Pub Date : 2024-07-12DOI: 10.26556/jesp.v28i1.2991
Carlos Soto
In the philosophical literature, prioritarianism is generally given either a teleological or contractualist rendering. Both forms of prioritarianism, I argue, are unsatisfactory, which creates a need for an alternative conception of prioritarianism. I develop a noncontractualist version of deontic prioritarianism that is superior to both teleological and contractualist prioritarianism with respect to grounding the normativity of absolute levels of well-being and explaining our moral thinking about priority to the worse off. Some objections to this view are addressed, and the possibility of a mixed or hybrid view is briefly considered. Noncontractualist deontic prioritarianism might apply to both whole lives and parts of lives, a position that is consistent with a person-centered approach to distributive ethics, I contend. Finally, noncontractualist deontic prioritarianism seems to apply to one-person cases in which there are not competing claims to our aid, but I argue that this result is not an embarrassment for the view.
{"title":"Three Kinds of Prioritarianism","authors":"Carlos Soto","doi":"10.26556/jesp.v28i1.2991","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v28i1.2991","url":null,"abstract":"In the philosophical literature, prioritarianism is generally given either a teleological or contractualist rendering. Both forms of prioritarianism, I argue, are unsatisfactory, which creates a need for an alternative conception of prioritarianism. I develop a noncontractualist version of deontic prioritarianism that is superior to both teleological and contractualist prioritarianism with respect to grounding the normativity of absolute levels of well-being and explaining our moral thinking about priority to the worse off. Some objections to this view are addressed, and the possibility of a mixed or hybrid view is briefly considered. Noncontractualist deontic prioritarianism might apply to both whole lives and parts of lives, a position that is consistent with a person-centered approach to distributive ethics, I contend. Finally, noncontractualist deontic prioritarianism seems to apply to one-person cases in which there are not competing claims to our aid, but I argue that this result is not an embarrassment for the view.","PeriodicalId":508700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy","volume":"16 8","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141655104","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}
Pub Date : 2024-07-12DOI: 10.26556/jesp.v28i1.2800
Nicolas Delon
A growing literature argues that animals can act for moral reasons without being responsible. I argue that the literature often fails to maintain a clear distinction between moral behavior and moral agency, and I formulate a dilemma: either animals are less moral or they are more responsible than the literature suggests. If animals can respond to moral reasons, they are responsible according to an influential view of moral responsibility—Quality of Will. But if they are responsible, as some argue, costly implications must be acknowledged. If, however, they should not be considered responsible, then we may have to reassess the meaning of animal morality. I discuss ways to eschew responsibility or to tailor it to animals and argue that each requires a revised conception of animal morality.
{"title":"Letting Animals Off the Hook","authors":"Nicolas Delon","doi":"10.26556/jesp.v28i1.2800","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v28i1.2800","url":null,"abstract":"A growing literature argues that animals can act for moral reasons without being responsible. I argue that the literature often fails to maintain a clear distinction between moral behavior and moral agency, and I formulate a dilemma: either animals are less moral or they are more responsible than the literature suggests. If animals can respond to moral reasons, they are responsible according to an influential view of moral responsibility—Quality of Will. But if they are responsible, as some argue, costly implications must be acknowledged. If, however, they should not be considered responsible, then we may have to reassess the meaning of animal morality. I discuss ways to eschew responsibility or to tailor it to animals and argue that each requires a revised conception of animal morality.","PeriodicalId":508700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy","volume":"19 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141655142","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}
Pub Date : 2024-07-12DOI: 10.26556/jesp.v28i1.3185
Matilda Carter
While there are urgent health-related demands surrounding dementia, there are sociopolitical dimensions to this issue that ought not to be neglected, concerning the ways in which institutions and individuals treat people living with dementia. Key among these concerns, for dementia self-advocate Christine Bryden, is the dominant narrative of dementia as a process that irreversibly sets those that live with it on a path to the destruction of their personal identities and personhood. In this paper, I bolster Bryden’s arguments against the loss narrative and develop a novel conception of personhood as a first step towards challenging it.
{"title":"The Person as Environmentally Integrated","authors":"Matilda Carter","doi":"10.26556/jesp.v28i1.3185","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v28i1.3185","url":null,"abstract":"While there are urgent health-related demands surrounding dementia, there are sociopolitical dimensions to this issue that ought not to be neglected, concerning the ways in which institutions and individuals treat people living with dementia. Key among these concerns, for dementia self-advocate Christine Bryden, is the dominant narrative of dementia as a process that irreversibly sets those that live with it on a path to the destruction of their personal identities and personhood. In this paper, I bolster Bryden’s arguments against the loss narrative and develop a novel conception of personhood as a first step towards challenging it.","PeriodicalId":508700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141652407","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}
Pub Date : 2024-07-12DOI: 10.26556/jesp.v28i1.3202
Guy Fletcher
In a recent paper, Michal Masny put forward a novel, interesting, theory of the goodness of a life: the Dual Theory. As Masny’s discussion demonstrates, the Dual Theory, if true, would have very significant implications for various issues related to the goodness of lives and for normative ethics. It is thus worthy of serious attention. In this paper, I first explain the Dual Theory and the motivation Masny provides for it. I then aim to show three general problems for the view.
{"title":"Not Living My Best Life","authors":"Guy Fletcher","doi":"10.26556/jesp.v28i1.3202","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v28i1.3202","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 \u0000In a recent paper, Michal Masny put forward a novel, interesting, theory of the goodness of a life: the Dual Theory. As Masny’s discussion demonstrates, the Dual Theory, if true, would have very significant implications for various issues related to the goodness of lives and for normative ethics. It is thus worthy of serious attention. In this paper, I first explain the Dual Theory and the motivation Masny provides for it. I then aim to show three general problems for the view. \u0000 \u0000 \u0000 \u0000","PeriodicalId":508700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy","volume":"64 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141652411","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}
Pub Date : 2024-07-12DOI: 10.26556/jesp.v28i1.2572
Bastian Steuwer
Can we permissibly accelerate vaccine testing even if this increases risk to study participants? During the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers, policymakers, and bioethicists debated ways in which vaccine development could be expedited. One suggestion were human challenge trials which only started after safe and efficacious vaccine had already been developed. Was this hesitation justified? Can challenge trials play a role in future pandemics? I defend both a version of challenge trials – a low-dosage challenge trial – and a faster option for post-challenge trial safety testing. My argument draws on a new framework for risks in biomedical research. The new framework, embedded in a broader approach to the ethics of risk, can justify seemingly risky research while remaining strongly protective of the rights and interests of research participants. My argument furthermore draws on considerations about the connection between the risks to study participants, the benefits to nonparticipants, and the number of participants involved.
{"title":"The Challenge for Coronavirus Vaccine Testing","authors":"Bastian Steuwer","doi":"10.26556/jesp.v28i1.2572","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v28i1.2572","url":null,"abstract":"Can we permissibly accelerate vaccine testing even if this increases risk to study participants? During the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers, policymakers, and bioethicists debated ways in which vaccine development could be expedited. One suggestion were human challenge trials which only started after safe and efficacious vaccine had already been developed. Was this hesitation justified? Can challenge trials play a role in future pandemics? I defend both a version of challenge trials – a low-dosage challenge trial – and a faster option for post-challenge trial safety testing. My argument draws on a new framework for risks in biomedical research. The new framework, embedded in a broader approach to the ethics of risk, can justify seemingly risky research while remaining strongly protective of the rights and interests of research participants. My argument furthermore draws on considerations about the connection between the risks to study participants, the benefits to nonparticipants, and the number of participants involved.","PeriodicalId":508700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy","volume":"31 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141654915","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}
Pub Date : 2024-07-12DOI: 10.26556/jesp.v28i1.3204
Richard Williams
Epistemic democrats typically argue that widespread public competence can empower democratic states to produce the correct decisions more effectively than antidemocratic alternatives. In reaction, this paper shows that epistemic democrats are too insensitive to a fundamental fact of representative democracies: the democratic choice of policy is mediated through a democratic choice of politician. Epistemic democrats neglect that party politicians potentially spoil the epistemic benefits of widespread public competence. Firstly, politicians must compete with each other for votes during elections. Secondly, politicians should compromise with each other to protect those they represent from the bad apples in the legislature. Politicians, as elected representatives with democratic integrity, have a profession-specific obligation to resist the bad apples, even if they must sacrifice their personal integrity in the process. They must compromise on promoting the correct decisions to gain critical political alliances and electoral support. Once political theorizing recognizes the significance of party politicians and their obligations more fully, public deliberation can be modelled as a compromise-discovery process: public deliberation can enable politicians to know which moral compromises will gain the alliances and votes necessary to resist the bad apples.
{"title":"Murderers on the Ballot Paper","authors":"Richard Williams","doi":"10.26556/jesp.v28i1.3204","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v28i1.3204","url":null,"abstract":"Epistemic democrats typically argue that widespread public competence can empower democratic states to produce the correct decisions more effectively than antidemocratic alternatives. In reaction, this paper shows that epistemic democrats are too insensitive to a fundamental fact of representative democracies: the democratic choice of policy is mediated through a democratic choice of politician. Epistemic democrats neglect that party politicians potentially spoil the epistemic benefits of widespread public competence. Firstly, politicians must compete with each other for votes during elections. Secondly, politicians should compromise with each other to protect those they represent from the bad apples in the legislature. Politicians, as elected representatives with democratic integrity, have a profession-specific obligation to resist the bad apples, even if they must sacrifice their personal integrity in the process. They must compromise on promoting the correct decisions to gain critical political alliances and electoral support. Once political theorizing recognizes the significance of party politicians and their obligations more fully, public deliberation can be modelled as a compromise-discovery process: public deliberation can enable politicians to know which moral compromises will gain the alliances and votes necessary to resist the bad apples.","PeriodicalId":508700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy","volume":"41 8","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141653582","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}
Pub Date : 2024-05-23DOI: 10.26556/jesp.v27i3.2641
Anni Raty
Arguments for what consent is often appeal to its functions. For instance, some argue that because consent functions to express the consent-giver’s autonomous control over her normative boundaries, consent must consist in a mental state. In this paper, I argue that consent has an often-overlooked function and that its having this function has consequences for our views of what consent is. I argue that consent has a relationship-shaping function: acts of consent can alter and enable personal relationships. This function grounds an argument for the following claim: some acts of consent cannot be morally transformative unless there is uptake, or acceptance, or cooperation, on the recipient’s part. At least some acts of consent need to be “cosigned” by both parties. This rules out what I call “unilateral” conceptions of consent, according to which consent can always be given by the giver alone and nobody else needs to enter the picture.
{"title":"The Value of Uptake","authors":"Anni Raty","doi":"10.26556/jesp.v27i3.2641","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v27i3.2641","url":null,"abstract":"Arguments for what consent is often appeal to its functions. For instance, some argue that because consent functions to express the consent-giver’s autonomous control over her normative boundaries, consent must consist in a mental state. In this paper, I argue that consent has an often-overlooked function and that its having this function has consequences for our views of what consent is. I argue that consent has a relationship-shaping function: acts of consent can alter and enable personal relationships. This function grounds an argument for the following claim: some acts of consent cannot be morally transformative unless there is uptake, or acceptance, or cooperation, on the recipient’s part. At least some acts of consent need to be “cosigned” by both parties. This rules out what I call “unilateral” conceptions of consent, according to which consent can always be given by the giver alone and nobody else needs to enter the picture.","PeriodicalId":508700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy","volume":"36 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141107618","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}
Pub Date : 2024-05-23DOI: 10.26556/jesp.v27i3.3048
Christopher Nguyen
Value capture occurs when an agent’s values are rich and subtle — or developing in that direction. The agent enters a social environment that presents simplified — typically quantified — versions of those values; and those simplified articulations come to dominate their practical reasoning. Examples include becoming motivated by FitBit’s step counts, Twitter Likes and Retweets, citation rates, ranked lists of best schools, and Grade Point Averages. We are vulnerable to value capture because of the competitive advantage that such crisp and clear expressions of value have in our private reasoning and our public justification. But value capture poses several threats. First, value capture threatens to change the goals of our activities, in a way that often threatens to undermine the value of those activities. Twitter’s scoring system threatens to replace some of the richer goals of communication — understanding, connection, and the mutual pursuit of truth — with the thinner goals of getting likes and going viral. Second, in value capture, we take a core process of our autonomy and self-governance — our ongoing deliberation over the exact articulation of our values — and we outsource it. That outsourcing cuts off one of the key benefits to self-governing deliberation. In value capture, we no longer adjust our values and their articulations in light of own rich particular and context-sensitive experience of the world. Our values should be carefully tailored to our particular selves and particular communities, but in value capture, we buy our values off the rack.
{"title":"Value Capture","authors":"Christopher Nguyen","doi":"10.26556/jesp.v27i3.3048","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v27i3.3048","url":null,"abstract":"Value capture occurs when an agent’s values are rich and subtle — or developing in that direction. The agent enters a social environment that presents simplified — typically quantified — versions of those values; and those simplified articulations come to dominate their practical reasoning. Examples include becoming motivated by FitBit’s step counts, Twitter Likes and Retweets, citation rates, ranked lists of best schools, and Grade Point Averages. We are vulnerable to value capture because of the competitive advantage that such crisp and clear expressions of value have in our private reasoning and our public justification. But value capture poses several threats. First, value capture threatens to change the goals of our activities, in a way that often threatens to undermine the value of those activities. Twitter’s scoring system threatens to replace some of the richer goals of communication — understanding, connection, and the mutual pursuit of truth — with the thinner goals of getting likes and going viral. Second, in value capture, we take a core process of our autonomy and self-governance — our ongoing deliberation over the exact articulation of our values — and we outsource it. That outsourcing cuts off one of the key benefits to self-governing deliberation. In value capture, we no longer adjust our values and their articulations in light of own rich particular and context-sensitive experience of the world. Our values should be carefully tailored to our particular selves and particular communities, but in value capture, we buy our values off the rack. ","PeriodicalId":508700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy","volume":"32 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141106436","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}
Pub Date : 2024-05-23DOI: 10.26556/jesp.v27i3.2920
John Schwenkler
For most philosophers who have written recently on the topic, to give into temptation is always to revise a decision in a way that is somehow unreasonable—as when, say, recalling that there is a World Cup game that I can stream from my office, I abandon my plan to spend the morning writing. But I argue in this paper that a person can also give in to the temptation to violate a decision without undoing that decision or even calling it into question. This is possible, I argue, because the content of our decisions does not always settle exactly what is required to abide by them. This slack between the explicit content of our decisions, and the specific acts by which we carry or fail to carry them out, allows us to act contrary to those decisions even as they remain in place. As such, temptation of this kind cannot be resisted simply by refraining from reconsidering our decisions or changing our minds about what to do.
{"title":"How Temptation Works","authors":"John Schwenkler","doi":"10.26556/jesp.v27i3.2920","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v27i3.2920","url":null,"abstract":"For most philosophers who have written recently on the topic, to give into temptation is always to revise a decision in a way that is somehow unreasonable—as when, say, recalling that there is a World Cup game that I can stream from my office, I abandon my plan to spend the morning writing. But I argue in this paper that a person can also give in to the temptation to violate a decision without undoing that decision or even calling it into question. This is possible, I argue, because the content of our decisions does not always settle exactly what is required to abide by them. This slack between the explicit content of our decisions, and the specific acts by which we carry or fail to carry them out, allows us to act contrary to those decisions even as they remain in place. As such, temptation of this kind cannot be resisted simply by refraining from reconsidering our decisions or changing our minds about what to do.","PeriodicalId":508700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy","volume":"29 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141104179","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}
Pub Date : 2024-05-23DOI: 10.26556/jesp.v27i3.3092
Martin Smith
Many philosophers accept that, as well as having a right that others not harm us, we also have a right that others not subject us to a risk of harm. And yet, when we attempt to spell out precisely what this ‘right against risk imposition’ involves, we encounter a series of notorious puzzles. Existing attempts to deal with these puzzles have tended to focus on the nature of rights – but I propose an approach that focusses instead on the nature of risk. The key move is to distinguish two different ways in which to conceptualise the risk that a given action presents – one of which is linked to the notion of probability and the other to the notion of normalcy.
{"title":"Probability, Normalcy, and the Right against Risk Imposition","authors":"Martin Smith","doi":"10.26556/jesp.v27i3.3092","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v27i3.3092","url":null,"abstract":"Many philosophers accept that, as well as having a right that others not harm us, we also have a right that others not subject us to a risk of harm. And yet, when we attempt to spell out precisely what this ‘right against risk imposition’ involves, we encounter a series of notorious puzzles. Existing attempts to deal with these puzzles have tended to focus on the nature of rights – but I propose an approach that focusses instead on the nature of risk. The key move is to distinguish two different ways in which to conceptualise the risk that a given action presents – one of which is linked to the notion of probability and the other to the notion of normalcy. ","PeriodicalId":508700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy","volume":"9 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141105187","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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