The Golden Rule (“what you want done [or not done] to yourself, do [or don’t do] to others”) is the most widely accepted summary statement of human morality, and even today it continues to have philosophical supporters. This article argues that the Golden Rule suffers from four faults, the first two related to the ethics of justice and the second two related to the ethics of benevolence. One, it fails to explain how to deal with non-reciprocation. Two, it fails to make clear that my obligations are obligations regardless of how I would wish to be treated by others. Three, it lacks any special value in explaining the right occasions for benevolence. And, four, it has no power to motivate benevolence.

What makes a good leader? This paper takes Socrates in Plato’s early dialogues as the starting point for developing three leadership skills that are still relevant today: being on a mission, thinking in questions, and thinking like a beginner. I arrive at these Socratic leadership skills through an interdisciplinary approach to Plato’s early dialogues that puts Socrates in conversation with a diversity of thinkers: modern-day business leaders and leadership coaches, educators, Zen Buddhists, and art historians. I show that Socratic leadership skills are valued in today’s business world, and I propose concrete exercises that can help anyone acquire these skills. In contrast to Platonic leadership—the leadership skills of the philosopher king—Socratic leadership skills have not been the focus of much investigation. This paper aims to advance a scholarly conversation about Socrates as a leadership model.

As self-conscious curators and critics of moral history, the early Confucians are relevant to the contemporary debate over the fate of memorials dedicated to morally flawed individuals. They provide us with a pragmatic justification that is distinct from those utilized in the current debate, and in many respects superior to the alternatives. In addition to supplying this curative philosophic resource, the early Confucian practices of ancestral memorialization suggest preventative measures we might adopt to minimize the chances of establishing divisive and oppressive memorials in the future.

The Living Wage Movement (LWM) should be evaluated on whether it enables more people, or people willing to work, to lead a decent life. But, first, to the extent that it succeeds in getting some workers up to that threshold it is likely to make it harder for other workers to do the same. Second, to the extent that it succeeds in getting some workers up to that threshold it is likely to make it harder for non-workers to do the same. The LWM is likely afflicted with these problems to a greater extent than is the Minimum Wage Movement.

Iain Thomson proposes that Heidegger’s notion of “being as such” should be regarded as the core concept of ecophenomenology. Here, we attempt to tease out further nuances of this concept by juxtaposing Thomas Sheehan’s interpretation of “being as such” with that of Ian Thomson. We demonstrate that Sheehan’s reading of “being as such” as the intrinsic-hidden-clearing aligns with Thomson’s interpretation, and further adds a nuanced hermeneutic-phenomenological understanding of the concept in Heidegger scholarship. We suggest that this reconciliation—which portrays that “being as such” qua ex-sistence qua the intrinsic-hidden-clearing denotes the same transcen­dental realm—is imperative to guide ecophenomenology to proceed further towards attaining its core philosophy of “back to the thing itself.” This reconciliation helps us go beyond safeguarding a particular thing or an ecosystem. Alternatively, it emphasizes the manner in which a respectful awareness of the “being as such” can build empathy toward the excess that a thing always possesses in our relation to it. This could give rise to an ethic of relationship.

The paper identifies a view of work that has become prominent in recent years: The view in question is that work is “split” into two main forms: “manual” and “intellectual.” These two forms of work are seen socially as being completely opposed to one another and stereotypes abound on both sides about the people who do them. The paper calls this view “The Manichean View of Work” after the Ancient Persian religion. It is argued that this view is based on an erroneous philosophical position of dualism, a split between mind and body, that derives from the Greeks and was formalised by such thinkers as Ibn Sina and Rene Descartes, which has filtered down into all of Western society. A new, more inclusive definition of work is offered, along with criticisms of the “Manichean View.” Lastly, as a counter to the Western view, an argument based on Zen Buddhist philosophy, which views manual work positively, is given before some practical ways by which the split can be healed as a conclusion.

Just war theory has traditionally accepted revolutionary overthrow of an undemocratic government as a just cause but not foreign intervention for the same purpose. For many contemporary cosmopolitan theorists this asymmetry involves an indefensible inconsistency. For example, Ned Dobos argues that it is only a potential foreign intervener’s duty to its own citizens and soldiers, not any additional duty of non-intervention, that places additional restrictions upon the use of force across borders. I defend insurrection/intervention asymmetry, arguing that due to several intersecting practical difficulties, intervention has a higher threshold of just cause. I argue that interven­tion’s high costs and low likelihood of success, intervener’s limited ability to evaluate the validity of democratic intervention, and the effects of intervention on the international system, lead to a stronger presumption against intervention than revolution. In particular, democratization is a just cause for revolution but not humanitarian intervention.

Philosophers have said surprisingly little about academic freedom, considering how central it is to liberal societies. This article takes a holistic approach to the topic by developing a framework for philosophical analyses of academic freedom. It treats the definition, extent, and justification of academic freedom, arguing in favor of an individualist account thereof. The complete theory is constructed using the same methods and moral arguments as in analyses of other liberal freedoms, such as freedom of speech and association, which means that the account is fully integrable in all liberal societies.

Suppose we morally ought to maximize social welfare. Suppose profit maxi­mization is a means to maximize social welfare. Does this imply that we morally ought to maximize profits? Many proponents of the view that we have a moral obligation to maximize profits (tacitly) assume the validity of this argument. In this paper, we critically assess this assumption. We show that the validity of this argument is far from trivial and requires a careful argumentative defence.

The criticism of neoliberalism is omnipresent. The term is seemingly self-explanatory, but its original use in public has been forgotten. Its form originated in the international movement of ordoliberalism in the 1930s, which used neoliberalism to describe its distinction from laissez-faire capitalism. This conceptual confusion has cre­ated considerable consequential problems that overlay today’s debate on the future of the market economy. The fact that the neoliberalism of the ordoliberals is today equated by its critics with the capitalism of the libertarians raises questions. Since the economic dogma of Milton Friedman, who was the inspiration for the so-called Chicago Boys in Chile, whose economic policy was first captured by today’s negatively connoted term neoliberalism, this approach needs to be looked at more closely. Should the ideas of the Chicago school of thought substantially distinguish themselves from the other currents of economic liberalism, a solution to the confusion of terms could be possible, giving a new twist to the debate on the market economy. Such a clarifiation would be of fun­damental importance for the ethical question of the social orientation of the economic order, since ordoliberalism was in turn the godfather of the social market economy. Furthermore, this would have consequences for applied political ethics in the context of political theories of justice, whose theoretical constructs reflect the existing economic order as a fact of experience.

Among the most common suggestions one hears about how to improve pedagogy is for teachers to recast the information they are teaching into a narrative story form. In this paper, I argue that student understanding likely is improved by putting information into this form (even if student knowledge is not). Still, there are some disadvantages of the story form. This paper discusses how to maximize these advantages while minimizing the disadvantages of the story form.

Abstract: Misinformation, disinformation, or fake news pose a new societal challenge. Through Kantian philosophy, we postulate this as an ethical challenge, one driven by social forces that shape social media’s use towards unethical knowledge production. However, automated or intelligent technologies can also be a solution in acting as a polygraph on social media platforms. We propose such technology could be ethical-by-design if we bring moral philosophy into a software architecture. Kant’s philosophical formalism is well-aligned with computing logic, especially blockchain applications. However, we must also remain highly vigilant to the conceptual complexities, the existing critiques on Kantian ethics and deontology, and the general approach of imbuing moral thinking into a machine-especially if based on only one, rather hard-lined philosophy. While the principled nature of Kant’s propositions make for a suitable architecture, it poses in itself critical ethical concerns and considerations.

Although separated by almost a decade, there are two relatively recent United States Supreme Court cases involving the first Amendment religion clauses and educational funding. Both cases involved public monies diverted for sectarian educa­tional purposes. One case brought by a plaintiff challenging the diversion; the other by a plaintiff challenging the cession of the diversion. The comparison, contrast and evaluation of the two cases is the intended goal of this essay and is predicated upon the fact that while both cases essentially yield the same result, neither employs the same justifying foundational argument employed by the other. Finally, understanding these two cases may serve as a predicate to a third educational case now before the United States Supreme Court during the 2021 term.

Abstract: Even a dog can tell if he was tripped over or kicked. Would entrepreneurs know? To slow down the progress of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, many states have taken restrictive measures, including the closing of private businesses. Are entrepreneurs therefore entitled to compensation? The answer is not obvious. In this paper, I suggest a solution which follows from a si mple test inspired by the famous trolley dilemma, asking whether the state used entrepreneurs as instruments (means) to slow down the pandemic. I argue that entrepreneurs were not “used” that way, which is why they possess no moral claim to compensation for the harm caused by the closure. However, I do argue for at least a moral claim of theirs to satisfaction. For the possible disruption of their relationship with other citizens, rather than for the monetary damage they were forced to bear.

Proportionality matters. Intuitively, proportionality sets the ceiling on the amount of defensive violence that is permissible. A plausible view is that what justifies proportionality also justifies other defensive-violence requirements—for example, discrimination and necessity—and shows why other purported requirements are mistaken—for example, imminence. I argue that if defensive-violence proportionality is a part of moral reality, then there is a systematic justification of it. If there is a systematic justification of proportionality, then there is an adequate equation for it. There is no adequate equation for proportionality. Hence, proportionality is not part of moral reality. As a result, non-consequentialism does not justify defensive violence. The last part of this paper briefly applies these findings to vaccine mandates.

As an account of food, associationism has shortcomings as an explana­tion of taste and eating. It maintains that only ideas are associated or related to one another and not perceptions. Perceptions, according to this theory, are independent of one another. Food presents a challenge for associationism because food has a cogni­tive dimension, i.e., judgments are made about its ingredients, presentation, order or sequence of tasting, and so on. Consequently, the scientific field of dynamics offers a viable alternative explanation with its focus on change or reactions which take place in baking and cooking. An understanding of food chemistry leads to a greater appreciation of what one tastes and eats. This approach and emphasis on food chemistry was first appreciated by Brillat-Savarin in his La Physiologie du Gout (1825), and contemporary reflections are made on his treatise.

Biocentrism environmental ethicists and animal rights defenders have been articulating ethical principles to extend moral standing to nonhuman beings. The natural propensities of living beings to pain and pleasure, being a subject of life, and having specific good and interest (as proposed by Singer, Regan, Tayler, and Goodpaster, respectively), have been taken as a reason to determine the moral status of the beings in question. This article makes the case that none of them can offer all-inclusive ideal for biocentrism to embrace all life forms as moral patients since they are either exclusive, hierarchical, or imprecise. To this end, I argue that it is possible to drive a unifying ideal from Schopenhauer’s metaphysics: the will to live. The will to live is a quality that all living beings share, regardless of their abilities and propensities. Both conscious and unconscious beings, sentient and non-sentient creatures, lower animals and plants are the embodi­ments or physical forms of the ultimate reality that is the will to live. Thus, biocentrism becomes more valid and effective in environmental preservation by incorporating the will to live into its ethical principle.

Massive consumption of fossil energy since the Industrial Revolution has contributed to carbon dioxide emissions and accumulation. That, in turn, has led to global climate change, which is mainly characterized by warming. The necessity of immediate climate action can be justified from both moral and self-interest perspectives. Achieving the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change goal of getting the world to net-zero carbon by 2050 depends on undermining the libertarian and self-interested arguments that opponents have against trying to reach this goal. First, from an ethical perspective, these opponents wrongly set the free market against the welfare state and individual property rights against the redistribution of social wealth, ignoring the possibility that their own ideal of liberty might require a welfare system. Second, it is also possible to show that morality and self-interest go together here, requiring us to reduce carbon use right now.

The ethics of cultivated meat is an emerging field of applied ethics. As the world’s population increases, stakeholders, scholars, and producers have begun to devise new strategies to meet growing food needs and to prevent food production from having a deleterious environmental impact. In this paper, I will focus on the main moral arguments against the production and consumption of cultivated meat. I will then frame some arguments to show that none of the objections to the production and consumption of cultivated meat is convincing.In the concluding remarks, I will suggest that cultivated meat should be considered as one strategy in a wide array of options to embrace a new food model. Deciding not to invest on this technology prevents us from benefiting from a useful means that could improve our living conditions.

I defend a modified rights-based unjust threat account for morally justified killing in self-defense. Rights-based moral justifications for killing in self-defense presume that human beings have a right to defend themselves from unjust threats. An unjust threat account of self-defense says that this right is derived from an agent’s moral obligation to not pose a deadly threat to the defender. The failure to keep this moral obligation creates the moral asymmetry necessary to justify a defender killing the unjust threat in self-defense. I argue that the other rights-based approaches explored here are unfair to the defender because they require her to prove moral fault in the threat. But then I suggest that the unjust threat account should be modified so that where the threat is non-culpable or only partially culpable, the defender should seek to share the cost and risk with the threat in order for both parties to survive.

This paper distinguishes between two types of emotion: (1) “bottom-up” largely “prewired” or conditioned responses to environmental stimuli and (2) “top-down” “evaluative” emotions that are a function of a person’s evaluative inferences and use of “emotive” language. The paper, in turn, develops an analysis of the latter type of emotion and formulates a definition that tracks three interrelated levels of activity transpiring during an emotional episode: logico-linguistic (a chain of practical syllogistic inferences), phenomenological (interoceptive feelings), and neurological (cortical and subcortical brain activities). In the light of this analysis, it shows how Logic-Based Therapy (LBT), a prominent form of philosophical counseling created by the author, can be used to overcome self-destructive forms of evaluative emotions such as intense anxiety, anger, and guilt, and depression.

There is something mysterious about what explains the foundations or grounding for professional responsibility. What grounds the distinct professional responsibility that an engineer, doctor, or lawyer has that is separate from their moral duties and legal requirements? I argue that professional responsibility can derive from a systematic response to ambiguities that occur within moral issues that arise for given professions. Moral problems can often be solved in different ways that are equally permissible, which I will say provides a “moral ambiguity.” Sometimes these moral ambiguities in professional settings require the same solutions across the profession because of the public’s legitimate expectations for uniformity. In such cases, professional organizations set professional responsibilities to provide a uniform set of duties to establish a necessary and predictable order.

That life has value is a tenet eliciting all but universal agreement, be it amongst philosophers, policy-makers, or the general public. Yet, when it comes to its employment in practice, especially in the context of policies which require the balancing of different moral choices—for example in health care, foreign aid, or animal rights related decisions—it takes little for cracks to appear and for disagreement to arise as to what the value of life actually means and how it should guide our actions in the real world. I argue that in no small part this state of affairs is a consequence of the infirmity of the foundations that the claim respecting the value of life supervenes upon once its theological foundations are abandoned. Hence, I depart radically from the contemporary thought and argue that life has no inherent value. Far from lowering the portcullis to Pandemonium, the abandonment of the quasi-Platonistic claim that life has intrinsic value, when understood and applied correctly, leads to a comprehensive, consistent, and compassionate ethical framework for understanding the related problems. I illustrate this using several hotly debated topics, including speciesism and show how the ideas I introduce help us to interpret people’s choices and to resolve outstanding challenges which present an insurmountable obstacle to the existing ethical theories.

In this essay I explore the notion of philosophy as a way of life as a recovery pathway for individuals in addiction recovery. My hypothesis is that philosophy as a way of life can be a compelling, and legitimate recovery pathway for individuals in addiction recovery, as one of many recovery pathways. I will focus on logic-based therapy (LBT) applied in the context of addiction recovery. The aim of presenting a case study is to show how a client receiving LBT is provided with techniques and a worldview that can contribute to a philosophically oriented recovery program. In the case study the client was advised to apply the moral philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche as an uplifting philosophical framework to counteract his unproductive worldview and fallacious thinking. Considering that there is an ostensibly low efficacy rate for the treatment of addiction, articulating the value of philosophy as a way of life as a recovery pathway provides a conceptual and methodological framework for the development of novel philosophically-based addiction treatment and recovery-oriented programs—thus expanding the treatment and recovery options available for those seeking recovery from addiction.

The paper presents a method for interpreting religious texts for use in psychotherapy. In particular, the paper takes the example of the pivotal character Arjuna in Bhagavad-Gita as having low frustration tolerance and uses the collective philosophy of the Bhagavad-Gita and Bhagavata-Purana through six steps of Logic-Based Therapy (LBT) to overcome it. Although the paper uses Hindu religious texts, the treatment of these texts will speak to anyone interested in the possibility of integrating religious texts into psychotherapy.

This inquiry critically assesses previous research utilizing a game theory framework to understand Hume’s account of convention as the tangible expression of justice for the purpose of regulating possessions. In so doing, this research offers an alternative understanding of Humean convention that first clearly lays out the rules and main assumptions of the game, as presented in A Treatise of Human Nature, and then proceeds to analyze the implied optimal strategy and outcome. Rejecting commonly held views considering Humean convention in terms of the Nash equilibrium and pure contractarianism, this research offers a novel middle approach—a “Third Way” between self-interest and sympathy, between cooperation versus non-cooperation, and ultimately between contractarianism versus utilitarianism. This “Third Way”conceives of Hume’s account of convention as a cooperative game with binding threats that necessarily always rests on the Pareto optimal strategy, and seeks a resulting Pareto optimal outcome.

Although several scholars have held that the Greeks and the Romans viewed abortion as morally unproblematic, an examination of three ancient texts reveals that, starting around the first century CE, some Greek and Roman writers were willing to explore reasons for opposing abortion on ethical grounds (i.e., reasons based on the conviction that abortion is an injustice committed against the fetus). The three texts introduce a form of opposition to abortion that has come to be known in our time as the future-like-ours argument against abortion. The present paper explores the argument that emerges from the three ancient texts and compares it to the work of Don Marquis, the best-known contemporary defender of a future-like-ours argument against abortion. The comparison reveals significant similarities, which are ultimately attributable to a common set of intuitions about what makes killing wrong and premature death tragic.

The various features of bioethics center around a person’s right to decide what happens to her body and what she may do with it. This is true for patients and medical professionals. Our intuitions concerning rights in bioethics are similar to our intuitions concerning rights in other areas. Consider, for example, rights concerning movement, privacy, religion, sex, speech, and thought. Intuitively, these rights are consistent with one another, trump other moral considerations, and can be lost. If people were to own themselves, this would provide a unified explanation of what justifies other rights, what particular rights people have, why these particular rights are consistent with one another, and why these particular rights have certain features, such as trumping utility. Here I explore whether people own themselves.

Here I recount my practicum sessions with Albert, a client who struggles with anger outbursts. Since it can be hard to draw a line between a DSM and a non-DSM issue, my first inclination as a practitioner of Logic-Based Therapy (LBT)—and in line with practice boundaries and referral standards affirmed by the National Philosophical Counseling Association (NPCA)—was to refer Albert to a licensed therapist. But since Albert was already seeing a therapist, and since Albert never loses cognizance of what he is doing during an outburst, I proceeded with Albert anyway. I did make it clear, however, that we would not focus directly on past traumas or substance abuse or family dynamics, but simply on his emotional reasoning in and around those times when he feels angry. Ultimately, I found (1) that damnation, can’tstipation, and perfectionism were the chief fallacies nurturing Albert’s tendency for outbursts and (2) that the uplifting philosophy of Spinoza would be especially effective at stoking self-respect, self-control, and metaphysical security (the direct antidotes to these fallacies) in someone like Albert, an informed and committed naturalist and determinist.

More than one line of argument is adduced to buttress and support the contention that the writings of Indira Gandhi constitute a valuable political philosophy for today. Her Peoples and Problems is alluded to, and the advertence of her thought to Vedanta made clear.

My differences with Derek Brookes reflect an alternative understanding of what forgiveness is intended to achieve, and how it achieves it. I express some skepticism about his account of wrongdoing as an expression of contempt, of wrongdoing posing an ongoing threat, of resentment as a protective shield, and apology/remorse as the only morally acceptable means for removing such a threat. I remain unconvinced that forgiveness in the absence of an apology is likely to evidence condonation or a failure of self-respect. In emphasizing that forgiveness is a morally discretionary gift, I depart from the idea that it must somehow be earned (by apology, etc.) to be morally laudable. Its character as forgiveness is therefore not morally impugned if not made dependent on the wrongdoer’s repentance.

In a recent series or books and articles Jason Brennan and Peter M. Jaworski (writing both together and separately) have developed criticisms of what they term “semiotic” arguments. They hold that these arguments are widely used both to criticize markets in certain goods, to defend democracy, and criticize epistocracy. Their work on semiotics is now widely (and approvingly) cited. In this paper I argue that there is no reason to believe that any defenders of democracy or critics of epistocracy have offered semiotic arguments for their positions. I then explain how the operation of academic incentives has led to this being overlooked by both Brennan and Jaworski and their critics. I conclude with suggestions for how to revise peer review so that such errors are less likely to be made in the future.

Commonly the military stays out of politics, and for good reason. Federal law regulates political activity for active duty military rather strictly because the consequences of having a military that is partisan can be devastating, as history has shown us repeatedly. In this paper, I argue that the current rules of political neutrality are too broad and that there are times when our military leaders ought to engage in political debate so as to serve the same aims that justify having strict political neutrality rules in the first place: namely building civilian-military trust, and promoting troop cohesion and morale.

In this paper, I argue that forgiveness is a morally appropriate response only when it is grounded in the wrongdoer’s demonstration of genuine remorse, their offer of a sincere apology, and, where appropriate, acts of recompense and behavioral change. I then respond to John Kleinig’s suggestion (in his paper “Forgiveness and Unconditionality”) that when an apology is not forthcoming, there are at least three additional grounds that, when motivated by virtues such as love and compassion, could nevertheless render “unconditional forgiveness” a morally laudable option. I argue that such grounds could indeed constitute or result in laudable responses to wrongdoing, but only if they are not conceived of or described in terms of forgiveness.

In my paper “Moral Grounds for Forgiveness,” I argued that forgiveness is morally appropriate only when a sincere apology is received, thus ruling out the three grounds for unconditional forgiveness suggested by John Kleinig in his paper “Forgiveness and Unconditionality.” In response to his reply “Defending Unconditional Forgiveness,” I argue here that my terminology, once clarified, does not undermine my construal of resentment; that conditional forgiveness is just as discretionary as unconditional forgiveness; and that what we choose to take into account when we forgive must be a morally appropriate grounding for that particular end, but that only a sincere apology could satisfy this condition. I end by conceding that the three grounds suggested by Kleinig nevertheless play an essential role in the process of (conditional) forgiveness insofar as they facilitate a willingness to forgive and an openness toward accepting an apology.

While unnecessarily killing or injuring an insect is arguably wrong, euthanasia of an accidentally injured insect raises anew issues of whether insects can experience pain. The question takes renewed significance due to increasing insect farming for food and feed and concerns over farmed insect welfare. For euthanasia of a damaged insect to be justifiable, the damage must be sensed as a noxious stimulus (nociception) that the insect consciously experiences as pain. This pain must then lead to suffering or frustrated desire, with the possibility of the animal preferring death to continued existence. A failure at any of these points would deem euthanasia moot. The neurological, behavioral, and evolutionary evidence so far suggests the concept of euthanasia does not apply to insects.

In this paper, I argue that medical school admissions should be limited to statistically relevant factors. My argument rests primarily on three assumptions. A state professional school should maximize production. If a state professional school should maximize production, then it should maximize production per student. If a state professional school should maximize production per student, then, within the optimum budget, a state medical school should maximize quality-adjusted medical services per graduate. I put forth a tentative equation for ranking applicants as a way of maximizing quality-adjusted medical services per graduate. This way of ranking is cheaper than the way admissions is currently done. Hence, the proposal is practically as well as theoretically appealing.

The paper argues that individual Palestinians have a right of return to historic Palestine in virtue of being members of the Palestinian people that continues to have occupancy rights in historic Palestine. More specifically, the paper argues that the Palestinians were, when Israel was founded, a people with occupancy rights to their lands, that they continue to be a people to this day, and that their occupancy right has not been alienated, forfeited, or prescripted. The paper then argues that individual Palestinians have the right of occupancy in virtue of being members of the Palestinian people. Because the right has been blocked by Israel since 1948, the right of return is the right of individual Palestinians to be allowed to return to their homeland and exercise their occupancy rights there.

If forgiveness is to be seen as a virtuous act, it must satisfy certain conditions. For many, those conditions are construed narrowly and must involve some change of heart on the part of the wrongdoer who is to be forgiven: remorse, apology, a willingness to provide recompense, and so forth. Such an account is usually characterized as one of conditional forgiveness. Others construe the conditions differently—not eschewing remorse and apology, but neither always requiring it—and see those conditions as those relevant to exercises of generosity, love, mercy, gifting and grace. Such an account is usually characterized as one of unconditional forgiveness. The present essay attempts to remove some of the resistance to unconditional forgiveness.

Humanitarian aid workers typically reject the accolade of hero as both untrue and undesirable. Untrue when they claim not to be acting beyond the call of duty, and undesirable so far as celebrating heroism risks elevating “heroic” choices over safer, and perhaps wiser ones. However, this leaves unresolved a tension between the denial of heroism and a sense in which certain humanitarian acts really appear heroic. And, the concern that in rejecting the aspiration to heroism an opportunity is lost to inspire more and better humanitarian action. Having set out this problem in more detail in Part I, the argument in Part II will suggest that a virtue ethics approach to humanitarian moral obligations can make good sense of our intuitions concerning the role of heroism in humanitarian action. In Part III I will argue that at least “professional” humanitarians, instead of rejecting heroism, should aim to be heroes, in the sense of displaying a virtue of humanity in high-stakes contexts, because this is consistent with the aim of humanitarian action. Finally, some lingering problems of demandingness and motivation are considered.

What weight should we place on self-determination, democracy, human rights and equality in an account of migration justice? Anna Stilz and Andrea Sangiovanni offer insightful comments that prompt us to consider such questions. In addressing their welcome critiques I aim to show how my account can help reduce migration injustice in our contemporary world. As I argue, there is no right to free movement across state borders. However, migrants do have rights to a fair process for determining their rights. Democratic communities should have scope to make many migration decisions, although there are constraints on that self-determination. The migration governance oversight arrangements I favor are compatible with core requirements of agency and responsiveness that are operative in mature democracies. In responding to concerns about objectionable power inequalities that often characterize temporary worker programs, I show why addressing these issues requires various institutional protections that are well enforced. Robust migration governance arrangements can assist in formulating defensible migration policies that we can implement here and now as we aim to reduce migration injustices in our current world.

If people have stringent moral rights, then the doctrine of double effect is false or unimportant, at least when it comes to making acts permissible or wrong. There are strong and weak versions of the doctrine of double effect. The strong version asserts that an act is morally right if and only if the agent does not intentionally infringe a moral norm and the act brings about a desirable result (perhaps the best state of affairs available to the agent or a promotion of the common good). The weak version asserts that, other things being equal, it is deontically worse to intentionally infringe a norm than to foreseeably do so. A person’s intention or mere foresight might still be relevant to his or her blameworthiness or virtue, but this is a separate issue.

Most philosophers who have expressed a view about whether forgiveness is compatible with forgivers’ continuing to punish, or support the punishment of, people who have wronged them hold that forgiveness is compatible with punishing or favouring punishment of wrongdoers. I argue that whether forgiveness entails forbearing punishment depends on which of two senses of forgiveness is operative. On the first, sentiment-based sense of forgiveness as consisting essentially in a change of heart on the part of a victim, a victim can, I submit, forgive while continuing to punish or to support the punishment of a person who has wronged her. On the second sense of forgiveness as consisting in debt remission whether or not accompanied by a change of heart, the state’s remission of the entirety of criminal offenders’ punishment qualifies as forgiveness and, moreover, the state could not forgive offenders in this sense while continuing to punish them.

A person points to a situation, A, and says that A is morally repugnant; A ought to be condemned; we should do something about A. In response, another person says, “Well, what about B? B is analogous to A in that it is equally morally repugnant. If we ought to condemn and do something about A then we should also condemn and do something about B.” This “what about” response is an argumentative strategy, sometimes called “whataboutery” or “whataboutism.” In popular discussion, whataboutery is condemned as a fallacy, in particular an instance of the tu quoque fallacy. I will present an analysis of whataboutery showing that, to the degree that this is a fallacy, it is a red herring. But this argumentative move cannot always be dismissed as fallacious. Sometimes the imputation of fallacious reasoning attempts to cover over political commitments.

Sati as a trope for the general status of women within certain portions of the Hindu cultures of India is examined, with a view toward clarification of its history and current context. The work of Sangari and Vaid, Banerjee and Mala Sen is cited, and the notion that sati is a misappropriated concept is analyzed.

Gillian Brock’s Justice for People on the Move is an important contribution to the migration literature. While I agree with many of Brock’s arguments, I focus here on a few key points of difference between us. I press three interrelated concerns about Brock’s view: first, the practical implications of her assessment of the state-system’s current illegitimacy remain too unclear. Second, Brock’s human rights-based theory neglects the importance of citizens’ democratic agency, in a way that may have paternalistic implications. Third, Brock’s view is tolerant of inequalities of wealth and power that may enable relations of exploitation, as we see by examining her advocacy of guestworker schemes. The article draws attention to those places where Brock’s view faces hard questions, and explains why I might have answered some of these questions differently.

The ethics of warfare and military leadership must pay attention to the rapidly increasing use of artificial intelligence and machines. Who is responsible for the decisions made by a machine? Do machines make decisions? May they make them? These issues are of particular interest in the context of Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems (LAWS). Are they autonomous or just automated? Do they violate the international humanitarian law which requires that humans must always be responsible for the use of lethal force and for the assessment that civilian casualties are proportionate to the military goals? The article analyses relevant documents, opinions, government positions, and commentaries using the methods of applied ethics. The main conceptual finding is that the definition of autonomy depends on what the one presenting it seeks to support. Those who want to use lethal autonomous weapon systems call them by another name, say, automated instead of autonomous. They impose standards on autonomy that machines do not meet, such as moral agency. Those who wish to ban the use of lethal autonomous weapon systems define them much less broadly and do not require them to do much more than to be a self-standing part of the causal chain.The article’s argument is that the question of responsibility is most naturally perceived by abandoning the most controversial philosophical considerations and simply stating that an individual or a group of people is always responsible for the creation of the equipment they produce and use. This does not mean that those who press the button, or their immediate superiors, are to blame. They are doing their jobs in a system. The ones responsible can probably be found in higher military leadership, in political decision-makers who dictate their goals, and, at least in democracies, in the citizens who have chosen their political decision-makers.

Gillian Brock’s compelling and richly textured new book aims to set out a human-rights-based framework for thinking about justice in migration. There is much to celebrate in these chapters, not least Brock’s masterful effort at weaving together her basic justificatory framework with real-world political concerns. In this article, I query the focus she places on self-determination in setting out the basic normative argument elaborated in Chapters 2, 3, and 9. In particular, I will wonder whether she gives the collective self-determination of a people anything more than instrumental value, and so whether she is able to distance herself from so-called proponents of “open borders”.

The aim of this paper is to identify, given certain democratic normative standards regarding deliberation, some pros as well as cons of possible online deliberation designs due to variations in two key design dimensions: namely, asynchronicity and anonymity. In particular, we consider one crucial aspect of deliberative argumentation: namely, its reciprocity, which puts interaction centre stage to capture the back-and-forth of reasons. More precisely, we focus on two essential features of the deliberative interaction: namely, its listening widely and listening carefully. We conclude that one sort of online deliberation that combines the two design features of anonymity and asynchronicity is likely to better promote the reciprocity required for democratic deliberation than both natural and designed offline deliberations (such as the designed deliberation in Deliberative Polling) and online simulations of them.

Legal prohibitions on the financial compensation of donors are frequently justified by appealing either to concerns about patient safety or to concerns about the putatively unethical nature of such compensation. But jurisdictions that legally prohibit the financial compensation of donors routinely import plasma that has been collected from financially compensated donors—and they do so knowing its origins. I outline some possible ways in which this puzzle could be resolved and find them all wanting. Focusing on Canada I draw upon public documents to explain how many provinces came to have its apparently puzzling approach to plasma procurement. I then argue that the actions of those who support this approach to plasma procurement are immoral.

Non-suicidal self-harm is common in youth. The behavior may have negative and sometimes dangerous consequences, such as feelings of guilt, scars, nerve damage and accidental death. Is this behavior a mental disorder? This question is attracting serious consideration. I want to say that non-suicidal self-harm in youth is never a mental disorder in its own right. Yet, I do not want to commit to saying what is a mental disorder. So I identify the characteristic features and functions of non-suicidal self-harm in youth and show that these features and functions are also seen in non-disordered behaviors in youth. This, I say, shows that non-suicidal self-harm in youth is non-disordered too. I say that non-suicidal self-harm in youth is a characteristic youth behavior that when seen in youth has an understandable practical function. I offer to the general discussion about mental disorder the strategy I use.

In November 2018, Dr. He Jiankui announced the birth of two baby girls born through the use of in vitro fertilization technology and the use of the gene-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9. There has been nigh uniform international condemnation of the clinical trial for violating international norms governing genomic research, especially research in human embryos that has implications for the germline. At issue also is the question whether the parents and the clinical research team harmed, and therefore wronged, the two girls. Here this question is engaged through application of the reasoning Derek Parfit has provided on the non-identity problem. One concludes that on this reasoning the parents are not morally culpable on that argument, although there is other reasoning that is to be considered to resist the Parfitian conclusion.

The orthodox position in global justice is to consider questions about international distributive justice from a perspective of what duties, if any, affluent states have towards people in severe poverty. The debate has focused on whether positive or negative duties are most relevant and how they should be applied. This article challenges this orthodoxy by defending stakeholder theory as a promising new approach overcoming limitations in current debates through promotion of the virtue of stakeholders having a say where they have a stake.

Arguments both in favor and against including undocumented immigrants in healthcare reform abound. However, many of these arguments, including ones that are favorable towards immigrants, are ethically problematic, and for the same reason; namely, that they either support or deny the inclusion of undocumented immigrants in healthcare reform based on their perceived level of desert, due to their alleged contribution to our social utility, or lack thereof. This encourages gauging the lives and worth of undocumented immigrants in terms of their productivity or output, rather than viewing them as intrinsically valuable human beings. This, in turn, contributes to the instrumentalization of undocumented immigrants’ welfare; for even arguments in favor of including them in healthcare reform encourage viewing them as, in Kantian language, mere means instead of ends in themselves. In this paper, I will be critical of arguments that either seek to exclude or include undocumented immigrants from healthcare reform or access based on social utility and will, instead, champion arguments in favor of inclusion that rely on fostering a sense of solidarity and identification amongst citizens and migrants.

Casting dirty looks is morally wrong when it encourages gender stereotypes and objectifies the woman looked at. Oglers are to blame for the harm done. And, if an ogler were to merely imagine what he perceives, we would blame him less than for his stare. So, in many such cases, we must be at least partly be blaming the ogler for being in the very perceptual state he is then in—for his male gaze. This line of reasoning goes against ethical orthodoxy, which claims that perception is simply not the kind of thing for which the agents who perceive could be blamed. Against orthodoxy, I argue that the moral relevance of the male gaze implies that perception is the kind of thing for which perceiving agents could be blamed.

The passing of the French law that prohibits face coverings, such as the Islamic burqa, in public places ignited a complex philosophical and legal debate. Participants in the debate have typically focused on the boundaries between individual and religious liberties, on the one hand, and state-imposed limitations on public behaviors, on the other. The author of this paper wishes to introduce a change in perspective by concentrating instead on the duties immigrants have to the citizens of the countries that host them. The author finds that, under certain circumstances, immigrants may have a moral duty to conform to the ethical preferences of the communities they have come to live and interact with.

A concern that accompanies the recognition that people are not morally responsible is how this affects our relationships. In particular, there is concern as to whether the absence of these things eliminates or lessens love. Love is relevant on some of the most plausible theories of well-being. In particular, it might be thought to cause pleasure and fulfill desires and thus bring about well-being on hedonist and desire-fulfillment theories of well-being. It might also be included on the objective list of things that make someone’s life go better independent of pleasure and desire-fulfillment. In this article, I argue for the Intense Pro-Attitude Theory, specifically, that love is a disjunctive combination of intense affective, cognitive, intentional, and valuational pro-attitudes that focus on something’s well-being. If this account is correct, then love is empirically and conceptually independent of moral responsibility. Hence, love is independent of moral responsibility.

In the future, autonomous vehicles are predicted to be much safer than current vehicles and affordable enough for all vehicle owners. At such a point, should we still allow people to manually drive non-autonomous vehicles? Can we say people who want to drive have a right to drive? In this paper, we first attempt a deontological justification of a right to drive, by trying to derive the right from more uncontroversial rights, like the right to freedom of movement, but fail. Looking at the right on consequentialist grounds, both in terms of paternalistic justifications of denying the right and the externalities caused by manual driving, we are able to justify a right to drive. However, the externalities caused by manual driving (especially the risks imposed on non-drivers and the property damage) are enough to limit this right to drive to non-public roads.

Logic-Based Therapy (LBT), a mode of philosophical counseling I invented beginning in the mid 1980s, under the auspices of Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) founder Albert Ellis, takes metaphysical security (security about reality itself) as a sin qua non for human happiness. The goal of LBT is to help people overcome irrational thinking that leads to metaphysical insecurity and to help build constructive, philosophical thinking that promotes metaphysical security. However, the advent of augmented and digital reality are beginning to present new challenges to obtaining metaphysical security. Applying the tenets of LBT, this paper examines the implications for attaining metaphysical security in this brave new world of advancing technologies.

This article aims to rebut the claim about Dirty Hands (DH) in politics and reorient the issue. Allegedly, decent politicians must sometimes do what is right by means that are deeply wrong and they are morally tainted as a result. DH is here rejected as contradictory since there can be no dirtying or guilt given the presumption of ultimate rightness, and politics is demeaned by supposing otherwise. DH is not entailed by moral complexity or conflicting duties or circumstantial regret, and does not hinge on utilitarianism versus deontology. A significant real-world case is explored where DH might seem manifest but is not. With DH dissolved, the refocussed and urgent question involves discerning apt personality-types for politics and its hard cases. The ideal: persons exceptional in being morally conscientious but more tough-minded than tender-hearted.

Is privacy the key ethical issue of the internet age? This coauthored essay argues that even if all of a user’s privacy concerns were met through secure communication and computation, there are still ethical problems with personalized information systems. Our objective is to show how computer-mediated life generates what Ernesto Laclou and Chantal Mouffe call an “atypical form of social struggle.” Laclau and Mouffe develop a politics of contingent identity and transient articulation (or social integration) by means of the notions of absent, symbolic, hegemonic power and antagonistic transitions or relations. In this essay, we introduce a critical approach to one twenty-first-century atypical social struggle that, we claim, has a disproportionate effect on those who experience themselves as powerless. Our aim is to render explicit the forms of social mediation and distortion that result from large-scale machine learning as applied to personal preference information. We thus bracket privacy in order to defend some aspects of the EU GDPR that will give individuals more control over their experience of the internet if they want to use it and, thereby, decrease the unwanted epistemic effects of the internet. Our study is thus a micropolitics in in the Deleuzian micropolitical sense and a preliminary analysis of an atypical social struggle.

Jason Brennan and Peter M. Jaworski have recently developed an argument against semiotic objections to markets. They argue that all such semiotic arguments are unsound because they fail to recognize that the meaning of market transactions is a contingent socially-constructed fact. They attribute this type of argument to Debra Satz. This paper argues both that Brennan and Jaworski are mistaken to attribute this particular semiotic objection to Satz and that they are mistaken to attribute to her a semiotic objection of this type. It then argues that Brennan and Jaworski have fundamentally misunderstood the nature of Satz’s project. It concludes by defending Satz against Brennan and Jaworski’s charge that one of her criticisms of markets is based on an equivocation.

Extant accounts of exploitation typically focus on either an exchange or interaction between persons, or on exploitative systems (i.e., global capitalism). We propose a new account of exploitation that focuses instead on the benefits an exploiter enjoys which are had at the expense of another, the exploited party. This account is developed by considering the benefits enjoyed by consumers (e.g., inexpensive sweatshop-made goods) and the manner in which those benefits are produced (e.g., the loss of dignity suffered by sweatshop workers). On our account, an exploitative relationship need not involve any interaction or exchange between exploiter and exploited. Neither is exploitation a property of systems or institutions. Instead, we argue that a consumer who buys a shirt produced under near slave-like conditions engages in a moral wrong by exploiting the worker who made it even though the two may be far-removed in space and time.

It is very common for social scientists to be asked whether their findings about human nature could also be learned from reading great works of literature. Literature teachers frequently assign readings partly to teach people important truths about the world. But it is unclear how looking at a work of fiction can tell us about the real world at all. In this paper I carefully examine questions about the conditions under which the fictional world can teach us about the real world.

If consent is valid (that is, morally transformative), then in every case it is either valid or invalid. This is because of the notion that (when valid) consent eliminates a right and a person either has or lacks a right against another. A parallel problem to the paradox of symmetrical attackers applies to consent. That is, there is a case in which two people neither consent nor do not consent to one another. As a practical matter, attorneys, judges, legislators, physicians, and sex partners should not treat consent as morally significant, except perhaps as defeasible evidence of what makes another person’s life go better. They might still want to follow the law because there is likely a duty to follow law even when its purported justification is mistaken.

In this article I analyse those that I consider the most powerful counterarguments that have been advanced against the non-identity objection to the idea of intergenerational harm, according to which an action cannot cause harm to a given agent if her biological identity does actually depend—in a partial but still determinant way—on the performance of this action. In doing this, I firstly go through the deontological criticisms to the person-affecting view of harm, before moving on to sufficientarian and communitarian accounts of intergenerational harm. My argument is that neither of these theories manage to defuse the non-identity objection. Yet, I conclude by observing that a possible way out of the non-identity paradox might consist in developing an ethical account of intergenerational negative justice that focuses on the functional value of the natural and social structures in which humans develop their lives, rather than on their instrumental or intrinsic value.

It has long been claimed and supposedly substantiated that there exists an association of ideas, but not of perceptions (that is, sensations or impressions). Collingwood echoed this claim from Hume, but Hume later in the Treatise produced an association of impressions (actually emotions and passions), so he came close to Hobbes’s position: human physiology has “trains of sense” and these are carried on in human thought—what we call “ideas” (he called “decaying sense”). A strong case can be made for this claim when we examine the phenomenon of food. Concerning food, I explore Chinese cuisine and more recently Kunz and Kaminsky’s The Elements of Taste for examples that provide substantiation of the association of perceptions. This proves to be a rewarding way to look at the phenomenon of food and leads us to re-examine traditional theories of perception.

This paper argues that it is not incoherent to think that abortion should be “legal but rare.” The argument draws upon virtue ethics, feminism, critical theory, and the theory of biopolitics to argue that the idea that abortion should be legal but rare is best understood as aiming at the elimination of unwanted pregnancies. Some pro-choice defenders of abortion rights worry that the “legal but rare” idea stigmatizes women who choose abortion. But when this idea is unpacked using the tools of intersectional analysis, biopolitical theory, and virtue ethics it can be understood as pointing toward a transformation of social reality that empowers women.

The author examines the problem of motivation about future generations. He argues that though many philosophers think that direct motivations are problematic for future generations only, they are not unproblematic for the current generations too, and that the motivation problem can be solved if we consider the idea of “leaving the earth no worse.” He also shows why such an idea should be promoted and can motivate us to work in the best interests of current and future generations. The author also contends that prioritizing the idea of “leaving the earth no worse” is not exclusively anthropocentric.

Although it is clear that the Chief Executive may be impeached while in office, it is generally thought that a sitting President cannot suffer criminal indictment while in office. There are two general arguments in support of this position. The first argument notes that criminal indictment of the President would so interfere with the duties of the office as to constitute a violation of the Constitution. The second argument simply refers to the express language of the Constitution providing that the remedy for intolerable occupation of the office is impeachment and conviction. While the Constitution does not expressly preclude indictment and prosecution, it is argued that the Constitution only so allows upon impeachment and conviction. This essay aspires to more fully explore the two alleged constitutional prohibitions against the criminal indictment of the occupant of the Office of the President and to argue that each suffers sufficiently to render each doubtful as a ground for guaranteeing Presidential immunity.

Changing the appraisal of stress to foster adaptive coping for students is explored by proposing an alternative lens theory of viewing the stress response from the perspective of Greek philosophy of Stoicism. The connection of Lazarus’s challenge appraisal (Lambert and Lazarus, “Psychological Stress and the Coping Process,” 634) to resilience and Stoicism is a novel perspective brought about by re-examining the foundations of current practices and has the potential to elicit new research, theories, and resources to help students learn to cope with stress differently. The concepts of stress, Stoicism, and resilience are all inextricably linked, however Stoicism is at the root of these ideas. This proposal to view stress through the lens of Stoicism is an opportunity to alter the way students think and respond to challenges by using an ancient philosophy to have a positive outlook on the stresses of modern university life.

This essay examines the traumas inflicted by acts of false-flag state terrorism on 11 September 2001, and their concealment by exploitation of mythicist falsifications that are endemic to our culture—while also paying particular attention to parallels between the staging of explosive demolitions for the WTC Towers and gutting of the Reichstag by Nazi incendiaries in 1933. The study culminates in a depiction—based on heuristic distinctions between natural, gnomic, alethic, and personal wills—of how we become vulnerable to mythicist falsifications, and how truth-telling facilitates recovery of our moral integrity after the twin traumas of betrayal by acts of state terror, and complicity with that betrayal, have deeply compromised it.

In this age of environmental crisis, Jainism is regarded worldwide as one of the first religions to have developed an environmental ethic, based on its practice of ahiṃsā (nonviolence). This article attempts to critically engage with the concept of ahiṃsā in its recently evolving forms—from a religious concept to its current portrayal as an environmental ethic. By explaining how ahiṃsā becomes the central concept of Jainism, tying together its ethics, theology, and ecology, this article establishes that the current global portrayal of ahiṃsā by Jains, more than being driven by environmental concerns, is directed toward attaining liberation through reducing karmic impressions on souls. The article discerns the differences between Jain practice of ahiṃsā and ahiṃsā as an environmental ethos; it argues that to recognize ahiṃsā as an environmental ethic a broader reconceptualization is required beyond the way it is currently conceptualized in Jainism.

Health care reform to provide long-term care supportive services for growing numbers of older Americans presents ethical, cultural, and political challenges. This paper draws lessons from Japan, the world’s oldest nation, to develop an ethical argument in support of enacting public long-term care in the U.S. Despite cultural and political challenges, the paper shows that the ethical case for reform is strong, with broad ethical support from a range of ethical perspectives.

Fundamentalism was and still is a major threat to global peace and security. The modern world has shown itself to be vulnerable to this persistent threat. The emergence and growth of many fundamentalist cults in the last century, from fascism and communism to various types of religious fundamentalism, is sufficient proof of this point. This paper presents a philosophical investigation of fundamentalism and its specific relation to skepticism, and highlights the ineffectiveness of skeptical philosophies to prevent fundamentalism in human society. Finally, it identifies a theoretical problem in modern thought which is at least partly responsible for the practical vulnerability of the modern world to fundamentalism, and discusses the possibility and necessity of a solution to fix that problem.

In “The Immorality of Horror Films,” philosopher and film scholar Gianluca Di Muzio proposes an analytic argument that aims to prove horror narratives, particularly slashers, unethical. His Argument from Reactive Attitudes contests slashers encourage pleasurable responses towards depictions of torture and death, which is possible only by suspending compassionate reactions. Doing so degrades sympathy and empathy, causing desensitization. This article will argue Di Muzio’s ARA, while valuable to discussion of art horror and morbidity, fails to meet its intended aim. The ARA contains structural flaws in its logic, compounded by reliance on insufficient evidence. Additionally, Di Muzio does not adequately consider or rebut prominent aesthetic concerns, including ontological and moral distance of representations. Lastly, the argument utilizes a flawed classificatory schema that undermines its primary goal. Even narrowly confined to slashers, the ARA cannot explain alternative reasons for engaging with horror, nor does it account for those nuanced slasher works designed to foster compassion. The project concludes by offering a modified ARA with greater potential to accurately analyze the interrelation between art horror and morality.

This article aims to answer a core normative question concerning child poverty: What types of responsibilities should be assumed by the state and caregivers as the main agents of justice involved in the problem? By approaching this question, I aim to explore the complex triangulation between children, caregivers, and the state, as well as the paradox of the double role of caregivers as former victims and current agents of justice. In order to accomplish this, I will first present the internal and external issues that arise when the focus is placed on the victims, and, secondly, when attention shifts to the perpetrators. Finally, I will advocate for the need to fundamentally reframe the debates, centering attention on the damage, on investing the construction of a culture of care that includes preventive measures to dismantle common prejudices about poverty and neglect, and on introducing measures to care for the caregivers as a necessary step to break the perpetuation of (child) poverty.

The ethics of using genetic engineering to enhance athletic performance has been a recurring topic in the sport philosophy and bioethics literature. In this article, we analyze the ethics of cloning horses for polo competition. In doing so, we critically examine the arguments most commonly advanced to justify this practice. In the process, we raise concerns about cloning horses for polo competition, centering on normative aspects pertaining to sport ethics usually neglected by defenders of cloning. In particular, we focus on (1) how this practice could have a detrimental impact on the central skills of polo, and (2) how it unjustly creates an uneven playing field. We suggest that the polo community would benefit from critically considering the ethical quandaries posed by the practice of cloning horses for polo competition.

While qualities of good character are of great significance and value in human social and professional affairs—and conduct which at least conforms to such qualities is invariably required for public service employment—they cannot be a requirement of the private lives of citizens in free societies. That said, there seems more of a case for the personal possession of such qualities in the case of those human professions and services for which moral exemplification to others may be considered an inherent part of the professional role. After some consideration of arguments for and against such moral character exemplification in relation to such professional roles as religious ministry and teaching, this paper proceeds to make some case for politics as professional role of this exemplificatory kind.

Human subjects in the developing world historically have been, and continue to be, treated like expendable commodities in clinical research. This paper will explore some of the factors that make those in the third world prime targets for exploitation. It will also challenge a deeply-entrenched view that has permitted this unethical conduct to persist—namely, the belief that the standard of medical care should vary depending upon where a research subject lives. The paper will also discuss the Food and Drug Administration’s 2008 decision to disavow the Declaration of Helsinki, to the further detriment of research subjects in developing countries. Finally, the paper will suggest a possible solution to help address this ethical crisis.

This paper argues that it can be morally wrong to be friendly to strangers. More specifically, the paper argues there is a salient pro tanto moral reason against being friendly to strangers in virtue of the structure of interaction. By ‘a salient pro tanto reason’ I mean a reason that is not always decisive, but it is often significant enough that it ought to factor in moral deliberation. My argument is perfectly general, but it is presented to shed light on one specific practical problem. By considering this issue I think we will be able to see what is distinctly wrong with street harassment. I hope to explain why this sort of behavior is morally problematic. Basically, even in its most benign cases, street harassment attempts to place a moral burden on a stranger to respond in kind. The stranger may not wish to bear this burden and that is why there are reasons against creating this burden. It is wrong because it involves treating others as if they owe you attention and acknowledgment, which is to treat strangers as friends.

Asian romantic preference is not wrong because it does not infringe on someone’s moral right. Nor is it unjust in some other way. It is not intrinsically bad because it is neither false nor does it consist of the love of evil or hatred of the good. It is not clear if it is instrumentally bad because it is not clear whether it is good for Asian women and, if it is, whether the good for them is outweighed by the bad for others. People have many preferences when it comes to marriage, dating, and sex. Consider heterosexual men’s preferences for women who are thin, feminine, normal height, symmetrical, and so on. The preference to marry, date, or have sex with Asian women is morally similar to these preferences.