Andrew Botterell

According to a familiar and influential view, rights are not absolute. To the contrary, they can sometimes be permissibly interfered with. I find such a view of rights attractive. John Oberdiek thinks otherwise. In a recent paper in this journal, Oberdiek has argued that any account of rights that incorporates a distinction between infringing and violating a right is indefensible. My aim in this paper is to argue that Oberdiek's worries are misplaced. The paper proceeds as follows. After some terminological stage-setting I present a familiar puzzle about rights and compensation and argue that the proper response to the puzzle is to distinguish between various ways in which rights can be interfered with. I then turn to a discussion of the general theoretical picture on which this account of rights rests, and I present some reasons for thinking that Oberdiek's criticisms of that picture are not successful. My conclusion is that the distinction between infringing and violating a right is a plausible one, and that an account of rights that rests on it is not for that reason problematic.

From the time of Descartes to about the 1960s, a certain epistemological idea dominated the philosophy of mind, namely the idea that theses about the relation between mind and body are, if true, a priori truths. Much of recent philosophy of mind is devoted to the question whether that idea is right. My research is largely an attempt to argue that some recent defenses of it are unsuccessful. ;For example, Physicalism is the metaphysical thesis that every actual psychological event, property, or process is necessitated by some actual physical event, property, or process. Many philosophers believe that Physicalism is true. Until about the 1960s, those who believed it true typically believed that statements relating mind and body were a priori truths. Let us call this thesis A Priori Physicalism. Many philosophers nowadays believe, instead, that statements relating mind and body are only a posteriori truths. Let us call this thesis A Posteriori Physicalism. A number of philosophers have argued in recent years that A Posteriori Physicalism is unacceptable; on their view, Physicalists had better be A Priori Physicalists. My thesis examines the question whether that view is correct. ;I begin with a discussion of two influential arguments for the conclusion that Physicalists must be A Priori Physicalists. Chapter 1 addresses itself to an argument for the conclusion that if physicalism is true, every referring psychological expression is coreferential a priori with some referring physical expression. This argument is commonly called the Property Dualism Argument against Physicalism. I argue that the Property Dualism Argument rests on an ambiguous premise: on one reading it begs the question against A Posteriori Physicalism, on the other reading the conclusion of the Property Dualism Argument does not follow. ;Chapter 2 addresses itself to an argument of Frank Jackson's for the conclusion that Physicalists must have an a priori story to tell about how the physical nature of the actual world makes true the psychological nature of the actual world. I distinguish two ways in which this claim might be understood, and I argue that on neither way of understanding it does Jackson have a compelling argument for A Priori Physicalism. ;Finally, in Chapter 3 I turn to a more general discussion of the relation between conceivability and possibility, and its bearing on the dispute between A Priori and A Posteriori Physicalists. I focus in particular on a recent argument of David Chalmers' from the conceivability of so-called zombies to the conclusion that A Posteriori Physicalism is false. I argue that this argument fails to provide compelling reasons for rejecting A Posteriori Physicalism. I argue, first, that it misconstrues the relation between conceivability and possibility, and second, that it fails to establish that zombies are conceivable in the relevant sense.

According to Rivka Weinberg, gametes are like enriched uranium: both are hazardous materials. Exposing human beings to enriched uranium can result in radioactivity and decreased life expectancy, while exposing sperm and ova to each other can result in the creation of needy innocent persons with full moral status. Weinberg argues that when we engage in activities that put our gametes at risk of joining with others and growing into persons, we assume the costs of that risky activity. She calls this the Hazmat Theory of parental responsibility. The theory is novel and important, and has far-reaching consequences for the ethics of procreation, parenting, and population, implying among other things that that the only way to avoid acquiring parental responsibilities may be to “abstain from sexual intercourse or surgically interfere with our gamete-release system.” For these reasons the theory merits careful scrutiny. In this article I criticize the theory's account of how parental responsibility is acquired and its treatment of the standard of care expected of gamete possessors, and argue that it fails to properly account for a distinction between procreative costs and parental responsibility. Even if gametes are hazardous, it does not follow that parental responsibility in Weinberg's sense is acquired whenever one brings new persons into existence.

In this paper I reconsider the relation between property and unjust enrichment and respond to a recent argument that actions in unjust enrichment cannot be actions in corrective justice. I suggest that any analysis that regards actions in unjust enrichment as embodying principles of corrective justice requires supplementation by considerations that are, at bottom, proprietary in nature. I argue that there is no incompatibility in viewing actions in unjust enrichment as actions whose grounds are broadly proprietary in nature; that understanding unjust enrichment in this manner does not threaten its theoretical coherence; and that understanding unjust enrichment in this manner allows us to view actions in unjust enrichment as actions in corrective justice.