Michael Cholbi
University of Edinburgh, Philosophy, Faculty Member
- Philosophy, Ethics, Bioethics, Death, Life extension, Applied Ethics, Autonomy, Bioethics, and 14 moreEthical Theory, Meta-Ethics, Immanuel Kant, Moral Psychology, Moral Philosophy, Practical Reasoning, Suicide, Suicide prevention, Philosophy of Punishment, Practical Reasons and Rationality, Kantian ethics, Kant's Practical Philosophy, Unconditional Basic Income, and Black Lives Matteredit
- I'm a philosopher working primarily in ethical theory and practical ethics, with special emphases on the philosophy o... moreI'm a philosopher working primarily in ethical theory and practical ethics, with special emphases on the philosophy of death and dying, Kantian ethics, paternalism, procreative ethics, punishment, and the ethics of work. In addition to publishing over sixty peer-reviewed articles, I am the author of three books (Suicide: The Philosophical Dimensions; Understanding Kant's Ethics; and Grief: A Philosophical Guide (forthcoming)) and the editor of six scholarly collections. You can see my full list of publications at http://michael.cholbi.com. A list of publications with abstracts is available at https://philpeople.org/profiles/michael-cholbi.edit
A wide body of psychological research corroborates the claim that whether one’s life is (or will be) meaningful appears relevant to whether it is rational to continue living. This article advances conceptions of life’s meaningfulness and... more
A wide body of psychological research corroborates the claim that whether one’s life is (or will be) meaningful appears relevant to whether it is rational to continue living. This article advances conceptions of life’s meaningfulness and of suicidal choice with an eye to ascertaining how the former might provide justificatory reasons relevant to the latter. Drawing upon the recent theory of meaningfulness defended by Cheshire Calhoun, the decision to engage in suicide can be understood as a choice related to life’s meaningfulness insofar as an individual can see no point in investing her agency in her anticipated future. These meaning-based reasons relevant to suicidal choice either cannot be reduced to the reasons of well-being that philosophers have typically used to analyse suicide decisions or at least forms a distinct class of reasons within those that contribute to well-being.
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That Kant’s moral thought is invoked by both advocates and opponents of a right to assisted dying attests to both the allure and and the elusiveness of Kant’s moral thought. In particular, the theses that individuals have a right to a... more
That Kant’s moral thought is invoked by both advocates and opponents of a right to assisted dying attests to both the allure and and the elusiveness of Kant’s moral thought. In particular, the theses that individuals have a right to a ‘death with dignity’ and that assisting someone to die contravenes her dignity appear to gesture at one of Kant’s signature moral notions, dignity. The purposes of this article are to outline Kant’s understanding of dignity and its implications for the ethics of assisted dying. According to Kant, that which has dignity must be treated as an end in itself and may not permissibly be exchanged for that which merely has price. Kant’s reasoning thus seems to preclude acts of self-killing, including voluntary assisted dying, that rest on individual self-interest, since a person’s interests merely have price. However, a recognizably Kantian view of dignity can permit assisted dying under two sets of circumstances: First, it can be permissible for agents who anticipate a degradation of their rational agency due to conditions such as dementia to direct others to end their lives once sufficiently demented. In so doing, such agents in effect exercise a right to impose obligations on others regarding how their bodies, which will at some future point no longer be the vessels of their rational agency, are to be disposed of. Second, Kant errs in supposing that our dignity can stem solely from our moral personality, i.e., from our capacity to abide by universalizable moral principles. Rather, complete dignity also requires the capacity for setting discretionary ends and the means to those ends, i.e., the dignity of humanity. Individuals with prolonged and intense depression, in severe pain, or with serious disability may lack humanity while retaining their moral personality. In such cases, I propose that their opting to end their lives, with or without the assistance of others, does not amount to exchanging their dignified selves for something which merely has price and is therefore not objectionable on Kantian grounds.
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Drawing upon empirical studies of racial discrimination dating back to the 1940’s, the Movement for Black Lives platform calls for the abolition of capital punishment. Our purpose here is to defend the Movement’s call for death penalty... more
Drawing upon empirical studies of racial discrimination dating back to the 1940’s, the Movement for Black Lives platform calls for the abolition of capital punishment. Our purpose here is to defend the Movement’s call for death penalty abolition in terms congruent with its claim that the death penalty in the U.S. is a “racist practice” that “devalues Black lives.” We first sketch the jurisprudential history of race and capital punishment in the U.S., wherein courts have occasionally expressed worries about racial injustice but have usually taken such evidence to warrant reform but not outright abolition. We argue that the racial discrimination at issue flows in significant part from implicit biases concerning race, criminality, and violence, which do not fit comfortably within the picture of racial bias advanced by the courts. The case for abolition, we contend, rests on Black Americans as a class (not merely those who interact with the criminal justice system as capital defendants or as murder victims) being subject to such bias and thereby not being accorded equal status under the law.
Research Interests: Social Psychology, Criminal Justice, Jurisprudence, Applied Ethics, Social Sciences, and 15 moreRace and Racism, Social Justice, Stereotypes, Stereotypes and Prejudice, Philosophy Of Law, Discrimination, Philosophy of Criminal Law, Philosophy of Social Science, Philosophy of Cognitive Science, Implicit Social Cognition, Capital Punishment, Death Penalty, Social Inequality, Racial discrimination, and Black Lives Matter
A moral theory T is esoteric if and only if T is true but there are some individuals who, by the lights of T itself, ought not embrace T, where to embrace T is to believe T and rely upon it in practical deliberation. Some philosophers... more
A moral theory T is esoteric if and only if T is true but there are some individuals who, by the lights of T itself, ought not embrace T, where to embrace T is to believe T and rely upon it in practical deliberation. Some philosophers hold that esotericism is a strong, perhaps even decisive, reason, to reject a moral theory. However, proponents of this objection have often supposed its force is obvious and have said little to articulate it. Here I canvass a number of construals of this objection to determine if any of these have force against esoteric consequentialism, the theory most often defended in an esoteric guise. I find a number of construals inadequate: that esoteric theories are conceptually incoherent; that they endorse immorality; that esoteric theories are unfair in subjecting agents to requirements of which they are not aware; that they fail to guide action; and that such theories violate evidential standards for the ethics of belief. Finally, I offer the best version of this objection, namely, that, in light of the strongly first-personal epistemology of benefit and burden, esoteric theories fail to justify the allocation of benefits and burdens to which moral agents would be subject under their theories. Because of the holistic nature of moral theory justification, this conclusion in turn implies that the entirety of a moral theory must be open to public scrutiny in order for the theory to be justified. I conclude by answering four objections to my account of the esotericism objection.
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Individuals are owed equal respect. But on the basis of what property of individuals are they owed such respect? One answer, popular among Kantians, is rational agency. This answer appears less plausible in light of the growing... more
Individuals are owed equal respect. But on the basis of what property of individuals are they owed such respect? One answer, popular among Kantians, is rational agency. This answer appears less plausible in light of the growing psychological evidence that human choice is subject to a wide array of biases (framing, laziness, etc.); human beings are neither equal in rational agency nor especially robust rational agents. Defenders of this Kantian answer thus need a non-ideal theory of equal respect for rational agency, one that takes seriously our characteristic deficiencies of practical rationality without junking the notion that rational agency entitles us to equal respect. Here I defend an understanding of respect for rational agency wherein the object of such respect is neither particular exercises that meet some standard of minimal rationality nor the capacity for rational agency in the abstract. Rather, the basis of respect is individuals’ aspiration to rationally govern their lives. This understanding of respect for rational agency retains the core notion of respect as a kind of deference, directs respect at persons, has suitably egalitarian implications, and does not require us to deny the aforementioned psychological evidence regarding the infirmities of human rationality.
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Should we regret the fact that we are often more emotionally resilient in response to the deaths of our loved ones than we might expect -- that the suffering associated with grief often dissipates more quickly and more fully than we... more
Should we regret the fact that we are often more emotionally resilient in response to the deaths of our loved ones than we might expect -- that the suffering associated with grief often dissipates more quickly and more fully than we anticipate? Dan Moller ("Love and Death") argues that we should, because this resilience epistemically severs us from our loved ones and thereby "deprives us of insight into our own condition." I argue that Moller's conclusion is correct despite resting on a mistaken picture of the nature and significance of grief. Unlike Moller, I contend that grief is a composite emotional process, rather than a single mental state; that grief is a species of emotional attention rather than perception; and that grief is a form of activity directed at placing our relationships with the deceased on new terms. It is precisely because grief has these three features that it facilitates the scrutiny of our practical identities and thus fosters self-knowledge and self-understanding.
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Whatever work has to recommend it prudentially, there remains the additional (and underinvestigated) question of whether there is a moral duty to work. Here I suggest that this duty rests on a fair play argument, according to which... more
Whatever work has to recommend it prudentially, there remains the additional (and underinvestigated) question of whether there is a moral duty to work. Here I suggest that this duty rests on a fair play argument, according to which individuals who benefit from a cooperative economic scheme are obligated to make a fair contribution to that scheme lest they make wrongful claims on others' contributions to that scheme and treat those others merely as means. On this picture, the duty to work is civic rather than natural, grounded in reciprocity between workers and the other participants in a cooperative scheme. More crucially however, the duty is conditional on workers being able both to make fair contributions to that scheme and to receive their fair share of its benefits. But because few contemporary workers work under circumstances in which they do (or can) plausibly make their fair contributions or in which they receive their fair shares, these workers have no duty to work. Thus, while there exists a duty to work in ideal socioeconomic and labor market circumstances, current circumstances are non-ideal, diverging sufficiently from ideal circumstances to cancel most individuals' duty to work.
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Many economists and social theorists hypothesize that most societies could soon face a ‘post-work’ future, one in which employment and productive labor have a dramatically reduced place in human affairs. Given the centrality of employment... more
Many economists and social theorists hypothesize that most societies could soon face a ‘post-work’ future, one in which employment and productive labor have a dramatically reduced place in human affairs. Given the centrality of employment to individual identity and its pivotal role as the primary provider of economic and other goods, transitioning to a ‘post-work’ future could prove traumatic and disorienting to many. Policymakers are thus likely to face the difficult choice of the extent to which they ought to satisfy individual citizens’ desires to work in a socioeconomic environment in which work is in permanent decline. Here I argue that policymakers confronting a post-work economy should discount, or at least consider problematic, the desire to work because it is very likely that this desire is an adaptive preference. An adaptive preference is a preference for some state of affairs within a limited set of options formed under unjust conditions.
The widespread desire for work has been formed under unjust labor conditions to which individuals are compelled to submit in order to meet material and ethical needs. Furthermore, the prevalence of the ‘work dogma’ in contemporary societies precludes nearly all individuals from seeing alternatives to work as live options.
The widespread desire for work has been formed under unjust labor conditions to which individuals are compelled to submit in order to meet material and ethical needs. Furthermore, the prevalence of the ‘work dogma’ in contemporary societies precludes nearly all individuals from seeing alternatives to work as live options.
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Opponents of medically assisted dying have long appealed to 'slippery slope' arguments. One such slippery slope concerns palliative care: that the introduction of medically assisted dying will lead to a diminution in the quality or... more
Opponents of medically assisted dying have long appealed to 'slippery slope' arguments. One such slippery slope concerns palliative care: that the introduction of medically assisted dying will lead to a diminution in the quality or availability or palliative care for patients near the end of their lives. Empirical evidence from jurisdictions where assisted dying has been practiced for decades, such as Oregon and the Netherlands, indicate that such worries are largely unfounded. The failure of the palliation slope argument is nevertheless instructive with respect to how slippery slope arguments can be appraised without having to await post-facto evidence regarding the effects of a proposed change in public policy. Close attention in particular to the norms operative in a given institution and how changes to policy will interact with those norms enable slippery slopes to be credibly appraised.
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Argues that in order to meet the epistemic and testimonial conditions required of moral experts, they must possess theoretical moral knowledge.
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Many contributors to debates about professional conscience assume a basic, pre-professional right of conscientious refusal and proceed to address how to 'balance' this right against other goods. Here I argue that opponents of a right of... more
Many contributors to debates about professional conscience assume a basic, pre-professional right of conscientious refusal and proceed to address how to 'balance' this right against other goods. Here I argue that opponents of a right of conscientious refusal concede too much in assuming such a right, overlooking that the professions in which conscientious refusal is invoked nearly always operate as public cartels, enjoying various economic benefits, including protection from competition, made possible by governments exercising powers of coercion, regulation, and taxation. To acknowledge a right of conscientious refusal is to license professionals to disrespect the profession's clients, in opposition to liberal ideals of neutrality, and to engage in moral paternalism toward them; to permit them to violate duties of reciprocity they incur by virtue of being members of public cartels; and to compel those clients to provide material support for conceptions of the good they themselves reject. However, so long as (a) a public cartel discharges its obligations to distribute the socially important goods they have are uniquely authorized to provide without undue burden to its clientele, and (b) conscientious refusal has the assent of other members of a profession, individual professionals' claims of conscience can be accommodated.
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One popular argument in libertarian and liberal circles for unconditional basic income (UBI) is that UBI is less paternalistic than typical programs designed to provide citizens a social minimum. Many of the conditions governments... more
One popular argument in libertarian and liberal circles for unconditional basic income (UBI) is that UBI is less paternalistic than typical programs designed to provide citizens a social minimum. Many of the conditions governments sometimes attach to the receipt of a social minimum indeed appear to be paternalistic: To require that recipients submit to drug testing or forego procreation is to make the provision of the social minimum contingent upon incursions into recipients’ liberty, autonomy, or agency so as to ensure that recipients live in ways that the state (or other citizens) believe they ought to. Making the provision of a social minimum unconditional thus removes one avenue for state-provided benefits to be paternalistic. This article argues that while policies that make the provision of a social minimum unconditional are less paternalistic, this is not reason to favor an unconditional basic income rather than the unconditional provision of a ‘basket’ of non-income goods such as food vouchers, medical care, etc. On what I regard as the best account of the nature of paternalism and its moral objectionability, which I term the rational will account, there are not clear anti-paternalist reasons to favor basic income over a basket of basic goods. I propose that because states are entitled to prescribe the means by which individuals may pursue just outcomes, individuals would not be treated paternalistically if states opt to provide a social minimum in terms of a basket of goods rather than in terms of a basic income.
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Two main aims: (1) to articulate and defend a Kantian conception of duties to self, and (2) to explore the ramifications of such duties for the moral justification of paternalism. Concludes that there is a distinctive reason to resent... more
Two main aims: (1) to articulate and defend a Kantian conception of duties to self, and (2) to explore the ramifications of such duties for the moral justification of paternalism. Concludes that there is a distinctive reason to resent paternalistic intercessions aimed at assisting others in fulfilling their duties to self (or the self-regarding virtues necessary thereunto), based on the fact that the goods realized via their fulfillment are historical, i.e., their value depends on an individual's casual contribution to their fulfillment.
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The abolition of capital punishment is among the reforms the Black Lives Matter movement has called for in response to what it calls "the war against Black people" and "Black communities" in the United States. Drawing on the large body of... more
The abolition of capital punishment is among the reforms the Black Lives Matter movement has called for in response to what it calls "the war against Black people" and "Black communities" in the United States. Drawing on the large body of studies indicating discrimination against Blacks both as capital defendants and as murder victims, the movement asserts that the death penalty in the U.S. is a "racist practice" that "devalues Black lives." This article defends the two central contentions embedded in the movement's abolitionist stance: first, that U.S. capital punishment practices represent a wrong to Black communities rather than simply a wrong to particular Black capital defendants or particular Black victims of murder, and second, that the most defensible remedy for this wrong is the abolition of the death penalty. We argue that while Black Americans suffer retributive injustices in the U.S. capital punishment regime, Black Americans as a class also suffer a distributive injustice under that regime inasmuch as Black Americans do not receive either the equal protection of, or equal status under, the law. Moreover, these patterns of discrimination cannot be explained without reference to implicit racial biases likely to influence capital punishment decisions reached by prosecutors, judges, and juries. The failure to remedy such discrimination thus represents a form of institutional recklessness with respect to Black lives and legal status. Among plausible remedies, only abolition, either de facto or de jure, succeeds in both eliminating the discriminatory effects of this bias-based recklessness and in not being itself unjust.
Research Interests: Cognitive Science, Applied Ethics, Social Sciences, Stereotypes and Prejudice, Discrimination, and 9 moreDistributive Justice, Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, Philosophy of Social Science, Philosophy of Cognitive Science, Implicit Social Cognition, Social and Political Philosophy, Death Penalty, Philosophy of Implicit Bias, and Black Lives Matter
Meursault, the protagonist of Camus' The Stranger, is unable to grieve, a fact that ultimately leads to his condemnation and execution. Given the emotional distresses involved in grief, should we envy Camus or pity him? I defend the... more
Meursault, the protagonist of Camus' The Stranger, is unable to grieve, a fact that ultimately leads to his condemnation and execution. Given the emotional distresses involved in grief, should we envy Camus or pity him? I defend the latter conclusion. As St. Augustine seemed to dimly recognize, the pains of grief are integral to the process of bereavement, a process that both motivates and provides a distinctive opportunity to attain the good of self-knowledge.
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The various jurisdictions worldwide that now legally permit assisted suicide (or voluntary euthanasia) vary concerning the medical conditions needed to be legally eligible for assisted suicide. Some jurisdictions require that an... more
The various jurisdictions worldwide that now legally permit assisted suicide (or voluntary euthanasia) vary concerning the medical conditions needed to be legally eligible for assisted suicide. Some jurisdictions require that an individual be suffering from an unbearable and futile medical condition that cannot be alleviated. Others require that individuals must be suffering from a terminal illness that will result in death within a specified timeframe, such as six months. Popular and academic discourse about assisted suicide paradigmatically focuses on individuals with 'physical,' i.e., non-psychiatric medical conditions, such as cancer or AIDS. Here I defend analyses of the notions of unbearable suffering, futility, and terminality that imply that, regardless of which of these medical conditions is invoked, at least some individuals with severe and persistent psychiatric illnesses satisfy these conditions and ought to be classified as legally eligible for assisted suicide. The legal and moral case for a right to assisted suicide is therefore not in principle weaker for the severely psychiatrically disordered than for those with 'typical' terminal or futile medical conditions.
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Because an increasing number of patients have medical conditions that renders hem incompetent at making their own medical choices, more and more medical choices are now made by surrogates, often patient family members. However, many... more
Because an increasing number of patients have medical conditions that renders hem incompetent at making their own medical choices, more and more medical choices are now made by surrogates, often patient family members.
However, many studies indicate that surrogates often do not discharge their responsibilities adequately, and in particular, do not choose in accordance with what those patients would have chosen for themselves, especially when it comes to end-of-life medical choices. This chapter argues that a significant part of the explanation of such surrogate failure is that family surrogates are likely
to undergo anticipatory grief when making end-of-life decisions. After clarifying both the emotional structure and object of grief, I propose that the pending death of a loved one induces an emotional conflict in surrogates between the care demanded by their responsibilities as surrogates and the attachment surrogates feel toward their dying loved one, a conflict surrogates “resolve” in the direction of attachment rather than care. This hypothesis helps to explain both surrogates’ general inability to exercise “substituted judgment” on behalf of their loved ones and a wide swath of the particular data regarding this inability
(e.g., that surrogates more often err by choosing overtreatment). I conclude by considering possible clinical and philosophical responses to this hypothesis.
However, many studies indicate that surrogates often do not discharge their responsibilities adequately, and in particular, do not choose in accordance with what those patients would have chosen for themselves, especially when it comes to end-of-life medical choices. This chapter argues that a significant part of the explanation of such surrogate failure is that family surrogates are likely
to undergo anticipatory grief when making end-of-life decisions. After clarifying both the emotional structure and object of grief, I propose that the pending death of a loved one induces an emotional conflict in surrogates between the care demanded by their responsibilities as surrogates and the attachment surrogates feel toward their dying loved one, a conflict surrogates “resolve” in the direction of attachment rather than care. This hypothesis helps to explain both surrogates’ general inability to exercise “substituted judgment” on behalf of their loved ones and a wide swath of the particular data regarding this inability
(e.g., that surrogates more often err by choosing overtreatment). I conclude by considering possible clinical and philosophical responses to this hypothesis.
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Philosophical defenses of parents’ rights typically appeal to the interests of parents, the interests of children, or some combination of these. Here I propose that at least in the case of biological, non-adoptive parents, these rights... more
Philosophical defenses of parents’ rights typically appeal to the interests of parents, the interests of children, or some combination of these. Here I propose that at least in the case of biological, non-adoptive parents, these rights have a different normative basis: namely, these rights should be accorded to biological parents because of the compensatory duties such parents owe their children by virtue of having brought them into existence. Inspried by Seana Shiffrin, I argue that procreation inevitably encumbers the wills of children in otherwise morally objectionable ways. Such subjection generates duties to compensate children, even if the child’s life is on balance a benefit to her. The right to procreate is thus conditioned on prospective parent’s willingness to compensate for the harms of procreation. And because parents bear such compensatory duties, they must be accorded permissions (i.e., rights) to fulfill these duties. These rights include familiar exclusionary rights to promote children’s welfare, etc. Moreover, because subjecting children to harms or the risks thereof violates their autonomy, parental duties (and rights) include the provision of education and other goods that enable their subsequent autonomy as adults. Grounding parental rights in compensatory procreative duties avoids problems associated with appeals to the interests of children (e.g., that these interests do not seem to generate exclusive parental rights) or to the interests of parents (e.g., that these interests do not appear strong enough to permit the creation of a new, vulnerable human individual).
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Much of the literature on the desirability of immortality (inspired by B. Williams) has considered whether the goods of mortal life would be exhausted in an immortal life (whether, i.e., immortality would necessarily end in tedium).... more
Much of the literature on the desirability of immortality (inspired by B. Williams) has considered whether the goods of mortal life would be exhausted in an immortal life (whether, i.e., immortality would necessarily end in tedium). However, there has been very little discussion of whether the bads of mortal life would also be exhausted in an immortal life, and more generally, how good immortal life would be on balance, particularly in comparison to a mortal life. Here I argue that there are compelling reasons to favor a mortal over an immortal life because a mortal life offers a higher ceiling for well-being and assigns our agency a greater role in how our lives turn out.
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Numerous studies indicate that racial minorities are both more likely to be executed for murder and that those who murder them are less likely to be executed than if they murder whites. Death penalty opponents have long attempted to use... more
Numerous studies indicate that racial minorities are both more likely to be executed for murder and that those who murder them are less likely to be executed than if they murder whites. Death penalty opponents have long attempted to use these studies to argue for a moratorium on capital punishment. Whatever the merits of such arguments, they overlook the fact that such discrimination alters the costs of murder; racial discrimination imposes higher costs on minorities for murdering through tougher sentences, and it imposes lower costs on whites for murdering minorities by dispensing weaker sentences. These cost differentials constitute an injustice not simply to actual minority defendants in capital cases, nor simply to the actual minority victims of murder, but to all members of minority communities. I here offer two arguments for a moratorium on capital punishment: The first draws upon evidence of racial discrimination against minority defendants in capital cases, and claims that such discrimination modifies the costs of murder in such a way that minority individuals do not enjoy equal status under the law. The second draws upon the evidence regarding racial discrimination in relation to the race of victims, and claims that such discrimination modifies the costs of murder in such a way that minority individuals do not enjoy the equal protection of the law. Thus, by not assigning equal costs to murder, the American criminal justice system fails to provide racial minorities the equality under the law and discounts the value of their lives and liberties. A moratorium is the least unjust response to such a social injustice. I also reply to the criticism that a moratorium prevents us from executing deserving murderers.
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Defends Kantian paternalism: Interference with an individual’s liberty for her own sake is justified absent her actual consent only to the extent that such interference stands a reasonable chance of preventing her from exercising her... more
Defends Kantian paternalism:
Interference with an individual’s liberty for her own sake is justified absent her actual consent only to the extent that such interference stands a reasonable chance of preventing her from exercising her liberty irrationally in light of the rationally chosen ends that constitute her conception of the good. More specifically, interference with an individual’s liberty is permissible only if, by interfering, we stand a reasonable chance of preventing that agent from performing actions she chose due to distorted reasoning and which would result in that agent’s rationally chosen ends not being as fully realized as they would have been had she so acted.
Applied to suicide intervention Kantian paternalism implies that such intervention is justified to the extent that it prevents a person from ending her life when, due to distorted reasoning, she engages in suicidal behavior that is at odds with her rationally chosen ends.
Interference with an individual’s liberty for her own sake is justified absent her actual consent only to the extent that such interference stands a reasonable chance of preventing her from exercising her liberty irrationally in light of the rationally chosen ends that constitute her conception of the good. More specifically, interference with an individual’s liberty is permissible only if, by interfering, we stand a reasonable chance of preventing that agent from performing actions she chose due to distorted reasoning and which would result in that agent’s rationally chosen ends not being as fully realized as they would have been had she so acted.
Applied to suicide intervention Kantian paternalism implies that such intervention is justified to the extent that it prevents a person from ending her life when, due to distorted reasoning, she engages in suicidal behavior that is at odds with her rationally chosen ends.
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One principal challenge to the rationalist thesis that the demands of morality are requirements of rationality has been that posed by the "rational egoist." In attempting to answer's the egoist's challenge, some rationalists have supposed... more
One principal challenge to the rationalist thesis that the demands of morality are requirements of rationality has been that posed by the "rational egoist." In attempting to answer's the egoist's challenge, some rationalists have supposed that an adequate reply must take the form of a deductive argument that "converts" the egoist by showing that her position is contradictory, arbitrary, or violates some precept that defines practical rationality as such. Here I argue (a) that such rationalist replies will fail to persuade the egoist to adopt a recognizably moral way of life; (b) that this failure can be traced to epistemic assumptions that underlie typical rationalist replies; (c) that egoist conversion can better be understood by rejecting these assumptions and seeing egoist conversion as akin to a paradigm shift in the sciences; and (d) that conceptualizing egoist conversion as a paradigm shift accords with empirical psychological evidence regarding the acquisition and modification of individuals' moral attitudes and beliefs.
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According to rational will views of paternalism, the wrongmaking feature of paternalism is that paternalists disregard or fail to respect the rational will of the paternalized, in effect substituting their own presumably superior... more
According to rational will views of paternalism, the wrongmaking feature of paternalism is that paternalists disregard or fail to respect the rational will of the paternalized, in effect substituting their own presumably superior judgments about what ends the paternalized ought to pursue or how they ought to pursue them. Here I defend a version of the rational will view appealing to three rational powers that constitute rational agency, which I call recognition, discrimination, and satisfaction. By appealing to these powers, my version of the rational will view can rank the wrongfulness of paternalistic acts in terms of the extent to which such acts (a) amount to supplanting the paternalized individual’s identity as a rational agent with that of the paternalist, and (b) the degree of mistrust the paternalistic act shows in the paternalized individual’s rational agency. My rational powers account thus provides a more complete account of why paternalism is a powerful, but not decisive or absolute, objection to an act or policy. My rational powers account also provides powerful explanations of why rational suasion deflects charges of paternalism; why consenting to intercessions in one’s rational agency negates paternalism; why we ordinarily believe that strong paternalism is more objectionable than weak paternalism; and why we ordinarily believe that hard paternalism is more objectionable than soft paternalism.
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On the most plausible utilitarian account of the moral obligation to keep one’s promises, promises contribute to overall well-being by providing assurance that an individual will do what it is otherwise desirable to do or what conduces to... more
On the most plausible utilitarian account of the moral obligation to keep one’s promises, promises contribute to overall well-being by providing assurance that an individual will do what it is otherwise desirable to do or what conduces to maximal overall well-being. However, this same account implies that individuals are obligated to make promises whenever doing so generates a promise the keeping of which would maximize overall well-being. But because we are rarely, if ever, obligated to incur promissory obligations, utilitarianism is subject to a dilemma: Either their view must deny that there is even a prima facie general duty to keep promises, or affirm that there is such a duty, but only at the cost of maintaining that there is a very extensive duty to make promises. Utilitarianism must therefore require a plethora of promises or none at all.
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Advocates of a right to die increasingly assert both that the right in question is a positive right (a right to assistance in dying) and that the right in question is held against physicians or the medical community. Physician... more
Advocates of a right to die increasingly assert both that the right in question is a positive right (a right to assistance in dying) and that the right in question is held against physicians or the medical community. Physician organizations often reply that these claims to a positive right to die should be rejected on the grounds that medicine’s aims or ‘internal’ norms preclude physicians killing patients or assisting their patients in killing themselves.
The aim of this article is to rebut this reply. Rather than cast doubt on whether assisted dying is consistent with medicine’s ‘internal’ norms, I draw attention to the socioeconomic contexts in which contemporary medicine is practiced. Specifically, contemporary medicine typically functions as a public cartel, one implication of which is that physicians enjoy a monopoly on the most desirable life-ending technologies (fast acting lethal sedatives, etc.). While there may be defensible public health reasons for medicine functioning as a cartel and having this monopoly on desirable life-ending technologies, Rawlsian contract-based reasoning illustrates that the status of medicine as a cartel cannot be reconciled with its denying the public access to supervised use of desirable life-ending technologies. The ability to die in ways that reflect one’s conception of the good is arguably a primary social good, a good individuals have reason to want whatever else they may want. Individuals behind Rawls’ veil of ignorance, unaware of their health status, values, etc., will thus reason that they may well have a reasonable desire for the life-ending technologies the medical cartel currently monopolizes. They thus have reason to endorse a positive right to physician assistance in dying. On the assumption that access to desirable life-ending technologies will be controlled by the medical community, a just society does not permit that community to deny patients access to these technologies by appeal to medicine’s putative ‘internal’ aims or norms.
The most natural response to my Rawlsian argument is to suggest that it shows only that individuals have a positive right against the medical community to access life-ending technologies but not a right to access such technologies from individual physicians. Individual physicians could still refuse to provide such technologies as a matter of moral conscience. Such claims of conscience should be rejected however. A first difficulty with this proposal is that it is in principle possible for a sufficiently large number of individuals within a profession to invoke claims of conscience so as to materially hinder individuals from exercising their positive right to die, as appears to be the case in several jurisdictions with respect to abortion and other reproductive health treatments. Second, unlike conscientious objectors to military service, physicians who conscientiously object to providing assistance in dying would not be subject to fundamental deprivations of rights if they refused to provide assistance. Physicians who deny patients access to these technologies use their monopoly position in the service of a kind of moral paternalism, hoarding a public resource with which they have been entrusted so as to promote their own conception of the good over that of their patients.
The aim of this article is to rebut this reply. Rather than cast doubt on whether assisted dying is consistent with medicine’s ‘internal’ norms, I draw attention to the socioeconomic contexts in which contemporary medicine is practiced. Specifically, contemporary medicine typically functions as a public cartel, one implication of which is that physicians enjoy a monopoly on the most desirable life-ending technologies (fast acting lethal sedatives, etc.). While there may be defensible public health reasons for medicine functioning as a cartel and having this monopoly on desirable life-ending technologies, Rawlsian contract-based reasoning illustrates that the status of medicine as a cartel cannot be reconciled with its denying the public access to supervised use of desirable life-ending technologies. The ability to die in ways that reflect one’s conception of the good is arguably a primary social good, a good individuals have reason to want whatever else they may want. Individuals behind Rawls’ veil of ignorance, unaware of their health status, values, etc., will thus reason that they may well have a reasonable desire for the life-ending technologies the medical cartel currently monopolizes. They thus have reason to endorse a positive right to physician assistance in dying. On the assumption that access to desirable life-ending technologies will be controlled by the medical community, a just society does not permit that community to deny patients access to these technologies by appeal to medicine’s putative ‘internal’ aims or norms.
The most natural response to my Rawlsian argument is to suggest that it shows only that individuals have a positive right against the medical community to access life-ending technologies but not a right to access such technologies from individual physicians. Individual physicians could still refuse to provide such technologies as a matter of moral conscience. Such claims of conscience should be rejected however. A first difficulty with this proposal is that it is in principle possible for a sufficiently large number of individuals within a profession to invoke claims of conscience so as to materially hinder individuals from exercising their positive right to die, as appears to be the case in several jurisdictions with respect to abortion and other reproductive health treatments. Second, unlike conscientious objectors to military service, physicians who conscientiously object to providing assistance in dying would not be subject to fundamental deprivations of rights if they refused to provide assistance. Physicians who deny patients access to these technologies use their monopoly position in the service of a kind of moral paternalism, hoarding a public resource with which they have been entrusted so as to promote their own conception of the good over that of their patients.
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Samuel Scheffler has recently defended what he calls the 'afterlife conjecture', the claim that many of our evaluative attitudes and practices rest on the assumption that human beings will continue to exist after we die. Scheffler... more
Samuel Scheffler has recently defended what he calls the 'afterlife conjecture', the claim that many of our evaluative attitudes and practices rest on the assumption that human beings will continue to exist after we die. Scheffler contends that our endorsement of this claim reveals that our evaluative orientation has four features: non-experientialism, non-consequentialism, 'conservatism,' and future orientation. Here I argue that the connection between the afterlife conjecture and these four features is not as tight as Scheffler seems to suppose. In fact, those with an evaluative orientation that rejects these four features have equally strong moral reasons to endorse the existence of the collective afterlife.
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What I call medically enabled suicides have four distinctive features: 1. They are instigated by actions of a suicidal individual, actions she intends to result in a physiological condition that, absent lifesaving medical interventions,... more
What I call medically enabled suicides have four distinctive features:
1. They are instigated by actions of a suicidal individual, actions she intends to result in a physiological condition that, absent lifesaving medical interventions, would be otherwise fatal to that individual.
2. These suicides are ‘completed’ due to medical personnel acting in accordance with recognized legal or ethical protocols requiring the withholding or withdrawal of care from patients (e.g., following an approved advance directive).
3. The suicidal individual acts purposefully to ensure that medical personnel will act on these protocols.
4. These suicides do not involve medical personnel providing aid in dying in the standard sense, either through (a) active voluntary euthanasia, or (b) assistance by means of prescriptions, etc.
Regardless of how common medically enabled suicides are, they raise compelling questions at the interface of medicine and individual choice. After first clarifying the concept of medically enabled suicide and exploring some of the reasons why it might be attractive to suicidal individuals, I then investigate two apparent dilemmas that medically enabled suicides raise for medical care providers. The first alleges that medical care providers may not contribute to harming their patients, and so they may not contribute to their patients’ suicides. The second alleges that if care providers, as a matter of personal conscience, believe that suicide is wrong, then they may not be compelled to contribute to their patient’s acting wrongly by assenting to the wishes of a patient pursuing medically enabled suicide. Both dilemmas arise from the fact that while medical personnel are bound by widely accepted precepts of medical ethics to honor the competent wishes of their patients, medically enabled suicides entangle them in their patients’ suicidal plans in ways that result in their contributing to those suicides. I conclude that neither dilemma should be resolved in the direction of medical personnel having the right to refrain from involvement in medically enabled suicides. Thus, while we may find medically enabled suicide distasteful or exploitative, a strong case cannot be made that medical personnel refusing to involve themselves in such suicides is ethically permissible.
1. They are instigated by actions of a suicidal individual, actions she intends to result in a physiological condition that, absent lifesaving medical interventions, would be otherwise fatal to that individual.
2. These suicides are ‘completed’ due to medical personnel acting in accordance with recognized legal or ethical protocols requiring the withholding or withdrawal of care from patients (e.g., following an approved advance directive).
3. The suicidal individual acts purposefully to ensure that medical personnel will act on these protocols.
4. These suicides do not involve medical personnel providing aid in dying in the standard sense, either through (a) active voluntary euthanasia, or (b) assistance by means of prescriptions, etc.
Regardless of how common medically enabled suicides are, they raise compelling questions at the interface of medicine and individual choice. After first clarifying the concept of medically enabled suicide and exploring some of the reasons why it might be attractive to suicidal individuals, I then investigate two apparent dilemmas that medically enabled suicides raise for medical care providers. The first alleges that medical care providers may not contribute to harming their patients, and so they may not contribute to their patients’ suicides. The second alleges that if care providers, as a matter of personal conscience, believe that suicide is wrong, then they may not be compelled to contribute to their patient’s acting wrongly by assenting to the wishes of a patient pursuing medically enabled suicide. Both dilemmas arise from the fact that while medical personnel are bound by widely accepted precepts of medical ethics to honor the competent wishes of their patients, medically enabled suicides entangle them in their patients’ suicidal plans in ways that result in their contributing to those suicides. I conclude that neither dilemma should be resolved in the direction of medical personnel having the right to refrain from involvement in medically enabled suicides. Thus, while we may find medically enabled suicide distasteful or exploitative, a strong case cannot be made that medical personnel refusing to involve themselves in such suicides is ethically permissible.
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Grief is our emotional response to the deaths of intimates, and so like many other emotional conditions, it can be appraised in terms of its rationality. A philosophical account of grief’s rationality should satisfy a contingency... more
Grief is our emotional response to the deaths of intimates, and so like many other emotional conditions, it can be appraised in terms of its rationality. A philosophical account of grief’s rationality should satisfy a contingency constraint, wherein grief is neither intrinsically rational nor intrinsically irrational. Here I provide an account of grief and its rationality that satisfies this constraint, while also being faithful to the phenomenology of grief experience. I begin by arguing against the best known account of grief’s rationality, Gustafson’s strategic or forward-looking account, according to which the practical rationality of grief depends on the internal coherence of the component attitudes that explain the behaviors caused by grief, and more exactly, on how these attitudes enable the individual to realize states of affairs that she desires. While I do not deny that episodes of grief can be appraised in terms of their strategic rationality, I deny that strategic rationality is the essential or fundamental basis on which grief’s rationality should be appraised. In contrast, the heart of grief’s rationality is backward-looking. That is, what primarily makes an episode of grief rational qua grief is the fittingness of the attitudes individuals take toward the experience of a lost relationship, attitudes which in turn generate the desires and behaviors that constitute bereavement. Grief thus derives its essential rationality from the objects it responds to, not from the attitudes causally downstream from that response, and is necessarily irrational when the behaviors that constitute an individual’s grieving are inappropriate to the object of that grief. So while the strategic rationality of an episode of grief contributes to whether it is on the whole rational, no episode of grief can be rational unless the actions that constitute grieving accurately gauge the change in a person’s normative situation wrought by the loss of her relationship with the deceased.
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Thanks to recent scholarship, Kant is no longer seen as the dogmatic opponent of suicide he appears at first glance. However, some interpreters have recently argued for a Kantian view of the morality of suicide with surprising, even... more
Thanks to recent scholarship, Kant is no longer seen as the dogmatic opponent of suicide he appears at first glance. However, some interpreters have recently argued for a Kantian view of the morality of suicide with surprising, even radical, implications. More specifically, they have argued that Kantianism (a) requires that those with dementia or other rationality-eroding conditions end their lives before their condition results in their loss of identity as moral agents, and (b) requires subjecting the fully demented or those confronting future dementia to non-voluntary euthanasia. Properly understood, Kant’s ethics has neither of these implications. (a) wrongly assumes that rational agents’ duty of self-preservation entails a duty of self-destruction when they become non-rational. (b) further neglects Kant’s distinction between duties to self and duties to others and wrongly assumes that duties can be owed to rational agents only during the time of their existence.
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A significant body of research suggests that self-control and willpower are resources that become depleted as they are exercised. Having to exert self-control and willpower draws down the reservoir of these resources and make subsequent... more
A significant body of research suggests that self-control and willpower are resources that become depleted as they are exercised. Having to exert self-control and willpower draws down the reservoir of these resources and make subsequent such exercises more difficult. This “ego depletion” renders individuals more susceptible to manipulation by exerting non-rational influences on our choice and conduct. In particular, ego depletion results in later choices being less governable by our powers of self-control and willpower than earlier choices. I draw out three implications of this phenomenon: first, manipulation can exploit ego depletion through the fashioning of social environments that tax willpower or self-control; second, ego depletion undermines the Platonic-Aristotelian picture of character and strength of will; and third, ego depletion needs to be a more central focus of theorists of justice, since it appears to be a significant contributor to poverty and other persistent injustices.
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T.M. Scanlon has recently proposed what I term a 'double attitude' account of blame, wherein blame is the revision of one's attitudes in light of another person's conduct, conduct that we believe reveals that the individual lacks the... more
T.M. Scanlon has recently proposed what I term a 'double attitude' account of blame, wherein blame is the revision of one's attitudes in light of another person's conduct, conduct that we believe reveals that the individual lacks the normative attitudes we judge essential to our relationship with her. Scanlon proposes that this account justifies differences in blame that in turn reflect differences in outcome luck. Here I argue that although the double attitude account can justify blame's being sensitive to outcome
luck, it cannot justify allocating blame differently when agents with the same attitudes differ only with respect to the luck-based outcomes of their actions. However, Scanlon's own contractualist theory of morality can be invoked to show that the double
attitude account is compatible with blame-based sanctions (e.g., compensation mandated when negligence or reckless result in harm) being sensitive to outcome luck. The resultant view of blame and luck remains desert-based while making sense of the common intuition that differences in outcome luck can matter to how lucky and unlucky individuals are justifiably treated.
luck, it cannot justify allocating blame differently when agents with the same attitudes differ only with respect to the luck-based outcomes of their actions. However, Scanlon's own contractualist theory of morality can be invoked to show that the double
attitude account is compatible with blame-based sanctions (e.g., compensation mandated when negligence or reckless result in harm) being sensitive to outcome luck. The resultant view of blame and luck remains desert-based while making sense of the common intuition that differences in outcome luck can matter to how lucky and unlucky individuals are justifiably treated.
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Many participants in recent debates about assisted suicide and euthanasia defend a last resort condition on assisted dying: Individuals are only eligible for assistance in dying if they have exhausted a prescribed slate of treatments or... more
Many participants in recent debates about assisted suicide and euthanasia defend a last resort condition on assisted dying: Individuals are only eligible for assistance in dying if they have exhausted a prescribed slate of treatments or forms of care. Drawing on an analogy to the legal doctrine of unconstitutional conditions, I here argue that this last resort condition is unjust because it requires that individuals waive a more fundamental right, the right to medical self-determination, in order to acquire a less fundamental right, the right to assistance in dying. Two possible rationales for the last resort condition (that is serves as an adjunct to a condition of rational competence and that it serves to ‘medicalize’ assisted dying and thereby justifies physicians’ involvement in ending their patients’ lives) are also found wanting.
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Conservatives commonly claim that systems of formal education are biased against conservative ideology. I argue that this claim is incorrect, but not because there is no bias against conservatives in formal education. A wide swath of... more
Conservatives commonly claim that systems of formal education are biased against conservative ideology. I argue that this claim is incorrect, but not because there is no bias against conservatives in formal education. A wide swath of psychological evidence linking personality and ideology indicates that conservatives and liberals differ in their learning orientations, that is, in the values, motivations, and beliefs they bring to learning tasks. These differences in operative epistemologies explain many demographic phenomena relating educational achievement and political ideology. Systems of formal education thus disadvantage conservatives, especially in the later stages of formal education. Conservatives are therefore ‘selected against’ in the process of formal education, not due to their values or ideology but because their learning orientations are not especially conducive to academic success beyond a certain point. However, because the bias against conservatives in not ideological in origin, a case cannot be made that conservatives are victims of institutional injustice. This bias against conservatives in formal education could be mitigated were the purposes of formal education radically modified (the education of the military class in Plato’s Republic serves as a model). But such a model of formal education would ill serve the needs of modern, industrialized, information-driven societies.
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A common objection to consequentialism is that it cannot ascribe intrinsic moral significance to the special relationships we bear to our friends, family, loved ones, etc. However, little has been said about the prospect of a special... more
A common objection to consequentialism is that it cannot ascribe intrinsic moral significance to the special relationships we bear to our friends, family, loved ones, etc. However, little has been said about the prospect of a special moral relationship to self. Here I argue that such a relationship exists; that it has features distinguishing it from other putative special relationships, most notably, that it generates options rather than obligations; that making sense of such options requires positing that the self has a normative architecture wherein the self as agent and self as patient stand in an authority relation; and that consequentialism cannot make sense of such a normative architecture and so cannot make sense of the special relationship to self. Acknowledging a special relationship to self also modifies and strengthens the objection that consequentialism is too demanding on individual agents.
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Kant’s view that we have only indirect duties to animals fails to capture the intuitive notion that wronging animals transgresses duties we owe to those animals. Here I argue that Kantianism can allow for direct duties to animals, and in... more
Kant’s view that we have only indirect duties to animals fails to capture the intuitive notion that wronging animals transgresses duties we owe to those animals. Here I argue that Kantianism can allow for direct duties to animals, and in particular, an imperfect duty to promote animal welfare, without unduly compromising its core theoretical commitments, especially its claims concerning the source and nature of our duties toward rational beings. The basis for such duties is that animal welfare, on my revised Kantian view, is neither a conditioned nor unconditioned good, but a final and non-derivative good that ought to be treated as an end-in-itself. However, this duty to promote animal welfare operates according to a broadly consequentialist logic that both accords well with our considered judgments about our duties to animals and explains differences between these duties and duties to rational agents.
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Recent philosophical debates about moral dilemmas have focused on whether there are genuine dilemmas, situations in which an individual is subject to clashing obligations that cannot both be fulfilled. Realists affirm the existence of... more
Recent philosophical debates about moral dilemmas have focused on whether there are genuine dilemmas, situations in which an individual is subject to clashing obligations that cannot both be fulfilled. Realists affirm the existence of such situations, whereas irrealists deny them.Here I defend an alternative approach to moral dilemmas according to which the denial of genuine moral dilemmas functions as a regulative ideal for moral deliberation and practice. On this view, moral inquiry and deliberation operate on the implicit assumption that there are no genuine moral dilemmas, much in the fashion that Kant claimed scientific inquiry and deliberation operate on the implicit assumption that our scientific knowledge can be unified. The regulative ideal view is not a metaphysical position concerning whether there are genuine moral dilemmas and is thus officially agnostic about the existence of such dilemmas. It is instead a methodological stance taken up in practical reasoning and deliberation. The regulative ideal view (I argue) is superior to both realism and irrealism in accounting for two central features of the phenomenology of moral dilemmas. First, it can explain the rationality of the self-reproach that agents often experience subsequent to acting within apparent moral dilemmas. Second, it explains an important asymmetry between our first-personal and third-personal standpoints on moral dilemmas. If I am correct, then my view permits us to retain many of our beliefs and attitudes concerning moral dilemmas without hitching them to any controversial metaphysical stance about whether genuine moral dilemmas are real or not.
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Abstract By emphasising the intentions underlying suicidal behaviour, suicidal death is distinguished from accidental death in standard philosophical accounts on the nature of suicide. A crucial third class of self-produced deaths, deaths... more
Abstract By emphasising the intentions underlying suicidal behaviour, suicidal death is distinguished from accidental death in standard philosophical accounts on the nature of suicide. A crucial third class of self-produced deaths, deaths in which agents act neither intentionally nor accidentally to produce their own deaths, is left out by such accounts.
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Abstract: David Boonin has recently argued that although no existing theory of legal punishment provides adequate moral justification for the practice of punishing criminal wrongdoing, compulsory victim restitution (CVR) is a morally... more
Abstract: David Boonin has recently argued that although no existing theory of legal punishment provides adequate moral justification for the practice of punishing criminal wrongdoing, compulsory victim restitution (CVR) is a morally justified response to such wrongdoing. Here I argue that Boonin's thesis is false because CVR is a form of punishment.
Philosophical discussions of the morality of suicide have tended to focus on its justifiability from an agent's point of view rather than on the justifiability of attempts by others to intervene so as to prevent it. This paper addresses... more
Philosophical discussions of the morality of suicide have tended to focus on its justifiability from an agent's point of view rather than on the justifiability of attempts by others to intervene so as to prevent it. This paper addresses questions of suicide intervention within a broadly Kantian perspective. In such a perspective, a chief task is to determine the motives underlying most suicidal behaviour. Kant wrongly characterizes this motive as one of self–love or the pursuit of happiness. Psychiatric and scientific evidence suggests that suicide is instead motivated by a nihilistic disenchantment with the possibility of happiness which, at its apex, results in the loss of the individual's conception of her practical identity. Because of this, methods of intervention that appeal to agents’ happiness, while morally benign, will prove ineffective in forestalling suicide. At the same time, more aggressive methods violate the Kantian concern for autonomy. This apparent dilemma can be resolved by seeing suicide intervention as an action undertaken in non–ideal circumstances, where otherwise unjustified manipulation, coercion, or paternalism are morally permitted.
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The metatethical position known as motive internalism (MI) holds that moral beliefs are necessarily motivating. Adina Roskies (in Philosophical Psychology, 16) has recently argued against MI by citing patients with injuries to the... more
The metatethical position known as motive internalism (MI) holds that moral beliefs are necessarily motivating. Adina Roskies (in Philosophical Psychology, 16) has recently argued against MI by citing patients with injuries to the ventromedial (VM) cortex as counterexamples to MI. Roskies claims that not only do these patients not act in accordance with their professed moral beliefs, they exhibit no physiological or affective evidence of being motivated by these beliefs. I argue that Roskies' attempt to falsify MI is unpersuasive because the evidence used to attribute the relevant moral beliefs to VM patients is insufficient: Contra Roskies, that VM patients are proficient moral reasoners does not establish the presence of these moral beliefs. In addition, the linguistic evidence Roskies cites (a) is vulnerable to methodological worries about its reliability or authenticity, (b) does not override counterevidence derived from the patients' nonlinguistic behavior, and (c) is undermined by VM patients' inability to correctly attribute moral beliefs to others. I conclude with a proposal about how MI should be interpreted, given that it is not falsified by empirical evidence of the sort put forth by Roskies.
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Legal statutes prohibiting felons from voting result in nearly 4 million Americans, disproportionately African-American and male, being unable to vote. These felony disenfranchisement (FD) statutes have a long history and apparently enjoy... more
Legal statutes prohibiting felons from voting result in nearly 4 million Americans, disproportionately African-American and male, being unable to vote. These felony disenfranchisement (FD) statutes have a long history and apparently enjoy broad public support. Here I argue that despite the popularity and extensive history of these laws, denying felons the right to vote is an unjust form of punishment in a democratic state. FD serves none of the recognized purposes of punishment and may even exacerbate crime. My strategy is not to argue for this conclusion directly. Rather, I consider seven arguments for the moral legitimacy of FD, each of which will be found lacking. My emphasis falls not on the legal or constitutional questions associated with FD, but with its moral justification within a broadly liberal political framework. These arguments draw upon a variety of philosophical outlooks; three justify FD by appealing to justice or desert, three others justify FD based on its allegedly beneficial social consequences, and a final argument is a hybrid of both sorts of considerations. Not only do all these arguments fail, but eliminating FD could have salutary effects on our present climate of political discourse.
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Assertions of statements such as 'it's raining, but I don't believe it' are standard examples of what is known as Moore's paradox. Here I consider moral equivalents of such statements, statements wherein individuals affirm moral judgments... more
Assertions of statements such as 'it's raining, but I don't believe it' are standard examples of what is known as Moore's paradox. Here I consider moral equivalents of such statements, statements wherein individuals affirm moral judgments while also expressing motivational indifference to those judgments (such as 'hurting animals for fun is wrong, but I don't care'). I argue for four main conclusions concerning such statements:
1. Such statements are genuinely paradoxical, even if not contradictory.
2. This paradoxicality can be traced to a form of epistemic self-defeat that also explains the paradoxicality of ordinary Moore-paradoxical statements.
3. Although a simple form of internalism about moral judgment and motivation can explain the paradoxicality of these moral equivalents, a more plausible explanation can be provided that does not rely on this simple form of internalism.
4. The paradoxicality of such statements suggests a more credible understanding of the thesis that those who are not motivated by their moral judgments are irrational.
1. Such statements are genuinely paradoxical, even if not contradictory.
2. This paradoxicality can be traced to a form of epistemic self-defeat that also explains the paradoxicality of ordinary Moore-paradoxical statements.
3. Although a simple form of internalism about moral judgment and motivation can explain the paradoxicality of these moral equivalents, a more plausible explanation can be provided that does not rely on this simple form of internalism.
4. The paradoxicality of such statements suggests a more credible understanding of the thesis that those who are not motivated by their moral judgments are irrational.
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Though Kant calls the prohibition against suicide the first duty of human beings to themselves, his arguments for this duty lack his characteristic rigor and systematicity. The lack of a single authoritative Kantian approach to suicide... more
Though Kant calls the prohibition against suicide the first duty of human beings to themselves, his arguments for this duty lack his characteristic rigor and systematicity. The lack of a single authoritative Kantian approach to suicide casts doubt on what is generally regarded as an extreme and implausible position, to wit, that not only is suicide wrong in every circumstance, but is among the gravest moral wrongs. Here I try to remedy this lack of systematicity in order to show that Kant's position on suicide is more appealing and credible than it seems at first glance. Kant in fact offers three distinct lines of argument against suicide. The first, the chief argument in his Lectures on Ethics, holds that suicide violates the divine will, for in willing our own deaths we usurp God's right to determine the duration of our existence; as God's property, we are not entitled to end our own lives willfully. The second, rooted in the Groundwork, holds that suicide is incompatible with a system of willed ends conceived analogously with a system of nature, so a maxim to commit suicide cannot be coherently willed as a universal practical principle. The third argument, drawn from the Metaphysics of Morals, holds that because suicide obliterates the rational will from the world, and as the rational will is the source of moral worth, suicide cannot be consistently willed by beings subject to moral requirements. To authorize oneself to take one's own life, Kant claims, is to attempt 'to withdraw from all obligation.' We cannot, under the color of morality, seek to cancel the will that authorizes all obligation in the first place. This third argument is demonstrably superior to the other two in being both more philosophically plausible in its own right and more Kantian in flavor.
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T.M. Scanlon (1998) proposes that promise breaking is wrong because it shows manipulative disregard for the expectations for future behavior created by promising. I argue that this account of promissory obligation is mistaken in it own... more
T.M. Scanlon (1998) proposes that promise breaking is wrong because it shows manipulative disregard for the expectations for future behavior created by promising. I argue that this account of promissory obligation is mistaken in it own right, as well as being at odds with Scanlon's contractualism. I begin by placing Scanlon's account of promising within a tradition that treats the creation of expectations in promise recipients as central to promissory obligation. However, a counterexample to Scanlon's account, his case of the "Profligate Pal," will show that this view of promissory obligation, which I call the Expectations View, is incorrect. In its place, I propose an account of promissory obligation I call Promising as Accountability, according to which promising is a way of making oneself accountable to others for a future act. Not only is Promising as Accountability a more defensible approach to promissory obligation, it also better fits with certain general features of Scanlon's contractualism.
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Christine Korsgaard has argued recently that the thesis that reasons are "essentially public" undermines the distinction between agent-neutral and agent-relative reasons, thus refuting egoism by rejecting its commitment to the universal... more
Christine Korsgaard has argued recently that the thesis that reasons are "essentially public" undermines the distinction between agent-neutral and agent-relative reasons, thus refuting egoism by rejecting its commitment to the universal availability of agent-relative reasons. I conclude that Korsgaard's invocation of the essential publicity of reasons trades on ambiguities concerning the "sharing" of reasons and so does not refute egoism and does not ground moral normativity. Her account of the publicity of reasons shows that solipsism is incoherent, but the egoist need not be a solipsist, nor is she an incompetent user of moral language or the language of reasons.
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Philosophers have harbored doubts about the possibility of moral expertise since Plato. I argue that irrespective of whether moral experts exist, identifying who those experts are is insurmountable because of the credentials problem:... more
Philosophers have harbored doubts about the possibility of moral expertise since Plato. I argue that irrespective of whether moral experts exist, identifying who those experts are is insurmountable because of the credentials problem: Moral experts have no need to seek out others’ moral expertise, but moral non-experts lack sufficient knowledge to determine whether the advice provided by a putative moral expert in response to complex moral situations is correct and hence whether an individual is a bone fide expert. Traditional accounts of moral expertise require that moral experts give reliably correct moral advice supported by adequate justification, an account which, I argue, is too lean in allowing for the possibility of a moral expert who is motivationally indifferent to her own moral judgments and advice. Yet even if the proposition that a moral expert is an individual who provides reliably correct moral advice supported by adequate justification and is necessarily motivated by that advice exhausts the necessary and sufficient conditions for moral expertise, this proposition cannot function as an applicable criterion for non-experts to use in appraising would-be experts’ claims to expertise. The credentials problem thus remains unanswered.
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A chapter outline of the book on the philosophy of grief I have been developing
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Preface -/- Introduction -/- PART I -/- 1 Kant’s pursuit of the Supreme Principle of Morality -/- 2 The Categorical Imperative and the Kantian theory of value, part I -/- 3 The Categorical Imperative and the Kantian theory of value, part... more
Preface -/- Introduction -/- PART I -/- 1 Kant’s pursuit of the Supreme Principle of Morality -/- 2 The Categorical Imperative and the Kantian theory of value, part I -/- 3 The Categorical Imperative and the Kantian theory of value, part II -/- 4 Dignity -/- 5 Freedom, reason, and the possibility of the Categorical Imperative -/- PART II -/- 6 Objections to the Formula of Universal Law -/- 7 Three problems in Kant’s practical ethics -/- 8 Reason and sentiment: Kantian ethics in a good human life -/- Conclusion -/- Index .
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Suicide: The Philosophical Dimensions is a provocative and comprehensive investigation of the main philosophical issues surrounding suicide. Readers will encounter seminal arguments concerning the nature of suicide and its moral... more
Suicide: The Philosophical Dimensions is a provocative and comprehensive investigation of the main philosophical issues surrounding suicide. Readers will encounter seminal arguments concerning the nature of suicide and its moral permissibility, the duty to die, the rationality of suicide, and the ethics of suicide intervention. Intended both for students and for seasoned scholars, this book sheds much-needed philosophical light on one of the most puzzling and enigmatic human behaviors
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Robert Solomon's " On grief and gratitude " is perhaps the best known contemporary philosophical article on grief. There Solomon makes the provocative claim that there is a duty to grieve – that those who do not grieve or do not grieve... more
Robert Solomon's " On grief and gratitude " is perhaps the best known contemporary philosophical article on grief. There Solomon makes the provocative claim that there is a duty to grieve – that those who do not grieve or do not grieve sufficiently are subject to " the most severe moral censure, " that as a " moral emotion, " grief is not only an " appropriate reaction to the loss of a loved one, but also in a strong sense obligatory. " While Solomon offer reasons why grief speaks positively of a person's relations with others and why grief may contribute to the bereaved's well-being, he does not offer an explicit argument for the obligatoriness of grief. Here I consider a number of routes by which such a claim might be defended. If there is a duty to grieve, its object must be other living people (those with whom one shares grief at a particular person's death), the deceased for whom one grieves, or oneself. The first two, I argue, are likely to be candidates for duties of mourning, i.e., duties to engage in public or ritualistic memorialization or acknowledgements of the deceased's death, etc. Only the last, a duty to grieve owed to oneself, is a credible candidate for a duty to grieve. For insofar as grief is an egocentric activity, it responds to the death of a person with whom one stands in an identity-constituting relationship and hence involves the attempt to re-establish or place on new terms that relationship in light of that individual's death. The source of a self-concerning duty to grieve is that grief thus represents both an opportunity for, and motivator of, self-knowledge, that is, knowledge of one's practical identity and values. The duty to grieve, I conclude, is a non-enforceable duty to oneself whose non-fulfillment should elicit agent-centered regret.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This book flashed like a meteor across the philosophical firmament about a year ago, and its author enjoyed his fifteen minutes of media fame before quitting philosophy for the (presumably) much more lucrative profession of management... more
This book flashed like a meteor across the philosophical firmament about a year ago, and its author enjoyed his fifteen minutes of media fame before quitting philosophy for the (presumably) much more lucrative profession of management consultancy. It is easy to see why the book captured the attention of media pundits in a way that few works of political philosophy, alas, now do. It challenges a principle, equality of opportunity, that is absolutely central to the political thinking of our age, and it pulls few punches in the course of doing ...
Research Interests: Philosophy and Utilitas
Research Interests:
Non-compete agreements (NCA’s) disallow employees leaving a given firm and then making use of that firm’s ‘in-house’ knowledge to benefit its rivals. Traditional justifications of NCA’s assert that firms have a legitimate proprietary... more
Non-compete agreements (NCA’s) disallow employees leaving a given firm and then making use of that firm’s ‘in-house’ knowledge to benefit its rivals. Traditional justifications of NCA’s assert that firms have a legitimate proprietary interest in firm knowledge not being used against them by commercial competitors and in their human capital investments not being exploited by those competitors. NCA’s have grown increasingly popular in the U.S. and other nations, but critics contend that they are often procedurally unjust (entered into under duress or in ignorance, for example) and are economically detrimental because they diminish human capital investment, entrepreneurship, and innovation, etc. Here I offer a different framework for the ethical analysis of NCA’s — a fair shares framework —that conceptualizes claims to human capital benefits in terms of distributive justice in the development and distribution of human capital. According to this framework, individuals, firms, etc., that benefit from contributions to human capital are obligated (a) to provide their fair shares of investment in human capital and (b) to take no more than their fair share in human capital benefits. From a fair shares standpoint, by emphasizing firms’ claims to the benefits of human capital while overlooking its obligations concerning human capital investment, the traditional justification of NCA’s is incomplete. Rather, firms have a fair share obligation to society at large to contribute to the overall stock of human capital (through taxation, employee training, etc) while taking no more than their fair share of the benefits of human capital development. While firms can in principle utilize NCA’s in accordance with the demands of justice set by the fair shares framework, I conclude by pointing to socioeconomic trends wherein firms (especially politically influential industries and corporations) hoard human capital benefits while underinvesting in their production. In such a socioeconomic context, NCA’s will often be part of a pattern of distributive injustice in human capital development and distribution.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
A presentation outlining the case for basic income as reparations for historical injustice. Using discrimination and oppression of Black Americans as a test case, I argue that, suitably crafted, basic income could function as a morally... more
A presentation outlining the case for basic income as reparations for historical injustice. Using discrimination and oppression of Black Americans as a test case, I argue that, suitably crafted, basic income could function as a morally and materially adequate form of reparations for such discrimination and oppression if accompanied by apology and other forms of historical reckoning. I conclude by highlight several moral and political advantages of utilizing basic income as a form of reparations.
Research Interests:
My conclusions: Scepticism toward adaptive preferences rests almost entirely on what they are preferences for — unjust states of affairs — rather than on - their impact on individual well-being - whether AP’s are autonomous - how they... more
My conclusions:
Scepticism toward adaptive preferences rests almost entirely on what they are preferences for — unjust states of affairs — rather than on
- their impact on individual well-being
- whether AP’s are autonomous
- how they reflect individuals’ responses to different slates of options (i.e., that AP’s are ‘adaptive’)
Should devote more concern to how AP’s are tacitly other-regarding -- are more belief-like than preference-like
Scepticism toward adaptive preferences rests almost entirely on what they are preferences for — unjust states of affairs — rather than on
- their impact on individual well-being
- whether AP’s are autonomous
- how they reflect individuals’ responses to different slates of options (i.e., that AP’s are ‘adaptive’)
Should devote more concern to how AP’s are tacitly other-regarding -- are more belief-like than preference-like
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Libertarian paternalists such as Cass Sunstein favor approaches to public and institutional policy that encourage individuals to choose in accordance with their own values or preferences without coercing them to choose in these ways. The... more
Libertarian paternalists such as Cass Sunstein favor approaches to public and institutional policy that encourage individuals to choose in accordance with their own values or preferences without coercing them to choose in these ways. The use of nudges, default rules, choice architecture, etc. are supposed to be morally unproblematic despite being paternalistic: When (for example) a cafeteria places healthier foods at eye level, individuals are more likely to opt for these foods but are not coerced into opting for them. Libertarian paternalism thus purports to promotes individuals’ well-being while still respecting their autonomy or rational agency. Here I argue that Sunstein and other libertarian paternalists are correct in arguing that libertarian paternalism is not coercive but are incorrect about why: Coercion need not 'close off’ an individual’s options. Rather, libertarian paternalism is not coercion because it communicates neither a threat nor an offer for its target to treat as a reason for acting. However, libertarian paternalism is a form of morally suspect manipulation inasmuch as it takes advantages of common weaknesses of practical reasoning and decision making. Whereas coercion wrongfully engages with an individual’s practical rationality, manipulation of the sort advocated by libertarian paternalists circumvents our rational powers and so fails to treat us as equal rational agents. The larger lesson is that respecting rational agency is not rooted in how our actions make available or foreclose options to others but in how our actions influence others' exercise of their rational decision making capacities.