THE MORAL STATUS OF ENABLING HARM

According to the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing, it is more difficult to justify doing harm than it is to justify allowing harm. Enabling harm consists in withdrawing an obstacle that would, if left in place, prevent a pre‐existing causal sequence from leading to foreseen harm. There has been a lively debate concerning the moral status of enabling harm. According to some (e.g. McMahan, Vihvelin and Tomkow), many cases of enabling harm are morally indistinguishable from doing harm. Others (e.g. Foot, Hanser) support the Equivalence Hypothesis, according to which enabling harm is morally equivalent to allowing harm. Here I argue that there is every reason to embrace, and no reason to reject, the Equivalence Hypothesis.     

DISENABLING LEVY'S FRANKFURT‐STYLE ENABLING CASES

Recently, Neil Levy has proposed that an agent can acquire freedom‐relevant agential abilities by virtue of the conditions in which she finds herself, and in this way, can be thought of as partially constituted by those conditions. This can be so even if the agent is completely ignorant of the relevant environmental conditions, and even if these conditions play no causal role in what the agent does. Drawing upon these resources, Levy argues that Frankfurt‐style examples are not cogent. In this paper, we explain why his argument fails.     

BRIEF REPORT: ENABLING BLIND PERSONS WITH SEVERE OR PROFOUND MENTAL RETARDATION TO OPERATE AN ACOUSTIC ORIENTATION SYSTEM INDEPENDENTLY

The aim of this study was to assess new technology for enabling two blind persons affected by severe or profound mental retardation to operate an acoustic orientation system independently. By operating this system, the subjects could move to different activity destinations within an occupational setting and carry out activities free from external assistance. The results showed that both subjects learned to operate the system on their own. The high level of independence they achieved is reviewed in relation to the new technology and the simplified responding it requires