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1963Transhumanism, Human Dignity, and Moral StatusAmerican Journal of Bioethics 10 (7): 63-66. 2010.This Article does not have an abstract
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384Ethical Theory and the Problem of Inconsequentialism: Why Environmental Ethicists Should be Virtue-Oriented Ethicists (review)Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 23 (1-2): 167-183. 2009.Many environmental problems are longitudinal collective action problems. They arise from the cumulative unintended effects of a vast amount of seemingly insignificant decisions and actions by individuals who are unknown to each other and distant from each other. Such problems are likely to be effectively addressed only by an enormous number of individuals each making a nearly insignificant contribution to resolving them. However, when a person’s making such a contribution appears to require sacr…Read more
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94An aretaic objection to agricultural biotechnologyJournal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 17 (3): 301-317. 2004.Considerations of virtue and character appear from time to time in the agricultural biotechnology literature. Critics of the technologies often suggest that they are contrary to some virtue (usually humility) or do not fit with the image of ourselves and the human place in the world that we ought to embrace. In this article, I consider the aretaic or virtue-based objection that to engage in agricultural biotechnology is to exhibit arrogance, hubris, and disaffection. In section one, I discuss Ga…Read more
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Stephen R. Kellert and Timothy J. Farnham (eds), The Good in Nature and HumanityEnvironmental Values 12 (4): 539-541. 2003.
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193Intuitus and ratio in Spinoza's ethical thoughtBritish Journal for the History of Philosophy 13 (1). 2005.(2005). Intuitus and Ratio in Spinoza's Ethical Thought. British Journal for the History of Philosophy: Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 73-90. doi: 10.1080/0960878042000317591
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118Book Review: Vexing Nature? On the Ethical Case against Agricultural Biotechnology (review)Environmental Values 12 (3): 403-405. 2003.
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242Enhancing justice?NanoEthics 2 (3): 277-287. 2008.This article focuses on the follow question: Are human enhancement technologies likely to be justice impairing or justice promoting? We argue that human enhancement technologies may not be inherently just or unjust, but when situated within obtaining social contexts they are likely to exacerbate rather than alleviate social injustices.
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64The National Nanotechnology Initiative and the Social GoodJournal of Law, Medicine and Ethics 34 (4): 675-681. 2006.The purpose of the National Nanotechnology Initiative is to promote nanotechnology in a way that benefits the citizens of the United States. It involves a commitment to support responsible development of nanotechnology. The NNI's enactment of this commitment is critically assessed. It is concluded that there are not adequate avenues within the NNI by which social and ethical issues can be raised, considered, and, when appropriate, addressed
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1580On the Moral Considerability of Homo sapiens and Other SpeciesEnvironmental Values 15 (1). 2006.It is sometimes claimed that as members of the species Homo sapiens we have a responsibility to promote the good of Homo sapiens itself (distinct from the good of its individual members). Lawrence Johnson has recently defended this claim as part of his approach to resolving the problem of future generations. We show that there are several difficulties with Johnson's argument, many of which are likely to attend any attempt to establish the moral considerability of Homo sapiens or species generall…Read more
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94A Response to Martin Calkins's “How Casuistry and Virtue Ethics Might Break the Ideological Stalemate Troubling Agricultural Biotechnology”Business Ethics Quarterly 15 (2): 319-327. 2005.Martin Calkins proposes the “combined use of casuistry and virtue ethics as a way for both sides to move ahead on [the] pressing issue [of agricultural biotechnology].” However, his defense of this methodology relies on a set of mistaken, albeit familiar, claims regarding the normative resources of virtue ethics: (1) virtue ethics is egoistic; (2) virtue ethics cannot defend any particular account of the virtues as the objectively correct ones and is therefore inextricably relativistic; (3) virt…Read more
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1382The good of non-sentient entities: Organisms, artifacts, and synthetic biologyStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 44 (4): 697-705. 2013.Synthetic organisms are at the same time organisms and artifacts. In this paper we aim to determine whether such entities have a good of their own, and so are candidates for being directly morally considerable. We argue that the good of non-sentient organisms is grounded in an etiological account of teleology, on which non-sentient organisms can come to be teleologically organized on the basis of their natural selection etiology. After defending this account of teleology, we argue that there are…Read more
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172Towards an Adequate Environmental Virtue EthicEnvironmental Values 13 (4). 2004.In this article I consider four concerns regarding the possibility of an environmental virtue ethic functioning as an alternative – rather than a supplement – to more conventional approaches to environmental ethics. The concerns are: (1) it is not possible to provide an objective specification of environmental virtue, (2) an environmental virtue ethic will lack the resources to provide critique of obtaining cultural practices and policies, (3) an environmental virtue ethic will not provide suffi…Read more
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68Review of: Westra, Laura and Lawson, Bill E., eds., Faces of Environmental Racism: Confronting Issues of Global Injustice (review)Environmental Values 12 (4): 543-546. 2003.
Areas of Interest
1 more
| Applied Ethics |
| Meta-Ethics |
| Normative Ethics |
| Philosophy of Biology |
| Value Theory, Miscellaneous |
| 17th/18th Century Philosophy |