scholarly journals If One Can’t Lose Such a Right in These Circumstances, One Never Had It in the First Place

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Otsuka
Keyword(s):  
Moral Status ◽  
Defensive Harm

AbstractIn this article, I press a line of objection to Jonathan Quong's moral status account of liability to defensive harm. The claim on which I rest my critique is captured by the article's title: if one can’t lose such a right in these circumstances, one never had it in the first place.

Liability

2020 ◽  
pp. 18-57
Author(s):  
Jonathan Quong
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Moral Status ◽  
Moral Rights ◽  
Jeff Mcmahan ◽  
Defensive Harm

Chapter 2 develops and defends an original account of liability to defensive harm: the moral status account. On this view, a person renders himself liable to defensive harm when the evidence-relative permissibility of his act depends on the assumption that others lack certain moral rights that they in fact possess, and his act threatens, or reasonably appears to threaten, those rights. The chapter also provides criticisms of competing accounts of liability, in particular, the moral responsibility account influentially developed by Jeff McMahan, among others. The chapter concludes by addressing a number of objections that might be pressed against the moral status account.

scholarly journals Risk Imposition and Liability to Defensive Harm

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Frowe
Keyword(s):  
General Practice ◽  
Moral Status ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
Defensive Harm ◽  
As If

AbstractAccording to Jonathan Quong’s moral status account of liability to defensive harm, an agent is liable to defensive harm only when she mistakenly treats others as if their moral status is diminished (for example, as if they lack a right that they in fact possess). Quong argues that, by the lights of the moral status account, a conscientious driver (Driver) who faultlessly threatens to kill Pedestrian is not liable to defensive harm. Quong argues that Driver’s action is evidence-relative permissible, despite the risks it imposes, because the general practice of prudent driving is permissible. The practice is permissible because (a) its risks do not disproportionately fall on some groups rather than others, (b) the threatened harms are incidental, and (c) the risk that driving imposes is acceptable in light of the benefits everyone derives from driving. Because the correct moral theory tells us that prudent driving is permissible, Pedestrian lacks a right that Driver refrain from driving. Hence, Driver does not, by driving, treat Pedestrian as lacking a right that Pedestrian in fact possesses. Driver is not liable to defensive force. I argue, against Quong, that cost–benefit analyses of types of risky activity cannot justify individual tokens of risk imposition. Actions that risk incidentally harming others must be justified by the prospective benefits of that token action. Hence, Driver’s imposition of risk on Pedestrian cannot be justified by the benefits of the general practice of driving. I argue that the permissibility of Driver’s imposing risk on Pedestrian via prudent driving turns on whether Driver is willing to internalise at least the foreseeable costs of that risky action. One can lack a right that a person refrain from performing a risky action whilst possessing a right not to be harmed by that risky action. Even if Pedestrian cannot reasonably demand that Driver refrain from driving, she can reasonably demand that Driver refrain from forcing her to bear the costs of his driving.

Christus Virgo

2012 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 22-27
Author(s):  
Sissel Undheim
Keyword(s):  
Moral Status ◽  
The Other ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Female Sex ◽  
The One ◽  
The Church

The description of Christ as a virgin, 'Christus virgo', does occur at rare occasions in Early Christian and late antique texts. Considering that 'virgo' was a term that most commonly described the sexual and moral status of a member of the female sex, such representations of Christ as a virgin may exemplify some of the complex negotiations over gender, salvation, sanctity and Christology that we find in the writings of the Church fathers. The article provides some suggestions as to how we can understand the notion of the virgin Christ within the context of early Christian and late antique theological debates on the one hand, and in light of the growing interest in sacred virginity on the other.

On the Moral Status of Disgust

2018 ◽  
Vol 122 ◽  
pp. 51-84
Author(s):  
Dayk Jang ◽  
Min-seop Lee
Keyword(s):  
Moral Status

A book of protection: Hoja Ahmad Yassawi's "Devoni Hikmat"

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 156-160
Author(s):  
Khurshida Salimovna Safarova ◽  
Shakhnoza Islomovna Vosiyeva
Keyword(s):  
Moral Status ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Universe

Every great fiction book is a book that portrays the uniqueness of the universe and man, the difficulty of breaking that bond, or the weakening of its bond and the increase in human. The creation of such a book is beyond the reach of all creators, and not all works can illuminate the cultural, spiritual and moral status of any nation in the world by unraveling the underlying foundations of humanity. With the birth of Hoja Ahmad Yassawi's “Devoni Hikmat”, the Turkic nations were recognized as a nation with its own book of teaching, literally, the encyclopedia of enlightenment, truth and spirituality.

Dehumanization and Mentalizing Animals

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
T.J. Kasperbauer
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Moral Status ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Mental State Attribution ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Phenomenal States

This chapter applies the psychological account from chapter 3 on how we rank human beings above other animals, to the particular case of using mental states to assign animals moral status. Experiments on the psychology of mental state attribution are discussed, focusing on their implications for human moral psychology. The chapter argues that attributions of phenomenal states, like emotions, drive our assignments of moral status. It also describes how this is significantly impacted by the process of dehumanization. Psychological research on anthropocentrism and using animals as food and as companions is discussed in order to illuminate the relationship between dehumanization and mental state attribution.

A Typology of Moral Progress

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allen Buchanan
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Moral Status ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Premarital Sex ◽  
Moral Progress ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
Chattel Slavery ◽  
The World ◽  
Moral Point

This chapter identifies a number of developments that are candidates for moral progress: abolition of the Atlantic chattel slavery, improvements in civil rights for minorities, equal rights for women, better treatment of (some) non-human animals, and abolition of the cruellest punishments in most parts of the world. This bottom-up approach is then used to construct a typology of moral progress, including improvements in moral reasoning, recognition of the moral standing or equal basic moral status of beings formerly thought to lack them, improvements in understandings of the domain of justice, the recognition that some behaviors formerly thought to be morally impermissible (such as premarital sex, masturbation, lending money at interest, and refusal to die “for king and country”) can be morally permissible, and improvements in understandings of morality itself. Finally, a distinction is made between improvements from a moral point of view and moral progress in the fullest sense.

The Animal Antinomy, Part 1

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine M. Korsgaard
Keyword(s):  
New Species ◽  
Moral Status ◽  
Domestic Animals ◽  
Moral Standing ◽  
Phase Out

Does a commitment to the moral standing of animals obligate us to try to end predation? “Creation ethicists,” who answer yes, believe that if we could, we ought to create new species of animals who would not need predation. The probable result would be that all animals are domestic. “Abolitionists,” who answer no, argue that the only way we can treat animals well is by leaving them alone. We should not interfere with predation, and should phase out domestic animals. The result would be that all animals are wild. This chapter raises some worries about the creationist position, although it grants that these worries are inconclusive. Since we would be substituting different kinds of animals for the ones that exist now, we need to understand the moral status of groups, including species, and to determine what is bad about extinction, before we can decide whether creating new species is a good solution to the problem of predation.

Moral Victories

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Moral Status ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Clear Understanding ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Humanitarian Interventions ◽  
Theory Of War ◽  
Military Relations

What does it mean to win a moral victory? In the history, practice, and theory of war, this question yields few clear answers. Wars often begin with ideals about just and decisive triumphs but descend into quagmires. In the just war and strategic studies traditions, assumptions about victory underpin legitimations for war but become problematic in discussions about its conduct and conclusion. After centuries of conflict, we still lack a clear understanding of victory or reliable resources for discerning its moral status, its implications for conduct in war, or its relationship to changing ways of war. This book brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars to tackle such issues. It is organized in two parts. After a synoptic introduction, Part I, ‘Traditions: The Changing Character of Victory’, charts the historically variable notion of victory and the dialogues and fissures this opens in the just war and strategic canons. Individual chapters analyse the importance of victory in the Bible, Clausewitz’s strategy, the political uses of defeat, arguments for unlimited war, revisionist just war theory, and contemporary norms against fights to the finish. Part II, ‘Challenges: The Problem of Victory in Contemporary Warfare’, shows how changing security contexts exacerbate these issues. Individual chapters discuss ethics in unwinnable wars, the political scars of victory, whether we can ‘win’ humanitarian interventions, contemporary civil–military relations, victory in privatized war, and operations short of war. In both parts, contributors work towards a clearer understanding of victory, forwarding several shared themes discussed in a critical conclusion.

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