Many still oppose legalizing markets in human organs on the grounds that they are morally repugnant. I will argue in this paper that the repugnance felt by some persons towards sales of human organs is insufficient to justify their prohibition. Yet this rejection of the view that markets in human organs should be prohibited because some persons find them to be morally repugnant does not imply that persons’ feelings of distress at the possibility of organ sales are irrational. Eduardo (...) Rivera-Lopez argues that such instinctive distress is an appropriate response to the perception that certain kinds of arguments that are offered in favor of legalizing organ sales are “in an important sense, illegitimate.” Having argued that repugnance should not ground the prohibition of markets in human organs, I will also argue that the moral distress that some feel towards certain arguments that favor such markets is not rationally defensible, either. (shrink)

Friends as well as foes of Kant have long been uneasy over his emphasis on duty, but lately the view that there is something morally repugnant about acting from duty seems to be gaining in popularity. More and more philosophers indicate their readiness to jettison duty and the moral 'ought' and to conceive of the perfectly moral person as someone who has all the right desires and acts accordingly without any notion that (s)he ought to act in this (...) way. Elsewhere' I have argued that such a picture of the perfectly moral person is flawed. In this paper I examine the claim that acting from duty is morally repugnant. There is some truth to this charge, but, I argue, the repugnance attaches not to acting from duty as such, but only to certain ways of acting from duty. In isolating the objectionable elements of acting from duty, I hope not only to vindicate the skeletal concept but also to offer illumination on the question of just how we should understand morally good conduct. (shrink)

What is the connection between justification and truth in moral epistemology? The primary goal of this paper is to argue that you cannot have justified false beliefs about your own moral obligations. The secondary goal is to explain why not. Some epistemologists embrace a global truth-connection in epistemology, according to which epistemic justification is always factive. In contrast, I endorse a local truth-connection in moral epistemology, which says that epistemic justification is factive when it concerns your own (...) moral obligations. To explain this, I appeal to a version of moral rationalism, which says there are necessary truths about morality that everyone has a priori justification to believe. (shrink)

In this paper, prediction markets that encourage traders to bet on matters of life and death are used to explore the varieties and dynamics of moral repugnance. We define moral repugnance as morally charged feelings of revulsion that correspond (correctly, incorrectly, and indeterminately) to moral reasons and contexts. Rich variations of moral repugnance and their dynamic qualities are presented by investigating the contextual frames in which they arise. These contextual frames constitute interacting conditions (...) composed of information about states of affairs, moral reasons, and feelings of revulsion. Through careful study of two medical prediction markets that encourage betting on death, we can observe the interaction between these causal conditions to see how the varieties of moral repugnance emerge. We also present three interesting results that arise from analyzing the dynamics of moral repugnance in response to prediction markets. First, a prediction market can elicit several conflicting types of moral repugnance at the same time. Second, moral indeterminacy can arise in two different ways when judging prediction markets. Finally, some prediction markets can generate a moral endogeneity problem, a disruptive feedback loop between a given prediction market and the morally relevant outcome it predicts. (shrink)

In our commentary we briefly review the work on the neurological differences between the rational ethical analysis used in professional contexts and the reflexive emotional responses of our daily moral reasoning, and discuss the implications for the claim that our normative arguments should not rely on the emotion of repugnance.

Resumen: Una de las problemáticas más recurrente y también más importante para el mundo del arte del siglo XX, tanto el filosófico como el de los artistas, fue la salida de la belleza como el único relato legitimador de un objeto del que se pretendía el estatus de arte. En tal sentido, la reflexión que Arthur Coleman Danto, filósofo del arte norteamericano, ha hecho carrera como una de las posturas teóricas para enfrentarse al arte después de la belleza y, además, (...) para sustentar la necesidad de una definición del mismo a pesar de la entropía propia del siglo XX, que implicó el advenimiento del arte como producción humana determinada tanto por la belleza como por la fealdad, el asco, la industria y un largo etcétera.: One of the problems not only more recurrent but also more important to the world of art of the 20th century, both the philosophical and the artists, was the departure of beauty as the only legitimizing account of an object which is intended to the status of art. In this sense, the reflection that Arthur Coleman Danto, philosopher of American art, it has made a career as one of the theoretical positions to confront the art after the beauty and, in addition, to support the need for a definition of the same despite the entropy of the 20th century, which meant the advent of art as a human production already determined not only for beauty but for the ugliness, the repugnance, the industry and a long etcetera. (shrink)

An influential argument in bioethics involves appeal to disgust, calling on us to take it seriously as a moral guide (e.g. Kass, Miller, Kahan). Some argue, for example, that genetic enhancement, especially via human reproductive cloning, is repellant or grotesque. While objectors have argued that repugnance is morally irrelevant (e.g. Nussbaum, Kelly), I argue that the problem is more fundamental: it is psychologically irrelevant. Examining recent empirical data suggests that disgust’s influence on moral judgment may be like (...) fatigue: an exogenous influence, yielding a “performance error” that does not reflect our understanding of moral matters. This conclusion also challenges appeals to repugnance on other topics (such as homosexuality) and generally downplays the importance of disgust in moral discourse. (shrink)

The repugnant conclusion can be formulated as follows: For any population consisting of people with very high positive welfare, there is a better population in which everyone has a very low positive welfare, other things being equal. As the name indicates, this conclusion appears unacceptable. Yet it has proven to be surprisingly difficult to find a theory that avoids it without implying other very counterintuitive conclusions. Moreover, the conclusion is a problem not just for total utilitarians or those committed to (...) welfarism but for all moral theories according to which welfare matters at least when all other things are equal, which arguably is a minimal adequacy condition for any moral theory. And, not the least, how to deal with it has implications for the present generations’ duties to future generations and intergenerational justice. The question as to how the repugnant conclusion should be dealt with has thus become one of the cardinal challenges of modern ethics, and the inquiry into what it shows about the nature of ethics has opened up many new avenues for research. This chapter covers the different suggestions in the literature on how to do deal with the conclusion, both on the axiological and on the normative levels. Moreover, the conclusion and different ways of deriving it are explained in detail. (shrink)

Most people (including moral philosophers), when faced with the fact that some of their cherished moral views lead up to the Repugnant Conclusion, feel that they have to revise their moral outlook. However, it is a moot question as to how this should be done. It is not an easy thing to say how one should avoid the Repugnant Conclusion, without having to face even more serious implications from one's basic moral outlook. Several such attempts are (...) presented in this volume. This is the first volume devoted entirely to the cardinal problem of modern population ethics, known as 'The Repugnant Conclusion'. This book is a must for (moral) philosophers with an interest in population ethics. (shrink)

Most people (including moral philosophers), when faced with the fact that some of their cherished moral views lead up to the Repugnant Conclusion, feel that they have to revise their moral outlook. However, it is a moot question as to how this should be done. It is not an easy thing to say how one should avoid the Repugnant Conclusion, without having to face even more serious implications from one's basic moral outlook. Several such attempts are (...) presented in this volume. This is the first volume devoted entirely to the cardinal problem of modern population ethics, known as 'The Repugnant Conclusion'. This book is a must for (moral) philosophers with an interest in population ethics. (shrink)

The implications of the repugnant conclusion for consequentialist theories, such as total utilitarianism, have been extensively discussed since the work of Derek Parfit. These discussions make the paradoxes of population ethics depend on welfarist conditions, like the dominance condition (or the Pareto Principle). Thus, one might think that the repugnant conclusion is not a practical problem for deontologists, who deny that we always ought to do what produces the most aggregate welfare. In this study, we offer two impossibility results using (...) what we call the limit aggregation property. This states that when welfaristic and non-welfaristic considerations conflict, there is a threshold number of persons such that the former can override the latter as long as more people than the threshold number can enjoy increases in well-being levels. We argue that this property should be accepted even by deontologists, insofar as they do not commit themselves to the implausible absolutist position that fails to assign any moral weight to aggregate welfare. Our results therefore state that any normative population theory that is not absolutist entails (a variant of) the repugnant conclusion or some other implausible conclusion. Therefore, the repugnant conclusion must be taken seriously even by non-absolutist deontologists, not just consequentialists. (shrink)

Most philosophers discuss the Repugnant Conclusion as an objection to total utilitarianism. But this focus on total utilitarianism seems to be one-sided. It conceals the important fact that other competing moral theories are also subject to the Repugnant Conclusion. The primary aim of this paper is to demonstrate that versions of egalitarianism are subject to the Repugnant Conclusion and other repugnant conclusions.

Coghlan and Cox (Between death and suffering: Resolving the gamer’s dilemma. Ethics and Information Technology) offer a new resolution to the Gamer’s Dilemma (Luck, The Gamer’s Dilemma. Ethics and Information Technology). They argue that, while it is fitting for a person committing virtual child molestation to feel self-repugnance, it is not fitting for a person committing virtual murder to feel the same, and the fittingness of this feeling indicates each act’s moral permissibility. The aim of this paper is (...) to determine whether this resolution – the repugnant resolution – successfully resolves the Gamer’s Dilemma. We argue that it does not. (shrink)

On an act utilitarian view it is morally permissible if not obligatory to choose to perform an action which contributes as much as any other action to the total happiness of all those capable of enjoying happiness. As the view has just been stated, however, there is some question of how we are to understand the phrase “all those capable of enjoying happiness”. For even leaving aside the possibility that animals or spirits might be included, there is still the matter (...) of the size of the population of humans “capable of enjoying happiness”. Furthermore, among our ethical decisions themselves are decisions which would cause a decrease or increase in population and which in perhaps even more specific ways determine the applicability of this phrase “all those capable of enjoying happiness”. According to the socalled classical or total utilitarian principle, the phrase in question is understood as describing some population whose existence will enable one to maximize the net amount of happiness. For on the classical principle what one is obligated to do is simply to maximize net happiness. (shrink)

People can be disgusted by the concrete and by the abstract -- by an object they find physically repellent or by an ideology or value system they find morally abhorrent. Different things will disgust different people, depending on individual sensibilities or cultural backgrounds. In _Yuck!_, Daniel Kelly investigates the character and evolution of disgust, with an emphasis on understanding the role this emotion has come to play in our social and moral lives. Disgust has recently been riding a swell (...) of scholarly attention, especially from those in the cognitive sciences and those in the humanities in the midst of the "affective turn." Kelly proposes a cognitive model that can accommodate what we now know about disgust. He offers a new account of the evolution of disgust that builds on the model and argues that expressions of disgust are part of a sophisticated but largely automatic signaling system that humans use to transmit information about what to avoid in the local environment. He shows that many of the puzzling features of moral repugnance tinged with disgust are by-products of the imperfect fit between a cognitive system that evolved to protect against poisons and parasites and the social and moral issues on which it has been brought to bear. Kelly's account of this emotion provides a powerful argument against invoking disgust in the service of moral justification. (shrink)

An important objection to many utilitarian theories is that their conceptions of utility may count as morally relevant contributions to individual well-being items which are morally or rationally suspect. For example, if the conception of utility is pleasure, or alternatively, the fulfilment of actual desire or satisfaction of preferences, then greater individual utility may be produced by whatever increases pleasure, fulfils desire, or satisfies someone's preferences. This is true no matter how disgusting or vile we may think such pleasures are, (...) or how irrational or distasteful we find the fulfilment of a desire or the satisfaction of some preference. (shrink)

Population axiology includes two major arguments. The first is the repugnant conclusion, which was originally formulated by Derek Parfit to criticize total utilitarianism. The second is the sadistic conclusion. In this study, I demonstrate that no additively separable principle can avoid both repugnant and sadistic conclusions if individual moral values have no upper bound. This impossibility holds not only for utilitarian principles but also for any population principles that guarantee the separability of people’s well-being. I emphasize the importance of (...) examining non-separable principles in population ethics. (shrink)

According to Derek Parfit's well‐known argument, a version of utilitarian moral theory implies the so‐called Repugnant Conclusion. This version of utilitarianism states that other things being equal, it is better if there is a greater total sum of whatever makes life worth living. This view appears to implicate that a world where there is an immense total sum of whatever makes life worth living but where individual people have an exceedingly low quality of life is better than a world (...) where there are considerably less people and a smaller total sum of whatever makes life worth living but where individual people have a high quality of life. Parfit finds the conclusion hard to accept. However, a Swedish philosopher Torbjörn Tännsjö has recently replied to Parfit, arguing that, in fact, the Repugnant Conclusion is perfectly acceptable. Tännsjö's reply, in turn, has been criticized by another Swede, Gustaf Arrhenius. In my paper I evaluate both Tännsjö's reply and Arrhenius' criticism and find both of them insufficient. (shrink)

Dans cet article, l’objectif est de montrer que l’acceptation politique et sociale des mécanismes d’appariement pour les reins mis au point par Roth, Ünver et Sönmez nous fournit de quoi comprendre le rejet de la logique marchande dans le cadre de certains biens. Nous nous pencherons particulièrement sur trois explications généralement convoquer pour expliquer ce rejet : (I) le caractère corrupteur de la monnaie, (II) l’idée selon laquelle le marché en tant que tel devrait être rejeté, et (III) l’hypothèse selon (...) laquelle le rejet du marché reposerait avant tout sur le fait que ce dernier engendrerait un rapport de domination entre l’offreur et le demandeur. Par le biais d’une analyse comparative entre les propositions de marchés aux organes (rejetées dans la plupart des pays) et les systèmes d’appariement proposés par Roth, Ünver et Sönmez (2004, 2005, 2007) - mis en place dans un grand nombre de pays - nous nuancerons ces explications au profit d’une quatrième : le marché aux organes est rejeté non pas parce qu’il génère de la domination, mais parce qu’il présuppose la vulnérabilité des offreurs potentiels : sans vulnérabilité, pas de marchés d’organes. (shrink)

Kant says that it can be rational to accept propositions on the basis of non-epistemic or broadly practical considerations, even if those propositions include “transcendental ideas” of supersensible objects. He also worries, however, about how such ideas (of freedom, the soul, noumenal grounds, God, the kingdom of ends, and things-in-themselves generally) acquire genuine positive content in the absence of an appropriate connection to intuitional experience. How can we be sure that the ideas are not empty “thought-entities (Gedankendinge)”—that is, speculative fancies (...) that do not and perhaps even cannot have referents in reality? In this paper I argue for an account of the fundamental problem here (i.e. that it is based in a concern about whether or not the objects of such ideas are "really possible" in Kant's technical sense). I then critically evaluate Kant's three proposed solutions to the problem. The third one involves an appeal to the complicated doctrine of "symbolization" that becomes prominent in Kant's later works. -/- . (shrink)

Population axiology concerns how to evaluate populations in regard to their goodness, that is, how to order populations by the relations “is better than” and “is as good as”. This field has been riddled with “paradoxes” which seem to show that our considered beliefs are inconsistent in cases where the number of people and their welfare varies. Already in Derek Parfit’s seminal contribution to the topic, an informal paradox — the Mere Addition Paradox — was presented and later contributions have (...) proved similar results.1 All of these contributions, however, have one thing in common: They all involve an adequacy condition that rules out Parfit’s Repugnant Conclusion: The Repugnant Conclusion: For any perfectly equal population with very high positive welfare, there is a population with very low positive welfare which is better, other things being equal.2 A number of theorists, however, have argued that we should accept the Repugnant Conclusion and hence that avoidance of this conclusion is not a convincing adequacy condition for a population axiology. Torbjörn Tännsjö, for example, argues that the Repugnant Conclusion is not at all repugnant but rather “an unsought, but acceptable, consequence of hedonistic utilitarianism”:3.. (shrink)

A number of Christian theologians and philosophers have been critical of overly moralizing approaches to the doctrine of sin, but nearly all Christian thinkers maintain that moral fault is necessary or sufficient for sin to obtain. Call this the “Moral Consensus.” I begin by clarifying the relevance of impurities to the biblical cataloguing of sins. I then present four extensional problems for the Moral Consensus on sin, based on the biblical catalogue of sins: (1) moral over-demandingness, (...) (2) agential unfairness, (3) moral repugnance, and (4) moral atrocity. Next, I survey several partial solutions to these problems, suggested by the recent philosophical literature. Then I evaluate two largely unexplored solutions: (a) genuine sin dilemmas and (b) defeasible sinfulness. I argue that (a) creates more problems than it solves and that, while (b) is well-motivated and solves or eases each of the above problems, (b) leaves many biblical ordinances about sin morally misleading, creating (5) a pedagogical problem of evil. I conclude by arguing that (5) places hefty explanatory burdens on those who would appeal to (b) to resolve the four extensional problems discussed in this paper. So Christian thinkers may need to consider a more radical separation of sin and moral fault. (shrink)

In this chapter we draw comparisons between Kass’ views on the normative authority of repugnance and social intuitionist accounts of moral judgement which are similarly sceptical about the role of reasoned reflection in moral judgement. We survey the empirical claims made in support of giving moral primacy to intuitions generated by emotions such as repugnance, as well as some common objections. We then examine accounts which integrate intuition and reflection, and argue that plausible accounts of (...) wisdom are in tension with Kass’ claim that our inarticulable emotional responses can be the expression of deep wisdom. We conclude that while repugnance and other emotions have a role to play in informing deliberation and judgement, we have reason to be cautious in giving them normative authority. Affective responses alone cannot discharge the burden of justification for moral judgement and are just one tool relied upon by those we consider wise. (shrink)

This paper argues that virtue ethics and prevailing epistemic norms in moral and political philosophy more generally both support a new kind of empirically-informed moral-virtue epistemology, or “experimental ethics” – an epistemology according to which disputed normative premises in moral and political philosophy should be epistemically evaluated on the basis of empirically-observed relationships they bear to morally admirable and morally repugnant psycho-behavioral traits, as defined by cross-cultural, cross-historical, and cross-debate agreement on the moral valence of particular (...) traits and behaviors. (shrink)

Should businesses engage in moral talk when it becomes profitable? Due to their particular position of visibility, it is reasonable to acknowledge that businesses have specific moral duties. Some might argue that companies ought to help abandon morally repugnant norms by providing examples of alternative behaviors through advertisements. However, the moral talk of businesses might unexpectedly reinforce repugnant norms and increase social tensions in a polarized society. Then, the duty of the companies is not fulfilled when they (...) engage in moral talk. In polarized societies, the positional duty of businesses implies decreasing the risk of social conflict. It is not clear how to do that, yet I argue that if businesses use moral talk with mass marketing strategies, they would strive to shape impartial moral messages aiming to find points of moral convergence among polarized moral positions, which might mitigate social polarization. I call this duty the imperative of doux commerce. (shrink)

The doctrine of karma has been praised as a rational and morally edifying explanatory response to the existence of evil and apparent injustice in the world. Critics have attacked it as a morally misguided dogma that distorts one's vision of reality. This essay, after outlining the traditional doctrine, examines three criticisms that have been central to recent debates: firstly, that the doctrine offers no practical guidance; second, that it faces a dilemma between free will and fatalism; and third, that it (...) involves a morally repugnant form of blaming victims for their own misfortunes. Possible responses are considered, the depth of the disagreement is highlighted, and a morally significant difference between alternative ways of articulating the belief in karma is analyzed. (shrink)

It has been known for quite a while that traditional ethical theories have very counterintuitive and paradoxical implications for questions concerning procreation and our moral duties to future generations. Classical Utilitarianism, for example, seems to imply that we have a moral duty to procreate and that we should try to have as many off-springs as possible. More disturbingly, it implies Derek Parfit’s well-known Repugnant Conclusion.

The point of this article is to test how well Josiah Royce’s philosophy of community can be utilized to conceptualize moral injury and recovery.1 The term “moral injury” is of recent coinage, articulated by those working with combat veterans and their challenges returning to civilian life, particularly veterans returned from Vietnam and from America’s recent presence in the Middle East. The basic idea is that, in combat, soldiers harm their own moral capacities by committing or participating in (...) acts that they understand to be morally repugnant. The consequences of such harm include difficulty with participating well or fully in civilian life, even to the point of committing violence against loved ones. Despite the... (shrink)

The common consensus on suicide seems to be that even if taking one's life is permissible on some basis, it cannot be morally obligatory. In fact, one argument often used against Utilitarianism is that the principle sometimes requires individuals to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of others, as in the case of healthy individuals who can donate all their life saving organs to those in need of transplants. However, a plausible philosophical case can be built for morally obligatory suicide. First, (...) although not a standard interpretation, it seems clear Kant thought some crimes so morally repugnant that the moral agent should commit suicide rather than performing the former. Using this interpretation, I will strengthen and defend a Kantian argument for morally obligatory suicide in situations of crimina carnis contra naturum. (shrink)

We consider the current debate between bioconservatives and their opponents—whom we dub bioliberals—about the moral acceptability of human enhancement and the policy implications of moral debates about enhancement. We argue that this debate has reached an impasse, largely because bioconservatives hold that we should honour intuitions about the special value of being human, even if we cannot identify reasons to ground those intuitions. We argue that although intuitions are often a reliable guide to belief and action, there are (...) circumstances in which they are not reliable. Intuitions—including intuitions about enhancement—are subject to various cognitive biases rendering them unreliable in some circumstances. We argue that many bioconservative intuitions about enhancement are examples of such unreliable intuitions. Given this, it is unrealistic of bioconservatives to expect others to rely on their unexamined intuitions. Furthermore, refusing to engage in debates about the reasons and values that underpin their intuitions about enhancement will have the effect of making bioconservative voices less relevant in policy debates about enhancement than they would otherwise be. (shrink)

Moral abolitionists recommend that we get rid of moral discourse and moral judgement. At first glance this seems repugnant, but abolitionists think that we have overestimated the practical value of our moral framework and that eliminating it would be in our interests. I argue that abolitionism has a surprising amount going for it. Traditionally, abolitionism has been treated as an option available to moral error theorists. Error theorists say that moral discourse and judgement are (...) committed to the existence of moral properties, and that no such properties exist. After error theory is established, abolitionism is one potential way to proceed. However, many error theorists suggest that we retain moral discourse as a sort of fiction. I evaluate some attractions of both fictionalism and abolitionism, arguing that abolitionism is a plausible position. No one doubts that error theorists can be abolitionists. However, what has gone largely undiscussed is that it is open to others to be abolitionists as well. I argue that moral realists of a metaphysically robust sort can and perhaps should be abolitionists. ‘Realist abolitionism’ makes for a surprisingly neat theoretical package, and I conclude that it represents an interesting new option in the theoretical landscape. (shrink)

The common consensus on suicide seems to be that even if taking one's life is permissible on some basis, it cannot be morally obligatory. In fact, one argument often used against Utilitarianism is that the principle sometimes requires individuals to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of others, as in the case of healthy individuals who can donate all their life saving organs to those in need of transplants.However, a plausible philosophical case can be built for morally obligatory suicide. First, although (...) not a standard interpretation, it seems clear Kant thought some crimes so morally repugnant that the moral agent should commit suicide rather than performing the former. Using this interpretation, I will strengthen and defend a Kantian argument for morally obligatory suicide in situations of crimina carnis contra naturum. (shrink)

Reductionist forms of moral realism, such as naturalist realism, are often thought immune to epistemological objections that have been raised against nonnaturalist realism in the form of reliability worries or evolutionary debunking arguments. This article establishes that reductionist realist views can only explain the reliability of our moral beliefs at the cost of incurring repugnant first-order conclusions.

During the 1840s and 1850s the British embryologist and histologist Martin Barry (1802-1855) propounded a bold and original thesis about the microscopic structure of animal and vegetable tissue. He maintained that minute double spirals were virtually ubiquitous in the makeup of a wide range of structures. This paper considers how a claim of this kind was consonant with a romantic image of scientific creativity with which Barry identified. It describes his partially successful strategies to convince contemporaries of the veracity of (...) his claims. Major figures in the field, such as Richard Owen and Jan Evangelista Purkyně, affirmed that Barry's spirals were real objects in nature. Others, notably William Sharpey, became convinced that the spirals were mere artefacts and that Barry was deeply flawed as a scientific investigator. The ultimate rejection of his hypothesis had much to do with the moral repugnance that Barry's attempts to gain credit for a major discovery evoked among influential medical scientists. This negative assessment of Barry as an investigator reveals the lineaments of an alternative ethic of scientific practice. (shrink)

We consider the current debate between bioconservatives and their chief opponents — whom we dub bioliberals — about the moral acceptability of human enhancement and the policy implications of moral debates about enhancement. We argue that this debate has reached an impasse, largely because bioconservatives hold that we should honour intuitions about the special value of being human, even if we cannot identify reasons to ground those intuitions. We argue that although intuitions are often a reliable guide to (...) belief and action, there are circumstances in which they are not reliable. Intuitions — including intuitions about enhancement — are subject to various cognitive biases rendering them unreliable in some circumstances. We argue that many bioconservative intuitions about enhancement are examples of such unreliable intuitions. Given this, it is unrealistic of bioconservatives to expect others to rely on their unexamined intuitions. Furthermore, refusing to engage in debates about the reasons and values that underpin their intuitions about enhancement will have the effect of making bioconservative voices less relevant in policy debates about enhancement than they would otherwise be. (shrink)

ExcerptTo invoke the term “morality” in the same sentence as Carl Schmitt will undoubtedly baffle some of his critics. Indeed, his more strident ones will probably be greatly offended by any such juxtaposition of Schmitt and morality. His name is still too often associated with a theory of—even despicable admiration for—the exercise of amoral political power, or an equally repugnant supple amoral opportunism emanating from a kind of nihilistic existentialism.

In a series of articles on population theory, culminating in his 1984 b00k Reasons and Persons, Dcrck Pariit presented dilemmas for utilitarian and conscqucntialist moral theories.] ParHt’s work has led to rcncwcd interest in thc theory of optimal population. More generally, Pariit is searching for a general theory of bcncHcencc—"Theory X"——that also will covcr population comparisons. Theory X corresponds to Kenneth Arrow’s notion of a social welfare function—both attempt t0 provide 21 generic formula or algorithm for ranking social outcomes (...) on the basis of their characteristics. (shrink)

Much work in bioethics tries to sidestep bedrock questions about moral values. This is fine if we agree on our values; arguments about human enhancement suggest we do not. One bedrock question underlying these arguments concerns the role of emotion in morality: worries about enhancement are derided as emotional and thus irrational. In fact, both emotion and reason are integral to all moral judgment.

Bioethics has entered a new era: as many commentators have noted, the familiar mantra of autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice has proven to be an overly simplistic framework for understanding problems that arise in modern medicine, particularly at the intersection of public policy and individual preferences. A tradition of liberal pluralism grounds respect for individual preferences and affirmation of competing conceptions of the good. But we struggle to maintain (or at times explicitly reject) this tradition in the face of individual (...) preferences that we find distasteful, suspect, or even repugnant, especially where the broader social good or respect for equality is at stake. Directed donation presents us with such a dilemma: can we uphold the right of self-determination through respect of individual preferences regarding disposition of transplantable organs while at the same time maintaining an allocation system that reflects values of equity and justice claimed to underlie the socially negotiated practice of transplantation? Or are some preferences simply to be deemed unethical and not respected, even if that leads to a reduction in the number of transplantable organs available and to an apparent disregard for the autonomous decisions of the recently deceased? (shrink)

Epistemologists have long worried that the willingness of open-minded people to reconsider their beliefs in light of new evidence is both a condition of improving their beliefs and a risk factor for losing their grip on what they already know. In this paper I introduce and attempt to resolve a moral variation of this puzzle: A willingness to engage people having strange or (to us) repugnant moral ideals looks like a condition of broadening our moral horizons, but (...) also a risk factor for doing the wrong thing or becoming bad. I pursue a contractualist line according to which such hazardous engagement is a virtue only when it matters to our interlocutors whether they can justify themselves to us on terms we can accept—and for our sake or for the sake of their own virtue, not instrumentally or to get something out of us. When it does not so matter, openness can be unintelligent or gullible, i.e. not virtuous. (shrink)

There has been a growing worry that perdurantism—and similarly ontologically abundant views—is morally untenable. For perdurantism posits that, coinciding with persons, are person-like objects, and giving them their moral due seems to require giving up prudentially driven self-sacrifice. One way to avoid this charge is to adopt consequentialism. But Mark Johnston has argued that the marriage of consequentialism and perdurantism is in moral trouble. For, depending on the nature of time, consequentialist perdurantists either are unable to do more (...) than one good act or they are morally obliged to adopt a repugnant form of ageism. I argue both that perdurantist consequentialism doesn’t have the latter implication, and that there’s at least one plausible form of consequentialism that perdurantists can adopt to avoid the former implication. (shrink)

Much work in bioethics tries to sidestep bedrock questions about moral values. This is fine if we agree on our values; arguments about human enhancement suggest we do not. One bedrock question underlying these arguments concerns the role of emotion in morality: worries about enhancement are derided as emotional and thus irrational. In fact, both emotion and reason are integral to all moral judgment.

As a moral ideal, accepting the circumstances of one's life and its attendant miseries is, if not positively repugnant to modern ears, at least utterly puzzling. Historians might attempt to trace this aversion to the French Rationalists and English Utilitarians who believed that once the laws of human behaviour were discovered all social problems would be solved and who even tried to establish communities in which unhappiness would simply be eradicated. In this optimistic climate of social engineering, when it (...) began to appear as self-evident that each individual had a natural ‘right’ to happiness, accepting misery and social evil must have seemed perverse in contrast with striving to improve one's own and others’ condition in life. (shrink)

Disgust is often believed to have no special moral relevance. However, there are situations where disgust and similar feelings like revulsion, repugnance, or abhorrence function as the expression of a very strong moral disapproval that cannot fully be captured by argument. I call this kind of disgust moral disgust.Although it is always in principle possible to justify our moral disgust by explaining what it is in a given situation or action that disgusts us, the feeling (...) of disgust often comes first and either draws our attention to the fact that there is something wrong in the first place, or makes us aware that the kind of wrongness we are dealing with surpasses what can be accounted for by established moral theory. In both cases moral disgust serves an important purpose for an adequate moral evaluation of diverse situations and the actions from which they result. (shrink)

The analysis of Political Action Committee activities is dominated by the perspective that PAC contributions are a rational investment in political candidates; they yield valuable short-term payoffs. PACs buy access to officeholders and their votes on important legislation. Despite broad acceptance of this morally suspect theory, the evidence upon which it is based is weak. An alternative perspective — what we call the principled approach — both fits the evidence and rejects the morally repugnant interpretation of the relationship between business (...) and politics that permeates the rational investment perspective. (shrink)

In _The Immorality of Punishment_ Michael Zimmerman argues forcefully that not only our current practice but indeed any practice of legal punishment is deeply morally repugnant, no matter how vile the behaviour that is its target. Despite the fact that it may be difficult to imagine a state functioning at all, let alone well, without having recourse to punishing those who break its laws, Zimmerman makes a timely and compelling case for the view that we must seek and put into (...) practice alternative means of preventing crime and promoting social stability. (shrink)

From all points of the political compass, from widely different groups, have come indignant outcries against the trade in human organs from live vendors. Opponents contend that such practices constitute a morally outrageous and gross exploitation of the poor, inherently coercive and obviously intolerable in any civilized society. This article examines the arguments typically offered in defense of these claims, and finds serious problems with all of them. The prohibition of organ sales is derived not from the principles and argument (...) usually invoked in support of prohibition, but rather, from strong feelings of repugnance which exert an invisible but powerful influence on the debate, distorting the arguments [and working] to the detriment of the [very] people most in need of protection. (shrink)

Recent management behavior such as the PINTO gasoline tank decision has received a great deal of notoriety. In fact, repugnant examples of management amorality and immorality abound. One is forced to ask a number of questions. Does such behavior reflect a lack of a proper education in moral behavior? Can education result in moral behavior? If so, what kind of education might that be? Answers to these questions might point a way out of the moral shadows giant (...) corporations have cast over much of the world. An attempt to answer these questions, then, might be a worthwhile venture. (shrink)