Filial Obligations: A Contextual, Pluralist Model

In this article I investigate the nature and extent of filial obligations. The question what (adult) children owe their parents is not only philosophically interesting, but also of increasing relevance in ageing societies. Its answer matters to elderly people and their adult children, and is relevant to social policy issues in various ways. I present the strongest arguments for and against three models of filial obligations: the ??past parental sacrifices?? model, the ??special relationship?? model, and the conventionalist model. There is something to be said??and after consideration of objections something remains to be said??for all three models. In other words: filial obligations have more than one source, and an adequate model of filial obligations should reflect this. On its own, each of the above models is one-sided. They also fail to show the connections between the question of filial obligations and various other issues, such as issues of gender justice, the extent of institutionalization of eldercare, and social conventions regarding filial responsibility. Therefore, I integrate what I think we should keep from the aforementioned models into a contextual, pluralist model, which places filial obligations in a broader social and cultural context and relates them to issues of social justice. The model also highlights the difference between general and specific filial obligations, and the factors that determine their nature and extent, thus enabling a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of filial obligations.     

Nationality, Distributive Justice and the Use of Force

To whom do we owe obligations of distributive justice? In the last decade a number of distinguished political theorists — such as David Miller and Yael Tamir — have defended a nationalist account of our distributive obligations. This paper examines their account of distributive justice. In particular, it analyses their contention (a) that individuals owe special obligations to fellow-nationals, (b) that these obligations are obligations of distributive justice and (c) that these obligations are enforceable. Miller and Tamir's justifications, I argue, do not support these claims. Moreover, I argue, (a) and (c) should only be accepted in a greatly qualified form and (b) should be rejected altogether. The paper thus concludes that the nationalists' preferred account of distributive justice is untenable.     

Moral obligations towards future generations in African thought

Given the importance of being able to account for moral obligations towards future generations, especially in the light of the problem of global climate change, I argue that there are under-appreciated notions in African thought that are able to significantly contribute to the on-going discourse with respect to inter-generational moral obligations. I identify two related African notions, both springing from the prominent belief that ancestors who have died – but continue to have a presence – are entitled to respect, which upon secular refinement are promising in terms of grounding a claim that we do have moral obligations to future generations. These conceptions are that the environment is a communal resource, shared across generations, and that the present generation should express gratitude to its predecessors for preserving the environment on its behalf, by emulating its predecessors and preserving the environment for future generations. I argue that these two conceptions present plausible grounds for thinking that we have moral obligations to posterity, partly because they go some way towards overcoming some of the theoretical concerns generally associated with the notion of moral obligations towards unidentifiable, contingent future persons.     

What We Owe the Dead

abstract   My aim in this paper is to argue that we have at least some obligations to the dead. After briefly considering some previous (unsuccessful) attempts to establish such obligations, I offer a reductio argument which establishes at least some obligations to the dead. Following this, the surprising extent of these obligations (given a few roughly Kantian assumptions) is considered. I then argue that there are and must be some significant limitations on the duties of the living in relation to the dead. My aim in this paper is not to sort out how we should deal with all of the particular cases in which the question of obligations to the dead emerge — in archaeological digs, research involving the newly dead, the execution of wills, or the fulfilment of last requests — but I will attempt to lay some groundwork for the future assessment of these questions.     

What do we owe co-nationals and non-nationals? why the liberal nationalist account fails and how we can do better

Liberal nationalists have been trying to argue that a suitably sanitized version of nationalism—namely, one that respects and embodies liberal values—is not only morally defensible, but also of great moral value, especially on grounds liberals should find very appealing. Although there are plausible aspects to the idea and some compelling arguments are offered in defense of this position, one area still proves to be a point of considerable vulnerability for this project and that is the issue of what, according to the liberal nationalists, we owe both members of our nation, our co-nationals, and what we owe those who are not members of our nation. It is here that we see the project still has some distance to go if a version of liberal nationalism is, indeed, to be morally defensible. In this paper I examine leading liberal nationalist accounts of our obligations to co-nationals and non-nationals. I argue that liberal nationalists have not yet given us an adequate account of our obligations to non-nationals for a number of reasons. For instance, on the issue of the priority we may give co-nationals' interests over non-nationals', the theorists' view show significant tension, they seem to be confused about what their positions entail, the views are unhelpful, ad hoc, or the positions are quite unclear. Liberal nationalists also have a misleading impression that their positions better capture the relation between personal identity and duty, but this turns out to be false. Other defects with their specific projects are highlighted. I go on to offer a more promising method for determining our obligations to non-nationals. Rather than this alternative precluding any scope for nationalism, it actually makes clearer to us how there might be some defensible space for nationalism once our obligations to put in place appropriate institutions and sets of rules have been fulfilled.     

PATRIOTISM AND POLITICAL OBLIGATION

Arguments aimed at undermining certain accounts of the grounds of political obligations—no matter how successful they may be—fall far short of demonstrating that there are no such obligations. Doubts about the efficacy of these arguments in this latter regard seem even more justified when it is recognized that parallel lines of reasoning can be developed in the area of filial obligations (and probably obligations of friendship and others as well), which arguments provide rather less than conclusive reasons for denying that there are filial obligations (obligations of friendship, and so forth). Furthermore, we have good reason to believe that there are political obligations if patriotism is a virtue, and also that patriotism is indeed a virtue. We therefore have a basis on which to affirm the existence of political obligations—a basis whose soundness is independent of the acceptability of particular accounts of the grounds of political obligation. Hence, even if standard accounts of the grounds of political obligations are problematic in certain respects, we should not regard this consideration as capable by itself of establishing that there are no such obligations.     

Community and the Rights of Future Generations: a reply to Robert Elliot

ABSTRACT It is widely recognised that we hold certain moral obligations to future generations. Robert Elliot argues that we can base these obligations on the rights of future people. I accept his argument that future people are moral agents who possess rights. However, I argue that the main question for political and moral philosophers is whether it is possible to find the balance between the obligations to, and the rights of, contemporaries, and the obligations to, and the rights of, future people.
By analysing the notions of 'human rights'and 'welfare rights'of future people, I argue that this question can be tackled only in terms of welfare rights. But the latter make sense only in the context of community of provision. This implies that we must first examine the 'trans-generational'community that includes contemporaries and future generations. Thus a theory of justice between generations cannot be purely 'rights-based'. However, by describing the 'trans-generational community'I argue that it can serve as the moral grounds for our obligations to future generations.     

The Value of Nonhuman Nature: A Constitutive View

A central question of environmental ethics remains one of how best to account for the intuitions generated by the Last Man scenarios; that is, it is a question of how to explain our experience of value in nature and, more importantly, whether that experience is justified. Seeking an alternative to extrinsic views, according to which nonhuman entities possess normative features that obligate us, I turn to constitutive views, which make value or whatever other limits nonhuman nature places on action dependent on features intrinsic to human beings and constitutive of them or their obligations. After examining two kinds of constitutive views—environmental virtue ethics and Korsgaard’s Kantianism—I suggest an alternative that takes up the strengths of both while avoiding their shortcomings. On this view, we have an indirect obligation to experience nature as obligating us, although we have direct obligations only to human beings.     

The ethics of intergenerational relationships

Abstract

According to the relational approach we have obligations to members of future generations not because of their interests or properties but because, and only because, they are our descendants or successors. Common accounts of relational duties do not explain how we can have obligations to people who do not yet exist. In this defence of the relational approach I examine three sources of intergenerational obligations: the concern of parents for their children, including their future children; the desire of community members to pass on a heritage to their descendants; and the relationship of citizens in an intergenerational polity.     

Conservation,Foresight, and the Future Generations Problem

The practice of conservation assumes that current persons have some obligations to future generations, but these obligations are complicated by a number of philosophical problems, chief among which is what Derek Parfit calls the Non‐Identity Problem. Because our actions now will affect the identities of persons to be born in the distant future, we cannot say that those actions either benefit or harm those persons. Thus, a causal link between our acts and their consequences for particular persons is severed, and the justification for conservation duties toward future generations undermined. I argue for an alternative justification for conservation in the capacity of foresight, which requires us to act not only upon duties that we have now, but also upon those that we will predictably have in the future. In this way, the future generations problem, at least as applied to conservation issues, is overcome.     

Guilt feelings and the intelligibility of moral duties

G.E.M. Anscombe argued that we should dispense with deontic concepts when doing ethics, if it is psychologically possible to do so. In response, I contend that deontic concepts are constitutive of the common moral experience of guilt. This has two consequences for Anscombe's position. First, seeing that guilt is a deontic emotion, we should recognize that Anscombe's qualification on her thesis applies: psychologically, we need deontology to understand our obligations and hence whether our guilt is warranted. Second, the fact that guilt is a deontic moral emotion debunks Anscombe's claim that deontic concepts are a relic of the Western, religious past: guilt feelings–hence the idea of moral duty as well–can be found in cultures without an ethics of divine command. Modern moral philosophers' interest in oughts and obligations is not an academic hobbyhorse, but a vital concern arising out of a primeval human emotion.     

Care Ethics and Obligations to Future Generations

A dominant area of inquiry within intergenerational ethics concerns how goods (and bads) ought to be justly distributed between noncontemporaries. Contractualist theories of justice that have broached these discussions have often centered on the concepts of mutual advantage and (indirect) reciprocal cooperation between rational, self‐interested beings. However, another prominent reason that many in the present feel that they have obligations toward future generations is not due to self‐interested reciprocity, but simply because they care about what happens to them. Care ethics promises to be conceptually well‐suited for articulating this latter reason: given that future generations are in a perpetual condition of dependency on present‐day people's actions, this is precisely the kind of relational structure that care theorists should be interested in morally evaluating. Unfortunately, the care literature has been largely silent on intergenerational ethics. This article aims to advance this literature, offering the blueprints of what a care ethic concerning future generations—a “future care ethic”—should look like. The resultant ethic defends a sufficientarian theory of obligation: people in the present ought to ensure the conditions needed to encourage and sustain a world that enables good caring relations to flourish.     

“Caring‐about” and the Problem of Overwhelming Obligations

Care theorists often think of care as involving (at least) “caring‐about”—concern or attentiveness—and “caring‐for”—acting to nurture, look after, or meet needs. One problem for any theory of care is the scope of our obligations to care in both of those senses; in particular, our capacities for “caring‐about” often outrun our capacities for “caring‐for.” Accounts of care as potentially global in scope may ascribe overwhelming obligations to moral agents; however, we are often tempted to avoid or ignore situations that may call for a caring response. I suggest that some Kantian ideas may help to strike a reasonable balance.     

Two minds rationality

I argue that views of human rationality are strongly affected by the adoption of a two minds theory in which humans have an old mind which evolved early and shares many features of animal cognition, as well as new mind which evolved later and is distinctively developed in humans. Both minds have a form of instrumental rationality—striving for the attainment of goals—but by very different mechanisms. The old mind relies on a combination of evolution and experiential learning, and is therefore driven entirely by repeating behaviours which succeeded in the past. The new mind, however, permits the solution of novel problems by reasoning about the future, enabling consequential decision making. I suggest that the concept of epistemic rationality—striving for true knowledge—can only usefully be applied to the new mind with its access to explicit knowledge and beliefs. I also suggest that we commonly interpret behaviour as irrational when the old mind conflicts with the new and frustrates the goals of the conscious person.     

GLOBAL OBLIGATIONS AND THE AGENCY OBJECTION

Many authors hold that collectives, as well as individuals can be the subjects of obligations. Typically these authors have focussed on the obligations of highly structured groups, and (less often) of small, informal groups. One might wonder, however, whether there could also be collective obligations which fall on everyone – what I shall call ‘global collective obligations’. One reason for thinking that this is not possible has to do with considerations about agency: it seems as though an entity can only be the subject of obligations if it is an agent. In this paper, I try to show that the argument from agency is not a good reason for being sceptical about the existence of global collective obligations: it derives whatever plausibility it has from the idea that claims about obligation need to be addressable to some agent. My suggestion is that we should accept this principle about the addressability of obligations, but deny that the addressee of an obligation need be the subject of that obligation. The collective obligations of unstructured collections of individuals, including global collective obligations, meet the addressability requirement insofar as they require something of the individuals who make up the collective.     

Blessed are the peacemakers: Commentary on making peace in gestational conflicts

The purpose of this commentary on James Nelson's article [1] is to advocate introducing the ethics of care into the arena of gestational conflict. Too often the debate gets stalled in a maternal versus fetal rights headlock. Interventionists stress fetal over maternal rights: they believe education, post-birth prosecution or pre-birth seizure of pregnant women may be permissible. In contrast to interventionists, other philosophers stress that favoring fetal rights treats women like ‘fetal containers’. I question whether we should really consider issues of moral/parental obligations to children in terms of rights. Rather, the language of care should guide moral conduct vis-a-vis children/fetuses. The particularity of each woman's story — the particulars of her human relationships — inform her story. An individual's ability to care is largely a function of whether community cares for her. We must care for others to enable them to care for themselves and their loved ones — born or unborn.     

Actual and Counterfactual Attitudes: Reply to Brueckner and Fischer

In a recent article, I criticized Anthony L. Brueckner and John Martin Fischer’s influential argument—appealing to the rationality of our asymmetric attitudes towards past and future pleasures—against the Lucretian claim that death and prenatal non-existence are relevantly similar. Brueckner and Fischer have replied, however, that my critique involves an unjustified shift in temporal perspectives. In this paper, I respond to this charge and also argue that even if it were correct, it would fail to defend Brueckner and Fischer’s proposal against my critique.     

Fichte's Voluntarism

Abstract: In recent work Stephen Darwall has attacked what he calls J. G. Fichte's ‘voluntarist’ thesis, the idea—on Darwall's reading—that I am bound by obligations of respect to another person by virtue of my choice to interact with him. Darwall argues that voluntary choice is incompatible with the normative force behind the concept of a person, which demands my respect non‐voluntarily. He in turn defends a ‘presuppositional’ thesis which claims that I am bound by obligations of respect simply by recognizing the other as a person. In this paper I argue Darwall has misidentified the voluntary element in Fichte's account (sections 4–5). This requires me first to explain what Fichte's voluntarism really consists in (sections 1–3), and I suggest an apparent ambiguity in Fichte's position is responsible for Darwall's misreading. Clarifying this ambiguity, however, exposes some limitations to Darwall's thesis, and I end by discussing what those limitations are and what we can learn from them (sections 6–8).     

Promoting responsible conduct: Striving for change rather than consensus

I believe that the ASBMB and the SFN, as well as many scientific, engineering, and other professional societies have taken the right first step. They have taken some responsibility for providing guidelines to their members and others working in related areas. This is how it should be. If professional guidelines are to be meaningful, they must be defined in large part by the practitioners. Yet, having agreed that we need professional societies to become involved, we now must determine the nature of that involvement. I hope that a comparison of the ASBMB and SFN documents will serve to illustrate the differences between two approaches. I cannot be sure that one is better than the other. But I do believe that we should not, cannot, avoid the details. I also believe that to affect change one needs to capture the attention of the audience and to promote active thought—discussion if possible, controversy if necessary. And change is what we need.     

Our obligations to future generations: the limits of intergenerational justice and the necessity of the ethics of metaphysics

Abstract

Theories of intergenerational justice are a very common and popular way to conceptualise the obligations currently living people may have to future generations. After briefly pointing out that these theories presuppose certain views about the existence, number and identity of future people, I argue that the presuppositions must themselves be ethically investigated, and that theories of intergenerational justice lack the theoretical resources to be able to do this. On that basis, I claim it is necessary to do the ‘ethics of metaphysics’ in order to fully comprehend what, if anything, we may owe future generations. I defend these claims against some important objections.