David DeGrazia

_ Source: _Page Count 21 Guns occupy a major—sometimes terrible—place in contemporary American life. Do Americans have not only a legal right, but also a moral right, to own handguns? After introducing the topic, this paper examines what a moral right to private handgun ownership would amount to. It then elucidates the logical structure of the strongest argument in favor of such a right, an argument that appeals to physical security, before assessing its cogency and identifying two questionable assumptions. In light of persisting reasonable disagreement about the argument’s soundness, the paper identifies two gun control measures—demonstrated need for a gun as a condition of eligibility and the requirement to pass a rigorous gun safety course—that reasonable disputants on both sides of the issue have principled reasons to accept. The paper also advances the thesis that, if anyone has an undefeated moral right to own handguns, it is precisely those individuals who have a special need and demonstrate the relevant safety-related competence

: The fifth edition of Beauchamp and Childress's Principles of Biomedical Ethics is distinguished by its emphatic embrace of common morality as the ultimate source of moral norms. This essay critically evaluates the fifth edition's discussion of common morality and, to a lesser extent, its treatment of coherence (both the model of ethical justification and the associated concept). It is argued that the book is overly accommodating of existing moral beliefs. The paper concludes with three suggestions for improving this leading text.

The field of bioethics has deployed different models of justification for particular moral judgments. The best known models are those of deductivism, casuistry, and principlism (under one, rather limited interpretation). Each of these models, however, has significant difficulties that are explored in this essay. An alternative model, suggested by the work of Henry Richardson, is presented. It is argued that specified principlism is the most promising model of justification in bioethics. Keywords: casuistry, deductivism, ethical theories, intuition principlism, specified principlism, specification CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this?

In the literature on persons and their identity, it is customary to distinguish the issue of the nature of personhood—“What is a person?”—from the issue of per- sonal identity—“What are the persistence conditions of a person over time?” In recent years, Eric Olson and Lynne Rudder Baker have brought to the forefront of discussion the related, but often neglected, issue of our essence: “What are we, most fundamentally (essentially)—human animals, persons, or something else?” Attacking what he calls the Standard View of personal identity, according to which personal identity consists in some type of psychological continuity, Olson contends that this thesis has highly implausible implications. Attributing the claim that we are essentially persons to the Standard View, Olson defends the alterna- tive thesis that we are essentially (living) human animals, members of the species Homo sapiens, and that our persistence conditions are biological, having nothing to do with psychology. At the heart of his critique is the contention that the Standard View lacks a plausible account of the relationship between a person and the human animal associated with her. Defending “person essentialism” and defining persons as beings with first-person perspectives, Lynne Rudder Baker responds to Olson’s challenge with the Constitution View: We (human) persons are constituted by, but not identical to, human animals. After reconstructing Olson’s critique of the Standard View, I argue that Baker goes a long way toward meeting his challenge to account plausibly for the relationship between persons and human animals. Then I contend that her person-based Constitution View nevertheless has major difficulties: a “newborn problem”; a dubious ontology; and a problematic account of personal identity. I conclude with general reflections about this dialectic.

The idea of a patient's best interests raises issues in prudential value theory–the study of what makes up an individual's ultimate (nonmoral) good or well‐being. While this connection may strike a philosopher as obvious, the literature on the best interests standard reveals almost no engagement of recent work in value theory. There seems to be a growing sentiment among bioethicists that their work is independent of philosophical theorizing. Is this sentiment wrong in the present case? Does value theory make a significant difference in interpreting best interests? In pursuing this question, I begin with a quick sketch of broad kinds of value theories, identifying representatives that are plausible enough to count as contenders. I then explore what each account suggests in (1) neonatal treatment decisions, and (2) decisions for patients in persistent vegetative states. I conclude that while these accounts converge somewhat in their interpretations of best interests, they also have importantly different implications.

: Those who are morally opposed to abortion generally make several pivotal assumptions. This paper focuses on the assumption that we have full moral status throughout our existence. Coupled with the assumption that we come into existence at conception, the assumption about moral status entails that all human fetuses have full moral status, including a right to life. Is the assumption about moral status correct? In addressing this question, I respond to several arguments advanced, in this journal and other venues, by Alfonso Gómez-Lobo. Gómez-Lobo's reasoning resolves into two basic arguments: (1) an appeal to the practical necessity of early moral protection and (2) an appeal to our kind membership and potentiality. I respond to these in turn before offering further reflections

In our paper, we argue for three necessary conditions for morally permissible animal research: (1) an assertion (or expectation) of sufficient net benefit, (2) a worthwhile-life condition, and (3) a no-unnecessary-harm/qualified-basic-needs condition. We argue that these conditions are necessary, without taking a position on whether they are jointly sufficient. In their excellent commentary on our paper, Matthias Eggel, Carolyn Neuhaus, and Herwig Grimm (hereafter, the authors) argue for a friendly amendment to one of our three conditions. In particular, they argue for replacing the first condition—expectation of sufficient net benefit (ESNB)—with an expectation of knowledge production (EKP). In this reply, we will explain why we are open to this proposed amendment, but not yet convinced.

: Although nothing could be less fashionable today than talk of comprehensive health care reform, the major problems of American health care have not gone away. Only a radical change in the way the U.S. finances health care--specifically, a single-payer system--will permit the achievement of universal coverage while keeping costs reasonably under control. Evidence from other countries, especially Canada, suggests the promise of this approach. In defending the single-payer approach, the author identifies several political and cultural factors that make it difficult for Americans to obtain a clear view of this option. Finally, the author argues that much discussion of rationing is vitiated by bracketing more systemic questions to which the issue of rationing is inextricably linked

This volume presents a framework of general principles for animal research ethics together with an analysis of the principles' meaning and moral requirements. Tom L. Beauchamp and David DeGrazia's comprehensive framework addresses ethical requirements pertaining to societal benefit and features a thorough, ethically defensible program of animal welfare. The book also features commentaries on the framework of principles by eminent figures in animal research ethics from an array of relevant disciplines: veterinary medicine, biomedical research, biology, zoology, comparative psychology, primatology, law, and bioethics.

Some people contend that fetuses have moral status but less than that of paradigm persons. Many people hold views implying that sentient animals have moral status but less than that of persons. These positions suggest that moral status admits of degrees. Does it? To address this question, we must first clarify what it means to speak of degrees of moral status. The paper begins by clarifying the more basic concept of moral status and presenting two models of degrees of moral status. It then sketches several significant considerations in favor of, and several against, the assertion of degrees of moral status. The paper concludes by drawing lessons from the discussion.

The following theses are defended in this paper: (1) The concept of autonomous action is centrally relevant to understanding numerous psychiatric conditions, namely, conditions that subvert autonomy; (2) The details of an analysis of autonomous action matter; a vague or rough characterization is less illuminating; (3) A promising analysis for this purpose (and generally) is a version of the "multi-tier model". After opening with five vignettes, I begin the discussion by highlighting strengths and weaknesses of contributions by other authors who examine the relationship between autonomy and autonomysubverting psychiatric conditions. I then present an analysis of the concept of autonomous action, before employing this analysis in a suggestive exploration of the conditions illustrated in the vignettes. Keywords: autonomy, multi-tier model, psychiatric conditions CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this?

Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Frank Miller's article is an intelligent, interesting and important discussion.1 Its central thesis is that what makes killing wrong is not that killing causes death or loss of consciousness, but that killing causes an individual to be completely, irreversibly disabled. The first of two main implications is that it is not even pro tanto wrong to kill someone who is already in such a thoroughly disabled state. The second is that the dead donor rule in the context of vital organ transplantation should be abandoned.I embrace the second main implication. As the authors argue, the dead donor rule is routinely violated in contemporary vital organ procurement; but what should change are not the standard practices in which the rule is violated, but the rule itself. In general, I believe that the practical implications of the authors’ account of the wrongness of killing are more justified than the account itself. My judgment is possible because their account has mostly the same implications as what I take to be the best account—at least regarding the killing of human beings. I turn now to points of disagreement.First, the authors argue that the wrongness of killing is a function of harming and that, because ‘a loss of autonomy is a kind of harm, broadly construed…,’ …

Agnieszka Jaworska and Julie Tannenbaum address a central problem confronting efforts to understand moral status: the Problem of Nonparadigm Humans. The authors contend that human infants and cognitively disabled human beings whose capacities are comparable to those of dogs nevertheless have higher moral status. In this discussion, I will first reconstruct the authors’ assumptions and argumentative goals. In the article’s two major sections, I will examine the authors’ reasoning in pursuit of those goals and contend that the chain of argumentation contains several weak links. The discussion will close with brief reflections on how the problem might be addressed