摘要:

ABSTRACTCertain kinds of medical treatment are often held to be morally unacceptable because they are an ‘interference with nature’. I suggest a way in which we can make sense of such ideas. We can make significant choices only against a background of conditions which we regard as ‘natural’, and these will typically include such facts as those of birth and death, of youth and age, and of sexual relations. I argue, however, that such ideas, though intelligible, do not establish any valid moral objection to, for instance, the use of ovarian tissue for assisted con

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1996.tb00144.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1996

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTAll ethical systems seem to call for more ethical sensitivity. The dangers to personal life of too much ethical sensitivity have received much attention lately, in attempts to limit the demands of morality. But the ethical dangers of ethical sensitivity have hardly been noticed. I argue that, in a number of different ways, too much ethical sensitivity can be ethically harmful. The normative, the psychological and the pragmatic pictures are for more complex than is commonly realised.

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1996.tb00145.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1996

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the significance to professional decision‐making of the concept of the ‘merits’. The merits serve in practical affairs to delineate considerations appropriate to ethical decision‐making and require in particular the avoidance of ‘self‐interest’. Drawing on the example of politics, it is argued that the boundaries of the ‘merits’are never fixed across professional fields but rather are determined by the distinctive character of the professional's fiduciary responsibilities; and that properly understood, the merits may demand some ‘self‐interested’considerations which in the common conception would be rejected. The political example also suggests how the ‘ethical’conflict over the accepted boundaries of the merits can mask fundamental normative and political differences which wo

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1996.tb00146.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1996

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTThis essay considers definitions of racism which emphasise its behavioural, motivational, and cognitive features. The behavioural definition (‘the failure to give equal consideration, based on the fact of race alone’) is rejected, primarily due to its inability to distinguish between ‘true’and ‘ordinary’racism. It is the former which is morally most objectionable — and which identifies the essence of the racist attitude and belief. The central part of the essay argues in favour of the motivational approach to the definition (‘the infliction of unequal consideration, motivated by the desire to dominate, based on race alone’) and clarifies the way in which racism, thus understood, conflicts with the principle of human equality. Finally, the cognitivist definition (‘unequal consideration, out of a belief in the inferiority of another race’) is also rejected, despite its intuitive appeal. The overall discussion has important implications for moral philosophy. It is shown both that the principle of human equality does not strictly imply equal consideration, and that one may violate the principle of equal perception, yet not deny the principle which, from the perspective of this argument, is the more fundamental element in the principle of human equality, the principle

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1996.tb00147.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1996

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTThe cases devised by moral philosophers are often abstract and sterile to the point of precluding the most important function of emotion in our dealings with real people in real situations. Far from thinking that morality is exclusively a matter of rational assessment of the morally relevant features of a situation, I believe that rationality has little if anything to do with moral conduct, and I hope to illustrate this through a consideration of what precisely is amiss with Miss Penmark of The Bad Seed. [1]

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1996.tb00148.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1996

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTThe aim of this article is to determine whether genetic engineering is ever acceptable. The prominent arguments which have been put forward by the opponents of genetic engineering are examined and evaluated. The arguments ‘we should not interfere with nature’, ‘we should not alter the genetic constitution of organisms’, and ‘we should not alter the genetic constitution of organisms to this extent’are found to be inadequate as valid arguments against all genetic engineering. However, it remains a possibility that there is nothing intrinsically unethical about genetic engineering, but that the risks of misuse render the techniques ethically unacceptable. Since universal legislation is not possible, and the risks of genetic engineering are so real, this alone may be sufficient to dismiss all genetic engineeri

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1996.tb00149.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1996

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTIf we accept that the behaviour of humans and other animals is very substantially channelled by evolutionary constraints, it might appear that there can be no place for animals within the protection of a human system of morality.However, the nature of plausible evolutionary constraints on the cognition of social animals, including humans, suggests that this is not so. It is likely that the most important element in our morality is the capacity to imagine the feelings of other individuals, and this capacity is so important for our ability to understand and predict their behaviour that it would be likely to be preserved by evolution even if moral behaviour had no survival value in its own right. We also use this kind of imaginative sympathy to understand and predict the behaviour of other animals, and it is this which provides the main reason for the inclusion of such animals within a human moral system. The primitive elements of morality have a survival value that is probably common to many other social species of animals. Since one of our reasons for putting a special value on human life is the human capacity for moral behaviour, we ought also to view members of these species as being of special significance.

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1996.tb00150.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1996

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTDavid Miller has written extensively on the ethical value of the nation. A satisfactory response to Miller's ideas on nationalism requires an assessment of the whole range of his writings on the subject. After stating the outlines of Miller's conception of ‘nationality’, I evaluate the most important arguments for and against any attribution of ethical importance to the nation. Finally, I assess Miller's commitment to conational ethical priority in the context of duties of justributive justice. My main conclusions are as follows. (i) Miller's conservative strategy of justification is unacceptable, and a critical strategy suggests several plausible arguments for valuing national attachments. These arguments are not conclusive, however, (ii) In so far as Miller's position depends on real historical connections between persons, it is susceptible to the objection from historical myth. (iii) Miller offers an unexpected and ultimately unsuccessful response to the claim that national sentiments are partial and hence biased, (iv) Miller provides no good reason to believe that the duties of distributive justice are owed in the first instance to conation

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1996.tb00151.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1996

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTRecent writings by philosophers such as David Miller and Yael Tamir have undertaken to provide nationalism with a normative foundation, a task which has been all but ignored by post‐War English‐language political philosophy. I identify and criticise three lines of argument which have been deployed in their writings. First, it is argued by Miller that the universalism and abstraction of rationalist moral theories have made them suspicious of ‘particularisms’ such as nationalism, but that they stem from a faulty metaethics. Against this I argue that abstraction and universality need not be grounded in a universalist metaethics, but can be derived pragmatically from the ethical needs of multicultural societies. Second, it is argued that liberal policies such as taxation and material redistribution, restrictions on immigration, as well as liberal concepts such as political obligation, presuppose the validity of the nationalist point of view. Against this I hold that nationalism never provides the strongest moral grounds for these policies and concepts, and that, in the specific case of distributive justice, it can even undermine them. And third, I examine the argument that the historical excesses of which nationalists have been guilty are actually the product of a narrow, ‘ethnic’nationalism, in contrast to which we can articulate a categorically distinct, open, ‘civic’nationalism, which would be broadly compatible with liberal political morality. I argue that the concept of civic nationalism is unstable, and that under fairly plausible and widespread empirical conditions, it either collapses back into a form of ethnic nationalism, or else becomes devoid of any recognisably nati

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1996.tb00152.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1996

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTIn his paper ‘The Survival Lottery’John Harris suggested that there could be situations where the rational thing to do would be to kill a healthy person and harvest his organs for transplantation, thereby saving several lives at the cost of one. Anne Maclean claims that such a proposal, far from being rational, does not qualify as a moral proposal at all since what it suggests is ‘plain murder’. I argue that she is correct to claim that the proposal is not uniquely rational and that doctors could quite rationally reject it, but that she overreaches herself when she holds it not to be a moral proposal

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1996.tb00153.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1996

数据来源: WILEY