This chapter contains section titled: I Welfarist and Resourcist Egalitarianism II Resource Egalitarianism and Procreation III Equality of Fortune IV Procreation and the Appeal to Fairness V Internalizing the Effects of Procreation VI Tolerating Externalities Acknowledgement.

Xenotransplantation is often deemed morally objectionable because of the costs it imposes on the organ donor and the risks it imposes on the recipient. For some, involving human–pig chimeras as donors makes the practice more objectionable or even abhorrent from the start. For others, by contrast, using such chimeras weakens recipient-based objections because it reduces the risk of organ rejection and malfunctioning, and cancels donor-based objections because the practice does not harm chimeras but instead gives them valuable lives they would (...) not otherwise have. The paper examines and eventually rejects the latter defense. It also discusses the additional risks of chimeric xenotourism in countries with less demanding procedural guidelines and reflects on two very different futures for humanity that may emerge from supporting or rejecting chimeric xenotransplantation. (shrink)

The animal entertainment industry includes different practices. Some consist in torturing an animal to death, as in bullfighting and countless other popular traditions, while others involve watching an animal in captivity, which can be another form of torture. Perhaps the most profitable practice is forcing very intelligent animals to perform the same routine several times daily in zoos and aquariums containing marine mammals, or in circuses containing terrestrial mammals. These businesses then present the animals in whatever way that makes the (...) practice appear less immoral, claim to have education and conservation as their mission, and present their entertainment businesses as altruistic charities. Disseminating their misleading discourse is unethical. (shrink)

Individual decisions about how to exercise the legal right to procreative liberty may generate either positive or negative externalities. From within a resource egalitarian perspective, such as that of Ronald Dworkin, it can be argued that procreative justice is asymmetric in the following respect. Justice need not require that parents be subsidised if they produce a public good, yet its ideal achievement may require their activities be taxed if they threaten to produce a public bad.

Thomas Pogge's Global Resources Dividend relies on a flat tax on the use of natural resources to fund the eradication of world poverty. Hillel Steiner's Global Fund taxes the full rental value of owned natural resources and distributes the proceeds equally. The paper compares the Dividend and the Fund and defends the Global Share, a novel proposal that taxes either use or ownership, does so (when possible) progressively, and distributes the revenue according to a prioritarian rather than a sufficientarian or (...) egalitarian principle. (shrink)

Suppose that the basic structures of two societies conform to Rawls’s principles of justice. One of these societies, however, includes—in addition to a just basic structure—an egalitarian ethos that further reduces inequalities that do not benefit the least advantaged. G. A. Cohen and others have argued that the second society is more just, thus rejecting any restriction of Rawls’s principles of justice to the basic structure. Andrew Williams has revived the basic structure restriction in the form of a publicity requirement. (...) This paper highlights various problems with this attempt. In addition, it shows that an egalitarian ethos admits various plausible reformulations that could meet Williams’s publicity requirements. This only amounts to a partial victory for Cohen, however. In fact, the Rawlsian position could come out of this discussion strengthened, not because it can resist the egalitarian critique, but because it can incorporate its essence in the form of a set of more precise and specific public rules. (shrink)

The need to use green taxes to protect the environment is urgent, particularly because of climate change, and can be justified via sound deontological and consequence-based arguments. One very influential criticism of such taxes, however, claims that they disproportionately burden relatively poor individuals who tend to contribute to environmental problems far less than wealthier persons. Critics can also object that because of the link between economic inequality and environmental destruction it is preferable to adopt environmental measures that impede rather than (...) accelerate the growth of inequality. Defusing these criticisms, the article argues that various types of green fiscal reform can both avoid disproportionally burdening those who pollute least and reduce the economic inequalities that income taxes leave behind, and slow down the collectively self-defeating consumption arms race that currently besets so many affluent societies. Global progressive environmental taxation is also a possibility, and even easier to justify. (shrink)

Forty years on, G. A. Cohen’s reconstruction and defence of Marx’s theory of history is still widely, and justifiably, considered the best of its kind, and it remains unsurpassed in clarity, argumentation and textual support. This article presents an under-explored critique of the theory that arises once we recognize that it is meant to apply to the circumstances of women as well as men. The article argues that, when extended to women, the reconstructed theory’s predictions fail to materialize, its characterizations (...) of historical stages fall apart, and its functional explanations appear implausible. In addition, although the theory claims to be able to explain the emergence and diffusion of different ideologies by their effects on productive development, it cannot plausibly explain the presence of sexist ideologies despite their pervasive and profound impact across history. The article concludes by showing that these flaws highlight the many respects in which Cohen’s orthodox version of Marxism is a conservative ideology, and one that egalitarians in particular should view with suspicion. Once we analyse the different components of the theory, the idea of a right-wing Marxism no longer seems as odd as it sounds. (shrink)

G. A. Cohen proposes to eradicate inequality without loss of efficiency or freedom by relying on an egalitarian ethos requiring us to undertake socially useful occupations we would rather not take, and work hard at them, without requesting differential incentive payments. Since the ethos is not legally enforced, Cohen denies it threatens our occupational freedom. Drawing on the work of Joseph Raz, the paper argues that Cohen's proposal threatens our occupational autonomy even if it leaves our legal freedom intact. It (...) also proposes a revised ethos which respects occupational autonomy. (shrink)

Robert Sparrow argues that because of women's longer life expectancy philosophers who advocate the genetic modification of human beings to enhance welfare rather than merely supply therapy are committed to favouring the selection of only female embryos, an implication he deems sufficiently implausible to discredit their position. If Sparrow's argument succeeds, then philosophers who advocate biomedical moral enhancement also seem vulnerable to a similar charge because of men's greater propensity for various forms of harmful wrongdoing. This paper argues there are (...) various flaws in Sparrow's argument that render it unsuccessful. The paper also examines whether dimorphism reduction is a more desirable outcome than male elimination, thereby further illustrating the difficulties besetting the distinction between therapy and enhancement. (shrink)

Although G. A. Cohen's work on Marx was flawed by a lack of gender-awareness, his work on Rawls owes much of its success to feminist inspiration. Cohen appeals effectively to feminism to rebut the basic structure objection to his egalitarian ethos, and could now appeal to feminism in response to Andrew Williams's publicity objection to this ethos. The article argues that Williams's objection is insufficient to rebut Cohen's ethos, inapplicable to variants of this ethos, and in conflict with plausible gender-egalitarian (...) ethoses. The article also advocates an understanding of basic structuralism and publicity consistent with feminism, and argues that Rawlsians need not reject plausible domestic egalitarian ethoses on either publicity or liberty grounds. To Michèle, G. A. Cohen's Harriet Taylor. (shrink)

The current pandemic could give several ape species the final push into extinction. Besides the direct harm the virus may cause to species that are very susceptible to human respiratory pathogens, the pandemic has also brought an economic crisis with lockdowns and absence from usual workplaces, resulting in increased poaching and habitat encroachment. The countries where the remaining apes live cannot shoulder alone the cost of conservation. Other countries with more resources have also contributed to ape extinction and are also (...) implicated in the current pandemic. Moreover, international cooperation is essential for the conservation efforts needed to avoid depriving other hominids of their habitats, their cultures, and their future. (shrink)

G. A. Cohen's critique of Rawls's defence of economic incentives echoes some of J. S. Mill's insights on the subject. Some of Cohen's arguments, however, clash not only with those of Rawls but also with each other as well as with Mill's. A similar charge, however, may be made against Rawls. This article has conciliatory ambitions. It suggests reconciling each author with himself, as well as with each other, by focusing onthe worthof liberty. It stresses the importance of non-pecuniary occupational (...) inequalities and proposes various measures to enhance the worth of the occupational freedom of those with fewer options. (shrink)

The paper develops an account of the value of tradition that completes that of Samuel Scheffler and employs it to discuss whaling and bullfighting. The discussion, however, is applicable to many other practices the paper describes, and its relevance extends also beyond animal ethics. Some of the arguments discussed here for maintaining these traditions appeal to their positive aspects, such as their contribution to social or environmental harmony; other arguments focus on the impermissibility of one group criticizing another group’s practices (...) when its own are vulnerable to comparable criticism. Reflecting on the first kind of argument, the paper responds, building on the work of G. A. Cohen and T. M. Scanlon, that the value of tradition, if any, must be conditional. Reflecting on the second, however, the paper disagrees with Cohen and Scanlon on the impermissibility of casting the first stone. (shrink)

I'm very grateful to receive such long and thoughtful responses from some of the world's most creative and influential moral philosophers. Since I largely agree with Jeff McMahan and Larry Temkin, I will devote most of my scarce space to Rob Sparrow.Sparrow earlier claimed that since women gestate and live longer, enhancers are committed to parents conceiving only girls. To avoid this absurdity, we must reject enhancement and endorse what Sparrow calls “therapy”. I noted we first need to know what (...) “therapy” means, and devised various clarificatory cases. This central aspect of my paper remains unaddressed, with Sparrow admitting his view is ill-defined.1 He also grants his reductio is inapplicable to some enhancement doctrines, implying he provided no case uniquely favouring therapy.Other enhancement doctrines may avoid Sparrow's reductio for different reasons. For example, John Harris noted that enhancers are not committed to enhancing regardless of consequences, including extinction. Sparrow then denies extinction-avoidance provides reasons for individuals. I argued that it is wrong for individuals to contribute to disasters like extinction or climate change. Sparrow now admits this but claims parents may permissibly do so for their children's sake.1 Their children presumably can reciprocate, so family emissions can grow with everybody permissibly taking for others what it remains impermissible for those others to take for themselves. Since this is implausible, Sparrow's argument fails.Sparrow also claimed that a non-individual concern to prevent extinction is akin to Nazi eugenics, and comparable to creating people with barely worth-living lives to feel superior to them. Commenting on the case, I claimed that “the avoidable creation of lives barely worth living is itself abhorrent”.2 McMahan assumed I meant ‘creating such lives is never permissible’,3 but by “avoidable” I meant ‘when creating better …. (shrink)

This paper discusses Philippe Van Parijs’ claim that men’s lack of female longevity constitutes an injustice, whether this is caused by asocial factors or by gendered lifestyles. This response argues that, like others, such as John Kekes and Shlomi Segall, Van Parijs underestimates the resources of egalitarian liberalism to avoid this implication. One explanation treats individuals as liable for gendered life-shortening behavior, for example, when they value either life-shortening lifestyles or the choice between lifestyles, and one ca nnot say society (...) has not “done enough” for them. A second explanation claims a trait is not a relative advantage when it is systematically part of a package of traits that do not constitute a relative advantage. A third explanation claims a trait is not an advantage when its value to the trait bearer is conditional, and the relevant conditions are unlikely to be fulfilled. (shrink)

Outside Europe landlocked states are poor: 16 are extremely poor and another 16 very poor. The Sustainable Development Goals recognise their lack of sea-access as a major cause of their reduced chances of escaping poverty and reaching the stated goals. This paper proposes including corridors to the sea and other forms of sea-access among the SDGs. It also discusses objections to doing so that appeal to the rejection of global egalitarian arguments, to the possibility of compensating those countries for their (...) disadvantage rather than removing it, and to the territorial rights of the coastal countries. The paper concludes that none of these objections to the corridors, and a fortiori to the less ambitious remedies of the Almaty and Vienna Programmes, withstands scrutiny. (shrink)

Introduction to special issue on justice and gender (in)equality in Law, Ethics and Philosophy.

Este artículo discute las implicaciones ético-políticas que han seguido atribuyéndose al darwinismo en las numerosas obras publicadas a raíz del bicentenario del nacimiento de Darwin. Analiza la relación del darwinismo con el materialismo, el marxismo, el darwinismo social, la eugenesia, el conservadurismo, el creacionismo y el ateísmo, distinguiendo las justificadas asociaciones de ciertas hipótesis biológicas con varias tendencias políticas y la injustificada asociación del evolucionismo con distintas ideologías.

A rational moral code must satisfy the condition of completeness. This same condition applies to a set of moral rights, where it takes the form of requiring that all the rights in that set be compossible: that their respective correlatively entailed duties be jointly fulfillable. Such joint fulfillability is guaranteed only by a set of fully differentiated individual domains. And if moral rights are to play any independent role in moral reasoning - any role logically independent of the values that (...) bring persons into conflict - those domains must be determined by rules which are not derived from those values. (shrink)

Este trabajo indaga las resemantizaciones del mito de Venus en tres poetas latinoamericanos: Julián del Casal, Rubén Darío y José Lezama Lima teniendo en cuenta la intertextualidad y las poéticas correspondientes. This paper analyses the Venus myth appropiation into the poetry of Julián del Casal, Rubén Darío and José Lezama Lima considering their poetry and intertextuality.

As I read Paula Casal's excellent paper, ‘Sexual Dimorphism and Human Enhancement,’1 three thoughts kept circulating through my mind. First, I found myself largely in agreement with virtually everything she wrote. In particular, if Casal was being accurate and fair in writing that ‘Robert Sparrow alleges that those who…advocate biomedical welfare enhancements are committed to selecting only female embryos because women live longer than men,’1 then she has given compelling reasons for believing that that claim is, on (...) reflection, as ludicrous as it first sounds! In fact, I can think of many additional reasons to those which Casal forcefully adduced for rejecting the view in question, but I do not see the need to present them here, given the abundance of sufficiently compelling reasons Casal already presented.Second, I confess that as I read Casal's article a strong feeling of shame washed over me in virtue of my being a man! Indeed, I found myself thinking that Jonathan Glover's important and chilling book Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century2 was misleadingly, and somewhat unfairly, titled. Heretofore, when I have read Glover's powerful book, which details many of the twentieth century's worst instances of large-scale crimes against humanity, I have often been overcome by a sense of shame of the actions of my species, homo sapiens; but Casal's article suggests that perhaps the scope of my shame has been too wide, and grossly unfair to the distaff members of our species! In the well-worked expression ‘man's inhumanity to man,’ the second use of the word ‘man’ undoubtedly extends to all humans, but the first use overwhelming picks out men insofar as it denotes the actual flesh and blood perpetrators of the horrific actions in question . Accordingly, perhaps a …. (shrink)

In this paper I address the objection to sufficientarianism posed by Paula Casal and Richard Arneson, that it is hard to conceive of a sufficiency threshold such that distribution is highly important just below it, and not required at all just above it. In order to address this objection, I elaborate on the idea that sufficientarianism structurally can be seen to require two separate thresholds, which may or may not overlap. I then argue that a version of such (...) a view is plausible. Lastly, I distinguish this view from related proposals in the literature. (shrink)

Two of the greatest challenges facing humanity are environmental degradation and the persistence of poverty. Both can be met by instituting a Global Resources Dividend (GRD) that would slow pollution and natural-resource depletion while collecting funds to avert poverty worldwide. Unlike Hillel Steiner's Global Fund, which is presented as a fully just regime governing the use of planetary resources, the GRD is meant as merely a modest but widely acceptable and therefore realistic step toward justice. Paula Casal has (...) set forth various ways in which this step might be improved upon. Solid counter-arguments can be given to her criticisms and suggestions. But to specify the best (effective and realizable) design of an appropriate global institutional mechanism with some confidence, economists, political scientists, jurists, environmental scientists, and activists would need to be drawn in to help think through the immense empirical and political complexities posed by this urgent task. (shrink)

Some philosophers, most notably Julian Savulescu, have argued that potential parents have a moral reason to do what they can to have a child with the highest expected level of well-being.1 This is not just a reason to do what will make a particular child better off than he or she would otherwise be but also a reason to choose, from among different possible children, the one that has the highest expected well-being. The claim that potential parents have such a (...) reason is then often deployed as a premise in arguments in support of genetic enhancement. Robert Sparrow has argued in response that this claim implies that potential parents have a reason to choose to have female children only, primarily because women are genetically disposed to live, on average, 3–7 years longer than men.2 He takes this implication to be a reductio of this particular form of argument in support of human enhancement. In her paper, Sexual dimorphism and human enhancement, Paula Casal seeks to rebut Sparrow's argument and then goes on to suggest that a better case for the selection of female children could be made on grounds of moral enhancement, since women are far less genetically disposed to be violent and aggressive than men.3 Recognising, however, that the creation of only female children would lead to human extinction, she concludes that the way to achieve the best outcome would be to use techniques of genetic modification, should they become available, to make men more like women in certain respects: smaller, less aggressive, less competitive, less violent, less obsessed with sex, less prone to taking great risks, and less likely to die early from accident, combat, or disease.Like Larry Temkin, I am largely in agreement with Casal on these matters. In this short commentary, I …. (shrink)

In this paper, I respond to recent criticisms, by Paula Casal, of my arguments about the implications of John Harris and Julian Savulescu's influential arguments for human enhancement for sex selection. I argue that, despite her protestations, her paper relies upon the idea that parents have a moral obligation to have children that will serve the interests of the nation. Casal’s use of dubious claims about inherent psychological differences between men and women to make her hypothetical case (...) for moral enhancement and her troubling references to “evolved humans” only exacerbate the political dangers involved in the argument for human enhancement. (shrink)

Gerald Allen Cohen was one of the most influential political philosophers of the latter half of the twentieth century. When he died in 2009 Cohen left behind not only a short book and various unpublished papers but an intellectual legacy that will remain alive for many years. Economics and Philosophy initially planned to organize a review symposium devoted to Cohen's posthumous publications. However, the reviews became articles and the original project turned into a larger symposium in memory of Cohen. The (...) editors would like to thank Ian Carter, Paula Casal, Serena Olsaretti and Andrew Williams for working with us on that project as it gradually took shape. We all believe that this is a fitting way to honour a remarkable philosophical career inspired by an unrelenting political passion. (shrink)

Cancer is a chronic disease that causes the most deaths in the world, being a public health problem nowadays. Even though breast cancer affects the daily lives of patients, many women become resilient after the disease, decreasing the impact of the diagnosis. Based on a positive psychology approach, the concept of co-vitality arises understood as a set of socio-emotional competencies that enhance psychological adaptation. In this sense, emotional intelligence is one of the main protective factors associated with resilience. However, it (...) is not always as beneficial as it seems, and can lead to collateral effects on psychological adjustment. Given this controversy, this study aims to find the specific processes through which the dimensions of Perceived Emotional Intelligence can act as a risk or protective factor in the development of resilience. The total sample was 167 women, 46.7% were breast cancer survivors, and 53.3% were healthy controls. The selection of women with breast cancer carries out randomly, recruited through the Oncology Units. The sample completed measures of resilience and PEI, through Resilience Scale and TMMS-24. The results showed that breast cancer survivors showed higher age and greater levels of resilience and mood repair than healthy women. The mediation analysis revealed that breast cancer survival and PEI predicted 28% of the variance of resilience. The direct effects showed that emotional clarity and mood repair increased resilience levels. Although breast cancer did not predict resilience directly, it does through mood repair by an indirect process. Besides, the analysis showed that emotional attention played a role in vulnerability, decreasing mood repair, and resilience. These research support theories that point to a possible dark side of PEI, thus, a great level of emotional attention makes dark the positive effect of mood repair and personal growth if a clear perception of emotions does not complement it. These results provide empirical support concerning the need to work complementary each dimension of PEI to avoid unwanted effects on intrapersonal adjustment. (shrink)

This publication features the stories and experiences of pharmacy professionals who identify as members of historically underrepresented groups. This collection of personal essays presents significant events in the lives of those in the pharmacy community whose experiences have been shaped by their race, ethnicity, gender or gender presentation, sexual orientation, ability, language, mental health, or other factors. The perspectives from the narratives highlight the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the healthcare sector. The authors of the narratives also reflect (...) on their experience to consider what they wish would have happened in the experience, to offer advice for others that may be faced with similar situations. Access to these stories will deepen the collective understanding among pharmacy colleagues, patients, and society of the experiences that individuals from historically underrepresented groups within pharmacy have experienced. (shrink)

Este trabajo explora una línea posible del diálogo entre Walter Benjamin y Hannah Arendt mediante la presentación de algunas intermitencias entre dos figuras relevantes de su pensamiento sobre la historia, la figura que Benjamin determina en su abordaje del Angelus Novus pintado por Paul Klee, y la figura de Er en los términos en que Arendt la elabora a partir de una parábola kafkiana. Retomamos ambas figuras con el objetivo de mostrar en ellas el intento filosófico de organizar un pensamiento (...) crítico que resista la esclerosis del concepto moderno y progresivo de historia: en un contexto en que el pasado pareciera diluirse en la impotencia de su presencia y el futuro se presenta como reproducción apocalíptica del desastre, sostenemos que Benjamin y Arendt convocan al Angelus Novus y al Er kafkiano como imágenes capaces de dislocar el anquilosamiento de la crítica y el flujo epistemológico implicado en la crisis moderna de la experiencia. (shrink)