If the global economy seems unfair, how should we understand what a fair global economy would be? What ideas of fairness, if any, apply, and what significance do they have for policy and law? Working within the social contract tradition, this book argues that fairness is best seen as a kind of equity in practice.

Is the procreation asymmetry intuitively supported? According to a recent article in this journal, an experimental study suggests the opposite. Dean Spears (2020) claims that nearly three-quarters of participants report that there is a reason to create a person just because that person’s life would be happy. In reply, I argue that various confounding factors render the study internally invalid. More generally, I show how one might come to adopt the procreation asymmetry for the wrong reasons by misinterpreting one’s intuitions.

Volume 20, Issue 7, July 2020, Page 128-132.

Transplantation is now the best therapy for eligible patients with end-stage organ disease. For patients with failed kidneys, successful renal transplantation improves the quality and increases the quantity of their lives. For people with other types of organ failure, transplantation offers the only hope for long-term survival. a.

On the aesthetics and poetics of Hawks and Ford; their resurgence in film studies.

In her recent book, Democratic Reason, Hélène Landemore argues that, when evaluated epistemically, “a democratic decision procedure is likely to be a better decision procedure than any non-democratic decision procedures, such as a council of experts or a benevolent dictator” (p. 3). Landemore's argument rests heavily on studies of collective intelligence done by Lu Hong and Scott Page. These studies purport to show that cognitive diversity – differences in how people solve problems – is actually more important to overall group (...) performance than average individual ability – how smart the individual members are. Landemore's argument aims to extrapolate from these results to the conclusion that democracy is epistemically better than any non-democratic rival. I argue here that Hong and Page's results actually undermine, rather than support, this conclusion. More specifically, I argue that the results do not show that democracy is better than any non-democratic alternative, and that in fact, they suggest the opposite – that at least some non-democratic alternatives are likely to epistemically outperform democracy. (shrink)

In this third edition of "John Locke", the text is divided into three parts. The first is biographical, giving an account of the development of Locke's mind. The second expounds the teaching of the "Essay", and relates this to its background; while the third deals with Locke's teaching in political theory, moral philosophy, education, and religion. -- From publisher's description.

Good-for theorists claim that to be valuable is to be good for someone, in the sense of being beneficial for them. Their opponents deny this, arguing that some things are good-simpliciter: good independently of being good for anyone. In this article I argue in favor of good-simpliciter. I appeal to the category of symbolically valuable acts, acts which seem valuable even when they do not benefit anyone and even when they are costly to the agent. I explore various strategies a (...) good-for theorist might pursue to address these apparently valuable acts, for example by appealing to the acts’ connection to beneficial character traits or practices, and I argue that none of these strategies succeed. Instead, I propose that the best way to understand the value of these acts involves seeing them as appropriate responses to what is good-simpliciter, and more specifically, as ways of loving what is worthy of love. (shrink)

The left ventricular assist device was originally designed to be surgically implanted as a bridge to transplantation for patients with chronic end-stage heart failure. On the basis of the REMATCH trial, the US Food and Drug Administration and the US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services approved permanent implantation of the left ventricular assist device as a destination therapy in Medicare beneficiaries who are not candidates for heart transplantation. The use of the left ventricular assist device as a destination therapy (...) raises certain ethical challenges. Left ventricular assist devices can prolong the survival of average recipients compared with optimal medical management of chronic end-stage heart failure. However, the overall quality of life can be adversely affected in some recipients because of serious infections, neurologic complications, and device malfunction. Left ventricular assist devices alter end-of-life trajectories. The caregivers of recipients may experience significant burden (e.g., poor physical health, depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder) from destination therapy with left ventricular assist devices. There are also social and financial ramifications for recipients and their families. We advocate early utilization of a palliative care approach and outline prerequisite conditions so that consenting for the use of a left ventricular assist device as a destination therapy is a well informed process. These conditions include: (1) direct participation of a multidisciplinary care team, including palliative care specialists, (2) a concise plan of care for anticipated device-related complications, (3) careful surveillance and counseling for caregiver burden, (4) advance-care planning for anticipated end-of-life trajectories and timing of device deactivation, and (5) a plan to address the long-term financial burden on patients, families, and caregivers. Short-term mechanical circulatory devices (e.g. percutaneous cardiopulmonary bypass, percutaneous ventricular assist devices, etc.) can be initiated in emergency situations as a bridge to permanent implantation of ventricular assist devices in chronic end-stage heart failure. In the absence of first-person (patient) consent, presumed consent or surrogate consent should be used cautiously for the initiation of short-term mechanical circulatory devices in emergency situations as a bridge to permanent implantation of left ventricular assist devices. Future clinical studies of destination therapy with left ventricular assist devices should include measures of recipients' quality of end-of-life care and caregivers' burden. (shrink)

While the science of animal consciousness has seen a surge of new work, its most basic methodology remains highly disputed. In this paper I identify four candidate norms of inquiry that have been implicitly introduced in the recent literature. I call these (1) expansive theorizing, (2) indirect inquiry, (3) lowering epistemic standards, and (4) inflating epistemic standards. In each section, an instantiation of the norm of inquiry is discussed, and the broader lessons that can be taken from avoiding it are (...) drawn out. Interestingly, each of these candidate norms of inquiry have something in common: they implicitly hold that, to study animal consciousness, ordinary scientific standards must in some way be departed from. The overarching claim of this paper is that this is a mistake. In response to this, I propose four alternative candidate norms of inquiry. I call these (1) weighted development, (2) evidential foundations, (3) knowledge directed, and (4) anti-proof. The overarching norm of ‘no exceptionalism’ is then proposed with the goal of establishing a minimal methodological consensus. (shrink)

Midrash Genesis Rabbah takes aim at a variety of ideological adversaries, but the most subtle polemic is directed at sages who went beyond standard hermeneutical practices to embrace mystical approaches to Torah learning. This essay seeks to expose the use of satire and other literary forms of critique among passages treating cosmology and Torah study. Analytic tools developed by Pierre Bourdieu, especially as they pertain to exposing the use of the symbolic language intrinsic to the establishment of systems of social (...) authority, will be employed to delineate the ideological conflict among sages developing diverse approaches to ascending the religious hierarchy within early rabbinism. (shrink)

Midrash Genesis Rabbah takes aim at a variety of ideological adversaries, but the most subtle polemic is directed at sages who went beyond standard hermeneutical practices to embrace mystical approaches to Torah learning. This essay seeks to expose the use of satire and other literary forms of critique among passages treating cosmology and Torah study. Analytic tools developed by Pierre Bourdieu, especially as they pertain to exposing the use of the symbolic language intrinsic to the establishment of systems of social (...) authority, will be employed to delineate the ideological conflict among sages developing diverse approaches to ascending the religious hierarchy within early rabbinism. (shrink)

Are corporations ever morally obligated to engage in counterspeech—that is, in speech that aims to counter hate speech and misinformation? While existing arguments in moral and political philosophy show that individuals and states have such obligations, it is an open question whether those arguments apply to corporations as well. In this essay, I show how two such arguments—one based on avoiding complicity, and one based on duties of rescue—can plausibly be extended to corporations. I also respond to several objections to (...) corporate counterspeech. (shrink)

Walter Glannon argues that our proposal for routine recovery of transplantable cadaveric organs is unacceptable After carefully reviewing his counterarguments, we conclude that, although some of them have merit, none are sufficiently strong to warrant abandoning this plan. Below we respond to each of Glannon's concerns.

This paper offers a unified explanation for the procreation asymmetry and the non-identity thesis – two of the most intractable puzzles in population ethics. According to the procreation asymmetry, there are moral reasons not to create lives that are not worth living but no moral reasons to create lives that are worth living. I explain the procreation asymmetry by arguing that there are moral reasons to prevent the bad, but no moral reasons to promote the good. Various explanations for the (...) procreation asymmetry have failed to explain the non-identity thesis: if one could create a person with a good life or a different person with a better life, one has a moral reason to create the better life. I argue that reflections on the misfortune of unfulfilled potential allow us to circumvent the non-identity problem. (shrink)

Employers often encourage, incentivize, or even require their employees to engage in politics in a variety of ways. For example, employers often encourage employees to vote, press employees to support particular political candidates or policies, require employees to participate in political events, or ask employees to contact elected officials to advocate for the employer’s interests. Such practices are all forms of employer mobilization. This essay considers the threat that employer mobilization poses to employees’ speech rights, specifically employees’ right against compelled (...) speech. I argue that employer mobilization practices are liable to infringe on employees’ right against compelled speech when three conditions are met: (1) the employer asks or encourages employees to express a particular political message that is inconsistent with some employees’ beliefs and values; (2) the employer forces some employees to express the employer’s message; and (3) the employees are not employed in a role or an organization in which expressing or supporting such messages is an essential part of the job. (shrink)

Bigotry distractions are strategic invocations of racism, transphobia, or negative stigma toward other marginalized groups to shape political discourse. Although the vast majority of Americans agree on large policy issues ranging from reducing air pollution to prosecuting corporate crime, bigotry distractions divert attention from areas of agreement toward divisive identity issues. This article explores how the nefarious targeting of identity groups through bigotry distractions may be the tallest barrier to health reform, and social change more broadly. The discussion extends the (...) literature on dog whistles, strategic racism, and scapegoating. (shrink)

The Radical Behavioral Challenge (RBC) contends that due to normal human cognitive biases, many standard prescriptions of business ethics run afoul of the principle that ‘ought implies can.’ Von Kriegstein responds to this challenge by arguing that those prescriptions are wide-scope obligations that can be fulfilled by recusing oneself or by establishing appropriate safeguards. I argue that this solution falls short of fully resolving the RBC because individuals will often be incapable of recognizing when they are biased and incapable of (...) establishing appropriate safeguards. (shrink)

Is there a pro tanto moral reason to create a life merely because it would be good for the person living it? Proponents of the procreation asymmetry claim there is not. Defending this controversial no reason claim, some have suggested that it is well in line with other phenomena in the moral realm: there is no reason to give a promise merely because one would keep it, and there is no reason to procreate merely to increase the extent of justice (...) in the world. Allegedly, some analogs extend so far as to support a unified theory of the no reason claim and the nonidentity thesis, that is, the view that of two persons leading lives of positive wellbeing, there is a reason to create the person with higher wellbeing. I dismantle the proposed analogs and show that they fail to meet various desiderata. Moreover, I refute Johann Frick's argument that the no reason claim follows from the assumption that reasons of beneficence are reasons to act for the sake of people. By criticizing attractive defenses for the no reason claim, I weaken its plausibility. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Vessel of Honor: The Virgin Birth and the Ecclesiology of Vatican II by Brian A. GraebeAaron Pidel S.J.Vessel of Honor: The Virgin Birth and the Ecclesiology of Vatican II. By Brian A. Graebe (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic, 2021), 351 pp.Though Mary's undiminished virginity in giving birth (virginitas in partu) was long understood to be an event as miraculous and a teaching as authoritative as her virginity in conceiving (...) (virginitas ante partum), virginitas in partu underwent a kind of existential reinterpretation in the middle of the twentieth century. Authors such as Albert Mitterer and Karl Rahner suggested that, physically speaking, Jesus's birth might have happened like any other, rupturing the hymen, distending the birth canal, and causing Mary pain, albeit not in the spiritually disintegrating way common to postlapsarian humanity. These arguments effectively "unsettled" the traditional understanding of virginitas in partu, leading theologians of the highest stature to distinguish between the doctrine itself and the anatomical aspects attached to it over time. Fr. Brian Graebe has written a fine book arguing that the bodily dimensions of the virgin birth, including the physical "seal" of virginity, belong to the substance of the doctrine. This more inclusive understanding not only does better justice to the data of tradition, he argues, but illuminates the ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council. The book impresses by its theologically reflective method, its clarity of exposition, [End Page 1106] and its depth of research—especially into the archival and antepreparatory sources of Vatican II.Vessel of Honor responds in effect to Rahner's argument that physical intactness is peripheral to the dogmatic core of Mary's virginity in partu. To show otherwise, Rahner contended, one would need to show that such a doctrine can be found directly in the apostolic teaching, or that it, "being implicitly contained therein, has grown out of the apostolic doctrine, by a legitimate historical, logical, and theological process, as its authentic development" (68–69). If the bodily aspects of this doctrine really belonged to the deposit of faith, in other words, one would need to show how they are implied in the traditio divino-apostolica, as well as how they cohere organically with the rest of the deposit. The two major parts of Vessel of Honor respond in turn to each aspect of Rahner's challenge.The first three chapters argue that Mary's bodily integrity in parturition belongs at least implicitly to the traditio divino-apostolica. Turning first to the postapostolic tradition, Fr. Graebe shows that—apart from the early exceptions of Origen and Tertullian—patristic sources either affirm or strongly imply a miraculous delivery. This constant witness culminates in the Lateran Council (649 AD), which, while not itself an ecumenical council, was received into the magisterium of Pope Martin and affirmed by the Third Council of Constantinople (680 AD). Its teaching that Mary "gave birth without corruption" (incorruptibiliter... genuisse) would be defended by Paschasius, Ratramnus, Thomas Aquinas, and others. This consensus remained undisturbed until the eve of Vatican II.Even at Vatican II, Fr. Graebe argues in the next chapter, the Council Fathers intended to reaffirm the more inclusive idea of virginitas in partu against those who would marginalize its bodily dimensions. Here he really breaks new ground, delving deep into the antepreparatory, preparatory, and conciliar drafting history. He shows convincingly that many of the chief drafters of the final formula—"Our Lord, who did not diminish his mother's virginal integrity but sanctified it..." (Lumen Gentium §57)—saw it as excluding Rahner's and Mitterer's minimalizing interpretations. Drawing on material from the Vatican Apostolic Archives, Fr. Graebe shows that some of the very theologians who voted to omit the pointed phrase "in the birth itself" (in ipsomet partu) did so for tonal rather than substantive reasons.The third chapter argues that Mary's physical integrity in birth is to be believed with divine and Catholic faith, despite the ongoing confusion introduced by Rahner and others. Admittedly, Vatican II did not define but merely reaffirmed the traditional understanding of virginitas in partu. But there are other reasons for including it in the traditio divino-apostolica. [End Page 1107] Drawing heavily... (shrink)

Recognizing yourself in literature cannot only help you to get a clearer grasp of what you already think and feel. It can also deeply unsettle your vision of yourself. This article examines a hitherto neglected mechanism to this effect: learning by way of seeing yourself in others’ blindness. I show that In Search of Lost Time epitomizes this phenomenon. Confronting characters oblivious to their old age makes the protagonist realize that he, too, has aged without noticing it, and invites readers (...) to analogous insights. The paper contributes to the discussion on how you can learn from literature and adds a twist to Proust’s claim that the purpose of literature is that readers recognize themselves in it. (shrink)

In their recent article, Glannon and Ross remind us that family members have obligations to help each other that strangers do not have. They argue, I believe correctly, that what creates moral obligations within families is not genetic relationship but rather a sharing of intimacy. For no one are these obligations stronger than they are for parents of young children. This observation leads the authors to the logical conclusion that organ donation by a parent to her child is not optional (...) but rather a prima facie duty. However, Glannon and Ross go a step further by suggesting that because parent-to-child organ donation is a duty, it cannot be altruistic. They assert that “altruistic acts are optional, nonobligatory…supererogatory…. Given that altruism consists in purely optional actions presupposing no duty to aid others, any parental act that counts as meeting a child's needs cannot be altruistic.” Here I think the authors go too far. (shrink)

Retrieval practice, relative to further study, leads to long-term memory enhancement known as the “testing effect.” The neurobiological correlates of the testing effect at retrieval, when the learning benefits of testing are expressed, have not been fully characterized. Participants learned Swahili-English word-pairs and were assigned randomly to either the Study-Group or the Test-Group. After a week delay, all participants completed a cued-recall test while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. The Test-Group had superior memory for the word-pairs compared to the Study-Group. (...) While both groups exhibited largely overlapping activations for remembered word-pairs, following an interaction analysis the Test-Group exhibited differential performance-related effects in the left putamen and left inferior parietal cortex near the supramarginal gyrus. The same analysis showed the Study-Group exhibited greater activations in the dorsal MPFC/pre-SMA and bilateral frontal operculum for remembered vs. forgotten word-pairs, whereas the Test-Group showed the opposite pattern of activation in the same regions. Thus, retrieval practice during training establishes a unique striatal-supramarginal network at retrieval that promotes enhanced memory performance. In contrast, study alone yields poorer memory but greater activations in frontal regions. (shrink)

The following article is a response to Virginia Aspe’s “The Political Dilemmas of the Transformations of Mexico: A Philosophical Approach”. My aim is to discuss some ideas developed by Aspe Armella, pointing out, from the perspective of the history of Mexican philosophy, both the successes of her approach, as well as some aspects that deserve more debate.

The novelties of the contemporary international order require a rethinking of the normative foundations of criminal justice. Although one can understand the relevance of basic principles such as th...

Organ donation and transplantation touch on profound, and at times elusive, values and beliefs. These involve personal identity, embodiment, the relationship between the individual and the community, and death. Different cultural and religious perspectives, reflecting deeply ingrained but often unspoken assumptions about human identity and responsibilities, subtly but profoundly affect attitudes to donation and transplantation.

This essay develops an account of the link between Kant's aesthetics and his ethics. It does so by articulating a Kantian account of moral psychology by way of aesthetic reflective judgements of sublimity. Since judgements of sublimity enrich the picture of a Kantian subject by forcefully revealing the unbounded power of the faculty of reason, I investigate the possibility that judgements of this kind could serve as a basis for moral motivation. The paper first shows how judgements of sublimity help (...) a subject recognize reason's unbounded nature, and proceeds to analyse the practical effects of a subject judging itself sublime. When judgements of sublimity have as their object the unbounded and unsythesizable power of reason, they may thereby serve as the basis for both the recognition of our moral vocation, and the grounds for determining the will to act from respect for it. Since a judgement of sublimity produces for Kant the experience of an enlivening emotion and an outflowing of vital forces, the paper then develops Kant's concept of “life” motivated by a recognition of its practical orientation. In this way sublimity rather than beauty can be interpreted as symbolic hypotyposis of morality. The paper then takes up less favourable interpretations of the practical effects of self-predicated judgements of sublimity, and constructs critical responses to such positions. I conclude, following Adorno, by stressing the historical and social dimension of the capacities for both making sublime judgements, and being morally enlivened by them. (shrink)

Political constructivism is associated with John Rawls more than any other contemporary philosopher. This chapter suggests that Rawls's political constructivism is better understood as a general method of justification which runs throughout his work as a whole, including his early work and A Theory of Justice. The chapter develops the general characterization of Rawls's political constructivism. Its main elements are taken in turn and developed with special attention to the two places where Rawls discusses the topic in depth – his (...) Dewey Lectures on Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory and its substantially revised version called “Political Constructivism” (PL, Lecture III). The main elements include social role, sources, interpretive basis, representation and conclusion. Rawls endorsed a Kantian metaethical constructivism in part because it offered a way of more deeply characterizing how his previous political constructivism could be a live and distinct possibility. (shrink)

This discussion responds to important questions raised about my theory of fairness in the global economy by Christian Barry, Charles Beitz, A.J. Julius and Kristi Olson. I further elaborate how moral argument can be ‘internal’ to a social practice, how my proposed principles of fairness depend on international practice, how I can admit several relevant conceptions of ‘harm’ and why my account does not depend on a problematic conception of societal ‘endowments’.

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the main themes covered in the present volume. It highlights the interdisciplinary approach taken in the choice of contributors to the volume which it is hoped will result in new perspectives on the philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment. The chapter notes that the contributors approach Hutcheson, Hume, Smith, and Reid from new points of view, and other important figures and philosophical themes are discussed in terms of their contributions to a distinctively Scottish philosophical (...) scene in the eighteenth century. The chapter presents an outline of these themes including Scottish institutions and education, moral philosophy, aesthetic theory, religious thought, and historical and political theory. (shrink)

This paper develops ‘primitive accumulation’ prior to and then in Karl Marx’s œuvre. By exploring the concept in Adam Smith and Sir James Steuart the paper highlights early influences on Marx’s evolving constructions. Marx’s construction in the Grundrisse begins with a logical determination much like Smith’s and moves, by drawing on Steuart, towards a socio-historical determination of a transitional violence. In Capital, ‘primitive accumulation’ still retains its transitional structure and delimited history, but it also points to the oppressive afterlife of (...) the processes of primitive accumulation. The political key to ‘primitive accumulation’ in Capital flows from determining primitive accumulation as temporally bounded, but having an afterlife in the oppressive social reproduction of capitalist societies. Against deriving political stakes through extended readings of ‘primitive accumulation’, this paper shows that an ‘originating’ view is textually accurate in a way that centres rather than sidelines the social reproduction of oppressions in capitalist societies. (shrink)