Browse Papers

The author develops a "folk" epistemology and shows that the theoretical commitments underlying our everyday practices of assertaion, belief, and challenge provide a justification of democratic politics that transcends deep divisions at the level of citizens' moral and religious comprehensive doctrines.

Carl Cohen's arguments against animal rights are shown to be unsound. His strategy entails that animals have rights, that humans do not, the negations of those conclusions, and other false and inconsistent implications. His main premise seems to imply that one can fail all tests and assignments in a class and yet easily pass if one's peers are passing and that one can become a convicted criminal merely by setting foot in a prison. However, since his moral principles imply that nearly all exploitive uses of animals are wrong anyway, foes of animal rights are advised to seek philosophical consolations elsewhere. I note that some other philosopher's arguments are subject to similar objections.

The Japanese disability movement in the 1970s posed an important question about our inner eugenic thought. Their arguments should be one of the focuses of attention for bioethics and philosophy of life in the 21st century. Their philosophy is comparable with DPI’s declaration, “The Right to Live and be Different,” published in 2000. They thought that technology of selective abortion was dangerous because it systematically deprives us of a sense of security (=the fundamental sense of security) that our existence is being accepted unconditionally. They were considered to be seeking “life studies,” which has broader and deeper meanings than contemporary bioethics.

There are at least two models of what it is to be a feminist ethicist or moral philosopher. One model requires that one accept a distinctively feminist ethical theory. I will argue against this model by arguing that since the concept of a feminist ethical theory is highly unclear, any claim that ethicists who are feminist need one is also unclear and inadequately defended. I will advocate what I call a "minimal model" of feminist ethics, arguing that it is philosophically and practically sufficient to meet feminist goals.

What we think about equality as a value will influence how we think genetic interventions should be regulated. In this paper I utilise the taxonomy of equality put forth by Derek Parfit and apply this to the issue of genetic interventions. I argue that Telic Egalitarianism is untenable and that Deontic Egalitarianism collapses into the Priority View. The Priority View maintains that it is morally more important to benefit those who are worse off. Once this precision has been given to the concerns egalitarians have a number of diverse issues must be considered before determining what the just regulation of genetic interventions would be. Consideration must be given to the current situation of the current situation of the least advantaged, the fiscal realities behind genetic interventions, the budget constraints on other programmes egalitarians believe should receive scarce public funds and the interconnected nature of genetic information. These considerations might lead egalitarians to abandon what they take to be the obvious policy recommendations for them to endorse regarding the regulation of genetic therapies and enhancements.

In this paper I put forth a new interpretation of historical materialism entitled the "supervenient interpretation". Drawing on the insights of Analytical Marxism and utilising the concept of supervenience, I advance two claims. Firstly, that Marx's synchronic materialism maintains that the superstructure supervene naturally on the economic structure. Secondly, that diachronic materialism maintains that the relations of production supervene naturally on the forces of production. Taken together, these two theses help bring to the fore the central tenets of historical materialism. Furthermore, they help resolve what I call the problem of reductionism and the problem of verification.

"Positive" emotions like affection, sympathy, hope, and trust are, in what they can do for and to us, Janus-faced. Turning one face, all of these emotions, and the relationships and activities they typically arise within, are the source of much that is valuable in human life. Turning the other, less-pleasant face, they make us vulnerable to harm in a range of ways. Many positive emotions are capable of being disappointed, which may be bring with it a powerful and painful feeling of disappointment. They also provide other people points of access, so to speak, where they may wound us or take advantage.

Many of these vulnerabilities are inevitable, and the notion that we must choose between forgoing the goods of emotional experience and risking pain is a familiar one. Part of what I want to suggest here, however, is that not all vulnerabilities that have the potential to accompany our emotional experience are inevitable—or at least there is the potential for a much deeper vulnerability than a rich and meaningful emotional experience entails. A careful analysis of the different kinds of vulnerabilities involved in feeling an emotion places us in a better position to enjoy that emotion’s kinder gaze. Here I analyze the ways that one emotion—hope—can make us vulnerable to one kind of harm—exploitation—in order to start constructing a framework for thinking more generally about emotions and the ways they open us to harm.

The paper presents two arguments against the idea of private intellectual property: 1. a modern argument, derived from a parallel reading of two essays of Kant: Von der Unrechtmäßigkeit des Büchernachdrucks and Über ein vermeintes Recht aus Meschenliebe zu lügen that should explain why Kant refused to apply the concepts of private property to ideas and speeches 2. an ancient, and more basic argument, from Plato's Meno and his idea of anamnesis: research and learning can work – and avoid Meno's paradox – only if it is assumed a previous continuum of a common, contextual and interconnected knowledge

The political liberalism of Rawls and Larmore is presented as uniquely able to solve the problems of modern political theory. In the face of a plurality of reasonable comprehensive conceptions of the good, a legitimate liberal state can legislate solely on the basis of a modular conception of justice affirmed from within each reasonable conception. However, it is argued that this view, while restrictive, has to permit the promotion of its own pre-conditions. This demanding duty of civic restraint requires citizens who have been educated for citizen virtue in the context of associational life in civil society. This challenge to expand liberalism to cover its own preconditions at the level of a moral background culture, has usually been levelled by one kind of republican/communitarian (Charles Taylor) or so-called "ethical liberals". It can be met by the adoption of a liberal republicanism that operates within the constraints of Rawls' political liberalism but nevertheless explains and justifies why such a view must treat traditional republican themes such as active citizenship and the importance of associational life. The solution lies in treating these values as option values, in a sense that is explained.