Michael Cholbi

This book provides novel perspectives on ethical justifiability of assisted dying in the revised edition of New Directions in the Ethics of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia. Going significantly beyond traditional debates about the value of human life, the ethical significance of individual autonomy, the compatibility of assisted dying with the ethical obligations of medical professionals, and questions surrounding intention and causation, this book promises to shift the terrain of the ethical debates about assisted dying. The novel themes discussed in the revised edition include the role of markets, disability, gender, artificial intelligence, medical futility, race, and transhumanism. Ideal for advanced courses in bioethics and healthcare ethics, the book illustrates how social and technological developments will shape debates about assisted dying in the years to come.

Gideon Yaffe has recently argued that children should be subject to lower standards of criminal liability because, unlike adults, they ought to be disenfranchised. Because of their disenfranchisement, they lack the legal reasons enfranchised adults have to comply with the law. Here I critically consider Yaffe’s argument for such disenfranchisement, which holds that disenfranchisement balances children’s interest in self-government with adults’ interest in having an equal say over lawmaking. I argue that Yaffe does not succeed in showing that these two values need to be balanced, nor that disenfranchising children is a justifiable method of achieving this balance. In my conclusion, I sketch an alternative contractualist approach to disenfranchising children that, like Yaffe’s, appeals to the implications that enfranchisement has for political relations among citizens, but unlike Yaffe’s, rests on empirical claims about the influence of parents on children’s voting patterns rather than on a priori claims regarding who has a rightful say over lawmaking.

abstract Ryan Tonkens proposes that my Kantian approach to suicide intervention with respect to the mentally ill (2002) wrongly assumes that the suicidally mentally ill are rational and are therefore rational agents to whom Kantian moral constraints ought to apply. Here I indicate how the empirical evidence concerning the suicidally mentally ill does not support Tonkens' criticism that the suicidally mentally ill are irrational. In particular, that evidence does not support the conclusion that such individuals are systemically practically irrational so as to undermine the attribution of at least minimal rational autonomy to them. A Kantian moral framework, albeit one developed in a non-ideal direction, remains applicable to such individuals.

Argues that an anti-paternalist case for unconditional basic income (UBI) is more difficult to make than it appears. Those who support UBI on anti-paternalist grounds wrongly understand paternalism in terms of how having options affects liberty rather than, in terms of how others intercede in their rational agency in ways that reflect judgments of the recipients’ inferiority. Moreover, a basket of essential goods appears better equipped than UBI to prevent unequal social relations that paternalism can exploit or exacerbate.

Growing economic inequality, workforce precarity, the perceived meaninglessness of many jobs, and the prospect of widespread technological unemployment have led to an unprecedented level of critical scrutiny of the institution of work. Some scholars go so far as to propose that we should take seriously, or even embrace, a “post-work” future. This volume aims to provide the first critical overview of the scholarly arguments about the design and desirability of such a “post-work” world. Topics addressed in its chapters include the historical origins of the work ethic; work’s relation to freedom, leisure, and self-realization; alternative visions of a post-work world; the intersection of post-work thinking with economic justice; and post-work’s relevance to environmental sustainability, care work, and democratic change.

The subjectivist contract theory , developed principally by Gauthier, and Kantian constructivism , developed by Rawls, Korsgaard, Scanlon, and Habermas, represent the two dominant contract-based approaches to providing morality a public justification. SCT rests upon an subjectivist and maximizing conception of practical rationality; morality is justified on the grounds that obedience to ostensible moral requirements is in fact maximizing over the long term. Morality's publicity is thus due to its requirements prescribing the adequate means to the diverse subjective ends of individuals. KC introduces constraints upon the contractual choice situation presented by SCT. These constraints embody 'reasonableness,' properties that limit how and what agents may choose as their individual ends. Morality's publicity is thus due not solely to its propensity to further agents' subjective interests, but mainly to its representing normative principles of fair choice. ;The fundamental structure and aspirations of KC are spelled out. I argue that KC has not fully met the challenges SCT presents as an alternative public justification of morality. Kantian constructivists have either falsely portrayed the egoism underlying SCT as nihilism, or they have failed to indicate why the constraints of 'reasonableness' are incompatible with SCT. We must therefore develop a more convincing reply to SCT. ;My revised form of constructivism, epistemic constructivism proposes that the relationship between the self and one's conception of the good is governed by a cognitivist assumption about individuals' well-being. This cognitivist assumption motivates the use of certain epistemic virtues in the investigation of individuals' conception of the good. Agents characterized by these virtues will be led to participate in a community of reciprocity, equality, and autonomy that provides the necessary conditions for the cultivation and exercise of the epistemic virtues. The need for a morality emerges, from the point of view of the agents of construction, not from a moral value of overlapping consensus, nor from any moral value at all, but only from the epistemic commitment to the rationality of their conceptions of the good. EC thus retains a broadly Kantian notion of reasonableness while better accommodating subjectivism.