Thomas Nagel addresses the conflict between the claims of the group and those of the individual. Nagel attempts to clarify the nature of the conflict – one of the most fundamental problems in moral and political theory – and argues that its reconciliation is the essential task of any legitimate political system.

Some of the barriers to the realisation of equality reflect the value of respecting prerogatives people have to favour themselves. Even G.A. Cohen, whose egalitarianism is especially pervasive and demanding, says that.

Suppose a person lives in a sub-Saharan country that has won its independence from colonial powers in the last 50 years or so. Suppose also that that person has become a high-ranking government official who makes decisions on how to allocate goods, such as civil service jobs and contracts with private firms. Should such a person refrain from considering any particulars about potential recipients or might it be appropriate to consider, for example, family membership, party affiliation, race or revolutionary stature (...) as reasons to benefit certain individuals at some cost to the general public? Which of these factors should be considered unjust, or even corrupt, as a basis on which to allocate state goods and which should not? This chapter outlines an attractive moral theory with African content that forbids both impartialism and a strong form of partialism that would permit government officials to favour members of their families or political parties. Between these two extremes, a moderate partialism is prescribed. This permits government agents to occasionally favour veterans and victims of state injustices at some cost to the general public. This chapter seeks to provide a new, unified explanation of why sub-Saharan values permit some forms of partiality, such as the preferential hiring of those who struggled against colonialism, but prohibit other nepotistic forms of partiality. (shrink)

A rather promising value theory for environmental philosophers combines the well-known fitting attitude (FA) account of value with the rather less well-known account of value as richness. If the value of an entity is proportional to its degree of richness (which has been cashed out in terms of unified complexity and organic unity), then since natural entities, such as species or ecosystems, exhibit varying degrees of richness quite independently of what we happen to feel about them, they also possess differing (...) degrees of mind-independent and subject-independent value. In particular, their value is not dependent on the desires or preferences of humans. The fitting attitudes account of value, at least as it is standardly developed, demands isomorphic evaluative responses on the part of all valuers. In particular, it entails that all valuers should have isomorphic preferences. But this seems absurd. I consider three different strategies with which the fitting attitude theorist can deflect this challenge. The first makes use of an account of non-standard value relations in terms of permissible preference orderings. The second appeals to value appearances and the associated notions of value distance and value perspective. The third involves an account of the ultimate bearers of value as properties, rather than as propositions or states of affairs. These strategies are not all mutually incompatible. While it isn’t possible to combine the first and second strategies, it is possible to combine the first and third strategies, and also to combine the second and the third. (shrink)

Forgiveness has traditionally been characterized an affective response to a wrongdoing, i.e. a psychological process that involves ridding oneself of resentment or other negative reactive attitudes. In contrast to the prevailing model, this paper advocates for the emerging position that forgiveness should be understood as a normative power akin to a promise. In particular, I argue that forgiveness involves surrendering the right to discount the interests of a perpetrator (a special permission the victim acquires in virtue of having been wronged). (...) I argue that this model fits and/or explains important features of forgiveness, such as the idea that forgiveness is a personal response to a blameworthy wrong, that forgiveness re-establishes a relation of equality, and that forgiveness is ‘normatively significant’. I further develop the position by showing how it can provide a unified case of paradigmatic forgiveness, self-forgiveness, and third-party forgiveness—this explanatory power distinguishes the view from previous articulations of the idea that forgiveness is a normative power. The final section further explores these distinctions by delimiting the scope of forgiveness to exclude powers related to apologies, compensation, or ‘redemption’. (shrink)

(2000). Caring at a Distance: (Im)partiality, Moral Motivation and the Ethics of Representation - Manipulation and Exploitation? Western Media and the Third World. Ethics, Place & Environment: Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 317-319. doi: 10.1080/713665895.

Nagel' s pessimistic conclusion that current welfare state arrangements approximate to the most pragmatically effective way of reconciling the demands of morality and of an egalitarian liberalism, while not removing a deep seated incoherence between these view, can be resisted. The objective/subjective dichotomy, in this case applied via the agent-neutral/agent-relative distinction, is identified as his problematic assumption: understood in Hegelian terms as the "placing" of different categories of reason, even a minimal realism makes it difficult to understand how embedding agent-relativity (...) alongside the agent-neutral can be understood as adding to the relevant values, just by moving from a more particular to a less particular conception of the world. This transition also cannot be seen as giving us insight into the intrinsicality of certain values, as that would be to renege on the idea that the subjective point of view is still a point of view on value and one that is expanded, not renounced. It is argued that the standard objection that contractualism is fatally circular is even more plausible in the case of its use as a theory of political legitimacy and Nagel's use of it is quite open about this circularity. Criticising Nagel's philosophical anthropology allows one to develop his positive arguments for egalitarianism; the development of civic virtue, from a perspective in which "the personal" acknowledges the demands of others in one's political community, leads to a political egalitarianism located in a distinct political morality independent of a moralised politics. (shrink)

(2012). Reasoning without believing: on the mechanisation of presuppositions and partiality. Journal of Applied Non-Classical Logics: Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 295-317. doi: 10.1080/11663081.2012.705962.

According to the guise of the good thesis, we desire things under the ‘guise of the good.’ Here I sympathetically articulate a generic formulation of the guise of the good thesis, and addre...

John Cottingham; I *—The Presidential Address: The Ethical Credentials of Partiality, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 98, Issue 1, 1 June 1998.

Shortened and moderately revised version of an essay that initially appeared in Murove (ed.) African Ethics (2009). This chapter is a work of applied ethics that aims to provide a convincing comprehensive account of how a government official in a post-independence sub-Saharan country should make decisions about how to allocate goods such as civil service jobs and contracts with private firms. Should such a person refrain from considering any particulars about potential recipients, or might it be appropriate to consider, for (...) example, family membership, party affiliation, race, or revolutionary stature as reasons to benefit certain individuals at some cost to the public? Which of these factors should be considered an unjust or corrupt basis on which to allocate state goods and which should not? Drawing on an African ethic, this chapter answers these questions with what it calls a “moderate partialism,” according to which a government agent may rightly favor at some cost to the public veterans and victims of state injustices, but not those in her family or party. This chapter seeks to provide a new, unified explanation of why characteristically sub-Saharan values permit some forms of partiality, such as the preferential hiring of those who suffered from or struggled against colonialism, but forbid other, nepotist or prebendalist forms of partiality. (shrink)

This paper focuses on Newman’s approach to what we might call “the problem of the partiality and unity of the sciences.” The problem can be expressed in the form of a question: “If all human knowing is finite and partial, then on what grounds can one know of the unity and wholeness of all the sciences?” Newman’s solution to the problem is openly theistic, since it appeals to one’s knowledge of God. For Newman, even if I exclusively pursue my (...) own partial science as a physicist, or psychologist, or historian, and even if I do not understand much about the content of the other sciences, nevertheless it is still possible for me to grasp the comprehensive ground of the unity of all the sciences, by virtue of my knowledge of God. The problem, however, is that this solution seems to rely on the sort of intellectual imperialism that Newman criticizes throughout much of his work. For this solution seems to assert the unity of the sciences only by placing one science—theology—above all the others as a supervening Über-science. The aim of this paper is to defend Newman against this charge of imperialism, and to show that his thought is not only more plausible, but also more nuanced, than might appear at first sight. (shrink)

This article contends that an ethics of care has a particular moral ontology that makes it suitable to argue for the normative significance of relational responsibilities within professional health care. This ontology is relational. It means that moral choices always have to account for the web of relationships, the relational networks and responsibilities that are an essential part of particular moral circumstances. Given this ontology, the article investigates the conditions for health care professionals to be partial and to act on (...) the basis of particular responsibilities to their patients. We will argue that priorities could be partial in three ways: first, because there may be exceptional circumstances that allow for giving priority to one patient over another; second, because the integrity of the patient and a health care worker may be connected in special ways; and, finally, even if impartiality is essential, the institutional basis of health care must always give ample space for an ethically qualified individual and personal care for patients. Even if difficult priorities may be necessary, the conditions of institutional health care should always seek to create the prerequisites for nurses and doctors to administer proper care. (shrink)

Does the moral quality of someone’s past treatment of us, or of other people, change how we are morally permitted or required to treat them? Many philosophers think so. They argue, for instance, that someone’s supererogatory or impermissible behaviour can permit or require certain positive or negative attitudinal responses, such as gratitude or resentment. They also argue that someone’s impermissible behaviour can justify harming the person, either defensively or punitively, and that someone who is imperilled as a result of impermissible (...) behaviour might have a weaker claim to be aided than those who are innocently imperilled. This thesis has two aims. The first is to extend the scope of the idea that we can be morally required to have certain positive or negative attitudinal responses to someone’s supererogatory or impermissible behaviour; the second is to explore novel ways in which our required responses to such behaviour, or our failures to have these responses, can change what others owe to us when aiding. Papers 1-3 advance the first aim; papers 4-6 advance the second aim. In pursuing the two aims, the thesis brings together two philosophical domains that are not normally considered in conjunction: the philosophy of attitudes and deontological ethics. (shrink)

Reprint of a chapter that initially appeared in the anthology African Ethics (2009).

In Africa, homosexuality is routinely understood as a form of immoral behaviour. This has great implications for the physical and psychological well-being of homosexuals in Africa. One of the reasons why homosexuals are sometimes understood to be behaving immorally is because it is believed that same-sex relations are unnatural. I think that this conception of unnatural is grounded on the perverted faculty argument, although this is not often expressed in such terms. In this article, I will develop a concept of (...) natural grounded on the concept of Ukama. I will show that despite Ukama implying a functional conception of nature, just like in the perverted faculty argument, it does not imply that homosexuality is immoral. (shrink)

Two intuitions are important to commonsense morality: the claim that all persons have equal moral worth and the claim that persons have associative duties. These intuitions seem to contradict each other, and there has been extensive discussion concerning their reconciliation. The most widely held view claims that associative duties arise because relationships generate moral reasons to benefit our loved ones. However, such a view cannot account for the phenomenon that some acts are supererogatory when performed on behalf of a stranger (...) but obligatory when performed on behalf of a loved one. This paper offers a novel view of associative duties, according to which such duties arise because relationships serve as indirect intensifiers of moral reasons: they decrease the cost to the agent that certain acts imply, and this increases the relative weight of the reasons that speak in favour of the act in an all-things-considered judgement. This reconciles moral egalitarianism and associative duties in a promising way: the moral worth of a person always generates the same moral reasons, but due to differences in the cost to the agent, these reasons sometimes amount to obligations and sometimes do not. (shrink)

In Africa, homosexuality is routinely understood as a form of immoral behaviour. This has great implications for the physical and psychological well‐being of homosexuals in Africa. One of the reasons why homosexuals are sometimes understood to be behaving immorally is because it is believed that same‐sex relations are unnatural. I think that this conception of unnatural is grounded on the perverted faculty argument, although this is not often expressed in such terms. In this article, I will develop a concept of (...) natural grounded on the concept of Ukama. I will show that despite Ukama implying a functional conception of nature, just like in the perverted faculty argument, it does not imply that homosexuality is immoral. (shrink)

It’s an undeniable fact about our moral lives that we are partial towards certain people and projects. Despite this, it has traditionally been very hard to justify partiality. In this paper I defend a novel partialist theory. The context of the paper is the debate between three different views of how partiality is justified. According to the first view, partiality is justified by facts about our ground projects. According to the second view, partiality is justified by (...) facts about our relationships with the things that we are partial towards. And according to the third view, partiality is justified by facts about the things that we are partial towards. I argue that all three views contain part of the truth. We can see this by adopting a more sophisticated view of the weight of reasons. Once we do this, it will be clear that both facts about individuals and facts about relationships play a role in explaining why we often have stronger reason to act well towards those things we are partial towards. Further, I argue, facts about projects help explain why facts about relationships play the role that they do in determining the strength of our reasons. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the ethical themes and theory portrayals by particular characters in Star Trek: Into Darkness. It is concluded that the film can be understood as explicating the pros and cons of both "male" and "female" ethical perspectives, and that a comprehensive understanding of morality requires some synthesis of both perspectives.

This study deals basically with a critique of ideological and policy-oriented approaches in area studies, and problems of political interventions and ideological inclinations in the Middle Eastern studies. Politics and ideology not only makes the area more complex to understand, since they aim to meet the needs of the governments, but also prevents the academic studies to develop independently. The study aims at putting forth a historical analysis required both to take the issues of the Middle East studies within their (...) unique socio-economic settings, and to regard them from the historical point of view. Central for the paper is to propose bases for the development of area studies depending on the interactions of regional histories and politics with each other. The study argues that Middle East studies in particular and area studies in general would produce reasonable knowledge and add up to the literature within a working relationship with world history, and in a comparative and multi-dimensional manner. (shrink)

This paper provides a defence of the account of partial resemblances between properties according to which such resemblances are due to partial identities of constituent properties. It is argued, first of all, that the account is not only required by realists about universals à la Armstrong, but also useful (of course, in an appropriately re-formulated form) for those who prefer a nominalistic ontology for material objects. For this reason, the paper only briefly considers the problem of how to conceive of (...) the structural universals first posited by Armstrong in order to explain partial resemblances, and focuses instead on criticisms that have been levelled against the theory (by Pautz, Eddon, Denkel and Gibb) and that apply regardless of one’s preferred ontological framework. The partial identity account is defended from these objections and, in doing so, a hitherto quite neglected connection—between the debate about partial similarity as partial identity and that concerning ontological finitism versus infinitism—is looked at in some detail. (shrink)

The foundational conviction of contemporary liberal thought is that all persons possess equal moral worth and are entitled to equal concern and respect by others. At the same time, nation states, as the primary organs of our collective self-governance, frequently pursue policies that are strikingly partial towards the interests of compatriots over those of foreigners. A common strategy for justifying this national partiality is to view it as grounded in associative obligations that we incur by standing in special relationships (...) with our fellow citizens. For instance, according to familiar arguments from ‘fair play’, voluntarily partaking in and benefiting from cooperative relationships with our fellow citizens gives us reciprocal obligations to maintain these social institutions and care for needy compatriots. By contrast, we do not have corresponding associative obligations towards foreigners. I maintain that such arguments from associative obligations face an important stumbling block. I argue for the following “Boundary Principle”, according to which we cannot appeal to special relationships amongst members of a group to justify an attitude of partiality towards them unless the boundaries of this group, and the fact that they exclude other persons from membership, can also be justified. If this is right, arguments from associative obligations, by themselves, are necessarily incomplete. Most modern states severely limit the scope of economic migration, and thereby prevent many would-be contributors to the collective enterprises of affluent societies from entering into those special relationships with us that would give rise to associative obligations on our part. Not only are would-be immigrants excluded from the benefits that participation in the cooperative schemes of affluent nation-states would itself confer; in addition, the fact that they do not stand in such cooperative relationships with us is then appealed to in order to justify the fact that we assign significantly less weight to their interests in the formulation of state policy. The upshot of my discussion is not that a defense of national partiality in terms of associative obligations cannot succeed. It is rather that a successful defense of national partiality in these terms is more closely tied to the question whether principled restrictions can be placed on immigration than most political philosophers have hitherto assumed. (shrink)

We propose partial measurements as a conceptual tool to understand how to operate with counterfactual claims in quantum physics. Indeed, unlike standard von Neumann measurements, partial measurements can be reversed probabilistically. We first analyze the consequences of this rather unusual feature for the principle of superposition, for the complementarity principle, and for the issue of hidden variables. Then we move on to exploring non-local contexts, by reformulating the EPR paradox, the quantum teleportation experiment, and the entanglement-swapping protocol for the situation (...) in which one uses partial measurements followed by their stochastic reversal. This leads to a number of counter-intuitive results, which are shown to be resolved if we give up the idea of attributing reality to the wavefunction of a single quantum system. (shrink)

I show that the partial truth of a sentence in a partial structure is equivalent to the truth of that sentence in an expansion of a structure that corresponds naturally to the partial structure. Further, a mapping is a partial homomorphism/partial isomorphism between two partial structures if and only if it is a homomorphism/isomorphism between their corresponding structures. It is a corollary that the partial truth of a sentence in a partial structure is equivalent to the truth of a specific (...) Ramsey sentence in a corresponding structure. Hence the partial structures approach can be expressed in standard first or second-order model theory, and it can be captured in the received view on scientific theories as developed by Carnap and Hempel. (shrink)

We show that a coherent theory of partially ordered connectives can be developed along the same line as partially ordered quantification. We estimate the expressive power of various partially ordered connectives and use methods like Ehrenfeucht games and infinitary logic to get various undefinability results.

The partial structures program of da Costa, French and others offers a unified framework within which to handle a wide range of issues central to contemporary philosophy of science. I argue that the program is inadequately equipped to account for simple cases where idealizations are used to construct abstract, mathematical models of physical systems. These problems show that da Costa and French have not overcome the objections raised by Cartwright and Suárez to using model-theoretic techniques in the philosophy of science. (...) However, my concerns arise independently of the more controversial assumptions that Cartwright and Suárez have employed. (shrink)

Most of us are partial to our friends and loved ones: we treat them with special care, and we feel justified in doing so. In recent years, the idea that good friends are also epistemically partial to one another has been popular. Being a good friend, so-called epistemic partialists suggest, involves being positively biased towards one's friends – that is, involves thinking more highly of them than is warranted by the evidence. In this paper, I outline the concept of epistemic (...) partiality and its relation to non-epistemic partiality and explore some considerations that speak in favour of and against such partialism in friendships. I finish by suggesting some directions in which this debate could go next. (shrink)