Diversity Reading List

Abstract:

In this article I consider criticisms of the basic needs approach (BNA) made by capability theorists, and argue that BNA can meet them all. I conclude that BNA has been unfairlycriticised and too hastily displaced by the capability approach (CA). This raises a further question: whatshould be done? My hope is that defenders of BNA will be encouraged to revivetheir approach by these arguments, and that defenders of CA will be encouragedto reconsider and modify or withdraw their criticisms.

Abstract:

The ethics of war is a minefield. It is a morass of conceptual unclarity, contentious assumptions, impassioned arguments, unexploded myths, and the injured defenders of indistinct positions. My aim is to help to make the minefield (conceptually) safe, and to assist that most vulnerable party to the dispute, the pacifist. In this paper I explore the possibility that, farfrom being naive or outlandish, pacifism might follow from a widely-held and fundamental intuition about the moral status of persons [hereafter MSP]. In Section 1 I describe MSP, and suggest how we might draw implications from it about the ethics of war. In Section 2, I argue that a ‘presumption of war-ism’ has distorted debate in the ethics of war: to arrive at a balanced view, we need distinguish two sets of moral questions. First, can the development and maintenance of the means to make war be justified? Second, can the use of those means ever be justified? I sketch some strategies which might be developed in addressing the first question, concentrating on what MSP suggests might be wrong with setting up a war-machine, and with being or employing a soldier. In Section 3, I argue that even if considerations from Section 2 are insufficient to establish that we must dismantle our war-machines, facts about war which conflict with MSP do establish that we must never use them.

Abstract:

In this paper I introduce my work in ethics, inviting others to draw on my approach to address the ethical issues that concern them. I set up the Centre for Ethical Philosophy at Durham University in 2007 to plug a puzzling gap in philosophical work to help us help the world. In 1. I set out ethical philosophy. In 2. I consider some implications, for example, that to do good we must pay much more attention to the beings around us, less to ourselves. In 3. I consider the implications for how we should think about war and peace. In 4. I draw out some implications for good political practice. In 5. I consider objections and conclude.

Abstract:

Aristotle’s account of human needs is valuable because it describes the connections between logical, metaphysical, physical, human and ethical necessities. But Aristotle does not fully draw out the implications of the account of necessity for needs and virtue. The proper Aristotelian conclusion is that, far from being an inferior activity fit only for slaves, meeting needs is the first part of Aristotelian virtue.

Abstract:

One of the most striking contributions of particularism to moral philosophy has been its emphasis on the relative opacity of the moral scene to the tools of rational analysis traditionally used by philosophers. Particularism changes the place of the philosopher in relation to the moral life, pointing up the limits to what philosophy can do here. The modern moral philosopher who takes particularism seriously no longer has the luxury, endemic in our tradition, of imagining that moral philosophy can be done with only passing illustrative reference to experience, or that the truth about the whole of our moral life may be read of a list of a priori moral principles, whose rationality is underwritten by the mechanistic account of what it is to follow a rule that pre-Wittgensteinian philosophers took for granted.

Abstract: I argue that lying is generally morally better than mere deliberate misleading because the latter involves the exploitation of a greater trust and more seriously abuses our willingness to fulfil epistemic and moral obligations to others. Whereas the liar relies on our figuring out and accepting only what is asserted, the mere deliberate misleader depends on our actively inferring meaning beyond what is said in the form of conversational implicatures as well. When others’ epistemic and moral obligations are determined by standard assumptions of communicative cooperation and no compelling moral reason justifies mere deliberate misleading instead, one had better lie.

Back Matter: This comprehensive text examines the history, significance, and philosophical dimensions of sport. Introduction to the Philosophy of Sport is organized to reflect the traditional division of philosophy into metaphysical, ethical, and sociopolitical issues, while incorporating specific concerns of today's athletic world, such as cheating, doping, and Title IX, where they are applicable. This approach provides students with a basic understanding of the philosophy of sport as a whole and better equips them to investigate specific issues. Introduction to the Philosophy of Sport is not only an outline of the discipline and a summary of much of its pioneering work, but also an invitation for students to join the conversation by connecting it to their own athletic experience.

Publisher's Note: The Blackwell Guide to Medical Ethics is a guide to the complex literature written on the increasingly dense topic of ethics in relation to the new technologies of medicine. Examines the key ethical issues and debates which have resulted from the rapid advances in biomedical technology Brings together the leading scholars from a wide range of disciplines, including philosophy, medicine, theology and law, to discuss these issues Tackles such topics as ending life, patient choice, selling body parts, resourcing and confidentiality Organized with a coherent structure that differentiates between the decisions of individuals and those of social policy

Abstract: In ethics, aesthetics, and increasingly in epistemology, a distinction is drawn between thick and thinevaluative concepts. A common characterisation of the distinction is that thin concepts have only evaluative content whereas thick concepts combine evaluative and descriptive content. Because of thiscombination it is, again commonly, thought that thick concepts have various distinctive powersincluding the power to undermine the distinction between fact and value. This paper discusses theaccuracy of this view of the thick concepts debate, as well as assessing the prospects for a thickconcepts argument against the fact value distinction, while introducing the three main philosophicalpositions on the nature of thick concepts.

Introduction: The nonidentity problem focuses on the obligations we think we have in respect of people who, by our own acts, are caused both to exist and to have existences that are, though worth having, unavoidably flawed – existences, that is, that are flawed if those people are ever to have them at all. If a person’s existence is unavoidably flawed, then the agent’s only alternatives to bringing that person into the flawed existence are to bring no one into existence at all or to bring a different person – a nonidentical but better off person – into existence in place of the person whose existence is flawed. If the existence is worth having and no one else’s interests are at stake, it is unclear on what ground morality would insist that the choice to bring the one person into the flawed existence is morally wrong. And yet at the same time – as we shall see – it seems that in some cases that choice clearly is morally wrong. The nonidentity problem is the problem of resolving this apparent paradox. The problem raises the question whether the (usually significant) good that an agent confers along with existence counterbalances the (usually limited) bad that an agent confers along with any unavoidably flawed existence in such a way that our existence-inducing act (usually) will be deemed permissible. And if it isn’t – if we think instead that obligations are left unsatisfied despite the good that comes with existence – is the moral of the story that moral obligation extends beyond what we must do for people? If we agree, in other words, that it is our obligation to create additional good, is it enough that we create additional good for each and every existing and future person? Or does the nonidentity problem show that our focus should instead be on creating additional good for the universe? As we query how to evaluate existence-inducing acts for their moral permissibility – as well as outcomes or possible futures or worlds, for their moral betterness against still other worlds – we find that some of our most deeply held intuitions regarding the nature and structure of morality are thrown into doubt.