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Added by: Björn Freter, Contributed by: Anna Alexandrova
Abstract: This paper examines the morality of kidney markets through the lens of choice, inequality, and weak agency looking at the case for limiting such markets under both non-ideal and ideal circumstances. Regulating markets can go some way to addressing the problems of inequality and weak agency. The choice issue is different and this paper shows that the choice for some to sell their kidneys can have external effects on those who do not want to do so, constraining the options that are now open to them. I believe that this is the strongest argument against such markets.
Saul, Jennifer. Just go ahead and lie2012, Analysis. 72(1): 3-9.-
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Added by: Simon Fokt
Abstract: The view that lying is morally worse than merely misleading is a very natural one, which has had many prominent defenders. Nonetheless, here I will argue that it is misguided: holding all else fixed, acts of mere misleading are not morally preferable to acts of lying, and successful lying is not morally worse than merely deliberately misleading. In fact, except in certain very special contexts, I will suggest that – when faced with a felt need to deceive – we might as well just go ahead and lie.Comment: This text can be used to inspire a discussion on general ethical issues and the practical application of moral theories. It is particularly useful in teaching applied professional ethics. It works well when used together with Clea F. Rees' "Better Lie!"
Saul, Jennifer M.. Politically Significant Terms and Philosophy of Language2012, In Sharon Crasnow & Anita Superson (eds.), Out from the Shadows: Analytical Feminist Contributions to Traditional Philosophy. Oxford University Press.-
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Thomas Hodgson
Abstract: Philosophers of language have tended to focus on examples that are not politically significant in any way. We spend a lot of time analyzing natural kind terms: We think hard about 'water' and 'pain' and 'arthritis.' But we don't think much about the far more politically significant kind terms (natural or social - it's a matter for dispute) like 'race,' 'sex,' 'gender,' 'woman,' 'man,' 'gay,' and 'straight.' In this essay, I will try to show, using the example of 'woman,' that it's worth thinking about terms like these, for at least three reasons: (1) There are some interesting puzzles. (2) Politically significant terms matter to people's lives - and it's worth spending at least some of our energy thinking about things that matter in this way. (3) Most importantly, interesting methodological issues emerge at the intersection of philosophy of language and politics.Comment:
Schechtman, Marya. The Narrative Self2011, In Shaun Gallagher (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Self. OUP Oxford.-
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Added by: Rie Iizuka
Abstract: This article examines the narrative approach to self found in philosophy and related disciplines. The strongest versions of the narrative approach hold that both a person's sense of self and a person's life are narrative in structure, and this is called the hermeneutical narrative theory. This article provides a provisional picture of the content of the narrative approach and considers some important objections that have been raised to the narrative approach. It defends the view that the self constitutes itself in narrative and argues for something less than the hermeneutical view insofar as the narrative is less agency-oriented and without an overarching thematic unity.Comment: This chapter offers a good introduction to the concept of narrative self. It surveys a few different types of narrative self, and covers some representative objections. The article would be perfect in classes focusing on different concepts of self, and on personal identity in general.
Schouten, Gina. Fair Educational Opportunity and the Distribution of Natural Ability: Toward a Prioritarian Principle of Educational Justice2012, Journal of Philosophy of Education 46 (3):472-491.-
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Harry Brighouse
Abstract: In this article, I develop and defend a prioritarian principle of justice for the distribution of educational resources. I argue that this principle should be conceptualized as directing educators to confer a general benefit, where that benefit need not be mediated by improved academic outcomes. I go on to argue that it should employ a metric of all-things-considered flourishing over the course of the student's lifetime. Finally, I discuss the relationship between my proposed prioritarian principle and the meritocratic principle that it is presumed to supplementComment: Excellent piece on justice in education -- criticizes the general approach which conceives of justice just in terms of equality of opportunity, and supplements that approach with an argument that prioritizes all things considered benefit to the least advantaged
Schouten, Gina. Fetuses, Orphans, and a Famous Violinist: On the Ethics and Politics of Abortion2017, Social Theory and Practice 43 (3): 637-665-
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Added by: Sara PeppeAbstract:
In this paper, I urge feminists to re-center fetal moral status in their theorizing about abortion. I argue that fundamental feminist normative commitments are at odds with efforts to de-emphasize fetal moral status: The feminist commitment to ensuring care for dependents supports surprising conclusions with regard to the ethics of abortion, and the feminist commitment to politicizing the personal has surprising conclusions regarding the politics of abortion. But these feminist insights also support the conclusion that, conditional on fetal moral status, care for unwanted fetuses would be a social obligation that only derivatively falls to women who are unwillingly pregnant.
Comment: Best discussed alongside Judith Thomson's "A Defense of Abortion" and Liam Murphy's "The Demands of Beneficence." Challenges a widely accepted intuition about the ethics of abortion and can be used to illustrate the vulnerabilities of thought experiments that appeal to intuitions. Demonstrates the useful argumentative move of assuming premise P for the sake of argument (even if you don't endorse P) in order to examine the implications that follow from P.
Shah, Nishi. How Truth Governs Belief2003, Philosophical Review 112 (4): 447-482.-
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Added by: Simon Fokt
Abstract: Why, when asking oneself whether to believe that p, must one immediately recognize that this question is settled by, and only by, answering the question whether p is true? Truth is not an optional end for first-personal doxastic deliberation, providing an instrumental or extrinsic reason that an agent may take or leave at will. Otherwise there would be an inferential step between discovering the truth with respect to p and determining whether to believe that p, involving a bridge premise that it is good (in whichever sense of good one likes, moral, prudential, aesthetic, allthings-considered, etc.) to believe the truth with respect to p. But there is no such gap between the two questions within the first-personal deliberative perspective; the question whether to believe that p seems to collapse into the question whether p is true.Comment: This text will be most useful in advanced Epistemology, Philosophy of Mind, Metaethics and Philosophy of Action classes. The core argument of should be manageable for students who have read a bit of epistemology/metaethics/mind, but substantial familiarity with these areas is necessary to get the paper as a whole. The paper is also valuable for its critique of Alan Gibbard’s noncognitivist account of normative judgments and J. David Velleman’s teleological account of truth’s normative governance of belief (Diversifying Syllabi).
Shapiro, Lisa. Descartes’s Ethics2008, In Janet Broughton & John Carriero (eds.), A companion to Descartes. Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 445-463.-
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Alberto Vanzo
Abstract: I begin my discussion by considering how to relate Descartes's more general concern with the conduct of life to the metaphysics and epistemology in the foreground of his philosophical project. I then turn to the texts in which Descartes offers his developed ethical thought and present the case for Descartes as a virtue ethicist. My argument emerges from seeing that Descartes's conception of virtue and the good owes much to Stoic ethics, a school of thought which saw a significant revival in the seventeenth century. It does, however, deviate from classical Stoicism in critical ways. Towards the end of my discussion, I return to the question of the relation between Descartes's ethics and his metaphysics and epistemology, and I suggest that the Discourse on the Method for Rightly Conducting Reason and the Meditations on First Philosophy are invested with the virtue ethical considerations of moral education and the regulation of the passions, respectively.Comment:
Sharma, Arvind. The Philosophy of Religion: A Buddhist Perspective1995, Oxford: Oxford University Press.-
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Added by: Emily Paul
Publisher's note: This important work does much to extend and redefine the ground of the philosophy of religion, which has been conducted in a purely Western context. The discussion, whether it be about the soteriological nature of religion, the grounds for belief in God, the problem of evil, or the question of verifiability, takes on quite a different meaning in the context of Eastern religions. Arvind Sharma seeks to place this debate, with particular reference to the work of such writers as James, F.R. Tennant, Tillich, Randall, Braithwaite, D.Z. Phillips, Rom Hare, Basil Mitchell, John Hick, W.A. Christian, and W.C. Smith, in the Buddhist context. At the same time he clarifies some of the possible misapprehensions which result from a commonality of religious language shared between Buddhism and Hinduism as regards the nature of religious revelation, immortality, karma, and reincarnation.Comment: Could be integral to a syllabus, as does a lot to take contemporary debates in philosophy of religion (problem of evil, grounds for belief in God) out of a Western context, thus diversifying the subject content of philosophy of religion itself.
Shelby, Tommie. Justice, Work, and the Ghetto Poor2012, The Law and Ethics of Human Rights. 6 (1): 69-96-
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Added by: Deryn Mair ThomasAbstract:
In view of the explanatory significance of joblessness, some social scientists, policymakers, and commentators have advocated strong measures to ensure that the ghetto poor work, including mandating work as a condition of receiving welfare benefits. Indeed, across the ideological political spectrum, work is often seen as a moral or civic duty and as a necessary basis for personal dignity. And this normative stance is now instantiated in federal and state law, from the tax scheme to public benefits. This Article reflects critically on this new regime of work. I ask whether the normative principles to which its advocates typically appeal actually justify the regime. I conclude that the case for a pro tanto moral or civic duty to work is not as strong as many believe and that there are reasonable responses to joblessness that do not involve instituting a work regime. However, even if we grant that there is a duty to work, I maintain that the ghetto poor would not be wronging their fellow citizens were they to choose not to work and to rely on public funds for material support. In fact, I argue that many among the black urban poor have good reasons to refuse to work. Throughout, I emphasize what too few advocates of the new work regime do, namely, that whether work is an obligation depends crucially on whether background social conditions within the polity are just.Comment (from this Blueprint): This text is useful for several reasons. First, it introduces an argument examining a civic obligation to work; second, it discusses that obligation in relation to structural injustices regarding socio-economic and racial inequality. It can be used to discuss the intersection of these topics more generally, or to further discuss philosophical questions concerning who should have access to good work and why.
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Satz, Debra. The Moral Limits of Markets: The Case of Human Kidneys
2008, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 108, 269-288
Comment: A self-contained argument that introduces key concepts in philosophy of economics namely, liberty, externality, choice and markets, through the example of kidneys.