The Challenges of Extreme Moral Stress: Claudia Card's Contributions to the Formation of Nonideal Ethical Theory

This essay argues that Claudia Card numbers among important contributors to nonideal ethical theory (NET), and it advocates for the worth of NET. Following philosophers including Lisa Tessman and Charles Mills, the essay contends that it is important for ethical theory, and for feminist purposes, to carry forward the interrelationship that Mills identifies between nonideal theory and feminist ethics. Card's ethical theorizing assists in understanding that interrelationship. Card's philosophical work includes basic elements of NET indicated by Tessman, Mills, and others, and further offers two important and neglected elements to other nonideal ethical theorists: (i) her rejection of the “administrative point of view,” and (ii) her focus on “intolerable harms” as forms of “extreme moral stress” and obstacles to excellent ethical lives. The essay concludes that Card's insights are helpful to philosophers in developing nonideal ethical theory as a distinctive contribution to, and as a subset of, nonideal theory.     

No Harm,No Foul? Justifying Bans On Safe Performance-Enhancing Drugs

Scholars such as Simon (2007; 2004) and Loland (2002) as well as the authors of the World Anti-Doping Code (2001) argue that using performance-enhancing substances is unhealthy and unfairly coercive for other athletes. Critics of the anti-doping position such as Hoberman (1995), Miah et al. (2005) and Tamburrini (2007) are quick to argue that such prohibitions, even though well-intended, constitute an unjustifiable form of paternalism. However, advocates for both of these positions assume that preserving good health and, conversely, avoiding health-related harms, lie at the centre of the debate. Given the apparent stalemate in the debate over the validity of health concerns on performance-enhancing drugs, in this essay, I investigate ethical issues of ‘harm-free’ pharmaceutical performance enhancement. Beginning with the hypothesis that a harm-free performance-enhancing drug may be produced in the future, I ask if there would still be compelling reasons for prohibiting such a drug. I address this question by providing two arguments against allowing athletes to use pharmaceutical performance-enhancing drugs – the damage to the testing and contesting of sport and the loss of internal goods that are intrinsically satisfying. These two arguments taken together, I argue, are sufficient to sustain the prohibition of pharmaceutical performance-enhancing drugs without citing their harmful side effects.     

Surrogate Motherhood

ABSTRACT In the first part of this article I discuss some objections which assert that surrogacy is primarily—but not exclusively—harmful in a moral sense. After examination of mainly but not exclusively morality-dependent harms (objections from similarity with prostitution, exploitation, etc.) and after the discussion of possible non-morality-dependent harms (baby, couple, surrogate mother, agency, etc.), I argue, in the second part, that no one reason supports the possible prohibition of surrogacy. In the last part I try to show why moral reasons alone could not be sufficient to criminalize any kind of activity—including surrogacy—in a liberal order.     

Group agential epistemic injustice: Epistemic disempowerment and critical defanging of group epistemic agency1

Expanding Miranda Fricker's (2007) concept of epistemic injustice, recent accounts of agential epistemic injustice (Lackey, 2020; Medina, 2021; Pohlhaus, 2020) have focused on cases in which the epistemic agency of individuals or groups is unfairly blocked, constrained, or subverted. In this article I argue that agential epistemic injustice is perpetrated against marginalized groups not only when their group epistemic agency is excluded, but also when it is included but receives defective uptake that neutralizes their capacity to resist epistemic oppression. I identify two harms that such injustice inflicts on marginalized groups: epistemic disempowerment and critical defanging of resistant epistemic group agency. My analysis shows how the harms of agential epistemic injustice can occur through unfair epistemic exclusions in group dynamics, but also through forms of inclusion in group dynamics that distort or coopt the epistemic agency of the group. Following Emmalon Davis (2018) and her analysis of epistemic appropriation, I argue that the harms of agential epistemic injustice can occur when the resistant epistemic resources of a marginalized group are appropriated in a way that disempowers them and critically defangs their resistant epistemic agency. I use Taylor Rogers’ (2021) analysis of the epistemic appropriation of “#MeToo” and “intersectionality” to show how epistemic disempowerment and critical defanging work in unjust epistemic group dynamics. The article offers a diagnosis of the failures of epistemic responsibility involved in agential epistemic injustice, and some suggestions for resisting those failures and working toward more responsible and just epistemic group dynamics.     

A review of experiments in explicit bargaining

Bargaining was defined as a situation where: (1) there are two or more parties with divergent interests, (2) the parties can communicate, (3) mutual compromise is possible, (4) provisional offers can be made, and (5) the provisional offers do not fix the tangible outcomes until an offer is accepted by all sides. The typical bargaining paradigm is described. Next the limitations of general theories of bargaining are discussed. The results of relevant experiments are then reviewed and evaluated. Particular attention is given to the effects of general bargaining predispositions, the payoff system, the social relationship between the bargainer, his opponent and significant others, situational factors, and bargaining strategy.     

Offensiphobia

This essay provides a critical philosophical assessment of “offensiphobia,” which is the belief that higher educational academic freedom ought to be to some important extent censured because of the mere offensiveness of certain kinds of expressions, whether those expressions are perceived as being racist, sexist, etc., effectively holding that the offensiveness of such expressions is a sufficient condition to justify its prohibition. This paper concisely sets forth the general legal parameters of the United States constitutional First Amendment right to freedom of expression. Subsequently, it follows Joel Feinberg in distinguishing between harms and offenses and explains why the law should only protect against harms and not mere offenses (e.g., language which offends but does not harm). Following this, logical and moral considerations (some based on considerations of philosophy of language) are brought to bear in order to further assess the implicitly supporting view of offensiphobia that faculty and students in higher educational contexts have a claim right to not be offended correlated with a duty of others to not offend them. For example, the use-mention distinction is discussed in order to explain why linguistic intent is crucial for the determination of what genuinely counts as being racist, sexist or otherwise offensive discourse. In the end, there are a variety of reasons for thinking that there is no moral right to not be offended correlated with a moral duty of others to not offend in higher educational contexts and that the law and public policy ought to track this fact. Without a right to not be offended, those who seek to curtail higher educational academic freedom rights by way of censorship stand on unreasonable ethical grounds to do so, though the law seems to permit private institutions to delimit offensive expressions. Offensiphobia ought to be rejected as it is unsupported by the balance of reason.     

Group risks, risks to groups, and group engagement in genetics research

This essay distinguishes between two kinds of group harms: harms to individuals in virtue of their membership in groups and harms to "structured" groups that have a continuing existence, an organization, and interests of their own. Genetic research creates risks of causing both kinds of group harms, and engagement with the groups at risk can help to mitigate those harms. The two kinds of group harms call for different kinds of group engagement.     

Subcutaneous dye injection for marking and identification of individual adult zebrafish (Danio rerio) in behavioral studies

The zebrafish is increasingly utilized in behavioral brain research, as it offers a useful compromise between system complexity and practical simplicity. However, a potential drawback of this species in behavioral research is that individuals are difficult to distinguish. Here we describe a simple marking procedure, subcutaneous injection of color dyes, that may alleviate this problem. The procedure allowed us to successfully mark zebrafish and distinguish them for a period of more than 30 days, which is sufficiently long for most behavioral paradigms developed for this species. In addition, we also provide data suggesting that the injection-based marking does not significantly alter social interaction, as defined by the frequency of agonistic behaviors within shoals.     

Robust Individual Responsibility for Climate Harms

According to some scholars, while sets of greenhouse gases emissions generate harms deriving from climate change, which can be mitigated through collective actions, individual emissions and mitigation activities seem to be causally insufficient to cause harms. If so, single individuals are neither responsible for climate harms, nor they have mitigation duties. If this view were true, there would be collective responsibility for climate harms without individual responsibility and collective mitigation duties without individual duties: this is puzzling. This paper explores a way to solve this puzzle. First, it will be argued that individual emissions, though not proper and full-fledged causes, causally contribute to raise the probability of climate harms. As a consequence, individuals are in fact responsible for their expected contributions to climate harms – this is contributive responsibility for likely outcomes. Second, it will be argued that people have responsibility also for the possible impacts of their individual emissions on climate harms. People can plausibly be regarded as individually responsible for the possible outcomes of their actions in close possible alternative worlds – this is robust responsibility. Non-causal individual responsibility for climate harms is plausible, and the puzzle may be solved.     

The plural taboo

The human incest taboo is here conceptualized as a plural, gender-related psychological reality whose major strands are (1) an instinctual female incest inhibition and (2) a cultural father incest prohibition. These strands are experienced in a plural phenomenology - as a mother taboo, father taboo, daughter taboo, son taboo, and brother-sister taboo. The instinctual inhibition can be demonstrated in a wide range of plant and animal life, not just humans. The cultural prohibition would appear to have originated out of the instinctual inhibition after humans realized the existence of the previously unrecognized father-daughter relationship. The individual ontology of the taboos is explained in terms of object relations theory; the inhibition and prohibition are seen as psychodynamically unique and their differences are compared. It is proposed that the fuller realization of the plural nature of the incest taboo will not only maximize human ability to prevent actual incest but also lead to greater effectiveness for both males and females in the arena of sexual politics. Finally, the notion of the plural taboo is a clinical standpoint from which to explore sexual transference and countertransference in psychotherapy.     

Drugs, Morality and the Law

Arguments for and against the legal prohibition of drugs are surveyed. Various kinds of argument are identified and analysed: arguments against prohibition from a moral right to personal liberty; utilitarian and contractualist arguments for a right to personal liberty; arguments for prohibition from liberty–limiting principles (the harm principle, legal paternalism, legal moralism, Kantian duties to oneself, legal perfectionism, traditional conservatism, and communitarianism); utilitarian argument for prohibition; utilitarian argument against prohibition. It is concluded that none of the arguments for drug prohibition is convincing.     

Technical Controversy and Ballistic Missile Defence: Disputing Epistemic Authority in the Development of Hit-to-Kill Technology

Public debate about Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) has long centred on the question of feasibility, particularly as regards the realism of testing. Thus BMD opponents have argued that flight-tests are insufficiently similar to operational use to provide a reliable guide to real-world performance. However, an in-depth account of the development of US hit-to-kill technology—an approach to BMD that relies on the direct impact of an interceptor on the enemy missile warhead—reveals a far less-recognised issue: some BMD supporters have specific technical doubts which centre on the design of the current system rather than on its testing. These concerns hinge on contrasting claims to epistemic authority between two camps of BMD supporters. On the one hand, advocates of space-based BMD oppose the current system on in-principle conceptual grounds. On the other hand, some BMD supporters close to the development of ground-based hit-to-kill technology claim that the empirical evidence from testing shows that the current design is suboptimal because it is the outcome of a bureaucratic politics compromise between the two camps. Although the battle for epistemic authority has swung in favour of the latter hit-to-kill supporters recently, the lack of operational experience with a defence against nuclear-armed ballistic missiles means that further disputes are likely. So long as empirical knowledge claims rest solely on testing, they are unlikely to prove sufficiently politically compelling to silence advocates of space-based defence.     

Storytelling in Liberal Religious Advocacy

Previous research suggests liberal religious advocates often find it necessary to use broadly accessible technical or moral language to communicate with policymakers and public audiences, yet this conformity to secular speech norms diminishes the distinctiveness of their religious voices. Communicating through storytelling offers them one way of overcoming this dilemma. This is demonstrated by examining liberal religious advocacy during recent healthcare reform debates in the United States, using data from interviews and public communications by advocates. By embedding stories within religiopolitical performances that highlight their religious identities, advocates convey policy‐relevant information without relying on explicitly religious language that may be inaccessible or unpersuasive to diverse audiences. They also deploy storytelling strategically, bearing witness to injustices experienced firsthand, secondhand, from the pews, and from the past, depending on the context. These findings have implications for ongoing debates about religious citizens’ capacity to communicate across lines of difference in the public sphere.     

The Truth About Deception

The prohibition on lying is often thought to be very stringent. Some have even been tempted to think that it is absolute. In contrast, the prohibition on other forms of deception seems to be looser. This paper explores the relationship between the duty not to deceive and the duty not to lie. This discussion is situated in the context of a broadly Kantian account of morality. Kant himself infamously claimed that one ought not lie to a murderer at the door about the location of his intended victim. This paper aims to explain how a broadly Kantian view can endorse a distinctive duty not to lie without thereby being committed to this kind of conclusion.     

There Is No Motive to Avoid Success: The Compromise Explanation for Success-Avoiding Behavior

ABSTRACT There are two traditional explanations for success-avoiding behavior the motive hypothesis and the cognition hypothesis A third hypothesis, compromise, is proposed m this article and explains success avoidance as a compromise between achievement and other goals A review shows that data explained by the motive hypothesis can be explained more parsimoniously by the compromise hypothesis, that some data are weakly inconsistent with the motive hypothesis, and that there is supportive evidence for the cognition and compromise hypotheses The implications of the compromise hypothesis for motivation research in general are discussed in terms of a control theory framework Compromises may be a common feature of intentional behavior     

What Lies Beyond Same‐Sex Marriage? Marriage,Reproductive Freedom and Future Persons in Liberal Public Justification

In this article I consider whether the legalization of sex-same marriage implies a right to incestuous marriage. I begin by suggesting that the liberal state get out of the 'marriage' business by leveling down to a universal civil union status. The question is then whether incestuous unions should be both legal and eligible for this status. I argue that the arguments compatible with public reason for prohibiting them outright, or even for excluding them from the permissible types of legally registered partnerships, are quite weak. The objections to allowing such relations are those from (1) child abuse; (2) unfair burdening of society; and (3) the creation of bad lives. I argue that while rape and other forms of child abuse would be no more legal or tolerated than they are now, the concern about any form of weakening a society's legal and political resources to combat such abuses does indeed register on the justificatory scale, but does not prove that such first-degree incestuous sexual relations are inherently bad enough to warrant intervention in their own right. I then argue that the concern about unfairly burdening society with unhealthy persons is not as dangerously totalitarian as we might initially fear, but nor is it strong enough to justify an outright prohibition. Finally, I argue that a concern to dissuade persons from creating certain kinds of lives (children with extreme birth defects) is also not as dangerously totalitarian as we might initially fear, and in fact goes further towards explaining why we might have a legitimate interest in intervening. Nonetheless, I argue that the criminalization of such acts only make sense when they are indicators of other offenses, namely negligence or abuse, and it thus seems that the act of consanguineous reproduction is itself insufficient.     

Cryonics: Science or Religion

Cryonics involves the low-temperature freezing of human corpses in the hope that they will one day be reanimated. Its advocates see it as a medical treatment but as in any medical procedure, this presupposes some scientific evidence. This paper examines the scientific basis of this technology and argues that cryonics is based upon assertions which have never been (and potentially can never be empirically demonstrated) scientifically. After providing a general overview of cryogenic preservation, I discuss how advocates of this technology have conceptualized death and more specifically their notion of information-theoretic death. I conclude that cryonics is based upon a naive faith rather than upon science. It does what David Chidester (2005) calls ‘religious work,’ even if it is not explicitly religious. It offers transcendence over death.

     

Religious Hatred Laws: Protecting Groups or Belief?

This article examines the issues raised by recent legislation proscribing incitement to religious hatred. In particular, it examines how far arguments for prohibiting racist hate speech apply also to the prohibition of religious hate speech. It identifies a number of significant differences between race and religion. It also examines several questions raised by the prohibition of religious hate speech, including the meaning and scope of religious identity, why that identity should receive special protection, and whether protection should be directed to religious groups as groups or to their individual members. The central argument of the article is that the distinction between protecting religious groups from vilification and protecting their beliefs and practices from criticism—a distinction on which the British Government placed great emphasis in defending its legislation—is unsustainable. That conclusion is supported by the reasoning of the European Court of Human Rights in cases in which it has upheld the curtailing of freedom of expression for the sake of protecting religion.     

A theory of catharsis

This paper first discusses the history of the idea of catharsis, suggesting that the differences between the advocates of catharsis and its critics may be reconcilable. A definition of emotion is proposed which involves interactions between biological, psychological, and social systems. This definition gives rise to a theory of catharsis which seems to reconcile the claims of the advocates of catharsis with the criticisms that have been made of their claims. The discussion of the theory also suggests methods of testing it. As a preliminary example of one such test, the results of a pilot study of the effects of laughter on tension levels are presented.     

职业妥协：内涵、影响因素与实施效果

职业妥协是职业决策中的一个重要概念,关系着个体职业发展和社会就业的稳定。为了充分了解职业妥协和有效促进就业。首先,介绍了职业妥协的概念、测量;其次,总结了职业妥协的影响因素,并基于差异理论、目标设定理论、社会认知职业理论和人-环境匹配理论解释了职业妥协的实施效果,汇总了实施效果的边界条件;最后从职业妥协对职业行为的影响、个体职业生涯态度、家庭代际支持和上下级匹配与职业妥协的关系几个方面对未来研究进行了展望。