Book review Jeremy Snyder, “Exploiting Hope. How the Promise of New Medical Interventions Sustains Us—and Makes Us Vulnerable”, 2021, Oxford University Press
This article discussed Jeremy Snyder ’s book “Exploiting Hope. How the Promise of New Medical Interventions Sustains Us—and Makes Us Vulnerable”, 2021, Oxford University Press. (Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice)
Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - October 28, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Low-Skilled Migrants and the Historical Reproduction of Immigration Injustice
AbstractLow-skilled migrants in wealthy receiving states are routinely subordinated across a range of social contexts. There is a rich philosophical literature on the inferiorizing effects of “crimmigration”—that is, the growing criminalization of unauthorized migrants and the state’s use of uniquely harsh law enforcement methods against them. Yet there is less interest in the existing racialized division of migrant labor. Low-skilled Latino/a/x migrants disproportionately perfo rm “dirty” and “difficult” work that citizens do not wish to perform. Theoretically, this division of labor is compatible with a ...
Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - October 27, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
The Sources of Political Normativity: the Case for Instrumental and Epistemic Normativity in Political Realism
This article argues that political realists have at least two strategies to provide distinctively political normative judgments that have nothing to do with morality. The first ground is instrumental normativity, which states that if we believe that something is a necessary means to a goal we have, we have a reason to do it. In politics, certain means are required by any ends we may intend to purse. The second ground is epistemic normativity, stating that if something is (empirically) true, this gives us a reason to believe it. In politics, there are certain empirical regularities that ought to be acknowledged for what the...
Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - October 27, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
The Problem(s) of Constituting the Demos: A (Set of) Solution(s)
AbstractWhen collective decisions should be made democratically, which people form the relevant demos? Many theorists think this question is an embarrassment to democratic theory: (1) because any decision about who forms the demos must be made democratically by the right demos, which itself must be democratically constituted and so on ad infinitum; and (2) because neither the concept of democracy, nor (3) our reasons for caring about democracy, determine who should form the demos. Having distinguished between these three versions of the demos problem, we argue that each of them can be solved. (Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice)
Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - October 1, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
The Timing of Research Consent
AbstractThis essay is about the timing of research consent, a process that involves (potential) participants being given information about, among other things, upcoming research interventions and then being invited to waive their claims against those interventions being undertaken. The standard practice, as regards timing, is as follows: (potential) participants are invited to waive all their claims at a single moment in time, and that point in time immediately follows the information-provision. I argue that there we ’re not justified in keeping to this practice. What we ought to do is disaggregate the claim-waiving part...
Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - September 28, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Moral Uncertainty and Distributive Sufficiency
AbstractAccording to the sufficiency principle, distributive justice requires that everyone have some sufficient level of resources or well-being, but inequalities above this threshold have no moral significance. This paper defends a version of the sufficiency principle as the appropriate response to moral uncertainty about distributive justice. Assuming that the appropriate response to moral uncertainty is to maximize expected choiceworthiness, and given a reasonable distribution of credence in some familiar views about distributive justice (including libertarianism, sufficientarianism, and egalitarianism), a version of t...
Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - September 28, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
On the Harm of Imposing Risk of Harm
AbstractWhat is wrong with imposing pure risks, that is, risks that don ’t materialize into harm? According to a popular response, imposing pure risks ispro tanto wrong, when and because risk itself is harmful. Call this the Harm View. Defenders of this view make one of the following two claims. On the Constitutive Claim, pure risk imposition ispro tanto wrong when and because risk constitutes diminishing one ’s well-being viz. preference-frustration or setting-back their legitimate interest in autonomy. On the Contingent Claim, pure risk imposition ispro tanto wrong when and because risk has harmful consequences for t...
Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - September 24, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Distinguishing Disadvantage from Ill-Being in the Capability Approach
AbstractCentral capabilitarian theories of well-being focus exclusively on actual opportunities to attain states of being and doing that people have reason to value. Consequently, these theories characterise ill-being and disadvantage as deprivations of such opportunities and attainments. However, some well-being aspects are inherently negative. They make up the difference betweennot being well andbeing unwell in that they constitute ill-being. While disadvantage can be plausibly captured by deprivations, ill-being cannot be fully captured by them. I support this claim by analysing cases involving inherently negative aspec...
Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - September 22, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Correction to: In Search of the Trinity: A Dilemma for Parfit ’s Conciliatory Project
(Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice)
Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - September 21, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Imagination and the Experience of Moral Objectivity
AbstractDifferent notions of objectivity support different notions of what is required for a moral value or obligation to be experienced as objective. If the objectivity of a property (moral or otherwise) requires that it can exist even when we fail to notice its existence, thenexperiencing a property (moral or otherwise)as objective will require that we imagine it appearing in some way that is not presently available to us. Explaining what that imagining involves is the central task of this paper. Defending the epistemic value of such imagining is a secondary aim. (Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice)
Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - September 18, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Articulating Better, Being Better: Ethical Emancipation and the Sources of Motivation
AbstractContemporary philosophy of moral motivation has much to say about the nature of moral beliefs and truths, but it has less to say about emancipation. By neglecting to discuss the emancipatory aspect of motivation, I argue, moral epistemology is neglecting a topic that should be central. Starting from Charles Taylor ’s concern for the status of moral sources, the paper’s main points are (1) that moral motivation has a distinctive emancipatory dimension which has been largely neglected in mainstream debates; (2) that the issue of emancipation can only be adequately conceptualized at the intersection of norma tive ...
Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - September 17, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Esteem, Social Norms and Status Inequality
AbstractWhen we appraise others as talented or virtuous, we esteem them: we register admiration of their traits and virtues. It is generally believed that, unless they involve a violation of respect, distributions of esteem are not a concern from the point of view of justice. In this paper, I want to dispute this commonly-held view. I will argue that attributions of esteem can become problematic when a particular trait becomes such a uniquely relevant source of social esteem in a community that its absence becomes a reason to regard others as less than full members of the community. For instance, in contemporary capitalist...
Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - September 17, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Richard Rowland: Moral Disagreement
(Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice)
Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - September 10, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
The Moral Virtue of Being Understanding
AbstractBeing understanding is a moral virtue. But what exactly is it that an understanding person does excellently? And what exactly makes it a moral virtue, rather than (merely) an intellectual one? Stephen Grimm suggests that an understanding person judges other people ’s moral failings accurately without being too permissive or too judgemental. I argue against this view and develop an alternative one. First I demonstrate that judging other people’s failures accurately is neither necessary nor sufficient for being understanding and that Grimm leaves the moral nature of being understanding underexplored. I then draw ...
Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - September 5, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Sympathetic Respect, Respectful Sympathy
AbstractTo be more than a meta-ethical stance, moral phenomenology must provide an account of moral norms. This paper unites two sorts of phenomenological considerations. The first considers the teleological character of intentional experiences as ordered toward"truthfulness" in all the spheres of reason (cognitive-theoretical, axiological, and practical) and toward a notion of self-responsibility for our beliefs, attitudes, and actions as the flourishing of rational agents. The second considers the phenomenological tradition's identification of empathy as the experience in which we encounter others as conscious ...
Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - August 26, 2021 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
