellectual interests. His principal philosophical work is Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion (1751, revised in 1758 and again in 1779), which contains constructive rejoinders to many of the sceptical arguments presented by Hume and Berkeley. The purpose of this chapter is to analyse Kames’s little-known defence of perceptual realism as it was set forth in the 1751 version of his Essays. As will become apparent in Chapter 3, Kames’s views about the nature of perception anticipated and inspired Thomas Reid’s plea for the view that we have immediate knowledge of a mind-independent world. This makes Kames the de facto founder of the Scottish common sense realist tradition.
13
Cullity, Garrett. Concern, Respect, and Cooperation. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198807841.001.0001.
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Three things often recognized as central to morality are concern for others’ welfare, respect for their self-expression, and cooperation in worthwhile collective activity. When philosophers have proposed theories of the substance of morality, they have typically looked to one of these three sources to provide a single, fundamental principle of morality—or they have tried to formulate a master-principle for morality that combines these three ideas in some way. This book views them instead as three independently important foundations of morality. It sets out a plural-foundation moral theory with affinities to that of W. D. Ross. There are major differences: the account of the foundations of morality differs from Ross’s, and there is a more elaborate explanation of how the rest of morality derives from them. However, the overall aim is similar. This is to illuminate the structure of morality by showing how its complex content is generated from a relatively simple set of underlying elements—the complexity results from the various ways in which one part of morality can derive from another, and the various ways in which the derived parts of morality can interact. Plural-foundation moral theories are sometimes criticized for having nothing helpful to say about cases in which their fundamental norms conflict. Responding to this, the book concludes with three detailed applications of the theory: to the questions surrounding paternalism, the use of others as means, and our moral responsibilities as consumers.
14
Westphal, Kenneth R. Hegel’s Natural Law Constructivism. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198778165.003.0014.
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Legend has it that, in principle, Hegel’s Philosophical Outlines of Justice cannot afford any progress in morals, nor any progressive politics, either because his moral philosophy is derived a priori from his first principles, or because his putative theory of ‘justice’ must simple endorse whatever lurch the Weltgeist next takes. Hegel’s methodology and his Science of Logic are important to understanding his moral philosophy. This chapter details four related methodological precautions that must be observed. It then considers some substantive fundamentals of Hegel’s moral philosophy, central to his version of ‘Natural Law Constructivism’. Thus prepared, the chapter details several specific regards in which Hegel’s normative social morality is progressive both principally and practically, and concludes by reflecting on Hegel’s career of public activism on behalf of liberal republican reform.
15
Moehler, Michael. Rational Choice Contractualism. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198785927.003.0003.
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This chapter discusses contractualist theories of justice that, although they rely explicitly on moral assumptions in the traditional understanding of morality, employ rational choice theory for the justification of principles of justice. In particular, the chapter focuses on the dispute between Rawls and Harsanyi about the correct choice of principles of justice in the original position. The chapter shows that there is no winner in the Rawls–Harsanyi dispute and, ultimately, formal methods alone cannot justify moral principles. This finding is significant for the development of the rational decision situation that serves for the derivation of the weak principle of universalization for the domain of pure instrumental morality.
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Bullock, Emma. Moral Paternalism and Neurointerventions. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198758617.003.0009.
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A natural approach to justifying the coercive administration of morally enhancing neurointerventions is to appeal to a principle of moral paternalism. This chapter outlines the factors that need to be taken into account in order for a principle of moral paternalism to morally justify coercively administering neurointerventions. First, the author argues that the moral paternalist must take special care to ensure that the interventions will improve moral character. Second, she outlines the potential costs that the moral paternalist needs to address before a moral paternalistic interference is justified. The author argues that whilst the moral paternalistic administration of a neurointervention may have more kinds of cost to consider than other forms of moral paternalistic interference, this does not mean that such interventions cannot be justified under the principle.
17
Estlund, David. When Protest and Speech Collide. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198791508.003.0009.
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Even when it is not violent, a disruptive public protest often raises our hackles. Even when it is not illegal, we might wonder whether it is morally justifiable. In particular, one of the ways a protest can be disruptive—interfering with the ability of others to speak or express themselves—might seem especially damning. Such speech-interfering protests are often vilified, as if they fly in the face of the principle of freedom of speech, or even of the Constitution itself. Ought a protest’s interfering with the speech of others to count morally against that protest—is it forbidden by a moral principle of free speech? While it will be morally wrong in many cases, the moral presumption against it, even in the setting of a college campus, is not as overwhelming as is often supposed.
18
Schechter, Joshua. Difficult Cases and the Epistemic Justification of Moral Belief. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198805076.003.0002.
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This chapter concerns the epistemology of difficult moral cases where the difficulty is not traceable to ignorance about non-moral matters. The chapter first argues for a principle concerning the epistemic status of moral beliefs about difficult moral cases. The basic idea behind the principle is that one’s belief about the moral status of a potential action in a difficult moral case is not justified unless one has some appreciation of what the relevant moral considerations are and how they bear on the moral status of the potential action. The chapter then argues that this principle has important ramifications for moral epistemology and moral metaphysics. It puts pressure on some views of the justification of moral belief, such as ethical intuitionism and reliabilism. It puts pressure on some antirealist views of moral metaphysics, including simple versions of relativism. It also provides some direct positive support for broadly realist views of morality.
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Bazargan, Saba. Noncombatant Immunity and War-Profiteering. Edited by Seth Lazar and Helen Frowe. Oxford University Press, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199943418.013.12.
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The principle of noncombatant immunity prohibits warring parties from intentionally targeting noncombatants. I explicate the moral version of this view and its criticisms by reductive individualists; they argue that certain civilians on the unjust side are morally liable to be lethally targeted to forestall substantial contributions to that war. I then argue that reductivists are mistaken in thinking that causally contributing to an unjust war is a necessary condition for moral liability. Certain noncontributing civilians—notably, war-profiteers—can be morally liable to be lethally targeted. Thus, the principle of noncombatant immunity is mistaken as a moral (though not necessarily as a legal) doctrine, not just because some civilians contribute substantially, but because some unjustly enriched civilians culpably fail to discharge their restitutionary duties to those whose victimization made the unjust enrichment possible. Consequently, the moral criterion for lethal liability in war is even broader than reductive individualists have argued.
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Schwartz, Daniel. Late Scholastic Just War Theory. Edited by Seth Lazar and Helen Frowe. Oxford University Press, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199943418.013.13.
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This chapter addresses some of the major just war questions engaged by late scholastic theologians such as Francisco de Vitoria, Gabriel Vázquez, Francisco Suárez, and Luis de Molina. The chapter starts by presenting their favored judicial model of war and then focuses on three ius ad bellum requirements: just cause, legitimate authority, and right intention. This section also discusses the positions of the late scholastics on the possibility of wars that are just on both sides, the moral equality of soldiers, and the moral gravity of the subject’s refusal to fight in his country’s morally doubtful wars. The following section explores ius in bello. It examines the principle that innocents in war are immune from direct targeting and exceptions to this principle, the moral rules governing the side-effect killing of innocents in war, and the morally permitted defensive means available to potential victims of such side-effect harms.
21
Larsen, Timothy. Called Unto Liberty. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198753155.003.0009.
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This chapter explores Mill’s classic text, On Liberty (1859), and what it reveals about his attitudes towards organized religion, as well as religious reactions to it and his responses to them. It shows the origin of the project during a visit to St Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Mill’s harm principle is presented as is the contents of On Liberty in general, including his conflicted view of social disapproval and his critique of Christian morality. The chapter ends with an account of Mill’s friendship with the members of the Society of Friends, Barclay Fox and Caroline Fox. Mill is surprisingly spiritual in his Cornish reflections with them.
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Veatch, Robert M., Amy Haddad, and E. J. Last. Autonomy. Edited by Robert M. Veatch, Amy Haddad, and E. J. Last. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780190277000.003.0007.
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This chapter explores the basic ethical principle of autonomy and the related principles of veracity, fidelity, and avoidance of killing. The pharmacist’s role in recognizing and respecting the individual patient’s moral interests is discussed. The chapter addresses the psychological and moral meanings of the principle of autonomy and delineates the elements of a substantially autonomous decision. Circumstances are discussed when it would be morally justifiable to override the actions of a substantially autonomous person. Cases highlight the issues that arise in determining whether a person is substantially autonomous for health care purposes, those posed by external constraints on autonomy, and those that arise in consideration of overriding patient autonomy.
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Eisenberg, Melvin A. Third-Party Beneficiaries. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199731404.003.0055.
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Chapter 55 concerns third-party beneficiaries. A third-party beneficiary is a person who is not a party to a contract but would benefit by its performance. The principle that should determine whether any given third-party beneficiary should have power to enforce a contract as follows: A third-party beneficiary should have the right to enforce a contract if but only if: (I) allowing the beneficiary to enforce the contract is a necessary or important means of effectuating the contracting parties’ objectives as manifested in the contract read in the light of surrounding circumstances; or (II) allowing the beneficiary to enforce the contract is supported by reasons of policy or morality independent of contract law and would not conflict with the contracting parties’ performance objectives.
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Lloyd, S. A. Hobbes on the Duty Not to Act on Conscience. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198803409.003.0016.
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Hobbes argued that when subjects conscientiously judge that they should disobey a civil law or sovereign command, they morally ought not to act on their conscience. They should instead obey their sovereign’s command, even though they think the commanded action is wrong or sinful. This is a striking position, which seems to imply a principle repudiated at Nuremberg. This chapter discusses how Hobbes arrives at this suspect principle, and its importance to his larger political project. It offers a limited defence of Hobbes’s principle. The chapter considers whether Hobbes’s argument for the duty not to act on conscience relies on ineliminable theological premises. If so, then considering the centrality of that argument to his political theory, we would be left with the surprising result that Hobbes’s political theory will not be defensible on purely secular assumptions.
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Veatch, Robert M., Amy Haddad, and E. J. Last. Avoidance of Killing. Edited by Robert M. Veatch, Amy Haddad, and E. J. Last. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780190277000.003.0010.
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Avoidance of killing is a moral consideration that arises in health care controversies involving the notions that human life is sacred or that killing is morally wrong. Pharmacists may find themselves in positions where they must reconcile the idea that generally killing is a harm to be avoided based on the principle of nonmaleficence with the idea that death might be perceived by a particular patient as a beneficial outcome. This chapter explores the principle of avoidance of killing, highlights differences between active, merciful killing and decisions to forgo treatment, and discusses the concept of proportionality. The cases presented involve topics such as withholding treatment and withdrawing treatment and direct versus indirect killing.
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Eisenberg, Melvin A. The Principle of Good Faith in Contract Law. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199731404.003.0052.
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It is a settled principle of contract law that a contracting party must perform her contractual duties in good faith. The meaning of the duty of good faith is complex. At a minimum, to be in good faith an actor must have acted in a way that she believed was proper, which is a subjective test. This subjective test is overlaid with several objective tests. First, it is not enough that an actor actually believed that her conduct was proper; her belief must be honest in the sense that it has some basis in morality. Next, although an actor's belief need not be reasonable to be in good faith, it must at least be rational. Finally, the duty of good faith includes the observance of reasonable standards of fair dealing—another objective test.
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Battin, Margaret P. Goodbye, Thomas. Edited by Stuart J. Youngner and Robert M. Arnold. Oxford University Press, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199974412.013.24.
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This chapter, following the format of Thomas Aquinas’s repudiation of suicide inSumma Theologiae, reviews the three central arguments against physician-assisted suicide: (1) suicide is killing and thus violates universal human moral standards against killing; (2) if physician-assisted suicide becomes legal, it could corrupt physicians’ integrity; and (3) the risk of abuse. It responds to each argument, claiming that none is strong enough to defeat the central case for legalization, tacit recognition, and social acceptance of physician aid in dying. It then offers two basic grounds for holding that physician aid-in-dying is morally permissible: (1) the basic principle of liberty, also called freedom or self-determination (limited by the harm principle), a central principle of a free society; and (2) the right to avoid suffering and pain, grounded in the right to the pursuit of happiness—interpreted as entailing the right to try to avoid unhappiness, including suffering and pain.
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Small, Helen. The Function of Cynicism at the Present Time. Oxford University Press, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198861935.001.0001.
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Cynicism is usually seen as a provocative mode of dissent from conventional moral thought, casting doubt on the motives that guide right conduct. When critics today complain that it is ubiquitous but lacks the serious bite of classical Cynicism, they express concern that it can now only be corrosively negative. The Function of Cynicism at the Present Time takes a more balanced view. Re-evaluating the role of cynicism in literature, cultural criticism, and philosophy from 1840 to the present, it treats cynic confrontationalism as a widely employed credibility check on the promotion of moral ideals—with roots in human psychology. Helen Small investigates how writers have engaged with Cynic traditions of thought, and later more gestural styles of cynicism, to recalibrate dominant moral values, judgements of taste, and political agreements. The argument develops through a series of cynic challenges to conventional moral thinking: Friedrich Nietzsche on morality; Thomas Carlyle vs. J. S. Mill on the permissible limits of moral provocation; Arnold on the freedom of criticism; George Eliot and Ford Madox Ford on cosmopolitanism; Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, and Laura Kipnis on the conditions of work in the university. The Function of Cynicism treats topics of present-day public concern: abrasive styles of public argument, debasing challenges to conventional morality, free speech, moral controversialism, the authority of reason, and the limits of that authority, nationalism and resistance to nationalism, and liberty of expression as a core principle of the university.
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Kyritsis, Dimitrios. Are Courts the Forum of Constitutional Principle? Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199672257.003.0003.
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This chapter examines a number of positions that defend the legitimacy of constitutional review on grounds of a special connection between courts and fundamental rights. It starts by insisting that the issue cannot be settled by appeal to any constitutional logic but must make reference to political morality. It then critically assesses the view that sees in courts a forum for the realization of a general procedural right to lodge complaints against political decisions setting back our interests. Such a procedural right, though, is dubious and does not straightforwardly apply to constitutional design. The chapter then turns to Ronald Dworkin’s thesis that courts ought to decide questions of principle and not policy and are better suited for this purpose than legislatures. However, this thesis cannot account for the dependence of the judicial role on legislative decisions.
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Kramer, Matthew H. Freedom of Expression as Self-Restraint. Oxford University Press, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198868651.001.0001.
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Freedom of Expression as Self-Restraint rigorously expounds the principle of freedom of expression, and provides a novel justificatory foundation for it. Under that principle, a system of governance in any society can legitimately prohibit various modes of communication but cannot ever legitimately prohibit them qua modes of communication. As the book argues, such a principle is absolute in that it is exceptionless; it imposes general duties that are binding always and everywhere on every system of governance. In addition to injecting a new level of philosophical sophistication into the debates over these matters, the book supplies a novel justification for the principle of freedom of expression. It ties that principle to an ideal of governmental self-restraint, and it shows how that ideal connects to the paramount moral responsibility of every system of governance: the responsibility to bring about the political and social and economic conditions under which every member of a society can be warranted in harboring an ample sense of self-respect. In short, compliance by a system of governance with the principle of freedom of expression is integral to the fulfillment of that paramount responsibility. Kramer lengthily engages with arguments by feminists in favor of legal restrictions on pornography, and with prominent arguments in favor of banning the advocacy of hateful creeds. While accepting that some types or instances of pornography and hatemongering can properly be proscribed, he maintains that most types and instances of those modes of communication are morally protected by the principle of freedom of expression.
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Vallier, Kevin, and Michael Weber. Contempt, Futility, and Exemption. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190666187.003.0005.
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Exemptions from laws of general application are sometimes granted on the basis of an individual’s unwillingness to comply with the law. Most such volitional exemptions involve a conflict between the law and the demands of an individual’s religious or secular moral convictions. I argue here that a limited number of volitional exemptions can be justified on the basis of a futility principle. When otherwise morally permissible penalties for violating the law cannot be expected to induce the compliance of an intransigent minority, the penalties are futile, and the state has some principled reason to exempt the minority from the law’s requirements. Since the futility principle only applies to some cases of conscientious objection, it differs in important ways from justifications grounded in a general entitlement to religious or moral exemptions.
32
Parfit, Derek. Deontological Principles. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198778608.003.0021.
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This chapter considers the harm principle. According to this principle, our negative duties not to harm people are much stronger than our positive duties to make things go better by saving people from being harmed. One of two duties would be stronger in the cost-requiring sense if we would be morally required to bear greater burdens, if that were necessary, to fulfil this duty. One of two duties would be stronger in the conflict-of-duty sense if this duty would be stronger than the other when these duties conflict. Our negative duties not to harm people may be much stronger in the cost-requiring sense than our positive duties to save people from being harmed. But these negative duties are not, this chapter argues, much stronger in the conflict-of-duty sense.
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Song, Sarah. The Rights of Noncitizens in the Territory. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190909222.003.0011.
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Chapter 10 considers what is owed to noncitizens already present in the territory of democratic countries. It focuses on three groups of noncitizens: those admitted on a temporary basis, those who have been granted permanent residence, and those who have overstayed their temporary visas or entered the territory without authorization. What legal rights are these different groups of noncitizens morally entitled to? How should their claims be weighed against the right of states to control immigration? The chapter argues that the longer one lives in the territory, the stronger one’s moral claim to a more extensive set of rights, including the right to remain. The time spent living in a place serves as a proxy for the social ties migrants have developed (social membership principle) and for their contributions to collective life (fair-play principle).
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Korsgaard, Christine M. The Animal Antinomy, Part 2. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198753858.003.0012.
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The intractable problems of animal ethics arise from a fundamental mismatch between morality and nature: nature resists moral reorganization. This chapter argues that we should reject the principle that “ought implies can” and do the best that we can for animals. It asks what is involved in treating animals as ends in themselves and rejects apartheid—the abolitionist’s ban on interaction between people and animals. It then examines specific practical questions. It argues that we should not eat animals, even if they come from “humane” farms, that we should not experiment on them, that there are limits on what kinds of work we may make them do. Finally, it argues that human beings need the company of animals and holds out the hope that we might achieve conditions, very different from the ones we live in now, in which keeping animals as pets and companions would be permissible.
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Hubin, Don. Procreators’ Duties. Edited by Leslie Francis. Oxford University Press, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199981878.013.15.
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Parents have moral responsibilities to support and nurture their children. Whether and in what circumstances these duties extend to procreators’ duties to support and nurture is a separate ethical question, however, in which sexual asymmetries in reproduction play a role. Variations on the thought experiment of scientists creating a conceptus from inanimate materials and gestating it in an artificial womb illustrate the role of causal and moral responsibility for creation in generating obligations of support. The real world, however, is not so simple. Relying on a caveat copulator principle—which holds each voluntary party to a potentially procreative act responsible for support—would provide a simple solution but one that should be rejected, as it encourages irresponsible behavior and is not reflective of judgments about sexual morality more generally. When one party acts wrongfully in failing to terminate the procreative process, responsibilities similarly devolve on the wrongdoer.
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May, Larry. Humanity, Necessity, and the Rights of Soldiers. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198796176.003.0004.
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In both morality and law, it is still common to say that soldiers’ lives do not count for very much in assessments of whether or not a particular war or armed conflict is justifiably initiated and conducted. I argue that soldiers should be acknowledged to have the humanitarian right not to be killed unnecessarily. Also, I argue that military necessity is best conceived as a form of practical necessity. I argue for a strengthening of the principle of military necessity, so that a soldier’s life can only be taken if it is practically necessary to achieve a needed military objective. I then set out a new way to understand humanitarian norms that is in keeping with the idea that the humans who are soldiers should be treated with at least minimal dignity. I support an expanded view of humanitarian rights that takes account of soldiers’ unique vulnerabilities.
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Pissarskoi, Eugen. The Controllability Precautionary Principle: Justification of a Climate Policy Goal Under Uncertainty. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198813248.003.0011.
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How can we reasonably justify a climate policy goal if we accept that only possible consequences from climate change are known? Precautionary principles seem to offer promising guidelines for reasoning in such epistemic situations. This chapter presents two versions of the precautionary principle (PP) and defends one of them as morally justifiable. However, it argues that current versions of the PP do not allow discrimination between relevant climate change policies. Therefore, the chapter develops a further version of the PP, the Controllability Precautionary Principle (CPP), and defends its moral plausibility. The CPP incorporates the following idea: in a situation when the possible outcomes of the available actions cannot be ranked with regard to their value, the choice between available options for action should rest on the comparison of how well decision makers can control the processes of the implementation of the available strategies.
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Majumder, Doyeeta. Tyranny and Usurpation. Liverpool University Press, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.3828/liverpool/9781786941688.001.0001.
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This book examines the fraught relationship between the sixteenth-century formulations of the theories of sovereign violence, tyranny and usurpation and the manifestations of these ideas on the contemporary English stage. It will attempt to trace an evolution of the poetics of English and Scottish political drama through the early, middle, and late decades of the sixteenth-century in conjunction with developments in the political thought of the century, linking theatre and politics through the representations of the problematic figure of the usurper or, in Machiavellian terms, the ‘New Prince’. While the early Tudor morality plays are concerned with the legitimate monarch who becomes a tyrant, the later historical and tragic drama of the century foregrounds the figure of the illegitimate monarch who is a tyrant by default. On the one hand the sudden proliferation of usurpation plots in Elizabethan drama and the transition from the legitimate tyrant to the usurper tyrant is linked to the dramaturgical shift from the allegorical morality play tradition to later history plays and tragedies, and on the other it is reflective of a poetic turn in political thought which impelled political writers to conceive of the state and sovereignty as a product of human ‘poiesis’, independent of transcendental legitimization. The poetics of political drama and the emergence of the idea of ‘poiesis’ in the political context merge in the figure of the nuove principe: the prince without dynastic claims who creates his sovereignty by dint of his own ‘virtu’ and through an act of law-making violence.
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Richardson, Henry. Noneternal Moral Principles. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190247744.003.0010.
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Because this book’s central claim is that the moral community can authoritatively introduce new moral norms in the course of history, it seems to clash with the claim that all moral truths ultimately trace to eternally true principles of morality. This chapter considers the views of two philosophers whose added assumptions convert this into a real conflict—the seventeenth-century neo-Platonist Ralph Cudworth and the recently deceased Oxford philosopher G. A. Cohen. It challenges Cudworth’s addition to the claim—namely, that the route back can be traced only by reference to the nature of the relevant actions. And it undercuts Cohen’s contribution by reinforcing Thomas Pogge’s point that fact-sensitivity in a principle can reflect due humility rather than a lack of clear-headedness, by endorsing Sarah Moss’s claim that two final ends can contingently support each other, and by neutralizing Cohen’s attempt to disparage fact-sensitive principles as mere rules of regulation.
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Grossberg, Stephen. Conscious Mind, Resonant Brain. Oxford University Press, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190070557.001.0001.
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The book is the culmination of 50 years of intensive research by the author, who is broadly acknowledged to be the most important pioneer and current research leader who models how brains give rise to minds, notably how neural circuits in multiple brain regions interact together to generate psychological functions. The book provides a unified understanding of how, where, and why our brains can consciously see, hear, feel, and know about the world, and effectively plan and act within it. It hereby embodies a revolutionary Principia of Mind that clarifies how autonomous adaptive intelligence is achieved, thereby providing mechanistic explanations of multiple mental disorders, biological bases of morality, religion, and the human condition, as well as solutions to large-scale problems in machine learning, technology, and Artificial Intelligence. Because brains embody a universal developmental code, unifying insights also emerge about all living cellular tissues and about how mental laws reflect laws of the physical world.
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Pavel, Carmen E. Boundaries, Subjection to Laws, and Affected Interests. Edited by David Schmidtz and Carmen E. Pavel. Oxford University Press, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199989423.013.11.
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Political decisions in one country can have negative effects in other countries. The defenders of the “all affected interests principle” (AAIP) propose that political decisions should be made by those whose interests are likely to be affected by them. AAIP purports to offer normative criteria for drawing boundaries around political communities in less arbitrary and more morally legitimate ways, by ultimately endorsing a global democracy as the only legitimate form of political rule. This chapter offers an alternative explanation for (1) why certain people should be included in the political decision-making of a group and others should not, that better captures the reasons for extending the democratic franchise, and (2) how to take the idea of affected interests into account. This alternative, called the “all subjected” principle, shares the concern about the shortcomings of existing modes of political organization, but has different implications for political practice.
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Uniacke, Suzanne. Terrorism. Edited by Seth Lazar and Helen Frowe. Oxford University Press, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199943418.013.26.
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This article explores the connection between terrorism and the ethics of war, specifically the relevance of the moral wrongfulness of terrorism in elucidating one important aspect of the ethics of war. It begins with an overview of terrorism’s central features and the ethical issues associated with terrorism. It then discusses two considerations. First, terrorism can occur within civil society as well as in contexts of armed combat or war. Second, terrorist tactics are answerable to principles that govern ethically acceptable conduct of war, not the other way around. The chapter also tackles the question of whether the jus in bello principle of discrimination that prohibits targeting innocent people ought to represent an absolute prohibition, as opposed to a very stringent constraint. It argues that an analysis of the structure of terrorism and its distinctive wrongfulness can be helpful in morally interpreting the jus in bello principle of discrimination.
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Hain, Richard D. W. Ethics in paediatric palliative care. Oxford University Press, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780199656097.003.0105.
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Professional competence is a necessary but insufficient representation of how an individual health-care professional should properly behave in relation to a patient. Medical ethics addresses the further question of the basis on which actions taken by professionals in the context of that relationship are morally right. Children are distinct from adults in ethically relevant ways. They lack autonomy, both in practice and in principle, and their interests are easily ignored or annexed to others. In practice, ethical questions in children are currently addressed using the ‘four-principles’ or by appealing to rights-based arguments. Behind both are ethical theories (particularly deontology, utilitarian consequentialism, and virtue ethics) that are important, but problematic, in children. This chapter reviews existing ways of looking at ethics in end-of-life care for children, considering three specific contemporary debates in medical ethics in children’s palliative care: the principle of double effect, euthanasia, and withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment.
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Kreß, Claus, and Robert Lawless, eds. Necessity and Proportionality in International Peace and Security Law. Oxford University Press, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197537374.001.0001.
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Necessity and proportionality hold a place in the international law governing the use of force by states and in the law of armed conflict (LOAC). However, the precise contours of these two requirements are uncertain and controversial. This book explores in 5 parts how necessity and proportionality manifest under the law governing the use of force and the LOAC. First, the book introduces the reader to how necessity and proportionality factor in the debate about the interaction between morality and law in the use of military force. Second, the book addresses the issue of how proportionality in the law governing the use of force relates to proportionality in the LOAC. Third, the book addresses a number of pressing legal issues including: how proportionality and necessity are linked under international law, the controversial “unwilling and unable” test, drones and targeted killing, their application during civil war, and the need for further transparency in states’ justification for the use of force in self-defense. Fourth, the book analyzes the role of military necessity within the LOAC on the battlefield. This includes discussions about the history and nature of the principle of military necessity, the proper application of the principle of proportionality, how commanders should account for mental harm in calculating proportionality, and the role artificial intelligence and autonomous weapons systems may play in a proportionality analysis. Finally, the book concludes with a discussion on the potential role of proportionality in the law governing post-conflict contexts.
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Tesón, Fernando R. Humanitarian Intervention as Defense of Persons. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190202903.003.0002.
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This chapter lays the foundation of the argument for part I. It starts by rejecting the distinction between offensive and defensive wars. All justified wars are wars in defense of persons. Humanitarian intervention, therefore, has the same rationale as national self-defense. Humanitarian intervention is defined as a war to defend persons attacked in their territory by their own government or other political group. The chapter also locates war as part of a coercion continuum, and claims that the justification of coercion depends crucially on the principle of proportionality. This means that coercion to remedy rights violations will be justified if it incurs an acceptable cost. Because war is an extreme form of coercion, it will be justified only when the predictable costs are morally unacceptable.
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Delmas, Candice. Fairness. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190872199.003.0005.
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Chapter 4 argues that the fairness principle—the lodestar of so many arguments for the duty to obey the law—can direct us to resist injustice. It lays the grounds for the argument by analyzing the principle’s ban on free-riding and clarifying its relation to exploitative and harmful social schemes. Under certain conditions, wrongfully benefiting from harmfu and exploitative—that is, unfair—social schemes is morally akin to free-riding. Fairness demands ceasing to benefit from such schemes, and radically reforming them so that they no longer produce wrongful benefits. Since resistance is often critical to bring about reform, there is a political obligation to resist social schemes from which one wrongfully benefits. Fairness also supports solidarity with and among the oppressed in the resistance efforts.
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Ryberg, Jesper. Neurointerventions, Crime, and Punishment. Oxford University Press, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190846428.001.0001.
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Can it be justified to use neuroscientific technologies for influencing the functioning of human brain as a means of preventing offenders from engaging in future criminal conduct? This is indeed a highly controversial question and one which has a dark prehistory. Moreover, it is also a question that has attracted recent optimistic attention from researchers across different scientific fields. The purpose of this book is to consider various ethical challenges surrounding this question. More precisely, the author discusses issues such as, Is it morally acceptable to offer more lenient sentences to offenders in return for participation in neuroscientific treatment programmes? Would such offers be unacceptably coercive? Can it ever be morally justified to use compulsory neurointerventions as a means of preventing crime? Is it possible to administer neurointerventions as a type of punishment? Would it be acceptable for physicians to participate in the administration of neurointerventions on offenders? What is the moral significance of the sordid history of brain interventions for the present or future use of such treatment options? The author argues, on the one hand, that many of the in-principle objections to neuroscientific treatment are premature but also, on the other, that—given the way criminal justice systems currently function—we are well-advised not to put such treatment methods into practice.
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McPherson, Lionel K. Legalism, Justice, and the War on Terrorism. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190495657.003.0011.
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Some standard norms of conduct in war are morally unsustainable. The “noncombatant immunity” principle that prohibits deliberate use of force against noncombatants represents one such norm. Standard noncombatant immunity is limited, its focus on intention, allowing, in effect, ordinary noncombatants to be harmed routinely through lawful attacks by combatants. These noncombatant casualties often are likely, foreseeable, and avoidable and thus not merely accidental. Apart from the moral problem of just war legalism, the practical problem is this: a military power cannot expect to win hearts and minds in foreign populations, as the war on terrorism requires, when its approach to fighting expresses relatively little concern for noncombatant lives. Greatly reducing noncombatant casualties is a pragmatic imperative that recommends fighting to a much higher standard—even when prevailing moral and legal norms allow collaterally harming noncombatants.
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Fairchild, Amy L., and Ron Bayer. Public Health with a Punch: Fear, Stigma, and Hard-Hitting Media Campaigns. Edited by Brenda Major, John F. Dovidio, and Bruce G. Link. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190243470.013.25.
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The conventional perspective that fear is a bad motivator for behavioral change, so critical to public health, is both an empirical observation and a moral judgment. This chapter challenges the belief that fear cannot work and is, indeed, counterproductive. The chapter then turns to the ethical debate, which for years was shaped by bioethics. The chapter concludes by arguing that the perspective of bioethics, so centrally concerned with the individual, provides an inadequate moral frame for thinking about fear-based campaigns. Instead, the chapter proposes the notion of public health ethics, which has as its grounding principle the enhancement of population well-being. Fear-based campaigns may be morally legitimate once the population benefits are clearly articulated and the potential social costs carefully evaluated in a process that is open, transparent, and engages the populations toward whom fear-based campaigns will be directed.
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Brownstein, Michael. Caring, Implicit Attitudes, and the Self. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190633721.003.0004.
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Across both virtue and vice cases, spontaneity has the potential to give rise to actions that seem “unowned.” Agents may lack self-awareness, control, and reasons-responsiveness in paradigmatic cases. But these are actions nevertheless, in the sense that they are not mere happenings. While agents may be passive in an important sense when acting spontaneously, they are not thereby necessarily victims of forces acting upon them (from either “outside” or “inside” their own bodies and minds). The central claim of this chapter is that spontaneous actions can be, in central cases, “attributable” to agents, by which I mean that they reflect upon the character of those agents. This claim is made on the basis of a care-based theory of attributability. Attributability licenses (in principle) what some theorists call “aretaic” appraisals. These are evaluations of an action in light of an agent’s character or morally significant traits.