Applied Christian Ethics addresses selected themes in Christian social ethics. Part one shows the roots of contributors in the realist school; part two focuses on different levels of the significance of economics for social justice; and part three deals with both existential experience and government policy in war and peace issues.

Although actions of individuals do contribute to climate change, the question whether or not they, too, are morally obligated to reduce the GHG emissions in their responsibility has not yet been addressed sufficiently. First, I discuss prominent objections to such a duty. I argue that whether individuals ought to reduce their emissions depends on whether or not they exceed their fair share of emission rights. In a next step I discuss several proposals for establishing fair shares and also take practical (...) considerations into account. I conclude that individuals should not always be obliged to reduce their emissions to what is their fair share for they may depend on carbon-intensive structures. Instead, they have a Kantian imperfect duty to reduce their emissions ‘as far as can reasonably be demanded of them’. In addition, they should press governments to introduce proper regulation. At the end, I further specify both duties. (shrink)

Suppose you perform two actions. The first imposes a risk of harm that, on its own, would be excessive; but the second reduces the risk of harm by a corresponding amount. By pairing the two actions together to form a set of actions that is risk-neutral, can you thereby make your overall course of conduct permissible? This question is theoretically interesting, because the answer is apparently: sometimes Yes, sometimes No. It is also practically important, because it bears on the moral (...) status of practices such as offsetting personal greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In this article we propose a criterion for distinguishing between cases where pairing risk-increasing and risk-reducing actions makes each action permissible, and those where it does not: the Principle of Aggregate Risk-Imposition. We work towards this by considering a range of examples that illustrate various illegitimate ways of pairing risk-increasing actions with risk-reducing ones, and asking what goes wrong in each case. We then use this criterion to evaluate GHG offsetting. Is offsetting a legitimate way of removing the risk-imposition associated with GHG emissions, or not? Controversially, we argue that this turns out to depend on the form that the offsetting takes. (shrink)

The first impacts of climate change have become evident and are expected to increase dramatically over the next decades. Thus, it becomes more and more pressing to decide who has to compensate those people who suffer from negative impacts of climate change but have neither contributed to the problem nor possess the resources to cope with the consequences. Since the frequently invoked Polluter Pays Principle cannot account for all climate-related harm, I will take a closer look at the much more (...) controversial Beneficiary Pays Principle. It is argued that, appropriately qualified, the Beneficiary Pays Principle can help to identify additional duty-bearers. Based on these results, I briefly comment on three different policy options to generate funds for compensation. (shrink)

This book involves an in-depth analysis of the ethical, political and philosophical issues related to health-oriented screening programs.

How should you decide what to do when you’re uncertain about basic normative principles? A natural suggestion is to follow some "second-order:" norm: e.g., obey the most probable norm or maximize expected choiceworthiness. But what if you’re uncertain about second-order norms too—must you then invoke some third-order norm? If so, any norm-guided response to normative uncertainty appears doomed to a vicious regress. This paper aims to rescue second-order norms from the threat of regress. I first elaborate and defend the claim (...) some philosophers have made that the regress problem forces us to accept normative externalism, the view that at least one norm is incumbent on all agents regardless of their normative beliefs. But, I then argue, we need not accept externalism about first-order norms, thus closing off any question of how agents should respond to normative uncertainty. Rather, we can head off the threat of regress by ascribing external force to a single second-order norm: the enkratic principle. (shrink)

Organizational deviance represents a costly behavior to many organizations. While some precursors to deviance have been identified, we hope to add to our predictive capabilities. Utilizing social cognitive theory and psychological contract theory as explanatory concepts, we explore the role of moral disengagement and turnover intentions, testing our hypotheses using two samples: a sample of 44 nurses from a hospital system in the Southwestern United States (Study 1), and a sample of 52 working adults collected from an online survey system (...) (Study 2). Results strongly supported our hypotheses in both samples, indicating that the self-regulatory deactivation inherent in moral disengagement led to increased organizational deviance; effects that were much more pronounced when turnover intentions were high. Our findings support the increased role of cognition in determining behavior when environmental pressures stemming from the psychological contract have been altered, leading to a number of theoretical and practical implications, particularly in industries with high turnover rates. (shrink)

In this article, I distinguish two models of personal integrity. The first, wholeheartedness, regards harmonious unity of the self as psychologically healthy and volitional consistency as ethically ideal. I argue that it does so at the substantial cost of framing ambivalence and conflict as defects of character and action. To avoid these consequences, I propose an alternate ideal of humility that construes the self as multiple and precarious and celebrates experiences of loss and transformation through which learning, growth, innovation, and (...) dynamic relationship become possible. This ideal not only sustains prospects for integrity but is more suitable than wholeheartedness for recognizing practices of contestation, such as those involving potentially destabilizing encounters with difference that is common within pluralistic societies, as vital for rich, well-lived lives. (shrink)

The classic programme of conceptual engineering (Cappelen, Herman. 2018. Fixing Language: An Essay on Conceptual Engineering. Oxford: Oxford University Press; Eklund, Matti. 2021. “Conceptual Engineering.” In The Routledge Handbook of Social and Political Philosophy of Language, edited by Justin Khoo, and Rachel Sterken, 15–30. London: Routledge) envisages a two-stage ameliorating process. First, we assess ‘F’ and determine what the term should express. Second, we bring it about that ‘F’ expresses what it should express. The second stage gives rise to a (...) practical challenge: the implementation challenge. Engineering advocates need to explain by what means they can implement specific conceptual changes in the natural language shared by a community – a feat Herman Cappelen (2018. Fixing Language: An Essay on Conceptual Engineering. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020; “Conceptual Engineering: The Master Argument.” In Conceptual Engineering and Conceptual Ethics, edited by Alexis Burgess, Herman Cappelen, and David Plunkett, 132–151. Oxford: Oxford University Press) argues to be beyond our understanding and control both on an externalist and on an internalist meta-semantics. I devise a new answer to the implementation challenge. Enlisting the influential theory of social norms by Cristina Bicchieri, I argue that engineering social norms in Bicchieri’s technical sense amounts to an effective, specific, and feasible means to implement specific conceptual change, at least on internalist premises. I also argue that Bicchieri’s social norms are an essential addition to the more familiar conventions and moral norms when it comes to conceptual engineering. (shrink)

Decision-making under normative uncertainty requires an agent to aggregate the assessments of options given by rival normative theories into a single assessment that tells her what to do in light of her uncertainty. But what if the assessments of rival theories differ not just in their content but in their structure -- e.g., some are merely ordinal while others are cardinal? This paper describes and evaluates three general approaches to this "problem of structural diversity": structural enrichment, structural depletion, and multi-stage (...) aggregation. All three approaches have notable drawbacks, but I tentatively defend multi-stage aggregation as least bad of the three. (shrink)

Whether ethics is too important to be left to the experts or so important that it must be is an age-old question. The emergence of clinical ethicists raises it again, as a question about professionalism. What role clinical ethicists should play in healthcare decision making – teacher, mediator, or consultant – is a question that has generated considerable debate but no consensus.

I identify my priority in teaching Christian ethics as fostering relationality, both in individual and collective contexts. I argue that focusing on the idea of relationality enables us to explore connections that exist or should exist between individuals and groups. For me, fostering relationality involves building an intellectual understanding of moral relationality and embodying this understanding in practical situations. In order to contain the theme of this study, I focus on a specific aspect of relationality, namely the idea (...) of attunement. I propose attentive listening, openness to innovation and fostering the spirit of tranquillity as key components of the ethics of attunement. (shrink)

There is no cure or vaccine for HIV/AIDS. The only life-prolonging treatment available is antiretroviral (ARV) therapy. WHO estimates, however, that less than 5 percent of those who require treatment in developing countries currently enjoy access to these medicines. In Africa fewer than 50,000 people–less than 2 percent of the people in need–currently receive ARV therapy. These facts have elicited strongly divergent reactions, and views about the appropriate response to this crisis have varied widely.The intensity of the debate concerning access (...) to life-prolonging medicines for the treatment of HIV/AIDS, and the heated rhetoric with which they are often conducted, suggest that these disagreements may be rooted in deeper disagreements of value. It is not obvious, however, what disagreements of value are at stake in this debate. By analyzing the statements of scholars, public officials, activist organizations, and private sector representatives, each of whom may endorse very different policy recommendations on access to HIV/AIDS drugs, we have identified and created a typology of the different sources of disagreement in the debate. We conclude that the central disagreements concerning access to medicines arise from competing understandings of how responsibilities for bringing remedy to hardships should be allocated to different agents and institutions. A central lesson that emerges from our analysis is that thinking about “health equity” must extend beyond the explanation and justification of goals, values, and ideals, and engage more honestly with the difficult question of how responsibilities for bringing remedy to health crises should be allocated in complex social contexts. (shrink)

ABSTRACT We have previously argued that there are forms of greenhouse gas offsetting for which, when one emits and offsets, one imposes no risk. Orri Stefansson objects that our argument fails to distinguish properly between the people who stand to be harmed by one’s emissions and the people who stand to be benefited by one’s offsetting. We reply by emphasizing the difference between acting with a probability of making a difference to the distribution of harm and acting in a way (...) that worsen’s someone’s prospect. (shrink)

The Humean theory of motivation remains the default position in much of the contemporary literature in meta-ethics, moral psychology, and action theory. Yet despite its widespread support, the theory is implausible as a view about what motivates agents to act. More specifically, my reasons for dissatisfaction with the Humean theory stem from its incompatibility with what I take to be a compelling model of the role of motivating reasons in first-person practical deliberation and third-person action explanations. So after first (...) introducing some assumptions about the nature of agency in section one, I will turn to articulating and defending this account of motivating reasons in sections two through four of the paper. Section five then provides some background on the Humean theory before I argue directly against it in section six and critically examine the leading arguments for the view in section seven. Given limitations of space, however, I save the task of developing a positive anti-Humean view for another occasion. (shrink)

Breaches of research integrity have gained considerable attention due to high-profile scandals involving questionable research practices by reputable scientists. These practices include plagiarism, manipulation of authorship, biased presentation of findings and misleading reports of significance. To combat such practices, policymakers tend to rely on top-down measures, mandatory ethics training and stricter regulation, despite limited evidence of their effectiveness. In this study, we investigate the occurrence and underlying factors of questionable research practices (QRPs) through an original survey of 3,005 social (...) and medical researchers at Swedish universities. By comparing the role of the organizational culture, researchers´ norms and counter norms, and individual motivation, the study reveals that the counter norm of Biasedness—the opposite of universalism and skepticism—is the overall most important factor. Thus, Biasedness was related to 40–60% of the prevalence of the questionable practices. The analysis also reveals the contradictory impact of other elements in the organizational environment. Internal competition was positively associated with QRP prevalence, while group-level ethics discussions consistently displayed a negative association with such practices. Furthermore, in the present study items covering ethics training and policies have only a marginal impact on the prevalence of these practices. The organizational climate and normative environment have a far greater influence. Based on these findings, it is suggested that academic leaders should prioritize the creation and maintenance of an open and unbiased research environment, foster a collaborative and collegial climate, and promote bottom-up ethics discussions within and between research groups. (shrink)

Is it allowable for your government, or anyone else, to influence or coerce you 'for your own sake'? This is a question about paternalism, or interference with a person's liberty or autonomy with the intention of promoting their good or averting harm, which has created considerable controversy at least since John Stuart Mill's On Liberty. Mill famously decried paternalism of any kind, whether carried out by private individuals or the state. In this volume of new essays, leading moral, political and (...) legal philosophers address how to define paternalism, its justification, and the implications for public policy, professional ethics and criminal law. So-called 'libertarian' or non-coercive paternalism receives considerable attention. The discussion addresses the nature of freedom and autonomy and the relation of individuals to law, policy and the state. The volume will interest a wide range of readers in political philosophy, public policy and the philosophy of law. (shrink)

In this article I respond to the eight critical essays in this issue that evaluate the claims in my book with Gerhard Øverland, Responding to Global Poverty: Harm, Responsibility, and Agency.

I first argue that there are many true claims of the form: Φ-ing would be morally required, if anything is. I then explain why the following conditional-type is true: If φ-ing would be morally required, if anything is, then anything is actually morally required. These results allow us to construct valid proofs for the existence of some substantive moral facts—proofs that some particular acts really are morally required. Most importantly, none of my argumentation presupposes any substantive moral claim; I use (...) only plausible claims that most moral skeptics and error theorists can and do accept. The final section diagnoses why my arguments work. Here, I offer an explanation for the supervenience of the moral on the non-moral that may help those worried that the strategy is a sophisticated trick. I conclude by considering two objections. In replying to these objections, I explain why the strategy may allow us to demonstrate more than “obvious” moral truths, and why it may also address a stronger version of error theory, according to which, moral truths are not possible. (shrink)

The Euthyphro Dilemma is named after a particular exchange between Socrates and Euthyphro in Plato‟s dialogue Euthyphro. In a famous passage, Socrates asks, “Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?” (Plato 1981: 10a), and proceeds to advance arguments which clearly favor the first of these two options (see PLATO). The primary interest in the Euthyphro Dilemma over the years, however, has primarily concerned the relationship between (...) God and morality in the monotheistic religious tradition, where God is taken to be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, having created the universe initially and still actively involved in it today. But as we will see at the end of this entry, there has also been a recent surge of interest in a version of the Dilemma which applies to so-called response-dependent accounts of normative properties in meta-ethics. (shrink)

This chapter pursues the question of naturalism in the context of non-Western philosophical contributions to ethics and philosophy of mind: First, what conception of naturalism, if any, is best suited to capture the scope of Buddhist Reductionism? Second, can such a conception still accommodate the distinctive features of phenomenal consciousness (e.g., subjectivity, intentionality, first-person givenness, etc.). The first section reviews dominant conceptions of naturalism, and their applicability to the Buddhist project. In the second section, the author provides an example (...) of problematic issues more stringent conceptions of naturalism under the guise of neurophysicalism confront, and evaluate Flanagan’s response to these issues. The third section considers briefly the reflexivity thesis (the thesis that consciousness consists in conscious mental states being implicitly self-aware), specifically as articulated by Dignaga, Dharmakirti and their followers, and uses this thesis to articulate a conception of minimal agency as mineness that, the author argues, further challenges Flanagan’s neurophysicalism stance and his compatibilist account of moral agency. The paper concludes, in the fourth section, by suggesting a way in which no-ownership conceptions of reflexive self-consciousness can help us both to get the structure of phenomenal consciousness right and to ground our conceptions of agency, intentionality, and moral responsibility. (shrink)

This literature review systematically synthesizes studies that link consumer research to differences and similarities in virtue ethics between the East and the West, with a focus on early Chinese and ancient Greek virtue ethics. These two major traditions provide principles that guide consumer behavior and thus serve as a background to comparatively explain and evaluate the ethical nature of consumer behavior in the East and the West. The paper first covers Eastern and Western theoretical and normative approaches of (...) virtue ethics in the field of consumer research. The subsequent systematic literature review then synthesizes empirical works in this field. Since only a few papers adopt a cross-cultural consumer research perspective, one of the main aims of this review is to encourage scholars to pursue both theoretical and empirical cross-cultural consumer research on virtue ethics. To this end, the paper closes by suggesting some fruitful directions for future research to stimulate this relatively under-researched area. (shrink)

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is a multilateral trade organization that, at least partially, governs trade relations between its member states. The WTO (2011a) proclaims that its “overriding objective is to help trade flow smoothly, freely, fairly and predictably.” The WTO is a “treaty-based” organization – it has been constituted through an agreed, legally binding treaty made up of more than 30 articles, along with additional commitments by some members in specific areas. At present, 153 states are members of the (...) WTO, which collectively make up over 97 percent of all trade worldwide (WTO 2011b). Together, the WTO treaty specifies the rights and obligations of its member states. To become a member of the WTO, a state must treat the agreement as a “single undertaking.” Members cannot choose à la carte which agreements – for example, regarding tariffs, or trade in services or intellectual property – they want to accede to and which they do not. Instead, they must take on the obligations of the agreement in toto. The WTO is one of the most consequential governance institutions in the world, a lodestar of political debate about globalization (see globalization), attracting increased interest from moral and political philosophers in recent years (James 2006; Moellendorf 2005; Risse 2007; Brock 2009). (shrink)

The focus of this special issue is on moral psychology and the goals of moral education. My focus will be considerably narrower in addressing the following question: In light of the situationist movement in psychology and philosophy, what should be the goal(s) of character education? The main conclusion will be that the central goal of character education should be modified in a certain way to make it more empirically informed. But not to worry, as this modification should be amenable to (...) most contemporary supporters of character education. (shrink)

T. J. Kasperbauer presents an analysis of the ethics of de-extinction that is fairly distinctive in its focus on the welfare of individual animals. But while he is right to express concerns about individual animal well-being, individualism may not be the most important lens through which to view this issue. If one examines more closely what is at issue in de-extinction technologies in relation to species, additional problems appear that cast doubt both on the legitimacy of de-extinction projects, and (...) on the limited defense of them that Kasperbauer offers. (shrink)

Rohwer & Marris claim that “many conservation biologists” believe that there is a prima facie duty to preserve the genetic integrity of species. (A prima facie duty is a necessary pro tanto moral reason.) They describe three possible arguments for that belief and reject them all. They conclude that the biologists they cite are mistaken, and that there is no such duty: duties to preserve genetic integrity are merely instrumental: we ought act to preserve genetic integrity only because doing so (...) is required by some other duty, such as the duty to preserve taxonomic biodiversity, or the duty to preserve the reproductive fitness of existing species. In permitting for instance the introgression of cattle genes into the genome of Bison bison we therefore do not necessarily fail in any respect ethically. I criticize the paper on three fronts. (shrink)

Anselm of Canterbury’s so-called ontological proofs in the Proslogion have puzzled philosophers for centuries. The famous description “something / that than which nothing greater can be conceived” is part and parcel of his argument. Most commentators have interpreted this description as a definition of God. We argue that this view, which we refer to as “definitionism”, is a misrepresentation. In addition to textual evidence, the key point of our argument is that taking the putative definition as what Anselm intended it (...) to be – namely a description of a content of faith – allows getting a clear view of the discursive status and argumentative structure of Proslogion 2–4, as well as making sense of an often neglected part of the argument. (shrink)

Why Does Inequality Matter?is the long-awaited book-length development of T. M. Scanlon's views on objectionable inequality, and our obligations to eliminate or reduce it. The book presents an impressively nuanced and thoughtful analysis as well as succinct explanations of different objections to various forms of inequality. It is not only set to further cement Scanlon's influence on philosophical debates about equality but also makes a good guide to the problems of inequality for the nonspecialist reader. The book is not without (...) faults, however. Even within a pluralist approach to inequality such as Scanlon's, it is not sufficiently clear what, if anything, his specific objections to status inequality, and to control over other people's lives, have in common with his other egalitarian objections to inequality of political influence, opportunity, and income and wealth—or whether, in the case of control, the objection is egalitarian at all. (shrink)

Attempts to provide a thoroughly naturalized reading of the doctrine of karma have raised important issues regarding its role in the overall economy of the Buddhist soteriological project. This paper identifies some of the most problematic aspects of a naturalized interpretation of karma: (1) the strained relationship between retributive action and personal identity, and (2) the debate concerning mental causation in modern reductionist accounts of persons. The paper explores the benefits of a phenomenological approach in which reductionist accounts of karma (...) are replaced with accounts that interpret virtuous and compassionate actions as emergent properties of consciousness that can be further enhanced through socialization. (shrink)

We provide a general argument against value incomparability, based on a new style of impossibility result. In particular, we show that, against plausible background assumptions, value incomparability creates an incompatibility between two very plausible principles for ranking lotteries: a weak "negative dominance" principle (to the effect that Lottery 1 can be better than Lottery 2 only if some possible outcome of Lottery 1 is better than some possible outcome of Lottery 2) and a weak form of ex ante Pareto (to (...) the effect that, if Lottery 1 gives an unambiguously better prospect to some individuals than Lottery 2, and equally good prospects to everyone else, then Lottery 1 is better than Lottery 2). After spelling out our results, and the arguments based on them, we consider which principle the proponent of incomparability ought to reject. (shrink)

This paper argues that influential Mahāyāna ethicists, such as Śāntideva, who allow for moral rules to be proscribed under the expediency of a compassionate aim, seriously compromise the very notion of moral responsibility. The central thesis is that moral responsibility is intelligible only in relation to conceptions of freedom and human dignity that reflect a participation in, and sharing of, interpersonal relationships. The central thesis of the paper is that revisionary strategies, which seek to explain agency in event-causal terms, set (...) the stage for moral epiphenomenalism. On the view I defend here, an effective compatibilist solution to the problem of reconciling freedom of the will and determinism depends on expanding, rather than eliminating, the complex register of factors that underpin the experiential aspects of our moral life. (shrink)

This introduction describes the origins and rationale behind the papers that comprise this special issue of Studies in Christian Ethics. These papers represent several recent contributions to scholarship on the theology of character.

This article argues that basic ethical principles of U.S. journalism as described in the Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics are the result of, and a response to, cognitive bias and error. Cognitive biases and errors necessitate journalistic best practices to correct or attenuate them. Social cognitive processes explored include stereotyping, confirmation bias, and attribution. These concepts are noteworthy because each may be activated by the practice of journalism, and each has been shown to be susceptible to attenuation (...) through specific practices. The article concludes with ideas for integrating cognition into journalism education. (shrink)

Even if I think it very likely that some morally good act is supererogatory rather than obligatory, I may nonetheless be rationally required to perform that act. This claim follows from an apparently straightforward dominance argument, which parallels Jacob Ross's argument for 'rejecting' moral nihilism. These arguments face analogous pairs of objections that illustrate general challenges for dominance reasoning under normative uncertainty, but (I argue) these objections can be largely overcome. This has practical consequences for the ethics of philanthropy (...) -- in particular, it means that donors are often rationally required to maximize the positive impact of their donations. (shrink)

The case for longtermism depends on the vast potential scale of the future. But that same vastness also threatens to undermine the case for longtermism: If the universe as a whole, or the future in particular, contain infinite quantities of value and/or disvalue, then many of the theories of value that support longtermism (e.g., risk-neutral total utilitarianism) seem to imply that none of our available options are better than any other. If so, then even apparently vast effects on the far (...) future cannot in fact make the world morally better. On top of this, some strategies for avoiding this problem of “infinitarian paralysis” (e.g., exponential pure time discounting) yield views that are much less supportive of longtermism. In this chapter, we explore how the potential infinitude of the future affects the case for longtermism. We argue that (i) there are reasonable prospects for extending risk-neutral totalism and similar views to infinite contexts and (ii) many such extension strategies will still support the case for longtermism, since they imply that when we can only effect (or only predictably affect) a finite, bounded part of an infinite universe, we can ignore the unaffectable rest of the universe and reason as if the finite, affectable part were all there is. (shrink)

This paper addresses two specific and related questions the Buddhist neuroethics program raises for our traditional understanding of Buddhist ethics: Does affective neuroscience supply enough evidence that contempla- tive practices such as compassion meditation can enhance normal cognitive functioning? Can such an account advance the philosophical debate concerning freedom and determinism in a profitable direction? In response to the first question, I argue that dispositions such as empathy and altruism can in effect be understood in terms of the mechanisms (...) that regulate affective cognition. In response to the second question, I claim that moral agency is a type of achievement that comes with learning the norms of ethical con- duct, which are not tractable by specifically neurobiological mechanisms and processes (though, once learned, such norms would have their neural cor- relates when enacted). (shrink)

This paper connects work in psychology on the Big Five Model to the recent debate in philosophy on the empirical adequacy of virtue ethics and virtue epistemology.

Aktuelle Debatten um Food Ethics, Körperlichkeit und gutes Leben sind von Wechselspielen zwischen gastraler und gedanklicher Verdauung geprägt. Doch auch die Geschichte der abendländischen Philosophie ist von Fragen der Verdauung durchzogen. Die thematische Vielfalt ist hier enorm und erbitterter Meinungsstreit keine Seltenheit. Christian W. Denker greift charakteristische Motive dieser Ideengeschichte auf, etwa bei Pythagoras, Platon, Epikur, Philon, Montaigne, Diderot, Kant, Lichtenberg, Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud, Wittgenstein, Foucault, Searle und Derrida, und zeigt zum einen, wie sich die Bedeutung der Verdauung (...) für philosophische Erklärungen zum Wissen, zum Handeln und zur Beurteilung des sinnlichen Erlebens aus der ursprünglichen Kopplung zwischen Sprache und Bauch entwickelt hat. Zum anderen macht er deutlich, wie wissenschaftliche, religiöse und künstlerische Motive den alltäglichen Umgang mit Bäuchen konkret und symbolisch bereichern. (shrink)

I evaluate the argument advanced in politics and Christian ethics that I term ‘decolonial homophobia’: that decolonisation and LGBT+ affirmation are contradictory because LGBT+ rights are a global Northern phenomenon that is imperialistically imposed on the global South. I suggest one premise of the argument is valid—neo-colonial imposition of LGBT+ rights does happen and should be opposed. However, the overall argument fails because it erases or distorts diverse views and complexities of pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial history, and it (...) tacitly supports ‘homophobic nationalism’ that is oppressive even when advanced in ostensibly decolonial causes. I grant that there are tensions within many current expressions of decolonisation and LGBT+ rights, but argue that Christians should support both decolonisation and LGBT+ rights as intersecting justice issues. I close by suggesting we listen to global Southern LGBT+ activists like Uganda's kuchus on how to navigate this tension and pursue intersectional justice in all societies. (shrink)

In this brief article, I will raise some challenges to each of Pablo Gilabert’s arguments for a human right to democracy (HRD). First, I will question whether the instrumental case for affirming a HRD is as strong as Gilabert and others have suggested. I will then call into question the argument from moral risk, arguing that, for any particular country, we should not operate with a strong presumption that they should pursue further democratization as a high-priority goal. Finally, I will (...) consider the strength of our intuitive support for a stringent human right to democracy. As Gilabert points out, there could be a genuine HRD, even if it did not always provide us with an overriding reason to call for the implementation of democracy. I will explore how much normative priority claims to respect democratic decisions have by considering what we have reason to do when democratic decisions would lead to violations of other, noncontroversial human rights. (shrink)

Faced with the ongoing tragedy of poverty in our world today, many have long called for a common standard of global justice. Such a standard should not be tied to any one particular strand of justice conceptualizations and it should yet be in harmony with the central motivating beliefs of the various concerned moral worldviews. The article reframes global justice thinking by approaching a core problem, namely motivating people to care for distant needy strangers, in a concrete intercultural manner: it (...) sets out to study and compare the motivational underpinnings for an expansion of social justice, in an exemplary fashion, within two long-standing worldview traditions, namely Christian social ethics and contemporary Confucian ethics, in order to gain a more realistic impression of what a commonly shared and motivationally backed notion of global justice may look like. While the former expresses a universal concern for the poor, the latter has recently attracted interest, since Southeast Asian countries managed to lift millions of people out of abject poverty. As both traditions consider loving communal relationships to constitute the foundation of all justice considerations, the article inquires how this quest shapes each tradition’s way to motivate their adherents’ compliance with a vision of global justice. (shrink)

Inhalt: Der Politikbegriff der Frühen Neuzeit: Machttechnik oder christliche Ethik? - Fürstendiener als politische Praktiker der Vormoderne - Quellen: hofkritisches Schrifttum - Diskursanalyse - Fazit: Elemente eines frühneuzeitlichen Politikbegriffs.

Large language models now possess human-level linguistic abilities in many contexts. This raises the concern that they can be used to deceive and manipulate on unprecedented scales, for instance spreading political misinformation on social media. In future, agentic AI systems might also deceive and manipulate humans for their own purposes. In this paper, first, I argue that AI-generated content should be subject to stricter standards against deception and manipulation than we ordinarily apply to humans. Second, I offer new characterizations of (...) AI deception and manipulation meant to support such standards, according to which a statement is deceptive (resp. manipulative) if it leads human addressees away from the beliefs (resp. choices) they would endorse under “semi-ideal” conditions. Third, I propose two measures to guard against AI deception and manipulation, inspired by this characterization: “extreme transparency” requirements for AI-generated content and “defensive systems” that, among other things, annotate AI-generated statements with contextualizing information. Finally, I consider to what extent these measures can protect against deceptive behavior in future, agentic AI systems. (shrink)

In this comment, we pick up three points raised by Ohndorf et al. (Clim Chang 133:385–395, 2015) in their reply to our ethical assessment of the German Advisory Council’s Budget Approach (WBGUBA). First, we discuss and clarify the relationship between ethics and political feasibility, highlighting that the way Ohndorf et al. use feasibility creates an unwarranted status quo bias. Second, we explain the proper place historical responsibility should have within the WBGUBA, stressing the fact that the reasons why we (...) choose one policy proposal over another matter. Third, we analyze the limited extent to which a normative heuristic should motivate an ethically ambitious policy proposal like the WBGUBA. (shrink)