The historical-cultural theory of Intellectual Disability overcompensation/compensation is referenced in several studies, but little empirical evidence is presented to corroborate this thesis. In this work, 13 current studies were analysed about the behavioural profile of people with Down syndrome, a case of neurobiological ID, published in the last 15 years, in order to verify the possibility of dialogue with the theorizing about compensation. Despite contributing to an up to date understanding of DS, the results point to similarities between (...) different scientific traditions allowing discussions regarding methodologies, data interpretation, language comprehension, and the impact of the studies for school inclusion and the development of people with ID/DS. It is concluded that the theorization in question is pertinent to developmental studies, dialogues with other perspectives and that its progress depends on investigations directed to the affective motivators/emotions of the person with ID/DS by means of more interpretative methodologies. Keywords: Down syndrome, compensation, behavioural profile, Intellectual Disabilities Development. (shrink)

Can compensation repair the moral harm of a previous wrongful act? On the one hand, some define the very function of compensation as one of restoring the moral balance. On the other hand, the dominant view on compensation is that it is insufficient to fully repair moral harm unless accompanied by an act of punishment or apology. In this paper, I seek to investigate the maximal potential of compensation. Central to my argument is a distinction between (...) apologetic compensation and non-apologetic compensation. Apologetic compensation, I argue, is an act that expresses regret and apology by means of some offer of money, goods, or services. Non-apologetic compensation is an act that seeks to restore loss or harm without expressing regret or apology. In the paper, I defend the view that acts of compensation can be apologetic and argue that such apologetic compensation is sufficient for moral repair. (shrink)

While mitigation and adaptation will help to protect us from climate change, there are harms that are beyond our ability to adapt. Some of these harms, which may have been instigated from historical emissions, plausibly give rise to duties of compensation. This chapter discusses several principles that have been discussed about how to divide climate duties – the polluter pays principle, the beneficiary pays principle, the ability to pay principle, and a new one, the polluter pays, then receives principle. (...) The chapter introduces several challenges to these principles from the literature, before discussing which policies and institutions might be relevant to compensation, whether internationally (e.g., the Green Climate Fund) or intergenerationally (e.g., Broome and Foley’s World Climate Bank). It also describes some recent successful climate cases that require both the Dutch government and a private firm to act in accordance with climate targets to avoid potential rights violations. Finally, it discusses one of the most important international concepts with respect to compensation: the Loss & Damage pillar of climate policy. (shrink)

It is more or less uncontroversial that when we harm someone through wrongful conduct we incur an obligation to compensate her. But sometimes compensation is impossible: when the victim is killed, for example. Other times, only partial compensation is possible. In this article, I take some initial steps towards exploring this largely ignored issue. I argue that the perpetrator of a wrongful harm incurs a duty to promote the impartial good in proportion to the amount of harm that (...) cannot be made up for by compensating her victim. (shrink)

If I am injured in the course of medical investigation or treatment, I may be eligible to receive compensation for some of the adverse consequences of my injury—at least, if I live in a developed country. In most such countries, there exists some form of state-administered compensation scheme for medical injuries. However, even within the developed world, there is considerable variation in the eligibility criteria for compensation. Different countries would, for example, respond very differently to the following (...) pair of cases... (shrink)

While mitigation and adaptation will help to protect us from climate change, there are harms that are beyond our ability to adapt. Some of these harms, which may have been instigated from historical emissions, plausibly give rise to duties of compensation. This chapter discusses several principles that have been discussed about how to divide climate duties—the polluter pays principle, the beneficiary pays principle, the ability to pay principle, and a new one, the polluter pays, then receives principle. The chapter (...) introduces several challenges to these principles from the literature, before discussing which policies and institutions might be relevant to compensation, whether internationally (e.g. the Green Climate Fund) or intergenerationally (e.g. Broome and Foley’s World Climate Bank). It also describes some recent successful climate cases which require both the Dutch government and a private firm to act in accordance with climate targets to avoid potential rights-violations. Finally, it discusses one of the most important international concepts with respect to compensation: the Loss & Damage pillar of climate policy. (shrink)

Forced expropriations of immovable property were common during the Communist era in Eastern Europe. Today, many of the former owners or their heirs are interested in regaining legal ownership of such properties, often decades after the ownership has been reallocated to others. Therefore, the conflict between old and new owners is often resolved in favour of the new owners. While this is understandable from a contemporary political perspective, this approach results in a perpetuation of the results of an earlier human (...) rights violation, thereby resulting in a new human rights violation which will have to be measured against the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) if the state in question has ratified it prior to deciding how to handle the long-term effects of expropriations. Firstly, in the article we will devote ourselves to the interpretation of the right to property with an emphasis on the problem of expropriation. Above all, we will elaborate on the definition of the term “property” as well as positive and negative obligations of the Member States regarding this right. Finally, we will address the question of expropriations prior to the entry into force of the Convention and just compensation under Article 41 ECHR. Interpretation of the right to property will be supported by the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. (shrink)

Spreadsheets are heavily employed in administration, financial forecasting, education, and science because of their intuitive, flexible, and direct approach to computation. They represent examples for “active documents” which are considered very worthwhile in the field of Knowledge Management. But these activity traits also lead to usability and maintenance problems, as spreadsheet-based applications grow evermore complex and longlived. We argue that these difficulties come from a fundamental bias of spreadsheets towards computational aspects of the conceptual models underlying the applications, i.e., a (...) semantic bias. Concretely, we present the software architecture of the SACHS project geared towards a semantic enhancement of MS Excel spreadsheets that aims at compensating this semantic bias. (shrink)

This article defends the idea of applying principles of corrective justice to the matter of climate change. In particular, it argues against the excusable ignorance objection, which holds that historical emissions produced at a time when our knowledge of climate change was insufficient ought to be removed from the equation when applying rectificatory principles to this context. In constructing my argument, I rely on a particular interpretation of rectificatory justice and outcome responsibility. I also address the individualism objection by showing (...) why we should view states as relevant agents of climate change. This argument is built on the assumption that states are institutions set up to coordinate and regulate human interaction, so as to protect their citizens from the unwanted consequences of such interaction. (shrink)

Even in just wars we infringe the rights of countless civilians whose ruination enables us to protect our own rights. These civilians are owed compensation, even in cases where the collateral harms they suffer satisfy the proportionality constraint. I argue that those who authorize or commit the infringements and who also benefit from those harms will bear that compensatory duty, even if the unjust aggressor cannot or will not discharge that duty. I argue further that if we suspect antecedently (...) that we will culpably refrain from compensating those victims post bellum, then this makes satisfying the war’s proportionality constraint substantially more difficult at the outset of the war. The lesson here is that failing to take duties of compensation in war seriously constrains our moral permission to protect ourselves. (shrink)

Compensation and reparation are two parts or forms of compensatory or corrective justice. This essay aims, first, to distinguish, define, and analyze these two forms as against distributive and penal justice; and, second, to provide a moral justification of a system or social practice of compensation and of reparation, drawing on the ideas of Aristotle, William Blackstone, Bernard Boxill, John Rawls, and James Sterba. Then, by applying the results of the analysis to the first genocide of the twentieth (...) century, the Armenian genocide, it illustrates certain difficulties in realizing reparative justice when the wrongful injury is perpetrated by a sovereign state, and it emphasizes the paramount importance in such cases of the acknowledgment of wrong by the perpetrator. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:If an employee is committed to his firm—if he is “attached” or “bound” to it—then his firm may be able to obtain a discount on his labor. This paper asks: Is it wrong for firms to do so? If we understand just or fair pay solely in terms of voluntary agreements between employers and employees, the answer seems to be ‘no.’ Against this, I argue that, in some cases, it is ‘yes.’ In particular, it is wrong for firms to try (...) to obtain discounts on their committed employees’ labor when their employees reasonably expect that they will not try to obtain them. In the process, I probe the limits of exploitation and question the relevance of contribution to fairness in compensation. (shrink)

This book is the first comprehensive study of the meaning and measure of enforceability. While we have long debated what restraints should govern the conduct of our social life, we have paid relatively little attention to the question of what it means to make a restraint enforceable. Focusing on the enforceability of legal rights but also addressing the enforceability of moral rights and social conventions, Mark Reiff explains how we use punishment and compensation to make restraints operative in the (...) world. After describing the various means by which restraints may be enforced, Reiff explains how the sufficiency of enforcement can be measured, and he presents a unified theory of deterrence, retribution, and compensation that shows how these aspects of enforceability are interconnected. Reiff then applies his theory of enforceability to illuminate a variety of real-world problem situations. (shrink)

Background Compensating participants of biomedical research is a common practice. However, its proximity with ethical concerns of coercion, undue influence, and exploitation, demand that participant compensation be regulated. The objective of this paper is to discuss the current regulations for compensation of research participants in Malawi and how they can be improved in relation to ethical concerns of coercion, undue influence, and exploitation. Main text In Malawi, national regulations recommend that research subjects be compensated with a stipend of (...) US$10 per study visit. However, no guidance is provided on how this figure was determined and how it should be implemented. While necessary to prevent exploitation, the stipend may expose the very poor to undue influence. The stipend may also raise the cost of doing research disadvantaging local researchers and may have implications on studies where income stipend is the intervention under investigation. We recommend that development and implementation of guidelines of this importance involve interested parties such as the research community and patient groups. Conclusion Compensating human research subjects is important but can also act as a barrier to voluntary participation and good research efforts. Deliberate measures need to be put in place to ensure fair compensation of research participants, avoid their exploitation and level the field for locally funded research. (shrink)

Surrogate motherhood is treated as a form of adoption in many countries: the birth mother and her partner are presumed to be the parents of the child, while the intended parents have to adopt the baby once it is born. Other than compensation for expenses related to the pregnancy, payment to surrogates is not permitted. We believe that the failure to compensate surrogate mothers for their labour as well as the significant risks they undertake is both unfair and exploitative. (...) We accept that introducing payment for surrogates would create a significant tension in the adoption model. However, we recommend rejecting the adoption model altogether rather than continuing to prohibit compensation to surrogates. (shrink)

This paper presents a case for compensation of actual harm from climate change in the poorest countries. First, it is shown that climate change threatens to reverse the fight to eradicate poverty. Secondly, it is shown how the problems raised in the literature for compensation to some extent are based on misconceptions and do not apply to compensation of present actual harm. Finally, two arguments are presented to the effect that, in so far as developed countries accept (...) a major commitment to mitigate climate change, they should also accept a commitment to address or compensate actual harm from climate change. The first argument appeals to the principle that if it is an injustice to cause risk of incurring harm in the future, then it is also an injustice to cause a similar harm now. The second argument appeals to the principle that if there is moral reason to reduce the risk of specific harms in the future, then there is also moral reason to address these harms if they materialize now. We argue that these principles are applicable to climate change, and that given the commitment of wealthy countries to a “common but differentiated responsibility,” they lead to a commitment to address or compensate harm from climate change in poor and vulnerable developing countries. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has created unusually challenging and dangerous workplace conditions for key workers. This has prompted calls for key workers to receive a variety of special benefits over and above their normal pay. Here, we consider whether two such benefits are justified: a no-fault compensation scheme for harm caused by an epidemic and hazard pay for the risks and burdens of working during an epidemic. Both forms of benefit are often made available to members of the armed forces (...) for the harms, risks and burdens that come with military service. We argue from analogy that these benefits also ought to be provided to key workers during an epidemic because, like the military, key workers face unavoidable harms, risks and burdens in providing essential public good. The amount of compensation should be proportional to the harm suffered and the amount of hazard pay should be proportional to the risk and burden endured. Therefore, key workers should receive the same amount of compensation and hazard pay as the military where the harms, risks and burdens are equivalent. In the UK, a form of no-fault compensation has recently been made available to the surviving families of key workers who suffer fatal COVID-19 infections. According to our argument, however, it is insufficient because it offers less to key workers than is made available to the families of armed services personnel killed on duty. (shrink)

This study investigates the relation between CEO compensation and corporate fraud in China. We document a significantly negative correlation between CEO compensation and corporate fraud using data on publicly traded firms between 2005 and 2010. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that firms penalize CEOs for fraud by lowering their pay. We also find that CEO compensation is lower in firms that commit more severe frauds. Panel data fixed effects and propensity score methods are used to (...) demonstrate these effects. Our results also indicate that corporate governance mechanisms influence the magnitude of punishment. We find that CEOs of privately controlled firms, firms that split the posts of CEO and chairman, and CEOs of firms located in developed regions suffer larger compensation penalties for committing financial fraud. Finally, we show that CEOs at firms that commit fraud are more likely to be replaced compared to those at non-fraud firms. (shrink)

Compensation for research related injuries is a subject that is increasingly gaining traction in developing countries which are burgeoning destinations of multi center research. However, the existence of disparate compensation rules violates the ethical principle of fairness. The current paper presents a comparison of the policies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. A systematic search of good clinical practice guidelines was conducted employing search strategies modeled in line with the recommendations of ADPTE Collaboration. The search focused (...) on three main areas namely bibliographic data bases, clinical practice guidelines data bases and a restricted internet search. A manual search of references cited in relevant guideline documents was also conducted. The search terms, Medical Subject Headings and key words were developed for a PubMed platform and then adapted for all other data bases. The search terms were kept constant for each country with the only difference being the country name. The documents so obtained were subjected to systematic content analysis. The study revealed that there is vast panoply of regulations which exist on a continuum. On one extreme is India with comprehensive regulations that are codified into law, and on the other end there is China which does not have specific laws regulating research related injuries. There are a number of differences and similarities such as mandatory insurance requirements, existence of no fault compensation, compensable injuries and the role of research ethics committees. It is imperative to enact legislations that protect participants without stifling the research enterprise. There is need for consistency and ideally harmonization of such regulations at a global level. A model policy on compensation for research related injuries should borrow from the best aspects of the different country policies and should be informed by the cardinal ethics principles of autonomy, justice and beneficence. (shrink)

I address an issue that arises for rights theories that recognize rights to compensation for rightsintrusions. Do individuals who never pose any risk of harm to others have a right, against a rightsintruder, to full compensation for any resulting intrusion-harm, or is the right limited in some way by the extent to which the intruder was agent-responsible for the intrusion-harm (e.g., the extent to which the harm was a foreseeable result of her autonomous choices)? Although this general issue (...) of strict liability vs. fault liability has been much analyzed and debated, there is a promising position that, to the best of my knowledge, has not been much discussed. This is the view that (1) when the intruder is agent-responsible for violating the rights (e.g., does so knowingly), she owes the intrudee compensation for the entire intrusion-harm, but (2) when the intruder is not agentresponsible for wrongly intruding upon the rights (because the intrusion was not wrong or because the intruder could not reasonably have known it was wrong), then she owes the intrudee compensation only for the intrusion-harm for which she is agent-responsible (and not, for example, harm that she could not have reasonably foreseen). I shall develop and motivate this position without attempting a full defense. Throughout, I focus on the rights of the intrudee, against the intruder, to compensation and the correlative duty of the intruder to the intrudee. I’m pleased and honored to have this paper included in this collection in honor of Hillel Steiner. Much of what I know about rights and libertarianism I learned from him – both from his written works and from his very helpful correspondence over the years. Moreover, his intellectual rigor, honesty, and modesty have been a source of inspiration. Although Hillel has not written extensively on compensation for intrusion-harms, it is a topic central to his view of justice, as it is to mine. (shrink)

When payment is offered for controlled human infection model research, ethical concerns may be heightened due to unfamiliarity with this study design as well as perceptions—and misperceptions—regarding risk. Against this backdrop, we commend Grimwade et al 1 for their careful handling of the relevant issues, coupling empirical and conceptual approaches. We agree with foundational elements of the authors’ analysis, including the acceptability of payment for research risk.1 However, in our view, it is preferable to treat payment for risk as a (...) discretionary incentive to achieve adequate recruitment and retention, rather than compensation owed as a matter of fairness. Grimwade et al 1 note that although their ‘Payment for Risk Model’ was ‘created specifically in the context of CHIM research, it has the potential to inform payment in other areas of medical research.’ We agree and would go further: we do not need a special payment framework for CHIMs because there is nothing so novel about them compared with other types of research as to demand a distinct approach. Any successful payment framework must address the following ethical issues: preserving informed consent ; treating participants fairly ; encouraging adequate recruitment and retention; avoiding deception by participants; and preserving public trust.2 Some of these issues may have particular salience in the context of CHIMs, but this study design does not demand consideration of entirely distinct ethical factors when evaluating offers of payment.2 We also agree with Grimwade et al 1 about several other key points.2 Given the burdens involved and …. (shrink)

Although researchers generally take great care to ensure that human subjects do not suffer very serious harms from their involvement in research, the situation is different for nonhuman animal subjects. Significant progress has been made in reducing unnecessary animal suffering in research, yet researchers still inflict severe pain and distress on tens of thousands of animals every year for scientific purposes. Some bioethicists, scientists, and animal welfare advocates argue for placing an upper limit on the suffering researchers may impose on (...) animal subjects, with rare exceptions for research that promises critical social benefits. In this article, I argue against such an upper limit on harm on the grounds that researchers often can compensate animal subjects for their suffering, even severe and long-lasting suffering. If animal subjects receive adequate compensation for the harms they suffer, then there is no general limit on how much suffering researchers may impose on them for scientific purposes. (shrink)

This thesis considers two allegations which conservatives often level at no-fault systems — namely, that responsibility is abnegated under no-fault systems, and that no-fault systems under- and over-compensate. I argue that although each of these allegations can be satisfactorily met – the responsibility allegation rests on the mistaken assumption that to properly take responsibility for our actions we must accept liability for those losses for which we are causally responsible; and the compensation allegation rests on the mistaken assumption that (...) tort law’s compensatory decisions provide a legitimate norm against which no-fault’s decisions can be compared and criticized – doing so leads in a direction which is at odds with accident law reform advocates’ typical recommendations. On my account, accident law should not just be reformed in line with no-fault’s principles, but rather it should be completely abandoned since the principles that protect no- fault systems from the conservatives’ two allegations are incompatible with retaining the category of accident law, they entail that no-fault systems are a form of social welfare and not accident law systems, and that under these systems serious deprivation – and to a lesser extent causal responsibility – should be conditions of eligibility to claim benefits. (shrink)

This paper investigates a series of normative principles that are used to justify different aspects of executive compensation within business firms, as well as the remuneration of lower-ranking employees. We look at how businesses perform pay benchmarking; employees’ engagement, fidelity and loyalty ; and the acceptability of what we call both-ends-dipping, that is, receiving both ex ante and ex post benefits for the same work. We make two observations. First, either different or incoherent principles are used to justify the (...) pay of executives compared to employees, or the same principles are applied differently. Second, these differences or inconsistencies tend to be to the benefit of executives and/or to the detriment of employees. We conclude by asking whether there is any reason for thinking differently about executive pay than we do about employee pay. Our analysis leads us to question the principles justifying current executive compensation and to wonder if these principles are potentially being instrumentalized to serve other ends. (shrink)

Companies are expected to monitor sustainable behaviour to help improve performance, enhance reputation and increase chances of survival. This paper examines the relationship between sustainability committees and independent external assurance on the inclusion of sustainability-related targets in CEO compensation contracts. Using a sample of UK FTSE350 companies for 2011–2015 and controlling for governance and firm characteristics, we find both board-level sustainability committees and sustainability reporting assurance have a positive and significant association with the inclusion of sustainability terms in (...) class='Hi'>compensation contracts. However, there is no joint impact between the voluntary use of independent external assurance and the role of sustainability committees on CEO compensation contracts. Sustainability-related terms in compensation contracts are more likely to be included, and higher compensation is likely to be paid, when assurance is provided by a Big4 firm and when a company operates in a sustainability-sensitive industry. Our findings highlight the potential of assured sustainability reports in assessing CEO performance in sustainability-related tasks, especially when sustainability metrics are included in CEO compensation contracts. Overall, our results suggest companies that invest in voluntary assurance are more likely to monitor management’s behaviour and be concerned about the achievement of sustainability goals. (shrink)

Prosocial compensation is a corporate social responsibility practice that involves donating money to a charitable cause on behalf of customers as a means to compensate them for their loss after a service failure. In order to determine the effectiveness of PC, we carried out three experiments while also comparing its effectiveness within private and public settings. Experiment 1 focused on the signaling effects of communicating the promise to offer PC to potential customers in the event of service failure. Results (...) show that, in both private and public settings, PC has positive effects on corporate image, credibility, and word-of-mouth intent. More significantly, PC improved one’s CSR image, whereas more tangible compensation, such as a gift voucher, did not. Experiments 2A and 2B focused on the effects of offering PC after a service failure on perceptions of justice. Results show that PC contributes to perceived distributive justice, procedural justice, and post-recovery satisfaction in both private and public settings. Our study showed that PC could be a relevant new CSR practice for organizations wanting to enhance theirs CSR image while contributing to fulfilling their ethical and philanthropic CSR responsibilities. We discuss the implications of our findings and offer several avenues for follow-up research on this initial study on PC. (shrink)

Kidney transplantation is the most efficacious and cost-effective treatment for end-stage renal disease. However, the treatment’s accessibility is limited by a chronic shortage of transplantable kidneys, resulting in the death of numerous patients worldwide as they wait for a kidney to become available. Despite the implementation of various measures the disparity between supply and needs continues to grow. This paper begins with a look at the current treatment options, including various sources of transplantable kidneys, for end-stage renal disease. We propose, (...) in accordance with others, the introduction of compensated kidney donation as a means of addressing the current shortage. We briefly outline some of the advantages of this proposal, and then turn to examine several of the ethical arguments usually marshaled against it in a bid to demonstrate that this proposal indeed passes the ethics test. Using available data of public opinions on compensated donation, we illustrate that public support for such a program would be adequate enough that we can realistically eliminate the transplant waiting list if compensation is introduced. We urge a pragmatic approach going forward; altruism in living kidney donation is important, but altruism only is an unsuccessful doctrine. (shrink)

Circadian rhythms are ∼24‐h biological oscillations that enable organisms to anticipate daily environmental cycles, so that they may designate appropriate day/night functions that align with these changes. The molecular clock in animals and fungi consists of a transcription‐translation feedback loop, the plant clock is comprised of multiple interlocking feedback‐loops, and the cyanobacterial clock is driven by a phosphorylation cycle involving three main proteins. Despite the divergent core clock mechanisms across these systems, all circadian clocks are able to buffer period length (...) against changes in the ambient growth environment, such as temperature and nutrients. This defining capability, termed compensation, is critical to proper timekeeping, yet the underlying mechanism(s) remain elusive. Here we examine the known players in, and the current models for, compensation across five circadian systems. While compensation models across these systems are not yet unified, common themes exist across them, including regulation via temperature‐dependent changes in post‐translational modifications. (shrink)

In this article, we deal with the evaluation of the losses suffered by persons living in urban areas as a result of energy services. In the first part, we analyse how by adopting different informational foci we obtain contrasting interpersonal evaluations regarding the same loss. In the second part, we distinguish between a diachronic and a hypothetical/moralised threshold for harm in order to assess whether individuals are benefiting from or being harmed by a given energy service. Our argument is that (...) the most accurate evaluation of an individual damage caused by an energy service can be obtained by using capabilities as informational focus, instead of realised wellbeing or means to wellbeing, and by interpreting the loss in relation to a hypothetical/moralised threshold that corresponds to a list of central capabilities. In the last part, we address monetary and non-monetary compensations for a loss that is evaluated in terms of capabilities. Accordingly, we expound how compensation policies can either restore the capabilities lost due to energy services or monetarily compensate the individual for the fact that a given capability (or set of capabilities) has been irremediably lost. (shrink)

Calls for compensation are heard in many countries all over the world. Spokespersons on behalf of formerly oppressed and dominated groups call for compensation for the deeply traumatic injustices their members have suffered in the past. Sometimes these injustices were suffered decades ago by members already deceased. How valid are such claims to compensation and should they be honoured as a matter of justice? The focus of this essay is on these issues of compensatory justice. I want (...) to look at the issue from the perspective of the eradication of systematic poverty affecting particular groups—where injustices of the distant past can reliably be identified as one of the major contributory factors to people’s current poverty. In the paper I will examine the following issues: (1) What kind of injustices qualify to be remedied by means of compensatory justice? (2) Should there be a limit to how far back in history one should go to compensate for injustice? (3) How can an injustice from the distant past be reliably identified as a cause of current problems? (4) Who should be compensated? (5) Who is responsible for compensation? (6) What form should compensation take? (7) Is the concept of compensatory justice backward looking or forward looking? I will argue for a moral obligation to the effect that serious injustices, perpetrated long ago against a group of people and caused them to be poor, ought to be compensated by society in a variety of ways to the original victims (if still alive) and their descendants. (shrink)

A natural way of viewing compensation is to see it as the restoration of a good or level of well-being which someone would have enjoyed if he had not been adversely affected by the act of another. This view underlies Nozick’s assertion that “something fully compensates … person X for Y’s action A if X is no worse off receiving it, Y having done A, than X would have been without receiving it if Y had not done A”; and (...) it has been held by many others as well. Because the notion that compensation is the restoration of a good which a person would have had but for the act of another is so pervasive, I shall refer to it as the official view of compensation. One noteworthy feature of the official view is the ease with which it allows compensation to be justified in particular cases. If compensation is just the restoration of a good which one would have had if the ordinary course of things had not been disrupted, then to provide a prima facie justification of it, one need only argue that the natural course of things should not have been disrupted in the first place. (shrink)

While geoengineering may counteract negative effects of anthropogenic climate change, it is clear that most geoengineering options could also have some harmful effects. Moreover, it is predicted that the benefits and harms of geoengineering will be distributed unevenly in different parts of the world and to future generations, which raises serious questions of justice. It has been suggested that a compensation scheme to redress geoengineering harms is needed for geoengineering to be ethically and politically acceptable. Discussions of compensation (...) for geoengineering harms, however, sometimes presume geoengineering has presented new and unique challenges to compensation that cannot be readily accommodated by existing compensation practices. The most explicit formulation of this view was recently presented by Toby Svoboda and Peter J. Irvine, who argued that two forms of uncertainty in geoengineering — namely, ethical uncertainty and scientific uncertainty — make it immensely difficult to devise an ethically and politically satisfactory compensation scheme for geoengineering harms. -/- In this paper, we argue against the view that geoengineering presents new and unique challenges relating to compensation. More specifically, we show that placing these challenges within the broader context of anthropogenic climate change reveals them to be less serious and less specific to geoengineering than some appear to believe. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Legislation recently adopted by the United States Congress provides producers of pandemic vaccines with near‐total immunity from civil lawsuits without making individuals injured by those vaccines eligible for compensation through the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. The unusual decision not to provide an alternative mechanism for compensation is indicative of a broader problem of inconsistency in the American approach to vaccine‐injury compensation policy. Compensation policies have tended to reflect political pressures and economic considerations more than (...) any cognizable set of principles. This article identifies a set of ethical principles bearing on the circumstances in which vaccine injuries should be compensated, both inside and outside public health emergencies. A series of possible bases for compensation rules, some grounded in utilitarianism and some nonconsequentialist, are discussed and evaluated. Principles of fairness and reasonableness are found to constitute the strongest bases. An ethically defensible compensation policy grounded in these principles would make a compensation fund available to all individuals with severe injuries and to individuals with less‐severe injuries whenever the vaccination was required by law or professional duty. (shrink)

: Iran has had a program of compensated kidney donation from living unrelated (LUR) donors since 1997. The aim of the program was to address the increasing demand for kidney transplantation in a morally sound manner. The program was successful in terms of increasing the number of kidneys available for transplantation. This paper presents a critical review of the program and its ethical status. Denying organ donors legitimate compensation because of the understandable fear of an organ trade is not (...) morally justifiable, and the Iranian model of compensated LUR kidney donation offers substantial benefits that overcome these concerns. Despite its benefits, the program lacks secure measures to prevent the risk of a direct monetary relationship between donors and recipients, and it must be revised in order to be morally justifiable. (shrink)

It could be argued that tort law is failing, and arguably an example of this failure is the recent public liability and insurance (‘PL&I’) crisis. A number of solutions have been proposed, but ultimately the chosen solution should address whatever we take to be the cause of this failure. On one account, the PL&I crisis is a result of an unwarranted expansion of the scope of tort law. Proponents of this position sometimes argue that the duty of care owed by (...) defendants to plaintiffs has expanded beyond reasonable levels, such that parties who were not really responsible for another’s misfortune are successfully sued, while those who really were to blame get away without taking any responsibility. However people should take responsibility for their actions, and the only likely consequence of allowing them to shirk it is that they and others will be less likely to exercise due care in the future, since the deterrents of liability and of no compensation for accidentally self-imposed losses will not be there. Others also argue that this expansion is not warranted because it is inappropriately fueled by ‘deep pocket’ considerations rather than by considerations of fault. They argue that the presence of liability insurance sways the judiciary to award damages against defendants since they know that insurers, and not the defendant personally, will pay for it in the end anyway. But although it may seem that no real person has to bear these burdens when they are imposed onto insurers, in reality all of society bears them collectively when insurers are forced to hike their premiums to cover these increasing damages payments. In any case, it seems unfair to force insurers to cover these costs simply because they can afford to do so. If such an expansion is indeed the cause of the PL&I crisis, then a contraction of the scope of tort liability, and a pious return to the fault principle, might remedy the situation. However it could also be argued that inadequate deterrence is the cause of this crisis. On this account the problem would lie not with the tort system’s continued unwarranted expansion, but in the fact that defendants really have been too careless. If prospective injurers were appropriately deterred from engaging in unnecessarily risky activities, then fewer accidents would ever occur in the first place, and this would reduce the need for litigation at its very source. If we take this to be the cause of tort law’s failure then our solution should aim to improve deterrence. Glen Robinson has argued that improved deterrence could be achieved if plaintiffs were allowed to sue defendants for wrongful exposure to ongoing risks of future harm, even in the absence of currently materialized losses. He argues that at least in toxic injury type cases the tortious creation of risk [should be seen as] an appropriate basis of liability, with damages being assessed according to the value of the risk, as an alternative to forcing risk victims to abide the outcome of the event and seek damages only if and when harm materializes. In a sense, Robinson wishes to treat newly-acquired wrongful risks as de-facto wrongful losses, and these are what would be compensated in liability for risk creation (‘LFRC’) cases. Robinson argues that if the extent of damages were fixed to the extent of risk exposure, all detected unreasonable risk creators would be forced to bear the costs of their activities, rather than only those who could be found responsible for another’s injuries ‘on the balance of probabilities’. The incidence of accidents should decrease as a result of improved deterrence, reduce the ‘suing fest’, and so resolve the PL&I crisis. So whilst the first solution involves contracting the scope of tort liability, Robinson’s solution involves an expansion of its scope. However Robinson acknowledges that LFRC seems prima facie incompatible with current tort principles which in the least require the presence of plaintiff losses, defendant fault, and causation to be established before making defendants liable for plaintiffs’ compensation. Since losses would be absent in LFRC cases by definition, the first evidentiary requirement would always be frustrated, and in its absence proof of defendant fault and causation would also seem scant. If such an expansion of tort liability were not supported by current tort principles then it would be no better than proposals to switch accident law across to no-fault, since both solutions would require comprehensive legal reform. However Robinson argues that the above three evidentiary requirements could be met in LFRC cases to the same extent that they are met in other currently accepted cases, and hence that his solution would therefore be preferable to no-fault solutions as it would only require incremental but not comprehensive legal reform. Although I believe that actual losses should be present before allowing plaintiffs to seek compensation, I will not present a positive argument for this conclusion. My aim in this paper is not to debate the relative merits of Robinson’s solution as compared to no-fault solutions, nor to determine which account of the cause of the PL&I crisis is closer to the truth, but rather to find out whether Robinson’s solution would indeed require less radical legal reform than, for example, proposed no-fault solutions. I will argue that Robinson fails to show that current tort principles would support his proposed solution, and hence that his solution is at best on an even footing with no-fault solutions since both would require comprehensive legal reform. (shrink)

It is sometimes morally permissible not to help others even when doing so is overall better for you. For example, you are not morally required to take a career in medicine over a career in music, even if the former is both better for others and better for you. I argue that the permissibility of not helping in a range of cases of “compensated altruism” is explained by the existence of autonomy-based considerations. I sketch a view according to which you (...) can have autonomy-based permissions to choose between alternatives when these alternatives differ in terms of the valuable features they instantiate. Along the way, I argue that considerations of moral autonomy do not support rejecting the plausible view that we each constantly face reasons with morally requiring strength to help (distant) strangers. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this paper I attempt to show that our commonly shared ideas of justice, which include principles of fair distribution and of compensation for past injustices, tend to come into conflict in practice, and generate serious dilemmas for persons in certain positions of authority, such as managers. I identify the source and nature of such dilemmas, and sketch a rough pattern for analysing and partially resolving conflicts between the duty not to discriminate unfairly and the duty to compensate (...) for past unfair discrimination. After stating what I regard as widely shared ideas of justice, I emphasise their application to actual policy decisions of the small‐scale sort, using general precepts for avoiding or minimising conflicts. The precepts include a commitment to the priority of compensatory justice. The paper includes theoretical portions, principally defences of my position against other views on the relationship between compensation and fair distribution. I end with an examination of the virtues and limitations of money as a tool for compensatory social policies. (shrink)

In March 2010, China launched a pilot programme of deceased donor organ donation in 10 provinces and cities. However, the deceased donor donation rate in China remains significantly lower than in Spain and other Western countries. In order to provide incentive for deceased donor organ donation, five pilot provinces and cities have subsequently launched a financial compensation policy. Financial compensation can be considered to include two main forms, the ‘thank you’ form and the ‘help’ form. The ‘thank you’ (...) form is an expression of gratitude on behalf of the Red Cross Society of China for consenting to donation. The ‘help’ form is social welfare support for needy families. (shrink)

In some vicarious cases of compensation, an agent seems obligated to compensate for a harm they did not inflict. This raises the problem that obligations for compensation may arise out of circumstantial luck. That is, an agent may owe compensation for a harm that was outside their control. Addressing this issue, I identify five conditions for compensation from the literature: causal engagement, proxy, ill-gotten gains, constitution, and affiliation. I argue that only two of them specify genuine (...) and irreducible grounds for compensation, and that factors determining the agent’s obligations may be beyond their control. However, I suggest that this is unproblematic. There is thus no problem of circumstantial moral luck for compensation. (shrink)

This paper examines whether the prospect of compensation may render otherwise disproportionate harms proportionate. It argues that we should reject this possibility. Instead, it distinguishes duties of compensation as a requirement of rectificatory justice from a harm’s degree of compensability, and argues that only the latter is relevant to proportionality. On this view, failing to compensate constitutes a distinct wrong, while harms that are not adequately compensable carry extra weight in proportionality calculations. This explains how the prospect of (...) compensation affects permissions to harm, without relying on the dubious assumption that disproportionate harms may be rendered proportionate by future compensation. (shrink)

Currently living people cannot be said to be wronged because of the wrongless emissons of greenhouse gases by past people. According to the usual subjunctive-historical understanding of harm, currently living people cannot be said to be harmed by the impact of greenhouse emissions on their well-being. By relying on a subjunctive-threshold notion of harm we can justify conclusions about both the present generation’s duties not to violate the rights of future generations, and the present generation’s duties to compensate currently living (...) people for the harms inflicted upon them through the lasting impact of wrongless past harms. This interpretation supports a forward-looking understanding of the grounds of our relating to wrongless past harms. The significance of past harms lies in their consequences for the well-being of currently living and future people. The subjunctive-threshold notion of harm lends support to a standard of minimal, general, and universal justice. Those actors who are in a position to fulfill its requirements are under a duty to do so. Especially the rich and powerful countries ought to counteract the harmful impact of past greenhouse emissions. (shrink)

When states are required to compensate victim groups for the historic wrongs they have committed, how should the compensation due be calculated? It seems that alongside the counterfactual world in which the wrongdoing never occurred, we should also consider the counterfactual world in which the wrongdoing has occurred, but the victims have responded to it in a prudent way. Under tort law, the damages a victim can claim are reduced if they are judged to have been contributorily negligent, thereby (...) exacerbating the harm they have suffered. The paper considers four reasons why victim groups could not be expected to respond collectively to injustice in a way that outsiders might judge to be prudent. 1. The wrongdoing has destroyed their capacity to act as a group agent. 2. The wrongdoing has inflicted psychological traumas that lead them to make poor decisions. 3. They would need to violate a moral norm that is deeply embedded in their culture. 4. They would need to adopt policies that risk inflicting severe injustice on an internal minority. In many instances of historic injustice, one or more of these reasons apply. So although in principle victims’ behaviour is relevant when compensation is being calculated, we must be very cautious in using that doctrine to assess real cases. (shrink)