Tomislav Bracanovic

This paper examines whether sentencing algorithms – machine-learning-based tools for assessing the likelihood that a convicted individual will commit further offenses if released on parole – are consistent with Peter Singer's preference utilitarianism and the principle of equal consideration of interests. It begins by explaining the functioning and ethical challenges of such algorithms, especially the challenge of individualized sentencing. The paper then explores how these algorithms align with Singer's preference utilitarianism, particularly his principle of equal consideration of interests. Analyzing the key elements of this principle – maximizing and equally weighing interests, impartiality, and rejection of irrelevant group memberships – reveals how critics might use it to oppose the implementation of sentencing algorithms. A contextually more sensitive reading of Singer's views suggests that the same principle, in fact, supports the use of these algorithms. The paper concludes that sentencing algorithms are not only consistent with Singer's position but are, in many respects, reinforced by it.

This paper provides a critical review of three prominent lines of debate about the ethical permissibility of autonomous weapon systems (AWS). Specifically, it analyzes their three frequent critiques: the dignity critique, which claims that these systems will violate human dignity; the proliferation critique, which asserts that they will increase the number of armed conflicts; and the responsibility critique, which argues that they will create gaps in responsibility for potential war crimes. It is shown that none of these offers a sufficiently compelling case against the development and use of AWS. The first fails to establish how these systems, as opposed to other methods of warfare, specifically violate human dignity. The second overemphasizes their impact on states’ willingness to engage in war, while overlooking their accessibility to all parties in a conflict and their potential to reduce both the frequency and brutality of warfare. The third overlooks their limited autonomy and the fact that, in similar technological contexts, responsibility gaps either do not arise or are morally unproblematic. While the AWS give rise to various concerns, there seems to be no compelling reason, given the current state of scholarship, to regard them as inherently immoral.

Integrative bioethics is a predominantly Croatian school of thought whose proponents claim to have initiated an innovative and recognizably European concept of bioethics capable of dealing with the most pressing issues of our time. In this paper, a critical overview of the integrative bioethics project is undertaken to show that it is, in fact, a poorly articulated and arguably pseudoscientific enterprise fundamentally incapable of dealing with practical challenges. The first section provides the basic outline of integrative bioethics: its historical development, major proponents, geographical context and philosophical foundations. The second section considers its main theoretical shortcomings: the absence of normativity, collapse into ethical relativism and frequent intratheoretical inconsistencies. The third section addresses the issue of typically pseudoscientific features of integrative bioethics: verbose language, constant self- glorification and isolation from mainstream science. The fourth and concluding section of the paper argues that integrative bioethics––regarding its quality, reception and identity––does not merit the “European bioethics” label and is better described as a blind alley of European bioethics.

In the article it is argued that contemporary evolutionary ethics – to the extent it accepts sociobiological strategies of naturalizing human morality – faces some serious conceptual and explanatory difficulties. Conceptual difficulty consists in recognizing that “morality” is not the same as “altruism”, but rather comprises several specific elements which distinguish it from both evolutionary and psychological altruism. Explanatory difficulty consists in recognizing that the phenomenon of morality appropriately conceptualized cannot be incorporated into standard sociobiological explanations without endangering some basic assumptions of those explanations, primarily the assumption of “gene selectionism”, as well as the assumption of “evolutionarily stable strategies”. The basic argument is that one cannot retain both the appropriate concept of human morality and key assumptions of sociobiological explanations.

According to the ‘mating intelligence’ theory by evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller, human morality is a system of sexually selected traits which serve as costly signals to the other sex about one’s fitness and readiness to take care for possible offspring. Starting from the standard prediction of evolutionary psychology that sexual selection produces psychological sex differences in human mating strategies, ‘mating intelligence’ theory is analyzed for its compatibility with several psychological theories about sex differences in moral traits like moral reasoning, judgment and orientation. It is argued that the ‘mating intelligence’ theory, as a theory about the the evolution of morality, comes too dangerously close to being unfalsifiable because it embodies some auxiliary hypotheses and vague definitions which make it practically immune to every possible empirical finding concerning sex differences in human moral traits.

Integrative bioethics is a brand of bioethics conceived and propagated by a group of Croatian philosophers and other scholars. This article discusses and shows that the approach encounters several serious difficulties. In criticizing certain standard views on bioethics and in presenting their own, the advocates of integrative bioethics fall into various conceptual confusions and inconsistencies. Although presented as a project that promises to deal with moral dilemmas created by modern science and technology, integrative bioethics does not contain the slightest normativity or action-guiding capacity. Portrayed as a scientific and interdisciplinary enterprise, integrative bioethics displays a large number of pseudoscientific features that throw into doubt its overall credibility.

According to the ‘mating intelligence’ theory by evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller, human morality is a system of sexually selected traits which serve as costly signals to the other sex about one’s fitness and readiness to take care for possible offspring. Starting from the standard prediction of evolutionary psychology that sexual selection produces psychological sex differences in human mating strategies, ‘mating intelligence’ theory is analyzed for its compatibility with several psychological theories about sex differences in moral traits like moral reasoning, judgment and orientation. It is argued that the ‘mating intelligence’ theory, as a theory about the the evolution of morality, comes too dangerously close to being unfalsifiable because it embodies some auxiliary hypotheses and vague definitions which make it practically immune to every possible empirical finding concerning sex differences in human moral traits.

This article discusses the view that bioethics should become ‘‘culturally sensitive’’ and give more weight to various cultural traditions and their respective moral beliefs. It is argued that this view is implausible for the following three reasons: it renders the disciplinary boundaries of bioethics too flexible and inconsistent with metaphysical commitments of Western biomedical sciences, it is normatively useless because it approaches cultural phenomena in a predominantly descriptive and selective way, and it tends to justify certain types of discrimination.