This paper has a threefold purpose: to question the adequacy of two familiar proposals for explaining the permissibility of harming others in self-defense, to suggest an alternative explanation, and to answer some objections to this latter explanation. By and large, discussions of the proposals whose adequacy I will question focus on what they imply about the permissibility of self-defense in controversial cases. I will argue here that the proposals themselves contain large and significant theoretical gaps. Accordingly, examining their implications for (...) controversial cases is premature, since they don’t adequately explain permissible self-defense in even the clearest cases—that is, those in which people defend themselves against “culpable attackers”. (shrink)

To properly understand behavior, we must obtain both ultimate and proximate explanations. Put briefly, ultimate explanations are concerned with why a behavior exists, and proximate explanations are concerned with how it works. These two types of explanation are complementary and the distinction is critical to evolutionary explanation. We are concerned that they have become conflated in some areas of the evolutionary literature on human behavior. This article brings attention to these issues. We focus on three specific areas: the evolution of (...) cooperation, transmitted culture, and epigenetics. We do this to avoid confusion and wasted effort—dangers that are particularly acute in interdisciplinary research. Throughout this article, we suggest ways in which misunderstanding may be avoided in the future. (shrink)

Preventing exploitation in human subjects research requires a benchmark of fairness against which to judge the distribution of the benefits and burdens of a trial. This paper proposes the ideal market and its fair market price as a criterion of fairness. The ideal market approach is not new to discussions about exploitation, so this paper reviews Wertheimer's inchoate presentation of the ideal market as a principle of fairness, attempt of Emanuel and colleagues to apply the ideal market to human subjects (...) research, and Ballantyne's criticisms of both the ideal market and the resulting benchmark of fairness. It argues that the criticism of this particular benchmark is on point, but the rejection of the ideal market is mistaken. After presenting a complete account of the ideal market, this paper proposes a new method for applying the ideal market to human subjects research and illustrates the proposal by considering a sample case. (shrink)

Although people generally agree that innocent targets of culpable aggression are justified in harming the aggressors in self-defence, there is considerable disagreement regarding whether innocents are justified in defending themselves when their doing so would harm other innocent people. I argue in this essay that harming innocent aggressors and active innocent threats in self-defence is indeed justified under certain conditions, but that defensive actions in such cases are justified as permissions rather than as claim rights. This justification therefore differs from (...) that of self-defence against culpable aggressors, since defensive acts of the latter type are justified as claim rights rather than mere permissions. I argue, however, that the two justifications are alike in that both rest on considerations of distributive justice. (shrink)

This paper is about certain of the ways in which rights and liberties are interrelated. It is also about the distinction between "prima facie" and "on balance" rights. Although philosophers concerned with the former issue commonly reject the notion of a prima facie right or ignore it entirely, I argue that an adequate account of how rights are related to liberties must rest on the idea that some rights are only prima facie.

Discussions of the ethics of war commonly – and reasonably – assume that defensive wars are morally justified if any wars are. They also assume that explanations of why defensive warfare is morally justified must be based on principles that also explain the moral justifiability of individual self-defense. David Rodin has recently argued that the second of these assumptions is mistaken, and he has developed an alternative account of the morality of defensive warfare. The purpose of this paper is to (...) show that Rodin’s argument fails, and to explain how defensive warfare can indeed be justified in terms of principles that also apply to individual self-defense. (shrink)

Even the most ardent defenders of a legal right to freedom of the press are likely to regard this right as having limitations; but how precisely the right should be limited is a matter of considerable disagreement. This issue is at least partly moral in character: it concerns the moral acceptability of laws which regulate or protect the activities of members of the press. I propose here to address this moral issue, and to do so within the broader framework of (...) considering whether establishing a legal right to freedom of the press—regardless of how it might be limited—is justifiable on moral grounds. In pursuing this investigation, I will devote special attention to familiar claims about the relation between press rights on the one hand, and “the people's right to know” on the other. (shrink)

Are we morally required to act in the interests of others? Does our worth as persons depend in any way on our valuing the good of others? These questions, illustrative of those addressed in this book, concern the relevance of other-interested considerations -- of facts about what is good or bad for others -- to the moral status of persons and their actions. Pursuing answers to such questions is not only interesting and important in its own right, but also yields (...) valuable insights in to the nature of morality. A distinguishing feature of the book is its unusually comprehensive treatment of the moral significance of other-interested considerations per se, of how these considerations are interrelated, and of where they should be located in more general moral theory. It will be of greatest interest to individuals with fairly well-developed philosophical interests and abilities -- to teachers and advanced students of moral philosophy in particular. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer objections to an approach to formulating principles referring to moral rights that has come to known as “specification.” These objections focus on rights-principles in their role as premises of inferences to conclusions regarding the moral rights of individuals in particular situations. I argue on practical grounds that specified principles have no useful role to play in such inferences, and on theoretical grounds that the specificationist position is self-defeating. This latter argument also suggests an interpretation of (...) rights principles that avoids the objections to which specification is vulnerable. (shrink)

Arguments aimed at undermining certain accounts of the grounds of political obligations—no matter how successful they may be—fall far short of demonstrating that there are no such obligations. Doubts about the efficacy of these arguments in this latter regard seem even more justified when it is recognized that parallel lines of reasoning can be developed in the area of filial obligations , which arguments provide rather less than conclusive reasons for denying that there are filial obligations .Furthermore, we have good (...) reason to believe that there are political obligations if patriotism is a virtue, and also that patriotism is indeed a virtue. We therefore have a basis on which to affirm the existence of political obligations—a basis whose soundness is independent of the acceptability of particular accounts of the grounds of political obligation. Hence, even if standard accounts of the grounds of political obligations are problematic in certain respects, we should not regard this consideration as capable by itself of establishing that there are no such obligations. (shrink)

You and I are neighbors, with our houses situated closely together. You lead a group of rock musicians who can practice only in the evenings in your backyard; while I, on the other hand, enjoy nothing more than quiet evenings spent on my porch accompanied by the sounds of frogs and crickets. Presumably, you have a right to pursue your musical career, and I have a right quietly to enjoy my property. If we do indeed have these rights, however, then (...) they seem to conflict with each other, in that your exercising your right is incompatible with my exercising mine. (shrink)

Criminal punishments are commonly imposed on those convicted of harming others, yet punishment is itself necessarily harmful. Although we suppose that there is a moral difference between the two types of harming, the precise nature of this difference is not at all obvious. The problem here can be approached by asking this question: in what situations is harming others most obviously morally justified? And the answer, intuitively, is that these are situations involving self-defense against culpable aggression. This intuition provides a (...) point of departure for explaining how criminal punishment is morally justifiable as an instrument of societal-defense. Developing this explanation requires identifying the principle of distributive justice that justifies harming others in individual self-defense, and then applying that principle to defensive actions by societies. (shrink)

Image-making is a nearly universal human behavior, yet the visual strategies and conventions to represent things in pictures vary greatly over time and space. In particular, pictorial styles can differ in their degree of figurativeness, varying from intersubjectively recognizable representations of things to very stylized and abstract forms. Are there any patterns to this variability, and what might its ecological causes be? Experimental studies have shown that demography and the structure of interaction of cultural groups can play a key role: (...) the greater the degree of contact with other groups, the more recognizable and less abstract are the representations. Here we test this hypothesis on a real-world dataset for the first time. We constructed a balanced database of Indigenous Australian rock art motifs from both isolated and contact Aboriginal groups (those often in contact with other groups). We then ran a survey asking participants to judge the recognizability of the motifs and to provide interpretations. Results show that motifs from contact Aboriginal groups were more likely to be judged as inter-subjectively recognizable and also elicited more convergent descriptions than motifs from isolated groups. This is consistent with the idea that intergroup contact is likely to be an important factor in the cultural evolution of pictorial representation. We discuss the implications of these findings for the archaeology and anthropology of art, and the parallels with language evolution. (shrink)

The following thesis is defended: whether actions are morally required is an objective matter – that is, independent of the beliefs, intentions, etc. with which the actions are preformed. This thesis needs defending because it seems vulnerable to certain counterexamples. One approach to dealing with these counterexamples centers on the concept of blameworthiness, but this approach is flawed. An alternative approach is developed that relies on the concept of a vicious action. And although it too centers on the concept of (...) blameworthiness, it lacks the flaws that are present in the original approach. (shrink)

Anthropology of Consciousness, Volume 33, Issue 1, Page 63-78, Spring 2022.

A basic component of moral objections to embryonic stem cell research is the claim that human embryos have the same moral status as typical adult human beings. There is no reason to accept this claim, however, unless adult humans once existed as embryos—that is, unless the developmental history of adult humans contains embryos to which the adults are numerically identical. The purpose of this paper is to argue that there are no such identities, and hence that no adult human being (...) ever existed as an embryo. (shrink)

How far does a researcher’s responsibility extend when an incidental finding is identified? Balancing pertinent ethical principles such as beneficence, respect for persons, and duty to rescue is not always straightforward, particularly in neuroimaging research where empirical data that might help guide decision making are lacking. We conducted a systematic survey of perceptions and preferences of 396 investigators, research participants, and Institutional Review Board members at our institution. Using the partial entrustment model as described by Richardson, we argue that our (...) data supports universal reading by a neuroradiologist of all research MRI scans for incidental findings and providing full disclosure to all participants. (shrink)

It seems to me that, with an exception to be discussed presently, Hursthouse accomplishes the critical task which she sets for herself. She is particularly successful in pointing out how very complex the abortion issue is, and how the person view and utilitarianism overlook its complexities. Hursthouse notes that Thomson's position does not suffer from this latter shortcoming, but she also argues clearly and convincingly that the position should be rejected on other grounds—grounds pertaining primarily to various things Thomson says (...) about rights. Notwithstanding its many virtues, however, Hursthouse's critical discussion does strike me as problematic in a noteworthy respect. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper is a reply to three objections raised by Seumas Miller against a ‘forced‐choice’account of the morality of self‐defence. It is argued that Miller's first objection rests on a misconception of how the forced‐choice account is supposed to work; that his second objection is simply mistaken; and that his third objection overlooks how the forced‐choice account explicitly accommodates the moral difference between self‐defence and ‘other‐defence.’Finally, it is suggested that Miller's entire approach is defective in its failure to examine (...) the principle of justice which underlies the forced‐choice account, and whether it applies to standard self‐defence situations. (shrink)