Pain research is still dominated by biomedical perspectives and the need to articulate pain in ways other than those offered by evidence based medical models is pressing. Examining closely subjective experiences of pain, this book explores the way in which pain is situated, communicated and formed in a larger cultural and social context. Dimensions of Pain explores the lived experience of pain, and questions of identity and pain, from a range of different disciplinary perspectives within the humanities and social sciences. (...) Discussing the acuity and temporality of pain, its isolating impact, the embodied expression of pain, pain and sexuality, gender and ethnicity, it also includes a cluster of three chapters discusses the phenomenon and experience of labour pains. This volume revitalizes the study of pain, offering productive ways of carefully thinking through its different aspects and exploring the positive and enriching side of world-forming pain as well as its limiting aspects. It will be of interest to academics and students interested in pain from a range of backgrounds, including philosophy, sociology, nursing, midwifery, medicine and gender studies. (shrink)

Introduction: Preference, Choice and (Libertarian) Paternalism Kalle Grill & Danny Scoccia This special issue originated in a workshop organized by one of the editors, Kalle Grill, at Umeå University in March 2014, with funding from The Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences. The theme of the workshop was Respecting Context-Dependent Preferences. Contributors to this issue who were also speakers at the Umeå workshop are Richard Arneson, Kalle Grill, Jason Hanna, Sven Ove Hansson, Robert Sugden, and Torbjörn (...) Tännsjö. The other speakers at the workshop were Luc Bovens, Sarah Conly, Fabienne Peter and Danny Scoccia. Preferences are context-dependent when they are determined by circumstances other than the contents of the alternatives that preferences range over, such as the way alternatives are presented. As behavioral research increasingly indicates, many of our preferences are context-dependent in this sense. Context-dependence raises difficult issues for many areas of moral and political philosophy. Importantly, the fact that preferences are not in any obvious way based on settled values or considered judgments may cast doubt on liberalism’s stance on when paternalism is morally objectionable: What exactly is liberal antipaternalism supposed to protect, if not settled preferences? What about paternalism that operates by influencing the formation of preferences? Should we, as proposed by so called "libertarian paternalists", shape the choice environment so as to promote choices that are conducive to health, wealth and happiness over the long run? More generally, we may inquire what respect for persons should mean given the context-dependence of their preferences. Several articles in this issue deal with the plausibility of libertarian paternalism and the nudging it endorses. Sugden argues that those who take context-dependence to justify paternalism often rely on ideas of latent preferences that lack a convincing psychological explanation. William Glod argues that, because of informational constraints, nudging often fails to track people's actual preferences. Hanna, in contrast, defends nudging against the objection that it is manipulative. Andres Moles surveys some legitimate aims for which nudging can be justified. The remaining articles either take a more general view of context-dependence, or investigates it in some specific context: Arneson considers, in light of the debate on libertarian paternalism, the general concept of paternalism, and proposes a new theory for when paternalism is justified, in terms of a limited prerogative to be imprudent. Grill argues that respect for persons should be pluralist and include respect for their choices as well as their preferences, even when these two come apart. Tännsjö re-considers, in the light of context-dependence, his earlier rejection of any form of coercive care. Hansson contributes a historical perspective with a discussion of John Stuart Mill's three principles regulating the extent of individual liberty. The guest editors wish to thank the journal editors for giving us the opportunity to produce this special issue. We are grateful also to the reviewers who have helped in the editorial process, and to Margaret Dancy, the Managing Editor, for her friendly support throughout. (shrink)

Health incentive schemes aim to produce healthier behaviors in target populations. They may do so both by making incentivized options more salient and by making them less costly. Changes in costs only result in healthier behavior if the individual rationally assesses the cost change and acts accordingly. Not all people do this well. Those that fail to respond rationally to incentives will typically include those who are least able to make prudent choices more generally. This group will typically include the (...) least advantaged more generally, since disadvantage inhibits one's effective ability to choose well and since poor choices tend to cause or aggravate disadvantage. Therefore, within the target population, health benefits to the better off may come at the cost of aggravated inequity. This is one instance of a problem I name the Able Chooser Problem, previously emphasized by Richard Arneson in relation to coercive paternalism. I describe and discuss this problem by distinguishing between policy options and their effects on the choice situation of individuals. Both positive and negative incentives, as well as mandates that are less than perfectly effective, require some sort of rational deliberation and action and so face the Able Chooser Problem. In contrast, effective restriction of what options are physically available, as well as choice context design that makes some options more salient or appealing, do not demand rational agency. These considerations provide an equity-based argument for preferring smart design of our choice and living environment to incentives and mandates. (shrink)

Lifelong smokers lose on average a decade of life vis-à-vis non-smokers. Globally, tobacco causes about 5–6 million deaths annually. One billion tobacco-related deaths are predicted for the 21st century, with about half occurring before the age of 70. In this paper, we consider a complete ban on the sale of cigarettes and find that such a ban, if effective, would be justified. As with many policy decisions, the argument for such a ban requires a weighing of the pros and cons (...) and how they impact on different individuals, both current and future. The weightiest factor supporting a ban, we argue, is the often substantial well-being losses many individuals suffer because of smoking. These harms, moreover, disproportionally affect the disadvantaged. The potential gains in well-being and equality, we argue, outweigh the limits a ban places on individuals’ freedom, its failure to respect some individuals’ autonomous choice and the likelihood that it may, in individual cases, reduce well-being. (shrink)

The philosophical debate on paternalism is conducted as if the property of being paternalistic should be attributed to actions. Actions are typically deemed to be paternalistic if they amount to some kind of interference with a person and if the rationale for the action is the good of the person interfered with. This focus on actions obscures the normative issues involved. In particular, it makes it hard to provide an analysis of the traditional liberal resistance to paternalism. Given the fact (...) that actions most often have mixed rationales, it is not clear how we should categorize and evaluate interfering actions for which only part of the rationale is the good of the person. The preferable solution is to attribute the property of being paternalistic not to actions, but to compounds of reasons and actions. The framework of action–reasons provides the tools for distinguishing where exactly paternalism lies in the complex web of reasons and actions. (shrink)

This article first describes a dilemma for liberalism: On the one hand restricting their own options is an important means for groups of people to shape their lives. On the other hand, group members are typically divided over whether or not to accept option-restricting solutions or policies. Should we restrict the options of all members of a group even though some consent and some do not? This dilemma is particularly relevant to public health policy, which typically target groups of people (...) with no possibility for individuals to opt out. The article then goes on to propose and discuss a series of aggregation rules for individual into group consent. Consideration of a number of scenarios shows that such rules cannot be formulated only in terms of fractions of consenters and non-consenters, but must incorporate their motives and how much they stand to win or lose. This raises further questions, including what is the appropriate impact of altruistic consenters and non-consenters, what should be the impact of costs and benefits and whether these should be understood as gross or net. All these issues are dealt with in a liberal, anti-paternalistic spirit, in order to explore whether group consent can contribute to the justification of option-restricting public health policy. (shrink)

Conceptions of autonomy in western philosophy and ethics have often centred on self-governance and self-determination. However, a growing bulk of literature also questions such conceptions, including the understanding of the autonomous self as a self-governing independent individual that chooses, acts, and lives in accordance with her or his own values, norms, or sense of self. This article contributes to the critical interrogation of selfhood, autonomy, and autonomous decision making by combining a feminist focus on relational dimensions of selfhood and autonomy (...) with phenomenological philosophy of the embodied self as being-in-the-world. It offers a philosophical investigation of different dimensions of bodily relational autonomy by turning to phenomenological accounts of the lived body as self-reflexive. When so doing, we hope to contribute to bridging the gap that sometimes exists between discussions of autonomy in analytic moral philosophy and of freedom and facticity in phenomenological philosophy. We see this gap as unfortunate, and hold that a nuanced understanding of autonomy and autonomous decision making can be reached if these strands of philosophy are brought into dialogue. (shrink)

Drink driving causes great suffering and material destruction. The alcohol interlock promises to eradicate this problem by technological design. Traditional counter-measures to drink driving such as policing and punishment and information campaigns have proven insufficient. Extensive policing is expensive and intrusive. Severe punishment is disproportionate to the risks created in most single cases. If the interlock becomes inexpensive and convenient enough, and if there are no convincing moral objections to the device, it may prove the only feasible as well as (...) the only justifiable solution to the problem of drink driving. A policy of universal alcohol interlocks, in all cars, has been proposed by several political parties in Sweden and is supported by the National Road Administration and the 2006 Alcohol Interlock Commission. This article assesses two possible moral objections to a policy of universal interlocks: (i) that it displaces the responsibility of individual drivers and (ii) that it constitutes a paternalistic interference with drivers. The first objection is found unconvincing, while the second has only limited bite and may be neutralized if paternalism is accepted for the sake of greater net liberty. Given the expected technological development, the proposed policy seems a commendable health promotion measure for the near future. (shrink)

Hip hop has grown into a worldwide genre in recent decades, often being associated with issues of race and class. However, as research on ‘hip hop feminism’ in the US context demonstrates, the categories of gender and sexuality are no less fundamental. In the growing body of international hip hop research, though, questions about gender have been relatively absent, and relatively little is known about how gender norms are negotiated and challenged in hip hop in Europe. This article seeks to (...) contribute to filling this gap in the literature by exploring how women negotiate the gender norms of hip hop in the case of Sweden. To this end, rap lyrics by 12 female rap artists are analysed through poststructuralist discourse analysis. The analysis focuses on intersectionality, feminism within and beyond hip hop, as well as the possibilities and limitations of female masculinity. It is shown how the masculine norms of the genre are simultaneously resisted and resignified as many female rappers incorporate some elements commonly associated with masculinity but mobilize them in their challenging of masculine norms. In this way, complying with the genre interestingly produces a hard and explicit feminism in which ‘all sexist pigs will be slaughtered”. (shrink)

To an ever-greater extent, we spend our lives in an online environment designed by corporations. These corporations have an interest in shaping not only our purchasing behavior, but also our focus of attention and engagement and to some extent our worldview and identity. As a means to this end, they collect and trade in personal information. One important method of behavioral influence employed to advance these purposes is default-setting - the design of a product or a situation such that one (...) option out of several seems natural to accept, because it is the path of least resistance. Default-setting is a non-rational influence, often imperceptible, yet effective. To protect users from defaults that are manipulative and harmful, individually and collectively, societies should require minimal quality standards. Just as some products are overall too harmful or too poor to be legally marketed, other products have default settings that are too harmful or too poor to be acceptable. In particular, defaults should minimize inadvertent consumption, should minimize the collection of personal data, and when providing information should be truthful. In addition, opt-out costs should be minimal in order to empower users who prefer alternative options. (shrink)

Recently, it has been argued by several scholars that we have moral reasons to limit our procreation due to the harmful environmental consequences it entails. These calls for procreative restraint are typically made in relation to other lifestyle choices, such as minimizing driving and air travel. In such comparisons, it is assumed that the environmental impact of procreation encompasses the lifetime consumption of the child created, and potentially that of further descendants. After an overview of these arguments, I go on (...) to provide an examination of the main benefits of procreation, in relation to those of consumption, i.e., other lifestyle choices. My normative assumption is that benefits hold moral relevance, alongside harms. Procreation may benefit procreators and may provide more collective benefits. Some benefits tend to preempt the environmental impact associated with procreation. I conclude that the benefits of procreation are substantial and typically greater than those of consumption. (shrink)

This article approaches Ovid’s story of Echo and Narcissus in the Metamorphoses through some of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s writings on expression and speech. Echo’s speech as portrayed by Ovid clearly illustrates how Merleau-Ponty describes speech in Phenomenology of Perception as a “paradoxical operation” through which we use words with already given sense and in that very process both stabilize and alter established meaning. Instead of reducing Echo to a moment of the identity and fate of Narcissus, I bring out Echo’s own (...) voice and the expression of her subjectivity through creative repetition. The short dialogue between Echo and Narcissus makes manifest that Echo’s words cannot be reduced to a simple repetition of a clear and distinct original. Rather, her speech emerges in relation to an original that is only made present as an original of a repetition in that very repetition. Echo’s voice is disruption of the words she repeats and each repetition is also its own origin. Echo’s own voice is only made present when we listen to it as something other than a simple repetition of the voice of Narcissus. The fragments she returns through her echo, lose their fragmented character through modifying and altering their already given meaning. What Echo lacks is not primarily a voice of her own but rather an unbound origin which by itself remains mute and thereby runs the risk of not expressing anything at all. Echo is repetition but it is precisely as repetition that she is also originating speech. (shrink)

The existence of a firm can be seen as a necessary condition for the existence of stakeholders. However, in the stakeholder literature, the firm has remained a relatively underdeveloped and fuzzy construct. In this essay, we examine how the firm has been conceptualized (explicitly or implicitly) in earlier research and suggest that, at least in stakeholder thinking, the firm can be considered as having an emergent nature. We elaborate this idea by building on the resent philosophical discussions of emergence and, (...) as a result, propose the emergentist stakeholder model of the firm. (shrink)

A number of ethical frameworks have been proposed to support decision-making in public health and the evaluation of public health policy and practice. This is encouraging, since ethical considerations are of paramount importance in health policy. However, these frameworks have various deficiencies, in part because they incorporate substantial ethical positions. In this article, we discuss and criticise a framework developed by James Childress and Ruth Bernheim, which we consider to be the state of the art in the field. Their framework (...) distinguishes aims, such as the promotion of public health, from constraints on the pursuit of those aims, such as the requirement to avoid limitations to liberty, or the requirement to be impartial. We show how this structure creates both theoretical and practical problems. We then go on to present and defend a more practical framework, one that is neutral in avoiding precommitment to particular values and how they ought to be weighted. We believe ethics is at the very heart of such weightings and our framework is developed to reflect this belief. It is therefore both pluralist and value-based. We compare our new framework to Childress and Bernheim’s and outline its advantages. It is justified by its impetus to consider a wide range of alternatives and its tendency to direct decisions towards the best alternatives, as well as by the information provided by the ranking of alternatives and transparent explication of the judgements that motivate this ranking. The new framework presented should be useful to decision-makers in public health, as well as being a means to stimulate further reflection on the role of ethics in public health. (shrink)

In a contractual firm–stakeholder relationship the participants are expected to act according to the agreement and for mutual benefit. By acting against the agreement at the expense of the other participant, however, may result in higher individual profits within a short period of time. Building on the unlocked iterated prisoner’s dilemma (PD) setting, Scanlon’s [Scanlon, T.␣M.: 1998, What We Owe to Each Other (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass)] version of contractualism, and the social dilemma literature, this article (...) considers what types of behaviors should be followed by both parties in an established firm–stakeholder relationship in order to reach an outcome that is defensible both in terms of morality and viability. It is argued that a normative foundation, which advises firms and stakeholders to ground their behavior on principles that could not reasonably be rejected by others, forms a basis for moral and viable behavior that can be expressed in the form of a strategic rule that excludes defection and utilizes the option to exit in response to the other participant’s defection. Then, a set of testable propositions is developed that describe how a firm and its stakeholders can further promote moral and viable relationships. (shrink)

In discussions concerning intersubjectivity the notion of expression has come to play a part of increasing significance. Expression shifts our point of departure away from subjectivity as something mysterious hidden within the body to subjectivity as altogether embodied and embedded in the world. In this article I engage writings by Maurice Merleau-Ponty to argue that expression is essentially something that happens in a communicative space in between self and other while at the same time giving rise to both. I show (...) how locating expression in a shared space between self and other is a way of emphasizing that self and other are not only expressive of selfhood, but are also expressed by one another and emerge in relation to one another. I point to this understanding of expression as a way of recognizing that there is both a fundamental reciprocity and asymmetry between self and other. (shrink)

Paternalism means, roughly, benevolent interference: benevolent because it aims at promoting or protecting a person’s good; interference because it restricts his liberty without his consent. The paternalist believes herself superior in that she can secure some benefit for the person that he himself will not secure. Paternalism is opposed by the liberal tradition, at least when it targets sufficiently voluntary behavior. In legal contexts, policies may be paternalistic for some and not for others, forcing trade-offs. In medical contexts, paternalism can (...) be an open or hidden aspect of the relationship between caregiver and patient. (shrink)

Contemporary population ethics is dominated by views that aggregate by summing, whether of well-being or of some construct based on well-being. In contrast, average well-being is generally considered axiologically irrelevant. To many of us, however, the number of future people does not seem important, as long as it is sufficient to enable rich and varied life experiences, and as long as the population continues throughout time. It therefore seems relatively plausible to aggregate future well-being by averaging. In particular, it seems (...) plausible to value high average well-being at any particular time, and to do so for all future times. I present a time-sensitive version of the Average View that underpins such axiological intuitions. I also address a series of issues and objections that confront such a view. (shrink)

Receiving information about threats to one’s health can contribute to anxiety and depression. In contemporary medical ethics there is considerable consensus that patient autonomy, or the patient’s right to know, in most cases outweighs these negative effects of information. Worry about the detrimental effects of information has, however, been voiced in relation to public health more generally. In particular, information about uncertain threats to public health, from—for example, chemicals—are said to entail social costs that have not been given due consideration. (...) This criticism implies a consequentialist argument for withholding such information from the public in their own best interest. In evaluating the argument for this kind of epistemic paternalism, the consequences of making information available must be compared to the consequences of withholding it. Consequences that should be considered include epistemic effects, psychological effects, effects on private decisions, and effects on political decisions. After giving due consideration to the possible uses of uncertain information and rebutting the claims that uncertainties imply small risks and that they are especially prone to entail misunderstandings and anxiety, it is concluded that there is a strong case against withholding of information about uncertain threats to public health. (shrink)

I first distinguish four types of objection to paternalism and argue that only one – the principled objection – amounts to a substantive and distinct normative doctrine. I then argue that this doctrine should be understood as preventing certain facts from playing the role of reasons they would otherwise play. I explain how this filter approach makes antipaternalism independent of several philosophical controversies: On the role reasons play, on what reasons there are, and on how reasons are related to values. (...) I go on to contrast the filter approach with the competing and dominant action-focused approach, which understands objections to paternalism in terms of paternalistic action, behavior, law, policy and the like. Seana Shiffrin and Peter de Marneffe are singled out as prominent recent proponents of this approach. By engaging with their definitions of paternalism, I explain how the action-focused approach makes antipaternalism dependent on the sorting of actions into paternalistic and nonpaternalistic according to what reasons support them. Because one and the same action can be supported by many different reasons, and by different sorts of reasons, such sorting is very difficult. The upshot is that antipaternalism on the action-focused account fails to provide the precise normative implications of the filter approach that I favor. (shrink)

To nudge is to design choice contexts in order to improve choice outcomes. Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein emphatically endorse nudging but reject more restrictive means. In contrast, I argue that the behavioral psychology that motivates nudging also motivates what may be called jolting — i.e. the design of choice content. I defend nudging and jolting by distinguishing them from the sometimes oppressive means with which they can be implemented, by responding to some common arguments against nudging, and by showing (...) how respect for preferences over option sets and their aggregate properties may require the trimming of option sets, as well as helpful choice contexts. (shrink)

This essay concerns the place of e-sport in the history of sport. E-sport is construed as an entity in this corpus, by seeking out historical counterparts that display similar forms of play and organisation. Thus, ancient Roman games are identified as an early instance of what could be called public gaming, i.e. competitive digital games in a public setting. Two recent philosophical statements regarding the history of sport furnish the point of departure of the analysis: Steven Connor's historicising of the (...) term sport, and Heather Reid's treatise of virtue in the games and athletics of antiquity. The varying content of sport in its course through time is discussed foremost in relation to how the human and nonhuman elements have been organised. In order to settle the role of public gaming in the history of sport, two aspects of Roman games are highlighted to 'fabricate' its legacy in the history of e-sport: Pollice Verso and simulations. It is concluded that the way Roman games ha... (shrink)

I first provide an analysis of Joel Feinberg’s anti-paternalism in terms of invalidation of reasons. Invalidation is the blocking of reasons from influencing the moral status of actions, in this case the blocking of personal good reasons from supporting liberty-limiting actions. Invalidation is shown to be distinct from moral side constraints and lexical ordering of values and reasons. I then go on to argue that anti-paternalism as invalidation is morally unreasonable on at least four grounds, none of which presuppose that (...) people can be mistaken about their own good: First, the doctrine entails that we should sometimes allow people to unintentionally severely harm or kill themselves though we could easily stop them. Second, it entails that we should sometimes allow perfectly informed and rational people to risk the lives of themselves and others, though they are in perfect agreement with us on what reasons we have to stop them for their own good. Third, the doctrine leaves unexplained why we may benevolently coerce less competent but substantially autonomous people, such as young teens, but not adults. Last, it entails that there are peculiar jumps in justifiability between very similar actions. I conclude that as liberals we should reject anti-paternalism and focus our efforts on explicating important liberal values, thereby showing why liberty reasons sometimes override strong personal good reasons, though never by making them invalid. (shrink)

As liberals, we would like each person to direct her own life in accordance with her will. However, because of the complexities of the human mind, it is very often not clear what a person wills. She may choose one thing though she prefers another, while having false beliefs the correction of which would cause her to prefer some third thing. I propose, against this background, that to respect a person’s will or self-direction is to respect both her choices and (...) her preferences, with some priority given to those preferences that are informed and coherent. This is a pluralist answer to the neglected question, “respect for what?”. (shrink)

In many or most instances of paternalism, more than one person acts paternalistically, or more than one person is treated paternalistically. This chapter discusses some complications that arise in such group cases, which are largely ignored in the conceptual debate. First, a group of people who together perform an action may do so for different reasons, which makes it more challenging to determine whether the action is paternalistic. This gives us some reason not to pin the property of being paternalistic (...) on actions, since we may alternatively pin it on reasons for actions and allow that these differ between members in the group. Second, the prevention of harmful consensual interactions is sometimes paternalism towards both or all involved, but only if all benefit from interference with themselves rather than with other members in the group, or if all want the harm or risk (more or less) for its own sake. Third, interrelations between three components of paternalism - interference, benevolence and consent - gives us reason to allow that an action can be paternalistic towards some but not others of those affected. This makes it even more difficult, and less relevant, to determine whether or not actions are paternalistic. (shrink)

Advances in genetic diagnostics lead to more patients being diagnosed with hereditary conditions. These findings are often relevant to patients’ relatives. For example, the success of targeted cancer prevention is dependent on effective disclosure to relatives at risk. Without clear information, individuals cannot take advantage of predictive testing and preventive measures. Against this background, we argue that healthcare professionals have a duty to make actionable genetic information available to their patients’ at-risk relatives. We do not try to settle the difficult (...) question of how this duty should be balanced against other duties, such as the duty of confidentiality and a possible duty not to know one’s genetic predisposition. Instead, we argue for the importance of recognising a general responsibility towards at-risk relatives, to be discharged as well as possible within the limits set by conflicting duties and practical considerations. According to a traditional and still dominant perspective, it is the patient’s duty to inform his or her relatives, while healthcare professionals are only obliged to support their patients in discharging this duty. We argue that this perspective is a mistake and an anomaly. Healthcare professionals do not have a duty to ensure that their patients promote the health of third parties. It is often effective and desirable to engage patients in disseminating information to their relatives. However, healthcare professionals should not thereby deflect their own moral responsibility. (shrink)

While paternalism has been a long-standing philosophical issue, it has recently received renewed attention among scholars and the general public. Comprising twenty-seven chapters by a team of international contributors, this handbook is divided into five parts: (i) What is Paternalism; (ii) Paternalism and Ethical Theory; (iii) Paternalism and Political Philosophy; (iv) Paternalism without Coercion; (v) Paternalism in Practice. Within these sections central debates, issues, and questions are examined, including: how should paternalism be defined or characterized? How is paternalism related to (...) such moral notions as rights, well-being, and autonomy? When is paternalism morally objectionable? What are the legitimate limits of government benevolence? To what extent should medical practice be paternalistic? (shrink)

This chapter concerns the normativity of the concepts of paternalism and libertarian paternalism. The first concept is central in evaluating public health policy, but its meaning is controversial. The second concept is equally controversial and has received much attention recently. It may or may not shape the future evaluation of public health policy. In order to facilitate honest and fruitful debate, I consider three approaches to these concepts, in terms of their normativity. Concepts, I claim, may be considered nonnormative, normatively (...) charged, or normative in that they involve more complex relationships between values or duties. While the last approach is often best, other approaches may be appropriate depending on the context and purpose of discussion. The chapter’s conceptual investigation is illustrated by application to two public health policies: a tax on the consumption of fat and the encouragement of health-promoting food displays in restaurants and supermarkets. (shrink)

E-cigarettes are a uniquely close substitute to combustible cigarettes. Close not just in nicotine content, but also in shape, taste and even inhalation and arm movement. Their availab...

Debates on the nature and justifiability of paternalism typically focus only on adults, sometimes presuming without argument that paternalism towards children is a non-issue or obviously justified. Debates on the moral and political status of children, in turn, rarely connect with the rich literature on paternalism. This chapter attempts to bridge this gap by exploring how issues that arise in the general debate on paternalism are relevant also for the benevolent interference with children. I survey and discuss various views and (...) argue for my own: that paternalism towards children is in most respects like paternalism towards adults and stands in the same need of justification, though such justification is more often forthcoming both because children are typically less prudent than adults and so benefit more from interference, and because, in some respects, interference is less harmful to them. (shrink)

The debate for and against making e-cigarettes available to smokers is to a large extent empirical. We do not know the long-term health effects of vaping and we do not know how smokers will respond to e-cigarettes over time. In addition to these empirical uncertainties, however, there are difficult moral issues to consider. One such issue is that many smokers in some sense choose to smoke. Though smoking is addictive and though many start young, it does not seem impossible to (...) plan for and implement cessation. Yet many choose not to do so and we arguably have some reason to respect this choice. I propose that liberal opposition to strict tobacco control, based on respect for choice, is mitigated when e-cigarettes are available, since they are such a close substitute. Making e-cigarettes available to smokers might therefore not only enable switching in practice, but may make tougher tobacco control more justified. Another moral issue is that making e-cigarettes widely available might induce many people to vape, who would otherwise have neither vaped nor smoked. If this is so, the price of using e-cigarettes to accelerate smoking cessation may be a long-term vaping epidemic. Since vaping is less harmful than smoking, both individuals and society will have less reason to end this epidemic and so it may endure longer than the smoking epidemic would otherwise have done. This raises further questions around the weighing of reduced harm to current smokers against increased harm to future vapers. (shrink)

This paper concerns the judgement and critique of athletic movement in moving images. Inspired by the ski crash trial case of Paltrow v. Sanderson, and by comparing different media representations of downhill skiing, the essay outlines a framework that discerns as well as connects elements of movement and images, developing the concept of the ‘diorama’ in relation to Deleuze’s notion of the diagram and Kant’s idea of critique. Thus, moving images featuring elite alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin, fictional character James Bond, (...) and an official skiing game for the international ski federation (World Cup Ski Racing, FIS) figure as comparative material to the animation that played a central role in the celebrity trial. Diorama and diagram are posited on a continuum to assess when and how judgement takes place in each of the exhibits. The essay concludes by discussing how the judging of athletic movement in moving images contributed to Paltrow winning the case, and theoretically by connecting this finding to dioramas and diagrams as tools apt for a framework aiming at the critique of athletic movement in moving images. (shrink)

According to a popular account, literary works can give a sense of the “inside” feel of various human experiences, literature thereby supplementing the external and objective perspective on the world that the different sciences aim at. This paper extends this understanding of literature's cognitive value, usually called “experiential knowledge,” with some key ideas of John Dewey's philosophy. It is argued that Dewey's general take on experience, as well as three of his central concepts—undergoing, inquiry, and growth—can significantly contribute to our (...) understanding of how experiential knowledge emerges from literary engagements and of the general cognitive significance of this type of knowledge. A particularly important goal of the paper is to show, against some skeptics, that experiential knowledge can have genuine epistemic weight, despite its nonpropositional and subjective character. It is also argued that experiential knowledge does not require a complete overlap between real-world experiences and literary experiences, as one recent criticism assumes. (shrink)

In his writings on the gaze and the body in Being and Nothingness , Jean-Paul Sartre describes the ways in which bodies are exposed and vulnerable to the anonymous gaze of the other, and how they in the midst of their vulnerability depend entirely on being seen by the gaze for their meaning and their very being. Although it sometimes appears as quite depressingly restrictive, Sartre’s analysis of the gaze and his account of the body offer rich and important resources (...) for recognizing the force of objectifying categories and meanings in the constitution of identities. This article suggests that Sartre’s almost remorseless descriptions of how the body is molded by the gaze of the other provide a productive point of departure for understanding the becoming of singular identities, as they are lived on the margins and in the intersections of established categories which determine them in often oppressive ways. Being marked by difference, whether sexual, ethnic, racial, or other, is in many ways being trapped by the objectifying gaze of the other in such a way that the ability to return the gaze and claim a subject position is deeply circumscribed. The article gives an account of Sartre’s analysis of the phenomenon of the gaze as the force which objectifies me before the other and of his description of the body as it is subjectively experienced as objectified. This “third ontological dimension of the body” captures the tensions inherent in subjectivity and brings to light its perpetual exposure to its own unknown exterior as it is seen and constituted by the other. (shrink)

The great majority of species that lived on this earth have gone extinct. These extinctions are often explained by invoking changes in the environment, to which the species has been unable to adapt. Evolutionary suicide is an alternative explanation to such extinctions. It is an evolutionary process in which a viable population adapts in such a way that it can no longer persist. In this paper different models, where evolutionary suicide occurs are discussed, and the theory behind the phenomenon is (...) reviewed. (shrink)

Two related asymmetries have been discussed in relation to the ethics of creating new lives: First, we seem to have strong moral reason to avoid creating lives that are not worth living, but no moral reason to create lives that are worth living. Second, we seem to have strong moral reason to improve the wellbeing of existing lives, but, again, no moral reason to create lives that are worth living. Both asymmetries have proven very difficult to account for in any (...) coherent moral framework. I propose an impersonal population axiology to underpin the asymmetries, which sidesteps the problematic issue of whether or not people can be harmed or benefited by creation or non-creation. This axiology yields perfect asymmetry from a deliberative perspective, in terms of expected value. The axiology also yields substantial asymmetry for large and realistic populations in terms of their actual value, beyond deliberative relevance. (shrink)