TBA

'Reactive-contribution' is the contribution we make by benefiting from the contributions of others. By reacting to contributions we make them greater and this, in turn, is also a contribution. Recognizing this form of contribution has the potential to broaden our view of morality. Various complexities and objections are considered.

I consider two difficulties which have been presented to egalitarianism: Parfit?s ?Levelling Down Objection? and my ?Paradox of the Baseline?. I show that making things worse for some people even with no gain to anyone is actually an ordinary and indeed necessary feature of our moral practice, yet nevertheless the LDO maintains its power in the egalitarian context. I claim that what makes the LDO particularly forceful in the case against egalitarianism is not the very idea of making some people worse off with no gain to others, but the disrespect for value inherent in egalitarianism; and similarly that the POB is a reductio of choice -egalitarianism because of its inversion of the intuitively correct attitude to the generation of value. I conclude that in the light of the absurdity and paradox so frequently lurking in moral and social life, and particularly with the complexity of modern life and obliquity of change, we need to be much more modest than egalitarians have been in putting forth ambitious moral and social models.

In "Smilansky's Baseline Objection to Choice-Egalitarianism" (same issue of SATS), Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen challenged the "paradox of the baseline" I presented previously. I counter his two arguments, and conclude that his suggestions do not save choice-egalitarianism from the paradox. The egalitarian turn to choice and responsibility was indeed a huge boost to egalitarianism because it was thought to be compatible with other central values and fundamental intuitions. Choice-egalitarianism promised a "workable egalitarianism", but once we see how the deeper structure of this theory unfolds, we understand that these hopes are not realizable.

In his 1995 'Mind' paper, Fred Feldman claims that our central philosophical way of thinking about the connections between responsibility and desert and between time and desert is misguided. I believe that we have the resources to handle Feldman's doubts, and maintain the conceptual connection between responsibility and desert. My detailed interpretation of the connection between responsibility and desert satisfies our intuitions concerning Feldman's examples, and accords with the general structure of our thought concerning justice, insofar as it involves desert. I also briefly consider the issue of time and desert.

Getting people not to harm others is a central goal of morality. But while it is commonly perceived that those who benefit others merit gratitude, those who do not harm others are not ordinarily thought to merit anything. I attempt to argue against this, claiming that all the arguments against gratitude to the non-maleficent are unsuccessful. Finally, I ex- plore the difference it would make if we thought that we owe gratitude to those who do not harm us

It is commonly thought that morality applies universally to all human beings as moral targets, and our general moral obligations to people will not, as a rule, be affected by their views. I propose and explore a radical, alternative normative moral theory, "Designer Ethics", according to which our views are pro tanto crucial determinants of how, morally, we ought to be treated. For example, since utilitarians are more sympathetic to the idea that human beings may be sacrificed for the greater good, perhaps it is permissible (or, even under certain conditions, obligatory) to give them "priority" as potential victims. This odd idea has manifold drawbacks but I claim that it also has substantial advantages, that it has some affinities to more commonly accepted moral positions, and that it should be given a significant role in our ethical thinking.


Keywords: Designer Ethics, ethical theory, universality, integrity, moral complaint, utilitarianism.

TBA

The contemporary discussion of terrorism has been dominated by deontological and consequentialist arguments. Building upon my previous work on a paradox concerning moral complaint, I try to broaden the perspectives through which we view the issues. The direction that seems to me as most promising is a self-reflexive, conditional, and, to some extent, relational emphasis. What one is permitted to do to others would depend not so much on some absolute code constraining actions or on the estimate of what would optimize overall the resulting well-being but on the precedents that the past actions of those others provided, on the relationships among the participants, on tacit or explicit offers and possible agreements among them, and on the reciprocity (or lack thereof) that ensues.

I examine the three most prominent examples of recent terrorism, and conclude that they lack any justification. In extreme instances where justification might be possible, there is no terrorism. I argue (1) that we need to confront the overwhelming force of mass illusions that lead to terrorism and its support; (2) that the belief, encouraged by the international laws of warfare, that terrorism is never justified, might be a "positive illusion"; and (3) of the dangers of the belief that we should permit terrorism in the fight by the weak against oppression.

In 'Mind' of January 1996 I proposed an outline of a theory of responsibility and desert, which I claimed both a) enables us to see responsibility as a condition for desert even in the major apparent counter-examples such as those proposed by Fred Feldman; and b) represents the ordinary way of seeing the connection between responsibility and desert better than previous formulations. Behind this proposal lies a crucial distinction between 'two ways' in which responsibility can be a condition for desert. From Feldman's reply in the same issue it seems that this crucial distinction was not sufficiently brought out in my paper. This I attempt to do here.

Hard determinism is commonly thought to have grave moral consequences. Without attempting to fully deny this, I explore a previously unnoticed apparent ethical advantage of a belief in hard determinism. The lack of concern with personal desert which accompanies belief in hard determinism seems to make possible a form of purer morality' than ordinary morality. In the process I briefly consider some perplexities of Kantianism, the personal' difficulty of being a hard determinist, and the question as to whether non- utilitarian ethical considerations are possible with hard determinist premises.