This article intends to show that Levinas' humanism does not imply speciesism. Our argument is that Levinas does not derive the sense of an ethical obligation from a pregiven concept of the human being. His defence of humanism is therefore not the expression of the idea that human beings have an exclusive moral dignity on the basis of their being human. This argument will be developed in two parts. In the first part, we situate Levinas' humanism within the tradition of modern humanism and differentiate it from Herder's approach in the eighteenth century, which can be considered paradigmatic for a modern concept of humanism that inevitably implies speciesism. In the second part, we argue that a metaphorical transference is at the core of Levinas' concept of subjectivity, the appearance of which is required for the ethical sense of oneself-for-the-other. We will refer, therefore, to Levinas' use of the metaphor of the 'skin' in his analyses of subjectivity and otherness in Otherwise than Being. As a result, it will be shown that the ethical sense of subjectivity does not deny but entails 'the ambiguity of the animal'.
Rowe has recently argued that pure risk of harm cannot itself be a harm, while Stef & aacute;nsson has replied that-given an appropriate understanding of objective risk-it can. In this article, I refer to their contributions as paradigmatic of the current discussion in the risk/harm debate, I try to critique them, and I then move on to consider other relevant thinkers such as Scanlon, Finkelstein, Frick and Oberdiek. The aim of this article is to offer a consequentialist theory of contractualism and a resulting definition of objective risk to outline why pure risk of harm cannot itself be a harm, and to explore two ideas that might be of interest to anyone concerned with metaethics: (i) whether to correctly understand 'objective risk' we must redefine the concept in contractualist terms, clearly separating it from 'objective probability'; and (ii) whether the extent of the wrongness of an action depends entirely on the unjustifiable risks it raises and is thus fully separate from whether it causes harm.
The paper argues that the ethics of compromise, toleration, and war sometimes have to bracket who is right in the underlying conflict. It starts by highlighting a parallel between the ethics of compromise, toleration, and war: All three sometimes seem to apply symmetrically to those who are right and those who are wrong. It then discusses three attempts to make sense of this without bracketing who is right: one employs the idea of secondary oughts, a second appeals to conventions that are justifiably articulated in neutral terms, a third interprets the relevant oughts as subjective. The paper tries to show that none of them succeeds, and it concludes that we should embrace the view that the ethics of compromise, toleration, and war sometimes have to bracket who is right. The deeper rationale for this view, it suggests, is that sometimes all parties to a conflict must count as legitimate.
This paper presents a critique of the social model of impairment. It situates the social model of impairment within the broader framework of the social model of disability, where the distinction between disability and impairment originates. The paper begins by outlining the social model of disability and contrasting it with the individual (medical) model. It then offers an initial critique of the social model. Subsequently, two strategies employed to defend the social model are analysed. The first strategy posits that critiques of the social model arise from misinterpretations; however, this paper argues that such an approach reduces substantive issues to mere semantic debates. The second strategy, which serves as the primary focus of this paper, asserts that both disability and impairment are socially constructed. This argument is critiqued on the grounds that it relies on inconclusive evidence and, if accepted, would lead to nihilistic implications, ultimately undermining the moral responsibility of able-bodied individuals to support those with severe disabilities.
This article examines whether moral theory can provide satisfactory guidance to agents facing (resolvable) moral conflicts where mutually exclusive actions are required by significant moral reasons. Employing an exploratory approach, we map the alternatives offered by value-based moral theories, focusing on monism, which grounds moral reasons in a single value like utility, and hierarchical pluralism, which assigns a fixed ranking to multiple intrinsic values. Non-hierarchical pluralism is dismissed as it fails to offer practical guidance beyond subjective prioritisation. We propose two criteria for evaluating these theories: scope of resolution-the range of conflicts a theory can address-and explanatory capacity-the ability to account for ordinary moral experiences regarding moral conflicts, such as moral residue. Monism is criticised for its inability to explain the persistence of moral reasons not acted upon, while hierarchical pluralism faces a dilemma: it is either too narrow in scope or unable to accommodate circumstantial variations in the relative importance of values. Our findings suggest that moral theory's practical role in resolving moral conflicts is inherently limited. Instead, resolving most moral conflicts requires practical wisdom, as theorised in the Aristotelian tradition, which acknowledges the complexity and context-dependence of moral reasoning.
This manuscript draws on the under-explored Kantian duty of moral perfection to contend that psychopaths have a moral imperative to undergo biotechnological moral enhancement via DBS (Deep Brain Stimulation). In addition, non-psychopaths are obliged to help psychopaths acquire such measures that will align them with this duty. We justify that this is necessary to free them from any inclinations that may hinder their ability to pursue their ends further. Although this manuscript has only drawn on this duty to interrogate key questions around biotechnological enhancement, we believe this duty has more value than articulated in this current manuscript. Hence, we recommend more evaluative studies that draw on this duty to interrogate other ethical questions.
It is a well-known fact that different citizenships coexist within a hierarchical context. This reality has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 outbreak. While everybody has experienced temporary restrictions on their mobility rights, citizens of the global north are less affected by those limitations, in virtue of the comparative value of their passports. This has caused the aggravation of already unjust inequalities on a global scale. Measures implemented during a crisis tend to leave a legacy, if not altogether persist unchanged, after the emergency. This calls for reflection on the moral justifiability of mobility restrictions based on citizenship in the context of a pandemic and on the unjust structures that those restrictions could shape in the future. I argue that links between citizenship and exceptional measures on mobility rights should be avoided because 1) they fail to convey justifiable intuitions on the unequal mobility entitlements during a pandemic and 2) they might, given suitable conditions, foster instrumental naturalization and negatively impact the concept of democratic citizenship. Indeed, exceptional mobility restrictions during pandemics should always reflect the differential risk factors constituted by different actors in their international mobility. When this is not the case, these restrictions can inflict unjustified hardships on vulnerable minorities and result in discriminatory policies. Furthermore, linking mobility privileges to citizenship (rather than risk factors) is bound to strengthen the comparative value of certain citizenships as well as the notion of citizenship as primarily instrumentally valuable.
Authority of the CJEU has come under increasing stress over the past years. The most acute manifestation of this problem is the growing number of ultra vires judgements by high national courts, from Germany to Poland, which explicitly challenge the supremacy of the Court and one of the core structures of the EU legal system. In this paper I draw on Paul's Ricoeur's interpretation of Max Weber's concept of Herrschaft or authority. This theoretical framework allows me to advance a number of arguments that can help explain the current crisis from a perspective currently lacking in the literature. The upshot is a more fine-grained understanding of the discourses which aim to legitimate the authority of the CJEU, allowing us to appreciate the successes and failures of these strategies of legitimation.
Voting is morally significant insofar as it is an act by which citizens indirectly exercise power over others by taking part in the causal chain that ends up shaping the laws of a country (under minimal democratic conditions). Considering this, I argue that the most fundamental duty of voters is a duty of decentration, i.e., a duty to look beyond the impact of their single vote and to acknowledge their responsibility for others when deciding whether and how to vote. From this fundamental duty, at least three more concrete duties can be derived. 1) A duty to give primary attention to non-personal considerations like justice and well-being. 2) A duty to acquire sufficient and balanced information, and to fairly engage with opposing views. 3) A duty to vote (tactically) when we have sufficient reasons to believe that we can contribute to alleviating injustice or suffering. Although these duties are demanding, they do not entail that many people should abstain, and even less that universal suffrage should be questioned. In many cases, voters will have weightier reasons to vote than to abstain. Recognizing these duties should invite us to consider institutional ways of facilitating voters' fulfilment of their duties.
What is 'loss'? When, and why, does it matter? Analytic-philosophical consideration of loss has been overshadowed by the neighbouring concept of harm. But the two are distinct, and the distinction matters. We argue that the best conception of loss captures a wide range of diminutions, of any magnitude, in the feature-set of an entity, whereas the best conception of harm captures only significant diminutions in wellbeing of humans (and other living beings with moral status). In the space between the two concepts lies an under-theorised concept we call harmless loss, which does important conceptual work in cases of trivial wellbeing loss, losses to non-wellbeing goods, and losses to non-human agents. Our conceptual scheme motivates principles of reasoning according to which decision-makers should take account of harms and ignore harmless losses, except where they have special duties to avoid losses. These principles advance debates about climate change 'loss and damage' and the 'just transition' to a low-carbon economy.
We have a transgenerational moral sensitivity and can assume responsibility for how we share large-scale accumulations of action with non-contemporaries in the past and future. This historical enlargement of responsibility lacks an important stringency because it does not involve facing an actual other or situation; a threatening farther future can be written off because 'we won't have to face it' (or, more importantly, them). Electively, we can imagine ourselves facing our forerunners and descendants; for instance, I can visit the Lincoln Memorial and let Lincoln's statue and his inscribed Gettysburg Address motivate me to contribute to the transgenerational project of American democracy. There is no real facing in this scenario because there is no possibility of interaction. But there can be a morally serious, realistically circumspect facing toward past and future actors and situations. Setting up and maintaining institutional endowments is a strong model of this form of responsibility. We are responsible to each other in the present for how we face toward the past and future, not only because we are jointly participating in the accumulation of shared action but also because we are all affected by the more and less considerate ways in which this is done.
I argue that our relationships with others permit us to count our intimates as 'part of us' in some cases. These relationships are not constituted by a morally significant history of interactions but our associations with others. To have an association with others is to have a strong connection to make you and others counted as a community in a certain context, i.e., we could count them as 'part of us'. If so, some permissible moral options including both other-favouring and other-sacrificing are supported by the same reasoning behind the types of self-favouring and self-sacrificing.
In his 2001 book The Future of Human Nature, Habermas raised serious objections to the scientific use of embryonic stem cells. Since then, biotechnology has made great strides, and innovative technologies have come to fruition. In particular, it is now possible to reprogram somatic cells to form induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). This paper examines whether or not the objections that Habermas raised at the time about producing and using embryonic stem cells (ECSs) also apply to iPSCs. To this end, we begin by reviewing biological findings concerning iPSCs and the current bioethical discussion around them, before giving a recap of Habermas's main argument and, finally, connecting it to iPSCs. iPSCs are grown for therapeutic use on patients. iPSCs can be used to produce gametes, where the latter have the same potential and functions as naturally grown gametes. However, the case has not been made that research on iPSCs would even come close to leading to the selection or enhancement of future human beings. Hence, iPSC researchers are not conducting arbitrary or disproportionate experiments on the embryonic origins of human beings, and thus they are not infringing on the sphere that Habermas regards as sacrosanct. In support of this claim, we can adduce an argument from potential and an argument from function. Habermas's argument can only plausibly be extended to research on iPSCs if we introduce rather strong assumptions - namely, that research on iPSCs is a form of arbitrary experimentation, without making essential distinctions, particularly regarding the origins of human life. The main difference between iPSCs and ESCs concerns the source of iPSCs: while ESCs are extracted from a human embryo, iPSCs derive from somatic cells of adults. Nevertheless, it cannot be ruled out that iPSCs will one day play a role in a process that will lead to the creation of embryos. While this point seems quite far from Habermas's original contentions, this is not to say that research on iPSCs is completely innocuous.
Twenty years have now passed since J & uuml;rgen Habermas published his only work on bioethics. This article has three main aims. First, to offer a comprehensive re-evaluation of The Future of Human Nature in light of the many critiques made of it. Second, to undertake a reconstruction of certain elements of the work. Third, to forge a 'Habermasian perspective' that draws not only from The Future of Human Nature but also from his influential theories, including those of modernity, social evolution, and his discourse theory of ethics. In The Future of Human Nature, Habermas opposes the selection and enhancement of genetic traits for non-therapeutic purposes, arguing that such practices undermine autonomy and, in turn, 'humanity's ethical self-understanding.' Although subject to vociferous critique, I argue that the argument from autonomy holds promise. However, for it to serve the role Habermas envisions, the impact of new genetic technologies on norms of socialization - specifically those related to individuation - must be brought to the fore. I reframe the argument by focusing on how processes of self-formation in future societies could differ radically from those in contemporary society. I also propose a further important shift: limiting objections to genetic technologies on the grounds of autonomy narrows the scope of what a Habermasian approach to normatively evaluating these technologies might offer. Departing from his original stance, the Habermasian perspective outlined here advocates a precautionary societal approach informed by key insights from his social and normative theories.
One of the central assertions in Anne Barnhill and Matteo Bonotti's Healthy Eating Policy and Political Philosophy: A Public Reason Approach is that "food and eating have many kinds of value for individuals, families, and communities," and this value "can be both positive and negative" (2022, 5). One implication of this view is that healthy eating may have significant disvalue for some eaters while unhealthy eating may be highly valuable. Thus, healthy eating interventions may result in a significant loss of value or increase in disvalue in eaters' lives. The authors contend that public health policymakers should take this into account, arguing that a policy likely to result in significant losses of value or increases in disvalue is unjustifiable. In this paper, I argue that Barnhill and Bonotti's values pluralism about food and eating offers a welcome departure from three common oversimplifications of the ethical importance of food and eating in human life: an 'all about paternalism' view, a healthist view, and a hedonistic view. This values pluralism enriches and enhances our understandings and normative assessments of 'good food' and 'good eating,' and makes space to recognize a wider range of 'good eaters' than any of these oversimplifications can accommodate. This is important because being identified and treated as a 'bad eater' can have morally significant consequences, including damage to the eater's agency. Thus, beyond its importance for food policy, it would be beneficial for a wide range of conversations about food and eating to adopt a values pluralist perspective. However, since some value derives from sources - such as false beliefs or oppressive identities - that may not be worthy of respect, more needs to be said about whether all value and disvalue should be treated as equivalent before this perspective can be responsibly deployed in any context.
There is increasing awareness in Western societies on how diets and foods can influence human health. This has prompted a lively discussion on healthy eating policies among scholars, lay people, and policymakers on the opportunity for the state to intervene in private aspects of citizens' lives, such as their eating behaviours and food choice. Barnhill and Bonotti (2022), following up on this ongoing debate, propose a new foundation for healthy eating policies based on public reasons. This approach grounds public efforts and interventions on reasons that citizens could understand and accept, at least to some extent of idealization. The purpose of this paper is to expand the work by Barnhill and Bonotti by introducing two additional tools borrowed from social ontology, which may be useful for policy makers. The first tool is what I call ontological targeting. It aims to determine the entity that should be targeted by Barnhill and Bonotti's ethical framework, e.g., a diet, a particular food, or a macronutrient (II). The second tool is social pressure analysis, which can assist policymakers in evaluating how social groups can influence individual eating behaviours (III). In the final section of the paper, I will provide a brief example illustrating how these two tools can be used to provide greater insights for policy makers (IV).
Barnhill and Bonotti (2022) argue that we should reject the intelligibility criterion of public reason because it would fail to justify any healthy eating policies. Their argument is a species of a wider objection to the intelligibility criterion, which we have called the 'anarchy objection'. According to this objection, if our set of justificatory reasons is too great, then someone will always have defeater reasons for every, or nearly every, policy. The result is anarchy: the use of government power is always unjustified. The intelligibility criterion permits a larger set of reasons than all other competitors, including Barnhill and Bonotti's preferred 'accessibility criterion'. Whilst admitting that intelligibility sets a high bar for the justification of coercion, we argue that it is the best criterion for a public reason view. Thus, if use of the criterion fails to vindicate healthy eating policies, so much the worse for such policies. But we also argue that the anarchy objection fails and so it could be possible to justify healthy eating policies using the intelligibility criterion. Finally, we develop an alternative way of applying public reason views to policy analysis. By emphasizing the high bar for justification, we argue that it is preferable to focus on identifying existing unjustified policies that create barriers to healthy eating. This includes the subsidization of corn and sugar. This 'reform by repeal' approach can promote healthy eating while also reducing unjustified coercion.
We are extremely grateful to Gabriele Badano for editing this symposium and to Megan Dean, Nicola Piras, and Marcus Schultz- Bergin and Kevin Vallier for their thoughtful commentaries on our book Healthy Eating Policy and Political Philosophy: A Public Reason Approach (Barnhill and Bonotti 2022). In this paper, we offer a critical reflection on the issues raised in these commentaries with regard to some of the key aspects of our analysis, focusing especially on the challenges posed by unreasonable worldviews, the role of social pressure in promoting healthy eating, and the conception of public reason that underlies our approach.
This essay positions the relationship between human and other-than-human animals as a central anchor point for animal welfare education in agricultural vocational training. This relationship is a potential source of tension between the intentions of production and the breeder's disposition to be touched and affected by these animals. The resonant experiences between humans and other-than-human animals, in the sense of Hartmut Rosa (2018a), are, in our opinion, a fruitful way to help future animal breeders to find other possible ways of relating to the world than those imposed by the acceleration and alienation that characterise the dominant animal husbandry systems in Europe. We explore and discuss the transformative potential of educational activities that promote critical, creative, ethical and embodied dialogue.
Freedom: An Unruly History has attracted the attention of many, including the general public. This is not only due to the popularity of its theme and the high accessibility of its style. With the book's plot (today's triumphant liberal conception of freedom is a relatively recent invention by critics of a democratic conception of political liberty), Annelien De Dijn has also sought controversy. I will outline the gist of that plot, but question its originality in the first part of this contribution. Mainly, I will formulate some critical comments on De Dijn's 'democratic' reading of the modern conception of freedom that she actually restores and gives recognition to in her book against the dominant liberal view: the republican one. Not only will I show that this reading is historically questionable (in the second part), I will also elaborate on how De Dijn's reading results in a one-sided view of the republican conception of liberty (in the last part).
