{"title":"公共卡特尔,私人良心","authors":"M. Cholbi","doi":"10.1177/1470594X18779146","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Many contributors to debates about professional conscience assume a basic, pre-professional right of conscientious refusal and proceed to address how to ‘balance’ this right against other goods. Here I argue that opponents of a right of conscientious refusal concede too much in assuming such a right, overlooking that the professions in which conscientious refusal is invoked nearly always operate as public cartels, enjoying various economic benefits, including protection from competition, made possible by governments exercising powers of coercion, regulation, and taxation. To acknowledge a right of conscientious refusal is to license professionals to disrespect the profession’s clients, in opposition to liberal ideals of neutrality, and to engage in moral paternalism toward them; to permit them to violate duties of reciprocity they incur by virtue of being members of public cartels; and to compel those clients to provide material support for conceptions of the good they themselves reject. However, so long as (a) a public cartel discharges its obligations to distribute the socially important goods they have are uniquely authorized to provide without undue burden to its clientele, and (b) conscientious refusal has the assent of other members of a profession, individual professionals’ claims of conscience can be accommodated.","PeriodicalId":45971,"journal":{"name":"Politics Philosophy & Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6000,"publicationDate":"2018-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Public cartels, private conscience\",\"authors\":\"M. Cholbi\",\"doi\":\"10.1177/1470594X18779146\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"Many contributors to debates about professional conscience assume a basic, pre-professional right of conscientious refusal and proceed to address how to ‘balance’ this right against other goods. Here I argue that opponents of a right of conscientious refusal concede too much in assuming such a right, overlooking that the professions in which conscientious refusal is invoked nearly always operate as public cartels, enjoying various economic benefits, including protection from competition, made possible by governments exercising powers of coercion, regulation, and taxation. To acknowledge a right of conscientious refusal is to license professionals to disrespect the profession’s clients, in opposition to liberal ideals of neutrality, and to engage in moral paternalism toward them; to permit them to violate duties of reciprocity they incur by virtue of being members of public cartels; and to compel those clients to provide material support for conceptions of the good they themselves reject. However, so long as (a) a public cartel discharges its obligations to distribute the socially important goods they have are uniquely authorized to provide without undue burden to its clientele, and (b) conscientious refusal has the assent of other members of a profession, individual professionals’ claims of conscience can be accommodated.\",\"PeriodicalId\":45971,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Politics Philosophy & Economics\",\"volume\":null,\"pages\":null},\"PeriodicalIF\":1.6000,\"publicationDate\":\"2018-05-30\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"2\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Politics Philosophy & Economics\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"98\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.1177/1470594X18779146\",\"RegionNum\":2,\"RegionCategory\":\"哲学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q2\",\"JCRName\":\"ETHICS\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Politics Philosophy & Economics","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1470594X18779146","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ETHICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
Many contributors to debates about professional conscience assume a basic, pre-professional right of conscientious refusal and proceed to address how to ‘balance’ this right against other goods. Here I argue that opponents of a right of conscientious refusal concede too much in assuming such a right, overlooking that the professions in which conscientious refusal is invoked nearly always operate as public cartels, enjoying various economic benefits, including protection from competition, made possible by governments exercising powers of coercion, regulation, and taxation. To acknowledge a right of conscientious refusal is to license professionals to disrespect the profession’s clients, in opposition to liberal ideals of neutrality, and to engage in moral paternalism toward them; to permit them to violate duties of reciprocity they incur by virtue of being members of public cartels; and to compel those clients to provide material support for conceptions of the good they themselves reject. However, so long as (a) a public cartel discharges its obligations to distribute the socially important goods they have are uniquely authorized to provide without undue burden to its clientele, and (b) conscientious refusal has the assent of other members of a profession, individual professionals’ claims of conscience can be accommodated.
期刊介绍:
Politics, Philosophy & Economics aims to bring moral, economic and political theory to bear on the analysis, justification and criticism of political and economic institutions and public policies. The Editors are committed to publishing peer-reviewed papers of high quality using various methodologies from a wide variety of normative perspectives. They seek to provide a distinctive forum for discussions and debates among political scientists, philosophers, and economists on such matters as constitutional design, property rights, distributive justice, the welfare state, egalitarianism, the morals of the market, democratic socialism, population ethics, and the evolution of norms.