•  39
    Dawning of Awareness: The Experience of Surrogate Decision Making at the End of Life
    with F. A. Carnevale
    Journal of Clinical Ethics 16 (1): 28-45. 2005.
  •  37
    A cybernetic theory of morality and moral autonomy
    Science and Engineering Ethics 7 (2): 177-192. 2001.
    Human morality may be thought of as a negative feedback cotrol system in which moral rules are reference values, and moral disapproval, blame, and punishment are forms of negative feedback given for violations of the moral rules. In such a system, if moral agents held each other accountable, moral norms would be enforced effectively. However, even a properly functioning social negative feedback system could not explain acts in which individual agents uphold moral rules in the face of contrary so…Read more
  •  36
    Women's Right to Choose Rationally: Genetic Information, Embryo Selection, and Genetic Manipulation
    Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 12 (4): 418-428. 2003.
    Margaret Brazier has argued that, in the literature on reproductive technology, women's “right” to reproduce is privileged, pushed, and subordinated to patriarchal values in such a way that it amounts to women's old “duty” to reproduce, dressed up in modern guise. I agree that there are patriarchal assumptions made in discussions of whether women have a right to select which embryos to implant or which fetuses to carry to term. Forcing ourselves to see women as active, rational decisionmakers te…Read more
  •  30
    Carson Strong argues, in that if cloning of humans by somatic cell nuclear transfer were to become a safe procedure, then infertile couples should have access to it as a last resort. He lists six reasons such couples might desire genetically related children. Of these, two are relevant to justifying their access to cloning—namely, that they want to jointly participate in the creation of a person, and that having a genetically related child would constitute an affirmation of their mutual love. Ac…Read more
  •  17
    Welfare and Rational Care (review)
    Philosophy Now 45 44-45. 2004.
  •  17
    Carson Strong argues, in that if cloning of humans by somatic cell nuclear transfer were to become a safe procedure, then infertile couples should have access to it as a last resort. He lists six reasons such couples might desire genetically related children. Of these, two are relevant to justifying their access to cloning—namely, that they want to jointly participate in the creation of a person, and that having a genetically related child would constitute an affirmation of their mutual love. Ac…Read more
  •  17
    Ethicists as Architects
    Philosophy in the Contemporary World 9 (1): 27-38. 2002.
    As James Coleman and Allan Gibbard have suggested, human morality may be viewed as a feedback control system. Each of the standard normative ethical theories emphasizes only part of this complex system. Social reform requires both new theoretical syntheses and a practical effort to better uphold ideal norms.
  •  13
    Carson Strong's article “Cloning and Infertility” has initiated a conversation in this journal about the ethical and policy issues surrounding the question of who, if anyone, should be allowed access to human reproductive cloning technology, should somatic cell nuclear transfer ever become technically feasible and safe. Strong's position in that article is that infertile opposite sex couples for whom cloning is the last resort for having a genetically related child are the only people who should…Read more
  •  1
    Privacy, sex, and norms: An indirect control definition
    Journal of Information Ethics 9 (1): 10-25. 2000.
  • Using recent developments in evolutionary psychology to describe human nature, I develop a broad functional analyses of the social and psychological workings of human morality. I argue that evolved preferences underlie preference shifts, or impulses, of various morally relevant kinds. Individual control over these tendencies is a necessary condition for human practical rationality, including both prudence and morality. So I characterize individual practical rationality as diachronic preference c…Read more