This commentary shall focus on the central claim made in Lynch et al.’s paper “Promoting Ethical Payment in Human Infection Challenge Studies.” According to their paper, there is a threefold...

Video ethics in educational research involving children is a recent topic that has arisen since the increase in the use of visual mediums in research especially with the development of new and ubiquitous internet technologies and social media. This paper emerged as an expressed concerned by a group of scholars associated with the new Video Journal of Education and Pedagogy that was established in 2016. The paper is the result of a collective writing process over a period of a few (...) months that discusses visual studies in education and visual ethics in relation to qualitative research in education, and as it applies to children. The article also uses the newly established convention of open review, publishing the results with the paper. (shrink)

According to Plato, the true philosopher will take on political power only with great reluctance. Onora O’Neill is a prominent political philosopher: specifically, a latter day Kantian and a follower of Rawls. She is also Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge and, as Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve, a crossbench Peer in the House of Lords. I have no idea whether she was at all reluctant to take on these positions. Happily, on the evidence of the present book, they do (...) not appear to have compromised her philosophy. (shrink)

In Kant and Virtue Ethics I argue that while Kant himself does not have a virtue ethics, a virtue ethics that is recognizably Kantian is a genuine possibility. In Chapter One I criticize Martha Nussbaum's and Gary Watson's accounts of virtue ethics, and offer my own, according to which an ethical theory is a virtue ethics just in case it takes virtue to be more basic than rightness and at least as basic as goodness. I next consider and reject the (...) arguments of three contemporary philosophers who claim that Kant has a virtue ethics. In Chapter Two I argue that neither the textual evidence Onora O'Neill adduces nor her account of maxims as life-rules supports her virtue-ethical reading of Kant. In Chapter Three I show that Nelson Potter's central argument suffers from an equivocation on its key term. In Chapter Four I argue that Christine Korsgaard is mistaken to hold that Kant offers a "motivational analysis" of rightness. In Chapter Five I argue that Kant cannot have a virtue ethics, because he believes that normative standards must be external, while virtue ethical standards are not external, and because his theory of virtue as strength of will in fulfilling one's duty fails to make virtue more basic than rightness. In Chapter Six I develop a Kantian virtue ethics grounded in autonomy. I rely on Christine Swanton's value-centered theory of virtue , according to which virtues are traits that enable their possessors to promote, express, honor and appreciate value. I argue for the value-centeredness of Kant's ethics and suggest that my Kantian virtue ethics helps us appreciate this aspect of Kant's ethics, which has been recently emphasized by Barbara Herman and Allen Wood. (shrink)

Kant's ethics, like others, has unavoidable anthropocentric starting points: only humans, or other 'rational natures', can hold obligations. Seemingly this should not make speciesist conclusions unavoidable: might not rational natures have obligations to the non-rational? However, Kant's argument for the unconditional value of rational natures cannot readily be extended to show that all non-human animals have unconditional value, or rights. Nevertheless Kant's speciesism is not thoroughgoing. He does not view non-rational animals as mere items for use. He allows for indirect (...) duties 'with regard to' them which afford welfare but not rights, and can allow for indirect duties 'with regard to' abstract and dispersed aspects of nature, such as biodiversity, species and habitats. (shrink)

Two centuries after they were published, Kant's ethical writings are as much admired and imitated as they have ever been, yet serious and long-standing accusations of internal incoherence remain unresolved. Onora O'Neill traces the alleged incoherences to attempt to assimilate Kant's ethical writings to modern conceptions of rationality, action and rights. When the temptation to assimilate is resisted, a strikingly different and more cohesive account of reason and morality emerges. Kant offers a `constructivist' vindication of reason and a moral vision (...) in which obligations are prior to rights and in which justice and virtue are linked. O'Neill begins by reconsidering Kant's conceptions of philosophical method, reason, freedom, automony and action. She then moves on to the more familiar terrain of interpretation of the Categorical Imperative, while in the last section she emphasises differences between Kant's ethics and recent 'Kantian' ethics, including the work of John Rawls and other contemporary liberal political philosophers. This reassessment will add significantly to the understanding of Kantian practical philosophy. (shrink)

In this collection of essays Onora O'Neill explores and argues for an account of justice that is fundamentally cosmopolitan rather than civic, yet takes serious account of institutions and boundaries, and of human diversity and vulnerability. Starting from conceptions that are central to any account of justice - those of reason, action, judgement, coercion, obligations and rights - she discusses whether and how culturally or politically specific concepts and views, which limit the claims and scope of justice, can be avoided. (...) She then examines the demands and scope of just institutions, arguing that there are good reasons for taking the claims of distant strangers seriously, but that doing so points not to a world without boundaries but to one of porous boundaries and dispersed power. Bounds of Justice will be of interest to a wide range of readers in philosophy, politics and international relations. (shrink)

Why has autonomy been a leading idea in philosophical writing on bioethics, and why has trust been marginal? In this important book, Onora O'Neill suggests that the conceptions of individual autonomy so widely relied on in bioethics are philosophically and ethically inadequate, and that they undermine rather than support relations of trust. She shows how Kant's non-individualistic view of autonomy provides a stronger basis for an approach to medicine, science and biotechnology, and does not marginalize untrustworthiness, while also explaining why (...) trustworthy individuals and institutions are often undeservingly mistrusted. Her arguments are illustrated with issues raised by practices such as the use of genetic information by the police or insurers, research using human tissues, uses of new reproductive technologies, and media practices for reporting on medicine, science and technology. Autonomy and Trust in Bioethics will appeal to a wide range of readers in ethics, bioethics and related disciplines. (shrink)

Under conditions with a low level of available genetic information, mutualistic private insurance markets will often create broadly just outcomes, even if by accident rather than by design. Normatively acceptable outcomes of this kind would come under threat if insurers were to have increased access to genetic information with substantial predictive content.1 As the availability of relevant individual genetic information grows, mutualistic forms of market-based insurance face a dilemma between either sacrificing individuals’ interests in genetic privacy, or creating conditions for (...) market failure due to adverse selection. My view is therefore that we have good reason to shift towards more solidaristic forms of ‘risk-sharing institutions’ with regard to functions such as life insurance and critical illness insurance, as a way of resolving normative tensions between values of equality, privacy, non-discrimination and autonomy. Such a position, I have argued, does not depend on endorsing any particular conception of social justice, but can be defended on the basis of a number of different plausible accounts of what justice demands.1 Jonathan Pugh argues against my endorsement of a shift towards solidaristic, non-market risk-sharing institutions, and instead argues broadly in favour of the status quo. He holds that it counts against my proposals that they ‘have wide-ranging and highly revisionary implications’, and argues that my approach is mistaken in relying on ‘a single contestable theory’. Pugh offers a purportedly less contestable account of the relevant normative considerations underlying insurance regimes, composed of three …. (shrink)

One of the paradoxes of recent political and economic theory is that, in spite of a period of extended economic difficulty, there has been a growing consensus concerning the virtues of the market economy. In particular, there has been a trend in socialist theory to argue that not only are socialism and the market not incompatible, but that some version of market socialism is the only feasible, practicable, and ethically and politically desirable form of socialism. Notable proponents of this view (...) with whom this paper will be particularly concerned are Selucky, Nove and Hodgson. I will not, in this paper, address the question of whether the market and socialism are necessarily incompatible. Neither will I examine the whole gamut of political and ethical issues surrounding the relation of the market to democracy, freedom, individual rights, and so on – not because they are unimportant, but because they require more extended attention than I could give here. My concern will rather be with some of the economic arguments to which defenders of market socialism have appealed. (shrink)

A well-ingrained and recommended engineering practice in safety-critical software systems is to separate safety concerns from other aspects of the system. Along these lines, there have been calls for operating systems that implement ethical controls in an ethical layer separate from, and not amenable to tampering by, developers and modules in higher-level intelligence or cognition layers. There have been no implementations that demonstrate such a marshalling of ethical principles into an ethical layer. To address this, we present three different tracks (...) for implementing such systems, and offer a prototype implementation of the third track. We end by addressing objections to our approach. (shrink)

We say we can no longer trust our public services, institutions or the people who run them. The professionals we have to rely on - politicians, doctors, scientists, businessmen and many others - are treated with suspicion. Their word is doubted, their motives questioned. Whether real or perceived, this crisis of trust has a debilitating impact on society and democracy. Can trust be restored by making people and institutions more accountable? Or do complex systems of accountability and control themselves damage (...) trust? Onora O'Neill challenges current approaches, investigates sources of deception in our society and re-examines questions of press freedom. 2002's Reith Lectures present a philosopher's view of trust and deception, and ask whether and how trust can be restored in a modern democracy. (shrink)

In this commentary, John O'Neill concentrates upon three themes in the goal Merleau-Ponty set for himself, namely "to restore to things their concrete physiognomy, to organisms their individual ways of dealing with the world, and to subjectivity its inherence in history." O'Neill considers the three objectives in their original order: first, the study of animal and human psychology; then, the phenomenology of perception; and finally, certain extensions of these perspectives in the historical and social sciences.

Towards Justice and Virtue challenges the rivalry between those who advocate only abstract, universal principles of justice and those who commend only the particularities of virtuous lives. Onora O'Neill traces this impasse to defects in underlying conceptions of reasoning about action. She proposes and vindicates a modest account of ethical reasoning and a reasoned way of answering the question 'who counts?', then uses these to construct linked accounts of principles by which we can move towards just institutions and virtuous lives.

ABSTRACT Is a scientific attitude to the natural world an obstacle to an appreciation of its value? This paper argues that it is not. Following Aristotle and Marx, it maintains that, properly pursued, science has value because it enables us to contemplate that which is wonderful and beautiful. However, the paper concedes that, as actually practised, science can foster a vice described by Augustine as ‘the lust of the eyes’: knowledge is sought not to open us to the world, but (...) merely to satisfy the itch of curiosity. If scientific knowledge is thus pursued, no limits to the means to it nor to its objects are recognised. Those who thus seek knowledge fail to understand its value. (shrink)

Environmental problems have an ethical dimension. They are not just about the efficient use of resources. Justice in the distribution of environmental goods and burdens, fairness in the processes of environmental decision-making, the moral claims of future generations and non-humans, these and other ethical values inform the responses of citizens to environmental problems. How can these concerns enter into good policy-making processes?Two expert-based approaches are commonly advocated for incorporating ethical values into environmental decision-making. One is an 'economic capture' approach, according (...) to which existing economic methods can be successfully extended to include ethical concerns. For example, stated preference methods, especially contingent valuation, have been developed to try and capture ethical responses as 'non-use values' of the environment, in particular 'existence values'. The other is a 'moral expert' approach which confines economic methods to the analysis of welfare gains, and assumes committees of ethical experts will complement economic expertise.Both approaches face problems in terms of addressing many widely held ethical values about the environment. Furthermore, both face problems concerning the democratic legitimacy of their procedures. How can policy-making be made responsive to different ethical values? What role is there for new deliberative and participatory methods? How far do existing decision-making institutions have the capacities to incorporate different modes of articulating environmental values?This policy brief examines the limitations of current attempts to capture ethical values within existing economic instruments and considers how these limitations might be overcome. Section 1 examines the assumptions that standard economic theory makes about individuals when they express values and make choices about the environment. The current models of agents that inform policy-making are seen to be ill-suited to incorporating the ethical responses of agents and this reveals some of the policy failures that may result. Section 2 shows how the physical and social properties of many environmental goods prevent their being treated as commodities. Section 3 considers the problems surrounding conceptions of fairness and legitimacy in processes for environmental valuation. Section 4 raises questions concerning the capacities of policy-making institutions to take cognisance of the results of different methods for articulating environmental values. (shrink)

I have a very particular reason to be grateful to Stewart Sutherland, our late President, which is connected to some of the themes of this lecture, so want to begin by recalling a long conversation I had with him on these topics.

In this collection of essays Onora O'Neill explores and argues for an account of justice that is fundamentally cosmopolitan rather than civic, yet takes serious account of institutions and boundaries, and of human diversity and vulnerability. Starting from conceptions that are central to any account of justice - those of reason, action, judgement, coercion, obligations and rights - she discusses whether and how culturally or politically specific concepts and views, which limit the claims and scope of justice, can be avoided. (...) She then examines the demands and scope of just institutions, arguing that there are good reasons for taking the claims of distant strangers seriously, but that doing so points not to a world without boundaries but to one of porous boundaries and dispersed power. Bounds of Justice will be of interest to a wide range of readers in philosophy, politics and international relations. (shrink)

To hold an environmental ethic is to hold that non-human beings and states of affairs in the natural world have intrinsic value. This seemingly straightforward claim has been the focus of much recent philosophical discussion of environmental issues. Its clarity is, however, illusory. The term ‘intrinsic value’ has a variety of senses and many arguments on environmental ethics suffer from a conflation of these different senses: specimen hunters for the fallacy of equivocation will find rich pickings in the area. This (...) paper is largely the work of the underlabourer. I distinguish different senses of the concept of intrinsic value, and, relatedly, of the claim that non-human beings in the natural world have intrinsic value; I exhibit the logical relations between these claims and examine the distinct motivations for holding them. The paper is not however merely an exercise in conceptual underlabouring. It also defends one substantive thesis: that while it is the case that natural entities have intrinsic value in the strongest sense of the term, i.e., in the sense of value that exists independently of human valuations, such value does not as such entail any obligations on the part of human beings. The defender of nature’s intrinsic value still needs to show that such value contributes to the well-being of human agents. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In a recent paper Alan Carter argues that the claim that workers’co‐operatives merely replace exploitation by employers with ‘self‐exploitation’is nonsense: the term ‘self‐exploitation’is self‐contradictory. He maintains that the only form of exploitation to which a workers’co‐operative may be said to be subject is ‘market‐exploitation’by dominant economic actors who are external to the co‐operative. I argue that these conclusions are mistaken. While the concept of ‘market‐exploitation’is not without value, it is difficult to operationalise. While the concept of ‘self‐exploitation’is, understood literally, (...) incoherent, the claims defended by some of the users of this term can be made conceptually respectable. (shrink)

'Two things', wrote Kant, 'fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe: the starry heavens above and the moral law within'. Many would argue that since Kant's day, the study of the starry heavens has advanced while ethics has stagnated, and in particular that Kant's ethics offers an empty formalism that tells us nothing about how we should live. In Acting on Principle Onora O'Neill shows that Kantian ethics has practical as well as philosophical importance. First published (...) in 1975, the book is regarded as a classic account and defence of the Kantian ethical position. It addresses Kant's account of reasoning about action, in particular his controversial claim that the Categorical Imperative guides action and is basic to ethics and justice. This second edition offers a substantial new introduction and updated bibliography, and will be valuable for a wide readership in Kant studies and those studying ethics. (shrink)

Trust is valuable when placed in trustworthy agents and activities, but damaging or costly when placed in untrustworthy agents and activities. So it is puzzling that much contemporary work on trust – such as that based on polling evidence – studies generic attitudes of trust in types of agent, institution or activity in complete abstraction from any account of trustworthiness. Information about others’ generic attitudes of trust or mistrust that take no account of evidence whether those attitudes are well or (...) ill placed can offer little or no help for those who aim to place or refuse trust well. Information about attitudes is evidently useful to those who aim to influence those who hold them, which explains why polls about attitudes are popular with political parties, advertisers and other campaigning organisations. But where we aim not to influence others, but to place and refuse trust intelligently we must link trust to trustworthiness, and must focus on evidence of honesty, competence and r... (shrink)

Knowledge aims to fit the world, and action to change it. In this collection of essays, Onora O'Neill explores the relationship between these concepts and shows that principles are not enough for ethical thought or action: we also need to understand how practical judgement identifies ways of enacting them and of changing the way things are. Both ethical and technical judgement are supported, she contends, by bringing to bear multiple considerations, ranging from ethical principles to real-world constraints, and while we (...) will never find practical algorithms - let alone ethical algorithms - that resolve moral and political issues, good practical judgement can bring abstract principles to bear in situations that call for action. Her essays thus challenge claims that all inquiry must use either the empirical methods of scientific inquiry or the interpretive methods of the humanities. They will appeal to a range of readers in moral and political philosophy. (shrink)

Kant’s Groundwork is the most read and surely the most exasperating of his works on practical philosophy. Both its structure and its arguments remain obscure and controversial. A quick list of unsettled questions reminds one how much is in doubt. The list might include the following: Why does Kant shift the framework of his discussion three times in a short work? Does he establish that there is a supreme principle of morality? Does he show that the Categorical Imperative is that (...) supreme principle? Does he show that human beings are free agents for whom such principles of morality are important? What is the relationship between the various apparently distinct formulations of the Categorical Imperative? To what extent are any of them action-guiding? (shrink)

Holland argues that environmental deliberation should return to classical questions about the nature of the good life, understood as the worthwhile life. Holland's proposal contrasts with the revived hedonist conception of the good life which has been influential on environmentalism. The concept of the worthwhile life needs to be carefully distinguished from those of the happy life and the dutiful life. Holland's account of the worthwhile life captures the narrative dimension of human well-being which is revealed but inadequately addressed by (...) hedonic research. Environmental concerns are better understood from a non-hedonist perspective. An Aristotelian version of this perspective also offers the institutional focus which Holland suggests is required in environmental deliberation. (shrink)

John H. Muse's Microdramas: Crucibles for Theatre and Time examines the production of short plays across the history of Western theatre practice, from the late-nineteenth century to contemporary performance. Categorizing plays shorter than twenty minutes as microdramas, Muse does not insist on a new term for a theatrical subgenre, but provides an ideal working title for the study of brief theatre: a study which, until now, has been largely overlooked in literary theoretical analyses on theatre. Muse shows us how the (...) study of plays by playwrights who consciously choose brevity as a form, provides a platform for examining the evolution of theatre's structural practices. Identifying how short plays expose traditional... (shrink)

This collection of essays brings together the central lines of thought in Onora O'Neill's work on Kant's philosophy, developed over many years. Challenging the claim that Kant's attempt to provide a critique of reason fails because it collapses into a dogmatic argument from authority, O'Neill shows why Kant held that we must construct, rather than assume, the authority of reason, and how this can be done by ensuring that anything we offer as reasons can be followed by others, including others (...) with whom we disagree. She argues that this constructivist view of reasoning is the clue to Kant's claims about knowledge, ethics and politics, as well as to his distinctive accounts of autonomy, the social contract, cosmopolitan justice and scriptural interpretation. Her essays are a distinctive and illuminating commentary on Kant's fundamental philosophical strategy and its implications, and will be a vital resource for scholars of Kant, ethics and philosophy of law. (shrink)

One way of providing a focus for critical theory today is to articulate those substantive and robust norms of egalitarian justice that would appear to be presupposed by the idea of a republican and democratic constitutional order. It is suggested here that democratic justice requires the equalisation of effective communicative freedom among all structurally constituted social groups (SCSGs) and that this will have far-reaching implications that entail the deconstruction of all social hierarchies in both domestic and global orders. This argument (...) is presented in three sections. The first defends the focus on groups rather than individuals in theorising democratic justice. The second intervenes critically in contemporary debates surrounding the theoretical relation between various aspects of justice including the demands of redistribution, recognition and political empowerment. The third turns to the challenges for critical theory presented by a complex and multifaceted process of globalisation and it defends a qualified form of cosmopolitanism and highlights the need for a radical democratisation of the international order. (shrink)

ABSTRACT It is widely supposed by both its proponents and critics that communitarianism is committed to the defence of lies of nationhood: the nation forms a surviving communal attachment in a world in which the individual is otherwise denuded of ties of community. I argue in this paper that this assumption is mistaken. It depends on a romantic image of the nation which was constructed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. That image hides the recent historical origins of the nation (...) and its foundation in the suppression of older allegiances or their later privatisation; it continues to disguise the illusory nature of the national community. The nation is not a surviving pre‐modern community to which individuals are attached as a bulwark against the impersonality of public life in modern society. Rather the nation is one of the main vehicles for the construction of the modern unencumbered self. Communitarians need not be committed to the defence of the specifically modem forms of public irrationality and immorality that nationalism embodies. (shrink)

If we hope to see values of equality and democracy embodied in our societies’ institutions, then we have a range of good reasons to favor expansive public provision of goods and services, and to oppose many forms of privatization. While Joseph Heath is right to argue that there are at least some forms of ‘anodyne privatization’, and while he is also right to argue for a more nuanced philosophical debate about the different dimensions of choice between forms of public and (...) private provision, Heath fails to register various regards in which private provision can undermine these central public values. We often have strong egalitarian and democratic reasons to protect zones of decommodification; to resist the imposition of user-charges; and to favor insourcing and direct public procurement over various forms of outsourcing of public services. Public libraries provide a totemic illustration of some of the deep virtues of collective public provision in democratic societies. Overall, our reasons to reject privatization are stronger and more diverse than theorists such as Heath might have supposed. (shrink)

T. M. Scanlon’s work on the value of equality provides the resources for developing a powerful and distinctive contractualist egalitarian view. This view acknowledges a range of egalitarian concerns, of a diverse nature, and points us towards a picture of the place of equality in the normative landscape that is richer and more complex than some other alternative views. I describe the outlines of this contractualist egalitarian view, addressing questions regarding its strength and scope. I then discuss the relationship of (...) equality to other values, such as fairness and community, and examine the contrast between contractualist egalitarian and luck egalitarian views. I conclude with a sketch of some of the practical implications that might follow from further pursuit of Scanlon’s insights on the value of equality, in the hope that this may suggest an interesting direction of travel for further work. (shrink)

On the dominant economic approach to environmental policy, environmental goods are conceptualised as forms of capital that provide services for human well-being. These services are assigned a monetary value to be weighed against the values of other goods and services. David Wiggins has offered a set of arguments against central assumptions about the nature of well-being, practical reason and ethical deliberation that underpin this dominant economic approach. In this paper I outline these arguments and consider their implications for understanding ethical (...) demands across generations. The paper focuses, in particular, on their implications for understanding the nature and requirements of sustainability. (shrink)

The author draws on considerable research in this area to provide an overdue critical evaluation of the limits of the market, and future prospects for non-market socialism.