Peter Vallentyne

die). In recent years the problem of moral dilemmas has received the attention of a number of philosophers. Some authors1 argue that moral dilemmas are not conceptually possible (i.e., that they are incoherent, given the nature of the concepts involved) because they are ruled out by certain valid principles of deontic logic. Other authors2 insist that moral dilemmas are conceptually possible, and argue that therefore the principles of deontic logic that rule them out must be rejected. In arguing for or against the conceptual possibility of moral dilemmas authors have been almost exclusively concerned with obligation dilemmas, i.e., situations in which more than one action is obligatory. Almost no one has been explicitly concerned with prohibition dilemmas, i.e., situations in which no feasible action is permissible.3 I shall argue that the two types of dilemmas are distinct, and that a much stronger case can be made against the conceptual possibility of obligation dilemmas than against the conceptual possibility of prohibition dilemmas.

Egalitarian theories of justice hold that equality should be promoted. Typically, perfect equality will not be achievable, and it will be necessary to determine which of various unequal distributions is the most equal. All plausible conceptions of equality hold that, where perfect equality does not obtain, (1) any benefit (no matter how small) to a worst-off person that leaves him/her still a worst-off person has priority (with respect to equality promotion) over any benefit (no matter how large) to a best-off person, and (2) any benefit to a worse-off person (even if not a worst-off person) has priority over a benefit of the same size to a better off person (even if not a best-off person). Beyond that there is much disagreement.

A contractarian moral theory states that an action (practice, social structure, etc.) is morally permissible if and only if it (or rules to which if conforms) would be agreed to by the members of society under certain circumstances. What people will agree to depends on what their desires are like. Most contractarian theories - for example those of Rawls (1971) and Gauthier (1986) - specify that parties to the agreement are mutually unconcerned (take no interest in each other's interests). Contractarian theorists, do not, of course, believe that this is true of real people, but they insist (with Kant) that the basic moral constraints on conduct (if there are any) apply independently of whether individuals care about each other. I shall here argue against the appropriateness of the assumption of mutual unconcern for contractarian theories, such as Gauthier's, that are supposed to ground morality solely in rationality.

At various universities across the country, philosophers are organizing faculty development workshops for non-philosophy faculty members who want to incorporate critical thinking about ethical and social justice issues into their courses. The demand for such programs is reasonably strong. In part this is due to the increasing pressure from professional associations (e.g., those of nursing and accounting) for the inclusion of ethics in the curriculum. In part, however, it is simply due to the recognition by faculty members across the university that an adequate education must include some reflection on ethical issues. In this article we discuss some of the reasons for philosophers to become involved, describe a faculty development program that we are running, and offer some advice about how to succeed in such endeavors.

In the old days, material egalitarians tended to favor equality of outcome advantage, on some suitable conception of advantage. Under the influence of Dworkin’s seminal articles on equality, contemporary material egalitarians have tended to favor equality of brute luck advantage---on the grounds that this permits people to be held appropriately accountable for the benefits and burdens of their choices. I shall argue, however, that a plausible conception of egalitarian justice requires neither that brute luck advantage always be equalized nor that people always bear the full cost of their voluntary choices. Instead, justice requires that initial opportunities for advantage be equalized---roughly along the lines suggested by Arneson and Cohen. Brute luck egalitarianism and initial opportunity egalitarianism are fairly similar in motivation, and as a result they have not been adequately distinguished. Once the two views are more clearly contrasted, equality of opportunity for advantage will, I claim, be seen to be a more plausible conception of equality.

Where there are infinitely many possible [equiprobable] basic states of the world, a standard probability function must assign zero probability to each state—since any finite probability would sum to over one. This generates problems for any decision theory that appeals to expected utility or related notions. For it leads to the view that a situation in which one wins a million dollars if any of a thousand of the equally probable states is realized has an expected value of zero (since each such state has probability zero). But such a situation dominates the situation in which one wins nothing no matter what (which also has an expected value of zero), and so surely is more desirable. I formulate and defend some principles for evaluating options where standard probability functions cannot strictly represent probability—and in particular for where there is an infinitely spread, uniform distribution of probability. The principles appeal to standard probability functions, but overcome at least some of their limitations in such cases.

In Are Equal Liberty and Equality Compatible?, Jan Narveson and James Sterba insightfully debate whether a right to maximum equal negative liberty requires, or at least is compatible with, a right to welfare. Narveson argues that the two rights are incompatible, whereas Sterba argues that the rights are compatible and indeed that the right to maximum equal negative liberty requires a right to welfare. I argue that Sterba is correct that the two rights are conceptually compatible and that Narveson is right that right to negative liberty does not conceptually require a right to welfare

I address an issue that arises for rights theories that recognize rights to compensation for rightsintrusions. Do individuals who never pose any risk of harm to others have a right, against a rightsintruder, to full compensation for any resulting intrusion-harm, or is the right limited in some way by the extent to which the intruder was agent-responsible for the intrusion-harm (e.g., the extent to which the harm was a foreseeable result of her autonomous choices)? Although this general issue of strict liability vs. fault liability has been much analyzed and debated, there is a promising position that, to the best of my knowledge, has not been much discussed. This is the view that (1) when the intruder is agent-responsible for violating the rights (e.g., does so knowingly), she owes the intrudee compensation for the entire intrusion-harm, but (2) when the intruder is not agentresponsible for wrongly intruding upon the rights (because the intrusion was not wrong or because the intruder could not reasonably have known it was wrong), then she owes the intrudee compensation only for the intrusion-harm for which she is agent-responsible (and not, for example, harm that she could not have reasonably foreseen). I shall develop and motivate this position without attempting a full defense. Throughout, I focus on the rights of the intrudee, against the intruder, to compensation and the correlative duty of the intruder to the intrudee. I’m pleased and honored to have this paper included in this collection in honor of Hillel Steiner. Much of what I know about rights and libertarianism I learned from him – both from his written works and from his very helpful correspondence over the years. Moreover, his intellectual rigor, honesty, and modesty have been a source of inspiration. Although Hillel has not written extensively on compensation for intrusion-harms, it is a topic central to his view of justice, as it is to mine.

Where there is a fixed population (i.e., who exists does not depend on what choice an agent makes), the deontic version of anonymous Paretian egalitarianism holds that an option is just if and only if (1) it is anonymously Pareto optimal (i.e., no feasible alternative has a permutation that is Pareto superior), and (2) it is no less equal than any other anonymously Pareto optimal option. We shall develop and discuss a version of this approach for the variable population case (i.e., where who exists does depend on what choice an agent makes). More specifically, we shall develop and discuss it in the context of a person-affecting framework—in which an option is just if and only if it wrongs no one according to certain plausible conditions on wronging.

Libertarianism holds that agents initially fully own themselves. Lockean libertarianism further holds that agents have the moral power to acquire private property in external things as long as a Lockean Proviso—requiring that “enough and as good” be left for others—is satisfied. Radical right-libertarianism, on the other hand, holds that satisfaction of a Lockean Proviso is not necessary for the appropriation of unowned things. This is sometimes defended on the ground that the initial status of external resources as unowned precludes any role for a Lockean Proviso. I shall show that this is a bad argument. Although I would argue that satisfaction of a Lockean Proviso is indeed a necessary condition for the appropriation of unowned things, I shall not attempt to establish that here. My goal here is more modest: to rebut one argument against the Lockean Proviso.

Earl Conee is a well known contemporary defender of the impossibility of moral dilemmas. In his 1982 paper "Against Moral Dilemmas" he argued that moral dilemmas are impossible because the existence of such a dilemma would entail that some obligatory action is forbidden, which is absurd. More recently, in "Why Moral Dilemmas are Impossible" he has defended the impossibility of moral dilemmas by claiming that the moral status of an action depends in part on the moral status of its alternatives. I will here argue that this claim -- as he understands it -- is sufficiently controversial to undermine the force of his argument.

This problem has already been discussed by a number of authors.[i] Typically, however, authors take one of two extreme positions: they hold that all welfare should be taken at face value, or they hold that "suspect" welfare should be completely ignored. My contribution here is the following: First, I introduce the notion of unauthorized (suspect) welfare, of which welfare from meddlesome preferences, offensive tastes, expensive tastes, etc. are special cases. Second, I formulate four conditions of adequacy, applicable to any welfare-based theory, for dealing with unauthorized welfare. These conditions require that unauthorized welfare be "discounted" (play a restricted role) but not be completely ignored. Thus, I shall be exploring a position intermediate between taking "unauthorized" welfare at face value and simply ignoring it. Moreover, the four conditions jointly determine exactly how existing welfare-based theories need to be revised so as to be appropriately sensitive to unauthorized welfare.