Intention and Wrongdoing

According to the principle of double effect, there is a strict moral constraint against bringing about serious harm to the innocent intentionally, but it is permissible in a wider range of circumstances to act in a way that brings about harm as a foreseen but non-intended side effect. This idea plays an important role in just war theory and international law, and in the twentieth century Elizabeth Anscombe and Philippa Foot invoked it as a way of resisting consequentialism. However, many moral philosophers now regard the principle with hostility or suspicion. Challenging the philosophical orthodoxy, Joshua Stuchlik defends the principle of double effect, situating it within a moral framework of human solidarity and responding to philosophical objections to it. His study uncovers links between ethics, philosophy of action, and moral psychology, and will be of interest to anyone seeking to understand the moral relevance of intention.

Religious Functionalism: An Influential Tool for Harnessing Corruption in Ghana

One of the most influential and ever-expanding dimensions of almost every African society is religion. Every function political, legal, or economic, is intertwined with the ingredients of religion. In Ghana, it is socially, politically, and legally offensive to separate religion from communal exhibitions and, restrict it from individual performance. Amid the widely spread commitment to different religions by public officials, the reality of corruption alongside its destructive nature still infringes on the public administrative efficiency in Ghana. With regards to this submission, one question worth asking is, can religion, owing to its measurability, be operable in curbing corruption in a notoriously religious and corruption-spotted country like Ghana? In finding a response to this question, this paper argued that religious functionalism can be used as a practical tool in the fight against corruption in Ghana. Religious functionalism in its definitional postulation refers to activities that promote social integration, adhesive group formation, and social control that foster a moral framework that contributes to the development of a society. To achieve its objective and arrive at workable recommendations, the paper relied on library materials—drawing contents from the research papers relating to the subject matter. The paper recommended that in order to fight corruption in Ghana the functional dimensions of Christianity, Islam and African Traditional Religion should be emphasized. Specifically, the adherents of these religions owe a responsibility to their religious moral frameworks. If the Ghanaian society is ‘notoriously’ religious, it follows that religious functionalism is indispensable in the fight against corruption. Keywords: Functionalism, Corruption, Religion, Development.

The Moral Parameters of Violence: The Case of the Provisional IRA

Over three decades, the Provisional Irish Republican Army waged a campaign of violence that claimed the lives of some two thousand people. This article explores the moral framework by which the IRA sought to legitimate its campaign—how it was derived and how it functioned. On the one hand, the IRA relied on a legalist set of political principles, grounded in a particular reading of Irish history. An interlinked, yet discrete strand of legitimation stressed the iniquities of the Northern Irish state as experienced by Catholic nationalists, especially in the period 1968–1972. These parallel threads were interwoven to build a powerful argument that justified a resort to what the IRA termed its “armed struggle.” Yet the IRA recognized that the parameters for war were set not simply by reference to ideology but also by a reading of what might be acceptable to those identified as “the people” or “the community.” Violence was subject to an undeclared process of negotiation with multiple audiences, which served to constitute the boundaries of the permissible. Often, these red lines were revealed only at the point of transgression, but they were no less important for being intangible. An examination of the moral parameters for IRA violence provides a new perspective on the group, helping to explain IRA resilience but also its ultimate weakness and decline.

Moral Status of Brain Organoids

Brain organoid research raises ethical challenges not seen in other forms of stem cell research. Given that brain organoids recapitulate the development of the human brain, it is plausible that brain organoids could one day attain consciousness and perhaps even higher cognitive abilities. Brain organoid research therefore raises difficult questions about these organoids’ moral status—questions that currently fall outside the scope of existing regulations and guidelines. This chapter offers a novel moral framework for brain organoid research. It outlines the conditions under which brain organoids might attain moral status and explain what this means for the ethics of experimenting with these entities.

"We feed the world": the political ecology of the Corn Belt's driving narrative

Industrial grain production occupies most of Iowa's farmland. Around the edges of corn and soybean monocultures, however, small-scale, diversified farmers establish alternative agricultural operations and sell to local markets. One narrative, "we feed the world", stretches across these two spheres; its roots lie in post-World War II geopolitics, and its contemporary iterations reflect the actions of private agricultural interest groups. As a rhetorical strategy, asserting "we feed the world" invokes neo-Malthusian fears to reposition differences in agricultural production systems within a moral framework where yield primarily determines agricultural legitimacy. This article ethnographically analyzes how this narrative intersects the lives and livelihoods of conventional and alternative farmers alike. Today, the narrative serves three functions: defending industrial agricultural systems against criticisms,justifying the pursuit of ever-higher yields on moral grounds, and gatekeeping agricultural legitimacy. Examining this discursive mechanism yields insight into the diversity of strategies through which actors within the industrial agricultural system reproduce particular land use practices in service of their own interests.

Greening Global Egalitarianism?

In Justice and Natural Resources: An Egalitarian Theory (2017), Chris Armstrong proposes a version of global egalitarianism that – contra the default renderings of this approach – takes individual attachment to specific resources into account. By doing this, his theory has the potential for greening global egalitarianism both in terms of procedure and scope. In terms of procedure, its broad account of attachment and its focus on individuals rather than groups connects with participatory governance and management and, ultimately, participatory democracy – an essential ingredient in the toolkit of green politics and policy-making. In terms of scope, because it does not commit itself to any particular moral framework, Armstrong’s theory leaves the door open for non-human animals to become subjects of justice, thus extending the realm of the latter beyond its traditionally anthropocentric borders. I conclude that these greenings are promising, but not trouble-free.

A Catalyst for Change

I review perspectives on Ethics in psychology and offer a more masculine paradigm for male counsellors. My experience as a 46-year-old male psychology student brings me in contact with the current basic ethics proposed by registration bodies. Our ethics may miss the mark for many people as they list noble efforts at prosocial norms yet don't culminate in a moral framework for the younger students. I propose the catalytic dynamic of respect, power, love which utilises and "respects the dynamism theorised by Maslow in the client’s needs status, harnessing the libido of Jung to create the ‘healthy individualism’ of May".

An Anglican ethic for the COVID-19 pandemic

The health risks associated with the COVID-19 pandemic have changed daily life tremendously. Many are uncertain how to respond due to conflicting advice from authorities, and the practical difficulties inherent in protecting human health while sustaining the economy. The Anglican tradition offers a moral framework, practical principles, and a method of public engagement to address the challenges of COVID-19. Kenneth Kirk provides a framework of virtue and spiritual practices and a method of moral reasoning that resolves problems of conscience. William Temple develops principles of love, justice, human dignity, the common good, and the preferential option for the vulnerable that can be applied to concrete cases. Nigel Biggar and Pauli Murray show how to engage the public from an Anglican perspective to spark conversations and create structures that address the pandemic. The result is flexible guidance that can be tailored to the needs of particular persons and communities.

Limited Force and the Triumph, Crisis, and Schism of Just War Thinking

Just war, oft-lauded as the authoritative moral framework to address the decision to go war and the ethical permissions this might grant, has seen the meaning of its principles mired in controversy and debate in the post-9/11 era. From calls to reclaim the historic tradition to the need to re-negotiate the terms of the orthodox stance or embrace revisionist insights drawn from analytical philosophy, critical reflections on the major wars showcased competing claims about what just war thinking should be. Where does limited force fit into the story? In answering this question, the chapter exposes a major lacuna in just war thinking by highlighting the moral and strategic dilemmas of limited force—limited strikes, Special Forces, no-fly zones, and drones—in the build-up to the major conflicts that animated just war debates of the post-Cold War era. Viewing the wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the broader fight against Al Qaeda through the lens of limited force provides a new angle from which to analyse perennial debates about when to go to war and what victory looks like. Doing so exposes important limitations of existing just war moral frameworks related to concerns about escalation from limited force to war and punishment as a moral justification. Harvesting cues from the historical tradition, the chapter concludes by introducing five types of punishment that contain insights relevant to discerning the just and unjust uses of limited force.

Introduction

Limited force (vim) is different from war (bellum). Setting up and maintaining no-fly zones, conducting limited strikes, Special Forces raids, and the use of drones outside the “hot” battlefield have a different feel, seemingly falling below the threshold of war. They are different in scope, strategic purpose, and ethical challenges. While scholars tend to evaluate limited force according to just war principles, doing so misses considerable ethical precision and nuance. This lacuna warrants reformulating, reimagining, and recalibrating the just war framework and its principles better to understand the permissions and constraints of limited force. This chapter locates the pursuit of a moral framework of limited force, sometimes called force-short-of-war or jus ad vim, in the broader debates of the just war tradition. It poses three questions that set the tone for the wider inquiry. How are the moral concerns posed by using limited force different when compared to law enforcement and war? How does the ethics of limited force fit into broader debates about just war? What would a framework of the just and unjust uses of limited force look like? The chapter defends the choice of methodology—following in the footsteps of Michael Walzer’s turn to casuistry—as a commitment to the experience of using limited force, which entails discerning the plausible goals, engaging with how people talk about the various measures of limited force, and how they judge its use. Finally, it relates the status of the debate about vim and lays out the general plan of the book.