Category Archives: Deontology and Moral Responsibility
Andrei Poama, ‘A Distinction with a Difference: Aristotle’s Division of Particular Justice and Its Practical Significance’
Abstract In this chapter, I advance an interpretation of Aristotle’s division of particular justice into distributive and corrective justice. I do so by relying on two closely connected arguments. First, I argue that, properly understood, distributive justice regulates the fair allocation of common goods among the members of a polity based on principles of worth, […]
Raphael Cohen-Almagor, ‘On the Philosophical Foundations of Medical Ethics: Aristotle, Kant, JS Mill and Rawls’
Abstract This article aims to trace back some of the theoretical foundations of medical ethics that stem from the philosophies of Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill and John Rawls. The four philosophers had in mind rational and autonomous human beings who are able to decide their destiny, who pave for themselves the path for […]
Hannikainen, Machery and Cushman, ‘Is utilitarian sacrifice becoming more morally permissible?’
Abstract A central tenet of contemporary moral psychology is that people typically reject active forms of utilitarian sacrifice. Yet, evidence for secularization and declining empathic concern in recent decades suggests the possibility of systematic change in this attitude. In the present study, we employ hypothetical dilemmas to investigate whether judgments of utilitarian sacrifice are becoming […]
Zamir and Medina, ‘Deontological Morality and Economic Analysis of Law’
Abstract Welfare economics – the normative branch of economics – is a consequentialist moral theory. Unlike deontological morality, at least in its basic form it attributes no intrinsic value to prohibitions on active or intentional harming of other people, lying, or promise breaking, and does not allow people to prioritize their own interests over the […]
Alejandro Miranda, ‘Consequentialism, the Action/Omission Distinction, and the Principle of Double Effect: Three Rival Criteria to Solve Vital Conflicts in Cases of Necessity’
Abstract In this paper, the principle of double effect is compared with two other methods to solve vital conflicts in cases of necessity, ie, situations in which the life of a person can only be saved by an action that causes the death of another. After determining some key concepts, the consequentialist method of moral […]
Sean Fleming, ‘Moral agents and legal persons: the ethics and the law of state responsibility’
Abstract Why, if at all, does it make sense to assign some responsibilities to states rather than to individuals? There are two contemporary answers. According to the agential theory, states can be held responsible because they are moral agents, much like human beings. According to the functional theory, states can be held responsible because they […]
David Enoch, ‘Hypothetical Consent and the Value(s) of Autonomy’
Abstract Hypothetical consent is puzzling. On the one hand, it seems to make a moral difference across a wide range of cases. On the other hand, there seem to be principled reasons to think that it cannot. In this article I put forward reasonably precise formulations of these general suspicions regarding hypothetical consent; I draw […]
Eric Claeys, ‘Intellectual Property and Practical Reason’
Abstract In scholarship on intellectual property (‘IP’), philosophical justifications for IP rights seem to suffer from one of two flaws. To some, philosophical justifications are too indeterminate to offer concrete guidance about rights in practice. To others, philosophical justifications seem extreme; they mandate certain conclusions without letting decision makers consider the relevant context or consequences […]
Avihay Dorfman, ‘Against Market Insularity: Market, Responsibility, and Law’
Abstract: In this paper, I take stock of some leading attempts to drive a wedge between distinctively market reasoning and practical (including moral) reasoning. Although these attempts focus on different normative foundations – the epistemology of market interaction, the autonomy of its participants, the stability-enhancing quality of markets, and the authority of democratic decision-making – […]
Joseph Raz, ‘Can Moral Principles Change?’
Abstract: The paper considers the main arguments against the possibility that basic normative principles can change, and finds them wanting. The principal argument discussed derives from the claim that normative considerations are intelligible, and therefore that they can be explained, and their explanations presuppose the prior existence of basic normative principles. The intelligibility thesis is […]