Browse Papers

Those who subscribe to a prudential conception of practical reason do not believe that there is a conflict between other-regarding and self-regarding norms as the former are held to be founded on the latter. Moral conduct, they maintain, is always rationally justifiable. The reasons we should fulfil the demands of other-regarding norms are the same as those we have for fulfilling self-regarding norms. David Brink has put forth an interesting and novel account of this approach to practical reason which he calls ‘metaphysical egoism’. Metaphysical egoism requires that we modify our pre-theoretical understandings of self-interest on metaphysical grounds. I critically assess Brink’s argument and claim that metaphysical egoism does not adequately function as a motive or guide for action. It is susceptible to many of the same problems which strategic egoism faces.

I aim to show that (i) there are good ways to argue about what has intrinsic value; and (ii) good ethical arguments needn’t make ethical assumptions. I support (i) and (ii) by rebutting direct attacks, by discussing nine plausible ways to argue about intrinsic value, and by arguing for pain’s intrinsic badness without making ethical assumptions. If (i) and (ii) are correct, then ethical theory has more resources than many philosophers have thought: empirical evidence, and evidence bearing on intrinsic value. With more resources, we can hope to base all of our moral beliefs on evidence rather than on, say, emotion or mere intuition.

This is the translation of the so-called Morioka&Sugimoto proposal on brain death and transplantation. We proposed that the prior declaration of a brain dead child should be respected, and that when the child does not have a donor card the organ removal should be prohibited. A material for understanding an unprecedented bioethics debate now occurring in Japan.

In Reasons and Persons, Derek Parfit cannot find a theory of well-being that solves the Non-Identity Problem, the Repugnant Conclusion, the Absurd Conclusion, and all forms of the Mere Addition Paradox. I describe a “Quasi-Maximizing” theory that solves them. This theory includes (i) the denial that being better than is transitive and (ii) the “Conflation Principle,” according to which alternative B is hedonically better than alternative C if it would be better for someone to have all the B-experiences. (i) entails that Quasi-Maximization is not a maximizing theory, but (ii) ensures that its evaluations will often coincide with such theories.

This paper shows how moral principles can be explanatory while yet admitting of exceptions if they are hedged in a certain way, and articulates one particular form that such principles could take. I provide an account of what would make certain exceptions to principles permissible. I also argue that these hedged principles make a genuine contribution to explanations of several kinds of particular moral facts; that they make sense of error, uncertainty, and disagreement concerning moral principles and their implications; and that one can grasp these principles without having to grasp any particular list their permissibly exceptional instances. I conclude by pointing out various advantages that this model of principles has over several of its rivals. The bottom line is that we should find nothing peculiarly odd or problematic about the idea of exception-tolerating and yet robustly explanatory moral principles.

In this paper I present a novel account of achievement and I argue that, all other things being equal, the presence of this particular type of achievement (an ‘m-achievement’) in a person’s life makes that life more meaningful. In arguing for this conclusion, I explore the connections between m-achievements and a person’s self-conception and especially the idea that m-achievements provide a reason for the revision of one’s self-conception.

How a "right to die" may become a "coercive option".

I first pose a challenge which, it seems to me, any philosophical account of forgiveness must meet: the account must be articulate and it must allow for forgiveness that is uncompromising. I then examine an account of forgiveness which appears to meet this challenge. Upon closer examination we discover that this account actually fails to meet the challenge—but it fails in very instructive ways. The account takes two missteps which seem to be taken by almost everyone discussing forgiveness. At the end, I sketch an alternative account of forgiveness, one that I think meets the challenge and avoids the missteps.

Ayer and Stevenson advocated ethical emotivisms, non-cognitivist understandings of the meanings of moral terms and functions of moraljudgments. I argue that their reasons for ethical emotivisms suggest analogous epistemological emotivisms. Epistemological emotivism importantly undercuts any epistemic support Ayer and Stevenson offeredfor ethical emotivism. This is because if epistemic emotivism is true, all epistemic judgments are neither true nor false so it is neither true nor false that anyone should accept ethical emotivism or is justified in believing it. Thus, their perspectives are epistemologically self-undermining and,truthfully, should be rejected. Unlike Ayer and Stevenson, Gibbard explicitly endorses ethical and epistemological emotivism, or expressivism; I briefly criticize his views here also.

The essence of human being resides not only in his/her brain, but also in every part of the body, therefore, the idea that brain-death equals human death can not be true in a certain context. Of course their arguments are not so strictly constructed, but if we take this theory seriously and develop it philosophically, it may have the possibility of criticize the very basis of contemporary civilization which is inclined to see humans only as a reasoning and calculating machine made up of brain's complicated neuron-networks.