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712What are the obligations of pharmaceutical companies in a global health emergency?Lancet 398 (10304): 1015. 2021.All parties involved in researching, developing, manufacturing, and distributing COVID-19 vaccines need guidance on their ethical obligations. We focus on pharmaceutical companies' obligations because their capacities to research, develop, manufacture, and distribute vaccines make them uniquely placed for stemming the pandemic. We argue that an ethical approach to COVID-19 vaccine production and distribution should satisfy four uncontroversial principles: optimising vaccine production, including…Read more
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26When Knowing What Is Just and Being Committed to Achieving it Is Not EnoughJournal of Applied Philosophy 38 (5): 725-735. 2021.ABSTRACT In this article, I argue that overly‐optimistic beliefs about how much progress toward justice has been made and overly‐pessimistic beliefs about what progress toward justice can be made can both help perpetuate injustices. Further, such beliefs can help perpetuate injustices even if those who hold them have a firm grasp of the correct principles of justice, a robust commitment to realize them, and the political influence to make their commitment effective. I also argue that when mistak…Read more
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45On the Ethics of Vaccine Nationalism: The Case for the Fair Priority for Residents FrameworkEthics and International Affairs 35 (4): 543-562. 2021.COVID-19 vaccines are likely to be scarce for years to come. Many countries, from India to the U.K., have demonstrated vaccine nationalism. What are the ethical limits to this vaccine nationalism? Neither extreme nationalism nor extreme cosmopolitanism is ethically justifiable. Instead, we propose the fair priority for residents framework, in which governments can retain COVID-19 vaccine doses for their residents only to the extent that they are needed to maintain a noncrisis level of mortality …Read more
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7Replies to CommentatorsJus Cogens 3 (1): 99-104. 2021.My goal in writing Our Moral Fate: Evolution and the Escape from Tribalism, as with all of my work, was not to have the last word on the subject it addresses, but rather to say enough of value to stimulate better thinkers to go farther. The quality of comments by professors Corradetti, Sterelny, Tiribelli, and Murphy show that I have succeeded. I won’t be able to do justice to their constructive insights in the space allotted; I can only hope to engage as constructively with them as they have wi…Read more
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1Philosophy of International LawIn Jules Coleman & Scott J. Shapiro (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law, Oxford University Press Uk. 2002.
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36A Plea for Follow-ThroughPhilosophy and Public Issues - Filosofia E Questioni Pubbliche. forthcoming.Download.
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36Précis: Our Moral Fate: Evolution And The Escape From TribalismAnalyse & Kritik 42 (2): 443-448. 2020.The book uses evolutionary principles to explain tribalism, a way of thinking and acting that divides the world into Us versus Them and achieves cooperation within a group at the expense of erecting insuperable obstacles to cooperation among groups. Tribalism represents political controversies as supreme emergencies in which ordinary moral constraints do not apply and as zero-sum, winner take all contests. Tribalism not only undermines democracy by ruling out compromise, bargaining, and respect …Read more
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12Human Nature and EnhancementBioethics 23 (3): 141-150. 2009.Appeals to the idea of human nature are frequent in the voluminous literature on the ethics of enhancing human beings through biotechnology. Two chief concerns about the impact of enhancements on human nature have been voiced. The first is that enhancement may alter or destroy human nature. The second is that if enhancement alters or destroys human nature, this will undercut our ability to ascertain the good because, for us, the good is determined by our nature. The first concern assumes that al…Read more
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31Cruft, Rowan. Human Rights, Ownership, and the Individual. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Pp. 304. $70.00 (cloth) (review)Ethics 131 (2): 383-390. 2021.
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61Secession: The Morality of Political Divorce from Fort Sumter to Lithuana and QuebecWestview Press. 1991.This important study, the first book-length treatment of an increasingly crucial topic, treats the moral issues of secession at two levels. At the practical level, Professor Buchanan develops a coherent theory of the conditions under which secession is morally justifiable. He then applies it to historical and contemporary examples, including the U.S. Civil War and more recent events in Bangladesh, Katanga, and Biafra, the Baltic states, South Africa, and Quebec. This is the first systematic acco…Read more
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35Biodefence and the production of knowledge: rethinking the problemJournal of Medical Ethics 39 (4): 195-204. 2013.Next SectionBiodefence, broadly understood as efforts to prevent or mitigate the damage of a bioterrorist attack, raises a number of ethical issues, from the allocation of scarce biomedical research and public health funds, to the use of coercion in quarantine and other containment measures in the event of an outbreak. In response to the US bioterrorist attacks following September 11, significant US policy decisions were made to spur scientific enquiry in the name of biodefence. These decisions …Read more
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37Still unconvinced, but still tentative: a reply to DeGraziaJournal of Medical Ethics 38 (3): 140-141. 2012.David DeGrazia's article provides a careful and fair rendition of my position on the possibility of post-persons. However, I am unconvinced that he has shown that such beings are possible. My view is based on two assumptions: (1) the concept of moral status is a threshold concept; and (2) the most plausible understanding of moral status as a threshold concept is a Kantian respect-based view, according to which all and only those beings who have the capacity to be accountable for reasons have the…Read more
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1834An ethical framework for global vaccine allocationScience 1. 2020.In this article, we propose the Fair Priority Model for COVID-19 vaccine distribution, and emphasize three fundamental values we believe should be considered when distributing a COVID-19 vaccine among countries: Benefiting people and limiting harm, prioritizing the disadvantaged, and equal moral concern for all individuals. The Priority Model addresses these values by focusing on mitigating three types of harms caused by COVID-19: death and permanent organ damage, indirect health consequences, s…Read more
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109Acting on Principle: An Essay in Kantian Ethics (review)Journal of Philosophy 75 (6): 325-340. 1978.
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31Précis of The Evolution of Moral Progress: A Biocultural TheoryAnalyse & Kritik 41 (2): 183-194. 2019.The idea of moral progress played a central role in liberal political thought from the Enlightenment through the nineteenth century but is rarely encountered in moral and political philosophical discourse today. One reason for this is that traditional liberal theorists of moral progress, like their conservative detractors, tended to rely on under-evidenced assumptions about human psychology and society. For the first time, we are developing robust scientific knowledge about human nature, especia…Read more
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17Reply to CommentsAnalyse & Kritik 41 (2): 287-300. 2019.Commentators on The Evolution of Moral Progress: A Biocultural Theory raise a number of metaethical and moral concerns with our analysis, as well as some complaints regarding how we have interpreted and made use of the contemporary evolutionary and social sciences of morality. Some commentators assert that one must already presuppose a moral theory before one can even begin to theorize moral progress; others query whether the shift toward greater inclusion is really a case of moral progress, or …Read more
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72The Preventive Use of Force: A Cosmopolitan Institutional ProposalEthics and International Affairs 18 (1): 1-22. 2004.Preventive use of force may be defined as the initiation of military action in anticipation of harmful actions that are neither presently occurring nor imminent. This essay explores the permissibility of preventive war from a cosmopolitan normative perspective, one that recognizes the basic human rights of all persons, not just citizens of a particular country or countries. It argues that preventive war can only be justified if it is undertaken within an appropriate rule-governed, institutional …Read more
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13States, Nations and Borders: The Ethics of Making Boundaries (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2003.This volume examines comparatively the views and principles of seven prominent ethical traditions on one of the most pressing issues of modern politics - the making and unmaking of state and national boundaries. The traditions represented are Judaism, Christianity, Islam, natural law, Confucianism, liberalism and international law. Each contributor, an expert within one of these traditions, shows how that tradition can handle the five dominant methods of altering state and national boundaries: c…Read more
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10Human Rights: A Plea for Taking the Law and Institutions SeriouslyEthics and International Affairs 30 (4): 501-510. 2016.
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Interview by Simon CushingJournal of Cognition and Neuroethics (Philosophical Profiles). 2014.Simon Cushing conducted the following interview with Allen Buchanan on 2 June 2014.
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37The Evolution of Moral Progress: A Biocultural TheoryOup Usa. 2018.Steven Pinker has said that one of the most important questions humans can ask of themselves is whether moral progress has occurred or is likely to occur. Buchanan and Powell here address that question, in order to provide the first naturalistic, empirically-informed and analytically sophisticated theory of moral progress--explaining the capacities in the human brain that allow for it, the role of the environment, and how contingent and fragile moral progress can be.
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14Institutionalizing the Just WarOup Usa. 2018.Institutionalizing the Just War provides a new approach to theorizing the morality of war and argues that sound moral principles regarding war-making must take into account the fact that the validity of moral principles can depend upon existing institutions and social practices.
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100Toward a Naturalistic Theory of Moral ProgressEthics 126 (4): 983-1014. 2016.Early liberal theories about the feasibility of moral progress were premised on empirically ungrounded assumptions about human psychology and society. In this article, we develop a richer naturalistic account of the conditions under which one important form of moral progress–the emergence of more “inclusive” moralities–is likely to arise and be sustained. Drawing upon work in evolutionary psychology and social moral epistemology, we argue that “exclusivist” morality is the result of an adaptivel…Read more
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44De-moralization as emancipation: Liberty, progress, and the evolution of invalid moral normsSocial Philosophy and Policy 34 (2): 108-135. 2017.Abstract:Liberal thinkers of the Enlightenment understood that surplus moral constraints, imposed by invalid moral norms, are a serious limitation on liberty. They also recognized that overcoming surplus moral constraints — what we call proper de-moralization — is an important dimension of moral progress. Contemporary philosophical theorists of liberty have largely neglected the threat that surplus moral constraints pose to liberty and the importance of proper de-moralization for human emancipat…Read more
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19Rule‐governed Institutions versus Act‐Consequentialism: A Rejoinder to NaticchiaPhilosophy and Public Affairs 28 (3): 258-270. 1999.
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15Philosophy and Public Policy: A Role for Social Moral EpistemologyJournal of Applied Philosophy 26 (3): 276-290. 2009.abstract Part 1 of this essay argues that one of the most important contributions of philosophers to sound public policy may be to combat the influence of bad Philosophy (which includes, but is not limited to, bad Philosophy produced by accredited academic philosophers). Part 2 argues that the conventional conception of Practical Ethics (CPE) that philosophers bring to issues of public policy is defective because it fails to take seriously the phenomenon of the subversion of morality, the role o…Read more
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15Privatization and Just HealthcareBioethics 9 (3): 220-239. 1995.When advocates of insurance‐privatization consider whether private insurance‐dominated systems achieve justice at all, they tend to rely on an incomplete set of criteria for a just healthcare system. They also mistakenly assume that it is enough to show that justice is in principle achievable within a private insurance‐dominated system. This essay offers a more complete set of criteria for a just healthcare system. It then argues that the motivational assumptions needed to make insurance‐privati…Read more
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22Principal/Agent Theory and Decisionmaking in Health CareBioethics 2 (4): 317-333. 1988.This essay has two aims: The first is to demonstrate that the basic conceptual framework of principal/agent theory can be fruitfully applied to decisionmaking in health care and in such a way as to facilitate the more efficient pursuit of the moral values of individual well-being and autonomy which health care is supposed to promote. The second is to show that this application results in an enrichment of principal/agent theory itself, by removing some of the limi…Read more
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18Precommitment Regimes for Intervention: Supplementing the Security CouncilEthics and International Affairs 25 (1): 41-63. 2011.As global governance institutions proliferate and become more powerful, their legitimacy is subject to ever sharper scrutiny. Yet what legitimacy means in this context and how it is to be ascertained are often unclear. In a previous paper in this journal, we offered a general account of the legitimacy of such institutions and a set of standards for determining when they are legitimate. In this paper we focus on the legitimacy of the UN Security Council as an institution for making decisions conc…Read more
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