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| Abstracts 2010 | | | Elvio Baccarini, University of Rijeka
“Art and Moral Knowledge”
Michael DePaul (in Balance and Refinement) has proposed a further development to the method of wide reflective equilibrium, called balance and refinement. The development consists in adding formative experience to the mere search of coherence among beliefs of a subject. Part of the formative experience can be represented by experience of artworks. As DePaul himself admits, the danger of the attempts to realize formative experience is possible corruption of the moral sensibility. This is the reason why I remark that formative experience must always be realized carefully, comparing and balancing the new beliefs derived from new experience with all other beliefs that the subject has. In order to obtain more detailed indications for the procedure, I add, to the discussion of Michael DePaul, the discussion of formative and corruptive experiences shown by Christopher Cowley (Medical Ethics, Ordinary Concepts and Ordinary Lives).
In the second part of the paper, I discuss the proposal of Noel Carroll as a contribution that fits well with the proposal of balance and refinement, and that indicates the major contribution that art can give to the advancement of moral knowledge.
Boran Berèiæ, University of Rijeka
“Determinism and Moral Responsibility”
There are different kinds of determinism, we can talk about: physical, chemical, biological, genetical, psychological, sociological, economical, even moral, and rational, etc. The question is which kind of Determinism really threats free will and moral responsibility? Can we be determined by moral reasons or by rational resons?
For instance, in Freedom within Reason Susan Wolf says: “Zero-degree weather makes me turn up the heat; an empty refrigerator makes me go to the store. An upcoming tenure desicion makes an assistant professor write articles for publication; a child’s illnes makes a father leave work early to take his daughter to the doctor.” (p.12) However, zero-degree weather, empty refrigerator, upcoming tenure desicion, child’s illnes, are resons. They are not blind mechanical causes of our behaviour and they do not pose threat to the freedom of our will (FW) and to our moral responsilibility (MR).
Migration can be viewed as a biological phenomen, as an economical phenomenon, people who study migrations talk about laws of migration. But, even if behavior of migrants is determined by laws of migrations, their FW and MR is not undermined. As long as they consciously and intentionally deliberate about their decisions and actions, they are free and responsible agents. In a sense they are determined by laws of migrations, but not in a sense that would undermine their freedom of will and moral responsibility.
If determination or "determination" operates through our deliberation and our intentional states (in the right way) then it does not undermine our FW and our MR.
Rev. Binoy pal Bhikshu, Colombo Sri-Lanka
“The Way of the Lotus”
The lotus symbolizes the Buddhist way of life. It is born in the depths of the impure mud clean waters of the pond. It blossoms forth in all its multi- purity and glory on the surface of the pond. In spite of its unclean origin and surrounding its beauty please the eye and its purity chastens the mind and spirit of the onlooker. Even so the lotus of the individual unfolds itself in the pond of human society. The circumstances of his birth, of procreation and parturition, are impure and unclean. His growth and sustenance, his upbringing, and education are associated with suffering and sacrifice, folly and frustration, poverty and privation, disappointment and discouragement, success and failure, gain and loss, fame and disrepute, praise and censure, and happiness and misery. These are the waters of life, the circumstances of the world. But the perfected being, the “arya sravaka” the true disciple of the Buddha, rises above these worldly waters and shines in all his impeccable purity and perfection. This is the mission of the Master, the ministry of the Sasana, the purpose of the teaching and function of the disciple. How do we cultivate the lotus –life?
Spencer Case, University of Colorado
“War Fighting as a Profession”
In an article called “Professing Medicine, Virtue-based Ethics, and the Retrieval of Professionalism,” Edmund Pellegrino distinguishes between professions and mere jobs or occupations. Pellegrino claims the structure of the professions is central to understanding of the role of virtue in professional life. In this paper I will explore the idea of war fighting as a profession in Pellegrino’s sense (hereafter, just profession). I will begin by explaining why professions are to be distinguished from occupations or jobs. Next, I will argue that military service meets all Pellegrino’s criteria of a true profession. I end by demonstrating that this conclusion is not practically trivial, since it has significant implications for how ethics in the military ought to be taught.
Georgi Gardiner, University of Edinburgh
“Transitivity, Moral Theory and the Repugnant Conclusion”
The repugnant conclusion has been described as one of the cardinal problems of moral philosophy. There is a stand-off, or stalemate, between those who believe that Utilitarianism can happily embrace the repugnant conclusion, and those who believe that it is a fatal problem for the view.
In this paper I aim to clarify the terrain surrounding the repugnant conclusion. I explain how denying the transitivity of betterness has been put forward as one way to avoid this problem, and introduce some attempts to establish the non-transitivity of betterness. I show how these attempts fail, and argue that denying transitivity is an unpromising way to proceed. I also look at some other ways of avoiding the repugnant conclusion.
Given that none of the thus far proposed ways of avoiding the repugnant conclusion succeed, we must re-examine the debate. I propose an explanation of the existence of the stalemate. I suggest that when Utilitarians and Deontologists are thinking about the moral they are focusing on two subtly different things, and that this difference explains the stalemate. The Deontologists’ focus on 'what we ought do' leads them to endorse an essentially comparative view of betterness, the person-affecting principle, and therefore the unacceptability of the repugnant conclusion. In contrast, the Utilitarians’ focus on ‘what is a good states of affairs’ leads them to an intrinsic aspect view of betterness, and thus to the view that the right act is one which leads to the good outcome. This leads them to embrace the repugnant conclusion.
I conclude by showing how this new diagnosis of the debate regarding the repugnant conclusion may be able to offer us a way of reaching agreement in an area currently characterized by stalemate.
Ish Haji, University of Calgary
“On the Reason View of Freedom and Semi-Compatibilism”
In Freedom Within Reason Susan Wolf defends what she calls the “Reason View” according to which the control moral responsibility requires is the control to act in accord with the True and the Good. This view implies that if, in her circumstances, an agent cannot do the right thing for the right (objective) reasons, she is not appropriately responsive to the dictates of practical reason, and so she is not morally responsible for what she does. In this paper, I argue that our having objective practical reasons requires our having alternatives. So, any theory of moral responsibility that invokes a reasons-responsiveness account of control relevantly analogous to Wolf’s is tied to our having alternatives.
Friderik Klampfer, University of Maribor
“You’re Just Using Me! Can we make sense of the common complaint over being treated as a Mere Means?”
According to a popular moral notion, we must always, in whatever we feel, think or do, treat persons as persons and never as things or tools. This injunction is then either identified with, or used as the ground for, the equally widely acclaimed moral prohibition on instrumentalization and/or objectification of persons. The problem, however, is that the latter, despite its intuitive appeal, is rather poorly understood. Or else why would it be so often invoked by both advocates and critics of one and the same moral outlook or policy proposal (euthanasia and human cloning providing only the most recent examples)?
In the paper, I set aside recent challenges to the scope of, and the grounds for, the above principle and concentrate on its content instead. I seek to gain a better understanding of what it may mean to be treated as a mere means, in contrast to being (also) treated as an end in itself. I begin my quest with a distinction between attitudinal and behavioural accounts of instrumentalization. After rejecting both (though for somewhat different reasons) I proceed to discuss hybrid proposals. A combination of attitudinal and behavioral elements, I conjecture, comes closest, in spirit, to what people may mean (provided, of course, that they all mean one and the same thing) when they morally object to what they perceive as being merely used for someone’s purpose.
Nevertheless, in conclusion I raise some doubts about whether even this most plausible account of what it means (and why it is impermissible) to treat someone as a mere means (as opposed to also treating her as an end in itself) can preserve the broad scope, supreme normative force and wide practical implications that its proponents traditionally associated with and drew from it.
Tea Logar, University of Primorska
“Wrongful Use, Impermissible Treatment, and the Fundamental Role of Intentions”
The disagreement over the relevance of one’s intentions for the permissibility of one’s actions still merits considerable attention among philosophers. While it’s generally accepted that intentions and motives matter when assessing an agent’s character and moral responsibility, arguing that they can also directly affect action permissibility is far more contested and has been the target of many persuasive critiques put forward by J. Rachels, J. Bennett, J.J. Thomson, D. Parfit, and many others. Most recently, in his book Moral Dimensions, Thomas Scanlon has developed a substantive argument in support of the view that what makes actions impermissible always depends on objective reasons against them, rather than on an agent’s subjective reasons, such as her intentions, attitudes, or motives. While Scanlon allows that one’s subjective reasons and mental states can have some relevance for permissibility, he claims that they are only relevant derivatively, rather than fundamentally.
While I find many of Scanlon’s arguments persuasive, I argue that his criticism fails to convince that intentions never play a fundamental role in assessing action permissibility. I propose that wrongful (and even impermissible) treatment often consists in use of another person that is made impermissible not by the agent’s mere acts or objective circumstances, but rather by the nature of the agent’s mental states, such as her motives, dispositions, attitudes, feelings, intentions, and so on. I argue that, especially within genuinely intimate relationships, the agent’s failure to properly care about the other person can be particularly relevant to an adequate explanation of what makes the agent’s actions wrongful.
Scanlon is adamant that action permissibility depends exclusively on objective reasons, i.e., considerations that count decisively for or against certain actions, and not on “the agent’s failure to give these considerations the proper weight.” I argue that Scanlon and others overlook the fact that, when it comes to certain relationships and practices, agents’ subjective reasons just are among those considerations that count decisively for or against particular actions; it in fact seems that the charge of wrongful use in personal and intimate relationships often rests precisely on such considerations.
Steve Luper, Trinity University
“Retroactive Harms and Wrongs”
According to the immunity thesis, nothing that happens after we are dead harms or benefits us. If the immunity thesis is true, our prudential horizon is limited to things that happen during the time we exist, and not a moment beyond. Once we die, it makes no sense for others to do anything, like carrying out our final wishes, out of concern for our interests. Meeting our final wishes may even be impossible, whether it is in our interests or not, since, on one view, it is impossible to fulfill any of our desires after we die. These charges fail if people may be benefitted, and their desires fulfilled, retroactively. Some will say it is not very important, though, for the charges may be met without appeal to the idea of retroactive benefit. Even if we cannot be harmed by posthumous events we can be wronged by things people do after we are dead, and obviously people have good reason not to wrong us. But I do not think we can make such pronouncements about wronging the dead until we tell a clear story about the way such wrongs are wrought. I will attempt to clarify one way, but my story involves retroactivity.
Olga Markiè, University of Ljubljana
“Neuroethics: neuroscientific challenges to moral responsibility”
It is only recently that neuroscientists have been able to investigate cognitive phenomena that are the hallmarks of what it is to be human. Some scientists and scientifically oriented philosophers are radical and think that many concepts employed by the humanistic image are just illusions without real reference. The worry many cognitive scientist express is the following: if decisions, choices and actions were to be revealed as results of neural mechanisms, they could not be seen as free anymore and would not support moral responsibility. I will argue that we have to be careful not to jump too quickly from theories in neuroscience to the theories at the level of mind and common-sense understanding. I will suggest a neurophilosophical framework that will combine both viewpoints and hopefully give us a more detailed knowledge about how control and volition are processed in the brain and a better understanding how these notions are connected to our subjective feeling of freedom and responsibility.
Miomir Matulovic, Faculty of Law, Univesity of Rijeka
“Veil of Ignorance as Thought Experiment”
The paper discusses Rawls’ famous original position in its role of thought experiment.
Nenad Mišèeviæ, Central European University, University of Maribor
“The Winged Armchair: Political Thought-Experiments from Plato to Rawls”
The paper discusses 2 dominant traditions in political philosophy, both based upon an initial thought experiment (TE), the first, Plato's ideal state, and the second the social contract. In both TE functions as the moral testing device (from Plato through Rousseau and Kant all the way to Rawls). The paper analyses the “procedure of construction” of the state and the contract, and looks at stages—micro TEs concerning particular arrangements, being put together into a macro-TE. It concludes with the idea that the history of political thought can be read as history of the debate for and against the armchair in political thinking.
Alastair Norcross, University of Colorado at Boulder
“Deontology, Using, and Causal Fetishism”
In this paper I introduce three theses and two methods of theory construction. The theses:
Value: There is such a thing as intrinsic value, and some things have it. Some things are just good, or desirable, or worth having or pursuing for their own sakes.
Act Relevance: Intrinsic value provides reasons for action. That one outcome contains more intrinsic goodness than another is, or at least provides, a reason to act in such a way that the former rather than the latter occurs.
Act Irrelevance: Nothing other than intrinsic value provides reasons for action.
The methods:
Rational: Examine various theses and principles, both for their intrinsic plausibility and their coherence with other theses and principles. You can also examine the implications of these principles, both for actual and for hypothetical choices. Sometimes these implications may surprise you, or even upset you to the point of thorough discombobulation. Such emotional upheaval is rarely, if ever, a reason to reject the principle in question.
Ptolemaic: Begin with a fairly fixed idea of what results you want to get in a range of real and hypothetical choices. You may continually extend this range by considering more and more intricate, and less and less realistic, hypothetical cases. In each hypothetical case, the answer you accept is the one given by your gut, or, to give it its respectable name, your “intuition”. Construct principles accounting for the range of intuitive judgments. The principles themselves are not examined for intrinsic plausibility, and sometimes not even for metaphysical coherence.
I argue that a central feature of deontology is the denial of Act Irrelevance, that deontologists tend to employ Ptolemaic methods of theory construction, and that much deontological thought displays a puzzling fetishism of causal processes.
Scott O’Leary, Fordham University
“The Virtuous Circle of Emotion and Value”
According to sensibility theories, there is an intimate relation between emotions and value or evaluative concepts. Sensibility theories cut across the metaethical landscape, with cognitivist and noncognitivist varieties proposed by McDowell, Wiggins, Velleman, Gibbard, and Blackburn. In this paper, I present a new type of sensibility theory by arguing for the following four claims:
An adequate account of emotions cannot be articulated apart from emotions’ relation to value (Definitional Thesis);
Any adequate account of value requires explaining value’s relation to human valuers (Mackie’s Challenge);
This relationship between emotions and value is inherently valuable (Intrinsic Value Thesis);
My account of this relationship avoids the problems of the leading accounts by elucidating the virtuous circle of emotion and value, without reducing one to the other (The Virtuous Circle).
The paper details why each of these desiderata is necessary for a plausible theory. In particular, it demonstrates that the relation between emotion and value requires a deeper analysis than the color analogy of response-dependent properties provided by McDowell and Wiggins. It also illustrates the need to avoid the metaphors of projecting or responding to values. To call this relation responding to, projecting, or even perceiving values is inadequate since the relationship is more complicated than these metaphors or accounts suggest. After surveying several sensibility theories, I articulate my own account that clarifies the circle of emotion and value while leaving the possibility of a critical gap between actual emotional responses and appropriate responses: The criteria for appropriate emotional response is provided by appealing to second-order axiological properties supervening on descriptive (natural) properties. Finally, I address the nature of this relationship, arguing that simply experiencing the appropriate emotional response is intrinsically valuable.
Neven Petrovic, University of Rijeka
“Inherited Constitutions: Tyranny of the Older Generations?”
The old purist democratic (or republican) charge vs. liberal democracy says that constitutions (and Supreme courts that protect them) represent tyranny of the older generations over the present ones. Indeed how it is possible, if we sincerely believe that everyone should take (direct or indirect) part in passing a rule to which he is to be subjected, that certain law that is accepted by overwhelming present majority can be struck down on the basis of will of those who are now for a long time dead (as is the case with authors of well-established constitutions)? Does this not show that a present will cannot be put in action simply because it is not in accord with some ancient one? Liberals believe that such a situation is acceptable because constitutions disable majorities to pass irresponsible and selfish decisions. But Michael Otsuka has recently offered a novel and provocative argument that shows that it is not easy to disregard the purist democrats’ (or republicans’ – as some prefer to call this position) charge. In my paper I would like to discuss this argument and to try to find out where it is faulty, if it is, as well as to explore some issues that lie in the background.
Matjaž Potrè and Vojko Strahovnik, University of Ljubljana
“Moral Dilemmas and Vagueness”
Three characteristics common to moral dilemmas and to vagueness are singled out: (1) tension between principles, (2) perseverance of principles (or their power) even if these are not followed, (3) easy handling of matters in practice. Transvaluationism is the account of vagueness dealing with these characteristics. The model of moral judgment based moral pluralism offers their appropriate handling for the case of moral dilemmas. The paper discusses the mentioned analogy between vagueness and moral dilemmas and further indicates how transvaluationism and moral pluralism best accommodate the features central to this analogy.
Igor Pribac, University of Ljubljana
“Economic democracy according to Rawls”
Especially in his later writings Rawls is giving some space to the idea of an economic democracy, meaning by that term the possibility for the employee to take part in the decision making processes going on in their firms. Three types of arguments could be attributed to Rawls's position. The most ambitious of the three possible arguments would claim that this kind of liberty should be included in his list of basic liberties pertaining to every member of society. Secondly, it could be said, that Rawls favored the democracy in enterprises because it fosters the democratization of society and is deemed to motivate the workers-citizens for public engagement. And finally, it's possible to put forward the argumentation that political acting in accordance with the Rawlsian difference principle necessitates the shift from compensative redistribution politics ex post to an redistribution politics ex ante. Between the possible ways of enacting a redistribution ex ante there is the possibility to give decision rights in the economic life to the workers. Rawls himself went close to this position advocating the concept of ownership democracy.
Igor Primoratz, Center for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, Charles Sturt University
“Civilian Immunity, Supreme Emergency, and Moral Disaster”
Any plausible position in the ethics of war and political violence in general will include the requirement of protection of civilians (non-combatants, common citizens) against lethal violence. This requirement is particularly prominent, and particularly strong, in just war theory. Some adherents of the theory see civilian immunity as absolute, not to be overridden in any circumstances whatsoever. Others allow that it may be overridden, but only in extremis. The latter position has been advanced by Michael Walzer under the heading of “supreme emergency.”
In this paper, I look into some of the issues of interpretation and application of Walzer’s “supreme emergency” view and some of the criticisms that have been levelled against it. I argue that Walzer’s view is vague and unacceptable as it stands, but that the alternatives proposed by critics such as Brian Orend, Stephen Nathanson, and Tony Coady are also unattractive. I go on to construct a position that is structurally similar to Walzer’s, but much less permissive, which I term the “moral disaster” view. According to this view, deliberate killing of civilians is almost absolutely wrong.
Orsolya Reich, Central European University
“Cosmo-Archipelago: Extending Dworkin's Thought Experiment”
The paper extends Dworkin's TE: instead of one island, the shipwrecked passengers have an archipelago at their disposal. What would be a just distribution in this situation, more akin to the plurality of territorial states in the real world? The paper discusses the options, and motivation for them.
Anna Réz, Central European University
“Responsibility for Carelessness: The Failure of an Attributionist Account”
The control-principle, i.e., the thesis that we are morally assessable only for what depends on factors under our control, has a strong appeal and enjoys widespread acceptance in the literature on the conditions of moral responsibility. Cases of negligence and carelessness, however, pose obvious difficulty to the views endorsing the control-principle. Carelessness toward others, negligence while performing a dangerous activity, absentmindedness about things of great importance are blameworthy exactly because the agent is not aware of some morally (or prudentially) relevant facts, although she should be aware of them. In this paper I examine and criticize Angela Smith’s account of responsibility as attributibility.
Hanoch Sheinman, Rice University
“Fidelity to Promises”
One of our entrenched moral beliefs is that promises are to be kept—that there is an obligation to keep one’s promise—and that breaking one’s promise is wrong and/or blameworthy. This is the principle of Fidelity to Promises. One philosophical expression of this commonsense view is the Obligation Account of Promises, the view that promising is a matter of obligation undertaking, namely that promises must be understood in terms of the undertaking of some obligation (whose violation is wrongful and/or blameworthy). This chapter argues that Fidelity to Promises is false, and that this gives the lie to all versions of the Obligation Account. There is no conceptual relation between promise and moral obligation, wrongdoing, or blameworthiness.
Saul Smilansky, University of Haifa
“Hard Determinism and Punishment: A Practical Reductio”
How can hard determinism deal with the need to punish, when coupled with the obligation to be just? I argue that even though hard determinists might find it morally permissible to incarcerate wrongdoers apart from lawful society, they are committed to the punishment's taking a very different form from common practice in contemporary Western societies. Hard determinists are in fact committed to what I will call funishment, instead of punishment. But, by its nature funishment is a practical reductio of hard determinism: it makes implementing hard determinism impossible to contemplate. Indeed, the social practices that hard determinism requires turn out to be morally bad even according to hard determinism itself. I conclude by briefly reflecting upon the implications.
Danilo Šuster, University of Maribor
“Lewis on the consequence argument reconsidered”
The Consequence Argument (CA) is widely regarded as the best argument for incompatibilism – the conclusion that if determinism is true, then no one ever has a choice about anything (and is not morally responsible for anything). The version most discussed is based on the transfer of powerlessness (principle Beta) – no choice about p, no choice about the fact that p implies q, so no choice about q. Van Inwagen (1983) presents three versions of the argument, only the third (the modal argument) is explicitely based on Beta. But according to van Inwagen "... in my view, one could have no reason for being an incompatibilist if one did not accept Beta. If one accepts Beta, one should be an incompatibilist, and if one is an incompatibilist, one should accept Beta." David Lewis in his (1981) criticizes the first, truth-functional version of the argument. According to van Inwagen (2008): “Here is my closing piece of advice for compatibilists. Study ‘Are We Free to Break the Laws?’ carefully. That is the way to be a compatibilist.” Let us follow the advice. It turns out that Lewis actually accepts a Beta-like principle. How can that be? A debate n CA has reached "a dialectical stalemate" so I adress the problem of begging the question. Lewis introduces two notions of ability (strong, weak) – is this just ad hoc, to block CA as some incompatiblists have argued? I compare the two notions with the phenomenon of bistable perception (Necker cube).
Milica Czerny Urban, University of Rijeka
“Morality and the Intrinsic Value of Art”
In this paper I will investigate the relationship between morality and the intrinsic value of art. I will use discussion posed by P. Lamarque, in his book “The Philosophy of Literature”. Since there are artworks, and as a result there are also literary works, which are unique and valued for their moral values as well as for other things. The moral dimension of a literary work can be such a meaningful component of the art work that we could, in so far as we are ready to exclude their value from their intrinsic value, have a lot to lose. It seems that we would impoverish the work if we were to ignore moral value as a literary value, and consider them solely as an instrumental value. I will try to expose some actual examples in favour of showing how meaningful moral value of artwork can be.
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