Ethics

Philosophical treatments of the Trolley Problem ignore morally significant subtleties.

Our topic is the difference variously labeled as that between, on the one hand, “doing” or “causing” or “making” something happen and, on the other, “allowing” or “letting” it happen. Our goal here is to say “What’s the Dif?”

Begin with the principle:It is impermissible to harm others (other things being equal)…

Singer says that failing to donate money to help suffering from poverty and preventable diseases is as morally bad as standing by as a child drowns. But how bad is that I wonder?

Retributive ethics derives property rights from conventionally agreed to permissions to harm others.

The theory analyses rights as permissions to harm others.

If we have any rights, we surely have the right to self-defense. And yet self-defense has proven very puzzling to Rights theorists.

Readers of these posts will recognize the parable as a dramatic staging of the Retributive Theory of Property.

What is the connection between our moral rights and duties and what we ought to do? What principles bridge these different forms of moral talk?

Consider this  principle proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson in The Realm of Rights.  The Sole-Means Principle for Permissibility: If the only means X has of doing Beta is doing Alpha , then it would be permissible for X to do beta if and only if it would permissible for X to do alpha.  If the Sole Means Principle (SMP)  is correct there are  far reaching consequences

Retributivist Ethics is rooted in five assumptions…

Beware gentle reader! To pass beyond this point is begin a quick march to a place you would rather not go. Be prepared to make tough choices. Watch your step but try to keep up with the group.