摘要:

ABSTRACTSocial workers must often decide whether a child, at possible risk from its parents, should be removed from home. Each year some children, left at home, are abused or killed. If the procedures have been duly followed, is a bad result to be put down to incompetence or to bad luck, and, if to the latter, does that cancel moral responsibility? We examine the claim that the case is one of ‘moral luck’ and argue that the system licences greater risk than is morally justified. This is because it embodies conflicting imperatives of welfare and justice. Anyone who becomes a social worker must face a constant risk to moral integrity

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1987.tb00211.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1987

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTThe primary aim of the paper is to apply the concept of retribution to nuclear defence policy. Nuclear defence policy, as I conceive it, is concerned with addressing the threat Soviet nuclear weapons pose for Western security. I argue that, contrary to popular opinion, MAD is not a retributive doctrine—that in fact it violates two constitutive principles of retribution: culpability and proportionality. After explicating these constitutive principles, I apply them to retaliatory strategy—showing that the culpability criterion restricts retaliation to the agents of aggression while the proportionality criterion requires a just measure of retaliation. The result is a defence policy continuous with the just war tradition—one which rules out deterrence based on threats against the civilian population. I show why a retributive policy requires non‐nuclear forces and discuss the feasiblity of replacing all nuclear forces with conventional weapons. I anticipate and answer major objections to the denuclearization of U.S. and NATO forces. Finally, I conclude that an advocate of a retributive policy—specifically, a policy calling for a proportional or measured response against combatants only—must be willing, in the name of justice, to accept the risk of making war more thinkable by making it le

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1987.tb00212.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1987

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTModern technology has made it uncertain as to when exactly death occurs, and this has put us in a quandary over when we can initiate behaviour traditionally deemed apt if and only if a patient is dead. In the light of this, there is general agreement that death should be redefined, but wide disagreement remains about how. I argue, against this, that it is a mistake to redefine death in any way: (1) redefining death will not help to settle the question of when traditional death‐behaviour becomes appropriate, (2) any attempt to redefine death is attended with significant disutilities and no compensating utilities, and (3) the practical problems generated by the indeterminacy can be better handled in other way

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1987.tb00213.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1987

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTThe word, aggression, refers in general usage to unjustified attack, and any serious writer who uses it extensively in some figurative or newly‐coined technical sense should leave his meaning in no doubt. Unfortunately some ethological writers fail to do this and deceive themselves into the bargain.They somewhat naively claim to find aggression built into the fundamental nature of animals, a kind of instinct which cannot be resisted, indeed which must figure in their social cohesion. If the word really retains the moral connotation which I have indicated, then much animal biology is vitiated. Not only are animals misjudged, but, since conclusions are then applied to our human selves, we too are misjudged and recommended to adopt false moral principles.It is possible that ensuing armchair pseudo‐cures may be responsible for a real increase in human viole

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1987.tb00214.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1987

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTWhether reverse discrimination is justifiable cannot be determined, it is argued, until what is meant by ‘reverse discrimination’ has been. Recent talk of ‘reverse discrimination’ and ‘discrimination in favour of’ suggests that there are some new sorts of discrimination. But the two qualifications ‘reverse’ and ‘in favour of’ seem often to be confused in so far as it is assumed that reverse discrimination is only in favour of. After noting differences between the use of ‘discrimination’ in fiscal contexts—where the phrase ‘discrimination in favour of’ has an established usage—and in political contexts, a sense of the phrase to fit the latter is proposed: to discriminate in favour of a group is to favour it at the expense of some other group so that the other group is discriminated against. The meaning of the qualification ‘reverse’ is then sought. Ambiguities in the terms ‘reverse’ and ‘compensatory’ are noted. In so far as policies described as being reverse discrimination are genuinely discriminatory, for it is not clear from their characterisation that they need constitute discrimination of any sort, it is only within a historical context that they can be distinguished from the old sort of discrimination. It is thus concluded th

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1987.tb00215.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1987

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTIn this essay the argument set forth by Michael Levin regarding the abnormality of homosexual behaviour is reviewed and criticized. Against his argument which holds that homosexual behaviour is abnormal because it constitutes an evolutionary aberration, I argue that Levin's and all similarly constructed arguments fail to show that evolutionary origins of sexual behaviour have any significant normative force. I contend that his notion of homosexuality is confused and that he fails to consider alternative methods of how homosexuality might have indeed served evolutionary adaptive purposes or been the result of surplus adaptations. I argue, too, that Levin's linking of unhappiness with homosexual behaviour is spurious and ill‐supported. Consequently, I reject Levin's claims that public policy ought to do what it can to minimize the incidence of such behaviour. I argue by contrast that if happiness is the end of public policy decisions, then society ought to take what measures it can to protect persons in respect of their homosexual behaviour and identitie

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1987.tb00216.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1987

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTMy discussion in this paper proceeds in four stages. First, I provide a brief description of Nozick's entitlement theory and I raise some general questions about it. Secondly, I argue, contrary to Nozick, that we are justified in distributing some goods on the basis of need. More specifically, I argue that we must distinguish between the claim that goods ought to be distributed on the basis of need and the claim that goods which areessential needsought to be distributed on the basis of need. In the third section I consider the objection that such distributions will inevitably lead to the violation of individuals’ property rights. I argue that individuals are obliged to be charitable and that this obligation places limits on what they are entitled to. What charity requires of us, I maintain, we have no rights over and we must relinquish. In the fourth and final section I point out the general significance of these argument

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1987.tb00217.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1987

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTHow should just war theory be applied to assess a community's claim to defend itself? The IRA's claim to be fighting a just war to end British rule in Northern Ireland is upheld against the objection (e.g. by Simpson in this Journal, 1986) that they have a right only to self‐defence against indigenous tyranny. Under just war theory no unclarity concerning the alien status of British rule could render the IRA claim unjustifiable: only the well‐grounded denial of its alien status might serve (though this is doubtful). But if that denial is argued for by identifying a separate British community in Ireland then the IRA must be granted a right to repel alien occupation of nationalist areas. However the IRA's rejection of the ‘two communities’ view can be defended; for what constitutes a single community is subject to moral considerations. Accordingly a genuine community's claim to self‐defence is against being wronged, rather than harmed. It is concluded that just war theory cannot be applied without antecedent moral judgements identifying the community potentiall

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1987.tb00218.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1987

数据来源: WILEY

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1987.tb00219.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1987

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTWhile interest in philosophy and medicine has burgeoned in the past two decades, there remains a need for an analysis of the intellectual activity embodied in good medical practice. In this setting, ethical and scientific decision‐making are complexly interrelated. The following paper, collaboratively written by physicians and philosophers, presents a view of applied (clinical) science and applied ethics. Making extensive use of illustrations drawn from routine case material, we seek to indicate a variety of philosophic issues to be found in daily practice, elucidate various levels of critical reasoning within the medical setting, and demonstrate a remarkable similarity between medical and ethical decision‐mak

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1987.tb00220.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1987

数据来源: WILEY