Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen

In this critical review, I address two themes from Shelly Kagan’s path-breaking The Geometry of Desert. First I explain the so-called “bell motion” of desert mountains—a notion reflecting that, ceteris paribus, as people get more virtuous it becomes more important not to give them too little of whatever they deserve than not to give them too much. Having argued that Kagan’s defense of it is unsatisfactory, I offer two objections to the existence of the bell motion. Second, I take up an unrelated issue—the relation between comparative and non-comparative desert. I argue that, given a certain disaggregationist view of comparative desert, it is possible that comparative desert is not satisfied, even if non-comparative desert is perfectly so. Unlike my objections to the bell motion, this possibility adds further complexity to an already complex Kaganian account of desert.

Kymlicka has offered an influential luck egalitarian justification for a catalogue of polyethnic rights addressing cultural disadvantages of immigrant minorities. In response, Quong argues that while the items on the list are justified, in the light of the fact that the relevant disadvantages of immigrants result from their choice to immigrate, (i) these rights cannot be derived from luck egalitarianism and (ii) that this casts doubt on luck egalitarianism as a theory of cultural justice. As an alternative to Kymlicka’s argument, Quong offers his own justification of polyethnic rights based on a Rawlsian ideal of fair equality of opportunity. I defend luck egalitarianism against Quong’s objection arguing that if choice ever matters, it matters in relation to cultural disadvantages too. Also, the Rawlsian ideal of fair equality of opportunity cannot justify the sort of polyethnic rights that Quong wants it to justify, once we set aside an unwarranted statist focus in Quong’s conception of fair equality of opportunity. Whatever the weaknesses of luck egalitarianism are, the inadequacy of the position in relation to accommodating cultural disadvantages of immigrants is not among them.

Gene therapy research and its clinical application raise a large number of ethical, legal, and social questions. Many of these are discussed in Nordgren's anthology. The contributions come from a number of different disciplines, including bioethics, genetics, social science, and theology. The book is divided into five main sections (following a short introduction): scientific aspects of gene therapy; the history of, and prospects for, gene therapy; conceptual issues; gene therapy in a German and Japanese context, and a section on the uses of gene therapy in relation to, for example, testing and screening. The contributions are quite diverse and mostly well worth reading. From the perspective of medical ethics the contributions by LeRoy Walters, Eric Juengst, Karen Lebacqz, Nikolaus Knoepffler, and Christian Munthe are of particular interest. Walters's contribution focuses in part on the issue of …

What makes killing morally wrong? And what makes killing morally worse than letting die? Standard answers to these two questions presuppose that killing someone involves shortening that person's life. Yet, as I argue in the first two sections of this article, this presupposition is false: Life-prolonging killings are conceivable. In the last two sections of the article, I explore the significance of the conceivability of such killings for various discussions of the two questions just mentioned. In particular, I show why the conceivability of life-prolonging killings renders Frances M. Kamm's attempt to provide an answer to the second question problematic.

In The Ends of Harm Victor Tadros develops an alternative to consequentialist, and non-consequentialist retributivist, accounts of the justifiability of punishment: the duty view. Crucial to this view is the claim that wrongdoers incur an enforceable duty to remedy their wrongs. They cannot undo them, but they can do something that is almost as good—namely, by submitting to appropriate punishment, which will deter potential wrongdoers in the future, reduce their victim’s risk of suffering similar wrongs again. Admittedly, this involves harming wrongdoers as a means to an end, but according to Tadros the ‘means principle’ that we should not harm others as a means, properly construed, does not apply to cases where the victim has an enforceable duty to bear the kind of harm that he or she is being made to suffer. In this article, I shall express reservations about Tadros’ defense and interpretation of the means principle. In presenting his position, Tadros also sets out some interesting anti-retributivist considerations casting doubt on the idea that wrongdoers’ suffering is non-instrumentally good. I shall challenge these. Finally, I shall suggest that the duty view may have counterintuitive implications in relation to wrongs where the offender helps to lower the risk that victims will be subjected to similar wrongs in ways other than by being punished

It is sometimes asserted that enabling harm is morally equivalent to allowing harm. In this article, I criticize this view. Positively, I show that cases involving self-defence and cases involving people acting on the basis of a reasonable belief to the effect that certain obstacles to harm will remain in place, or will be put in place, show that enabling harm is harder to justify than allowing it. Negatively, I argue that certain cases offered in defence of the moral equivalence thesis fail, because either their similarity with the archetypal trolley case limits their relevance to an assessment of this thesis, or they are compromised by their reliance on the elusive notion of a situation being completely stable

Real-self accounts of moral responsibility distinguish between various types of motivational elements. They claim that an agent is responsible for acts suitably related to elements that constitute the agent's real self. While such accounts have certain advantages from a compatibilist perspective, they are problematic in various ways. First, in it, authority and authenticity conceptions of the real self are often inadequately distinguished. Both of these conceptions inform discourse on identification, but only the former is relevant to moral responsibility. Second, authority and authenticity real-self theories are unable to accommodate cases in which the agent neither identifies nor disidentifies with his action and yet seems morally responsible for what he does. Third, authority and authenticity real-self theories are vulnerable to counterexamples in which the provenance of the agent's real self undermines responsibility.

An influential anti-democratic argument says: ‘(1) Answers to political questions are truth-apt. (2) A small elite only—the epistocrats—knows these truths. (3) If answers to political questions are truth-apt, then those with this knowledge about these matters should rule. (4) Thus, epistocrats should rule.’ Many democrats have responded by denying (1), arguing that, say, answers to political questions are a matter of sheer personal preference. Others have rejected (2), contending that knowledge of the true answers to political questions is evenly distributed. David Estlund finds neither of these replies conclusive. Instead, he attacks (3) arguing that there can be no agreement between qualified people as to who the epistocrats are and that people are not subject to being ruled by experts, whose status as such they can reasonably dispute. Critically, I argue that this argument does not block all forms of epistocratic argument and that Estlund fails to consider the full range of plausible epistocratic views. More constructively, I offer a modest argument for why greater expertise does not necessarily warrant greater political authority. Presumably, the set of feasible options might differ, depending on what procedure is used, and a sub-optimal choice by nonepistocrats from a better set might be superior to the optimal choice by epistocrats from a worse set. In such cases, the mere fact of greater expertise does not warrant political authority, i.e., (3) is false

With regard to intrinsically morally relevant factors it is natural to suppose that if a variation in a given factor makes a moral difference anywhere, then it makes the same moral difference everywhere (henceforth: the constancy assumption). Jonathan Dancy (and other moral particularists) reject the constancy assumption. Partly on the basis thereof, they infer that ethical decisions should be made “case by case, without the comforting support of moral principles”. In this article, I challenge Dancy's defence and use of a denial of the constancy assumption on three points. First, Dancy's appeal to moral intuitions do not justify denying a significant version of the constancy assumption. Second, if we reject the constancy assumption, surprisingly, it may in one crucial respect be very hard to defend moral particularism as commonly articulated. Third, rejecting the constancy assumption does not motivate seeing moral reasoning as essentially a case‐by‐case matter.

Next SectionFive arguments are presented in favour of the proposal that people who opt in as organ donors should receive a tax break. These arguments appeal to welfare, autonomy, fairness, distributive justice and self-ownership, respectively. Eight worries about the proposal are considered in this paper. These objections focus upon no-effect and counter-productiveness, the Titmuss concern about social meaning, exploitation of the poor, commodification, inequality and unequal status, the notion that there are better alternatives, unacceptable expense, and concerns about the veto of relatives. The paper argues that none of the objections to the proposal is very telling

Many egalitarians believe that social inequalities are worse than natural ones. Others deny that one can coherently distinguish between them. I argue that although one can separate the influence of these factors by an analysis of variance, the distinction is morally irrelevant. It might be alleged that my argument in favour of moral irrelevance attacks a straw man. While I think this allegation is incorrect, I accommodate it by distinguishing between four claims that are related to, and sometimes confused with, the claim that social inequalities are worse. These are: that one has a stronger reason to eliminate inequalities that obtain between, or are produced by, members of one's own society; that inequalities that result from unfair treatment are worse; that inequalities that we make, rather than merely allowing to exist, are worse; and that it is bad if people are treated unfairly. Correspondence:c1 [email protected].

If biotechnology can be used to "upgrade" humans physically and mentally, should it be done? And if so, to what extent? How will biotechnology affect societal cohesion, and can the development be controlled? Or is this a Pandora's box that should remain closed? These are just a few of the many questions that arise as a result of the increasing ability of technology to change biology and, eventually, transform human living conditions. This development has created a new horizon of a posthuman future that will influence contemporary life and politics in a number of ways. The book gathers researchers within the fields of biotechnology, medicine, ethics, politics, and aesthetics. Among the contributors are Francis Fukuyama, Julian Savulescu, Maxwell Mehlman, Lone Frank and Chris Hables Gray.