This study uses techniques from economics to illuminate fundamental questions in ethics, particularly in the foundations of utilitarianism. Topics considered include the nature of teleological ethics, the foundations of decision theory, the value of equality and the moral significance of a person's continuing identity through time.

Normative requirements are often overlooked, but they are central features of the normative world. Rationality is often thought to consist in acting for reasons, but following normative requirements is also a major part of rationality. In particular, correct reasoning – both theoretical and practical – is governed by normative requirements rather than by reasons. This article explains the nature of normative requirements, and gives examples of their importance. It also describes mistakes that philosophers have made as a result of confusing (...) normative requirements with reasons. (shrink)

Two options are incommensurate in value if neither is better than the other, and if a small improvement or worsening of one does not necessarily make it determinately better or worse than the other. If a person faces a sequence of choices between incommensurate options, she may end up with a worse options than she could have had, even though none of her choices are irrational. Yet it seems that rationality should save her from this bad outcome. This is the (...) practical problem posed by incommensurability of values, and it may be solved by a new account of practical reasoning. (shrink)

The object of this paper is to explore the intersection of two issues – both of them of considerable interest in their own right. The first concerns the role that feasibility considerations play in constraining normative claims – claims, say, about what we (individually and collectively) ought to do and to be. This issue has particular relevance for the confrontation of moral philosophy with economics (and social science more generally). The second issue concerns whether normative claims are to be understood (...) as applying only to actions in their own right or (also) non-derivatively to attitudes. Both these issues are ones on which different theorists have taken quite different stands, though we think there is more to be said about them. The point of juxtaposing them lies in the thought that actions and attitudes may be subject to different feasibility constraints – and hence that how we conceive of the role of feasibility in an account of normativity will depend in part on how we conceive of the role of actions and attitudes in normative theorising. (shrink)

Most properties have comparatives, which are relations. For instance, the property of width has the comparative relation denoted by `_ is wider than _'. Let us say a property is reducible to its comparative if any statement that refers to the property has the same meaning as another statement that refers to the comparative instead. Width is not reducible to its comparative. To be sure, many statements that refer to width are reducible: for instance, `The Mississippi is wide' means the (...) same as `The Mississippi is wider than most rivers'. But some statements that refer to width are not reducible: for instance, `Electrons have zero width' is not. A property is not reducible to its comparative if it has absolute degrees, and specifically an absolute zero. A property's comparative relation places things in an order from those that have the property least to those that have it most. If there is an absolute zero point somewhere in this ordering, the property is not reducible to its comparative. For width, there is an absolute zero at one end of the ordering, so width is not reducible. The property of goodness is reducible to its comparative, betterness. In particular, there is no absolute zero of goodness. Things are ordered by betterness – some things are better than others – but nothing is absolutely good or absolutely bad. This is an exaggeration. In certain applications, goodness does have absolute degrees of a sort, and an absolute zero. For instance, it makes sense to say an event is good, and another event bad. These are absolute degrees of a sort, but they are themselves reducible to betterness. To say an event is good simply means the event is better than what would otherwise have happened. The goodness of lives has a different sort of absolute zero. Lives are ordered by betterness; some lives are better than others. We can make sense of the question `Where in this ordering is the division between lives that are good and those that are bad?' The division between good and bad lives is again reducible to betterness. To say a person's life is good means it is better that the person should continue living, rather than that she should die. Or it may mean it is better that her life should be lived rather than that it should never have been lived at all. As it is often put: a good life is a life worth living. Derek Parfit appears to attach a different sense to the idea of a good life. He appears to mean a life that contains a preponderance of good things (such as pleasure) over bad things (such as pain). If a life contains no good things and no bad things, it has zero goodness in this sense. In this sense, absolute goodness and the absolute zero of goodness are not reducible to betterness. However, this is a naturalistic sense of goodness, and it is subject to the open-question objection. If a life contains no good things and no bad things, it is an open question whether it has zero goodness. It might, for instance, be a bad thing that this life should be lived. In discussing the evil of death, some philosophers seem to have been searching for an absolute goodness that is not reducible to betterness. Thomas Nagel speaks of an asymmetry between what is good about life and what is bad about death. But if a person's life is good, that only means it would be better that she should continue living than that she should die. And if a person's death would be bad, that only means it would be worse that she should die than that she should continue living. So there can be no asymmetry. (shrink)

This book chapter is not available in ORA, but you may download, display, print and reproduce this chapter in unaltered form only for your personal, non-commercial use or use within your organization from the ANU E Press website.

This paper argues for psychological realism in the conception of psychiatric disorders. We review the following contemporary ways of understanding the future of psychiatry: (1) psychiatric classification cannot be successfully reduced to neurobiology, and thus psychiatric disorders should not be conceived of as biological kinds; (2) psychiatric classification can be successfully reduced to neurobiology, and thus psychiatric disorders should be conceived of as biological kinds. Position (1) can lead either to instrumentalism or to eliminativism about psychiatry, depending on whether psychiatric (...) classification is regarded as useful. Position (2), which is inspired by the growing interest in neuroscience within scientific psychiatry, leads to biological realism or essentialism. In this paper we endorse a different realist position, which we label psychological realism. Psychiatric disorders are identified and addressed on the basis of their psychological manifestations which are often described as violations of epistemic, moral or social norms. A couple of examples are proposed by reference to the pathological aspects of delusions, and the factors contributing to their formation. (shrink)

Schuklenk and van de Vathorst's paper is a very welcome addition to the literature on the assisted dying debate and will be of great interest to clinicians working in the field of mental health.1 Many psychiatrists will have had patients who have asked them to allow them to die, to desist in their efforts to prevent their suicide, and one of us has had personal experience, outside of professional life, of being asked to aid in someone's attempt to end their (...) life in the context of an episode of mood disorder. The person with depression asking professionals, friends and family members to aid them in ending their life is a very real phenomenon. In their discussion, Schuklenk and van de Vathorst's paper uses two principles that we endorse and add weight to their argument: namely, the reality of suffering in depression and the parity of mental and physical illness. Indeed, the case Schuklenk and van de Vathorst make is a strong one and our commentary will focus on the premise of the argument around choosing death and some empirical clarification about competence in depression and the nature of treatment-resistant depression (TRD) and its prognosis. The conceptual concern we wish to discuss in relation to assisted dying, endorsed by the state and legislature, is not linked to any moral or religious concern, or even on grounds related to ‘slippery slope’ or ‘abuse’ arguments. Rather the worry is how one could operationalise decisions around assisted dying as based on competence and capacity and view such decisions as rational. I think this concern is not limited to depressive illness, but to all decisions regarding choosing non-existence. Schuklenk and van de Vathorst offer the following useful criteria to regulate assisted suicide:1. (shrink)

This chapter surveys some of the issues that arise in policy making when the wellbeing of future generations must be taken into account. It analyses the discounting of future wellbeing, and considers whether it is permissible. It argues that the effects of policy on the number of future people should not be ignored, and it considers what is an appropriate basis for setting a value on these effects. It considers the implications of the non-identity effect for intergenerational justice and for (...) the Pareto principle. (shrink)

Brings together and interprets previously hard-to-find texts, new translations and passages detailing the interplay between philosophy and psychopathology.

The Tanner Lectures are a collection of educational and scientific discussions relating to human values. Conducted by leaders in their fields, the lectures are presented at prestigious educational facilities around the world.

Intuition suggests there is no value in adding people to the population if it brings no benefits to people already living: creating people is morally neutral in itself. This paper examines the difficulties of incorporating this intuition into a coherent theory of the value of population. It takes three existing theories within welfare economics - average utilitarianism, relativist utilitarianism, and critical-level utilitarianism - and considers whether they can satisfactorily accommodate the intuition that creating people is neutral.

In 2002, Bernard Williams delivered a lecture that revisited the arguments of his article 'Ought and moral obligation', published in his Moral Luck. The lecture attributed to the earlier article the thesis that there are no ‘personal’ or (as I put it) ‘owned’ oughts. It also rejected this thesis. This paper explains the idea of an owned ought, and supports Williams’s lecture in asserting that there are owned oughts. It also examines the question of how accurately Williams’s later lecture interprets (...) his earlier article. (shrink)

Like all reasoning, practical reasoning is a process that takes a person from some of her existing mental states to a new mental state. Theoretical reasoning concludes in a belief; practical reasoning in an intention. This paper concentrates on instrumental reasoning, a species of practical reasoning in general. It argues that instrumental reasoning is correct if the content of the reasoning is a valid derivation, just as theoretical reasoning is correct if its content is a valid derivation. It also argues (...) that neither theoretical nor practical reasoning gives a reason for its conclusion. If a piece of reasoning is correct, it concludes in a state - a belief or an intention - that is rationally required by the states it is derived from, but rationally requiring a conclusion is not the same as giving a reason for it. (shrink)

Our focus in this chapter is to address some of the philosophical issues that arise in the scientific and clinical study of the prodromal phase of psychosis. We discuss issues from both metaphysics and philosophy of science as we all as those related to phenomenological approaches and clinical ethics. A clear challenge arises in considering how models of a continuum of psychosis and of schizophrenia as a neurodevelopmental disorder can be reconciled with a scientific understanding of the prodrome as a (...) discrete constellation of signs and symptoms. Clinical and research work on the prodromal stage of psychosis also highlights ethical concerns. Demarcating a mental disorder and applying therapeutic interventions, based solely on risk estimation, should not be carried out lightly. (shrink)

Commentary on the editorial by D Stein et al.'s "What is a Mental/Psychiatric Disorder? From DSM-IV to DSM-V".

I am extremely grateful to the five commentators for readingmy book and offering such interesting thoughts in reaction. Shortage of space may make my responses seem brusque. But of course they are not meant to be.