The puzzle is this: I argue that for Reid, moral sense needs benevolent affections – i.e. some of our animal, non-cognitive principles of action – to apply the rules of duty. But he also thinks that duty can conflict with benevolent affections. So what happens in these conflict cases? I will argue that Reid takes moral psychology seriously and that he believes that our natural benevolent affections can be used as indicators of duty. Although creative, his account has a major (...) problem, because he does not resolve certain conflicts that arise between what action a duty prescribes and what action a natural affection, associated to that duty, inclines us to do. (shrink)

An apathetic life is not the sort of life that most of us would want for ourselves or believe that we have a duty to strive for. And yet Kant argues that we have a duty of apathy, a duty to strive to be without affects (Affecten) and passions (Leidenschaften). But is Kant’s claim that there is a duty of apathy really as problematic as it sounds? In arguing that it is not, this paper investigates in detail in Kant’s accounts (...) of affects and passions and defends Kant’s argument that we have a duty of apathy. This investigation reveals Kant’s nuanced view on the role that sensible motivating states play in moral agency and the development of a virtuous character. (shrink)

Although there is consensus on the fact that ionizing radiation used in radiological examinations can affect health, the stochastic nature of risk makes it difficult to anticipate and assess specific health implications for patients. The issue of radiation protection is peculiar as any dosage received in life is cumulative, the sensitivity to radiation is highly variable from one person to another, and between 20 % and 50 % of radiological examinations appear not to be necessary. In this context, one might (...) reasonably assume that information and patient consent would play an important role in regulating radiological practice. However, there is to date no clear consensus regarding the nature and content of—or even need for—consent by patients exposed to ionizing radiation. While law and ethics support the same principles for respecting the dignity of the person, in the context of radiology practice, they do not provide a consistent message to guide clinical decision-making. This article analyzes the issue of healthcare professionals’ duty to inform and obtain patient consent for radiological examinations. Considering that both law and ethics have as one of their aims to protect vulnerable populations, it is important that they begin to give greater attention to issues raised by the use of ionizing radiation in medicine. While the situation in Canada serves as a backdrop for a reflective analysis of the problem, the conclusions are pertinent for professional practice in other jurisdictions because the principles underlying health law and jurisprudence are fairly general. (shrink)

Thomas Pogge has argued that we have strong negative duties to assist the global poor because we harm them through our contribution to the global economic order. I argue that Pogge’s concept of harm is indeterminate. The resources of any group will typically be affected by at least two economic schemes. Pogge suggests that the responsibility for any affected group’s shortfall from a minimum standard ought to be shared between the contributing schemes. I argue that shared responsibility can be (...) interpreted in two different ways. Unfortunately, both interpretations are problematic. Lastly, I suggest a strategy for amending this problem. (shrink)

When weighing up which inhaler to prescribe, a doctor may prioritise a patient’s preferences over the expected harms from the associated carbon emissions. Parker argues that this is wrong.1 Doctors have a pro-tanto duty to switch from a high-carbon metered-dose inhaler (MDI) to a low-carbon dry-powdered inhaler (DPI)—even though this provides no direct patient benefit—unless switching would undermine trust or significantly worsen a patient’s health. He goes on to state that even if DPIs are more expensive for the National Health (...) Service (NHS) then this is justified so long as it does not ‘significantly threaten’ the NHS’ ability to protect and promote health. This may appear to be a radical proposal, challenging the ethical principles of autonomy, health entitlements and justly distributed resources. However, we will claim that it is only radical in so far as one perceives (A) patient autonomy and healthcare entitlements as existing within a vacuum, unrelated to other foundational ethics concerns and (B) the health consequences of a given healthcare budget are limited solely to the designated recipients rather than all affected parties. Here, we test the claim that our responsibility for promoting patient autonomy …. (shrink)

The non-identity problem arises when an intervention or behavior changes the identity of those affected. Delaying pregnancy is an example of such a behavior. The problem is whether and in what ways such changes in identity affect moral considerations. While a great deal has been written about the non-identity problem, relatively little has been written about the implications for physicians and how they should understand their duties. We argue that the non-identity problem can make a crucial moral difference in (...) some circumstances, and that it has some interesting implications for when it is or is not right for a physician to refuse to accede to a patient's request. If a physician is asked to provide an intervention (identity preserving) that makes a person worse off, then such harm provides a good reason for the physician to refuse to provide the intervention. However, in cases where different (identity-altering) interventions result in different people having a better or worse life, physicians should normally respect patient choice. (shrink)

In chapter 3 of Wild Animal Ethics Johannsen argues for a collective obligation based on beneficence to intervene in nature in order to reduce the suffering of wild animals. In the same chapter he claims that the non-identity problem is merely a “theoretical puzzle” which doesn’t affect our reasons for intervention. In this paper I argue that the non-identity problem affects both the strength and the nature of our reasons to intervene. By intervening in nature on a large scale we (...) change which animals come into existence. In doing so, we enable harmful animals to inflict harms on other animals, and we put other animals in harm’s way. The harms that these animals will inflict and endure are foreseeable. Furthermore, since non-human animals aren’t moral agents, harmful animals cannot be morally responsible for their harmful actions. I argue therefore that by causing animals to exist, knowing that they will inflict and suffer harms, we become morally responsible for those harms. By engaging in identity-affecting actions then we take on secondary moral duties towards the animals we have thereby caused to exist, and these secondary moral duties may be extremely demanding, even more so than the initial costs of intervention. Finally, these duties are duties of justice rather than duties of beneficence, and as such are more stringent than purely beneficence-based moral reasons. Furthermore, this conclusion flows naturally from several plausible principles which Johannsen explicitly endorses. (shrink)

A number of viable ethical theories allow for the possibility of duties to oneself. If such duties exist, then, at least sometimes, by treating ourselves badly, we wrong ourselves and could rightly be held responsible, by ourselves and by non-affected third parties, for doing so. Yet, while we blame those who wrong others, we do not tend to, nor do we think ourselves entitled to blame people who treat themselves badly. If we try, they might justifiably respond that (...) it is none of our business. This disanalogy might be thought of as a reason for skepticism about duties to oneself. It allegedly indicates that self-inflicted harm, while irrational, is not immoral. In this paper, I argue that this disanalogy is deceptive. First, it relies on the unjustified assumption that our response to someone treating herself badly consists solely in a judgment that she is being irrational or foolish, which is incompatible with leading views about what constitutes blame. Second, the objection fails to recognize that third-party blame is positional: in some contexts, it is inappropriate for a third party to express blame just because of her position as a third party. (shrink)

We have a duty to try to develop and apply safe and cost-effective means to increase the probability that we shall do what we morally ought to do. It is here argued that this includes biomedical means of moral enhancement, that is, pharmaceutical, neurological or genetic means of strengthening the central moral drives of altruism and a sense of justice. Such a strengthening of moral motivation is likely to be necessary today because common-sense morality having its evolutionary origin in small-scale (...) societies with primitive technology will become much more demanding if it is revised to serve the needs of contemporary globalized societies with an advanced technology capable of affecting conditions of life world-wide for centuries to come. (shrink)

The purpose of this chapter is to offer an ethical investigation into whether researchers have a duty to share pre-published bio-medical data with the scientific community. The central questions of the chapter are the following: do researchers have a prima facie duty to share pre-published data? And if so, what stakes and aspects of a concrete situation need to be taken into consideration in order to assess whether and to what extent researchers’ prima facie duty to share data applies? We (...) will argue that based upon their basic duties to benefit society and to promote scientific knowledge, researchers have a prima facie duty to share data. We will also argue that in order to determine whether the prima facie duty applies in practice it is indispensable to take into account the stakes of the persons concerned as well as context dependent aspects. The chapter’s overall goal is to build an analytical and ethical framework that helps to assess with regard to concrete situations whether researchers’ duty to share data applies. To this end we analyse the concept of data sharing and clarify what data sharing might imply in practice. To offer an overview of the different stakeholders’ concerns we will analyse the normative-informational environment in which data producing researchers (to whom the prima facie duty to share data applies) are usually situated. In the last step we focus on the ethically relevant context dependent aspects and illustrate how they affect researchers’ prima facie duty to share data and stakeholders’ potentially conflicting stakes. (shrink)

Political liberals on the left (e.g., Rawls) and right (e.g., Nozick) have long been concerned with the moral justification of coercive legal structures. I argue that anyone who publicly advocates a new coercive law is under a moral duty to those whom the law might negatively affect. The duty is to say that the law would be impactful and why its impacts (e.g., its coerciveness and welfare effects) are worth having all-things-considered. This is a defeasible duty of transparency and disclosure. (...) By doing their duty, citizens would better respect each other and even transform public discourse as we know it. (shrink)

Trust is a complex attitude that has emotional, cognitive and moral dimensions. A difficulty to reduce trust to a simple emotional attitude is that trust raises normative pressures: if someone asks you to be trusted you feel the normative pressure of not letting him or her down, and if someone trusts you, you feel the normative pressure of honoring his or her trust. These normative pressures seem to have an irreducibly social character: pressures are effective insofar as they may raise (...) emotions of shame in those who violate the norm of trust and resentment and contempt in those who are victim of the violation. In this paper I will investigate the relation between the affective dimension of these normative pressures and their moral dimension by arguing that an important moral asymmetry exists between the duty to trust and the duty to be trustful. (shrink)

It is now an ethical dictum that patients should be informed by physicians about their diagnosis, prognosis and treatment options. In this paper, I ask: ‘How informed are the ‘informers’ in clinical practice?’ Physicians have a duty to be ‘well-informed’: patient well-being depends not just in conveying adequate information to patients, it also depends on physicians keeping up-to-date about: popular misunderstandings of illnesses and treatments; and the importance of patient psychology in affecting prognosis. Taking the case of depression as an (...) entry point, this paper argues that medical researchers and physicians need to pay serious attention to the explanations given to patients regarding their diagnosis. Studies on lay understanding of depression show that there is a common belief that depression is wholly caused by a ‘chemical imbalance’ that can be restored by chemically restorative antidepresssants, a claim that has entered ‘folk wisdom’. However, these beliefs oversimplify and misrepresent the current scientific understanding of the causes of depression: first, there is consensus in the scientific community that the causes of depression include social as well as psychological triggers ; second, there is significant dissensus in the scientific community over exactly what lower level, biological or biochemical processes are involved in causing depression; third, there is no established consensus about how antidepressants work at a biochemical level; fourth, there is evidence that patients are negatively affected if they believe their depression is wholly explained by of ‘biochemical imbalance’. I argue that the medical community has a duty, to provide patients with adequate information and to be aware of the negative health impact of prevalent oversimplifications—whatever their origins. (shrink)

Patients with psychiatric illness feel the brunt of the intersection of many of our society's and our health care system's disparities, and the vulnerability of this population during the Covid‐19 pandemic cannot be overstated. Patients with psychiatric illness often suffer from the stigma of mental illness and receive poor medical care. Many patients with severe and persistent mental illness face additional barriers, including poverty, marginal housing, and food insecurity. Patients who require psychiatric hospitalization now face the risk of transmission of (...) Covid‐19 due to the inherent difficulties of social distancing within a psychiatric hospital. Patients whose freedom and self‐determination have been temporarily overruled as they receive involuntary psychiatric treatment deserve a setting that maintains their health and safety. While tele‐mental health has been rapidly expanded to provide new ways to access psychiatric treatment, some patients may have limitations in technological literacy or access to devices. The social isolation, economic fallout, and potential traumatization related to the current pandemic will disproportionately affect this vulnerable population, and society's duties to them must be considered. (shrink)

"What do grown children owe their parents?" Over two decades ago philosopher Jane English asked this question and came up with the startling answer: nothing (English 1979). English joins many contemporary philosophers in rejecting the once-traditional view that grown children owe their parents some kind of fitting repayment for past services rendered. The problem with the traditional view, as argued by many, is, first, that parents have duties to provide fairly significant services to their growing children, and persons do (...) not owe repayment for others' mere performance of duty; second, even where parents go above and beyond duty in their loving and generous rearing of their children, the benefits are bestowed, at least on young children, without their voluntary acceptance and consent, and so, again, fail to generate any obligation of subsequent repayment on their part (see Blustein 1982: 182-3). Moreover, the entire idiom of obligation and repayment, in English's 1 words, "tends to obscure, or even to undermine, the love that is the correct ground of filial obligation" (352). English's alternative, however -- that children strictly "owe" their parents nothing except what flows naturally from whatever love and affection exist between them -- also strikes many as problematic. Christina Hoff Sommers offers examples of what seem to be clearly delinquent adult children, who simply don't "feel" like sharing their lives with their aging parents, or providing any emotional or financial support to them, and so don't (Sommers 1986: 440-41). Sommers points out that we need some talk of obligations in order to fill in the cracks in human relationships where love and affection fail: "The ideal relationship cannot be 'duty-free,' if only because sentimental ties may come unraveled, often leaving one of the parties at a material disadvantage'" (450-51). Sommers proposes as her alternative to English that legitimate duties arise out of special relationships defined by social roles: being a father or mother, a son or a daughter, "is socially as well as biologically prescriptive; it not only defines what one is; it also defines who one is and what one owes" (447).. (shrink)

Background: Nurses must balance their perceived duty to care against their perceived risk of harm to determine their willingness to report during disaster events, potentially creating an ethical dilemma and impacting patient care. Research aim: The purpose of this study was to investigate nurses’ perceived duty to care and whether there were differences in willingness to respond during disaster events based on perceived levels of duty to care. Research design: A cross-sectional survey research design was used in this study. Participants (...) and research context: Using a convenience sample with a snowball technique, data were collected from 289 nurses throughout the United States in 2017. Participants were recruited through host university websites, Facebook, and an American Nurses Association discussion board. Ethical considerations: Institutional review board approval was obtained from the University of Texas at Tyler and the University of Arkansas. Findings: Analysis of willingness to report to work based on levels of perceived duty to care resulted in the emergence of two groups: “lower level of perceived duty to care group” and “higher level of perceived duty to care group.” The most discriminating characteristics differentiating the groups included fear of abandonment by co-workers, reporting because it is morally the right thing to, and because of imperatives within the Nursing Code of Ethics. Discussion: The number of nurses in the lower level of perceived duty to care group causes concern. It is important for nursing management to develop strategies to advance nurses’ safety, minimize nurses’ risk, and promote nurses’ knowledge to confidently work during disaster situations. Conclusion: Level of perceived duty to care affects nurses’ willingness to report to work during disasters. Primary indicators of low perceived duty to care are amenable to actionable strategies, potentially increasing nurses’ perceived duty to provide care and willingness to report to work during disasters. (shrink)

Just war theory is dominated by two positions. According to the traditional view, combatants both on the just and the unjust side have an equal right to fight, which is not affected by the justice of the cause pursued by their state. According to a recent revisionist account, only combatants fighting for a just cause have such right. David Estlund has offered a sophisticated account that aims to reconcile these two views by looking at our duty to obey the order (...) of democratic political institutions. The article criticizes Estlund’s account and points at an important to be learned from it. (shrink)

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic is impacting the delivery of healthcare worldwide, creating dilemmas related to the duty to care. Although understanding the ethical dilemmas about the duty to care among nurses is necessary to allow effective preparation, few studies have explored these concerns. Aim: This study aimed to identify the ethical dilemmas among clinical nurses in Spain and Chile. It primarily aimed to (1) identify nurses’ agreement with the duty to care despite high risks for themselves and/or their (...) families, (2) describe nurses’ well-being and (3) describe the associations between well-being and the duty to care. Research design: Cross-sectional self-reported anonymous data were collected between May and June 2020 via electronic survey distribution (snowball sampling). Ethical considerations: The Institutional Ethical Review Committees in both countries approved the study (CHUC_2020_33 and 27/2020). Findings: In total, 345 clinical nurses answered the primary question about the duty to care for the sick. Although in the total sample 77.4% agreed they have a duty to care for the sick, significant differences were found between the Spanish and Chilean samples. Overall, 53.6% of the nurses reported low levels of well-being; however, among those reporting low well-being, statistically significant differences were found between Spanish and Chilean nurses as 19.4% and 37.8%, respectively, disagreed with the statement regarding the duty to care. Discussion: Participants in both countries reported several ethical dilemmas, safety fears, consequent stress and low well-being. These results suggest that prompt actions are required to address nurses’ ethical concerns, as they might affect their willingness to work and psychological well-being. Conclusion: Our findings shed light on the ethical dilemmas nurses are facing related to the duty to care. Not only has the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic given rise to ethical challenges, but it has also affected nurses’ well-being and willingness to work during a pandemic. (shrink)

During the recent Ebola epidemic, some commentators and stakeholders argued that it would be unethical to carry out a study that withheld a potential treatment from affected individuals with such a serious, untreatable disease. As a result, the initial trials of experimental treatments did not have control arms, despite important scientific reasons for their inclusion. In this paper, we consider whether the duty to rescue entails that it would be unethical to withhold an experimental treatment from patient-participants with serious diseases (...) for which there are no effective treatments, even when doing so is scientifically necessary to test the effectiveness of the treatment. We argue that the duty to rescue will rarely apply. The context of medical research also throws new light on the content of the duty to rescue, since the interests of future patients—who stand to benefit from the fruits of medical research—are relevant to whether the duty applies. (shrink)

Many philosophers have objected to Kant’s account of duties regarding non-human nature, arguing that it does not ground adequate moral concern for non-human natural entities. However, the traditional interpretation of Kant on this issue is mistaken, because it takes him to be arguing merely that humans should abstain from animal cruelty and wanton destruction of flora solely because such actions could make one more likely to violate one’s duties to human beings. Instead, I argue, Kant’s account of (...) class='Hi'>duties regarding nature grounds much stronger limitations on how humans may treat non-human animals and flora, since such duties are rooted in the imperfect duty to increase one’s own moral perfection. This duty proscribes actions affecting non-human nature that decrease one’s moral perfection, such as those that cause organisms unnecessary harm. Moreover, the duty to moral perfection prescribes (but does not strictly require) actions affecting non-human nature that increase one’s moral perfection, such as those that benefit organisms. Given this interpretation, I show that, contrary to a widely held view, Kant’s moral philosophy can ground a coherent and robust approach to environmental ethics. (shrink)

This paper considers parental duties of beneficence and non-maleficence to use prenatal genetic testing for non-treatable conditions. It is proposed that this can be a duty only if the testing is essential to protect the interests of the child ie only if there is a risk of the child being born to a life worse than non-existence. It is argued here that non-existence can be rationally preferred to a severely impaired life. Uncontrollable pain and a lack of any opportunity (...) to develop a continuous self are considered to be sufficient criteria for such preference. When parents are at risk of having a child whose life would be worse than non-existence, the parents have a duty to use prenatal testing and a duty to terminate an affected pregnancy. Further, such duty does not apply to any conditions where the resulting life can be considered better than non-existence. (shrink)

It is widely accepted by the scientific community and beyond that human beings are primarily responsible for climate change and that climate change has brought with it a number of real problems. These problems include, but are not limited to, greater threats to coastal communities, greater risk of famine, and greater risk that tropical diseases may spread to new territory. In keeping with J. S. Mill's 'Harm Principle', green political theorists often respond that if we are contributing a harm to (...) others in contributing to climate change and its negative effects, we then have a negative duty to assist those we have harmed and to reduce our carbon emissions. In this paper, I will take seriously negative duties stemming from a contribution to climate change and demonstrate that our negative duties do not demand that we necessarily end our contribution to climate change if we were able to compensate those who may be affected by climate change. Thus, the conclusion of many green political theorists - that we must reduce our carbon emissions - does not necessarily follow from the view that humans are primarily responsible for climate change and its attended ill effects. (shrink)

The idea that jobs should be awarded purely on merit has become something of an axiom, but the moral basis of it remains elusive. If employers are under a duty to appoint the most qualified candidate, to whom exactly is this duty owed, and on what grounds? I distinguish two kinds of answers to this question. Candidate-centred arguments are those according to which qualifications generate entitlements for their bearer, such that the most qualified applicant for a job has some moral (...) claim or right to it. But of course job-seekers are not the only parties with a stake in personnel selection decisions. The existing employees of an organisation, its clients and creditors, its shareholders, and society more generally are also affected. The duty to hire on merit, one might argue, is owed ultimately to one or more of these “stakeholder” groups. I refer to arguments with this structure as stakeholder-centred. The purpose of the paper is to carefully distinguish, organise and scrutinise various arguments within these camps; to sketch a map of the ethical terrain, so to speak. What the sketch reveals is that both the scope and weight of the duty to hire on merit — the exceptions to it, and the stringency of it — vary depending on its grounds. The argumentative strategy that we adopt to justify meritocracy, then, is of both theoretical and practical importance. (shrink)

This article deals with a foreign policy question of extraordinary importance: what responsibilities do States have to provide economic and technical assistance to other States that have high levels of need affecting the health and life of their citizens? The question is important for a variety of reasons. There exist massive inequalities in health globally, with the result that poorer countries shoulder a disproportionate burden of disease and premature death. Average life expectancy in Africa is nearly 30 years shorter than (...) in the Americas or Europe. In one year alone, an estimated 14 million of the poorest people in the world died, while only an estimated four million would have died if this population had the same death rate as the global rich. (shrink)

Under Directive 86/653/EEC on the co-ordination of the laws of European Union Member States relating to self-employed commercial agents, commercial agents have an obligation to act ‘dutifully and in good faith’. This article considers the impact that this general good faith clause has had upon the UK legal order. It first analyses the Obligation, assessing its scope, function and content. It then reviews the choices made by the UK legislature in implementing this duty and scrutinises the manner in which it (...) has been construed and applied by UK courts, as well as commentators. Finally, it charts the areas of the pre-existing common law agency rules that are affected by this imported notion and appraises the resulting alterations to the positive law. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue for a _(pro tanto)_ _moral duty against dogmatism_: I argue that the _social costs_ of a disagreement can give those who are party to it added moral reasons to reconsider their controversial beliefs and (so) not to be dogmatic. In Sect. 1, I motivate the idea _that_ the social costs of disagreement may give rise to reasons to reconsider our beliefs by considering intuitive examples to that effect. I suggest that some of the stock intuitions (...) that epistemologists of disagreement have depended on to make their arguments are implicitly influenced by social costs that are salient to the disagreements in their cases. In Sect. 2, I respond to a _Practical Objection_ to my argument that political philosophers might be keen to press. According to this objection, the social costs of disagreement do not give rise to a moral duty against dogmatism because we can adequately address those costs just by compromising on how we _act on_ our beliefs in the context of the disagreement. In Sect. 3, I address a contrasting objection to the moral duty against dogmatism that might be pressed by epistemologists, which I term the _Truth Objection._ This objection points out that the social costs of disagreement do nothing to affect the strength of the _evidence _for or against one’s contentious beliefs, and so complains that those who reconsider their beliefs just on account of the social costs of disagreement ‘cave in’ to social pressure in a problematic way. In the course of addressing the Truth Objection, I more carefully explain _how_ the social costs of disagreement give rise to a moral duty against dogmatism by distinguishing between ‘truth-motivated’ and ‘truth-indifferent’ reasons for inquiry. (shrink)

Traditional ethical theories have paradoxical implications in regards to questions concerning procreation and our moral duties to future people. It has been suggested that the crux of the problem resides in an all too ‘impersonal’ axiology and that the problems of population axiology can be solved by adopting a ‘Person Affecting Restriction’ which in its slogan form states that an outcome can only be better than another if it is better for people. This move has been especially popular in (...) the context of medical ethics where many of the problems of population axiology are actualized. Examples are embryo or egg selection, pre-implantation genetic testing, assisted reproduction programmes, abortion, just to mention a few. I discuss a number of different interpretations of the Restriction and in particular one interpretation which I call Comparativism. According to this view, we should draw a distinction between uniquely and non-uniquely realizable people. The former people only exist in one out of two possible outcomes, whereas the latter exist in both of the compared outcomes. The idea is that we should give more weight to the well-being of non-uniquely realizable people or take it into account in a different way as compared to the well-being of uniquely realizable people. I argue that the different versions of the Person Affecting Restriction and Comparativism either have counterintuitive implications of their own or are compatible with traditional theories such as Utilitarianism. (shrink)

To celebrate forty years of publication, we asked people new to bioethics to tell us what should be next on the docket. We received 195 essays. Here are four we especially like. Bioethics has, until now, focused mainly on those who directly influence human health. It worked to establish guidelines for doctors to follow when treating their patients, and it provided a backbone for ethical human research. Bioethics has done a lot of good, but it is time for the field (...) to branch out to things that affect human health in less obvious ways. Of the things that bioethics must turn its focus to, one of the most pressing issues is establishing a duty of care between pharmaceutical companies and the people they .. (shrink)

A current trend in bioethics considers genetic information as family property. This paper uses a logical approach to critically examine Matthew Liao’s proposal on the familial nature of genetic information as grounds for the duty to share it with relatives and for breach of confidentiality by the geneticist. The authors expand on the topic by examining the relationship between the arguments of probability and the familial nature of genetic information, as well as the concept of harm in the context of (...) genetic risk. Lastly, they examine the concept of harm in relation to the type of situations w the potential recipient of the information is not the person directly affected by the risk. (shrink)

Much has been written about the general moral duty to love one’s neighbors. In this article, I explore the specific application of this moral duty in the work setting. I argue from a secular perspective that individuals have the moral duty to love their stakeholders. Loving one’s stakeholders is an affective valuing of the stake-related values these stakeholders pursue and as such is the real recognition of one’s stakeholders as stakeholders and of oneself as a stakeholder of one’s stakeholders. (...) This moral concept of stakeholder love offers promising contributions to stakeholder theory, leadership theories, and ethical theories in general and business ethics theories in particular. (shrink)

What is Mill's principle of liberty? The question may seem superfluous, since he gave his own apparently careful formulation (223/34-224/10).[Note 1] However he gave several formulations in different terms, and his principle has been interpreted in a number of ways.[Note 2] The Acts meant to be subject to social control have been said variously to be other-regarding acts, acts which harm others, or affect them, or affect their interests, or violate duties owed to them, or violate their rights. These (...) formulae are not equivalent. An act may harm others (indirectly), yet not be other-regarding; an other-regarding act may harm others without any violation of duty; an act may violate a duty to others without violating anyone's right. But it seems to me clear enough, if all Mill's statements are taken together, that the correct formulation is this: punishment is justified only for violations of secondary rules prescribing duties to others. Duty and Liberty divide the whole field of human conduct, without overlap; and there are no duties besides duties to others. (shrink)

Healthcare is increasingly impacted by chronic short staffing of nurses, which causes and is caused by increased nurse burnout and decreased retention. Nurses’ unions seek to address these problems by proposing safer nurse-to-patient ratios, retention bonuses for working through the COVID-19 pandemic, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) stockpiles, sabbatical leaves, measures aimed at reducing workplace violence, and maintaining or increasing wages and benefits to keep nurses at the bedside. Chronic short staffing and burnout directly affect the quality and availability of patient (...) care—as the International Council of Nurses has pointed out, there is no healthcare without healthcare workers. This article draws on Neiman’s argument that the US healthcare system is best understood as a system of competing interests aimed at fulfilling the community’s obligation to provide access to quality healthcare. Nurses’ unions use contract negotiations, legislative advocacy, and strikes to pressure other members of the healthcare community to address chronic short staffing, burnout, and retention. Nurses’ unions in the US thus play a unique role in the system of competing interest as an organized group whose primary interest aligns with the community’s obligation to provide access to quality healthcare. This article argues that nurses’ professional duty to care for patients includes a duty to support nurses’ unions as an important way to address the factors outside of nurses’ direct practice that impacts the quality and accessibility of the care that nurses provide to patients. This duty to support unions applies to unionized and non-unionized nurses in the US, and includes duties to participate in union activities, to not cross picket lines, and to avoid work for strikebreaking nurse agencies. (shrink)

I formulate and defend a theory of special procreative duties in the context of a liberal egalitarian theory of justice. I argue that (1) the only special duty that procreators owe their offspring is that of ensuring that their life prospects are non-negative (worth living), and (2) the only special duty that procreators owe others is that of ensuring that they are not disadvantaged by the procreators’ offspring (a) violating their rights or (b) adversely affecting their equality rights and (...) duties. (shrink)

This essay considers the role of the ‘all affected interests’ principle in democratic theory, focusing on debates concerning its form, substance and relationship to the resolution of the democratic boundary problem. It begins by defending an ‘all actually affected’ formulation of the principle against Goodin’s ‘incoherence argument’ critique of this formulation, before addressing issues concerning how to specify the choice set appropriate to the principle. Turning to the substance of the principle, the argument rejects Nozick’s dismissal of its intuitive appeal (...) and considers the two arguments advanced in favour of the principle as a criterion of democratic inclusion: the interlinked interests argument and the tracking power argument. It is shown that neither of these arguments can substantiate a view of the principle as a criterion of democratic inclusion, although both ground a constitutional understanding of the principle as specifying the scope of a duty of justification. It is then proposed that the principle can play an important role in a two-stage resolution of the democratic boundary problem in which it addresses the question of who is entitled to inclusion in the ‘pre-political’ demos that determines whether to constitute a polity. The second stage of this resolution requires an answer to the question of who should constitute the ‘political demos’, that is, the demos of a constituted polity and it is argued that a version of the ‘‘all subjected persons’’ principle can appropriately play this role.Keywords: all affected interests; all subjected persons; democracy; boundary problem; demos problem. (shrink)

Environmental aesthetics is an emerging field of study that focuses on nature's aesthetic value as well as on its ethical and environmental implications. Drawing on the research of a number of disciplines, this exciting new area speaks to scholars working in a range of fields, including not only philosophy, but also environmental and cultural studies, public policy and planning, social and political theory, landscape design and management, and art and architecture. _Nature, Aesthetics, and Environmentalism: From Beauty to Duty_ addresses the (...) complex relationships between aesthetic appreciation and environmental issues and emphasizes the valuable contribution that environmental aesthetics can make to environmentalism. Allen Carlson, a pioneer in environmental aesthetics, and Sheila Lintott, who has published widely in aesthetics, combine important historical essays on the appreciation of nature with the best contemporary research in the field. They begin with classic pieces by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Thoreau, John Muir, John Burroughs, and Aldo Leopold, as well as an essay by Eugene Hargrove that lays out the scientific, artistic, and aesthetic foundations of current environmental beliefs and attitudes. The second section of the book addresses prevailing views on the conceptualization of nature and the various debates on how to properly and respectfully appreciate nature. The third section introduces positive aesthetics, the belief that everything in nature is essentially beautiful, even the devastation caused by earthquakes or floods. The essays in the final section explicitly bring together aesthetics, ethics, and environmentalism to explore the ways in which each might affect the others. (shrink)

We recently argued that—contrary to what we call the dominant view— physicians ought to avoid engaging patients on religious grounds.1 The six responses to our article present an array of concerns and have provided us with the opportunity to consider further aspects of our view. While we cannot reply to all the relevant issues, our aim here is to reply to the most significant concerns. Against our Public Reason Argument, Nick Colgrove maintains that physicians are not relevantly akin to public (...) officials and should therefore not be constrained by public reasons. Colgrove does not take issue with the idea that it may be reasonable for public officials to justify their policymaking according to public reasons because their policies affect a diverse population. But since ‘the [medical] decision being made is not binding for other patients,’ physicians need not be constrained by public reasons.2 Colgrove’s criticism hinges on the claim that deliberation ought to be constrained by public reason only if the outcome of such deliberation is a policy or a rule that a diverse group of people must follow (ie, to which they are bound). We disagree with this claim. We do not believe, nor did we argue, that this is a necessary condition for when we are morally required to cite public reasons. Instead we believe that three facts together provide sufficient reason for why physicians should generally be constrained by public reasons: physicians are directly and indirectly paid by the state via Medicare and Medicaid; physicians allocate public resources; and physicians are regulated by the state. Colgrove takes particular issue with our ‘Dr Chatterjee case’, which is meant to illustrate why citing religious reasons is inappropriate. And our explanation for why we find this case jarring …. (shrink)

Role modelling communicates a standard of behavior to another person. Silent role modelling occurs when this standard can be communicated without articulating reasons for the action; articulate role modelling occurs when it is necessary to articulate reasons in order to effectively role model the standard of behavior, and to avoid misinterpretation. Nurses are role models in virtue of the respect and admiration given to the nursing profession. As such, nurses have role model obligations. This paper examines nurses' role model obligations (...) for healthy behaviors and pandemic precautions. Research often identifies nurses as role models for healthy behavior, despite the fact that nurses are typically no healthier than the general population. This paper argues that nurses do not have a duty to role model healthy behaviors. The ability to adopt healthy behaviors is affected by numerous personal and individual factors. For a nurse to share their struggles to adopt healthy behaviors as articulate ‘imperfect’ role models violates their right to privacy. By contrast, nurses do have a moral duty to role model pandemic precautions during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as correctly wearing appropriate masks, maintaining social distancing, avoiding gatherings of multiple households when pandemic precautions are not being taken, and staying up to date on vaccination. Nurses’ duty to role model pandemic precautions does not involve sharing any personal information. Nurses have a duty to be silent role models when the risk of misinterpretation is low, and a duty to be articulate role models, who explicitly communicate reasons for the role modelled behavior, when necessary to ensure they are not misinterpreted. When articulate role modelling goes beyond the minimal role modelling duty, and imposes a comparative cost to the nurse, articulate role modelling is not obligatory, but supererogatory. (shrink)

It seems as though we have a duty to read the news – that we’re doing something wrong when we refuse to pay attention to what’s going on in the world. But why? I argue that some plausible justifications for a duty to read the news fail to fully explain this duty: it cannot be justified only by reference to its consequences, or as a duty of democratic citizenship, or as a self-regarding duty. It can, however, be justified on the (...) grounds that we have a positive, imperfect duty of respect for strangers, even when our actions don’t affect them directly. Reading the news is a key way, sometimes the only way, that we can respect those who are strangers to us. I close by considering some of the implications and limitations of this duty. (shrink)

I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment. I will keep them from harm and injustice. The Hippocratic Oath formulates the ethical principle of medical beneficence and its negative formulation non-maleficence. It relates medical ethics to the traditional end of medicine, that is, to heal, or to make whole. First and foremost, the duty of the physician is to heal, and if this is not possible at least not to harm. This (...) ethical principle helped to establish the necessary trust between physician and patient in the pre-modern era when most of medicine was nothing more than a set of placebos (Shapiro 1960). Beginning in the seventeenth-century, Western .. (shrink)

Abstractabstract:In The Trusted Doctor: Medical Ethics and Professionalism (2020), Rosamond Rhodes presents a new theory of medical ethics based on 16 duties she considers central to medical ethics and professionalism. She asserts that her theory is "bioethical heresy," as it contradicts established "principlism" and "common morality" approaches to ethics in medicine. Rhodes advocates the development of parallelism between clinical and ethical decision-making and a systematic approach that emphasizes duties over principles and rules to facilitate the development of a (...) "doctorly character" among medical decision-makers. Rhodes further asserts that her theory and approach necessitate the cultivation of virtues contained in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. But Rhodes's insistence that "medical professionals," not just doctors, are covered by her theory is open to critique, as is her conflation of ethic and morals, especially around the question of the "doctorly character" upon which her duty-based theory hinges. This assessment argues that applicants to medical schools and allied health training programs be screened for specific virtues—honesty, diligence, curiosity, and compassion—to facilitate reinforcement of these pre-professionalized inclinations throughout the habituation processes of medical training. This would increase the probability of turning fear and hope to cure and care via reasoning and affective models performed within an ethical medical framework—even while what this ethical framework should reference remains under debate. (shrink)

Some ideas are at the heart of the world’s great ethical and religious traditions, yet they play little or no role within certain debates in modern philosophical ethics. One such idea is that most of us have unreliable moral intuitions and we must transform ourselves into better people before we can reliably judge how to behave. This paper explores that idea by focusing on a transformative experience that I will call the moral experience. In the paper’s initial sections, I describe (...) the moral experience and explain why it constitutes a genuine transformation in ethical outlook. I then argue that the moral experience could thereby affect our views on certain contemporary ethical debates, illustrating those points with a discussion of the debate about global poverty. (shrink)

In this article I argue that understanding the role that the virtues of love play in Kant’s ethical theory requires understanding not only the nature of the virtues themselves, but also the unique nature of wide Kantian duties. I begin by making the case that while the Doctrine of Virtue supports attributing an affective component to the virtues of love, we are right to resist attributing anaffective success conditionto these virtues. I then distinguish wide duties from negative (...) and narrow (positive) duties in order to make the case that prudential considerations often unavoidably and unproblematically play a role in deliberation about how we fulfil our wide duties. In the final section I combine these findings, arguing that the virtues of love play an important moral role by shaping these prudential considerations. (shrink)

Abstract:Most mental health conditions, though appropriate targets of treatment, do not generate a moral obligation to seek treatment. Trauma, in contrast, is caused (at least in part) by an external event that can happen at any point in the individual’s life. Survivors often experience diverse and enduring symptoms that adversely affect their cognitive, social, emotional, and physical functioning (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). These global impairments diminish an individual’s ability to respond appropriately to morally relevant reasons and stimuli. Fortunately, symptoms of (...) trauma respond well to treatment (Bradley, Greene, Russ, Dutra, & Westen, 2005). The external etiology and effectiveness of treatment allows us examine the moral duties of someone with impaired moral faculties due to trauma within a Kantian framework. The symptoms of trauma interfere with their ability to cultivate what Kant calls “natural powers” of spirit, soul, and body (DoV 6:444–6:445). Kant’s discussion of the natural powers implies that we must possess a baseline level of functioning in these areas in order to fulfill our moral duties (DoV 6:444–446). By Kant’s own reasoning it seems that individuals who experience impairments in any of the three powers are morally obligated to cultivate these capacities. Using Johnson’s (2011) discussion of Kant’s duties to self and careful analysis of available treatments for trauma, I argue that individuals who experience symptoms of trauma and suffer from impairments in Kantian natural powers have an imperfect duty to themselves to repair these powers through empirically informed trauma treatment. (shrink)

Several philosophers argue that individuals have an interest-protecting right to parent; specifically, the interest is in rearing children whom one can parent adequately. If such a right exists it can provide a solution to scepticism about duties of justice concerning distant future generations and bypass the challenge provided by the non-identity problem. Current children - whose identity is independent from environment-affecting decisions of current adults - will have, in due course, a right to parent. Adequate parenting requires resources. We (...) owe duties of justice to current children, including the satisfaction of their interest-protecting rights; therefore we owe them the conditions for rearing children adequately in the future. But to engage in permissible parenting they, too, will need sufficient resources to ensure their own children's future ability to bring up children under adequate conditions. Because this reasoning goes on ad infinitum it entails that each generation of adults owes its contemporary generation of children at least those resources that are necessary for sustaining human life indefinitely at an adequate level of wellbeing. (shrink)

This paper makes the two following claims: 1) The legal dimension of loyalty within organizations goes beyond duties. The governance design aimed at ensuring loyalty may strongly affect standards that characterize each layer of the organization. The interaction between standards of duty and the governance dimension of loyalty should, therefore, be more tailored to specific legal forms and their functional correlation with ownership and financing. 2) There is a greater divergence than has so far been acknowledged between the function (...) of loyalty in vertically integrated firms and in networks of small firms. This difference, created by the relationship between the duty and the governance dimensions, should have repercussions on the definitions of legal standards. In particular, it should reflect the different relationships between hierarchy, monitoring, and loyalty and the choice between prohibitory, authorization-based, and compensatory rules. The analysis concentrates on the key variables that may affect the choice between vertical and horizontal monitoring to ensure compliance with loyal behavior in two polar models: hierarchical firms and networks of small firms. It reveals the importance of considering the governance design when defining duties of loyalty and related standards to evaluate party-related transactions in both cases but, at the same time, the necessity of using different interpretive categories. (shrink)

This article seeks to address the manner in which we should conceptualise the duties of directors in making decisions where fundamental rights are at stake. We first attempt to show that, in making decisions that implicate fundamental rights, directors are required to consider all individuals affected as having an intrinsic dignity. The interests of non-shareholders must thus be addressed in a non-instrumental manner which, we argue, is only compatible with the adoption of a ‘stakeholder’ conception of directors’ duties. (...) Adopting such an approach, however, raises the difficulty of how directors are to balance multiple intrinsically valuable interests. We argue that the doctrine of proportionality—which has been developed in fundamental rights law as a structured enquiry concerning the circumstances in which it is justifiable to limit rights—can be adapted to the domain of corporate decision-making. The proportionality enquiry provides a transparent, structured process of reasoning that can aid corporate decision-making and open up the possibility for reviewing decisions of directors that affect the fundamental rights of individuals. (shrink)

Child Versus Childmaker investigates a "person-affecting" approach to ethical choice. A form of consequentialism, this approach is intended to capture the idea that agents ought both do the most good that they can and respect each person as distinct from each other. Focusing on cases in which a conflict of interest arises between "childmakers"—parents, infertility specialists, embryologists, and others engaged in the task of bringing new people into existence—and the children they aim to create, the author considers what we today (...) owe those who will come into existence tomorrow. (shrink)

The first section of the Groundwork begins “It is impossible to imagine anything at all in the world, or even beyond it, that can be called good without qualification— except a good will.”1 Kant’s explanation and defense of this claim is followed by an explanation and defense of another related claim, that only actions performed out of duty have moral worth. He explains that actions performed out of duty are those done from respect for the moral law, and then culminates (...) the first section with a formulation of that law, “I ought never to act except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law”. Kant dubs this fundamental principle of morality “the Categorical Imperative”. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:On Secular Governance: Lutheran Perspectives on Contemporary Legal Issues ed. by Ronald W. Duty and Marie A. FailingerElisabeth Rain KincaidOn Secular Governance: Lutheran Perspectives on Contemporary Legal Issues Edited by Ronald W. Duty and Marie A. Failinger grand rapids, mi: eerdmans, 2016. 382 pp. $45.00In editing this collection of essays, Ronald Duty and Marie Failinger describe their goal as seeking "to bring more Lutheran voices to the pressing (...) legal issues" in local and global contexts (1). They point out that in discussions between the fields of religion and law to date, "Jewish, Muslim, Catholic, and Reformed perspectives have largely dominated" (1). In bringing Lutheran perspectives to questions of law and religion, this collection begins an important task of retrieving a theological perspective on law that was integral for the formation of modern legal thought but has been largely absent from contemporary discussions of law and religion.The strength of this collection of essays lies in the breadth of contemporary legal questions addressed and in the diversity of perspectives offered. Since, as Duty and Failinger point out, recent Lutheran scholarship has been relatively silent on questions of law and religion, there is a broad field of issues to explore. This collection avoids too narrowly focusing on any one "hot-button" issue of law and religion, such as questions of religious liberty or relationship between church and state, although these questions are addressed. Rather, it benefits from a truly expansive view of contemporary legal issues and includes essays on issues as diverse as immigration reform, family law, fiduciary duties, military chaplaincy, and water rights in the American Southwest. The collection also shows geographical breadth, and looks beyond the contemporary American and European legal arena to consider how theology could affect law in Nigeria and Rwanda. The volume also benefits from a wide range of theoretical approaches, including contributions from both legal scholars and theologians. In [End Page 211] the dialectic that results as theologians consider law and legal scholars consider theology, we see a performative example of the Lutheran concept of two kingdoms, both coexisting under God's domain.The collection would have benefited from a broader use of theological sources to accompany this admirably broad approach to legal issues. Many, although not all, of the essays, draw only on Martin Luther's understanding of Christian engagement with legal authority. This focus on Luther's somewhat limited legal corpus can result in a slightly repetitive theological approach among the essays. However, this narrow focus on Luther indicates a potential next stage for further development of Lutheran engagement with contemporary legal issues. In the closing essay in the book, "How Should Modern Lutherans Try to Shape Secular Law?," Robert Benne references John Witte's work in tracing how Philipp Melanchthon and the Lutheran jurists developed Luther's original theory of law to "build bridges between the two kingdoms" (332). While this book provides a good starting point for bringing Lutheran perspectives to bear on contemporary legal issues, it also indicates the need for future research to excavate the perspectives of Melanchthon and jurists such as Johannes Eisermann and Johann Oldendorp, along with more modern Lutheran scholars of law and religion, such as Helmut Thielicke, who considered the legacy of Lutheran legal theory in the wake of post-Nazi Germany. Both Lutheran theological approaches to law and legal approaches to religion will undoubtedly be enriched if the editors' project continues, resulting in continued excavation of later Lutheran interpretation and reception of theories of law, which will bring Lutheran theology ever closer to the challenges of contemporary legal issues in the modern nation-state.Elisabeth Rain KincaidUniversity of Notre DameCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Most of the theories of rights propounded by philosophers, right from the beginning till the twentieth century, conceive rights either as a claim against the state or an obligation upon the state. Certainly such a conception has had something to do with the prevailing social, political and economic systems of the time concerned. Social, political and economic systems also had a particular relationship amongst them. Change in individual and social perspectives, values, priorities and beliefs has affected the philosophy of right. (...) From the ages of Locke and Hobbes when natural right was taken in obvious terms to the times of communitarians like Michael Sandel and thinkers like Ronald Dworkin the term “Right” has earned many dimensions. Progress and changing arrangements of systems complicates the status of a philosophical theory of rights propounded at a particular time, in the sense that its losses its teeth in any new found milieu. This paper evaluates the notion of abstract universalism of individual rights in the light of Gandhian notion of duty. (shrink)