摘要:

ABSTRACT This paper is concerned with the view that, in so far as they involve the deliberate targeting of innocent people, neither terrorism nor area bombing is ever morally permissible. Four attempts to justify this view are considered, all of which are based on the intuition that deliberately killing innocent people is wrong. By means of a detailed examination of the introduction of area bombing by Britain in 1940–41, it is argued that in certain circumstances there are other equally powerful and accessible intuitions which support the opposite view. It is further argued that only moral theories which provide for the weighing of competing moral intuitions are capable of avoiding this kind of impasse and the biased selection of intuitions that this form of absolutism invol

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1989.tb00374.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACT Lately, the demand for historical biography has remained strong, fresh works appearing with increased regularity. My concern is with the subjects of these efforts—the dead figures whose lives and natures form the bulk of the contents. The ethics of the professional historian provide writers of historical biography with some guidelines, but are these sound, substantial and enduring enough to ensure the just treatment of the subjects? My contention is that they are not, and I set out tentatively in this brief essay to speculate on some grounds upon which a fuller sense of ethical responsibility, respect and commitment may be built. The major difficulty in attempting this exercise rests with the actual nature of the subject towards whom any duty or responsibility is to be felt, and it is on ambiguity respecting this issue that any serious conclusions may risk shipwreck. Alternatively, if any sense of ethical concern is thought demonstrable in this context, it may rest upon premises that are fundamentally egoistic in nat

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1989.tb00375.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACT Can it be wrong to simply live in an unjust society? Four moral principles: group responsibility, unjust enrichment, a general duty to prevent injustice and the need to preserve one's moral integrity indicate that it might be. I explore the implications of each of these principles and conclude that while the possibility of doing good might counterbalance the threat to moral integrity, a person who continues to live in an unjust society should repudiate the injustice to avoid being held responsible for it and has a duty to compensate those deprived if he is unjustly enriched. Moreover, the general duty to prevent injustice bears more heavily on those who are closest to i

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1989.tb00376.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACT Public health authorities sometimes have to make decisions about the use of preventive medical measures—e.g. vaccination programmes—which could, if realised, save millions of lives, but could also kill a certain (small) number of those subjected to the measures. According to a rough‐and‐ready utilitarian calculation, such measures should be taken, but there are also possible objections to this view.A liberal objection to the use of mandatory preventive measures which might harm human beings is that people have a right to decide for themselves whether or not they want to participate in the programme. A further objection is based on the claims that first, the authorities are directly killing those who die because of, say, vaccination programmes, and second, directly killing human beings is forbidden (since every human being has a right to live).The latter objection is discussed at length in the present paper. The validity of three doctrines, the doctrines of the double effect, of acts and omissions, and of killing and letting die, are considered with reference to the use of preventive measures, and found inapplicable. The objection is, however, refuted by comparing some hypothetical examples, and the initial utilitarian calculation is r

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1989.tb00377.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACT The House of Lords ruled inR v Howe(1987) that Duress is not a defence to murder in English law. Some of the central arguments rested on a simple view about the nature of duress and the way in which duress is relevant in moral evaluation. This paper discusses legal and non‐legal senses of duress, and argues that duress can be relevant to moral evaluation in a number of different ways. Some acts under duress are morally justified (here the defence of Duress is like that of Necessity) and some others are excusable; some excuses deny full responsibility on the part of the agent (here Duress is more like Provocation) and others do not. The judicial description of duress inHoweis too specific to notice this, with the consequence that some of the central claims made in dismissing Duress as a defence to murder are confu

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1989.tb00378.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACT In order to slow down the inexorable increase in spending on health care, the British government has implemented an initiative proposed by Griffiths. This initiative is designed to make doctors more accountable for the decisions they may take. In this essay I argue first, that the conflation of two decisions (financial and clinical) leads to unnecessary ethical dilemmas and secondly, that as psychologically it is difficult to take two decisions simultaneously, inevitably the clinician is forced to name either the financial or the clinical decision as the prior problem. To decide for the former inevitably strains the traditional doctor/patient relationship of mutual trus

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1989.tb00379.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACT In this paper I examine some of the issues surrounding the moral status of the therapy known as ‘deprogramming’. I argue against the extreme view that all deprogrammings are morally impermissible. In certain instances deprogramming is morally justified because it is quite capable of restoring the conditions needed for the exercise of autonomy. The view of autonomy I am following is that constructed by Gerald Dworkin, wherein two conditions must be met in describing a person as autonomous—authenticity and procedural independence. Autonomy of another type, described by Dworkin as authenticity plus substantive independence,maybe lost by persons involved in cults but in those instances deprogramming as reconstructed in this paper is not a morally justified

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1989.tb00380.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACT Some beings, including children, animals and the mentally handicapped, seem to deserve moral consideration, despite the fact that they are not rational or moral agents. These so‐called marginal cases create a problem for theories that heavily stress the role of moral and/or rational agency in ethics: the latter seem unable to account for the former's moral status. This paper discusses the recent and original attempt of Loren Lomasky to solve this problem. It is argued that Lomasky's arguments are self‐defeating because they can only succeed by relying on common‐sense morality and, thus, by giving up the heavy stress on the role of rational agency in

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1989.tb00381.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

ABSTRACT Tibor R. Machan's ‘The virtue of freedom in capitalism’, which recently appeared in this journal, seeks to defend the currently fashionable view that capitalism and freedom are closely linked. I concentrate upon three aspects of his argument. First, Machan holds that capitalism is the only system capable of facilitating the exercise of moral responsibility effectively. Against this, I show that his argument rests upon a systematic confusion between two distinct theses. Secondly, I deal with his attempt to rest an argument upon the allegedly ‘uncoercive’ nature of market exchanges. Thirdly, I show that his analysis of the concept of freedom, which closely follows Hayek, logically cannot be deployed in support of the free market. Machan has a tendency to appeal to ‘tradition’, and so, in conclusion, I briefly consider his relation to the ‘analytic’ movem

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1989.tb00382.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Book reviewed in this article:A Good Look at Evil. Abigail L. RosenthalA Farewell to Marx. David ConwayPhilosophy of the Film. Ian JarvieThe Foundations of Bioethics. Tristram EngelhardtHigh Technology Medicine. Brian JennettPsychology, Ethics and Change. Susan Fairbairn&Gavin FairbairnEthical Issues in Family Therapy. Sue Walrond‐Skinner&David WatsonDefinition and Rule in Legal Theory. Robert N. MolesThe Jurisprudence of Orthodoxy: Queen's University essays on H. L. A. Hart. Philip Leith&Peter Ingr

ISSN:0264-3758    

DOI:10.1111/j.1468-5930.1989.tb00383.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY