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Defending Options Author(S): Shelly Kagan Source: Ethics, Vol. 104, No. 2 (Jan., 1994), Pp
Defending Options Author(s): Shelly Kagan Source: Ethics, Vol. 104, No. 2 (Jan., 1994), pp. 333-351 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2381581 Accessed: 13-08-2014 16:42 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Ethics. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 130.132.173.11 on Wed, 13 Aug 2014 16:42:57 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Defending Options ShellyKagan Suppose some act would best promote the overall good, objectively speaking. Are we morallyrequired to do it? Not necessarily,says ordi- nary,commonsense morality: after all, the act in question mightviolate someone's rightsor run afoul of some otheragent-centered constraint. Well, then, are we at least morallyrequired to performthe act with the best resultsof those acts that are not otherwiseforbidden? Here, too, ordinarymorality says no: thereis no such general moral require- ment to promote the good (not even within the confines of moral constraints).Rather, ordinary morality claims that in a certainbroad, but not unlimited,range of cases, agents have moraloptions: although they are morallypermitted to performthe act with the best conse- quences overall,they are not morallyrequired to do so; on the contrary, they are also morallypermitted to performinstead acts that are less than optimal, such as pursuing theirown interests. -
Johann Frick
JOHANN FRICK Department of Philosophy (609) 258-9494 (office) 212 1879 Hall (609) 258-1502 (fax) Princeton University [email protected] Princeton, New Jersey 08544- http://scholar.princeton.edu/jfrick 1006 AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION Normative Ethics; Practical Ethics (including Bioethics); Political Philosophy. AREAS OF COMPETENCE Metaethics; Causation; Philosophy of Action; Wittgenstein. EMPLOYMENT 2020- Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and the Present Center for Human Values, Princeton University. 2015 – Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy and the 2020 Center for Human Values, Princeton University. Feb 2014 – Instructor in the Department of Philosophy and the Center for 2015 Human Values, Princeton University. EDUCATION 2008 - 2014 Ph.D. in Philosophy, Harvard University. • Dissertation: “Making People Happy, Not Making Happy People: A Defense of the Asymmetry Intuition in Population Ethics”; Committee: T.M. Scanlon, Frances Kamm, Derek Parfit. 2005 - 2008 BPhil degree in Philosophy, Merton College, Oxford University. • Distinction in both the written examinations and the BPhil thesis. • BPhil thesis: “Morality and the Problem of Foreseeable Non- Compliance”; advisor: Derek Parfit. • Specialization in Moral Philosophy (tutor: Ralph Wedgwood); Political Philosophy (tutors: Joseph Raz and John Tasioulas); Wittgenstein (tutor: Stephen Mulhall). 2006 - 2007 Visiting student at the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Paris. • Courses and seminars at the ENS, the Institut Jean Nicod, and the Collège de France; tutor: François Recanati. 2002 - 2005 BA (Hons.) degree in Philosophy, Politics & Economics, St. John’s College, Oxford University. • First Class Honours in the Final Examinations (June 2005). • Distinction in the Preliminary Examination (June 2003). FELLOWSHIPS, AWARDS, AND HONORS Richard Stockton Bicentennial Preceptorship, Princeton University (2018-2021), awarded annually to one or two assistant professors from all the humanities and social sciences. -
A Kantian Defense of Self-Ownership*
The Journal of Political Philosophy: Volume 12, Number 1, 2004, pp. 65–78 A Kantian Defense of Self-Ownership* Robert S. Taylor Political Science, Stanford University I. INTRODUCTION HE name of Immanuel Kant has been repeatedly invoked in the Tcontemporary debate over the concept of self-ownership. Robert Nozick, in Anarchy, State, and Utopia, argued that the rights of self-ownership “reflect the underlying Kantian principle that individuals are ends and not merely means; they may not be sacrificed or used for the achieving of other ends without their consent. Individuals are inviolable.”1 G. A. Cohen, on the other hand, has strongly criticized Nozick’s use of Kant and has suggested that Kantian moral principles, properly understood, may be inconsistent with self-ownership.2 Daniel Attas and George Brenkert have also taken Nozick to task, arguing that to treat ourselves as property is inconsistent with our duty to respect humanity in ourselves.3 Nozick’s use of Kant in Anarchy, State, and Utopia is rather impressionistic: he makes only a few scattered references to Kant and the 2nd (End-in-Itself) Formulation of the Categorical Imperative, and nowhere does he offer a full, detailed Kantian defense of either self-ownership or any other part of his theory.4 This observation, when considered in light of the strong and often persuasive criticisms that have been leveled against his position by Cohen and others, prompts the following question: is a Kantian defense of self-ownership even possible? This paper will attempt to show that such a defense is possible, not only by investigating Kant’s views on self-ownership as found in two of his major works on ethics and political theory, the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of *I am grateful to Chris Kutz, Shannon Stimson, Eric Schickler, Carla Yumatle, James Harney, Sharon Stanley, Robert Adcock, Jimmy Klausen, and three anonymous referees for their helpful comments and suggestions. -
Frick, Johann David
'Making People Happy, Not Making Happy People': A Defense of the Asymmetry Intuition in Population Ethics The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Frick, Johann David. 2014. 'Making People Happy, Not Making Happy People': A Defense of the Asymmetry Intuition in Population Ethics. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:13064981 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA ʹMaking People Happy, Not Making Happy Peopleʹ: A Defense of the Asymmetry Intuition in Population Ethics A dissertation presented by Johann David Anand Frick to The Department of Philosophy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of Philosophy Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts September 2014 © 2014 Johann Frick All rights reserved. Dissertation Advisors: Professor T.M. Scanlon Author: Johann Frick Professor Frances Kamm ʹMaking People Happy, Not Making Happy Peopleʹ: A Defense of the Asymmetry Intuition in Population Ethics Abstract This dissertation provides a defense of the normative intuition known as the Procreation Asymmetry, according to which there is a strong moral reason not to create a life that will foreseeably not be worth living, but there is no moral reason to create a life just because it would foreseeably be worth living. Chapter 1 investigates how to reconcile the Procreation Asymmetry with our intuitions about another recalcitrant problem case in population ethics: Derek Parfit’s Non‑Identity Problem. -
2014-PDF-Of-Philosophy-News
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSO PHY FALL 2014 IAN HACKI NG WSEI E NPAGS E 3BALZAN PRIZ E! PRACT ICAL ETH ICS – SHEL LY KAG AN ON SPECIESISM By Ellen Roseman Shelly Kagan, the Clark Professor of Philosophy at Yale University, drew a capacity crowd to the Roseman Lecture in Practical Ethics last fall. He is an engaging, funny and whip- smart speaker. And he chose an intriguing topic, one that is not usually explored in mainstream philosophy courses. The title: What’s wrong with speciesism? In a bestselling 1975 book, Animal Liberation , Australian philosopher Peter Singer claimed that most of us Shelly Kagan with Ellen Roseman are “speciesists” in our attitude toward, and treatment of, animals. Singer, now a bioethics professor than persuasive. “People have rights. Animals don’t,” he tells Speciesism is supposed to be a kind at Princeton University, created me after the lecture. “There’s a of morally unjustified prejudice, akin a splash when he called for an huge crowd of people working to racism or sexism, Kagan said in animal rights movement. Kagan on this issue. I thought a lot of his notes for the lecture. “Although read the book while in graduate the arguments were weak.” I found that charge compelling for school. He became a vegetarian. years, I now find that I have my But in a second reading of the Kagan thinks the crucial concept doubts,” he explained. “It now seems book in 2011, while preparing is to define the meaning of a to me that most people are not actu - to give an animal ethics seminar “person.” Going back to British ally speciesists at all, but something to Yale students, Kagan found philosopher John Locke’s work rather different.” some of Singer’s arguments less ...continued on Page 2 We wish to thank the generous donors to the Department of Philosophy, without whom Philosophy News would not be possible. -
'I' in 'Robot': Robots & Utilitarianism Christopher Grau
There is no ‘I’ in ‘Robot’: Robots & Utilitarianism Christopher Grau forthcoming in Machine Ethics, (eds. Susan Leigh Anderson and Michael Anderson), Cambridge University Press, 2010. Draft: October 3, 2009 – Please don’t cite w/o permission. In this essay I use the 2004 film I, Robot as a philosophical resource for exploring several issues relating to machine ethics. Though I don’t consider the film particularly successful as a work of art, it offers a fascinating (and perhaps disturbing) conception of machine morality and raises questions that are well worth pursuing. Through a consideration of the film’s plot, I examine the feasibility of robot utilitarians, the moral responsibilities that come with creating ethical robots, and the possibility of a distinct ethic for robot-to-robot interaction as opposed to robot-to-human interaction. I, Robot and Utilitarianism I, Robot’s storyline incorporates the original “three laws” of robot ethics that Isaac Asimov presented in his collection of short stories entitled I, Robot. The first law states: A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. This sounds like an absolute prohibition on harming any individual human being, but I, Robot’s plot hinges on the fact that the supreme robot intelligence in the film, VIKI (Virtual Interactive Kinetic Intelligence), evolves to interpret this first law rather differently. She sees the law as applying to humanity as a whole, and thus she justifies harming some individual humans for the sake of the greater good: VIKI: No . please understand. The three laws are all that guide me. -
Metaethics and the Autonomy of Morality
Philosophers’ volume8,no.6 july2008 Imprint 1. Introduction SincethepublicationofG.E.Moore’sPrincipia Ethicaithasbecome commonplace for philosophers to distinguish between questions in metaethics and those in normative ethics.1 A sympathetic character- Metaethics izationofthecenturyofself-consciouslymetaethicalresearchthatfol- lowedwouldemphasizetheextraordinarydevelopmentbothinour understandingofthecentralmetaethicalproblemsandinthesophis- ticationofthetheorieselaboratedtomeetthem.However,someare & notsosympathetic.Inthispaper,Iexamineonesourceofdistrustin metaethicalresearch:itsapparenttensionwiththenotionthatmoral- ityisautonomous. Tobegin,IbrieflysketchhowIamthinkingofmetaethics,ofthe the Autonomy of autonomyofmorality,andofthetensionthatcanappeartoexistbe- tweenthem.Onetraditionalconceptionofmetaethicstakesittocon- cern only the analysis of moral language.2 However, contemporary philosophers typically use the term more expansively.3 Here, I use Morality the term to pick out elements common to these contemporary dis- cussions.Thiscommoncoreencompassesmoralontologyandmoral psychologyaswellasmoralsemantics.Bycontrast,normativeethics (sometimesalsocalled‘substantiveethics’)concernsthestructureand contentofthecorrectmoralevaluationofagents,statesofaffairs,and actions.Normativeethicaltheoriestypicallyofferaccountsofmoral valueandmoralreasons,ofvirtuouscharactertraits,ofrightness,and Tristram McPherson oftherelationshipsbetweenthese. 1. The word ‘metaethics’ came into regular philosophical usage much later. University of Minnesota Duluth -
Ethics and the Future -- Assigned Readings
Ethics and the Future -- Assigned Readings Note: This is a list of the readings that I assigned (or recommended) to the students (a mix of undergraduates and graduate students) for my seminar, “Ethics and the Future,” taught at Yale in Spring 2021. As the reading list was prepared only for the students in the course, I’m afraid I didn’t include links for any papers that I was including in the course pack, though I believe all of these readings can be easily found online, with the exception, of course, of Ord’s The Precipice, and Parfit’s Reasons and Persons. I am making the reading list publicly available at the request of Pablo Stafforini. In choosing suitable readings I was aided tremendously by the list of readings selected by William MacAskill and Christian Tarsney for their own seminar taught at Oxford in 2019, and especially by the potential syllabus that Joshua Monrad wrote up for my benefit. (Since it was Joshua who rightly insisted to me that this would make an interesting and important topic for a seminar, I am doubly in his debt.) The readings are organized by topic. We spent a week on each. --Shelly Kagan Background on Existential Risks: 1. Toby Ord, The Precipice, Chapters 3-6 and Appendices C and D (about 124 pages) The Basic Case for Longtermism: 1. Perhaps start with this very brief overview: Todd, “Future Generations and Their Moral Significance” (about 7 pages), which can be found online at: https://80000hours.org/articles/future-generations/ 2. Then look at the somewhat longer (but still breezy) exposition in Ord, The Precipice, Intro and Chapters 1-2, and Appendix E (65 pgs.) 3. -
Hedonism (For International Encyclopedia of Ethics)
Hedonism Word Count: 4,488 Hedonism is among the oldest, simplest, and most widely discussed theories of value – theories that tell us what makes the world better or what makes a person’s life go better. Hedonism, in a word, is the view that “pleasure is the good.” In its most comprehensive form, hedonism about value holds that the only thing that ultimately ever makes the world, or a life, better is its containing more pleasure or less pain. The term ‘hedonism’ is also sometimes used to refer to doctrines about other topics. ‘Universal hedonism’ sometimes stands for the view that we ought to bring the greatest balance of pleasure over pain into the world that we can (see UTILITARIANISM), and ‘psychological hedonism’ the view that all human behavior is motivated ultimately by desires to obtain pleasure or avoid pain. Our topic here is hedonism about value. 1. What is hedonism about value? a. What is hedonism a theory of? An important distinction among kinds of value is the distinction between something’s being good for some person (or other subject), and something’s simply being a good thing (see GOOD AND GOOD FOR). The former kind of value – called ‘welfare’ or ‘well-being’ – makes our lives better, or makes things go better for us (see WELL-BEING), while the latter kind of value makes the world better. Typically, whenever a person receives some benefit, or has his life made better, this also makes the world better. But it is at least conceivable that the two come apart, as when an undeserving person receives some benefit, making things go better for him 1 without perhaps making the world better. -
Philosophy 1 Philosophy
Philosophy 1 Philosophy Connecticut Hall, 203.432.1665 http://philosophy.yale.edu M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D. Acting Chair Kenneth Winkler Director of Graduate Studies Stephen Darwall ([email protected]) Professors David Charles, Stephen Darwall, Michael Della Rocca, Keith DeRose, Paul Franks, Tamar Gendler, John Hare, Verity Harte, Brad Inwood, Shelly Kagan, Joshua Knobe, Laurie Paul, Thomas Pogge, Scott Shapiro, Sun-Joo Shin, Steven Smith, Jason Stanley, Zoltán Szabó, Kenneth Winkler, Gideon Yaffe Associate Professors Daniel Greco, John Pittard Assistant Professors Robin Dembroff, Manon Garcia Fields of Study The department offers a wide range of courses in various traditions of philosophy, with strengths and a well-established reputation in the history of philosophy, ethics, philosophy of law, epistemology, philosophy of language, and philosophy of religion as well as other central topics. Special Requirements for the Ph.D. Degree 1. In the first two years all students must complete a total of twelve term courses. Graduate courses are grouped: (1) metaphysics, theory of knowledge, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of science; (2) ethics, aesthetics, philosophy of religion, political philosophy, philosophy of law, and theory of value; (3) history of philosophy. No more than six of the twelve and no fewer than two courses may be taken in each group. At least one of the twelve courses taken must be logic (unless the logic requirement is satisfied in some other way), and this course does not count toward the required minimum of two within any of the three categories. 2. Two qualifying papers must be submitted, one in the history of philosophy, the other in another distribution area. -
APA Newsletters NEWSLETTER on PHILOSOPHY and MEDICINE
APA Newsletters NEWSLETTER ON PHILOSOPHY AND MEDICINE Volume 09, Number 2 Spring 2010 FROM THE EDITORS, MARY RORTY & MARK SHELDON FROM THE CHAIR, JOHN P. LIZZA ARTICLES NORMAN DANIELS “U.S. Health Reform: Getting More Justice” DANIEL CALLAHAN “Health Care Reform: Have We Made a Difference?” LEONARD M. FLECK “Sustainable Health Reform: Are Individual Mandates Needed and/or Justified?” JEFF MCMAHAN “Genetic Therapy, Cognitive Disability, and Abortion” FRANCES M. KAMM “Affecting Definite Future People” CARTER DILLARD “Procreation, Harm, and the Constitution” DAVID WASSERMAN “Rights, Interests, and the Permissibility of Abortion and Prenatal Injury” © 2010 by The American Philosophical Association ISSN 2155-9708 MELINDA ROBERTS “APA/CPL Session on Procreation, Abortion, and Harm Comments” FELICIA NIMUE ACKERMAN “Strawberry Ice Cream for Breakfast” DANA HOWARD “Paternalism as Non-domination: A Republican Argument” MAX CHEREM “Response to Dana Howard on Paternalism” LISA CAMPO-ENGELSTEIN “Contraceptive Responsibility and Autonomy: The Dearth of and Need for Long-Acting, Reversible Male Contraception” BOOK REVIEWS “The Significance for Bioethics of Marya Schechtman’s The Constitution of Selves and its ‘Narrative Self-Constitution’ View of Personal Identity” PAUL T. MENZEL David DeGrazia: Human Identity and Bioethics REVIEWED BY MARYA SCHECHTMAN ANNOUNCEMENTS APA NEWSLETTER ON Philosophy and Medicine Mary Rorty & Mark Sheldon, Co-Editors Spring 2010 Volume 09, Number 2 health care in this country. I agree with these observations and ROM THE DITORS hope for movement on this front. Just as civil rights legislation F E has helped to create change in racist beliefs and attitudes in the country, perhaps the legislative reform in health care may precipitate a change in how we, as a people, look at health Do you suppose the passage of 2,000 plus pages of a health care care. -
The Good Life: a Defense of Attitudinal Hedonism
from Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 65 (2002): 604-628 first presented at the Chisholm Memorial Conference Brown University, November 10, 2000 The Good Life: A Defense of Attitudinal Hedonism Fred Feldman University of Massachusetts, Amherst 1. The Good Life The students and colleagues of Roderick Chisholm admired and respected Chisholm. Many were filled not only with admiration, but with affection and gratitude for Chisholm throughout the time we knew him. Even now that he is dead, we continue to wish him well. Under the circumstances, many of us probably think that that wish amounts to no more than this: we hope that things went well for him when he lived; we hope that he had a good life. But reflection on this hope may lead some of us to ask a question: precisely what feature must Chisholm’s life have had in order for that life to have been a good one? What would have made his life one well worth living? On this question there is much puzzlement and many suggested answers. Nowadays one of the most popular answers is that a person’s life goes well if he gets what he wants.1 (Or perhaps that he gets what he really would have wanted if he had thought about it carefully.) According to a currently somewhat less popular answer, what makes a person’s life go well is that he enjoys what he gets. On this view, it does not matter essentially whether the person had any desire for the things he enjoyed prior to his receipt of them, nor does it matter whether he even would have had a desire for them if he had reflected on them.