915 research outputs found
Distributing the burdens of climate change
Global climate change raises many questions for environmental political theorists. This article focuses on the question of identifying the agents that should bear the financial burden of preventing dangerous climate change. Identifying in a fair way the agents that should take the lead in climate mitigation and adaptation, as well as the precise burdens that these parties must bear, will be a key aspect of the next generation of global climate policies. After a critical review of a number of rival approaches to burden sharing, the paper argues that only a principled and philosophically robust reconciliation of three approaches to burden sharing (âcontribution to problemâ, âability to payâ and âbeneficiary paysâ) can generate a satisfactory mix of theoretical coherence and practical application
From an axiological standpoint
I maintain that intrinsic value is the fundamental concept of axiology. Many contemporary philosophers disagree; they say the proper object of value theory is final value. I examine three accounts of the nature of final value: the first claims that final value is nonâinstrumental value; the second claims that final value is the value a thing has as an end; the third claims that final value is ultimate or nonâderivative value. In each case, I argue that the concept of final value described is either identical with the classical notion of intrinsic value or is not a plausible candidate for the primary concept of axiology
Taurek, numbers and probabilities
In his paper, âShould the Numbers Count?" John Taurek imagines that we are in a position such that we can either save a group of five people, or we can save one individual, David. We cannot save David and the five. This is because they each require a life-saving drug. However, David needs all of the drug if he is to survive, while the other five need only a fifth each.Typically, people have argued as if there was a choice to be made: either numbers matter, in which case we should save the greater number, or numbers don't matter, but rather there is moral value in giving each person an equal chance of survival, and therefore we should toss a coin. My claim is that we do not have to make a choice in this way. Rather, numbers do matter, but it doesn't follow that we should always save the greater number. And likewise, there is moral value in giving each person an equal chance of survival, but it doesn't follow that we should always toss a coin.In addition, I argue that a similar approach can be applied to situations in which we can save one person or another, but the chances of success are different
Asymmetries in the Value of Existence
According to asymmetric comparativism, it is worse for a person to exist with a miserable life than not to exist, but it is not better for a person to exist with a happy life than not to exist. My aim in this paper is to explain how asymmetric comparativism could possibly be true. My account of asymmetric comparativism begins with a different asymmetry, regarding the (dis)value of early death. I offer an account of this early death asymmetry, appealing to the idea of conditional goods, and generalize it to explain how asymmetric comparativism could possibly be true. I also address the objection that asymmetric comparativism has unacceptably antinatalist implications
Imperfect identity
Questions of identity over time are often hard to answer. A long
tradition has it that such questions are somehow soft: they have no unique,
determinate answer, and disagreements about them are merely verbal. I
argue that this claim is not the truism it is taken to be. Depending on how
it is understood, it turns out either to be false or to presuppose a highly
contentious metaphysical claim
Knowledge of Objective 'Oughts': Monotonicity and the New Miners Puzzle
In the classic Miners case, an agent subjectively ought to do what they know is objectively wrong. This case shows that the subjective and objective âoughtsâ are somewhat independent. But there remains a powerful intuition that the guidance of objective âoughtsâ is more authoritativeâso long as we know what they tell us. We argue that this intuition must be given up in light of a monotonicity principle, which undercuts the rationale for saying that objective âoughtsâ are an authoritative guide for agents and advisors
OtherâSacrificing Options
I argue that you can be permitted to discount the interests of your adversaries even though doing so would be impartially suboptimal. This means that, in addition to the kinds of moral options that the literature traditionally recognises, there exist what I call other-sacrificing options. I explore the idea that you cannot discount the interests of your adversaries as much as you can favour the interests of your intimates; if this is correct, then there is an asymmetry between negative partiality toward your adversaries and positive partiality toward your intimates
AAAI: an Argument Against Artificial Intelligence
The ethical concerns regarding the successful development of an Artificial Intelligence have received a lot of attention lately. The idea is that even if we have good reason to believe that it is very unlikely, the mere possibility of an AI causing extreme human suffering is important enough to warrant serious consideration. Others look at this problem from the opposite perspective, namely that of the AI itself. Here the idea is that even if we have good reason to believe that it is very unlikely, the mere possibility of humanity causing extreme suffering to an AI is important enough to warrant serious consideration. This paper starts from the observation that both concerns rely on problematic philosophical assumptions. Rather than tackling these assumptions directly, it proceeds to present an argument that if one takes these assumptions seriously, then one has a moral obligation to advocate for a ban on the development of a conscious AI
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