The Voluntary Simplicity Movement can be understood broadly as a diverse social movement made up of people who are resisting high consumption lifestyles and who are seeking, in various ways, a lower consumption but higher quality of life alternative. The central argument of this paper is that the Voluntary Simplicity Movement or something like it will almost certainly need to expand, organise, radicalise and politicise, if anything resembling a degrowth society is to emerge in law through democratic processes. In a (...) sentence, that is the ‘grass-roots’ or ‘bottom up’ theory of legal and political transformation that will be expounded and defended in this paper. The essential reasoning here is that legal, political and economic structures will never reflect a post-growth ethics of macro-economic sufficiency until a post-consumerist ethics of micro-economic sufficiency is embraced and mainstreamed at the cultural level. (shrink)

Criminal offenders may be offered to participate in voluntary rehabilitation programs aiming at correcting undesirable behaviour, as a condition of early release. Behavioural treatment may include direct intervention into the central nervous system (CNS). This article discusses under which circumstances voluntary rehabilitation by CNS intervention is justified. It is argued that although the context of voluntary rehabilitation is a coercive circumstance, consent may still be effective, in the sense that it can meet formal criteria for informed consent. Further, for a (...) consent to be normatively valid (“take the wronging out of the act”) under a coercive circumstance, the subject to be treated must (1) have the sovereign authority to consent, and (2) the offer-giver must be in the right normative position to make the offer. While I argue that subjects do have the sovereign authority to consent to treatment, I also argue that inappropriate offers yield invalid consents. Considerations on inappropriate offers should therefore inform which kinds of CNS intervention-based rehabilitation schemes the state may propose as part of the criminal justice system. Yet as I conclude in this paper, while there are some intrinsic constraints on voluntary rehabilitation programs, the main constraints on voluntary rehabilitation are likely to be contingent overriders. However, CNS intervention is not ruled out as such in the context of voluntary rehabilitation. (shrink)

This paper discusses physician-assisted suicide and voluntary active euthanasia, supplies a short history and argues in favour of permitting both once rigid criteria have been set and the cases retro-reviewed. I suggest that among these criteria should be that VAE should only be permitted with one more necessary criterion: that VAE should only be allowed when physician assisted suicide is not a possible option. If the patient is able to ingest and absorb the medication there is no reason why VAE (...) should be permitted. A brief history of VAE and PAS is given and some of the arguments which have been given are analyzed. The Principle of the Double Effect is briefly discussed and why, in my opinion, it is not a valid principle is briefly discussed. (shrink)

This paper is about why voluntary associations, such as churches, unions and political parties, are subject to natural justice requirements in common law: in other words, why they are required to treat their members fairly. These requirements are typically imposed (under the name of procedural fairness) by public law on exercises of state authority, but voluntary associations do not exercise state authority. Voluntary associations are set up in private law, as structures of property and contract, but property and contract law (...) do not ordinarily require rights to be exercised in accordance with natural justice. What is needed is an account which locates voluntary associations within private law while adverting to what they have in common with the state: that they make and apply rules to facilitate human interaction. I propose such an account, drawing on an idea from Lon Fuller. Natural justice requirements on voluntary associations are grounded in the rule of law. (shrink)

Voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) aim to encourage ethical behaviors of organizations, yet studies show that many VSS adopters do not live up to these promises. Existing literature typically attributes the reason for this ineffectiveness to either policy–practice decoupling, owing to a lack of adhering to VSS requirements, or means–ends decoupling, owing to a lack of adapting to the local context. However, little is known about how the contradictory needs of adherence and adaptation evolve throughout VSS implementation. Building on the knowledge (...) transfer literature, we develop a dynamic conceptual framework that distinguishes two phases of VSS implementation. Specifically, we theorize how tensions emerge in the transition between phases since the first phase primarily calls for adherence, whereas the second calls for adaptation. Applying this framework, we develop propositions to illustrate how these tensions relate to different VSS characteristics: stringency, enforcement, and scope. The article concludes with implications and future research directions for VSS scholarship. (shrink)

We study imagination as reality-oriented mental simulation (ROMS): the activity of simulating nonactual scenarios in one’s mind, to investigate what would happen if they were realized. Three connected questions concerning ROMS are: What is the logic, if there is one, of such an activity? How can we gain new knowledge via it? What is voluntary in it and what is not? We address them by building a list of core features of imagination as ROMS, drawing on research in cognitive psychology (...) and the philosophy of mind. We then provide a logic of imagination as ROMS which models such features, combining techniques from epistemic logic, action logic, and subject matter semantics. Our logic comprises a modal propositional language with non-monotonic imagination operators, a formal semantics, and an axiomatization. (shrink)

A key question in the theory of migration and in public debates on immigration policies is when migration can be said to be voluntary and when, conversely, it should be seen as nonvoluntary. In a previous article, we tried to answer this crucial question by providing a list of conditions we view as sufficient for migration to be considered nonvoluntary. According to our account, one condition that makes migration nonvoluntary is when people migrate because they lack acceptable alternatives to doing (...) so. In this article, we take the opportunity to further explore and clarify this crucial condition. More specifically, we focus on two main sets of questions. First, we ask whether migration is always voluntary when it serves goals that are voluntarily chosen, and whether those who decide to migrate voluntarily but only have the option of choosing among a limited set of dangerous, harmful, or illegal means for doing so, can be said to be forced to choose those means. Second, we ask whether what counts as “nonacceptable” alternatives should also include cases in which people could have their needs and fundamental rights met, but at the cost of betraying their moral principles or conceptions of the good. (shrink)

In broad outline, the chapter proceeds as follows. As indicated above, the Voluntary Act Principle has two components. The first part, the act component, claims that criminal liability can be imposed on an accused only for the performance of an act. The second part, the voluntariness component, claims that criminal liability can be imposed on an accused only for the voluntary performance of an act. I will argue that both components of the Voluntary Act Principle are in need of (...) amendment. I will first indicate why I think the act component of the Voluntary Act Principle is in tension with the criminal law’s own conception of the necessary conditions for criminal liability, and suggest a relatively simple fix. I will then argue that what is really at work in the voluntariness component of the Voluntary Act Principle is not so much voluntariness but rather what some authors have called the practical agency condition. In making my argument I will appeal to Harry Frankfurt’s hierarchical account of the will in the hopes of illuminating what it means for an action to belong to an agent, and thus, what it means for an agent to be responsible for something she has done. (shrink)

In “On Avoiding Deep Dementia,” Norman Cantor astutely notes that, for some individuals, the concept of “protracted maintenance during progressive cognitive dysfunction and helplessness is an intolerably degrading prospect.” This cannot be argued with. Cantor's solution, however—that in the wake of a dementia diagnosis, patients should have the option to direct, in advance, instructions for voluntary stopping of eating and drinking should they develop a state of deep dementia—is more ethically challenging than it may first appear.Respect for autonomy is one (...) of the most fundamental principles of bioethics, and it requires that we allow patients with capacity to refuse life‐sustaining treatment, even when that treatment is something as seemingly innocuous as nutrition and hydration. If a capacitated person uses an advance directive to prospectively refuse artificial nutrition or hydration, then that treatment must be withheld if the person develops dementia and loses the ability or willingness to eat. Cantor is incorrect, however, in suggesting that an advance directive can require that nutrition and hydration be withheld from a patient with dementia who actively requests to eat or drink. Regardless of the language in an advance directive, caregivers cannot be compelled to abandon their duty to attend to the person's human dignity, nor can physicians be compelled to sedate a person with moderate or severe dementia because that person continues to be receptive to eating and drinking. (shrink)

This book chapter aims at exploring how intentional a piece of behavior should be to count as an action, and how a minimal view on action, not requiring a richly intentional causation, may still qualify such a behavior as voluntary.

Our goal in this article is to explicate the way, and the extent to which, euthanasia can be voluntary from both the perspective of the patient and the perspective of the health care providers involved in the patient’s care. More significantly, we aim to challenge the way in which those engaged in ongoing philosophical debates regarding the morality of euthanasia draw distinctions between voluntary, involuntary, and nonvoluntary euthanasia on the grounds that drawing the distinctions in the traditional manner (1) fails (...) to reflect what is important from the patient’s perspective and (2) fails to reflect the significance of health care providers’ interests, including their autonomy and integrity. (shrink)

Blackford, Russell In the United Kingdom, ongoing social and political controversy over voluntary euthanasia, or assisted suicide, has reached a new stage. Labour MP Rob Marris has put forward a private member's bill, to be debated in the House of Commons in September. Thus, the UK now becomes a focus of attention for those of us with an interest in the issue of assisted suicide.

Bill 20, An Act to Enact the Act to promote access to family medicine and specialized medicine services and to amend various legislative provisions relating to assisted procreation, was introduced to reduce costs associated with Québec’s healthcare in general and in vitro fertilisation in particular. Passed in November 2015, the new law introduces a number of exclusion criteria for access to and funding for IVF treatment. Remarkably, one exclusion criterion—prior voluntary sterilisation—has prompted little critical commentary. The two justifications offered for (...) restricting funding for IVF on the basis of voluntary sterilisation are that there are cheaper options than IVF for sterilised individuals who want children, and society should not have to pay for IVF for persons who are infertile by choice. I argue that both of these justifications are unsatisfactory, insofar as they contravene the chief value underlying, and current practices of, Canadian healthcare, and rely on problematic ascriptions of personal responsibility for health. (shrink)

From 1966 to 1990 there was a marked rise in the use of voluntary sterilization in Flanders, followed by a fall in women under the age of 40. In the last three decades a remarkable change has occurred in the choice between male and female sterilization. Compared with many other European countries, sterilization of men and women is widely practised in Flanders. In 1996 40% of 40- to 44-year-old women underwent voluntarily sterilization or had voluntarily sterilized partners. Additionally, another 9% (...) of these women were sterilized for medical reasons. Voluntarily sterilized couples are on average older than non-sterilized couples, and, obviously, consider their families to be complete. For couples with a complete family, parity is the most important predictor in the choice between sterilization and non-sterilization. Regularly practising Catholics undergo sterilization least. Also, highly educated couples are less likely to have a sterilization. Couples who ever experienced a contraceptive failure choose sterilization more. Voluntary sterilization has no substantial effect on the fertility of the population since the effect on the prevented numbers of both wanted and unwanted births appears to be small. However, if voluntary sterilization did not occur, differences in fertility within the population would probably increase. It is presumed that the popularity of voluntary sterilization in Flanders has passed its peak and that its use will decline in the near future. (shrink)

Read Jus, 17 June 1887): The voluntary taxation proposal really means the dissolution of the State into its constituent atoms, and leaving them to recombine in some way or no way, just as it may happen. There would be nothing to prevent the existence of five or six "States" in England, and members of all these "States" might be living in the same house! The proposal is, it appears to me, the outcome of an idea in the minds of those (...) who propound it that the State is, or ought to be, founded on contract, just as a joint stock company is. ... The explanation of the whole matter, I believe, is that ... the State is a social organism, evolved as every other organism is evolved, and not requiring any more than other organisms to be based upon a contract ... (shrink)

The degree of autonomy present in the choices made by individuals with an addiction, notably in the context of research, is unclear and debated. Some have argued that addiction, as it is commonly understood, prevents people from having sufficient decision-making capacity or self-control to engage in choices involving substances to which they have an addiction. Others have criticized this position for being too radical and have counter-argued in favour of the full autonomy of people with an addiction. Aligning ourselves with (...) middle-ground positions between these two extremes, we flesh out an account of voluntary action that makes room for finer-grained analyses than the proposed all-or-nothing stances, which rely on a rather static metaphysical understanding of the nature of the voluntariness of action. In contrast, a dynamic concept of voluntary action better accounts for varying levels of voluntariness of the person with an addiction which takes into consideration internal and external determinants of choice. Accordingly, like other components of autonomous choices such as level of information, voluntariness can fluctuate. Therefore, there are important implications for research and clinical ethics in matters of consent, recruitment, and therapeutic approaches. Overall, our proposal is inspired by a pragmatist understanding of voluntary action, notably with respect to how voluntariness is both informed by actions and experiences that shape one's view of the world. (shrink)

No laws or official guidelines govern medical assistance for dying in Japan. However, over the past several years, cases of assisted suicide or voluntary euthanasia, rarely disclosed until recently, have occurred in close succession. Inspired by these events, ethical, legal, and social debates on a patient’s right to die have arisen in Japan, as it has in many other countries. Several surveys of Japanese people’s attitudes towards voluntary assisted dying suggest that a certain number of Japanese prefer active euthanasia. Against (...) this background, it is important to discuss voluntary assisted dying cases in Japan and the Japanese views on them and to consider their implications. We review three recent Japanese voluntary assisted dying cases and discuss the various objections to voluntary assisted dying that have been published in response to these in various media outlets. Our counterarguments include the double suffering of people who are unable to give up their desire to die, individuality of death, variability of culture, problem of being an annoyance to (burden on) others, a slippery slope argument supporting voluntary assisted dying, and unfair claims about responsibility and excessive burden on people who are unable to give up their desire to die. We also point out the psychocultural and social problems in Japanese society that these objections reflect, and argue that voluntary assisted dying can be ethically acceptable under certain conditions. We conclude that Japanese society must change in order to enable those who sincerely wish to die to do so in a better way. (shrink)

It is often assumed that one cannot be forced to accept an offer as one can always reject it and be no worse off than one would have been had the offer not been made; offers involve benefits rather than the pains associated with threats. The confusion arises from the fact that we often also assume that in all cases where Q is forced to choose to do what P wants him to do, P coerces Q. I have argued that (...) coercion is only one “mode of non-voluntary compliance”. By distinguishing the different ways one can be forced to comply with another’s wishes, I have attempted to sketch out the various ways that non-voluntary compliance can operate with offers as well as threats. (shrink)

I agree with Nachev and Hacker’s general approach. However, their criticism of claims of covert automaticity can be strengthened. I first say a few words on what voluntary action involves and on the consequent limited relevance of brain research for the determination of voluntariness. I then turn to Nachev and Hacker’s discussion of possible covert automaticity and show why the case for it is weaker than they allow.

Voluntariness of consent to research has not been sufficiently explored through empirical research. The aims of this study were to develop a more comprehensive approach to assessing voluntariness and to generate preliminary data on the extent and correlates of limitations on voluntariness. We developed a questionnaire to evaluate subjects’ reported motivations and constraints on voluntariness. 88 subjects in five different areas of clinical research—substance abuse, cancer, HIV, interventional cardiology, and depression—were assessed. Subjects reported a variety of (...) motivations for participation. Offers of financial incentives were common but not influential, pressures from others were rare, and no threats were reported. However, certain financial incentives and—paradoxically—altruistic motivations led some subjects to feel more constrained. Consistent with previous studies, no one pattern of motivation was common to all research subjects. There was little evidence of constrained voluntariness, but some suggestion of areas of concern. Voluntariness appears to be susceptible to systematic empirical investigation. (shrink)

This paper provides an overview of the societal impact of a rising dementia population and examines the legal and ethical implications posed by voluntary registries as a community-oriented solution to improve interactions between law enforcement and individuals with dementia. It provides a survey of active voluntary registries across the United States, with a focus on Arizona, which has the highest projected growth for individuals living with dementia in the country.

Some people voluntarily provide public goods while others take a free ride. Are the providers acting rationally? Should they instead follow the example of the free-rider? What are the rational and moral justifications for voluntary provision? This dissertation examines five ways to justify voluntary provision: rational prudence, social norms, group agency, fairness, and altruism. It suggests that altruism provides the best possible defense. Considerations of fairness may also provide a justification in some circumstances, but generally this argument is vulnerable to (...) the objection that free-riding is often a legitimate way of protecting oneself from exploitation by other free-riders. In places, the dissertation relies on simple game theoretic models and intuitive economic equilibrium notions to analyze public good situations. The dissertation closes with a discussion of the government's role in providing public goods. An argument is made that, for certain kinds of goods (those over which preferences are public, but whose benefits are private), the standard public goods argument is not appropriate to homogeneous populations. If this is correct, other justifications for governmental provision must be summoned for goods of this form. (shrink)

본 논문의 목적은 아리스토텔레스가 『니코마코스 윤리학』 3권 5장에서 초반부에 제시한 악덕의 자발성 논증을 고찰하는 것이다. 이 논증은 성격과 행동을 개념적으로 혼동했을 뿐만 아니라, 다른 곳에서 제시된 아리스토텔레스의 입장과 상충한다는 비판을 받았다. 이 논증에 선행하는 덕의 자발성 논증 또한 덕행의 자발성을 입증할 뿐인데 덕의 자발성을 결론으로 도출했다는 비판을 받았다. 우리는 이러한 비판에 맞서 우선 선행 논증에서 일종의 생략추론(enthymeme)이 사용되었고, 논증에서 생략된 전제는 3권 5장의 후속 논의에서 완전히 몰지각한 사람 외에 누구나 아는 것으로 간주된 것이라는 해석을 제안한다. 다음으로 우리는 악덕의 자발성 논증을 (...) 소크라테스를 겨냥한 대인 논증(ad-hominem argument)으로 재구성하길 시도한다. 특히, 위(僞)-플라톤의 대화편 『정의에 관하여』에서 소크라테스가 악덕의 비자발성을 옹호하면서 유덕하게 행동하는 것과 유덕한 것을 등치시킨 점에 주목할 것이다. 우리는 아리스토텔레스가 이 점을 자신의 대인 논증에서 이용했지만, 이 점을 스스로 인정할 필요가 없었고, 자신의 입장을 일관적으로 유지하길 바라는 이상, 그럴 수도 없었다고 주장한다. (shrink)

I discuss the argument of Persson and Savulescu that moral enhancement ought to accompany cognitive enhancement, as well as briefly addressing critiques of this argument, notably by John Harris. I argue that Harris, who believes that cognitive enhancement is largely sufficient for making us behave more morally, might be disposing too easily of the great quandary of our moral existence: the gap between what we do and what we believe is morally right to do. In that regard, Persson and Savulescu's (...) position has the potential to offer more. However, I question Persson and Savulescu's proposal of compulsory moral enhancement, proposing the alternative of voluntary moral enhancement. (shrink)

Herein we examine the theory and practical limits of designing a voluntary incentive scheme to protect endangered species on private land. We consider both an ay-ante scheme, in which a contract to the landholder depends only on what the landholder reports, and an ay-post scheme, in which a contract to the landholder depends on reports from all landowners. Except in special cases, the ex-ante scheme never implements the full information allocation, and can actually set aside too much land. In contrast, (...) expected habitat size under the ex-post scheme is smaller than both the ex-ante and full information allocations. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science (USA). (shrink)

In Eth. Nic. V 8, Aristotle provides a classification of damages an agent may do, establishing degrees of culpability. In doing so, Aristotle recalls what he said about voluntary and involuntary actions in the preceding books about voluntary and involuntary actions. In this paper, I defend the thesis according to which the Eudemian account on voluntariness is consistent with the classification of damages Aristotle provides in Eth. Nic. V 8, arguing that one of Aristotle’s concerns in dealing with (...) class='Hi'>voluntariness is the legal practices of his time, which we can regard as strongly linked to his discussion on moral responsibility. Thereby, I challenge David Charles’ view that the account of voluntariness featured in the book on justice differs both from the Nicomachean account and the Eudemian one. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine Alston's arguments for doxastic involuntarism. Alston fails to distinguish (i) between volitional and executional lack of control, and (ii) between compatibilist and libertarian control. As a result, he fails to notice that, if one endorses a compatibilist notion of voluntary control, the outcome is a straightforward and compelling case for doxastic voluntarism. Advocates of involuntarism have recently argued that the compatibilist case for doxastic voluntarism can be blocked by pointing out that belief is never intentional. (...) In response to this strategy, I distinguish between two types of intentionality and argue that belief is no less intentional than action is. (shrink)

In paediatric oncology, research and treatments are often closely combined, which may compromise voluntary informed consent of parents. We identified two key scenarios in which voluntary informed consent for paediatric oncology studies is potentially compromised due to the intertwinement of research and care. The first scenario is inclusion by the treating paediatric oncologist, the second scenario concerns treatments confined to the research context. In this article we examine whether voluntary informed consent of parents for research is compromised in these two (...) scenarios, and if so whether this is also morally problematic. For this, we employ the account of voluntary consent from Nelson and colleagues, who assert that voluntary consent requires substantial freedom from controlling influences. We argue that, in the absence of persuasion or manipulation, inclusion by the treating physician does not compromise voluntariness. However, it may function as a risk factor for controlling influence as it narrows the scope within which parents make decisions. Furthermore, physician appeal to reciprocity is not controlling as it constitutes persuasion. In addition, framing information is a form of informational manipulation and constitutes a controlling influence. In the second scenario, treatments confined to the research context qualify as controlling if the available options are restricted through manipulation of options. Although none of the influences is morally problematic in itself, a combination of influences may create morally problematic instances of involuntary informed consent. Therefore, safeguards should be implemented to establish an optimal environment for parents to provide voluntary informed consent in an integrated research-care context. (shrink)

Military activities with the framework of the IDF [Israel Defense Force] is carried out by citizens in a variety of positions. In addition to the ordinary positions of career officers and NCOs, the IDF consists of conscripted men and women as well as reservists. Some of the latter serve under an ordinary command to serve for a certain relatively short period. Other reservists, including pilots and special forces officers have served since they volunteered to serve. Facing the political clash between (...) the government, who have been viewed as trying to change the democratic nature of the state, and the popular opposition, who have tried to protect the judiciary and other elements of democracy, many officers who belong to the latter reservist group have suspended their voluntary service or even retired. Their decision has raised the obvious issue of whether such decisions can be justified, morally, ethically, and democratically. This is the topic of the present paper. (shrink)

The permissibility of actions depends upon facts about the flourishing and separateness of persons. Persons differ from other creatures in having the task of discovering for themselves, by conjecture and refutation, what sort of life will fulfil them. Compulsory slavery impermissibly prevents some persons from pursuing this task. However, many people may conjecture that they are natural slaves. Some of these conjectures may turn out to be correct. In consequence, voluntary slavery, in which one person welcomes the duty to fulfil (...) all the commands of another, is permissible. Life-long voluntary slavery contracts are impermissible because of human fallibility; but fixed-term slavery contracts should be legally enforceable. Each person has the temporarily alienable moral right to direct her own life. (shrink)

In research involving patients with implantable brain–computer interfaces (BCIs), there is a regulatory gap concerning post-trial responsibilities and duties of sponsors and investigators towards implanted patients. In this article, we analyse the case of patient R, who underwent non-voluntary explantation of an implanted BCI, causing a discontinuation in her sense of agency and self. To clarify the post-trial duties and responsibilities involved in this case, we first define the ontological status of the BCI using both externalist (EXT) and internalist (INT) (...) theories of cognition. We then give particular focus to the theories of extended and embedded cognition, hence considering the BCI either as a constitutive component of the patient’s mind or as a causal supporter of her brain-based cognitive capacities. We argue that patient R can legitimately be considered both as an embedded and extended cognitive agent. Then, we analyse whether the non-voluntary explantation violated patient R’s (neuro)rights to cognitive liberty, mental integrity, psychological continuity and mental privacy. We analyse whether and how different mental ontologies may imply morally relevant differences in interpreting these prima facie neurorights violations and the correlational duties of sponsors and investigators. We conclude that both mental ontologies support the identification of emerging neurorights of the patient and give rise to post-trial obligations of sponsors and investigators to provide for continuous technical maintenance of implanted BCIs that play a significant role in patients’ agency and sense of self. However, we suggest that externalist mental ontologies better capture patient R’s self-conception and support the identification of a more granular form of mental harm and associated neurorights violation, thus eliciting stricter post-trial obligations. (shrink)

Poor working conditions remain a serious problem in supplier facilities in developing countries. While previous research has explored this from the developed buyers’ side, we examine this phenomenon from the perspective of developing countries’ suppliers and subcontractors. Utilizing qualitative data from a major knitwear exporting cluster in India and a stakeholder management lens, we develop a framework that shows how the assumptions of conventional, buyer-driven voluntary governance break down in the dilution of buyer power and in the web of factors (...) rooted in suppliers’ traditions, beliefs, local demands and resource dependency. We reveal out how success in governing collaborative global supply chains often falls short within the subcontracting stage, where a stakeholder management mindset is elusive to most participants. We suggest that success in governing collaborative global supply chains is dependent on concepts of stakeholder utility and the presence of shared value that is often at odds with the realities of power, information asymmetry and compliance/reward systems inherent in the non-market coordination of global supply chains. Our findings offer important insights for delineating the concepts of value creation from CSR concepts and practices, and for modifying the basic assumptions of conventional supply chain governance. (shrink)

이 글은 『니코마코스 윤리학』 3권 5장에서 제시되는 성품의 자발성에 관한 아리스토텔레스의 설명을 둘러싼 몇몇 쟁점들을 검토하고 그것에 대한 답을 제시하는 것을 목표로 한다. 이와 관련해서 특히 다음의 세 가지 작업이 수행된다. 첫째, 습관화 과정의 초기에 행위자의 외적 조건들이 성품의 형성에 큰 영향을 미침에도 불구하고 어떻게 그 행위들을 자발적인 것으로 간주할 수 있는가의 문제에 관해서 아리스토텔레스의 텍스트에 기반한 답을 제안한다. 둘째, 성품이 확립된 후에 행해진 행위는 그 이전의 행위에 비해 덜 자발적이라는 주장이 아리스토텔레스의 주요한 윤리학적 생각들과 일관적이지 않음을 보인다. 셋째, NE (...) 1111a31b1에서 가상의 반론자에 답하는 과정에서 아리스토텔레스가 ‘나머지 것들’이라고 부르는 것이 무엇이고 그것을 통해 그가 이야기하고자 했던 바가 무엇인지를 설명한다. (shrink)

In 2017, Victoria became the first state in Australia to pass legislation permitting voluntary assisted dying. Under this law, only those people who are near the end of their lives may access voluntary assisted dying, and because many of these people require nursing care to manage the progression of their illness or their symptoms, it will invariably have an impact on nursing practice. The Victorian law includes a series of procedural steps as safeguards to ensure that the law operates as (...) intended. To support people who choose voluntary assisted dying and to practice safely within boundaries of the law, nurses must be aware of these requirements and how they operate. However, there are often gaps in nurses’ legal knowledge. This was demonstrated in an article that aimed to inform nurses about the operation of Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2017 (Vic) but contained several errors and misstatements of the law. Our article corrects these errors and discusses how the law is intended to be applied by revisiting the fictional case of Chloe – a woman with a terminal illness who is seeking voluntary assisted dying. As the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2017 (Vic) also protects nurses from liability if they act in accordance with its provisions, we conclude that sound knowledge and understanding of its operation support nurses to provide the safe, comprehensive and compassionate care their patients deserve at the end of life. (shrink)

Studies on informed consent to medical research conducted in low or middle-income settings have increased, including empirical investigations of consent to genetic research. We investigated voluntary participation and comprehension of informed consent among women involved in a genetic epidemiological study on breast cancer in an urban setting of Nigeria comparing women in the case and control groups.

In an earlier article in this journal I argued that the question of whether heroin addicts can give voluntary consent to take part in research which involves giving them a choice of free heroin does not – in contrast with a common assumption in the bioethics literature – depend exclusively on whether or not they possess the capacity to resist their desire for heroin. In some cases, circumstances and beliefs might undermine the voluntariness of the choices a person makes (...) even if they do possess a capacity for self-control. Based on what I took to be a plausible definition of voluntariness, I argued that the circumstances and beliefs typical of many vulnerable heroin addicts are such that we have good reasons to suspect they cannot give voluntary consent to take part in such research, even assuming their desire for heroin is not irresistible. In a recent article in this journal, Uusitalo and Broers object to this on the grounds that I misdescribe heroin addicts' options set, that the definition of voluntariness on which I rely is unrealistic and too demanding, and, more generally, that my view of heroin addiction is flawed. I think their arguments derive from a misunderstanding of the view I expressed in my article. In what follows I hope therefore to clarify my position. (shrink)

The concept of voluntariness permeates the ethics and politics of migration and is commonly used to distinguish refugees from migrants. Yet, neither the precise nature and conditions of voluntariness nor its ethical significance for migrant rights and state obligations has received enough attention. The articles in this collection move the debate forward by demonstrating the complex ethical judgments involved in delineating voluntary from forced migration and in drawing out its political and institutional implications. In addition to highlighting the (...) interplay between the voluntary and nonvoluntary elements of migration over time and across different sites of the migration journey, they provide a nuanced account of the various conditions of voluntariness and they challenge common ideas about its normative political consequences. (shrink)

This paper examines the extent to which the voluntary adoption of codes of conduct by multinational corporations (MNCs) renders MNCs accountable for the performance of actions specified in a code of conduct. In particular, the paper examines the ways in which codes of conduct coordinate the expectations of relevant parties with regard to the provision of assistance by MNCs on grounds of rescue or justice. The paper argues that this coordinative role of codes of conduct renders MNCs more accountable for (...) the performance of actions specified in a code of conduct than they would be without a code of conduct. This interpretation of the significance of codes of conduct is contrasted with the view that codes of conduct render MNCs accountable for performing actions specified in a code of conduct by grounding contractual obligations for the performance of such actions. (shrink)

The principle of wrongful benefits prescribes that beneficiaries from wrongdoing incur duties towards the victims of the wrongdoing. The principle focuses on involuntary beneficiaries, demanding that they disgorge their tainted benefit. However, it overlooks the duties of beneficiaries who are not straightforwardly involuntary. The article addresses this gap in the literature. It explores the duties of ‘voluntary beneficiaries’, who could avoid receiving the tainted benefit; and the duties of ‘welcoming beneficiaries’, who cannot avoid receiving the tainted benefit but welcome it. (...) The article demonstrates that in both cases, the duties of the beneficiary towards the victim of the original wrongdoing are not limited to the disgorgement of the benefit. Rather, voluntary and welcoming beneficiaries are themselves involved in the commission of wrongdoing against the victim of the original wrongdoing, and hence may owe the victim compensation that exceeds the level of their own benefit. This argument has various practical implications, e.g. in specifying the duties of companies who benefit from human rights violations down their supply chain. (shrink)

Should immigrants have fewer cultural and language rights than citizens and long-settled groups, and if so, on what moral ground? In the first part of the paper, we develop a novel critique of Kymlicka’s account of voluntary cultural rights alienation, arguing that it is only plausible in the context of emigration, not immigration. We argue that the choice to immigrate cannot be considered voluntary without it being sufficiently clear to the migrant what her rights and duties will be in the (...) new society. If so, then voluntariness cannot morally ground a particular rights regime in the destination country. Any such rights regime must be justified on independent moral grounds. Secondly, we argue that voluntariness can play a different role in a normative argument for cultural rights-differentiation between citizens and denizens. It can i) mitigate the overall injustice of differential treatment; and it can ii) instantiate the justice of how rules apply to the immigrant in a reasonably just society. Thirdly, we sketch an alternative moral grounding of cultural and language rights differentiation that rests, not on voluntariness, but on a contextual analysis of the relevant interests involved. While the protection of these relevant interests gives us reasons to prioritize the language(s) of long-settled groups in many cases, there is no general case for restricting the full recognition of language and culture to long-settled groups. (shrink)

An informed consent and voluntary assent in biomedical research with adolescents is contingent on a variety of factors, including adolescent and parent perceptions of research risk, benefit, and decision-making autonomy. Thirty-seven adolescents with asthma and their parents evaluated a high or low aversion form of a pediatric asthma research vignette and provided an enrollment decision; their perceptions of family influence over the participation decision; and evaluations of risk, aversion, benefit, and burden of study procedures. Adolescents and their parents agreed on (...) research participation decisions 74% of the time, yet both claimed ultimate responsibility for the participation decision. Both rated most study procedures as significantly more aversive than risky. Parents were more likely to rate aspects of the hypothetical study as beneficial and to provide higher risk ratings for procedures. Disagreements concerning research participation decisions and decision-making autonomy have implications for the exercise of voluntary assent in biomedical research. (shrink)