I argue, counter-intuitively, that under certain conditions many people are under some moral requirement to attempt to bring children into being (in order to raise them). There is only rarely a strict obligation to have children, but more moderate, inclining moral considerations in favour of having children, have a place in our moral world. I begin by considering a large number of arguments of favour and against the possibility of an obligation to have children. Then I examine when the weight of one set of arguments is greater. And I conclude by pointing out some general lessons from the discussion.

Cynicism has a bad reputation. The cynic is not only after teaching us something new about morality, but seeks to unmask it, claiming that it derives from illicit and undeclared motivations. I explore whether there is anything we can learn from cynicism about morality, particularly about the content of morality. I distinguish between three basic forms of skepticism and the parallel forms of cynicism. I then examine four examples of suggestive ethical cynicism. Finally, I try to see in which areas ethical cynicism is likely to be more enlightening.

I point out an odd consequence of the role that broadly pragmatic considerations regularly (and reasonably) play in determining moral demands. As a result of the way in which moral demands are formed, it turns out that people will frequently become morally good in a strange and rather dubious way. Because human beings are not very good, we will lower our moral demands and, as a result, most people will turn out, in an important sense, to be morally good. Our relative badness, by giving us good reasons to limit moral demands, makes us morally good.

I consider Thomas Nagel's treatment of the issue of the grounds for compensation, i.e., of what counts as a basis for the obligation to compensate people in a (more or less ideal) political system, in his recent "Equality and Impartiality". I argue that on the issue of compensation Nagel is unconvincing, and that he reflects here much of liberal thinking. It emerges that a consistent egalitarianism must see the grounds for compensation in very wide way, and this radically affects the acceptability of such a position.

TBA

In some ways, virtually every individual can make a difference because even the ?small' differences that we can undoubtedly make do often matter, and sometimes our actions can have wider effects. In the larger scheme of things, however, most individuals will not matter much, if at all. I have sought to offer a broad outline of ways whereby the fact (when it is a fact) that one single person cannot make much difference in this world is significant and, surprisingly, in many ways positive. The illusion that it is otherwise can be conducive to our happiness but here the truth also has its benefits. Frequently, our impotence is a piece of good fortune.

The deep, pervading sense is that punishing innocent people is abhorrent. We also have evidence indicating that the overpunishment of guilty people –
punishing them more than they morally deserve for the crimes they are convicted of – is a widely prevalent practice in many western countries, such as the US. Morally, overpunishment (OP) seems to be equivalent in terms of the injustice it involves to the punishment of the innocent (POI). This suggests a radical inconsistency: we acquiesce in and seem hardly troubled by practices (OP) that seem to be morally equivalent to other practices (POI) we hold to be abhorrent and go out of our way to prevent. So what are we to make of this? I explore the predicament, and conclude that, for strong and diverse moral reasons, the punishment of the innocent and the overpunishment of the guilty are not morally equivalent.

'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.

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.

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.