Romy Eskens

According to an influential view about directed expressive duties (e.g., duties to express gratitude to benefactors, remorse to victims, forgiveness to wrongdoers), these duties do not have rights as their correlates, because they are not demandable and enforceable. This chapter argues that this view is mistaken. Like other directed duties, directed expressive duties are demandable and enforceable. While this does not _entail_ that these duties have rights as their correlates, it does create a strong presumption of this being the case. This shifts the burden of proof from those who hold that expressive duties correlate with rights to those who deny it.

We are sometimes permitted to discount the interests of culpable wrongdoers relative to other people’s interests. What explains this? One answer is that culpable wrongdoers deserve less consideration than others because of their culpable wrongdoing (the Desert View). Another is that we may be negatively partial towards wrongdoers because of our negative relationship with them (the Negative Partiality View). We reject both answers. The Desert View fails because it cannot explain how permissions to discount can be sensitive to relational facts. The Negative Partiality View fails because it cannot explain how permissions to discount can be agent-neutral, or independent of an existing relationship with the wrongdoer. We close by outlining a theory of permissible discounting that accounts for both its relationality and its agent-neutrality.

Discussions of personal relationships focus overwhelmingly on amicable types: those characterized by cooperation, affection, or even love. Yet some relationships are instead marked by competition, non-cooperation, or outright hostility. This chapter analyzes the nature and value of two paradigmatic forms of adversarial relationship: rivalry and enmity. We offer systematic accounts of what it is to have a rival or an enemy. Rivalry, we argue, involves extended serious competition over personal goods, structured by a rivalrous stance focused on defeating one's competitor. Enmity involves posing persistent, serious non-cooperative threats, coupled with inimical stances ranging from hatred to strategic indifference. The chapter explores whether these relationships are always personally and morally problematic, or whether they can have positive value. While rivalry can promote excellence and self-understanding when properly constrained, enmity's orientation toward non-cooperative interference typically invites moral corruption and escalation. We examine what morality demands regarding enmity resolution, considering various paths from reconciliation to mere modus vivendi. Throughout, we highlight how adversarial relationships differ fundamentally from amicable ones in their self-sustaining character: while amicable relationships involve stances oriented toward preserving the relationship itself, adversarial relationships focus elsewhere—on achieving contested goods or responding to threats. These insights illuminate not only paradigmatic adversarial relationships but also the adversarial elements that can emerge within initially amicable ones.

There are many examples of persons who appear to be grateful to other people's benefactors. In at least some of these examples, such third-party gratitude also seems fitting. However, these observations conflict with a widespread assumption in the philosophical literature about gratitude: that only beneficiaries can be fittingly grateful to benefactors. In this article, I argue that third-party gratitude exists and can be fitting, and that the assumption is therefore mistaken. More specifically, I defend two claims: (i) that there exists a kind of gratitude to benefactors that is experienced by third parties in their capacities as moral agents (‘moral gratitude’); and (ii) that what makes this kind of gratitude fitting is the fact that, in benefitting the beneficiaries, the benefactors are responding to values that we, as moral agents, each have reason to care about and to want to see promoted.

Forced choices between rescuing imperilled persons are subject to a presumption of equality. Unless we can point to a morally relevant difference between these persons' imperilments, each should get an equal chance of rescue. Sometimes, this presumption is overturned. For example, when one imperilled person has wrongfully caused the forced choice, most think that this person (rather than an innocent person) should bear the harm. The converse scenario, in which a forced choice resulted from the supererogatory action of one of the imperilled people, has received little attention in distributive ethics. I argue that, sometimes, we need not offer equal chances in these cases either. When the supererogatory act places the initially imperilled person under a reciprocal duty to bear risks for the supererogatory agent's sake in the forced choice, we may fulfil this duty for them if they are unable to do it themselves, by favouring the supererogatory agent.

According to an influential view about directed expressive duties (e.g., duties to express gratitude to benefactors, remorse to victims, forgiveness to wrongdoers), these duties do not have rights as their correlates, because they are not demandable and enforceable. The chapter argues that this view is mistaken. Like other directed duties, directed expressive duties are demandable and enforceable. While this does not entail that these duties have rights as their correlates, it does create a strong presumption of this being the case. This shifts the burden of proof from those who hold that expressive duties correlate with rights to those who deny it.

Does the moral quality of someone’s past treatment of us, or of other people, change how we are morally permitted or required to treat them? Many philosophers think so. They argue, for instance, that someone’s supererogatory or impermissible behaviour can permit or require certain positive or negative attitudinal responses, such as gratitude or resentment. They also argue that someone’s impermissible behaviour can justify harming the person, either defensively or punitively, and that someone who is imperilled as a result of impermissible behaviour might have a weaker claim to be aided than those who are innocently imperilled. This thesis has two aims. The first is to extend the scope of the idea that we can be morally required to have certain positive or negative attitudinal responses to someone’s supererogatory or impermissible behaviour; the second is to explore novel ways in which our required responses to such behaviour, or our failures to have these responses, can change what others owe to us when aiding. Papers 1-3 advance the first aim; papers 4-6 advance the second aim. In pursuing the two aims, the thesis brings together two philosophical domains that are not normally considered in conjunction: the philosophy of attitudes and deontological ethics.

In “Other-Sacrificing Options”, Benjamin Lange argues that, when distributing benefits and burdens, we may discount the interests of the people to whom we stand in morally negative relationships relative to the interests of other people. Lange’s case for negative partiality proceeds in two steps. First, he presents a hypothetical example that commonly elicits intuitions favourable to negative partiality. Second, he invokes symmetry considerations to reason from permissible positive partiality towards intimates to permissible negative partiality towards adversaries. In this paper, I argue that neither the intuition elicited by Lange’s example nor the invoked symmetry considerations support a permission for negative partiality. This does not mean that negative partiality is unjustified. It means only that the justification, if there is one, must take a different form. I end by suggesting an alternative justification of negative partiality, one that mirrors gratitude-based justifications of positive partiality rather than justifications based on intimacy.

It is widely accepted that valid consent is a necessary condition for permissible sexual activity. Since non-human animals, children, and individuals who are severely cognitively disabled, heavily intoxicated or unconscious, lack the cognitive capacity to give valid consent, this condition explains why it is impermissible to have sex with them. However, contrary to common intuitions, the same condition seems to render it impermissible to have sex with robots, for they too are incapable of consenting to sex due to insufficient cognitive capacitation. This paper explores whether the intuition that non-consensual sex with robots is permissible can be vindicated, whilst preserving valid consent as a general requirement for permissible sexual activity. I develop and evaluate four possible ways to argue that there is a morally significant difference between robots on the one hand, and insufficiently cognitively capacitated humans and non-human animals on the other hand, to substantiate and justify the intuition that it is permissible to have non-consensual sex with the former but not with the latter.