Many of us are inclined to accept something like the following principle: We can only be properly morally assessed for what is in our control. And yet our ordinary practices seem to frequently violate this principle. The resulting tension, and the attempt to resolve it, is the problem of moral luck. For example, we tend to punish and think worse of the negligent driver who kills a child than we do the equally negligent driver who was lucky there was no (...) child in his path. Thus, the lucky outcomes of our actions do seem to affect the extent to which we hold and are held responsible, but these are not things over which we exercise control. And, as Thomas Nagel famously illustrated in his response to Bernard Williams (the two of which papers form the founding documents of the moral luck debate), the influence of luck is not limited to outcomes. For the circumstances in which we find ourselves and, indeed, our very constitution are also shaped by luck. Since the publication of Williams's and Nagel's papers, the existence and breadth of moral luck has been hotly debated. This debate is not a mere intellectual trifle but, as the essays in this volume illustrate, a debate which lies at the heart of free will, responsibility, identity, causation, and self-creation. (shrink)

To encourage new research on the role of institutions in the entrepreneurial process in less developed countries, the authors propose a conceptual framework to investigate concurrent institutional constraints. The authors define these constraints as geopolitical contexts that encounter simultaneous challenges to well functioning formal and informal institutions. Systems of stronger institutions compensating for weaker institutions are hampered in these settings and such systems weigh heavier on local entrepreneurs and further challenge their ability to mobilize resources and access market opportunities. By (...) investigating the extreme operating conditions of these settings, scholars gain a deeper understanding of how entrepreneurs confront operational dilemmas and express agency through engaging with bricolage and cultural entrepreneurship. To animate these proposals, the authors consider a case illustration of a venture operating under such constraints. (shrink)

Knowledge is inextricably bound to power in the context of settler colonialism where apprehension of the Other is a tool of domination. Tracing the development of the “settler colonial” paradigm, this article deconstructs Zionist and Israeli dispossession of Palestinian land and sovereignty, applying the sociology of knowledge production to the study of the Israeli-Palestinian case. The settler colonial paradigm, linked to Israeli critical sociology, post-Zionism, and postcolonialism, reemerged following changes in the political landscape from the mid-1990s that reframed the history (...) of the Nakba as enduring, challenged the Jewish definition of the state, and legitimated Palestinians as agents of history. Palestinian scholars in Israel lead the paradigm’s reformulation. This article offers a phenomenology of Palestinian positionality, a critical potential for decolonizing the settler colonial structure and exclusive Jewish sovereignty, to consolidate a field of study that shapes not only research into the Israeli-Palestinian case but approaches to decolonization and liberation. (shrink)

Is genre film comparable to a thought experiment?Revising concepts of determinism and agency in three film noirs The philosophical approach of film genres, first popularized by authors like Stanley Cavell, allows to consider genre films as narrative variations as pertinent to philosophical discourse as can be a traditional thought experiment, since every question on the essence of a genre and every discussion related to its inner functions, its mechanisms and its themes, generate naturally a philosophical discourse on the way a (...) director uses filmic and narrative tools to transform his intentions into a specific system of meaning. This study adopts formalist and philosophical approaches to connect the narratives of the movies to the discourses it is prone to generate. The corpus draws on the ‘primitive scene' in three films noirs, Out of the Past, The Lady from Shanghai et Criss Cross : the tragic meeting of an anti-hero with the woman who will be responsible of his fall. Indeed, the sequence showing this first meeting becomes an exercise in style where forerunning signs of the two protagonists' fall organize the writing and the mise-en-scene, and explicitly shows how questions of agency and determinism are intimately articulated to the narrative and formal frame of the movies. (shrink)

Many theorists have found the notion of forgiveness to be paradoxical, for it is thought that only the blameworthy can be appropriately forgiven but that the blameworthy are appropriately blamed not forgiven. Some have appealed to the notion of repentance to resolve this tension. But others have objected that such a response is explanatorily inadequate in the sense that it merely stipulates and names a solution leaving the transformative power of repentance unexplained. Worse still, others have objected that such a (...) response cannot succeed because no amount of repentance can render the blameworthy not blameworthy. I argue that this latter objection is based on a mistaken assumption, the acknowledgement of which has the power to resolve the paradox in a way that meets the explanatory adequacy challenge, and, more generally, has significant implications with which any full theory of forgiveness must engage. (shrink)

This article articulates a sociological conception of settler colonial remembering as a tool of legitimation. Theories of memory in the context of settler colonialism generally center counter-memories by the subaltern or colonized, or official hegemonizing representations at the level of state institutions. Underexamined is the dialectical nature of memory and discursive representations that help reproduce settler colonial processes of accumulation and displacement at the micro-level. The article draws on archival data from avowedly socialist-leftist Zionist colonies to explicate patterned representations of (...) Palestinian villages that Zionist forces gradually displaced prior to and during the 1948 War/Nakba. I demonstrate how the colonial settlers attributed political meaning through five representational modes: contrasting the indigenous as backward and primitive and settlers as progressive and developed; denying an indigenous connection to the land; emphasizing amiable relations through the promotion of cultural progress and settler superiority; asymmetrically assessing settler and indigenous belongings to national collectives; and legitimizing land purchases that dispossessed indigenous cultivators, despite the settlers’ socialist ideology, while reducing conflict to the issue of economic compensation. I theorize a form of settler colonial memory based not merely on erasure, but on recognition and disavowal. Finally, I argue that local memory is a significant site of production in which the conceptual tools to both trace the historical processes of supremacy and subvert asymmetrical sociality lie. (shrink)

Some accounts of moral responsibility hold that an agent's responsibility is completely determined by some aspect of the agent's mental life at the time of action. For example, some hold that an agent is responsible if and only if there is an appropriate mesh among the agent's particular psychological elements. It is often objected that the particular features of the agent's mental life to which these theorists appeal (such as a particular structure or mesh) are not necessary for responsibility. This (...) is because there appear to be cases in which an agent acts at an earlier time which causes her to lack the appropriate psychological features at some later time and yet, intuitively, she is responsible at that later .. (shrink)

Within the professional practice of psychology the code of ethics characterizes what is morally right or wrong, by means of a set of principles, values, and standards of conduct. While there are numerous international mental health organizations that incorporate ethical guidelines such as the APA and EFPA; these codes still fall short in providing guidelines for psychologists working in non-western cultures, especially when there are no universally adopted and valid cross-cultural ethics codes. This paper explores various challenges psychologists in the (...) Arab region face when using a western code which does not reflect the values and traditions of their culture. A comparison of several ethical codes from different Arab countries is presented, with a focus on challenging areas of interest such as confidentiality, informed consent and multiple relationships. (shrink)

It typically taken for granted that agents can be morally responsible for such things as, for example, the death of the victim and the capture of the murderer in the sense that one may be blameworthy or praiseworthy for such things. The primary task of a theory of moral responsibility, it is thought, is to specify the appropriate relationship one must stand to such things in order to be morally responsible for them. I argue that this common approach is problematic (...) because it attempts to explain the way in which an agent can be morally responsible for something that is external to her, the agent. Since, I argue, everything that matters for moral responsibility is internal to the agent, the accounts that emerge from this approach are committed to a particular form of moral luck. Instead, we should reject this form of moral luck, and with it, the possibility of moral responsibility for objects external to the agent. We are, I argue, morally responsible only for our inner willings. Thus, a form of internalism about moral responsibility is defended. (shrink)

This article extends critical trends of citizenship studies and the theory of accumulation by dispossession to articulate how settler colonial citizenship is instantiated through the active accrual of land and resources and how the emerging settler colonial citizenship entrenches both structural subjugation and resistance. The article then examines the reformation of the boundaries of citizenship through indigenous agency. I do so through examining the Palestinian citizens in Israel, specifically centering the Internally Displaced Persons—Palestinians who received Israeli citizenship even as they (...) were displaced from their places of origin. I conclude by asserting citizenship’s double paradox in settler colonial contexts: It regulates certain rights and mobilities but simultaneously entraps the indigenous in a structure in which recursive accumulation is constitutive, thus entrenching dispossession and the further loss of collective rights and other claims. (shrink)

The essays in this volume are illustrative of the variety of issues that arise when thinking about moral responsibility. From metaphysical concerns about free will and determinism to normative interest in the nature of our social practices, the philosophy of moral responsibility seems to have something to offer philosophers of nearly any taste or temperament. It is, in part, this pervasive and diverse significance that sparked and has sustained my own interest in the topic. I hope the essays in this (...) volume have similar effects on readers.The volume begins with an essay by Justin Capes, examining blameworthiness in the context of tragic choices. It is natural to think that freely and knowingly doing wrong, despite the awareness that one could do right, is a sufficient condition of blameworthiness. But some have recently argued that there are counterexamples to this claim. Suppose that Ann is faced with the difficult choice of saving a few strangers from certain death or preventing her c .. (shrink)

This paper distinguishes between synchronic responsibility (SR) and diachronic responsibility (DR). SR concerns an agent’s responsibility for an act at the time of the action, while DR concerns an agent’s responsibility for an act at some later time. While most theorists implicitly assume that DR is a straightforward matter of personal identity, I argue instead that it is grounded in psychological connectedness. I discuss the implications this distinction has for the concepts of apology, forgiveness, and punishment as well as the (...) way in which this distinction can be used to defend quality of will accounts of responsibility against objections involving psychological manipulation. I argue that the intuition that a manipulated agent is not responsible can be explained by appeal to the conditions of DR and, as such, does not unproblematically shed light on the conditions of SR. (shrink)

This essay deals with Nina Bouraoui’s mixed-race identity as presented in her autobiographical novels Garçon manqué and Mes mauvaises pensées. The métis question takes the shape of a representation of an ethnicized, dual and fractured identity. My argument explores a contradiction at work in Bouraoui’s texts: while reclaiming the existence of a Franco-Algerian métis identity, Bouraoui represents the métis as the incarnated perpetuation of the historical tensions that divided France and Algeria. The narratives simultaneously construct and deconstruct Bouraoui’s Franco-Algerian métis (...) identity. I examine how Bouraoui represents her Algerian legacy and appropriates a familial history to construct herself as Algerian. I analyze how traumatic memories of asphyxiation are a metaphor for Bouraoui’s difficult relationship with her French self, symbolized by the motif of white skin. And I consider how the ends of the two novels provide a problematic acceptance and fulfillment of Bouraoui’s métis identity. (shrink)

L'unique chemin d'accès à la compréhension, le plus approché possible, de l'être humain, consiste à tenter de le saisir tel qu'il se manifeste en ses oeuvres, soit en l'ensemble des productions de ses activités. Ensemble qui est la culture. L'enjeu est la vérité de l'homme : est-elle dans son immanence ou dans sa transcendance? Cette opposition entre immanence et transcendance résume la différence axiologique entre l'être et le devoir-être, la différence ontologique entre le phénomène et la réalité, la différence théologique (...) entre l'humain et le divin. (shrink)

Building on Peter French’s important work, this chapter draws three distinctions that arise in the context of attributions of moral responsibility, understood as the extent to which an agent is blameworthy or praiseworthy. First, the subject of an attribution of responsibility may be an individual agent or a collective agent. Second, the object of the responsibility attribution may be an individual action (or consequence) or a collective action (or consequence). The third distinction concerns the temporal dimension of the responsibility attribution. (...) Sometimes responsibility for an action is attributed to an agent at the time of the action. At other times responsibility for an action is attributed to an agent sometime after the action has taken place. Taken together, these three binary distinctions yield eight types of responsibility attribution. It is argued that a collective agent’s responsibility for a past collective act is properly understood on the same theoretical model as is an individual’s responsibility for a past individual act. While most assume that responsibility over time is a straightforward matter of identity over time, it is argued that instead this is a matter of psychological or attitudinal connectedness. The possibility is considered that this relation also grounds attributions involving an asymmetry between subject and object, such as individual responsibility for past collective action, but a skeptical worry is raised that such attributions entail an unpalatable form of moral luck and should therefore be rejected. (shrink)

Purpose This paper aims to propose a theoretical arrangement for the study of applied computer and information ethics carried out in an interdisciplinary and a democratic manner by which the information and communications technologies are seen as an ethical environment, and human-computer couplings are seen as hybrid moral agents. Design/methodology/approach New ethical issues emerge dynamically in such environment which must be interpreted according to human sentience and computer ontology. To attribute moral meaning to acts perpetrated by human-computer hybrids, a hybrid (...) of two semiotics must be likely used that bridge the gap between signs and things from opposite directions. Findings The author argues that ecosocial dynamics and material semiotics can be harnessed together as in a theoretical mashup for that purpose, and that such harnessing will allow us to engage with a posthumanist/post-social ethics here and now. Originality/value The originality of the proposal resides in bringing hybridity to the center of the picture, forcing interdisciplinary teams to engage with one unified, even if hybrid, agency regardless of conflicting ontologies and epistemologies. (shrink)

This article takes a look at our responses to the Syrian refugee crisis in Lebanon from the “micro” – or grassroots – level. Specifically, it examines how our attitudes and approaches, as responders, affect the lived experience of others during this extraordinarily sensitive time of displacement. Three areas of reflection are discussed: the reductionist approach to identity, the pathologizing of those who go through suffering, and finally the exploration of a biblical understanding of integration, by looking at the parable of (...) the workers in the vineyard. In such a dynamic, restorative, and Christ-like community, both those “workers” who arrived early and those who arrived late are equally valued. (shrink)

Laws set requirements that force organizations to assess the security and privacy of their IT systems and impose them to implement minimal precautionary security measures. Several IT solutions (e.g., Privacy Enhancing Technologies, Access Control Infrastructure, etc.) have been proposed to address security and privacy issues. However, understanding why, and when such solutions have to be adopted is often unanswered because the answer comes only from a broader perspective, accounting for legal and organizational issues. Security engineers and legal experts should analyze (...) the business goals of a company and its organizational structure and derive from there the points where security and privacy problems may arise and which solutions best fit such (legal) problems. The paper investigates the methodological support for capturing security and privacy requirements of a concrete health care provider. (shrink)

Manipulation arguments are commonly deployed to raise problems for compatibilist theories of responsibility. These arguments proceed by asking us to reflect on an agent who has been manipulated to perform some (typically bad) action but who still meets the compatibilist conditions of responsibility. The incompatibilist argues that it is intuitive that the agent in such a case is not responsible even though she met the compatibilist conditions. Thus, it is argued, the compatibilist has not provided conditions sufficient for responsibility. Patrick (...) Todd has recently argued that incompatibilists have taken on a heavier dialectical burden than is necessary. Todd argues that incompatibilists need not argue that an agent in a manipulation case is not at all responsible, but only that her responsibility is mitigated in order to refute compatibilism. Hannah Tierney has responded to Todd’s argument by arguing that a compatibilist can admit that manipulation mitigates responsibility without eliminating it. I argue that Tierney’s response is unsuccessful on its own terms. But, I argue, Todd’s argument can be resisted by way of a parallel counter-argument for compatibilism. I argue that Todd’s argument for incompatibilism is no more powerful than my argument for compatibilism. And since Todd’s manipulation argument is offered as an objection to compatibilism, this amounts to a victory for the compatibilist; the objection is defused. (shrink)

It is commonly held that agents can be blameworthy only for acts that are morally wrong. But the claim, when combined with a plausible assumption about wrongness, leads to an implausible view about blameworthiness. The claim should be rejected. Agents can be blameworthy for acts that are not morally wrong. We will take up the claim in terms of three initially appealing, but jointly inconsistent propositions. The significance of noting the inconsistency is motivated by a consideration of a number of (...) theorists who have held, or at least flirted with, all three propositions. The best way to resolve the inconsistency is to reject the claim that blameworthiness requires wrongness. There are good reasons to conclude that a different relation between blameworthiness and wrongness can garner more intuitive support than the alternatives. (shrink)

In most penal systems, success is punished more than failure. For example, murder is punished more severely than attempted murder. But success or failure is often determined by luck. It thus appears that punishment is allotted on the basis of arbitrary factors. The problem of criminal attempts is the question of how to best resolve this apparent tension. One particularly sophisticated attempt at resolution, first developed by David Lewis, holds that such differential punishment is not unjust when understood as a (...) natural penal lottery. What is most interesting about this view is that it does not appear to involve a commitment to resultant moral luck. I argue that the natural penal lottery fails to deliver justice. Upon analysis, it carries the same implication that it sought to avoid—namely, a commitment to resultant moral luck. I then argue that there can be, in principle, no penal lottery that delivers justice, natural or otherwise. (shrink)

At the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict rages a struggle between two foundational tragedies: the Jewish Holocaust and the Palestinian Nakba. The contending ways in which both events are commemorated is a known feature of the conflict. Less known are marginal attempts to jointly deliberate on them. This article draws on such attempts to theorize a postnational conception of memory. Deliberating on the Holocaust and the Nakba, it argues, challenges the way nationalism structures ‘our’ and ‘their’ relationship to the past. (...) While nationalism seeks the congruence of memory and territory, postnationalism challenges this congruence. Doing so entails extending the communicative bounds of memory beyond national members, disrupting the territorialization of memory along national lines, and critically revising national narratives in light of a cosmopolitan memory. The article explores these three dimensions and offers a typology that differentiates the way nationalism and postnationalism mediate our relationship to the past. (shrink)

In spite of legislation enforcing standards of health and safety at work, at least in the West, sweatshops are still a feature of the business scene. The long term ethical aim must be clear, but there is a need for a gradual approach rather than an absolutist one. The author is completing his MBA at London Business School, and is of Lebanese origin with a background in finance.

In this interdisciplinary article, we investigate the relationship between creativity and the immune system; the creative features of the immune system and how the immune system and its role in regulating homeostasis might be related to creative cognition. We argue that within a multivariate approach of creativity, the immune system is a contributing factor. New directions for research are also discussed. When astronauts and cosmonauts venture into the new and extreme environment of outer space, their immune system needs to instantly (...) adapt and find new answers to survive biologically and psychologically. Many astronauts report interest in creative activities and therefore represent an interesting group to investigate creativity in relation with the immune system. Little is known regarding how the immune system interacts with and supports creative cognition and behavior, if an individual’s immune system, interacting with cognition, adapts more originally to a new environment compared to another’s; in other words, if there is creativity in the domain of the immune system, and the creative properties and functions of the immune system itself. (shrink)

End-of-life decision-making in patients with dementia is a complex topic. Belgium and the Netherlands have been at the forefront of legislative advancement and progressive societal changes concerning the perspectives toward physician-assisted death (PAD). Careful consideration of clinical and social aspects is essential during the end-of-life decision-making process in patients with dementia. Geriatric assent provides the physician, the patient and his family the opportunity to end life with dignity. Unbearable suffering, decisional competence, and awareness of memory deficits are among the clinical (...) considerations that physicians should incorporate during the end-of-life decision-making process. However, as other societies introduce legislature granting the right of PAD, new social determinants should be considered; Mexico City is an example. Current perspectives regarding advance euthanasia directives (AED) and PAD in patients with dementia are evolving. A new perspective that hinges on the role of the family and geriatric assent should help culturally heterogeneous societies in the transition of their public health care policies regarding end-of-life choices. (shrink)

This engaging book explores Senator Bernie Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign, a radical movement that represented a diverse voter base. As such, it had to navigate the complexities of class, identity, and their interrelation. The thesis author Marc Léger seeks to defend is that the campaign ultimately failed in this endeavor. Rather than reassert the centrality of class in socialist politics, he argues, the campaign indulged a dubious politics of division.

As Medicine shifts from a paternalistic practice to a patient-centered approach, the concept of medical informed consent (IC) has evolved to safeguard patient autonomy. However, its current implementation still presents many challenges in clinical practice. We assessed the knowledge and attitudes of the general Lebanese population regarding the IC process as well as their sociodemographic and medical correlates. An anonymous online survey was distributed to the Lebanese population using social media channels. A sample of 500 adults with an average age (...) of 36.2 ± 13.5 years, including 319 females and 181 males, was recruited. Most of the respondents had a university degree (85.8%), reported previous hospital admissions (75.9%) and had signed an IC for surgical procedures (40.7%). Few participants were knowledgeable about IC Lebanese law. Variability in knowledge level was significantly related to gender and a previous hospitalization history. Positive attitudes toward patient autonomy (53.1%) and shared decision-making (57.5%) correlated with older age, female gender, graduate education, and a previous history of signing an IC document. Males were more likely to believe that IC has positive effects on health than females. This is the first study that provides novel findings regarding Lebanese peoples’ awareness of the ethico-legal components of medical IC. (shrink)

Topics covered in Discrete Mathematics have become essential tools in many areas of studies in recent years. This is primarily due to the revolution in technology, communications, and cyber security. The book treats major themes in a typical introductory modern Discrete Mathematics course: Propositional and predicate logic, proof techniques, set theory (including Boolean algebra, functions and relations), introduction to number theory, combinatorics and graph theory. An accessible, precise, and comprehensive approach is adopted in the treatment of each topic. The ability (...) of abstract thinking and the art of writing valid arguments are emphasized through detailed proof of (almost) every result. Developing the ability to think abstractly and roguishly is key in any areas of science, information technology and engineering. Every result presented in the book is followed by examples and applications to consolidate its comprehension. The hope is that the reader ends up developing both the abstract reasoning as well as acquiring practical skills. All efforts are made to write the book at a level accessible to first-year students and to present each topic in a way that facilitates self-directed learning. Each chapter starts with basic concepts of the subject at hand and progresses gradually to cover more ground on the subject. Chapters are divided into sections and subsections to facilitate readings. Each section ends with its own carefully chosen set of practice exercises to reenforce comprehension and to challenge and stimulate readers. As an introduction to Discrete Mathematics, the book is written with the smallest set of prerequisites possible. Familiarity with basic mathematical concepts (usually acquired in high school) is sufficient for most chapters. However, some mathematical maturity comes in handy to grasp some harder concepts presented in the book. (shrink)

The problem of moral luck arises due to a particular tension in our thought. On the one hand, we seem readily inclined to endorse the principle that moral responsibility, that is, one’s praiseworthiness or blameworthiness, cannot be affected by luck, that is, by factors over which one lacks control. But, when we examine our actual practices, we find that our moral judgments are highly sensitive to luck. This resulting tension between principle and practice is the problem of moral luck, and (...) an attempt to solve this problem is an attempt to resolve this tension. The article first explains the traditional characterization of the problem and reviews three general strategies in responding to it. It is then argued that we should characterize the problem in a slightly broader way. This refocusing turns out to have significant methodological implications. (shrink)

This paper investigates an ingenious argument by Andrew Khoury which, if valid, could shed new light on some of the most relevant discussions within the field of moral philosophy. The argument is based on the idea that if we deny the phenomenon of resultant moral luck, then the proper objects of moral responsibility must be internal willings. I analyse the argument and find it unsound. The argument does not adequately account for the positions of all relevant moral actors when (...) it comes to the moral evaluation of agents and their actions. (shrink)

Author Marc James Léger responds to Elias Khoury’s review of his book _Bernie Bros Gone Woke: Class, Identity, Neoliberalism_, which was published in volume 17 of the _International Journal of __Žižek Studies_. While Léger accepts the one mistake in the book that Khoury correctly identifies, he takes issue with nearly everything else in Khoury’s review, which involves fallacies, misquotations, reductive arguments, misdirection and failure to mention anything that would contradict Khoury’s generally false claims. Léger describes the (...) possibility of academic foul play in the context of a public secret directed against him and that he has been struggling against since the late 1990s. (shrink)

This paper scrutinises the tenability of a strict conceptual distinction between space and matter via the lens of the debate between modified gravity and dark matter. In particular, we consider Berezhiani and Khoury's novel 'superfluid dark matter theory' as a case study. Two families of criteria for being matter and being spacetime, respectively, are extracted from the literature. Evaluation of the new scalar field postulated by SFDM according to these criteria reveals that it is as much matter as anything (...) could possibly be, but alsoꟷbelow the critical temperature for superfluidityꟷas much spacetime as anything could possibly be. A sequel paper examines possible interpretations of SFDM in light of this result, as well as the consequences for our understanding of the modified gravity/ dark matter distinction and the broader spacetime–matter distinction. (shrink)

This paper pushes back against the Democritean-Newtonian tradition of assuming a strict conceptual dichotomy between spacetime and matter. Our approach proceeds via the more narrow distinction between modified gravity/spacetime and dark matter. A prequel paper argued that the novel field Φ postulated by Berezhiani and Khoury's 'superfluid dark matter theory' is as much matter as anything could possibly be, but also below the critical temperature for superfluidity as much spacetime as anything could possibly be. Here we introduce and critically (...) evaluate three groups of interpretations that one should consider for such Janus-faced theories. The consubstantiality interpretation holds that Φ is both matter and a modification of spacetime, analogously to the sense in which Jesus is both human and god. The fundamendalist interpretations consider for each of these roles whether they are instantiated fundamentally or emergently. The breakdown interpretations focus on the question of whether Φ signals the breakdown, in some sense to be specified, of the MG-DM dichotomy and perhaps even the broader spacetime–matter distinction. More generally, it is argued that hybrid theories urge a move towards a single space of theories, rather than two separate spaces of spacetime theories and matter theories, respectively. (shrink)

What kinds of things can we be morally responsible for? Andrew Khoury offers an answer that includes (i) an argument for the impossibility of blameworthiness for overt action, and (ii) the assertion that “willings are the proper object of responsibility in the context of action”. After presenting an argument for the inconsistency of Khoury’s answer to our focal question, I defend the following partial answer that resembles, but differs importantly from, Khoury’s answer: one can be blameworthy for (...) a practical decision—that is, an essentially intentional momentary mental action of forming an intention to do something that resolves prior felt unsettledness about what to do. (shrink)

Resultant moral luck occurs whenever aspects of an agent’s moral responsibility are affected by luck pertaining to the outcomes of their actions. Many authors reject the existence of moral luck in this sense, but they do so in different ways. Michael Zimmerman argues that resultant luck affects the scope of moral responsibility, but not its degree. That is, it affects what agents are responsible for, but not how responsible they are. Andrew Khoury takes a more resolute approach, arguing that (...) both the scope and the degree of moral responsibility are free from resultant luck. -/- In this paper, I criticize both accounts and develop an alternative. I argue, first, that Khoury’s approach leads to an implausibly far-reaching error-theory about moral responsibility. Second, Zimmerman’s account cannot account for all the ways in which moral responsibility comes in degrees. Third, these problems can be overcome by introducing a distinction between two concepts of responsibility that both come with scope and degree. The first concept I call internal responsibility, as it applies exclusively to agent-internal factors. The second concept I call external responsibility, as it applies to (partly) agent-external factors such as actions and their outcomes. Given this distinction, we can avoid the problems of Khoury’s as well as Zimmerman’s accounts while preserving the central intuition behind the rejection of resultant moral luck. (shrink)

One of the signs of the rapid development of medical genetics is a gradual increase in the number of genetic tests available. Different aspects of this phenomenon have been addressed and debated in the source literature, but so far relatively little has been said about the obligation to provide equal access – in the social context – to selected kinds of tests. In this article, I attempt to reconstruct those few suggestions, dealing with the principles of funding genetic tests from (...) public resources, that can still be found in the source literature. Accordingly, I have analyzed the possibilities of identifying the criteria of selecting diagnostic and preventive tests to be eligible for refund, as well as of screening programmes. (shrink)