Abstract: The recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been characterized by the deployment of large private military forces, under contract with the US administration. The use of so-called private military corporations (PMCs) and, more generally, of mercenaries, has long attracted criticisms. This article argues that under certain conditions (drawn from the Just War tradition), there is nothing inherently objectionable about mercenarism. It begins by exposing a weakness in the most obvious justification for mercenarism, to wit, the justification from freedom of occupational choice. It then deploys a less obvious, but stronger, argument – one that appeals to the importance of enabling just defensive killings. Finally, it rebuts five moral objections to mercenarism.
Personal Autonomy and Society
Content: Oshana argues against ‘internalist’ theories of autonomy that focus exclusively on psychological conditions internal to the agent – what goes on inside her head – and suggests instead that certain social relations must obtain between the agent and those around her for genuine autonomy to be possible.
Transformational Leadership. Do the Leader’s Morals Matter and Do the Follower’s Morals Change?
Abstract: In a study of 205 leader–follower pairs, we investigated the impact of the leader’s values and empathy on followers’ perception of transformational leadership and the effect of transformational leadership on followers’ values and empathy. The moderating effect of leader–follower relationship duration on the effect of transformational leadership on followers’ values and empathy was also investigated. We found that the leader’s values were related to transformational leadership and transformational leadership was related to followers’ values. Over time, the relationship between transformational leadership and followers’ empathy and values became stronger
Virtue, Theory and Abortion
Abstract: The sort of ethical theory derived from Aristotle, variously described as virtue ethics, virtue-based ethics, or neo-Aristotelianism, is becoming better known, and is now quite widely recognized as at least a possible rival to deontological and utilitarian theories. With recognition has come criticism, of varying quality. In this article I shall discuss nine separate criticisms that I have frequently encountered, most of which seem to me to betray an inadequate grasp either of the structure of virtue theory or of what would be involved in thinking about a real moral issue in its terms. In the first half I aim particularly to secure an understanding that will reveal that many of these criticisms are simply misplaced, and to articulate what I take to be the major criticism of virtue theory. I reject this criticism, but do not claim that it is necessarily misplaced. In the second half I aim to deepen that understanding and highlight the issues raised by the criticisms by illustrating what the theory looks like when it is applied to a particular issue, in this case, abortion.
Luck and Equality
Abstract: I argue that the aim to neutralize the influence of luck on distribution cannot provide a basis for egalitarianism: it can neither specify nor justify an egalitarian distribution. Luck and responsibility can play a role in determining what justice requires to be redistributed, but from this we cannot derive how to distribute: we cannot derive a pattern of distribution from the ‘currency’ of distributive justice. I argue that the contrary view faces a dilemma, according to whether it understands luck in interpersonal or counterfactual terms.
The Obligations of Transnational Corporations: Rawlsian Justice and the Duty of Assistance
Abstract: Building on John Rawls’s account of the Law of Peoples, this paper examines the grounds and scope of the obligations of transnational corporations that are owned by members of developed economies and operate in developing economies. The paper advances two broad claims. First, the paper argues that there are conditions under which TNCs have obligations to fulfill a limited duty of assistance toward those living in developing economies, even though the duty is normally understood to fall on the governments of developed economies. Second, by extending Rawls’s account to include a right to protection against arbitrary interference, the paper argues that TNCs can be said to have negative and positive obligations in the areas of human rights, labor standards, and environmental protection, as outlined in the U.N. Global Compact. More generally, the paper aims to further our understanding of the implications of Rawls’s account of justice.
The responsibility of psychopaths
Content: The paper examines various arguments looking at the responsibility psychopaths bear for their immoral actions, using neurological knowledge about psychopathy.
What’s Wrong with Slippery Slope Arguments?
Content: Govier distinguishes four kinds of slippery slope arguments – conceptual, precedential, causal and mixed – and argues that only the last kind are likely to ever be sound.
Euthanasia
Synopsis generated from the paper: Foot argues that euthanasia is not a merely quiet or easy death. An act of euthanasia, including a deliberate omission, is a choice of another person’s death for that person’s own sake, because life is no longer a good for them. Life is normally a benefit even when it contains much pain, handicap, or unhappiness, but the connection between life and good breaks when a life no longer contains a minimum of ordinary human goods, as in some extreme illness, or when consciousness has sunk so low that life is neither a good nor, unless there is suffering, an evil. Foot then asks when such acts are morally permissible. She distinguishes justice, which concerns rights, from charity, which concerns the good of others, and she separates active from passive and voluntary from nonvoluntary euthanasia. Nonvoluntary active euthanasia is never justified, because the right to life includes a duty of noninterference that is not cancelled by the judgment that someone would be better off dead. Nonvoluntary passive euthanasia is not ruled out by that duty, except where a special right to life-preserving service exists, for instance under a doctor’s contract. Voluntary euthanasia, active or passive, need not infringe rights if the person has waived them. Where justice does not forbid the act, charity generally speaks in favor of it, since the aim is the good of the one who dies, though a wish to die is not itself proof that death is for their good. In practice, Foot notes that withholding life-prolonging treatment is already common. Allowing infants with Down’s syndrome to die because they burden others is not euthanasia in her sense. She supports something like a living will for previously expressed wishes, but warns against legalizing active euthanasia: it is open to abuse, and in a rich society it could erode the expectation that the old and the ill will be looked after.
The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of the Double Effect
Introduction: One of the reasons why most of us feel puzzled about the problem of abortion is that we want, and do not want, to allow to the unborn child the rights that belong to adults and children. When we think of a baby about to be born it seems absurd to think that the next few minutes or even hours could make so radical a difference to its status; yet as we go back in the life of the foetus we are more and more reluctant to say that this is a human being and must be treated as such. No doubt this is the deepest source of our dilemma, but it is not the only one. For we are also confused about the general question of what we may and may not do where the interests of human beings conflict. We have strong intuitions about certain cases; saying, for instance, that it is all right to raise the level of education in our country, though statistics allow us to predict that a rise in the suicide rate will follow, while it is not all right to kill the feeble-minded to aid cancer research. It is not easy, however, to see the principles involved, and one way of throwing light on the abortion issue will be by setting up parallels involving adults or children once born. So we will be able to isolate the ‘equal rights’ issue and should be able to make some advance.