Stephen Kershnar

Sexual fantasy is a non-perceptual thought that is sexually arousing. It has several paradigmatic features. The structure of a fantasy involves an agent taking pleasure in an object that is often a visual depiction of an event. The fantasy is under the agent’s control and has a semantic content. Since mere sexual fantasizing about someone respects the individual who are depicted in the fantasy, the rightness of a sexual fantasy depends on whether consequentialism is true and, if so, whether the particular fantasy brings about better results an alternative activities. Sexual fantasies can be intrinsically good or bad depending on whether the pleasure is malicious and whether the fantasy contains a false statement. The vast majority are not intrinsically bad since they neither involve an unfitting attitude toward something that is itself bad nor commit the subject to a falsity. Hence, if one rejects consequentialism, then most sexual fantasies, including many of the most violent ones, are neither wrong nor intrinsically bad.

In this paper, I argue that Threshold-Hell Christianity conflicts with the pro-life position on abortion. The specific type of Christianity is that which also accepts threshold deontology and the existence of hell. Threshold deontology is the view that ordinarily moral duties consist of non-consequentialist side-constraints on the pursuit of the good but that in some cases these side-constraints are overridden. My strategy is to establish that a person who brings about an abortion guarantees that the aborted individual goes to heaven and that it is morally permissible to guarantee someone goes to heaven. It follows that if Threshold-Hell Christianity is true, then abortion is morally permissible.

If the ground of punishment is a culpable wronging, what is it about a culpable wrongdoing that allows it to morally justify deserved punishment? In particular, we want to know what it is about a culpable wrongdoing that accounts for the intrinsic value of punitive desert or the punitive-desert-related duties that comprise retributivism. I analyze both together in the context of seeking a justification for The Principle of Deserved Punishment, (1). (1) The Principle of Deserved Punishment. A person deserves punishment because, and only because, she has performed a culpable wrongdoing. One approach is that more general moral principles justify it. On this approach, these moral principles support the claim that deserved punishment is morally justified and the claim that it is justified on the ground of a culpable wrongdoing. In this article, I argue against this approach. Elsewhere I argue for the truth of retributivism (which focuses on deserved punishment) based on its being the best explanation of our considered moral judgments. This latter account allows punitive desert and retributivism to function as more fundamental normative entities than is suggested by theories that attempt to derive it from other moral principles.

In this essay, I argue that colleges and universities should permit hazing. I argue that if hazing is wrong, then it wrongs someone and if it wrongs someone then it violates someone’s right. Hazing does not violate someone’s right when the person who is hazed gives informed consent. I then argue that because hazing is permissible, colleges should permit it. I consider and respond to objections that hazing is wrong for reasons that are not right-based. Here I consider objections relating to deception, coercion, unnecessary harm, degradation, and exploitation. I also consider two more objections. First, hazing is wrong because it violates the colleges’ rights. Second, colleges need not permit hazing because they own the rights to the groups or the materials that the groups use and hence they may exercise their property rights in such a way as to make hazing wrong.

In this essay, I argue for the claim that the MVP is the player who provides the greatest net benefit to his team. I then argued for the following model of a player’s net benefit to her team. (1) A person’s, X’s, net benefit to the team is a function of the difference in team success when X plays and when her actual or likely backup plays. I argued that this model best satisfies our intuitions, measures actual value rather than expected value, does not depend on arbitrary assumptions, and tends to track the way in which a team would economically value a player. The two do not align exactly, since economic valuation is future looking and net benefit is backward looking. Leaving aside concerns about player-related contribution, this model provides a right answer to the question of who is a league’s MVP. It also captures the comparative value of players within a team.

In David Boonin’s Should Race Matter? Unusual Answers to the Usual Questions, Boonin addresses some of the most controversial race-policies. Specifically, he addresses reparations for slavery, affirmative action, hate-speech penalties, hate-crime laws, and racial profiling. The book is excellent, but in the end the arguments do not succeed. Consider first his argument on reparations for slavery. In general, problems with the relevant compensation-counterfactuals undermine our ability to gage the amount of compensation owed. Similarly, because no one knows how much of the black-white gap is due to genetics or African cultural influence or other factors, judging the amount of the black-white gap due to slavery and subsequent oppression is nearly impossible. When paid via tax dollars, both unwarranted compensation and unpaid compensatory debts are unjust. Hence, when it is murky whether or to what extent compensation is owed, compensatory justice pulls us in two directions. Consider, also, how much of the debt has been paid off already via affirmative action and disproportionately filling government jobs with blacks. If blacks are doing better than how they would in the absence of slavery and past discrimination because of government benefits, then it is not clear if further compensation is owed. Boonin needs to consider whether blacks occupy more professional roles or have more income than they would have but for past discrimination. This might come about if we discovered that affirmative action was widely applied or that large numbers were hired by the government and it pays a lot more than the private sector.

Carl Cohen’s and James Sterba’s debate is an impressive discussion of the legality and morality of various types of affirmative action and a must read for researchers in this field. These two issues bifurcate. The legality of preferential treatment consists of two different issues: Is preferential treatment Constitutional? Does preferential treatment violate laws other than the Constitution? The morality of preferential treatment also consists of two issues: Is preferential treatment right? Is it good? The discussion in this book is wide-ranging and the authors provide a fascinating set of legal and empirical arguments that are a nice complement to the moral arguments that underlie their positions on affirmative action. The only problem with the book is that the moral arguments are somewhat abbreviated. In summary, the debate between Cohen and Sterba is insightful, well researched, and worth reading. Their legal arguments are particularly interesting. In the end, however, neither Cohen nor Sterba provide a plausible argument with regard to whether preferential treatment has effects that make it worth pursuing. Nor does either provide a strong moral case for or against preferential treatment as compensation.

This book provides a philosophical analysis of adult-child sex and pedophilia. The sex intuitively strikes many people, including myself, as sick, disgusting, and wrong. The problem is that it is not clear whether these judgments are justified and whether they are aesthetic or moral. By analogy, many people find it disgusting to view images of obese people having sex, but it is hard to see what is morally undesirable about such sex. Here the judgment is aesthetic. This book looks at the moral status of such adult-child sex. In particular, it explores whether those who engage in adult-child sex have a disease, act wrongly, or are vicious. In addition, it looks at how the law should respond to such sex given the above analyses.

We should adopt the following principle with regard to compensatory justice. (1) If an unjust act benefits an innocent person and there is no reasonable way to assess the amount of damages to the victim, then compensatory justice does not require that the innocent beneficiary pay compensation for those damages. We cannot reasonably assess the amount of damages to current racial minorities that have resulted from past discriminatory acts. Problems arise in determining the identity of the injured parties, the identity of the injuring agents and injuring acts (and omissions), and the degree of injury that directly resulted from these acts (or omissions). Since such compensable damages cannot be accurately estimated and since white male applicants are innocent beneficiaries of past discriminatory acts, the value of compensatory justice does not justify strong affirmative action programs.

In this paper, I argue for the Complex Experiential Theory. It asserts that pleasure is a pro-attitude toward a de se experience. I argue that it is better than its competitors. In particular, it is better than monadic theories that view pleasure as a distinct type of experience or a pro-attitude in isolation. It is also better than other non-monadic theories. In particular, it is better than accounts that involve pro-attitudes and beliefs in states of affairs or propositions (or ones that obtain, are true, or that focus on the subject’s own life). When conjoined with hedonism, this theory fits nicely into a building block theory of well-being.

Violation pornography is pornography where the depicted behavior includes unjust sexual acts, e.g., rape. In this paper I argue that it is unclear whether the enjoyment of violation pornography is bad for the viewer. My essay has three parts. First, I set out an account of flourishing. I adopt a composite account, whereby flourishing is a function of the degree to which an individual has pleasure and various objective-list elements. Objective-list elements are things (e.g., knowledge and meaningful relationships) that make my life go better independently of their effects on pleasure and desire-fulfillment. In the next two parts, I relate violation pornography to each component of flourishing. Thus, in the second part, I explore whether violation pornography promotes or hinders pleasure. In the third part I explore whether pornography is compatible with these objective-list elements, particularly virtue.

Stephen Kershnar’s model of the most valuable player fails. It does not track total value and this is what a team values, although perhaps the best model should focus on player-related value. In any case, the model does not succeed as a model of player-value because player-value is indeterminate. The indeterminacy results from boundary problems with the player-role and, perhaps also, indeterminacy in the baseline state. In addition, Kershnar’s framework is misguided because winning is not intrinsically valuable and is not even something wanted for its own sake. The MVP problem remains unsolved.

George Sher's theory of deserved punishment is unable to account for cases in which wrongdoing does not result in unfair advantages. Sher attempts to connect punishment with distributive justice by suggesting that punishment is deserved inasmuch as the unfair advantage gained by wrongdoing is offset. According to Sher's diachronic theory of fairness, punishment is also deserved when it occurs in response to transgression of a first-order ethical norm. A problem for the theory concerns the justification it provides for disparate treatment of wrongdoers who are morally indistinguishable.

Slavery harmed the slaves but not their descendants since slavery brought about their existence. The descendants gain the slaves’ claims via inheritance. However, collecting the inheritance-based claim runs into a number of difficulties. First, every descendant usually has no more than a portion of the slave’s claim because the claim is often divided over generations. Second, there are epistemic difficulties involving the ownership of the claim since it is unlikely that a descendant of a slave several generations removed would have retained the claim of inheritance given the loss of wealth and disinheritance that often characterizes families. There are also problems in determining the amount of inheritance. This is in part because of the problems of calculating in the effects of offsets, especially crime-related offsets, which are owed by a significant portion of the descendants. Even if this inheritance claim can be established with sufficient confidence certain entities may not be asked to pay it. The federal government does not owe compensation since as a historical matter it permitted but did not cause enslavement. The beneficiaries of slavery do not owe compensation since merely receiving the benefit of an unjust activity does not by itself generate a debt of compensation. When combined these problems constitute an overwhelming case against reparations.

In this paper, I argue that character alone grounds desert. I begin by arguing that desert is grounded by a person’s character, action, or both. In the second section, I defend the claim that character grounds desert. My argument rests on intuitions that other things being equal, it would be intrinsically better for virtuous persons to flourish and vicious persons suffer than vice versa. In the third section, I argue that actions do not ground desert. I give three arguments in support of this claim. First, there is little intuitive support for this supposed ground and to the extent that there is support, it is undermined when we consider what causes character and acts to diverge. Second, this type of desert doesn’t fit with a unifying account of the different aspects of intrinsic value. Third, the most plausible version of act-based desert leaves it unclear why acts should ground desert.

In the context of state educational institutions, young white males are owed a duty to respect their interest or desert tokens. Not all white males have waived this duty since many white males have not performed the relevant types of culpable wrongdoing. Merely having benefitted from an unjust injury act or being a member of a community that owe a debt of compensation to racial minorities and women are not sufficient grounds to override the duty owed to the white male. Since the three most plausible attempts to provide a compensatory justice justification for strong affirmative action programs at state educational institutions fail, I conclude that the following is false. (1) Other things being equal, a state educational institution may choose to hire a less qualified candidate over a more qualified candidate because the weight given to the race or gender of the less qualified candidate relates to the elimination of a debt of compensatory justice. Hence, unless strong affirmative action programs at state educational institutions can be justified by reference to some other value, such as the value of diversity, the state ought to eliminate such programs.

In this article, I argued that in contexts in which tipping is customary, there is a moral duty to tip or to explicitly tell the server that you will not be tipping. The evidence for this rests on anecdotes about people's mental states, and customers and server's intuitions about duties that would arise were a customer unable to tip his server. The promise is a speech act that is implicit in ordering food. The speech act must be matched by the server's uptake, which is implicit in her taking the order. The promise argument rests on an actual promise and not a merely hypothetical promise. If there is such a duty, then in the absence of an explicit content, its content is likely set by convention. The convention is that customers tip 15–20%. Thus, customers have a duty to tip servers 15–20%. Other purported moral considerations do not ground this duty. These include custom, desirable incentives, role‐relative obligation, and gratitude.

In this paper, I argue that many violent sexual fantasies are not vicious. In the first part of this article, I sketch out the nature of violent sexual fantasies and note that many people regularly have them. I then argue many violent sexual fantasies are not vicious. My argument strategy is to explore what makes an attitude vicious and then to note that the vice-making feature need not be present in such fantasies and is in fact probably not present in many of them. I then explore some of the implications of this finding for the nature of virtue and pornography policy.

In this article I argue that mercy does not prevent the imposition of harsh punishment from being morally permissible. This article has two parts. In the first part, I argue that mercy is an imperfect duty, because only such a duty-type explains the attributes that are commonly ascribed to mercy. In the second part, I argue that mercy does not present a sufficient moral reason against the regular imposition of harsh punishment because it neither undermines nor systematically overrides or weakens the retributive duties. This is in part because the imperfect duty to be merciful can be satisfied by actions taken in nonpunitive contexts alone. This is also in part because mercy is not particularly appropriate given the lack of positive desert of and good moral character in most of the culpable wrongdoers who deserve harsh punishment.

A person deserves a punishment if and only if he did a culpable wrongdoing and in virtue of this it is other-things-being intrinsically good that he receive punishment and if he were to receive that punishment then it would be through a non-deviant causal chain that includes the culpable wrongdoing. The wrongdoing may be institutional or pre-institutional depending on whether the moral right that the wrongdoer trespasses upon is dependent on a political institution’s goal. Desert in general, and punitive desert in particular, has a ground for which the agent is blameworthy or praiseworthy and it does not itself general a duty on anyone’s behalf. Both features make desert a different type of moral entity than a moral right. In addition, the two stand in a different relation to autonomy: rights protect a sphere in which autonomy may be exercises whereas desert, including punitive desert, provides a guide to the exercise of autonomy. They thus have different connections to one of the most important value-creating features of a person. This difference between desert and moral rights indicates the need for a separate analysis of each in the context of punishment.

Thomas Hurka has put forth a powerful account of virtue. The account rests on a specification of intrinsically good mental states and then explains what unifies them. On his account, virtue and desert also share the same structure. His theory of virtue has some difficulties that threaten the structure that unifies it. First, Hurka's account cannot provide a principled account of virtue and vice when they are constituted by attitudes toward things are not intrinsically good (e.g., nonexistent state of affairs). Second, Hurka's account does not have room for an important factor in determining the degree to which an attitude is virtuous or vicious: agent-relative goods. Hurka is thus faced with a abandoning the basic structure that makes his theory attractive or adopting counterintuitive positions.

A punitive desert-claim should be understood as a claim about the intrinsic value of punishment, where this value is grounded in an act or feature of the person to be punished. The purpose of my project is to explore the structure and justification of such punitive desert-claims. ;I argue that a true punitive desert-claim takes the form and , and that belief in these principles is justified on the basis of our considered moral judgments. The Principle of Deserved Punishment. A person who deserves punishment deserves it because, and only because, she has performed a culpable wrongdoing. The Principle of the Proportionality of Deserved Punishment. A person receives the punishments she deserves if and only if the punishment she receives is proportional to her culpable wrongdoing. ;My analysis proceeds as follows. In chapter two, I argue in favor of the claim that a culpable wrongdoing is the sole basis for deserved punishment. ;In chapter three, I put forth an account of the structure of a punitive desert-claim and argue that deserved punishment is not justified via the consequences that result from punishment. Having clarified the basis and structure of deserved punishment, I then set out to provide the justification for it. ;In chapter four, I argue that deserved punishment cannot be justified by an appeal to more general moral principles. My argument here rests on the criticism of different types of theory that attempt to justify deserved punishment on the grounds of more general principles. Here I criticize those theories that attempt to justify and on the grounds of: the culpable wrongdoer's choice, the culpable wrongdoer's hypothetical consent, the state's promise to punish, the demands of a justified institution, and distributive justice. ;In the last chapter I argue that and best account for our considered moral judgments about specific cases. From this, I conclude that our belief in both principles is justified

This book is an analysis and evaluation of torture. My take on torture is unique for four reasons. First, it provides a distinct analysis of what torture is. Second, it argues that on non-consequentialist grounds, specifically rights-based ones, torture is sometimes permissible. Third, it argues that torturers are not always vicious. Fourth, it argues that it is plausible that these conclusions apply to some real world cases. In short, it fills the following gap: it evaluates torture from a rights-based perspective and finds that in some cases it is permissible. My book is a unique philosophical exploration of torture. It combines a philosophical analysis of torture with a moral evaluation of it. The philosophical analysis of torture has not received a lot of attention. My analysis defends a minimal view of torture and one that distinguishes the analysis of the concept of torture from the moral evaluation of it. The resulting theory, the minimalist theory, differs noticeably from other analyses. My moral evaluation of torture sharply differs from the rest of the literature. The evaluation focuses on the non-consequentialist approach to morality, that is, it assumes that what makes an action right is not solely whether it brings about the best results. Using the central feature of non-consequentialism, moral rights, I argue that torture is justified in a number of theoretical contexts, including defense, punishment, and when the person to be tortured consents. I then look at the actual world and argue that it is plausible to think that there are real-world cases where torture is justified. My analysis also looks at whether torture is virtuous in an attempt to get at what intuitively repels us about torture. My analysis is not only the first look at the issue, but it also ties in with recent developments in virtue theory. As in the analysis of the permissibility of torture, I try to show that my findings with regard to virtue are not merely of theoretical interest, but are plausible given some real-world cases.

The article claims that a person who deserves punishment deserves it because, and only because, she has performed a culpable wrongdoing . The article thus rejects the theory that the basis of deserved punishment is a bad moral character. The argument rejecting The Character Theory of Deserved Punishment is divided into two parts:1) that it is not necessarily the case that an intentional act reflects the agent's moral character, and2) that it is not necessarily the case that a culpable wrongdoing reflects the agent's moral character. The article then proceeds to isolate instances of culpable wrongdoing and of bad moral character to see which of these factors accompanies the considered moral judgment that the agent deserves punishment. It concludes that our intuitions suggest deserved punishment and the amount of punishment someone deserves, correlate with culpable wrongdoing rather than with a person's bad moral character. Der Beitrag geht davon aus, daß eine Person dann und nur dann Strafe verdient, wenn sie eine rechtswidrige Tat schuldhaft begangen hat. Er wendet sich damit gegen die Auffassung, Basis für eine verdiente Strafe sei der schlechte Charakter der bestraften Person. Das Argument, das die letztere Lehre verwirft, zerfällt in zwei Teile. 1) Es ist nicht notwendigerweise so, daß eine Vorsatztat den schlechten Charakter des Handelnden, und 2) es ist nicht notwendigerweise so, daß schuldhaft begangenes Unrecht überhaupt den Charakter des Handelnden widerspiegelt. Anschließend untersucht der Beitrag Beispiele schuldhaftes Unrechttuns und Beispiele schlechten moralischen Charakters, um festzustellen, welcher dieser Faktoren das moralische Urteil, daß der Handelnde Strafe verdient, begleitet. Er kommt zu dem Ergebnis, daß unsere Intuitionen den Gedanken, jemand verdiene Strafe, und die Höhe der Strafe, die der Betreffende verdient, mit der Annahme einer schuldhaft begangenen rechtswidrigen Tat korrelieren und nicht mit der Annahme der Betreffende habe einen schlechten Charakter

David Boonin’s book, The Problem of Punishment, combines an incredible command of the literature with an organized and careful discussion. With the possible exception of Michael Moore’s book, Placing Blame, this is the best book ever written on the philosophy of punishment. His overall thesis is that legal punishment is wrong. Boonin argues that the purported justifications of punishment fail the Foundational Test or the Entailment Test. (1) Foundational Test: A theory satisfies the foundation test if and only if it does not have implications that are so counterintuitive that there is sufficient reason to reject the theory. (2) Entailment Test: A theory satisfies the Entailment Test if and only if it entails that legal punishment is permissible. Despite the book’s brilliance, Boonin’s overall strategy is mistaken. He tries to show that no theory can justify punishing all and only people who violate the law and entail that all such offenders should receive proportionate punishments. He also argues that many of the theories fail on their own terms, but let us leave aside these specific criticisms. Consider the following question: Are the laws in question are perfectly just or not? If the laws are perfectly just, then we are talking about an ideal set of laws. The ideal laws might well perfectly track one of the factors such as desert, forfeiture, or fairness because doing so is what makes them perfectly just. In this case, the theory in question will pass the Entailment Test. If the laws are not perfectly just, then it is not clear why it is desirable for a theory to justify punishing all offenders. For example, if the state does not allow someone to engage in free speech, practice the religion of her choice, or deny intercourse to her husband, it is not clear why in such cases we should think that an adequate theory should justify state punishment. Boonin’s book is must reading for anyone who wants to explore the moral status of punishment. His overall strategy, however, is mistaken.

The retributive duty is both held by and owed to the victim of a culpable wrongdoing. This reflexive account fits nicely with a Kantian emphasis on autonomy because the Kantian account allows us to explain how a person can have a duty to oneself. The reflexive account also fits nicely with, and is in part supported by, the notion that a culpable wrongdoer forfeits some of his rights . The waivability of the retributive duty in part explains why it is intuitively permissible for the victim not to punish the wrongdoer, but why the same is not true with regard to the state. The reflexive duty also fits into a consent-based account of state authority and the notion that natural duties are mostly negative. Das Opfer einer schuldhaften Verletzung seiner Rechte hat nicht nur Recht, sondern auch die Pflicht Vergeltung zu üben. Diese reflexive Erwägung paßt sehr gut zu einer Betonung des Autonomiegedankens nach der Weise Kants, da die Auffassung Kants zu erklären vermag, wie eine Person eine Pflicht gegen sich selbst haben kann. Ebenso gut paßt die reflexive Erwägung zu - und sie wird zum Teil auch gestützt von - der Erkenntnis, daß jemand, der schuldhaft Unrecht tut, einige seiner Rechte verwirkt. Freilich kann auf die Vergeltung verzichtet werden, und das erklärt teilweise, warum es unseren Intuitionen entspricht, daß es dem Opfer erlaubt ist, den Täter nicht zu strafen, während das für den Staat gerade nicht gilt. Die reflexive Pflicht paßt schließlich auch zu einer auf Einverständnis gegründeten Sichtweise staatlicher Autorität, und sie läßt sich gut vereinbaren mit der Erkenntnis, daß natürliche Pflichten zumeist negativ formuliert sind

A private property right is a collection of particular rights that relate to the control of an object. The ground for such moral rights rests on the value of project pursuit. It does so because the individual ownership of particular objects is intimately related to the formation and application of a coherent set of projects that are the major parts of a self-shaped life. Problems arise in explaining how unowned property is appropriated. Unilateral acts with regard to an object, e.g., mixing in one’s labor into it, probably don’t ground particular rights to private property. Nor do bilateral contracts since a stable pre-institutional contract with regard to appropriation is not likely to form. However, a conventional method of appropriation can allow for such appropriation while at the same time preserving the pre-institutional nature of such rights. This theory can also account for a person’s property rights in her own body. However, the value of project formation requires that persons have at least some private property that is to serve as the object of their projects. These positive rights to property undermine the libertarian claim that all non-commitment-based rights are negative. However, a further empirical argument is needed in order to justify protecting these positive moral rights to private property by positive legal rights.

In this paper, I provide an analysis of equal opportunity. I argue that equal opportunity occurs where two or more persons with equal natural abilities and willingness to work hard have chances at various jobs that are in the aggregate of equal value. I then argue that equal opportunity is neither valuable nor something that the government ought to pursue. First, it is not clear why we should value opportunities rather than outcomes. Second, the value of equal opportunity rests on the value of interest satisfaction. However, if interest satisfaction is relatively constant across different jobs and different job opportunities, then the concern for interest satisfaction will not ground the value of equal opportunity. Third, equalizing opportunities is not in itself valuable because persons are not equally valuable. Fourth, even if equal opportunity were valuable, the government can pursue it only by trespassing on individual rights.

The moral theory justifying punishment will shape the debate over numerous controversial issues such as the moral permissibility of the death penalty, probation, parole, and plea bargaining, as well as issues about conditions in prison and access to educational opportunities in prison. In this essay I argue that the primary goal of the criminal justice system is to inflict suffering on, and only on, those who deserve it. If I am correct, the answer to issues involving the criminal justice system should be answered in large part by considering whether the practice in question furthers the infliction of suffering on, and only on, those who deserve it.