Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons^™

Giving Up On Moral Truth Shall Set You Free: Walzer On Relativism, Criticism, And Toleration, David Lefkowitz

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Morality, Michael Walzer contends, is plural, subjective, and concrete, a multitude of moralities or moral ways of life created over time by the members of distinct historically situated communities. This entails that we must abandon the familiar notion of moral truth, according to which at least some claims of the form ‘it is wrong to ϕ’ are true in virtue of their tracking or reflecting objective and universal moral principles binding on all moral agents as such. Many of Walzer’s critics take this implication to constitute a reductio ad absurdum refutation of Walzer’s relativist meta-ethics. But what precisely do we …

Blame And The Criminal Law, David Lefkowitz

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Many retributivists appear to presume that the concept of blame that figures in their accounts of just punishment is the same one people employ in their interpersonal moral relationships. David Shoemaker contends that this presumption is mistaken. Moral blameworthiness, he maintains, tracks only the meaning of a person's action––his reasons for acting as he did––while criminal blameworthiness, which he equates with liability to punishment, tracks only the impermissibility of an agent's action. I contest the second of these two claims, and in doing so defend the retributivists’ presumption. First, I argue that the purpose of a criminal trial can be …

Orange Is The New Golgotha, Kerry S. Walters

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The Roman soldiers jeered at Jesus, called him "towelhead" and "sand monkey," ripped off his garments and clad him in an orange jumpsuit. Then they pulled a black sack over his head and led him to an interrogation cell, where CIA operatives awaited him. They shackled Jesus's wrists and strung him up so that he dangled from the ceiling. One of them questioned him, and when his responses weren't to their liking, the other beat him. [excerpt]

Love As A Regulative Ideal In Surrogate Decision Making, Erica Stonestreet

Philosophy Faculty Publications

This discussion aims to give a normative theoretical basis for a “best judgment” model of surrogate decision making rooted in a regulative ideal of love. Currently, there are two basic models of surrogate decision making for incompetent patients: the “substituted judgment” model and the “best interests” model. The former draws on the value of autonomy and responds with respect; the latter draws on the value of welfare and responds with beneficence. It can be difficult to determine which of these two models is more appropriate for a given patient, and both approaches may seem inadequate for a surrogate who loves …

Corporations, The Democratic Deficit, And Voting, Jeffrey Moriarty

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Many writers argue that a “democratic deficit” is created when private actors such as corporations take on state functions. The problem, it is said, is that the course of public life is being shaped by agents who are not accountable to the public. We evaluate this claim and consider what should be done about it. We focus in particular on a recent attempt, put forward principally by Palazzo and Scherer, to address the democracy deficit by “democratizing” corporations. We argue that their proposal, while promising, has a significant defect. We then propose a remedy for this defect. In sum, our …

Reading Addams’S 'Democracy And Social Ethics' As A Social Gospel, Evolutionary Idealist Text, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

There is a Disciplinary divide between philosophers and historians in how they read Addams’s first book, Democracy and Social Ethics. Philosophers identify Addams primarily as a pragmatist. They often compare and contrast her thinking with that of James and Dewey, and find her a fruitful resource for contemporary discussions about gender, social justice, and peace. Much of this scholarship gives central place to Addams’s Democracy and Social Ethics. Except for nods to her 1892 essay “The Subjective Necessity of Settlements,” philosophers rarely discuss whether her religious sensibilities influenced her theorizing.¹ While historians debate Addams’s religious identity, many …

The Concept Of Tradition: A Problem Out Of Macintyre, Philip E. Devine

Philosophy Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Reading Dewey’S Political Philosophy Through Addams’S Political Compromises, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Both John Dewey and Jane Addams believed that the cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy. While their vision of democracy is rightly called radical, the processes through which they proposed to cure the ills of democracy are in large measure conservative, in the classical, Burkean sense of the term. To show this, I first explain how well their political philosophies line up, particularly their proposals for political reconstruction. I then use Addams’s experiences as a delegate to the 1912 Progressive Party Convention as a test case in real time for Dewey’s proposals for political reconstruction. The compromises …

Hirsch, Sebald, And The Uses And Limits Of Postmemory, Kathy Behrendt

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Marianne Hirsch’s influential concept of postmemory articulates the ethical significance of representing trauma in art and literature. Postmemory, for Hirsch, “describes the relationship of children of survivors of cultural or collective trauma to the experiences of their parents, experiences that they ‘remember’ only as the narratives and images with which they grew up, but that are so powerful, so monumental, as to constitute memories in their own right”. Through appeal to philosophical work on memory, the ethics of remembering, and Peter Goldie’s discussion of empathy, I explore the virtues and limitations of Hirsch’s concept of postmemory, and the risks involved …

Smilansky, Arneson, And The Asymmetry Of Desert, Jeffrey Moriarty

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Desert plays an important role in most contemporary theories of retributive justice, but an unimportant role in most contemporary theories of distributive justice. Saul Smilansky has recently put forward a defense of this asymmetry. In this study, I argue that it fails. Then, drawing on an argument of Richard Arneson’s, I suggest an alternative consequentialist rationale for the asymmetry. But while this shows that desert cannot be expected to play the same role in distributive justice that it can play in retributive justice, it does not fully vindicate the asymmetry, since desert can still play an important role in the …

Review - "Motive And Rightness" By Steven Sverdlik, Nancy J. Matchett

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Review - "Motive and Rightness" by Steven Sverdlik

The Purpose Of Personal Value, Erica Stonestreet

Philosophy Faculty Publications

It seems as if there are things that have what we might call personal value—special objects, artwork by our children, etc. This term is meant to mark a difference between things whose value seems tied to a particular person, as opposed to things (like the Mona Lisa) that are valuable, period. The concept of personal value hasn’t received much focused attention, but I believe that it is of not only theoretical, but practical importance. In this paper, I explore the practical angle, arguing that personal value is important to our ability to make sense of ourselves. I give …

Aldo Leopold’S Concept Of Land Health: Implications For Sound Public Health Policy, Paul Carrick

Philosophy Faculty Publications

I show that the late American ecologist and philosopher Aldo Leopold's concept of 'land health,' connects his holistic understanding of man and nature to core principles of public health policy at the center of today's global health concerns, e.g., world hunger, pandemics, sanitation.

Consuming Direct-To-Consumer Genetic Tests: The Role Of Genetic Literacy And Knowledge Calibration, Yvette E. Pearson, Yuping Liu-Thompkins

Philosophy Faculty Publications

As direct-to-consumer marketing of medical genetic tests grows in popularity, there is an increasing need to better understand the ethical and public policy implications of such products. The complexity of genetic tests raises serious concerns about whether consumers possess the knowledge to make sound decisions about their use. This research examines the effects of educational intervention and feedback on consumers' genetic literacy and calibration -- the gap between consumers' actual knowledge and how much they think they know. The authors find that consumers' genetic knowledge was generally low and that people tended to underestimate their knowledge level. Furthermore, consumers' perceived …

The Principle Of Fairness And States’ Duty To Obey International Law, David Lefkowitz

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Philosophers and political theorists have developed a number of different justifications for the duty to obey domestic law. The possibility of using one (or more) of these justifications to demonstrate that states have a duty to obey international law seems a natural starting point for an analysis of international political obligation. Amongst the accounts of the duty to obey domestic law, one that appears to have a great deal of intuitive appeal, and that has attracted a significant number of philosophical defenders, is the principle of fairness (or fair play). In this paper, I examine the possibility of using the …

Tomáš Masaryk And Jane Addams On Humanitarianism And Cultural Reciprocity, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Chapter addresses similarities between Addams's and Masaryk's positions on cultural difference and national states. The similarities were based not only on their shared general humanitarian point of view, but on a personal interaction as well. Masaryk visited the U.S. several times and even delivered series of lectures on Slavs and their history at Hull House in Chicago. Masaryk spoke with Addams and was in contact with her through his daughter Alice, who spent time in Chicago and whom Addams mentored. In these circumstances the similarities in their ideas of trans-nationalism, the plasticity of national identity, and cultural reciprocity are not …

On A Duty Of Humanitarian Intervention, David Lefkowitz

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Perhaps the most discussed topic amongst just war theorists during the 1990s was the moral (and legal) justifiability of armed humanitarian interventions. Not surprisingly, that changed after the 9/11 terrorists attacks and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, with topics such as the morality of terrorism, torture, and preventive war receiving the lion's share of attention. Nevertheless, for reasons both good, such as the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty's endorsement of a limited duty of intervention in its report, The Responsibility to Protect, and bad, such as the conflict in Darfur, the morality of humanitarian intervention remains …

On The Scope Of A Professional’S Right Of Conscience, David Lefkowitz

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Under what conditions, if any, do medical professionals enjoy a right of conscience? That is, when must a just state accommodate a physician’s, pharmacist’s, or other medical professional’s refusal to provide legally and professionally sanctioned services to which she morally objects; for example, by enacting laws that enable her to do so without fear of losing her job or her professional privileges? Recent assertions by several pharmacists of a right to conscientiously refuse to fill prescriptions for the so-called morning-after pill, and by a California fertility doctor of a right to conscientiously refuse to provide fertility treatment to a lesbian, …

Legitimate Authority, Following Orders, And Wars Of Questionable Justice, David Lefkowitz

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In this article, the author discusses philosophy teacher David Estlund's belief that subjects of a state with a morally justified claim to political authority have a duty to obey its legal commands to wage a particular war, even if they believe that the state has made a mistake in its reasons for waging the war. The author argues that Estlund's theory also allows for individuals to assess the justice of the wars they fight. He also argues that Estlund's view also holds that individual combatants should not be held accountable for any injustice of a war that the state believes …

Business Ethics And (Or As) Political Philosophy, Jeffrey Moriarty, Wayne Norman, Joseph Heath

Philosophy Faculty Publications

There is considerable overlap between the interests of business ethicists and those of political philosophers. Questions about the moral justifiability of the capitalist system, the basis of property rights, and the problem of inequality in the distribution of income have been of central importance in both fields. However, political philosophers have developed, especially over the past four decades, a set of tools and concepts for addressing these questions that are in many ways quite distinctive. Most business ethicists, on the other hand, consider their field to be primarily a domain of applied ethics, and so adopt methods and conceptual frameworks …

Making Parents: Conventions, Intentions, And Biological Connections, Yvette Pearson, Stephen Scales (Ed.), Linda Oravecz (Ed.), Adam Potthast (Ed.)

Philosophy Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Sources Of International Law: Some Philosophical Reflections, David Lefkowitz

Philosophy Faculty Publications

It seems only natural to begin the study of international law with a description of its sources. After all, whether as practitioner or scholar a person cannot begin to ask or answer questions about international law until he or she has some sense of what the law is. This requires in turn a basic grasp of the processes whereby international legal norms and regimes come to exist. Thus students of international law must engage immediately with some of the most basic questions in the philosophy of law: what is law, and what is a legal order or system.

These questions …

The Importance Of Group Moral Agency On Environmental Responsibility And Beyond, Joan Woolfrey

Philosophy Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Constitution Of Equality: Democratic Authority And Its Limits By Thomas Christiano (Book Review), David Lefkowitz

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In this carefully argued and thought provoking new book, Thomas Christiano offers a novel defense of democracy's intrinsic value, its morally justifiable claim to authority, and the limits thereof, as well as for liberal rights. Central to Christiano's argument for each of these conclusions is the claim that in a moderately complex and pluralist society, social justice requires that people be treated publicly as equals. That is, ordinary agents must be able to see that the institutions and practices that provide the basic structure of the society in which they live treat them as equals, or what is the same, …

Partiality And Weighing Harm To Non-Combatants, David Lefkowitz

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The author contests the claim made independently by F.M. Kamm and Thomas Hurka that combatants ought to assign greater weight to collateral harm done to their compatriot noncombatants then they assign to collateral harm done to enemy non-combatants. Two arguments by analogy offered in support of such partiality, one of which appeals to permissible self/other asymmetry in cases of harming the few to save the many, and the second of which appeals to parents' justifiable partiality to their children, are found wanting. The author also rebuts Kamm's argument that combatants should assign greater weight to collateral harm done to neutrals …

Incorporating Ethics Into Rcr Classrooms, Sara Vollmer, Nancy J. Matchett

Philosophy Faculty Publications

From the article: Philosophy departments have been expanding their offerings in applied ethics and ethical decision making for a number of years, yet relatively little attention has been paid to incorporating ethical thinking in the context of Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) instruction.

Rawls, Self-Respect, And The Opportunity For Meaningful Work, Jeffrey Moriarty

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In his late work The Law of Peoples, John Rawls identifies the opportunity for meaningful work as a social basis of self-respect. This constitutes a significant shift in his account of self-respect, one that has been so far overlooked. In this paper I examine this shift. I begin by clarifying Rawls’s account of self-respect in A Theory of Justice (hereafter, Theory), then consider some post-Theory developments in it. After exploring the nature of Rawls’s commitment to the opportunity for meaningful work, I ask why he thinks it is a social basis of self-respect. I extract a partial …

Deserving Jobs, Deserving Wages, Jeffrey Moriarty

Philosophy Faculty Publications

This chapter applies recent work on desert to two sets of issues in business ethics. The first set of issues concerns who ought to be hired, fired, promoted, and demoted. Call these issues of “job justice.” The second set of issues concerns how much workers, including managers, ought to be paid. Call these issues of “wage justice.” I focus on job and wage justice because considerations of desert play an important, though sometimes tacit, role in discussions of these issues.

Peace Is Not Perpetual, Autonomous, Or Rational, Danielle Poe

Philosophy Faculty Publications

When I write about and teach Immanuel Kant, I am always impressed and seduced by the beauty and neatness of his work. After all, Kant makes morality a science; answers are clear and distinct, black and white. Individuals make ethical decisions by using reason according to universally accessible principles. People should do the right thing, not because it is easy, not because it makes them feel good, and not because they have been raised to do so. People should do the right thing because it is their duty, and they determine their duty by asking, "Can I universalize my action?" …

Governmentality, Biopower, And The Debate Over Genetic Enhancement, Ladelle Mcwhorter

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Although Foucault adamantly refused to make moral pronouncements or dictate moral principles or political programs to his readers, his work offers a number of tools and concepts that can help us develop our own ethical views and practices. One of these tools is genealogical analysis, and one of these concepts is “biopower.” Specifically, this essay seeks to demonstrate that Foucault’s concept of biopower and his genealogical method are valuable as we consider moral questions raised by genetic enhancement technologies. First, it examines contemporary debate over the development, marketing, and application of such technologies, suggesting that what passes for ethical deliberation …