•  15
    Why good work in philosophical bioethics often looks strange
    Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 44 (2): 153-164. 2023.
    Papers in philosophical bioethics often discuss unrealistic scenarios and defend controversial views. Why is that, and what is this kind of work good for? My aim in the first part of this paper is to specify how philosophical bioethics relates to other types of work in bioethics, and to explain the role of the unrealistic scenarios and the controversial views. In the second part, I propose three strategies for doing research in philosophical bioethics that makes a valuable contribution to the bi…Read more
  •  13
    Palliative Farming
    The Journal of Ethics 26 (4): 543-561. 2022.
    Billions of animals live and die under deplorable conditions in factory farms. Despite significant efforts to reduce human consumption of animal products and to encourage more humane farming practices, the number of factory-farmed animals is nevertheless on an upward trajectory. In this paper, we suggest that the high levels of suffering combined with short life-expectancies make the situation of many factory-farmed animals relevantly similar to that of palliative patients. Building on this, we …Read more
  •  77
    Should we give money to beggars?
    Think 13 (37): 73-76. 2014.
    In this paper it is argued that we should not give money to beggars. Rather than spending our welfare budget on the people whom we happen to pass by on the street, we should spend it on those who are genuinely poor and who can be helped the most with each pound that we give. A pound given to a beggar in a Western country, it is argued, is a pound spent on someone who is relatively well off. That pound, if spent better, could have rescued the life of a starving child in another part of the world
  •  45
    The ethics of wild animal suffering
    Etikk I Praksis - Nordic Journal of Applied Ethics 1 (1): 91-104. 2016.
    Animal ethics has received a lot of attention over the last four decades. Its focus, however, has almost exclusively been on the welfare of captive animals, ignoring the vast majority of animals: those living in the wild. I suggest that this one-sided focus is unwarranted. On the empirical side, I argue that wild animals overwhelmingly outnumber captive animals, and that billions of wild animals are likely to have lives that are even more painful and distressing than those of their captive count…Read more
  •  67
    The ethics of emergencies
    Philosophical Studies 178 (8): 2621-2634. 2021.
    Do we have stronger duties to assist in emergencies than in nonemergencies? According to Peter Singer and Peter Unger, we do not. Emergency situations, they suggest, merely serve to make more salient the very extensive duties to assist that we always have. This view, while theoretically simple, appears to imply that we must radically revise common-sense emergency norms. Resisting that implication, theorists like Frances Kamm, Jeremy Waldron, and Larry Temkin suggest that emergencies are indeed n…Read more
  •  34
    Judicial Corporal Punishment
    Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 17 (1). 2020.
    Most of us think that states are justified in incarcerating criminals, sometimes for decades. In this paper I suggest that if states are justified in this, they are also justified in inflicting certain forms of corporal punishment. Many forms of corporal punishment are less burdensome than long-term incarceration, and arguably, they are also cheaper, fairer, more deterring, and less destructive of the social and economic networks that convicts often depend on for future reintegration into societ…Read more
  •  595
    The ethics of pedophilia
    Etikk I Praksis - Nordic Journal of Applied Ethics 1 (1): 111-124. 2015.
    Pedophilia is bad. But how bad is it? And in what ways, and for what reasons, is it bad? This is a thorny issue, and sadly, one seldom discussed by ethicists. In this paper it is argued that pedophilia is bad only because, and only to the extent that, it causes harm to children, and that pedophilia itself, as well as pedophilic expressions and practices that do not cause harm to children, are morally all right. It is further argued that the aim of our social and legal treatment of pedophilia sho…Read more
  •  93
    The Ethics of Relationship Anarchy
    with Aleksander Sørlie
    In Lori Watson, Clare Chambers & Brian D. Earp (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Sex and Sexuality, Routledge. forthcoming.
    When people talk about anarchism, what they have in mind is typically political anarchism, that is, the view that there should be no state. As the philosopher and anarchism scholar David Miller observes, however, anarchism itself is a more general view, namely the view that there should be no rulers. Miller writes that “although the state is the most distinctive object of anarchist attack, it is by no means the only object. Any institution which, like the state, appears to anarchists coercive, p…Read more
  •  112
    In this chapter, we ask three questions about pedophilia: Is it immoral to be a pedophile? Is it immoral for pedophiles to seek out sexual contact with children? Is it immoral for pedophiles to satisfy their sexual preferences by using computer-generated graphics, sex dolls, and/or sex robots that mimic children? We argue that it is not immoral to be a pedophile, it is immoral for pedophiles to seek out sexual contact with children because of the expected harm to children, and it is morally perm…Read more
  •  2
    Morten Magelssen: Menneskeverd i klinikk og politikk
    Norsk Filosofisk Tidsskrift 48 (3-4): 315-317. 2013.
  •  53
    According to the Norwegian philosopher Peter Wessel Zapffe, human life is filled with so much suffering that procreation is morally impermissible. In the first part of this paper I present Zapffe’s pessimism-based argument for anti-natalism, and contrast it with the arguments for anti-natalism proposed by Arthur Schopenhauer and David Benatar. In the second part I explore what Zapffe’s pessimism can teach us about biomedical enhancement. I make the case that pessimism counts in favor of pursuing…Read more
  •  17
    Individual solutions to social problems
    Journal of Medical Ethics 47 (3): 173-174. 2021.
    Non-medical egg freezing is egg freezing for the sake of delaying parenthood. The label ‘non-medical’ can be confusing, since the extraction and freezing of eggs is undeniably a medical procedure. The point is that whereas ‘medical egg freezing’ is done in order to retain capacity to procreate despite a potentially threatening medical condition, ‘non-medical egg freezing’ is done for the sake of getting more time to find a suitable partner and/or to establish a career before embarking on parenth…Read more
  •  87
    An Argument for Hedonism
    Journal of Value Inquiry 50 (2): 267-281. 2016.
  •  57
    An Argument for Intrinsic Value Monism
    Philosophia 44 (4): 1375-1385. 2016.
    In this paper I argue that there is only one intrinsic value. I start by examining three aspects of values that are often taken to count against this suggestion: that values seem heterogeneous, that values are sometimes incommensurable, and that we sometimes experience so-called “rational regret” after having forsaken a smaller value for a greater one. These aspects, I argue, are in fact compatible with both monism and pluralism about intrinsic value. I then examine a fourth aspect: That a very …Read more
  •  59
    The Unabomber’s ethics
    Bioethics 33 (2): 223-229. 2018.
    In this paper, I present and criticize Ted Kaczynski’s (“The Unabomber”) theory that industrialization has been terrible for humanity, and that we should use any means necessary, including violent means, to induce a return to pre‐industrial ways of living. Although Kaczynski’s manifesto, Industrial society and its future, has become widely known, his ideas have never before been subject to careful philosophical criticism. In this paper I show how Kaczynski’s arguments rely on a number of highly …Read more
  •  25
    Smarter Babies
    Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 25 (3): 515-517. 2016.
  •  30
    Bright New World
    Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 25 (2): 282-287. 2016.
  •  69
    Prostitution and harm: a reply to Anderson and McDougall
    Journal of Medical Ethics 40 (2): 84-85. 2014.
    I agree with Scott A Anderson1 and Rosalind J McDougall2 that many prostitutes suffer significant harms, and that these harms must be taken seriously. Having a background in public outreach for sex workers, I share this concern wholeheartedly.In the article to which Anderson and McDougall respond,3 I ask why prostitutes are harmed: are prostitutes harmed because prostitution itself is harmful or because of contingent ways in which prostitutes are socially and legally treated? This is an importan…Read more
  •  116
    The Unity and Commensurability of Pleasures and Pains
    Philosophia 41 (2): 527-543. 2013.
    In this paper I seek to answer two interrelated questions about pleasures and pains: (i) The question of unity: Do all pleasures share a single quality that accounts for why these, and only these, are pleasures, and do all pains share a single quality that accounts for why these, and only these, are pains? (ii) The question of commensurability: Are all pleasures and pains rankable on a single, quantitative hedonic scale? I argue that our intuitions draw us in opposing directions: On the one hand…Read more
  •  369
    Is prostitution harmful?
    Journal of Medical Ethics 40 (2): 73-81. 2014.
    A common argument against prostitution states that selling sex is harmful because it involves selling something deeply personal and emotional. More and more of us, however, believe that sexual encounters need not be deeply personal and emotional in order to be acceptable—we believe in the acceptability of casual sex. In this paper I argue that if casual sex is acceptable, then we have few or no reasons to reject prostitution. I do so by first examining nine influential arguments to the contrary.…Read more
  •  71
    Prostitution and sexual ethics: a reply to Westin
    Journal of Medical Ethics 40 (2): 88-88. 2014.
    In ‘Is prostitution harmful?’ I argue that if casual sex is acceptable, then so is prostitution.1 Anna Westin, in ‘The harms of prostitution: critiquing Moen's argument of no-harm’, raises four objections to my view.2 Let me reply to these in turn.Westin's first objection is that it is ‘fundamentally problematic [to] categorise sexual ethics into merely two types’, the type that accepts casual sex and the type that does not. The reason why, she explains, is that this ‘incompletely frames the con…Read more
  •  67
  •  82
    The case for cryonics
    Journal of Medical Ethics 41 (8): 677-681. 2015.
  •  78
    Cosmetic surgery
    Think 11 (31): 73-79. 2012.