The Right Wrong-Makers

Right- and wrong-making features (“moral grounds”) are widely believed to play important normative roles, e.g. in morally apt or virtuous motivation. This paper argues that moral grounds have been systematically misidentified. Canonical statements of our moral theories tend to summarize, rather than directly state, the full range of moral grounds posited by the theory. Further work is required to “unpack” a theory’s criterion of rightness and identify the features that are of ground-level moral significance. As a result, it is not actually true that maximizing value is the fundamental right-making feature even for maximizing consequentialists. Focusing on the simple example of utilitarianism, I show how careful attention to the ground level can drastically influence how we think about our moral theories.     

Cognition in moral space: A minimal model

We describe moral cognition as a process occurring in a distinctive cognitive space, wherein moral relationships are defined along several morally relevant dimensions. After identifying candidate dimensions, we show how moral judgments can emerge in this space directly from object perception, without any appeal to moral rules or abstract values. Our reductive “minimal model” (Batterman & Rice, 2014) elaborates Beal’s (2020) claim that moral cognition is determined, at the most basic level, by “ontological frames” defining subjects, objects, and the proper relation between them. We expand this claim into a set of formal hypotheses that predict moral judgments based on how objects are “framed” in the relevant dimensions of “moral space.”     

A Moral Argument Against Moral Realism

If what is morally right or wrong were ultimately a function of our opinions, then even such reprehensible actions as genocide and slavery would be morally right, had we approved of them. Many moral philosophers find this conclusion objectionably permissive, and to avoid it they posit a moral reality that exists independently of what anyone thinks. The notion of an independent moral reality has been subjected to meticulous metaphysical, epistemological and semantic criticism, but it is hardly ever examined from a moral point of view. In this essay I offer such a critique. I argue that the appeal to an independent moral reality as a ground for moral obligations constitutes a substantive moral mistake. However, I do not conclude from this that we must therefore embrace the opposite view that moral truths are ultimately dependent on our attitudes. Rather, I suggest that we reject both of these views and answer the classic meta-ethical question “Is what we morally ought to do ultimately a function of our actual attitudes, or determined independently of them?” with Neither.     

Therapeutic versus genuine cloning: what are the real moral issues?

In order to answer the question raised in the title of my paper, I first put forward a general ethical theory, which is based on the traditional maxim neminem laedere. Second, I show how this principle in conjunction with certain assumptions concerning the value of life entails certain fundamental bioethical principles. Thus killing a living being Y is morally wrong whenever the intrinsic value of the life that Y would otherwise live is positive. But procreating a living being Y is prima facie (i.e., with regard to the interests of Y) morally neutral, i.e. neither bad nor good. Third I will argue that the question of moral rights should always be reduced to the question of the morality of certain corresponding actions. In particular, granting Y a right to life should be taken to mean that it would be morally wrong if someone else were to put an end to Y's life. In a similar vein, I suggest answers to some other questions of the reproductive rights issue. Fourth, with respect to the controversial issue of genuine cloning, I do not see any compelling moral reasons against this utopian way of procreating full-grown individuals. Nevertheless, I think there are a lot of other good (pragmatic, rational) reasons not to try to produce a human Dolly. Finally, as regards the use or abuse of human embryos as potential suppliers of stem-cells for the cure of other people's diseases, it seems morally safe to perform experiments at least with those embryos which, like spare embryos that remained from measures of in vitro fertilization, would not have a life anyway. It's more difficult to decide, however, whether it would be morally safe to produce embryos (for instance through cloning) only for the sake of using them in the aforementioned way.     

The importance of what they care about

Many forms of contemporary morality treat the individual as the fundamental unit of moral importance. Perhaps the most striking example of this moral vision of the individual is the contemporary global human rights regime, which treats the individual as, for all intents and purposes, sacrosanct. This essay attempts to explore one feature of this contemporary understanding of the moral status of the individual, namely the moral significance of a subject’s actual affective states, and in particular her cares and commitments. I argue that in virtue of the moral significance of actual individuals, we should take actual cares and values very seriously—even if those cares and values are not expressions of the person’s autonomy—as partially constituting that individual as a concrete subject who is the proper object of our moral attention. In particular, I argue that a person’s actual cares and values have non-derivative moral significance. Simply because someone cares about something, that care is morally significant. In virtue of this non-derivative moral significance of cares, we ought to adopt of a commitment to accommodate others’ cares and a commitment not to frustrate their cares.     

Quality of Reasons and Degrees of Responsibility

Traditionally, theories of moral responsibility feature only the minimally sufficient conditions for moral responsibility. While these theories are well-suited to account for the threshold of responsibility, it’s less clear how they can address questions about the degree to which agents are responsible. One feature that intuitively affects the degree to which agents are morally responsible is how difficult performing a given action is for them. Recently, philosophers have begun to develop accounts of scalar moral responsibility that make use of this notion of difficulty [Coates and Swenson 2013; Nelkin 2016]. In this paper, I argue that these accounts, although innovative, are incomplete. The degree to which agents are morally responsible is determined not only by the difficulties that agents face but also by the quality of the reasons for which they act.     

Utility, Subjectivism and Moral Ontology

The paper seeks to show that underlying Bentham's concept of utility is a commitment to a criterion or principle of moral status distinguishing morally relevant beings from the morally irrelevant. Further, that the notion of moral status is ultimately inconsistent with Bentham's utility; that it implies something like a Kantian ethic barring the use of morally relevant beings as mere means to some other's satisfaction, an ethic which suitably interpreted may be more useful in defence of some concerns for which Bentham has traditionally been cited, animal rights for example. The paper concludes by noting the history and politics of moral status and argues that the concept involves a fusion of fact and value, the empirical and the evaluative, undermining assumptions of a rigid separation of the two and the consequent essential subjectivity of the latter.     

Defending Moral Mind-Independence: The Expressivist’s Precarious Turn

A central feature of ordinary moral thought is that moral judgment is mind-independent in the following sense: judging something to be morally wrong does not thereby make it morally wrong. To deny this would be to accept a form of subjectivism. Neil Sinclair (2008) makes a novel attempt to show how expressivism is simultaneously committed to (1) an understanding of moral judgments as expressions of attitudes and (2) the rejection of subjectivism. In this paper, I discuss Sinclair’s defense of anti-subjectivist moral mind-independence on behalf of the expressivist, and I argue that the account does not fully succeed. An examination of why it does not is instructive, and it reveals a fundamental dilemma for the expressivist. I offer a suggestion for how the expressivist might respond to the dilemma and so uphold Sinclair’s defense.     

On Why There is a Problem of Supererogation

How can it be that some acts of very high moral value are not morally required? This is the problem of supererogation. I do not argue in favor of a particular answer. Instead, I analyze two opposing moral intuitions the problem involves. First, that one should always do one’s best. Second, that sometimes we are morally allowed not to do our best. To think that one always has to do one’s best is less plausible, as it makes every morally best act obligatory. I argue that, despite its implausibility, this is the main ingredient in a traditional outlook I call ‘morality of law,’ which conceives of morality as impartial, impersonal, rule-based and obligation-based. My main point is that supererogation will always be seen as problematic if the background theory is a morality of law. This is because supererogation encapsulates a view of morality-outside-obligation, whereas morality of law centers upon obligation as its main instrument of curbing a supposedly natural human selfishness.

     

Extending Compatibilism: Control,Responsibility, And Blame

In this paper, I argue that ‹moral responsibility’ refers to two concepts, not to one. In the first place, we are not ultimately morally responsible or, therefore, unqualifiedly blameworthy, due to the fact that we lack ultimate forms of control. But, second, it is legitimate to consider us to be morally responsible in another sense, and therefore qualifiedly blameworthy, once we have certain forms of control. Consequently, I argue that our normal practice of blaming is unjust, since it requires that we are ultimately morally responsible. I contend that this practice must, on grounds of justice, be tempered by adequate consideration of the fact that we are not ultimately morally responsible. My proposal in this regard is that blaming be replaced by admonishment. I would like to thank Dr. Cara Nine and Dr. David Hemp (University College Cork), and the two anonymous referees at Res Publica for their helpful comments on this paper.     

Aquinas and modern consequentialism

Because the moral philosophy of St Thomas Aquinas is egoistic while modern consequentialism is impartialistic, it might at first appear that the former cannot, while the latter can, provide a common value on the basis of which inter‐personal conflicts may be settled morally. On the contrary, in this paper I intend to argue not only that Aquinas’ theory does provide just such a common value, but that it is more true to say of modern consequentialism than of Thomism that it gives in to the partiality of different interests and fails to provide a robust common value on the basis of which disagreements may be settled morally. This is so primarily because the egoism of Aquinas represents a fundamental commitment to personal moral development which is absent from modern teleological theories.     

The Nature of the Interaction between Moral and Artistic Value

This article aims to advance our understanding of the interaction between moral and artistic value by asking what it means that an artwork's moral virtue or defect is an artistic virtue or defect and how we can prove or disprove such a claim. I approach these questions first by distinguishing between intrinsic and contextual value interactions and then by examining two strategies commonly used to establish claims about contextual value interaction: (1) appealing to the counterfactual dependence of the work's artistic value on its moral virtue or defect and (2) arguing that the work is artistically valuable (or defective) and morally valuable (or defective) for the same reasons. I argue that these strategies fail. I then propose new directions for research on the interaction between moral and artistic value.     

Between Good and Evil: Xunzi’s Reinterpretation of the Hegemonic Rule as Decent Governance

This essay investigates Xunzi’s political philosophy of ba dao (Hegemonic Rule). It argues that Xunzi’s practical philosophy of ba dao was developed in the course of resolving the tension between theory and practice latent in Mencius’s account of ba dao. Its central claim is that contra Mencius who remained torn between his ideal political theory of ba dao and the practical utility and moral value of ba dao, Xunzi creatively re-appropriated ba dao as a “morally decent” (if not morally ideal) statecraft, within the parameter of practical Confucian philosophy. After examining the moral and political value of ba dao in both domestic and international governance, the essay concludes by arguing that Xunzi’s defense of ba dao should be understood in the context of what I call “negative Confucianism,” without which the realization of the Confucian moral-political ideal (or positive Confucianism) is impossible.     

Species Inegalitarianism as a Matter of Principle

Most critics of species egalitarianism point to its counter-intuitive implications in particular cases. But this argumentative strategy is vulnerable to the response that our intuitions should give way in the face of arguments showing that species egalitarianism is required by our deepest, most fundamental moral principles. In this article, I develop an argument against deontological versions of species egalitarianism on its own terms. Appealing to the fundamental moral ideal of proportionality, I show that deontological species egalitarianism is morally objectionable as a matter of principle: it is committed to treating two individuals who are extraordinarily similar in morally relevant respects drastically differently. I then illustrate how an inegalitarian account of moral standing might be incorporated into traditional moral theories in ways that make them far more promising as theories of our obligations to the non-human world.     

Is it Morally Wrong to Defend Unjust Causes as a Lawyer?

The question I address in this article is whether it is morally wrong for a lawyer to represent a client whose purpose is immoral or unjust. My answer to this question is that it is wrong, prima facie. This conclusion holds, even accepting certain traditional principles of lawyer's professional ethics, such as the right of defence and the so‐called principle of ‘adversarial’ litigation. Both the adversarial system and the right of defence are sufficient to support or justify the right of potential clients (and citizens in general) to defend their interests in the judicial system and to do so with the technical assistance of a lawyer. This right includes a right to pursue unjust or immoral purposes (within the law). However, having a right to do X does not mean that it is morally permissible to do X. We can have a right to do something morally wrong. This being so, the fundamental moral reason for a lawyer not to accept representation for a client with an immoral purpose is that it is, prima facie, morally wrong to help someone do something wrong.     

Encoding color and shape from different parts of an object in visual short-term memory

Can we find an object-based encoding benefit in visual short-term memory (VSTM) when the features to be remembered are from different parts of an object? Using object parts defined by either figure-ground separation or negative minima of curvature, results from five experiments in which the visual change detection paradigm was used showed that the object-based encoding benefit in VSTM is modulated by how features are assigned to parts of an object: Features are best retained when the color and shape features to be remembered belong to the same part of an object. Although less well retained in comparison, features from different parts of an object are still better remembered than features from spatially separated objects. An object-based feature binding therefore exists even when the color and shape features to be remembered are from different parts of an object.