Transitivity, Moral Latitude, and Supererogation

On what I take to be the standard account of supererogation, an act is supererogatory if and only if it is morally optional and there is more moral reason to perform it than to perform some permissible alternative. And, on this account, an agent has more moral reason to perform one act than to perform another if and only if she morally ought to prefer how things would be if she were to perform the one to how things would be if she were to perform the other. I argue that this account has two serious problems. The first, which I call the latitude problem, is that it has counterintuitive implications in cases where the duty to be exceeded is one that allows for significant latitude in how to comply with it. The second, which I call the transitivity problem, is that it runs afoul of the plausible idea that the one-reason-morally-justifies-acting-against-another relation is transitive. What’s more, I argue that both problems can be overcome by an alternative account, which I call the maximalist account

Desert, Control, and Moral Responsibility

In this paper, I take it for granted both that there are two types of blameworthiness—accountability blameworthiness and attributability blameworthiness—and that avoidability is necessary only for the former. My task, then, is to explain why avoidability is necessary for accountability blameworthiness but not for attributability blameworthiness. I argue that what explains this is both the fact that these two types of blameworthiness make different sorts of reactive attitudes fitting and that only one of these two types of attitudes requires having been able to refrain from φ-ing in order for them to be fitting

Analysis of a Permanent Prohibition on Implementing the Major Health Care Legislation Enacted in March 2010

[Excerpt] This letter discusses many of the potential effects of a permanent ban on the use of appropriated funds to implement the health care laws and, where possible, provides information on whether those effects would increase or decrease direct spending or revenues. Because of the uncertainties discussed below, however, CBO and JCT do not have sufficient basis to provide a comprehensive estimate of the budgetary effects of legislation that would prohibit the use of funding to implement the 2010 health laws, yet would not repeal any provisions of that law

Presence and sacrifice: obstacles and inroads in Catholic-Lutheran dialogue

Eucharist

Ifastats: using a microcomputer for statistical analysis in language studies

Chapter FiveZadanie pt. „Digitalizacja i udostępnienie w Cyfrowym Repozytorium Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego kolekcji czasopism naukowych wydawanych przez Uniwersytet Łódzki” nr 885/P-DUN/2014 zostało dofinansowane ze środków MNiSW w ramach działalności upowszechniającej nauk

Morality and Practical Reasons

As Socrates famously noted, there is no more important question than how we ought to live. The answer to this question depends on how the reasons that we have for living in various different ways combine and compete. To illustrate, suppose that I've just received a substantial raise. What should I do with the extra money? I have most moral reason to donate it to effective charities but most self-interested reason to spend it on luxuries for myself. So, whether I should live my life as I have most moral reason to live it or as I have most self-interested reason to live it depends on how these and other sorts of reasons combine and compete to determine what I have most reason to do, all things considered. This Element seeks to figure out how different sorts of reasons combine and compete to determine how we ought to live

Should Japanese Banks Be Recapitalized?

When a bank is a relationship lender, its financial health affects the access to credit of its borrowers. If bank regulators or uninsured private depositors might force a bank to close, it will take any action necessary to remain open. This can lead to inefficient and excessive foreclosure of the bank's relationship-based loans to viable borrowers, or alternatively to the inability to collect existing loans due to its fear of recognizing an accounting loss if a loan is called. The level of bank capital then has real effects on its borrower's access to credit. A subsidized recapitalization of banks with relationship-based loans can be a good policy. The size of the recapitalization is critical, because providing too small an amount of subsidized capital can be worse than providing no capital. Providing subsidized capital to banks without relationship-based loans is never a good policy.