Tianxiang Lan

The philosophical debate over whether procreation is morally justified, given the sufferings of procreated humans, finds renewed significance amidst global crises. In this paper, I argue that procreation as a collective human endeavour inevitably perpetuates horrendous, life-ruining evil on a global scale. I also show that horrendous evil is unavoidable even under optimistic assumptions about the prospect of the progress of civilisation. Moreover, I argue that such evil cannot be outweighed by the favourable outcomes experienced by the procreated humans. This makes procreation pro tanto morally wrong. Since much of the literature focuses on individual procreative acts and non-life-ruining evil, my argument makes a novel contribution by drawing the focus of the debate to (1) humans’ collective procreative practice and (2) how it sustains horrendous evil across the globe. This analysis invites further reflection on the ethics of bringing life into a world fraught with profound suffering and encourages consideration of antinatalism as a serious philosophical proposition.

This paper explores the often-overlooked issue of non-employment-based domestic labour rights. Existing frameworks for labour rights primarily address employment-based work, leaving a gap for those who perform domestic tasks not on an employment basis, such as family caregivers. This paper develops a framework of moral labour rights for non-employment-based domestic labour by adapting articles 23 and 24 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to this context. It proposes the right to material support and unionisation for these people and advocates state-supported resources to uphold their right to rest and leisure. By extending moral labour rights to non-employment-based domestic labour, this paper calls for a societal shift to recognise and support the vital contributions of these people.

This paper explores relational environmental ethics, focusing on interdependence as a basis for moral duty. Interdependence is here understood as causal interactions, and I argue that it is not a necessary condition for environmental moral duty. I demonstrate this through a ‘dwarven world’ thought experiment, showing that ethical duties can persist even when human-nature interdependence is minimal. I further propose a spectatorial-sentimentalist framework for relational moral duty of care. This framework, grounded in impartial spectator approval, reconciles universal moral demands with subjective sentiments. This analysis provides a more robust and adaptable theoretical foundation for relational environmental ethics.

Whether nature is valuable on its own (intrinsic values) or because of the benefits it provides to humans (instrumental values) has been a long-standing debate. The concept of relational values has been proposed as a solution to this supposed dichotomy, but the empirical validation of its intuitiveness remains limited. We experimentally assessed whether intrinsic/relational values of sentient beings/non-sentient beings/ecosystems better explain people’s sense of moral duty towards global nature conservation for the future. Participants from a representative sample of the population of Singapore (n = 1508) were randomly allocated to two “the last human” scenarios. We found that the best predictor of such a sense of moral duty for future nature conservation is the recognition of the intrinsic values of sentient beings. Our results suggest that the concern for animal welfare may enhance rather than compete with the sense of moral duty towards nature conservation.

In response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, many international sports organisations banned not just athletes from representing Russia, but also their participation in the competitions. I examine the ethical justifiability of such individual-targeting sports sanctions through just war theory and consequentialism. I argue that just war theory judges such individual-targeting sports sanctions as ethically wrong for targeting athletes who are not agents of strategic threat, and for failing to minimise harm when feasible. I argue that consequentialism also judges such sanctions as wrong if quantitative empirical findings about economic sanctions were to be generalised to individual-targeting sports sanctions. When not referring to such evidence, consequentialism is either neutral about such sanctions, or unable to produce useful judgements due to empirical uncertainties. Based on the above considerations, we have stronger reasons to believe that such sanctions are wrong than otherwise.

The land ethic, established by Aldo Leopold and systematically theorised by J. B. Callicott, has deeply influenced modern environmentalism. Despite its influence, Callicottian land ethic has been criticised for having fascist implications, a concern that Callicott has attempted to address. However, there is insufficient philosophical scrutiny of whether it can indeed avoid undesirable implications when applied to the interhuman realm. In this paper, I argue that Callicottian land ethic entails moral conservatism when evaluating socio-political reforms by overestimating the negative impacts of such changes. It also exhibits insufficient concern for human rights due to its strongly collectivist assumption. Though these aspects are not overtly fascist, they do pose significant ethical concerns. To address these issues, I examine Roberta Millstein’s interpretation of Leopold’s work, which provides a promising alternative theorisation of the land ethic by recognising the moral significance of individuals alongside collectives. Nevertheless, further theoretical refinement to Millsteinian land ethic is still needed to fully circumvent the conservative implications, and I propose potential strategies to do so. Such strategies will help ensure that the land ethic aligns with contemporary ethical standards while preserving its pioneering ecocentric perspective.