bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Global Health Ethics
Authors: Schuklenk Udo , Cline Cheryl 
Published: January 2013

AbstractSince the middle of the twentieth century, people have experienced remarkable gains in health. Life expectancy has almost doubled (World Health Organization 2003: 3) and child mortality rates have decreased by 60 percent (Moser et al. 2005: 203). Despite these positive trends, health disparities between those who are financially well off and those who are not continue to widen. In developing world countries these disparities are particularly pronounced. For example, an estimated nine million children under the age of 5 die globally each year, 50 percent of which are easily preventable (World Health Organization 2009). Many of these deaths can be attributed to the health resource gap between the developed and the developing world. At the same time, global wealth has increased to such an extent that it is now feasible to significantly reduce health‐related illness, suffering, and premature death. Many of the world's health problems that result in the large‐scale avoidable loss of quality‐adjusted life‐years are the foreseeable consequence of poverty caused by the world economic order. High drug prices protected by the international patent regime put medicines out of the reach of many of the world's citizens, and a paucity of health research funding, for diseases that primarily affect citizens living in poorer countries, results in unnecessary illness and premature death. These are two of the many factors that contribute to poor living conditions for the majority of the world's citizens that are not just tragic but unjust. A growing body of literature addresses our moral obligations to improve health globally in light of our material capacity to do so. This essay draws on this emerging ethics literature to describe two contending accounts of global health obligations. We then highlight four prominent ethical issues in global health ethics that include (1) sharing the benefits of research carried out through developing country collaborations, (2) the growing trend of patients traveling across national borders in pursuit of healthcare, (3) the migration of healthcare workers to wealthier from poorer communities, and (4) international infectious disease control.
Hybrid Theories of Moral Statements
Authors: Barker Stephen 
Published: January 2013

AbstractHybrid theories are metaethical theories concerning the content of sentences about moral value (seeMetaethics). These theories claim that sentences with ethical content express two kinds of mental state. One state is an affect‐like state. The other is a belief‐like state. The expressed affect‐like state will involve a moral attitude of some kind, such as approval, but it is not part of the truth‐conditions of the sentence. We can divide hybridists into two kinds.
Civic Virtue
Authors: van den Brink Bert 
Published: January 2013

AbstractTo act virtuously is to act competently in light of standards set by a certain role. To act virtuously in a civic context is to act competently as a citizen or member of a political community (Dagger 1997: 14;seeCitizenship). Etymologically, civic virtue is about showingvirtus(strength, excellence) for thecivitas(both citizenship and political community). What counts as strength or excellence of the citizen is historically variable and determined in practice by the specifics of given political arrangements and reigning ideologies and political theories (seePolitical Ethics). In modern constitutional democracies (seeDemocracy), emphasis is on virtues such as judicial impartiality, respect for individual rights (seeRights) and personal autonomy, justice (seeJustice), personal integrity, social and political participation, public reasoning, reflective judgment, and toleration (Macedo 1990; Galston 1991; Dagger 1997). In premodern city‐states there is a similar stress on deliberative and participatory virtues but for a much smaller citizenry, which consisted of men of status and sufficient means. In premodern political theory we find less emphasis on the virtue of the toleration of ethical difference (seeToleration) but detailed focus on questions of the good life (Aristotle 1995). In addition, we find reflection on military virtues, the virtues of noble leadership,virtù(“manliness”) (Machiavelli 1997), and sacrifice for the common good.
Deleuze, Gilles
Authors: Smith Daniel W. 
Published: January 2013

AbstractGilles Deleuze (1925–95) was a prolific French philosopher best known for his 1968 magnum opusDifference and Repetition(Deleuze 1994), which developed an approach to metaphysics derived from a principle of difference, and his two‐volume work in political philosophy,Capitalism and Schizophrenia(Deleuze and Guattari 1977, 1987), which he co‐authored with Félix Guattari, a militant psychotherapist. Deleuze also wrote a series of influential studies of figures in the history of philosophy, including Spinoza, Leibniz, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, and Bergson, as well as a number of works on literature, film, painting, and the arts, which gave him a wide readership outside the field of philosophy. He eluded easy classification as a philosopher: although he characterized himself an empiricist, expressing equal admiration for William James and Bertrand Russell, he nonetheless admitted his even deeper indebtedness to the rationalism of Spinoza and Leibniz, and he considered the question of the conditions for the production ofnovelty(Whitehead) orcreativity(Bergson) to be one of the fundamental issues of contemporary thought.
Camus, Albert
Authors: Sprintzen David 
Published: January 2013

AbstractContracting tuberculosis at the age of seventeen and facing the prospect of an early death indelibly marked Albert Camus (1913–60) with a profound sense of the transiency of life, while deepening his passionate commitment to its irreplaceable value. That dual experience resonates throughout his work, from his early essays in “Two Sides of the Coin” (usually translated as “The Right Side and The Wrong Side”) and “Nuptials,” and then in his celebrated novelThe Stranger(1942), to his last unfinished, clearly autobiographical, workThe First Man(published posthumously in 1994). In the face of inevitable death (seeDeath), he commits himself to an unceasing effort to “bear witness” to human possibilities. In the words of the epigram toThe Myth of Sisyphus(1942), “Oh my soul, do not aspire to immortal life, but exhaust the field of the possible.”
Capabilities
Authors: Brooks Thom 
Published: January 2013

AbstractCapabilities concern freedom and human dignity. A capability marks out an ability to do or be. If I possess a capability, then I have the ability to do an action (obtain food, speak freely, etc.) or to become a certain kind of person (self‐directing, etc.). A capability is different from actual functioning because I may not choose to perform these actions or become these kinds of people. This approach offers a distinctive view about justice. Part of its focus is on freedom which takes the form of securing opportunities for persons to freely choose to satisfy capabilities. Another focus pertains to human dignity, in that securing opportunities for capability satisfaction is thought to also best secure human dignity.
Democracy
Authors: Christiano Thomas 
Published: January 2013

Abstract“Democracy” in this essay is a process of collective decision‐making in which all or nearly all the members of the permanent adult population of the society have effective rights to participate as equals in a crucial stage of the decision‐making. In the case of representative democracy this implies that all or nearly all the adult population participates in free and fair elections, in which each person has an equal opportunity to run for office, to organize for political influence and to vote, and in which those elections do genuinely choose and reject those who have political power in the society. This is an undemanding and minimal definition and does not answer any normative questions. Democracy is not always morally desirable. Nor is this all we should hope and press for in democratic societies. The normative principles that underpin democracy, which we shall review in the rest of this essay, must do the work of determining when democracy is desirable and what shape democracy ought to take. Still, this definition excludes the societies of Western Europe and America in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which excluded women and/or ethnic minorities and/or people without property. They may be “proto‐democratic” because they extended the suffrage to very large proportions of their populations and because they seemed to hold the seeds of universal suffrage within them. Second, it suggests that groups of children that make decisions as equals are also not democracies.
Citizenship
Authors: Brooks Thom 
Published: January 2013

AbstractA citizen is a member of a political community, who normally enjoys the rights and often assumes the duties of citizenship. The problem is identifying what, if anything, is required to be a citizen. This essay will explain the ways in which citizenship has been understood and the normative questions arising from considering the moral and political relevance of different features for membership. There will also be attention given to leading debates on citizenship, including whether the idea of citizenship has much currency.
Evolution, Ethics and
Authors: James Scott M. 
Published: January 2013

Abstract
The relationship between ethics and evolution is multifaceted. It has itself evolved substantially in the years since Darwin first published his ideas. For example, many tend to associate evolutionary ethics with social Darwinism (see below), according to which our moral norms and social policies should be based on those behavioral tendencies favored by natural selection. But social Darwinism has been abandoned. And yet the study of evolutionary ethics has never been more energized. The direction of that energy has shifted dramatically since the 1980s. This essay will explore the influence of evolutionary thought on ethics in three broad and overlapping areas: moral psychology, normative ethics, and metaethics.
War and Religion
Authors: Kelsay John 
Published: January 2013

AbstractIn a justly famous essay on “The Social Psychology of the World Religions,” Max Weber (seeWeber, Max) noted the particular role of religion in the legitimation of social and political order. Politics has to do with the distribution and exercise of power. Yet the historical record indicates that human beings wish for social life to be about something more than “mere” power. Most, if not all communities develop ways of talking that suggest the possibility of distinctions between legitimate and illegitimate (or just and unjust) forms of order. The resulting vocabularies often involve the kinds of things associated with the concept “religion”: appeals to scripture, citations of myths or tales of ancestors long removed, law codes understood as the commands of deities, and so on (seePolitical Ethics; Power).
Morality, Definition of
Authors: Wong David B. 
Published: January 2013

AbstractGiven the range and diversity in what could reasonably be called a morality, it is surprising that normative and metaethicists often simply presuppose a definition of morality. Even the apparently uncontroversial partial definition of morality as a “code” or “set of rules” excludes the view that morality is a sense or intuition of what is required and permitted (seeParticularism; Perception, Moral). To avoid prejudgment, morality will here be characterized as a guide for evaluating and engaging in attitudes and conduct. Distinction is sometimes made between a “normative” sense of “morality” that refers to the correct guide to follow and a “descriptive” sense that refers to guides that people have actually sought to follow and that are not necessarily correct. Philosophers often employ a conception of morality in the descriptive sense to argue for a conception of morality in the normative sense. Consider, for example, J. S. Mill's (1965–91) argument that the familiar secondary principles and precepts that most people regard as constituting morality are not competitors to the principle of utility, but in fact are justified because generally following them conduces to the greatest happiness (seeMill, John Stuart).
Deontology
Authors: Hurley Paul 
Published: January 2013

Abstract
A runaway trolley has been sent careening toward three innocent people who are trapped on the track. I can stop the trolley, thwarting the plot to kill the three, but only by pushing another innocent person into the trolley's path before it reaches them. Should I kill the one to save the three? Ordinary morality suggests not only that I am not required to kill the one to save the three, but that I am required not to do so – that morality prohibits me from killing in such a case even to prevent more killings from happening. Moral theories that take such ordinary moral judgments to capture legitimate and fundamental moral requirements are typically classified as deontological moral theories.
Synthetic Life Sciences
Authors: Selgelid Michael J. 
Published: January 2013

Abstract

The expression “synthetic life sciences” refers collectively to both synthetic genomics and synthetic biology (Samuel et al. 2009). Synthetic genomics involves the synthesis of genetic (e.g., DNA) sequences. While the Human Genome project depended upon (and itself accelerated) revolutionary developments in rapid DNA
sequencing
technology during the 1990s, synthetic genomics involves the more recent revolutionary development of technology that enables increasingly rapid
synthesis
of DNA sequences. It is now possible to synthesize entire genomes of some viruses and bacteria. The synthesis of virus genomes, furthermore, in some cases enables artificial synthesis of actual viruses. In the United States, for example, scientists used synthetic genomics to synthesize a polio virus (Cello et al. 2002). Following the published map of the polio genome, which is published on the Internet, they purchased and strung together corresponding DNA sequences. The addition of the synthesized genome to “cell juice” (a solution containing cellular ingredients but no live cells) resulted in a “live” virus that paralyzed and killed mice. Similar techniques enabled reconstruction of the 1918 Spanish Flu virus in 2005, and experts believe it would now be possible to synthesize the eradicated smallpox virus (
see
Dual‐Use Research).
Embryo Research
Authors: Baylis Françoise 
Published: January 2013

AbstractIn humans, the term “embryo” technically applies after implantation of the organism is complete (approximately 14 days after fertilization) until eight weeks of development, at which time the developing organism is referred to as a fetus. Prior to implantation, the scientific terms for the product of conception at different developmental stages are zygote, morula, and blastocyst. In common usage, however, the term “human embryo” refers to the human organism from the time of conception through to eight weeks' gestational age, and that is how the term is used below.
Frankena, William K.
Authors: Landesman Bruce M. 
Published: January 2013

AbstractWilliam Frankena was important both as a scholar and as a teacher of moral philosophy during the middle two quarters of the twentieth century. He was one of the foremost moral philosophers of that period. He was interested in and wrote about almost every question in normative ethics and metaethics (seeNormativity; Metaethics): the meaning of ethical terms, objective versus relativistic and egoistic accounts of morality, the most valid principles of right and wrong, the dispute between consequentialism and deontology (seeConsequentialism; Deontology), the reasons for being moral, the connections between morality and rationality, the difference between morality and other action‐guides, the relation between principle‐based and virtue‐based ethics, the connection between moral belief and motivation, the nature of justice and equality, the history of ethics, and the philosophy of education, especially moral education.
Desert
Authors: Cupit Geoffrey 
Published: January 2013

AbstractPopular discussions of justice and fairness are often couched in the language of desert: those who commit crimes are said to deserve punishment; those who work hard are said to deserve success; those in need are often categorized as the deserving or undeserving poor. Justice, it may be said, is happiness according to virtue, with each getting his or her deserts (seeJustice). Given the frequency with which desert is invoked in popular discussions, it might be expected that philosophical debate about justice and fairness would also focus on desert. But in recent times, this has often not been so. Indeed, in the mid‐twentieth century, Brian Barry was able to write of a “revolt against desert,” and describe desert as “a concept which is already in decline and may eventually disappear” (Barry 1965: 112).
Stewart, Dugald
Authors: Pritchard Michael S. 
Published: January 2013

Abstract

Scottish philosopher Dugald Stewart (1753–1828) succeeded his former teacher Adam Ferguson as chair of moral philosophy at Edinburgh. He served in this capacity for 25 years. During the course of those years he became recognized as a leading philosopher in both Europe and the United States, championing the “commonsense” philosophy of his teacher Thomas Reid (
see
Reid, Thomas). Stewart is the author of nine volumes on a wide range of philosophical topics; his major published work in moral philosophy,
The Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers of Man
(=
AMP
), reflects the powerful influence that Reid had on him. Stewart also published lengthy biographical essays on Reid and Adam Smith (
see
Smith, Adam).
Solidarity
Authors: Scholz Sally J. 
Published: January 2013

AbstractSolidarity is generally understood as a unity or bond between people who share interests, feelings of commonality, mutual support, or desire for social change. The specific nature of the moral relation of solidarity differs depending on the type of solidarity and the context. In addition, solidarity may alternately be considered a value, a virtue, a duty, a project, a relation, or the unity itself (seeVirtue; Duty and Obligation). Solidarity usually affects moral decision‐making beyond those decisions directly relevant to maintaining the social bond. For instance, when wealthy students in the Western world claim solidarity with sweatshop workers around the globe, they are asserting a connection with those workers which they will enact through advocacy against unjust conditions. They are also suggesting that the day‐to‐day decisions they make about what they purchase, how they vote, and what they consume will consider the effects of such actions on workplace conditions and social justice more broadly. In this sense, solidarity becomes a transformative value explicitly connecting individuals and their projects with others. Although it is sometimes understood in contrast to individualism or personal liberty, solidarity also may be conceived as facilitating greater degrees of personal liberty through collective actions aimed at that end.
Preference
Authors: Weirich Paul 
Published: January 2013

AbstractPreference is a mental state that compares two situations. To prefer one situation to another is to favor the first situation; one would rather be in the first situation. People prefer experiencing pleasure to experiencing pain. Common principles of value hold that, other things being equal, it is better for a person with a preference between two situations to be in the first situation than to be in the second situation. Common principles of morality therefore recommend meeting a person's preference, other things being equal. This essay reviews the components of a philosophical theory of preference, mentioning controversies within each component, and examines preference's place in normative principles. It explains the grounding rational preferences offer utilitarianism, and through cross‐references indicates connections between points about preference and other topics in ethics.
Neuroethics
Authors: Levy Neil 
Published: January 2013

AbstractNeuroethics is a relatively new subdiscipline of philosophy. It has two branches. The first, on which I will focus here, is concerned with the ethical issues arising out of neuroscience and the other sciences of the mind (psychiatry, social and cognitive psychology, and so on;seePsychiatric Ethics); the second is more theoretical and deals with how the sciences of the mind illuminate traditional philosophical questions, like the nature of persons and the existence of free will (Roskies 2002;seeFree Will). As a branch of applied ethics (seeApplied Ethics), neuroethics was born as a response to the expansion of our powers to intervene in the mind, in a manner parallel to the way in which bioethics (seeBioethics) was born as a response to advances in somatic medicine. Just as the medical advances of the past five decades – for example, advances in new powers to create human lifein vitro, and to preserve it when it no longer seemed to have much value for patients – provoked novel and pressing ethical issues, so advances in our ability to comprehend mental processes and to intervene in them have raised pressing questions about whether and when these powers should be exercised.
Duns Scotus
Authors: Guilfoy Kevin 
Published: January 2013

AbstractJohn Duns Scotus (1265–1308) was known to his supporters asDoctor Subtilis, or the Subtle Doctor. His detractors are said to have coined the word “dunce” from his name. Moral truth, obligation, and many other central elements of Scotus' ethical theory are still contested by scholars. Scotus' views on God's power to will moral truths and the ability of human reason to know or discover moral truths require subtle explication. The same is true of Scotus' account of the powers and freedom of the human will. Scotus' intricate theories lead him to reject the eudaimonism of the scholastic Aristotelian tradition (seeEudaimonism).
Sentimentalism
Authors: Kauppinen Antti 
Published: January 2013

AbstractOur ethical stance is manifest in our attitudes and reactions, in what inspires or outrages us, in what we admire or detest, in whom we praise or blame. For sentimentalists, these human reactions are what is fundamental about ethics. There is no need to assume a moral reality that transcends the natural world or find a moral law binding on all rational creatures. Ethics is all about practice. It emerges when, under pressure of social conflict, we come to regulate our emotional responses from a point of view that goes beyond self‐interest, and serves to foster mutually beneficial cooperation by guiding our choices. To understand ethics, sentimentalists hold, we need to investigate the practical aspects of evolved human nature as they manifest themselves in a social context. This naturalistic outlook need not mean giving up on notions like truth and objectivity, as long as we can make sense of suitable standards for fitting emotional responses.