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67When a Person Feels that She Is Guilty and Believes that She Is Not GuiltyThe Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy 9 149-152. 2006.Guilt feelings are an important part of our emotional life that is relevant to moral philosophy, and guilt feelings raise many theoretically interesting questions. One such question is the problem of how it is possible that sometimes people seem to feel guilty because of an act they have committed even if they believe that the act is not wrong and that it does not have any moral costs. A person raised in a religious family may have been taught that going to the theater is wrong, and even if she …Read more
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78On irrational guiltEthical Theory and Moral Practice 7 (5). 2005.A person raised in a religious family may have been taught that going to the theater is not allowed, and even if he has rejected this taboo years ago, he still feels guilty when attending theater. These kinds of cases may not be rare, but they are strange. Indeed, one may wonder how they are even possible. This is why an explanation is needed, and in my paper I aim to give such an explanation. In particular, I will first provide a brief review of the explanations of irrational guilt that are com…Read more
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14Eric Racine , Pragmatic Neuroethics: Improving Treatment and Understanding of the Mind-Brain . Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 31 (3): 228-231. 2011.
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40Freedom and a Right (Not) to KnowBioethics 12 (1): 49-63. 1998.The article discusses the relationship between the notion of a moral right to personal self‐determination, the notion of a moral right to know and the notion of a moral right not to know. In particular, the author asks under what conditions, if any, the right to self‐determination implies a right to have information or a right not to have information. The conclusions he defends are theoretical in character rather than concrete norms and directions, and they are intended to be relevant in many co…Read more
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17The moral relevance of cultural disadvantageAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 78 (3). 2000.This Article does not have an abstract
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72Pogge on global povertyJournal of Global Ethics 2 (1). 2006.Thomas Pogge has recently defended additional ways in which to eradicate poverty from the developing world. In this article, Pogge's argument is discussed. First the premises on which Pogge relies are summarized and the logic of 'international borrowing privilege' introduced. Then it is argued that Pogge's solutions to the poverty problem would face similar difficulties to many other solutions - that is, in order to work properly they all must gain extensive international support and political w…Read more
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83Brain imaging and privacyNeuroethics 3 (1): 5-12. 2010.I will argue that the fairly common assumption that brain imaging may compromise people’s privacy in an undesirable way only if moral crimes are committed is false. Sometimes persons’ privacy is compromised because of failures of privacy. A normal emotional reaction to failures of privacy is embarrassment and shame, not moral resentment like in the cases of violations of right to privacy. I will claim that if (1) neuroimaging will provide all kinds of information about persons’ inner life and no…Read more
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43Global justice and the logic of the burden of proofMetaphilosophy 36 (1-2): 228-239. 2005.The question of who has the burden of proof is often important in practice. We must frequently make decisions and act on the basis not of conclusive evidence but of what is reasonable to presume true. Consequently, it happens that a given practical question must be solved by referring to principles that explicitly or implicitly determine, at least partly, where the burden of proof should rest. In this essay, I consider the role of the logic of the burden of proof in a debate on global justice. I…Read more
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28The ethical and political evaluation of biotechnology strategiesMedicine, Health Care and Philosophy 12 (3): 273-280. 2009.In this paper I will briefly discuss the role and function of the ethical advisory committees and other ethics bodies that are supposed to take care of the ethical dimension of the biotechnology strategies. The expert ethical advice has created colourful discussion in many contexts, but here I aim to analyze the role and relevance of ethical expertise in the context of national and regional biotechnology strategies. I will argue that it may be quite unproblematic that the work of the ethics comm…Read more
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12The Place of Religious Arguments in Civic DiscussionRatio Juris 13 (2): 162-176. 2000.I shall consider whether morality requires citizens of democratic societies to advance secular reasons in public debates on political questions. Is it wrong to give purely religious reasons in political discussion? I shall argue that the moral acceptability of public religious arguments that are not supported with secular reasons depends on the political context we are discussing, and that often there is nothing wrong with using religious considerations. I shall also discuss the so‐called shared…Read more
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387Environmental Security and Just Causes for WarAlmanac: Discourses of Ethics 10 (1): 47-54. 2015.This article asks whether a country that suffers from serious environmental problems caused by another country could have a just cause for a defensive war? Danish philosopher Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen has argued that under certain conditions extreme poverty may give a just cause for a country to defensive war, if that poverty is caused by other countries. This raises the question whether the victims of environmental damages could also have a similar right to self-defense. Although the article con…Read more
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49The Repugnant Conclusion and the Welfare of Actual PeopleTheoria 68 (2): 162-169. 2002.According to Derek Parfit's well‐known argument, a version of utilitarian moral theory implies the so‐called Repugnant Conclusion. This version of utilitarianism states that other things being equal, it is better if there is a greater total sum of whatever makes life worth living. This view appears to implicate that a world where there is an immense total sum of whatever makes life worth living but where individual people have an exceedingly low quality of life is better than a world where there…Read more
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87On Disassociating Oneself from Collective ResponsiblitySocial Theory and Practice 23 (1): 93-108. 1997.
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51Burden of Proof Rules in Social CriticismArgumentation 11 (4): 463-477. 1997.The article discusses burden of proof rules in social criticism. By social criticism I mean an argumentative situation in which an opponent publicly argues against certain social practices; the examples I consider are discrimination on the basis of species and discrimination on the basis of one's nationality. I argue that burden of proof rules assumed by those who defend discrimination are somewhat dubious. In social criticism, there are no shared values which would uncontroversially determine w…Read more
Areas of Interest
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |