Lee Shepski

(? - )

The ' argument from queerness', made famous by J. L. Mackie, remains one of the most influential arguments in metaethics. However, many philosophers focus on just one or two of its strands, while others assume a particular but by no means universal reading of it. This essay attempts to disentangle and evaluate all strands of the argument. Surprisingly, when this is done, not much is left as a distinct argument from queerness. Much of the argument collapses into other types of argument, and what is left, though intuitively appealing, is not viable as philosophical argument

Nearly every day we participate in the vast, interconnected global economy. In doing so, we engage in chains of transactions that ultimately result in our benefiting from, or enabling, wrongdoing by others. In some cases this seems to be in itself wrong, but in many cases it seems unproblematic. I develop a concept of ‘ethical distance’ and argue that our responsibility for the wrongdoing of others is a function of our ethical distance from it. Furthermore, I argue that the concept of moral responsibility is vague, but that when we become clearly responsible for wrongdoing by others, we ought to sever our connection to it