摘要:

ABSTRACTThis paper deals in the main with the problem of delimiting the classes of beings to which we have moral duties when making environmental decisions, and of how to balance their interests fairly. The relation between having interests, having desires and having value (intrinsic or other) is discussed, and a distinction made between entities which can themselves value and those which can have value. Its conclusion is that duties are owed directly to, and only to, sentient beings, and that these duties can be ascertained by weighing their interests impartially strength for strength. It ends with some suggestions about procedures for doing this. Examples are taken from proposals to develop a beach commercially, and to construct a new road in an environmentally sensitive area [1].

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1987.tb00197.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1987

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTAIDS raises the moral problem of confidentiality because those in sexual contact with the patient may contract a life‐threatening and incurable disease. Medicine has a tradition in which a patient's condition is regarded as confidential information held by the doctor alone. In this case there is a clear moral inclination to inform those at risk from the disease. In most cases no problem will arise but when it does the moral justification for a violation of confidentiality comes into question. Confidentiality is important because of our respect for certain human values and their importance to our patient. Where that patient acts so as to disregard the welfare of others with whom they are in close relationship, those values are lacking. This lack warrants a departure from our normal canons and provokes a suspension of normal moral privileges. The contention that any transgression, however slight, could be held to justify such a response posits a slope down which we, in fact, have no tendency to slid

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1987.tb00198.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1987

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTSome think we should look at aspects of what is commonly thought of as non‐sentient nature as having a value in themselves apart from the use or recreation they provide for humans or even animals. But to what extent does nature, in the character it presents to us, exist apart from presence to consciousness such as ours? Surely at least many of its aspects cannot. However, that does not stop them having a genuinely intrinsic value, just as works of art do, whose existence also is impossible apart from their display to a consciousness such as ours. But can nature, as it exists quite apart from human or animal consciousness, have any intrinsic value? It is suggested that only a panpsychic, and perhaps pantheist, view of nature (a view for which there are excellent metaphysical grounds) can give a positive answer, and even that must be a very vague one [1

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1987.tb00199.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1987

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTLiberal political philosophy has little of interest to say about the social liberty of the physically disabled. It accepts that the physically disabled and the able‐bodied are equally at liberty, even though the former can do far less than the latter; and it concludes that there are no interesting political statements we can make about their situation. In this essay, I assume that the physically disabled are unfree, not merely unable, to use public facilities which do not take their disability into account, thereby excluding them. I criticise liberal theories of liberty by exposing and questioning the assumptions which entail the liberal theorist's rejecting this claim. I conclude that there is a form of negative liberty which does enable the liberal theorist to make political statements about the freedom of the disabled [1

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1987.tb00200.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1987

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the claim that what is ‘really’ good for business will in the end harmonize with the requirements of morality. In searching for a plausible interpretation of what might be ‘really’ good for a business enterprise, the paper explores analogies to traditional philosophical accounts of the ‘true good’ of man. The conclusion is that while such accounts can make sense of the claim that a person's true good requires a moral commitment, they can suggest no solution applicable to business. The reason is that the analogy between natural persons and business enterprises breaks down at a crucial point. It follows that any radical improvement in the moral quality of business activity cannot come from appealing to a ‘true good’ of business. And since external means of control are not sufficient, the paper concludes that we must rely on the moral motivation of individuals filling positions in business. What is indicated then is the need for a strengthened consciousness of the range of freedom and responsibility of persons in t

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1987.tb00201.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1987

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTSince the 1970s there has been a significant paradigm shift in psychology away from behaviourism and towards cognitive psychology. Indeed a recent survey discovered that by 1983 more than half American psychologists were describing their approaches as cognitive. However, while behaviourism has had an identifiable philosophical ‘line’ in positivism, reductionism and the hypothetico‐deductive model, such a framework has been noticeably lacking from cognitive psychology. A view of cognitive psychology based on functionalism and ideas from systems analysis is put fo

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1987.tb00202.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1987

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTEven in the absence of overt discrimination, women are often channelled into different directions from their male counterparts by the network of incentives and disincentives which constitute what has been called a ‘discriminatory environment’. On the account of freedom and coercion developed in this essay, the incentives and disincentives which typically figure in discriminatory environments are not coercive. Nevertheless such environments, it is argued, are morally objectionable on independent grou

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1987.tb00203.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1987

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTThe public controversy over sex‐based differentials in insurance pricing makes heavy use of terms like ‘fairness’ and ‘discrimination’; in particular, both sides argue that their position is the one dictated by considerations of fairness. Appeal to a basic principle of distributive justice shows that these differentials are not fair. Nevertheless, there is a substantial ethical argument to be made for the industry'sstatus quo, based on the liberty of the low‐risk insurees. The paper considers an alternative reform proposal, with a qualitatively different freedom cost; seven factors are then identified as useful in evaluating the trade‐off between the freedom and justice at stake in any questionable insurance classification variable. A brief concluding section attempts to generalise this analysis to provide a broad framework for the analysis of other discrimi

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1987.tb00204.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1987

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTPublic companies in most countries are legally required to publish annual accounts, and these are widely used for making financial decisions. To prevent users of accounts being misled into making disastrous decisions, all major Western countries have introduced controls on the ways accounts are presented. By British and EEC law a company's accounts must give a ‘true and fair view’ of its financial state.It has become widely accepted that if accounts are prepared according to standards drawn up by the accounting profession itself, then they can be considered as being ‘true and fair’. In this paper it is argued that such an interpretation of ‘true and fair’ gives inadequate protection to users. How users' interests might be better protected is discussed. Finally, it is suggested that Rawls’ notion of a ‘veil of ignorance’ could be used to ensure that in the preparation of accounts equal regard is paid to the interests of differ

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1987.tb00205.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1987

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACTThe paper examines J. Glover's 1970 account of the evasion of responsibility. Attention is focused on the Eichmann case and Glover's contention that moral condemnation of Eichmann depends on the view that there is a duty to submit one's actions to moral criticism. Two uses of the word ‘moral’ are distinguished (one use for moral commitment, the other for logical diagnosis) and it is argued that Glover's thesis is accordingly ambiguous. It is contended that Glover must either abandon his stipulative account of the concept of morality or accept the objectivity of moral judgements or modify his unqualified thesis that everybody ought to submit his conduct to moral criticism. An account of problems of evading responsibility involves us, it is maintained, in an area of moral philosophy, the Dialectic of Morals, where knock‐down arguments are s

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1987.tb00206.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1987

数据来源: WILEY