I argue that hope is a virtue insofar as it leads to a more realistic view of the future than dispositions like optimism and pessimism, promotes courage, and encourages an important kind of solidarity with others. In light of this proposal, I consider the relationship between hope and our beliefs about what is good as well as the conditions under which hope may fail to be a virtue.

This article explores the significance of authenticity for debates about the ethics of enhancement. According to the view defended here, what lies at the heart of authenticity is a disdain for phoniness or fakery – two notions which essentially concern the way we present ourselves to others and, in turn, the way we are viewed by those others. Being authentic thus requires that we not pretend to be something or someone we are not or otherwise represent ourselves falsely to the (...) outside world. As far as authenticity is concerned, then, the primary ethical challenge to the use of enhancements is to those uses that are hidden or unacknowledged – instances in which individuals represent themselves as having achieved or become something without technological assistance when, in fact, the converse is true. One is not undermining one's authentic self when one uses technology to accomplish a particular goal or undergoes some procedure to alter oneself, even quite radically. Rather, one is only being inauthentic to the degree that one passes off oneself and one's achievements as something they are not. (shrink)

Two challenges have lately been posed to the importance of sincerity for our public discourse. On the one hand, it has been suggested that because sincerity is so difficult to identify, a preoccupation with the inner lives of others distracts us from the substance of what people say. On the other hand, some worry that making sincere statements can sometimes undermine the very deliberation that advocates of sincerity are so concerned to protect. In light of these challenges, I attempt to (...) analyze our interest in sincerity in terms of a concern for solidarity with our fellow citizens. I then argue that focusing on the sincerity of various assertions is not a good way to promote social cohesion and that this concern is better addressed by looking at the commitment that others have to the process of democratic deliberation. (shrink)

This paper examines the relationship between monadic and bipolar forms of normativity. As the distinction is usually drawn, monadic normativity concerns whether a given action is right or wrong while bipolar normativity concerns who, if anyone, is wronged in any putative instance of wrongdoing. My central thesis is that in the moral realm, we do well to discard the notion of monadic normativity altogether and focus instead on the contours and limits of bipolar normativity. For by placing greater weight on (...) the significance of wronging particular others, as opposed to simply doing something wrong, we get a more compelling picture of the distinctive importance of morality and its relationship to other norms that govern our lives. (shrink)

This paper explores the debate between personists, who argue that the concept of a person if of central importance for moral thought, and personists, who argue that the concept of a human being is of greater moral significance. On the one hand, it argues that normative naturalism, the most ambitious defense of the humanist position, fails to identify moral standards with standards of human behavior and thereby fails to undermine the moral significance of personhood. At the same time, it contends (...) that a more focused attention on the morally relevant features of human life may indeed play a crucial role in enhancing our moral understanding. (shrink)

Those who have discussed hopefulness as a general quality of character have tended to regard it as something importantly different from the maintenance of particular hopes about the future. I contend that this approach is mistaken and that we should instead regard one as hopeful to the degree that one nurtures a specific hope, namely, the hope that the future will be good. Thus, rather than attempting to locate hopefulness in personality traits that do not directly concern the maintenance of (...) particular hopes, I instead argue that nurturing the hope for a good future is sufficient to ground many of the other qualities that we associate with hopeful people. (shrink)

Those who argue against physician participation in state mandated executions tend to bracket the question of whether the death penalty should be abolished. I argue that these issues cannot be neatly separated. On the one hand, if justice demands that some criminals be executed for their crimes, then there can be no ethical or moral barrier to the participation of physicians in the execution process. On the other hand, I contend that the testimony and expertise of the medical community is (...) a necessary component of any fruitful reflection on whether capital punishment is, in fact, just. Thus, although the justice of capital punishment may render it permissible for physicians to participate in the execution process, the experience of physicians also sheds important light on whether the death penalty is morally justified. (shrink)

This paper explores Descartes's work with an eye towards abiding issues in moral epistemology. In so doing, I focus on the role played by the so-called provisional morality that surfaces in "Discourse on the Method". What I argue is that despite the tenuousness with which it seems to be held, Descartes remained committed to the truth of this morality even in the midst of his most strenuous philosophical reflections. Put in the contemporary epistemological terms which provide the context of my (...) discussion, I argue that Descartes believed in the goodness of his provisional morality as opposed to merely accepting its maxims. (shrink)

Many inquiries into the scope of moral value try to adopt an impersonal perspective on the world—that is, a perspective that abstracts away from the particularities of our personal experience and attempts to view the world from no place within it. In contrast to this approach, I argue that our investigation into the nature and scope of moral value should proceed from a more thoroughly personal standpoint by taking seriously our moral experience and the relational possibilities that obtain among various (...) entities. (shrink)

I contend that hope can be of significant value to individuals even as they acknowledge that there is no cure for their affliction. In particular, I argue that it is good for such patients to hope for a meaningful quality of life in their remaining days and a good death. If this thesis is on target, then there is an important place for clinicians to employ the language of hope with reference to ends other than a cure. I then conclude (...) with a few schematic comments on how the clinical aims discussed here might figure in a broader understanding of hope as a virtue. (shrink)

Volume 47, Issue 1, March 2020, Page 146-150.

Volume 47, Issue 1, March 2020, Page 146-150.

There is a puzzle about how we might sensibly love someone as the particular person she is despite changes in that person’s characteristics that are sometimes radical. In light of this puzzle, I argue that our most intimate relationships are centered around historical relational properties that serve two important functions. On the one hand, they render individuals irreplaceable to us. On the other, they constitute individuals as the particular persons they are. If this account is plausible, then to love another (...) because she is the person she is is not to love her because of her characteristics. Rather, it is to love her in light of a unique history that cannot be shared with anyone else and has made her who she is. (shrink)

Consider the following examples of political activity: Immediately upon the recent passage of health care reform legislation by the United States House of Representatives, announcements were made by attorneys general in several states that they would be challenging the constitutionality of the law in court. South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster thus contended that the "health care legislation Congress passed tonight is an assault against the Constitution. A legal challenge by the states appears to be the only hope of protecting (...) the American people from this unprecedented attack on our system of government." While the specifics of the proposed lawsuits varied, they were united in their goal of overturning the new law via court decision. In so doing, they were advancing a particular line of argument against that bill to the public—an argument that appealed to the alleged conflict between the legislation and the United States Constitution. (shrink)

In today's sometimes volatile political climate, one often hears the charge that some issue or other has been politicized. The claim, when made, almost always constitutes an accusation that something illicit or immoral has been perpetrated by one's political opponents. Thus, writing in the congressional newspaper The Hill prior to the 2006 midterm elections, columnist Josh Marshall contends that "President Bush has politicized national security policy and used foreign policy to divide the country more than any president in modern American (...) history. It'll be a big part of what I believe will be the very dark verdict history will render on his presidency.". (shrink)