Online research in philosophy

I here respond to several points in Faucher and Machery’s vigorous and informative critique of my volitional account of racism (VAR). First, although the authors deem it a form of "implicit racial bias," a mere tendency to associate black people with "negative" concepts falls short of racial "bias" or prejudice in the relevant sense. Second, such an associative disposition need not even be morally objectionable. Third, even for more substantial forms of implicit racial bias such as race-based fear or disgust, (...) Faucher and Machery offer no account or explanation of when we should consider these racist, in whom, in what respect(s), or why. So, findings of implicit racial bias pose no clear objection to VAR. Fourth, because VAR allows not only racial hate, but also callous indifference, disdain, and other forms of racially driven disregard, to be racist,VAR is not "psychologically monist." Fifth, as VAR allows racist attitudes to be immoral in more than one way, offending against both the moral virtues of benevolence and justice, VAR is not "morally monist" either. I also reveal problems with some of Faucher and Machery’s other claims: Faucher and Machery take too narrow a conception of the types of psychology that can contribute to understanding racism; the internal complexity of hatred, which they approvingly mention, is irrelevant to VAR’s truth and undermines part of their criticism of VAR; whether some forms of racial bias are "racial ills" is irrelevant to VAR, which only analyzes racism; over-attention to implicit racial bias may cloak or exacerbate some of our society’s racial ills, or even constitute a new one. I conclude by noting that Faucher and Machery are not just critics of VAR but also allies of VAR in important controversies against those who insist racism lies primarily in social structures and institutions. (shrink)

This essay rebuts Gary Seay's efforts to show that committing euthanasia need not conflict with a physician's professional duties. First, I try to show how his misunderstanding of the correlativity of rights and duties and his discussion of the foundation of moral rights undermine his case. Second, I show aspects of physicians' professional duties that clash with euthanasia, and that attempts to avoid this clash lead to absurdities. For professional duties are best understood as deriving from professional virtues and the (...) commitments and purposes with which the professional as such ought to act, and there is no plausible way in which her death can be seen as advancing the patient's medical welfare. Third, I argue against Prof. Seay's assumption that apparent conflicts among professional duties must be resolved through "balancing" and argue that, while the physician's duty to extend life is continuous with her duty to protect health, any duty to relieve pain is subordinate to these. Finally, I show that what is morally determinative here, as throughout the moral life, is the agent's intention and that Prof. Seay's implicitly preferred consequentialism threatens not only to distort moral thinking but would altogether undermine the medical (and any other) profession and its internal ethics. (shrink)

I first sketch an account of humility as a character trait in which we are unimpressed with our good, envied, or admired features, achievements, etc., where these lack significant salience for our image of ourselves, because of the greater prominence of our limitations and flaws. I situate this view among several other recent conceptions of humility (also called modesty), dividing them between the inward-directed and outward-directed, distinguish mine from them, pose problems for each alternative account, and show how my understanding (...) of humility captures truths present but exaggerated in several of them. Responding to some problems for my view, including what I call “Driver’s Paradox”(i.e., the strangeness of someone’s proclaiming ‘I’m humble!’), I suggest that some over-ambitious claims about our moral responsibilities may indicate a lack of proper humility. I discuss the relationship of the character trait of humility both to what humiliates and to what humbles, concluding with consideration of the background assumptions against which, and the circumstances in which, humility may reasonably be classified as a moral virtue. (shrink)

This essay applies to the morality of lying and other deception a sketch of a kind of virtues-based, input-driven, role-centered, patient-focused, ethical theory. Among the questions treated are: What is wrong with lying? Is it always and intrinsically immoral? Can it be correct, as some have vigorously maintained, that lying is morally wrong in some circumstances where other forms of deliberate dissimulation are not? If so, how can that be? And how can it be that lying to someone is immoral (...) when other, harsher ways of treating her are permissible? The essay examines several responses to the first question, and suggests that lying violates morality as an excessive departure from the role-derived virtues of charity and justice: the liar wills another person the evil of false belief precisely in the proposition for which the speaker offers her assurance and takes special responsibility in asserting. So conceived, lying is an especially egregious form of treachery and degrading manipulation of another person. Appeal is then made to the gravity inherent in lying so conceived to suggest ways of answering the other questions which would support the traditional Augustinian claim that lying is inherently impermissible and ineligible in circumstances where other forms of deliberate deception may not be, and even in situations where violent attack may be permissible.At the end, a taxonomy of more and less rigorist positions of lying is offered. A tentative proposal is made that, while consistent with the traditional Augustinian rigorist position that Iving is always immoral, nevertheless has some features that may slightly soften that view’s practical application. The proposed view does this in a way similar to that in which allowing moral dilemmas may soften it, for allowing dilemmas means there may be cases where an act of a type always immoral may still be more eligible than any alternative. However, it is maintained that the view here proposed need not countenance genuine dilemmas. (shrink)

What if human joy (more technically, utility) went on endlessly? Suppose, for example, that each human generation were followed by another, or that the Western religions are right when they teach that each human being lives eternally after death. If any such possibility is true in the actual world, then an agent might sometimes be so situated that more than one course of action would produce an infinite amount of utility (or of disutility, or of both). Deciding whether to have (...) a child born this year rather than next is a situation wherein an agent may face several alternatives whose effects could well ramify endlessly on such suppositions, for the child born this year would be a different person—one who preferred different things, performed different actions, and had different descendants—from a child born next year. It has recently been suggested that traditional utilitarianism stumbles on such cases of infinite utility. Specifically, utilitarianism seems to require, for its application, that all experience of pleasure and pain cease at some time in the future or asymptotically approach zero. If neither of these conditions holds, then the utility (and disutility) produced by each of two alternative actions may turn out to be infinite, and utilitarianism thus loses its ability to discriminate morally between them. (shrink)

This paper criticizes the thesis that intending to do something is reducible to some combination of beliefs and desires. Against Audi's recent formulation of such a view I offer as counterexample a case wherein an agent who wants and expects to V has not yet decided whether to V and hence does not yet intend to. I try to show that whereas belief that one will V is not necessary for intending to V, as illustrated in cases of desperate attempts (...) to V, one cannot intend to V without preferring to V (rather than not V) and thus one cannot intend to V without, in some sense, wanting to V (at least wanting it in preference to not V-ing). The connection of one's intentions with one's objectives, attempts, plans, and hopes is briefly treated, and some influential work by Davidson is criticized. (shrink)

The paper defends the thesis that for S to V intentionally is for S to V as (in the way) S intended to. For the normal agent the relevant sort of intention is an intention that one's intention to V generate an instance of one's V-ing along some (usually dimly-conceived) productive path. Such an account allows us to say some actions are intentional to a greater or lesser extent (a desirable option for certain cases of wayward causal chains), preserves the (...) intuitive link between intention and intentionally, and supports the common sense view that the concept of intending is more basic than those of acting with an intention and of acting intentionally. The remainder of the paper responds to certain apparent counter-examples offered by Audi, Harman, and Bratman. In the course of this, I discuss connections between intending to V and hoping to V, and I argue that one can intend to do what one doesn't expect to do, and that one always intends what one attempts. (shrink)

The essay contrasts the thesis that deserved punishment is punishment which, as deserved, is obligatory with the weaker thesis that it is punishment which, as deserved, is permissible. The author first outlines an account of the meaning of desert-claims which entails only the weaker thesis and then defends this account against criticisms levied in a recent article that it is ambiguous, cannot explain the moral significance of desert, justifies letting people profit from their crimes, and permits unequal treatment. The essay (...) proceeds to a critique of George Sher's view of deserved punishment, faulting Sher for: (1) his reliance on an implausible understanding of benefits, (2) his inability to justify the punishment of crime-victims for their own crimes, and (3) the inadequacy of his defense of mercy. Finally, the author sketches a role-centered conception of morality within which it becomes clearer how deserved punishment can be justified as the victim's ties to the criminal, and the role-responsibilities derivative therefrom, are vitiated by the latter's misdeeds. (shrink)