Democracy is emerging as the political system of choice throughout the world. Peoples now freed from the shackles of totalitarian systems seek to share the benefits made possible by democracy in its "home bases" in North America and Western Europe. Yet, paradoxically, in the last decade liberal democracy has been subjected to an onslaught of criticism from thinkers at its "home bases". Criticisms of democracy have been informed by scholarship in feminism, postmodernism and communitarianism as well as the revived interest (...) in applying ethics to public policy. These criticisms raise important questions about the traditional values - liberalism, neutrality or equality, autonomy, and human rights - thought to justify democracy. They also raise questions about the success of democratic systems in promoting alternative values and in protecting lifestyles not desired by majorities. This anthology contains essays by authors at the forefront of the controversy as well as by acute observers of the processes by which "democratic" public policy is formed. The essays include criticisms of democratic theory and practice, defences of liberalism (the set of values often thought to ground democracy), calls for major revisions of democratic institutions and practices, and recommendations for new ways of understanding our rights and responsibilities as members of democratic communities. Show More Show Less. (shrink)

Is public policy ethics possible and, if so, is it desirable? This twofold question can – and sometimes does — elicit a smile or a frown. The smile implies that ethical theorizing rests on a naïve idea of policy-making; the frown implies that there is something tasteless or incongruous in expecting philosophy to engage with problems of policy and with the political bargaining and compromise that policy-making often involves. These reactions – familiar to many working in this academic (...) discipline – point to the ways in which ethics and public policy have been taken to be separate areas of practical concern and theoretical inquiry. (shrink)

Experts often tout highly subjective methods of policy analysis as scientific and value‐free. In The Myth of Scientific Public Policy, Robert Formaini exposes the uncertainties in two of these methods, cost‐benefit analysis and risk assessment. Because of these deficiencies, he concludes that ethics and political philosophy, not science, are the proper foundation for public policy. While Formaini is right to emphasize the value‐ladenness of cost‐benefit analysis and risk assessment, his rejection of scientific methods of policy analysis is (...) questionable. His criticisms, especially in his study of the swine‐ßu case, seem to establish that experts have misused such methods, not that the methods themselves are seriously ßawed. Also, his rejection of cost‐benefit analysis and risk assessment would be more realistic if he offered a well‐developed alternative to these two methods. One such alternative, for example, is ethically weighted cost‐benefit analysis. (shrink)

Most philosophers and political scientists readily admit that Thomas Hobbes is a significant figure in the history of political thought. His theory was, arguably, one of the first to provide a justification for political legitimacy from the perspective of each individual subject. What has been largely missing in the literature, however, is the application of Hobbesian theory to a variety of current issues in both public policy and applied ethics. The essays in this volume, written by some (...) of the top Hobbesian scholars in the world, provide fresh perspectives on a litany of intransigent local, political, and international issues in applied ethics and public policy. The topics addressed in _Hobbesian Applied Ethics and Public Policy _include the right to die, abortion, same-sex marriage, free speech, terrorism, and international justice. This book will be of interest to Hobbesian scholars, as well as those interested in contemporary issues in applied ethics, political philosophy, and public policy. (shrink)

At the mid-point of the twentieth century, many philosophers in the English-speaking world regarded political and moral philosophy as all but moribund. Thinkers influenced by logical positivism believe that ethical statements are merely disguised expressions of individual emotion lacking propositional force, or that the conditions for the validation of ethical statements could not be specified, or that their content, however humanly meaningful, is inexpressible. Philosophical Dimensions of Public Policy presents thirty-four articles written by research scholars numerous fields-philosophy, political theory, (...) medicine, law, biology, economics, ecology and sociology-treating a broad range of topics in practical philosophy. The Institute for Philosophy and Public Affairs has been home for these ideas, pioneering a distinctive method of conducting inquiry into the moral dimensions of public life, and contributing to public discussion and deliberation. Members of the Institute reject the idea that public philosophy means reaching into the philosopher's tool-kit and "applying" prefabricated theories to particular problems. They set in motion a dialogue between the distinctive moral features of practical problems and the more general moral theories or considerations that seem most likely to elucidate these problems. The volume is divided into five areas: "Politics, Civic Life, and Moral Education"; "Diversity, Identity, and Equal Opportunity"; "Human Rights, Development Ethics, and International Justice"; "Biotechnology, Genetic Research, and Health Policy"; and "Natural Environment, Human Communities." Philosophical Dimensions of Public Policy presents empirical data and philosophical arguments with the intention of informing public policy and public deliberation. Scholars as well as graduate and undergraduate students are certain to find it useful to their research work. Verna V. Gehring is editor at the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at the School of Public Affairs, University of Maryland. She serves as editor of Philosophy & Public Policy Quarterly, reviewer of ethics manuscripts for Oxford University Press, and moderator for the Aspen Institute. William A. Galston is director at the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at the School of Public Affairs, University of Maryland. He is a political theorist who both studies and participates in American politics and domestic policy. Galston is the author of nearly one hundred articles on moral and political theory, American politics, and public policy, and the author of five books, including Liberal Purposes. (shrink)

Animals, Equality and Democracy examines the structure of animal protection legislation and finds that it is deeply inequitable, with a tendency to favor those animals the community is most likely to see and engage with. Siobhan O'Sullivan argues that these inequities violate fundamental principle of justice and transparency.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Religious Voices in Public PlacesTimothy A Beach-VerheyReligious Voices in Public Places Edited by Nigel Biggar and Linda Hogan New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. 330 pp. $53.91Religious Voices in Public Places grew out of a conference at the University of Leeds in 2003. It makes an important contribution to continuing debates about religion and contemporary liberalism. Acknowledging that John Rawls provides the paradigmatic model for (...) articulating modern liberal ideals, the authors take [End Page 203] his work as a starting point; yet through critical engagement with his work, they move the discussion about liberal ideals forward in new directions. Although they recognize that the United States has long stood as the classical instance of a liberal polity, they widen their attention to other liberal nations that have different ways of relating to the religious sphere.The book is helpfully divided into four parts dealing with philosophical views, theological views, public policy issues, and national contexts. Each section investigates the proper role of religious voices in an increasingly global and pluralistic political environment. While the authors bring different perspectives to this principle concern, they all tend to agree that religious voices contribute to public discourse and that liberal democracy does not require their exclusion. “Indeed,” as Linda Hogan writes in the introduction, “running throughout the volume is an affinity for approaches that believe that the route to a durable political culture lies in serious and systematic engagement with different, and even opposing, comprehensive doctrines” (7).The essays in the section on philosophical views engage critically with John Rawls. Nicholas Wolterstorff and Raymond Plant each argue that Rawls’s version of public reason requires a degree of moral consensus that is both unrealistic and illiberal. Rawls’s view of public reason, they argue, stacks the deck in favor of particular (liberal) assumptions, making its ideals of freedom and equality a sham. In turn, Maureen Junker-Kenny looks for a more adequate conception of public reasoning in the discourse ethics of Jürgen Habermas. In the section on theological views, Luke Bretherton, P. Travis Kroeker, and Robert Gascoigne mine the Christian tradition for resources that engage pluralistic societies in ways that neither retreat into particularistic enclaves nor jettison Christianity’s distinctive faith for the sake of intelligibility. In their various ways, they call into question the prevailing view that religious convictions are a threat to a pluralistic society that values freedom, equality, and solidarity. In the section on public policy, Nigel Biggar, Paul Weithman, and Linda Hogan examine these questions through the lens of physician-assisted suicide, religion in public education, and international human rights; they make cogent arguments for including religious perspectives, in all their complexity and multiplicity, in the political life and public discourse of liberal democratic societies. The last section, on particular national contexts, makes it clear that there is more than one way for liberal societies to deal with religious voices. Peter Sedgwick examines the role of the Anglican Church in English public life; Brian Stiltner and Steven Michels study the role of religion in US political campaigns; and Jocelyne Cesari compares the way different liberal democratic polities in the West have responded to the expanding role of Islam in their societies.This fine volume of essays demonstrates that the discussion about religion and public life is moving beyond the stale binary categories of secular liberalism [End Page 204] and religious traditionalism. These essays exemplify and contribute to the more interesting discussion that is beginning to take place as we leave behind simplistic models in favor of more nuanced, rich, and realistic assessments of public discourse and political decision making in an increasingly diverse yet interdependent social environment. Nigel Biggar and Linda Hogan are to be thanked and commended for bringing this volume to fruition.Timothy A Beach-VerheyFaison Presbyterian ChurchCopyright © 2012 The Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

In writing Equal Citizenship and Public Reason, we aimed to show that political liberalism is a feminist liberalism. To that end, we develop and defend a particular understanding of the commitments of political liberalism. Then, we argue that certain laws and policies are needed to protect and secure the interests of persons as free and equal citizens. We focus on the laws and policies that we think are necessary for gender justice. In particular, we apply our view to the (...) contexts of prostitution law, family and marriage law, state support for caregivers, and religious exemptions from generally applicable laws. In this article, we consider some of the challenges made by the thoughtful critics who are part of this symposium. In particular, we address: why the collective enterprise view of liberal democracy requires shared reasons for the justification of certain laws and policies; how we understand substantive equality and why our understanding of substantive equality does not commit us to a comprehensive doctrine; how we avoid defending a particular political conception of justice in showing that political liberalism is a feminist liberalism; and how it is that, given justice pluralism, public reasons can provide stability for the right reasons. (shrink)

The ethics of voting is a new field of academic research, uniting debates in ethics and public policy, democratic theory and more empirical studies of politics. A central question in this emerging field is whether or not voters should be legally required to vote. This chapter examines different arguments on behalf of compulsory voting, arguing that these do not generally succeed, although compulsory voting might be justified in certain special cases. However, adequately specifying the forms of voluntary (...) voting that are consistent with democratic norms is likely to be philosophically complex and politically controversial. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Climate Justice: Ethics, Energy, and Public PolicyWillis JenkinsClimate Justice: Ethics, Energy, and Public Policy James Martin-Schramm Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010. 232 pp. $20.00Religious ethicists are sometimes tempted to interpret climate change as symptomatic of a civilizational corruption so deep that practical responsibility seems nearly impossible. In its considered treatment of energy options and policy responses, [End Page 198] Climate Justice works to make (...) class='Hi'>applied Christian ethics competent to address climate change. By interpreting political possibilities with Christian commitments to justice, the book makes a distinctively practical contribution to the literature on Christianity and climate; it lifts an important theological voice in the growing subfield of climate ethics.The book begins by elaborating the general notion of ecological justice into workable criteria. Martin-Schramm describes four basic norms of ecojustice (sustainability, sufficiency, participation, and solidarity), from which he develops twelve energy policy guidelines (e.g., equity, adequacy). He then specifies those guidelines into fourteen criteria by which to assess the justice of climate action (e.g., historical responsibility, emissions verifiability).Subsequent chapters use those criteria to evaluate policy options. A chief difficulty in applying them lies in the tension between intergenerational and intragenerational claims. Global climate negotiations founder on disagreements about these undeveloped, plural dimensions of justice. Martin-Schramm therefore deploys criteria with a balancing objective: to develop obligations to the future while recognizing claims of the present poor and vulnerable, and while keeping the result within the bounds of North American political viability.For example, Martin-Schramm recognizes that the criterion of historical responsibility indicates that the United States should bear about one-third of the costs of climate transition. But he finds that the resulting figure ($331 billion) so outstrips realistic acceptance that he rejects financial transfer in favor of a “national obligation wedge” in which the nation compensates by pledging to reduce future emissions. Since those emission reductions are unlikely apart from a price on carbon, Martin-Schramm argues that justice mandates a fossil fuel tax. With an eye to political viability, he proposes beginning with a modest $5/ton (for comparison, the Stern Report estimates the social costs of carbon at $85/ton).Controversy in the details matters to the whole project because the point of Martin-Schramm’s approach is that a meaningful climate ethic should guide contextual action. Yet other accounts of climate justice will find a scandal of modesty on those contextual points. Martin-Schramm’s climate justice entails less economic transformation than the “Northern structural adjustment” demanded by the Latin American Council of Churches. It is also less ecocentric than accounts from indigenous theologians arguing that justice warrants rights for species at risk of extinction, and perhaps for Earth itself.While Climate Justice is a self-consciously North American account, the criteria it develops would be different and work more critically were the underlying account of justice dialogically constructed across economic, political, and theological borders. Were it pragmatic, in the sense of arising from projects from across those borders, rather than applied deductively, a Christian climate ethic would likely produce an account of justice with more critical demands on industrial infrastructure and on ecological consciousness. [End Page 199]In its self-limitation, however, lies the book’s practical promise. Martin-Schramm wants justice to illuminate effective ways toward real responsibility. His criteria for justice imply that advocating for impossible goals, or for objectives that would imperil other conditions of social justice, would amount to injustice. Making ethics matter for climate change, he shows, requires understanding what justice can do in context.The open question for this book’s project is how a self-limited ethic of applied justice relates to the deeper processes of social transformation obviously needed for adequate response. Martin-Schramm closes with an account of his work reforming the energy economy of Luther College, which should inspire every reader with a sense of what persistent, informed, and contextual action can accomplish.Willis JenkinsYale Divinity SchoolCopyright © 2012 The Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

This article takes a parsimonious conception of a developed State operating under a minimalist conception of democracy and asks whether such a State must fully resource any tertiary (post-compulsory) education for its citizens A key public policy barrier to arguing an absolute obligation for the State to resource any tertiary education is considered; namely, the fact of scarce resources creating competing obligations for the State. This article argues even a minimalist conception of democracy requires that States fully resource some (...) tertiary (post-compulsory) education, regardless of whether directing resources away from other public needs results in the non-prevention of some avoidable suffering and death. A policy recommendation for resourcing this education is considered, and an alternative policy proposed. (shrink)

Mark Cherry’s Kidney for Sale by Owner is a book that illustrates how to do applied ethics right. Mark Cherry recognizes the important role of empirical facts in bridging a gap between our moral prescriptions, and our public policy or institutional prescriptions. In Kidney for Sale by Owner this method is on full display. While there is nothing the matter with Ideal Theory, we stand in need of what might be called bridge principles between the ideals of (...) justice and some specific set of institutions that, we intend and hope, will actually realize those ideals. The bridge between Ideal and Actual will consist of empirical facts that require the tools of the social scientists. (shrink)

Mark Cherry’s Kidney for Sale by Owner is a book that illustrates how to do applied ethics right. Mark Cherry recognizes the important role of empirical facts in bridging a gap between our moral prescriptions, and our public policy or institutional prescriptions. In Kidney for Sale by Owner this method is on full display. While there is nothing the matter with Ideal Theory, we stand in need of what might be called bridge principles between the ideals of (...) justice and some specific set of institutions that, we intend and hope, will actually realize those ideals. The bridge between Ideal and Actual will consist of empirical facts that require the tools of the social scientists. (shrink)

Background The world is urbanizing rapidly; more than half the world’s population now lives in urban areas, leading to significant transition in lifestyles and social behaviours globally. While offering many advantages, urban environments also concentrate health risks and introduce health hazards for the poor. In Bangladesh, although many public policies are directed towards equity and protecting people’s rights, these are not comprehensively and inclusively applied in ways that prioritize the health rights of citizens. The country is thus facing (...) many issues that raise moral and ethical concerns. Methods A narrative literature review was conducted between October 2016 and November 2017 on issues related to social justice, health, and human rights in urban Bangladesh. The key questions discussed here are: i) ethical dilemmas and inclusion of the urban poor to pursue social justice; and ii) the ethical obligations and moral responsibilities of the state and non-state sectors in serving Bangladesh’s urban poor. Using a Rawlsian theory of equality of opportunity to ensure social justice, we identified key health-related ethical issues in the country’s rapidly changing urban landscape, especially among the poor. Results We examined ethical dilemmas in Bangladesh’s health system through the rural–urban divide and the lack of coordination among implementing agencies. The unregulated profusion of the private sector and immoral practices of service providers result in high out-of-pocket expenditures for urban poor, leading to debt and further impoverishment. We also highlight policy and programmatic gaps, as well as entry points for safeguarding the right to health for Bangladeshi citizens. Conclusions The urban health system in Bangladesh needs a reform in which state and non-state actors should work together, understanding and acknowledging their moral responsibilities for improving the health of the urban poor by engaging multiple sectors. The social determinants of health should be taken into account when formulating policies and programs to achieve universal health coverage and ensure social justice for the urban poor in Bangladesh. (shrink)

Who is to be included in a political community and on what terms? William A. Barbieri Jr. seeks answers to these questions in this exploration of the controversial concept of citizenship rights—a concept directly related to the nature of democracy, equality, and cultural identity. Through an examination of the case of Germany’s settled “guestworkers” and their families, _Ethics of Citizenship_ investigates the pressing problem of political membership in a world marked by increased migration, rising nationalist sentiment, and the ongoing reorganization (...) of states through both peaceful and violent means. Although some of Germany’s foreign workers have gradually attained a degree of social and economic legitimacy, Barbieri explains how they remain effectively excluded from true German citizenship. Describing how this exclusion has occurred and assessing current attitudes toward political membership in Germany, he argues for a just and democratic policy toward the tax-paying, migrant worker minority, one that would combine the extension of the individual rights of citizenship with the establishment of certain group rights. Through a dissection of ongoing public “membership debates” over issues such as suffrage, dual citizenship, and immigration and refugee policy, Barbieri identifies a range of competing responses to the question of who “belongs” in Germany. After critiquing these views, he proposes an alternative ethic of membership rooted in an account of domination and human rights that seeks to balance individual and group rights within the context of a commitment to democracy and equal citizenship. Indispensable for scholars of German studies, _Ethics of Citizenship_ also raises questions that will attract moral philosophers, constitutional scholars, and those interested in the continuing, global problems associated with migration. (shrink)

In Western political philosophy, democracy is generally the dominant view regarding what the best form of government is, and this holds even in respect to promoting minority rights. However, I argue that there is a better theory for satisfying minority interests and rights. I amass numerous studies from the social sciences demonstrating how democracy does poorly in accounting for minority interests. I then contend that a particular hybrid view that fuses a meritocracy with democracy can do a better job than (...) democracy in accounting for minority interests and in having more equal rights and fair policies coming from the legislative and executive branches. Finally, I defend this thesis from numerous counters. (shrink)

Current developments in biomedicine are presenting us with difficult ethical decisions and raising complex policy questions about how to regulate these new developments. Particularly vexing for governments have been issues related to human embryo experimentation. Because some of the most promising biomedical developments, such as stem cell research and nuclear somatic transfer, involve such experimentation, several international bodies have drafted documents aimed to provide guidance to governments when developing biomedical science policy. Here I focus on two such documents: the Council (...) of Europe's Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being and the Additional Protocol to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being.I argue that by using human dignity as a criterion to determine the permissibility of particular human embryo research practices, these documents cannot aid in identifying research that would be contrary to human dignity. Thus, they fail to guide public policy on embryo experimentation. Their use of human dignity as a criterion makes their task of offering guidance unfeasible because the concept as used in these documents is too vague and is applied in contradictory ways. I discuss the main goals of these documents and their claims in relation to human embryo research. I then discuss how they have influenced public policy in several countries. Finally, I show that although these Council of Europe treaties attempt to serve as public policy guides in the area of embryo research, they fail to do so. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that environmental risk is a strategic situation that places the individual citizen in the position of an imprisoned rider who is being exploited without his or her knowledge by the preferences of others. I contend that what is at stake in policy decisions regarding environmental risk is not numerical probabilities or consistent, complete, transitive preferences for individual welfare, but rather respect for the human agency of the individual. Human agency is a prerequisite to one’s utility (...) function and is threatened and exploited in the strategic situation that produces the imprisoned rider. This problem is created by the policy maker’s assumption that his or her task is to assume rational preferences and aggregate them. The guidelines for evaluation and justification of policy should move beyondwelfare preferences and involve an active state protecting human agency and empowering the imprisoned rider. Only in this way can we free all citizens from fear of exploitation by those who would impose collective and irreversible risk on each of them in violation of their unconditional right to their own agency. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that environmental risk is a strategic situation that places the individual citizen in the position of an imprisoned rider who is being exploited without his or her knowledge by the preferences of others. I contend that what is at stake in policy decisions regarding environmental risk is not numerical probabilities or consistent, complete, transitive preferences for individual welfare, but rather respect for the human agency of the individual. Human agency is a prerequisite to one’s utility (...) function and is threatened and exploited in the strategic situation that produces the imprisoned rider. This problem is created by the policy maker’s assumption that his or her task is to assume rational preferences and aggregate them. The guidelines for evaluation and justification of policy should move beyondwelfare preferences and involve an active state protecting human agency and empowering the imprisoned rider. Only in this way can we free all citizens (a priori) from fear of exploitation by those who would impose collective and irreversible risk on each of them in violation of their unconditional right to their own agency. (shrink)

Public protest continued to represent a prominent form of social activism in democratic societies during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Australia, a lack of specific legislation articulating protest rights has meant that, in the context of pandemic restrictions, such events have been treated as illegal mass gatherings. Numerous large protests in major cities have, indeed, stirred significant public debate regarding rights of assembly during COVID-19 outbreaks. The ethics of infringing on protest rights continues to be controversial, with opinion (...) divided as to whether public health goals or human rights should take precedence. This paper applies public health ethical theory to an in-depth analysis of arguments on both sides of the debate. Using the Nuffield Council on Bioethics framework as a backdrop, proportionality and necessity of restrictions are understood as key concepts that are common to both public health and human rights perspectives. The analysis presented here finds a middle-ground between the prevailing arguments on opposing sides and is further able to rationalize the use of protest itself as an important element of a mature public health ethics response to restrictive policy. Thus, this paper aims to influence public health policy and legislation regarding protest rights during public health emergencies. (shrink)

This book shows through argument and numerous policy-related examples how understanding moral philosophy can improve economic analysis, how moral philosophy can benefit from economists' analytical tools, and how economic analysis and moral philosophy together can inform public policy. Part I explores the idea of rationality and its connections to ethics, arguing that when they defend their formal model of rationality, most economists implicitly espouse contestable moral principles. Part II addresses the nature and measurement of welfare, utilitarianism and cost-benefit (...) analysis. Part III discusses freedom, rights, equality, and justice - moral notions that are relevant to evaluating policies, but which have played little if any role in conventional welfare economics. Finally, Part IV explores work in social choice theory and game theory that is relevant to moral decision making. Each chapter includes recommended reading and discussion questions. (shrink)

This chapter is concerned with the role of democracy in preventing terrorism, identifying and apprehending terrorists, and in minimizing and alleviating the damage created by terrorism.1 Specifically, it considers the role of democracy as a resource, not simply a limitation, on counterterrorism.2 I am mainly concerned with the ways in which counterterrorism is similar to more familiar forms of public policy, such as the prevention of crime or the promotion of economic prosperity, and so nothing that I say turns (...) on being able sharply to distinguish terrorism from other bad things that democracies have to face. I will not, then, address the extensive debate on the best way to define terrorism.3 However, I assume that terrorists characteristically seek to terrorize people in order to secure their particular ends. What forms that terror takes, what people terrorists seek to terrorize, and what ends terrorists seek to promote I assume to be indeterminate, open to change, and a matter for empirical investigation. However, I take it that the IRA, Baader Meinhoff, and the Red Brigade, as well as certain animal rights groups in the United Kingdom and certain anti-abortion groups in the United States, are examples of terrorist groups and individuals. In short, I will be assuming that terrorism is principally characterized by the choice of means to given ends, rather than by the ends themselves, and that it is the choice of means, rather than the favored ends, that makes terrorism so problematic from a democratic perspective. However good the goal, terrorizing a population—whether or not this involves killing the innocent—is morally wrong and, from a democratic perspective, an abuse of power over the lives of others. While the use of terror may indicate that the ends sought by terrorists are such that people cannot be expected to support them voluntarily, there is no justification for supposing that the ends of terrorism must be morally or politically unacceptable simply because the means are both. It is a staple of ordinary life—not merely of philosophical examples—that people are sometimes unjustified in the means they use in order to accomplish perfectly acceptable ends. So, the ends terrorists seek are, or might become, morally or politically acceptable without in any way altering our objections to the use of terror as a tool for promoting them. (shrink)

This book brings together a large and diverse collection of philosophical papers addressing a wide variety of public policy issues. Topics covered range from long-standing subjects of debate such as abortion, punishment, and freedom of expression, to more recent controversies such as those over gene editing, military drones, and statues honoring Confederate soldiers. Part I focuses on the criminal justice system, including issues that arise before, during, and after criminal trials. Part II covers matters of national defense and sovereignty, (...) including chapters on military ethics, terrorism, and immigration. Part III, which explores political participation, manipulation, and standing, includes discussions of issues involving voting rights, the use of nudges, and claims of equal status. Part IV covers a variety of issues involving freedom of speech and expression. Part V deals with questions of justice and inequality. Part VI considers topics involving bioethics and biotechnology. Part VII is devoted to beginning of life issues, such as cloning and surrogacy, and end of life issues, such as assisted suicide and organ procurement. Part VIII navigates emerging environmental issues, including treatments of the urban environment and extraterrestrial environments. (shrink)

Appraising public policies about using technoscientific innovations requires attending to the values reflected in the interests expected to be served by them. It also requires addressing questions about the efficacy of using the innovations, and about whether or not using them may occasion harmful effects ; moreover, judgments about these matters should be soundly backed by empirical evidence. Clearly, then, scientists have an important role to play in formulating and appraising these public policies. However, ethical and social values (...) affect decisions made about the criteria for identifying the range of risks, and of relevant empirical data needed for making judgments about them, that should be considered in public policy deliberations, and for determining how well claims concerning risks should be supported by the available data in order to warrant that they have a decisive role in the deliberations. Consider the case of public policies about using GMOs. Concerning the range of data: is it sufficient for risk assessment only to be informed by data relevant to investigating the risks of using GMOs that may be occasioned by way of physical/chemical/biological mechanisms directly triggered by events within their modified genomes? Or: should data pertaining to the full range of ecological and socioeconomic effects of using them, in the environments in which they are used and under the socioeconomic conditions of their use, also inform this assessment? Those interested in producing and using GMOs, in the light of their adhering to values of capital and the market, are likely to give a positive answer to the first question; those holding competing values, e.g., connected with respect for human rights and environmental sustainability, to the second. And, concerning the degree of support: the former – citing the ethical gravity of losses that would be incurred by failing to use GMOs on a wide scale – are likely to require less stringent standards of evidential appraisal than the latter. Scientists, qua scientists, however, do not have special authority in the realm of values. Thus, their judgments, about the evidential support that claims about risks have, may sometimes be reasonably contested partly on value-laden grounds – as they have been in the GMO case, where the contestation has generated considerable controversy, and continues to do so. It follows that, in the context of deliberations about public policy, unless scientists engage with representatives of all stakeholders in the outcomes of the policies – taking into account that their competing values may lead to making different decisions about what are the relevant data, as well as about the degree of support required for their claims about risks to gain the required credibility to inform the deliberations; and respecting "tempered equality" of participants in the dialogue – their trustworthiness is put into question and their authority diminished. (shrink)

abstract Normative argument is supposed to guide ways in which we might change the world, rather than to fit the world as it is. This poses certain difficulties for the notion of applied ethics. Taken literally the phrase ‘applied ethics’ suggests that principles or standards with substantial philosophical justification, in particular ethical and political principles with such justification, are applied to particular cases and guide action. However, the ‘cases’ which applied ethics discusses are (...) themselves indeterminate, and the relation of principles to these ‘cases’ differs from the relation of principles to cases in naturalistic, truth‐oriented inquiry. Writing in ‘applied ethics’, I shall argue, does not need elaborate case histories or scenarios, since the testing points for normative principles are other normative principles rather than particular cases. Normative principles and contexts to which they are applicable are indeed needed for any reasoning that is practical, but they are not sufficient. Practical ethics needs principles that can not merely be applied in certain cases or situations, but also enacted in certain ways, and requires an account of practical judgement and of the public policies that support that judgement. (shrink)

While nudging has garnered plenty of interdisciplinary attention, the ethics of applying it to climate policy has been little discussed. However, not all ethical considerations surrounding nudging are straightforward to apply to climate nudges. In this article, we overview the state of the debate on the ethics of nudging and highlight themes that are either specific to or particularly important for climate nudges. These include: the justification of nudges that are not self-regarding; how to account for climate change (...) denialists; transparency; knowing the right or best behaviours; justice concerns; and whether the efficacy of nudges is sufficient for nudges to be justified as a response to the climate crisis. We conclude that climate nudges raise distinct ethical questions that ought to be considered in developing climate nudges. (shrink)

What is the ethical basis for democracy? What reasons do we have to go along with democratic decisions even when we disagree with them? When can we justly ignore democratic decisions? These three questions are intimately connected: understanding what is ultimately important about democracy helps us to understand the authority of democratic decisions over our personal views, and the limits of such authority. Thomas Christiano’s ambitious new book, The Constitution of Equality, aims to provide such an understanding through a discussion (...) of all three questions. Briefly put, in Christiano’s view, public equality is the moral foundation of both democracy and liberal rights, and it serves to explain the authority of democracy as well as its limits. The book aims first of all to ground the principle of public equality in a number of principles related to the nature of personhood, dignity, well-being and formal considerations of justice, on the one hand, and in the need for publicity for social justice, on the other (Chaps. 1 and 2). The book then aims to show how both democracy and basic liberal rights are grounded in the principle of public equality, which tells us that in the establishment of law and policy we must treat persons as equals in ways that they can see are treating them as equals (Chaps. 3 and 4). The account clarifies the nature and roles of adversarial politics and public deliberation in political life (Chap. 5). Finally, the book argues that democratic decisions have authority over personal views and that violations of democratic and liberal rights are beyond the legitimate authority of democracy, and that the creation of persistent minorities in a democratic society, and the failure to ensure a basic minimum for all persons weaken the legitimate authority of democracy (Chaps. 6 and 7). I shall begin by addressing Christiano’s view on the basis of equality, and then shall focus mainly on the central argument for public equality, democracy and its.. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Great World House: Martin Luther King Jr. and Global Ethics by Hak Joon Lee, and: Democracy in Twenty-First Century America: Race, Class, Religion, and Region by Ronald B. NealReggie L. WilliamsThe Great World House: Martin Luther King Jr. and Global Ethics HAK JOON LEE Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2011. 256 pp. $25.00Democracy in Twenty-First Century America: Race, Class, Religion, and Region RONALD B. NEAL Macon, (...) GA: Mercer University Press, 2012. 138 pp. $30.00On Christmas Eve 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. asked the members of a congregation to recognize that they are—every day—interacting with many different nations all around the world as they maneuver throughout their normal daily routines. Hak Joon Lee’s The Great World House: Martin Luther King Jr. and Global Ethics examines the implications of this daily global interaction as the need for a broader ethical perspective in a shrinking world. The need begins with the realization that we do indeed inhabit a shrinking world in which our local behavior has a broader global impact. Once we recognize the moral implications of our local interaction, it becomes clear that we must learn how to live together in a broader community.But how do we speak the language of a global morality? What does a global morality look like? Lee argues that King’s metaphor of a great world house provides a structure on which to frame the content of a healthy global morality in a shrinking world. The metaphor indicates a collective understanding of all humanity as a global community (ix). The notion of a single world house moves people groups beyond rival communities with well-defined in-group and out-group barriers into what Lee describes as a global civil society where we are all seen as members of a collective in-group (13). The concept of a collective in-group helps illustrate what Lee understands to be King’s argument for a global morality; “King’s idea of a great world house redefines what the boundaries and membership of a moral community are: the great world house constitutes a single inclusive ethical community for humanity because it identifies the world as a single unified community” (53). [End Page 234]But as laudable as King’s great world house metaphor is, we are still burdened with the task of imagining a universal moral language in practice. Efforts toward the formation of universal truths have historically been death-dealing for people groups caught on the wrong side of the color line. A one-size-fits-all morality has been a procrustean bed for people who have been racialized and subordinated to white European males. Yet Lee interprets King’s method of universal engagement to begin with convictions shared at home within the particularity of his African American Christian worldview before it moves outward toward a shared vision of a global civil society. The movement from particular to universal for a public morality is unlike the historically harmful practice of universal morality. King’s universal method includes attention to four components: vision, norms, virtues, and political practices. These four components belong to what Lee depicts as a careful and intricate dialectic between what is local and what is universal in a political dialogue that seeks the end of a global civil society with shared conceptions of community and human rights.Ironically, with regard to the conversation about human rights, Lee claims that King’s formative African American interpretation of human rights was primarily informed by the Enlightenment and then blended with an African American experience: “Mostly appropriated from Christianity and the Western Enlightenment tradition, these norms [justice, freedom, and equality] obtained a new significance for African Americans in the context of the sizzling cauldron of slavery and segregation” (55). Yet one would be hard pressed to identify the presence of modern Enlightenment intellectuals within the formative theological worldview of the African American Christianity that Lee identifies. Of necessity, African American Christianity, the Christian worldview that birthed Martin Luther King Jr., was formed to deflect the white Christian worldview that was shaped by the intersection of race, religion, and empire in modernity. The Enlightenment fueled modernity’s... (shrink)

This volume reflects on questions of human rights in the context of globalization. The essays responding to this subject are rich and varied: they focus on legal acceptance as well as consequences of human rights with regard to social rights and the necessary protection of the environment connected or close to those rights. Another approach to the subject featured in the volume is the legal recognition and the consideration of human rights as moral rights. With concepts on universality, a new (...) cosmopolitism, cultural pluralism and perspectives on religious variants and technological advances the debate on human rights is concluded. Index / Indice I. The Foundation of Rights / El fundamento de los derechos: J. Rubio Carracedo: El legalismo occidental: un problema para la universalizacion de los derechos humanos J. A. Seoane: El caracter juridico de las leyes injustas M. Borowski: Classifying and qualifying properties of fundamental rights J. von Platz: Faith in reason: questioning practical reason as fact, norm, end, and function of human rights R. Cruft: Policy implications of the philosophical foundations of human rights Maria Gabriela Scataglini: Derechos humanos: otra mirada sobre la cuestion de su universalidad II. A New Cosmopolitism / Un nuevo cosmopolitismo: V. de P. Barreto: Derecho cosmopolita y derechos humanos Luis Fernando Barzotto: Reconocimiento y fraternidad A. R. Bernstein: Justifying universal human rights via Rawlsian public reason H. Khatchadourian: Democracy and the globalization of human rights Milagros Otero Parga: Derechos humanos y globalizacion Halim Bepari: Human rights and the United Nations Miracy B. S. Gustin: Rescate de los derechos humanos en situaciones adversas de paises perifericos III. Multiculturism and Pluralism of Values /Multiculturalidad y pluralismo de valores: M. Herrero / M. Saralegui: Dogmatismo politico y pluralismo religioso Berry Tholen: Migration, justice, and Europe's identity. The relevance of special ties for EU's migration policy C. M. Alvarez Chicano: Implicaciones de la inconmensurabilidad de los valores en la aplicacion de principios de orden etico y juridico L. Perez Conejo: Axiologia juridica y pluralismo de valores: algunas consideraciones sobre la nocion de 'inconmensurabilidad' S-I. Liu: Fundamental legal values and globalization with regard to historical experience in freedom of speech L. C. Amezua: Libertad natural y esclavitud voluntaria: reflexiones de F. Suarez sobre la esclavitud IV. Rights and Gender / Derechos y genero: J.M. Gil Ruiz: La violencia de genero en el contexto familiar y la agresion de la ciencia juridica A. Goiriena Lekue: El interes superior del/la nino/a, coparentalidad y neutralidad de genero en la atribucion de la guarda y custodia de los hijos e hijas P. Garcia Guevara: Las politicas de genero en los paises globalizados del 'Tercer Mundo' V. Technological Impact and New Generation Rights / Impacto tecnologico y nuevas generaciones de derechos: M. Ahteensuu: Understanding the precautionary principle in the light of the traditional weak-strong distinction: a critical comment Cristina Monero Atienza: Bases para una teoria de los derechos en el siglo XXI M. Kitahara: Personal data processing and business ethics: personal data processing and personal data protection in business A. D. Oliver Lalana: El lado empirico de la legitimidad comunicativa: sobre la publicidad organizativa del derecho de proteccion de datos en internet J. Ebbesson / M. Zamboni: Transbordering democracy? The case of environment protection Sagrario Moles Nieto: El impacto medioambiental de los cultivos transgenicos VI. Bioethics and Law / Bioetica y derecho: M. Cruz Diaz de Teran: Principios para una biojuridica global C. Faralli / S. Tugnoli: Bioethics between law and science: the Italian law on medically assisted procreation (Law No. 40, February 19, 2004) N. Zeegers: The working of power in communicative regulation: the case of research with human embryos J. A. Fernandez Suarez: La bioetica en la era de la globalizacion F. J. Blazqez Ruiz: Privacidad y discriminacion genetica: propuestas bioeticas y juridicas ante los desafios de un mundo globalizado. (shrink)

Responsible public policy making in a technological society must rely on complex scientific reasoning. Given that ordinary citizens cannot directly assess such reasoning, does this call the democratic legitimacy of technical public policies in question? It does not, provided citizens can make reliable second-order assessments of the consensus of trustworthy scientific experts. I develop criteria for lay assessment of scientific testimony and demonstrate, in the case of claims about anthropogenic global warming, that applying such criteria is easy for (...) anyone of ordinary education with access to the Web. However, surveys show a gap between the scientific consensus and public opinion on global warming in the U.S. I explore some causes of this gap and argue that democratic reforms of our culture of political discourse may be able to address it. (shrink)

In Morality, Leadership, and Public Policy, Eric Weber argues for an experimentalist approach to moral theory in addressing practical problems in public policy. The experimentalist approach begins moral inquiry by examining public problems and then makes use of the tools of philosophy and intelligent inquiry to alleviate them. -/- Part I surveys the uses of practical philosophy and answers criticisms - including religious challenges - of the approach, presenting a number of areas in which philosophers' intellectual efforts (...) can prove valuable for resolving public conflicts. -/- Part II presents a new approach to experimentalism in moral theory, based on the insights of John Dewey's pragmatism. Focusing on the elements of good public inquiry and the experimentalist attitude, Weber discusses ways of thinking about the effective construction and reconstruction of particular problems, including practical problems of public policy prioritization. -/- Finally, in Part III the book examines real-world examples in which the experimentalist approach to ethics proves useful, including instances of "bandwidth theft" and the controversies surrounding activist judges in the US Supreme Court. (shrink)

How we understand, protect, and discharge our rights and responsibilities as citizens in a democratic society committed to the principle of political equality is intimately connected to the standards and behaviour of our media in general, and our news media in particular. However, the media does not just stand between the citizenry and their leaders, or indeed between citizens and each other. The media is often the site where individuals attempt to realise some of the most fundamental democratic liberties, including (...) the right to free speech. -/- Media Ethics, Free Speech, and the Requirements of Democracy explores the conflict between the rights that people exercise in, and through, the modern media and the responsibilities that accrue on account of its awesome and increasing power. The individual chapters—written by leading scholars from the US, UK, and Australia—address several recent events and controversial developments in the media, including Brexit, the rise of Trump, Lynton Crosby, Charlie Hebdo, dog-whistle politics, fake news, and political correctness. This much-needed philosophical treatment is a welcome addition to the recent literature in media ethics. It will be of interest to scholars across political and social philosophy, applied ethics, media and communication studies, and political science who are interested in the important issues surrounding the media and free speech and democracy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Pragmatist Ethics: A Problem-Based Approach to What Matters by James Jakób LiszkaHenrik RydenfeltJames Jakób Liszka (Ed) Pragmatist Ethics: A Problem-Based Approach to What Matters Albany: SUNY Press, 2021; 192 pp., incl. indexThere appears to be increasing interest in public discussion and debate on ethical issues in our societies motivated by concerns regarding economic growth within the limits of the environment, the development [End Page 253] (...) of "autonomous" machines and advances in artificial intelligence, and issues of justice and equality under conditions of global emergencies such as climate change. Over the past twenty years, numerous philosophers have produced important works on the ethical perspectives and social and political philosophy of the classic thinkers of the pragmatist tradition, including several volumes on John Dewey and William James, and a volume on Charles S. Peirce that James Liszka also published in 2021. However, there exist few general statements of the potential of the pragmatist approach to the topic of ethics in general. For this reason, Liszka's new book outlining pragmatist ethics is welcome. Despite its concise presentation of only about 170 pages, Liszka manages to discuss a number of pragmatist notions and views both in their historical context and in contrast and comparison with contemporary arguments, particularly ones developed in the fields of metaethics and normative ethics of the analytic tradition.As both a scholar and a philosopher, Liszka offers his own perspective on the pragmatist approach and what is unique and distinctive about it. In the introduction, the pragmatist perspective is described as beginning with an examination of actual problems to develop solutions that may reveal what would be good or better than the present, rather than aiming at the development of a concept of the good that could then be applied in particular cases. The remainder of the book can be characterised as developing this notion of ethics through the lenses of philosophical debates, both historical and contemporary, on practical reasoning, community, inquiry, and moral progress. Following the introduction, Liszka presents in the second chapter his pragmatist, problem-based ethics as a response to the "tragedy of life", in the sense of an inevitable conflict of goods and values, with the melioristic slogan "solve problems, and good will follow". In the third chapter, Liszka delves deeper into the roots of his problem-based ethics by looking at the writings of the classical pragmatists, including Peirce's maxim of pragmatism, James's account of truth as that which brings us into a satisfactory relation with other parts of our experience, Peirce's notion of the community of inquiry, and Dewey's account of democracy as the setting for solving the problems of the community. James Wallace's account of practices as potential solutions for problems provides Liszka with an important stepping stone to his conclusion, drawn at the end of this chapter, that in order to solve problems, practices must aim to attain a good end in the right way.However, this formal conclusion does not provide specific guidance on how problems should be solved. Providing such guidance is the task of practical reason, the subject of chapter four. Liszka's discussion develops pragmatist perspectives on practical reasoning based on Wallace's account, Robert Brandom's distinctions between shapes of practical reasoning, as well as Peirce's account of desire. All of these are brought to [End Page 254] bear in long-standing debates in meta-ethics. In particular, to counter subjectivism and other familiar issues with the Humean desire-belief account of moral motivation (or internalism about moral motivation), Liszka—again drawing from Wallace's notion—argues that practices are not subjective but collectively approved and institutionalised.The presence of problems indicates that something is not working within the practice in question. Pragmatists typically suggest that inquiry could be deployed to solve problems. This is why in chapter five normative science is considered. Liszka's central project is to make sense of the pragmatist stance that moral inquiries and judgments can be made scientific, and that normative claims can be tested by observing the results actually attained. Liszka argues that "the norms of practical reasoning derive their... (shrink)

A common view of politics is that it is reducible to applied ethics. If politics, in a classic phrase, is about “who gets what, when, and how,” then the task of normative political theory would simply be to tell us who is morally entitled to get whatever the “what” is in that statement.This view, however, can easily reduce politics to a dizzying vortex of actions to assess from an ethical perspective. And while the task of moral philosophy may (...) be precisely to articulate principles by which to pass such judgment, the focus of political theory lies elsewhere.To study and assess politics means attending to the institutional frameworks and structural conditions that enable or constrain human action to begin with. The question for normative political theory, in other words, is whether the organizational structure of a given society—embodied in its decision-making procedures, its distribution of power, and its defining patterns of production, reproduction, and distribution—is defensible or not.This question of justice in the institutional makeup of society has not been entirely ignored in animal rights literature. Animal advocates have always been clear about the massive societal ramifications of dismantling the speciesist order. Likewise, rights theorists and activists have often proposed concrete legal measures for improving the protection of animals, be it by piecemeal welfare reform in animal agriculture, by the abolition of specific practices in biomedical research, or by seeking the equivalent of human rights for select species like great apes or dolphins. The field has also seen fierce debate among animal advocates about the appropriate strategies for engaging with the state and the legal system.Nonetheless, most discussions have been about what it means to treat individual animals with respect, and not about what is required of a political order aspiring to just treatment of all species. In fact, it is only in the last decade that the issue of political justice has taken up a place at the center of animal ethics.Though the field is still developing, we may take it as a sign of maturity that it can now sport its first “short introduction” book: Alasdair Cochrane's Should Animals Have Political Rights? (2020). Its appearing as part of the Polity Press series Political Theory Today further attests to the book's timeliness.The starting point of Cochrane's book—and of political animal studies in general—is that political relations between humans and other animals are not optional but inevitable. Other animals live among us, and the way we organize our societies has a massive impact on the lives of other sentient animals both inside and outside the borders of our human communities. Assuming that these creatures possess intrinsic value as experiencing individuals with morally relevant interests, the question seems inescapable: What kind of polity can accommodate for the multispecies character of our communities and embody justice for all sentients? Cochrane's answer is largely the same as the one he offered in his previous book, Sentientist Politics: A Theory of Global Inter-Species Justice (Oxford University Press, 2018), where he laid out his full vision of a postnational and species-neutral “cosmozoopolis.”The present book is much more concentrated and written as an accessible introduction for readers new to the field. Over seven short chapters, Cochrane reconstructs his argument for an interspecies democracy by assessing a series of arguments and propositions drawn from previous literature on the topic.The first notion to be scrutinized is the popular idea that animal welfare legislation is enough to secure respect for animals. Here, Cochrane acknowledges that welfarism goes some way toward safeguarding animal interests, but he also stresses that its historical record has been disheartening. Welfarism protects animals only insofar as their protection coincides with human interests, and this is far from enough to ensure respect for the animals’ intrinsic value.The second line of argument tries to push beyond welfarism by claiming constitutional protection for animals. By this move, reformers hope to place animal interests on an equal footing with human interests and prevent the overriding of the former in the name of human entitlements (to property, artistic expression, freedom of science, and so forth). Looking at real-world cases, however, Cochrane finds that these constitutional provisions tend to be sidelined when they come into conflict with the interests of big agribusiness.Noting that more than constitutional protection is needed, Cochrane turns to a third set of arguments about legal personhood for animals. Winning personhood for animals would certainly constitute a radical step toward equalizing the interests of different species. Nonetheless, Cochrane argues that personhood alone would be insufficient. Intrinsic value, to him, cannot be fully respected unless animals win the political right to have their interests factor into society's articulation of the public good. As sentient beings, we can all make a claim on the political communities we are part of to not only recognize us as members but furnish us with the means to live well.The fourth and final step for Cochrane is to argue that democratic representation for animals is necessary for realizing these political membership rights. Without representation, he contends, political rights risk being watered down, leaving animals with much less than they are entitled to as sentient beings. Cochrane critically discusses several different models for how this representation could be organized. While he is partial to a system where specially trained human representatives are tasked with voicing the animals’ interests in the legislative process, he leaves many of the practicalities open for future experimentation.Readers familiar with the field of political animal studies will find little new in Should Animals Have Political Rights? For students new to the field, however, Cochrane's book does an excellent job introducing the main issues in a very accessible format. Students of “regular” political science will also benefit from the book's fresh challenge to the discipline's understanding of “the political” as well as its important insights into the relationship between individual and political rights. (shrink)

Citizenship status is meant to be secure, that is, inviolable. Recently, however, several democratic states have adopted or are considering adopting laws that allow them the power to revoke citizenship. This claimed right forces us to consider whether citizenship can be treated as a “conditional” status, in particular whether it can be treated as conditional on the right sort of behavior. Those who defend such a view argue that citizenship is a privilege rather than a right, and thus in principle (...) is revocable. Participating in a foreign state's military, treason, spying, or committing acts that otherwise threaten the national security of one's state may all warrant revocation. This article assesses the justifications given for the claimed power to revoke citizenship in democratic states and concludes that, ultimately, such a power is incompatible with democracy.I begin with a brief account of the claims given by contemporary democratic states for the “right to revoke.” Democratic citizenship is today commonly understood to beegalitarian, that is, it protects an equal basic package of rights for all citizens; and to be “the highest and most secure legal status,” that is, it is meant to be secure from unilateral withdrawal by the state. Formally, many democratic states have revocation laws on the books, but most of these have long been in disuse. Although I argue in this article that all revocation laws are inconsistent with democratic citizenship, I focus on the recent surge in proposed and implemented revocation laws, which are justified as essential to protecting national security.In the second section I outline three reasons to object to revocation laws. First, revocation laws discriminate between citizens based on their citizenship status. Second, since they single out those who are eligible for revocation, they apply unequal penalties for the same crime. Third, they are inadequately justified, in general, but also particularly to those who may be subject to them, because they are not adequately connected to the policy goal they are said to fulfill. I conclude with some brief observations concerning the ways in which revocation permits states to abrogate their shared responsibility for protecting the global community from dangerous individuals. (shrink)

Can we talk about "the people" as an agent with its own morally important integrity? How should we understand ownership of public property by "the people"? Nili develops philosophical answers to both of these questions, arguing that we should see the core project of a liberal legal system – realizing equal rights - as an identity-grounding project of the sovereign people, and thus as essential to the people's integrity. He also suggests that there are proprietary claims that are intertwined (...) in the sovereign people's moral power to create property rights through the legal system. The practical value of these ideas is illustrated through a variety of real-world policy problems, ranging from the domestic and international dimensions of corruption and abuse of power, through transitional justice issues, to the ethnic and religious divides that threaten liberal democracy. This book will appeal to political theorists as well as readers in public policy, area studies, law, and across the social sciences. (shrink)

A leading international expert on environmental issues, Shrader-Frechette brings a new standard of rigor to philosophical discussions of environmental justice in her latest work. Observing that environmental activists often value environmental concerns over basic human rights, she points out the importance of recognising that minority groups and the poor in general are frequently the biggest victims of environmental degradation, a phenomenon with serious social and political implications that the environmental movement has failed to adequately address. She argues for their equal (...) rights to 'environmental justice' and maintains that they should not have to bear most of the weight of the burdens of pollution and resource depletion. Advocating a greater awareness on the part of professionals in a position to help these victims, Shrader-Frechette proposes a more equitable distribution of environmental resources and, in doing so, makes an important contribution to the fields of environmental ethics and applied philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper we offer a critical assessment of the politics of the Christian Right and question the degree to which the religious values of the Christian Right are compatible with a democratic political culture. If religious values are equally political values making the separation of religious belief and political action a fraught exercise, then a number of issues arise. Political action inspired by religious faith should not prevent critical scrutiny of the underlying values, or more importantly, their influence in (...) shaping public debate and public policy. If religious values are indeed political values, then do protections of freedom of religious expression privilege forms of faith-based politics over secular forms? And if so, to what end? We argue that a more nuanced analysis of the intersection of religion and politics is required to ensure that public politics is not threatened by particular forms of religious political activism that exhibit totalitarian tendencies. At the very least, close attention needs to be focused on particular policy advocates and the agenda they seek to advance with little accountability or transparency despite claims to represent the public interest. It is to these ends that this paper makes a contribution. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Peter Singer and Christian Ethics: Beyond Polarization by Charles E. CamosyWerner WolbertPeter Singer and Christian Ethics: Beyond Polarization CHARLES E. CAMOSY Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. 278 pp. $29.99Peter Singer’s “Copernican revolution” against a sanctity of life ethic may be regarded, from a Roman Catholic viewpoint, as an expression of the “culture of death” denounced by John Paul II. One must keep in mind, however, that (...) “we know that historically there have been times where those participating in discussions about ethics disagree deeply about theory, but nevertheless come to important and even broad agreement about applied or practical ethics” (179). The aim of Camosy’s book is to sketch the various areas of agreement and disagreement between Peter Singer and Catholic moral theology as well as the possibilities of working together.There are issues even about the subject of abortion on which Singer and the Church agree: that moral relativism is wrong; that it is seriously wrong to kill a person; that the right to privacy (see Roe vs. Wade) does not apply to acts harming others; and that the right to abortion is not a constitutional matter (chapter 1). Both positions see a connection between abortion and infanticide, but both draw different conclusions. The disagreements between them are about who is to count as a person, which Camosy comments on in the rest of chapter 1 (27–37). In the area of euthanasia, the Church and Singer share some skepticism about brain death (chapter 2). Camosy discusses the church’s position on one’s moral status at the end of life and the Roman Catholic understandings of ordinary and extraordinary means, acts, and omissions. Commenting on public policy in that field, Camosy gives some useful and convincing illustrations of the slippery slope effect in different countries that have legalized active euthanasia or assisted suicide (68–81).With regard to problems of killing, however, Helga Kuhse’s The Sanctity of Life Doctrine in Medicine (Oxford University Press, 1987) should perhaps have been considered. On the subject of acting and refraining, I would recommend Dieter Birnbacher’s Tun und unterlassen (Reclam 1995).Commenting on Singer’s championing of the moral status of nonhuman animals, Camosy points to elements in the Christian tradition that may support Singer’s issue of animal liberation (chapter 3). I wonder why the discussion concentrates on domestic animals and the problems of eating meat or [End Page 225] vegetarianism but omits problems of environmental ethics (e.g., ecological balance). Would the aim of avoiding animal harm include saving animals from predators? And if some animals are to be regarded as persons, we may get in trouble with our basic conviction of the equality (of the dignity) of human beings—as the debate on the margins of human life shows.Duties to the poor are not in dispute except for “partial preferences” (166) for members of our family, kinship, or country (chapter 4). Speaking of “partiality” in this context is, however, a bit misleading. Since no one can care for all people, preferences of an ordo caritatis (order of love) are a necessary part of a system of coordination from which—ideally—all humans can benefit. (Recall Augustine in De doctrina Christiana, 1.28–29: “The interests of society, however, and its common bonds will be best conserved if kindness be shown to each individual in proportion to the closeness of his relationship.”) Chapter 5, which compares Singer’s ethical theory with Catholic moral theology, would need more discussion (e.g., on double effect, object, and act), which I cannot cover within the limits of this review. Overall, Camosy’s book makes a valuable contribution to the dialogue between Christian and secular ethics.Werner WolbertUniversity of SalzburgCopyright © 2014 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

1Preface: Malthus the Utilitarian vs. Malthus the Christian moral thinker. The chapter aims at reconstructing the deadlocks of Malthus scholarship concerning his relationship to utilitarianism. It argues that Bonar created out of nothing the myth of Malthus’s ‘Utilitarianism’, which carried, in turn, a pseudo-problem concerning Malthus’s lack of consistency with his own alleged Utilitarianism; besides it argues that such misinterpretation was hard to die and still persists in Hollander’s reading of Malthus’s work. ● -/- 2 Eighteenth-century Anglican ethics. The (...) chapter gives an overview of eighteenth-century Anglican ethics, noticing how the Cambridge tradition gave special weight to natural theology as opposed to positive or revealed theology and how two Cambridge fellows, John Gay and Thomas Brown worked out a kind of a rational-choice account of the origins of natural laws, where a law-giver God chooses among a number of possible sets of laws on the basis of a maximizing criterion, happiness for his creatures. ● -/- 3 Malthus’s meta-ethics. The chapter reconstructs the two ethical chapters of the second Essay. It argues that Malthus’s ethics is not dependent on Paley’s, but is derived from Cumberland, Butler, Gay, Brown. Besides, it argues that theodicy takes a new place in the 1803 Essays and ethics becomes a key to theodicy. The new solution is that, once it has been proved that passions can be mastered and that a world where passions are under control would be a comparatively happy place, a society where moral restraint prevailed would make the middling ranks more numerous, reduce dependence, and preserve liberty. ● -/- 4 Malthus’s early normative ethics: a morality of freedom. The chapter reconstructs young Malthus’s views on the foundations of ethics, proving his adhesion to voluntarist consequentialism. Then it reconstructs his treatment of political issues, whence a clear stance emerges in favour of traditional Whig concerns, such as political freedom, personal independence and dignity. Finally, it gives a fresh look at the theological argument in the two well-known final chapters, locating it in the context of consequentialism, voluntarism, and quasi-Leibnizian theodicy. ● -/- 5 Malthus’s intermediate normative ethics: a morality of prudence. Malthus’s normative ethics focuses on two main ‘natural’ virtues, benevolence and chastity, and three artificial virtues. These include love for equality and love for liberty. A special place is granted to another virtue, prudence, which is the link between natural and artificial virtues. This special virtue also provides an invisible link between the private and the public domains, in that it contributes to combine self-love with general happiness. This is granted by the unintended results mechanism, or “the happiness of the whole is to be the result of the happiness of individuals, and to begin first with them. No cooperation is required”. ● -/- 6 Malthus’s mature normative ethics: a morality of humanity. The chapter describes reactions by Evangelicals, such as Gisborne, Sumner, and Chalmers, to Malthus’s theory and Malthus’s transformation of his own system in order to pave objections. This amounts to incorporating The Evangelicals’ ideas into his own system. The friendly controversy with his Evangelical fellow-travellers yielded several important changes in 1806, 1817, and 1826 editions of the second Essay in the formulation of Malthusian ethics, in the adoption of moral improvement instead of happiness as the variable to be maximised, in the adoption of generalized education as the main weapon in the war on poverty. ● -/- 7 Malthus’s applied ethics. The chapter reconstructs Malthus’s treatment of a few issues in ‘applied ethics’, sexual morality, public morality, poverty, and besides, war and slavery. On the first issue, he argues the duty to marry only at a time when one is ready to carry the burden of six children as a moral duty imposed by prudence and rejects birth control because of its alleged effect of encouraging ‘indolence’. On the second issue, he defends a peculiar kind of Whiggism as anti-Machiavellian politics centred on rights, equality, and dignity. On the third issue, his final approach is a kind of Institutional approach to poverty, making room for generalized basic education, free markets for labour and allowing for a subsidiary role for private beneficence. The goal to be aimed at is bringing about circumstances which tend to elevate the character of the lower classes of society and offer them a chance of being respectable, virtuous and happy. ● -/- 8 Conclusions: strengthening the theological foundation. Malthus’s criteria for policy appraisal were not utilitarian ones. His normative ethics and his politics were sharply different from Bentham’s. Utility is just one element in Malthus’s ethics, going with laws of nature and rights, and ironically, far from being a Benthamite insertion, is the most markedly theological element in Malthus’s system of ideas. ● -/- . (shrink)

Smokers and nonsmokers possess equal rights but those rights conflict with each other in the use of shared facilities. Medical research has established that smoking harms not only those who use the product but also those who are passively exposed to it. Laws and private regulation of smoking in shared facilities have resulted in the segregation of smokers from nonsmokers to an outright ban of tobacco use. Such controls have provided unsatisfactory results to both groups. An acceptable ethical solution, based (...) on reduction of harm and compensation, can be derived by applying Moral Audit principles, supported by economic analysis, which does not unduly curtail the rights of both parties as to the use of tobacco products. (shrink)