A PROOF OF THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF COMPLETING INFINITELY MANY TASKS

In this article, I argue that it is impossible to complete infinitely many tasks in a finite time. A key premise in my argument is that the only way to get to 0 tasks remaining is from 1 task remaining, when tasks are done 1‐by‐1. I suggest that the only way to deny this premise is by begging the question, that is, by assuming that supertasks are possible. I go on to present one reason why this conclusion (that supertasks are impossible) is important, namely that it implies a new verdict on a decision puzzle propounded by Jeffrey Barrett and Frank Arntzenius.     

IS METAETHICS MORALLY NEUTRAL?

Abstract:  I argue, contra Dreier, Blackburn, and others, that there are no morally neutral metaethical positions. Every metaethical position commits you to the denial of some moral statement. So, for example, the metaethical position that there are no moral properties commits you to the denial of the (quite plausible) moral conjunction of 1) it is right to interfere violently when someone is wrongly causing massive suffering and 2) it is wrong to interfere violently when only non-moral properties are at stake. The argument generalizes to all metaethical positions.     

Resolving Disputes Over Frozen Embryos: A New Proposal

This paper proposes a principle for adjudicating conflicts between estranged couples over whether the frozen embryos they earlier created together ought to be gestated or destroyed. I argue that the fate of the embryos ought to be determined by the party who would be most harmed by having his or her preferences overruled. But I also claim that, when embryos are destroyed against the opposition of one of their co‐creators, the individual at whose behest this was done owes compensation to his disappointed opposite number, in an amount that reflects the harm accruing to the latter as a result of the termination of the procreative project.     

John Rawls and the Social Minimum

ABSTRACT Welfare states are often urged to secure a social minimum for citizens—a level of material well-being beneath which no-one should be permitted to fall. This paper examines the justification for such a claim. It begins by criticising John Rawls's rejection of the social minimum approach to justice in A Theory of Justice : the argument Rawls uses to justify the Difference Principle, based on what he calls 'the strains of commitment' in the 'original position', actually provides a better justification for a social minimum principle. The paper then examines the substance of that argument outside the context of Rawls's contractarianism, showing that there is a general case for seeing to it that desperate need does not go unmet in a liberal society.