F. M. Kamm

Is There a Problem With Enhancement

This article examines arguments concerning enhancement of human persons recently presented by Michael Sandel (2004). In the first section, I briefly describe some of his arguments. In section two, I consider whether, as Sandel claims, the desire for mastery motivates enhancement and whether such a desire could be grounds for its impermissibility. Section three considers how Sandel draws the distinction between treatment and enhancement, and the relation to nature that he thinks each expresses. The fourth section examines Sandels views about parent/child relations and also how enhancement would affect distributive justice and the duty to aid. In conclusion, I briefly offer an alternative suggestion as to why enhancement may be troubling and consider what we could safely enhance.

Failures of just war theory: Terror, harm, and justice

This article has three parts. In the first part, I shall try to provide an overview of issues related to both terrorand nonterror-killing inside and outside of standard war. It provides a framework within which we can locate some issues that will be explored in more detail in subsequent parts. The second part deals with the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE) in standard just war theory. I criticize its prohibition on intending harm and consider cases where it is permissible, for example, to terror-bomb combatants and noncombatants. Through criticism of the DDE as a way of justifying unintended noncombatant deaths, I am led in the third part to focus on (a) the relative degrees of inviolability of various types of people in intergroup conflict and (b) a better justification for the permissibility of causing some types of foreseen noncombatant deaths.

What is and is Not Wrong with Enhancement

This article examines the arguments concerning enhancement of human persons recently presented by Michael Sandel. In the first section, I briefly describe some of his arguments. In section two, I consider whether, as Sandel claims, the desire for mastery motivates enhancement and whether such a desire could be grounds for its impermissibility. Section three considers how Sandel draws the distinction between treatment and enhancement, and the relation to nature that he thinks each expresses. The fourth section examines Sandels views about parent/child relations and also how enhancement would affect distributive justice and the duty to aid. In conclusion, I briefly offer an alternative suggestion as to why enhancement may be troubling and consider what we could safely enhance.

I–Frances M. Kamm

In this article I am concerned with whether it could be morally significant to distinguish between doing something ‘in order to bring about an effect’ as opposed to ‘doing something because we will bring about an effect’. For example, the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE) tells us that we should not act in order to bring about evil, but even if this is true is it perhaps permissible to act only because an evil will thus occur? I discuss these questions in connection with a version of the so-called Trolley Problem known as the Loop Case. I also consider how these questions may bear on whether a rational agent must aim at an event which he believes is causally necessary to achieve an end he pursues.

Ethical issues in using and not using embryonic stem cells.

The following objection has been raised to using live embryos to acquire stem cells. To acquire stem cells, the embryo must be destroyed. But the embryo is an (innocent) human organism and, therefore, it is wrong to destroy it. By “human organism” is meant at least something with human DNA that is an integrated system organized around an axis. A one-cell human conceptus is said to have these properties as it has parts that form an integrated single cell system. Further, a defective human organism is still a human organism, at least so long as some underlying integration typical of the species remains. Some add to these conditions on being a human organism the requirement that the system intrinsically be headed in the direction of development typical of human beings. The reference to “intrinsic” means that even though a conceptus will not, in fact, develop in virtue of some extrinsic property (e.g., it will not be in an environment conducive to development), this does not affect its status as a human organism on an account which emphasizes intrinsic trajectory. Further, trajectory to be a defective human being also meets the trajectory requirement.† It is an aim of some to find ways to acquire stem cells that no one will object to on ethical grounds. This is probably an impossible task, as there might be people whose ethical views forbid any scientific research at all. The aim might be rephrased as finding ways to acquire stem cells against which no one will have a reasonable ethical complaint. One problem then is to consider what are reasonable complaints (or what complaints are not unreasonable). But not all reasonable complaints are correct. For example, it might not be unreasonable given your information at a certain time to think you are being cheated. Nevertheless you could be wrong. So another problem is to consider the correctness of even views that are not unreasonable. Of course, if a view that is initially not unreasonable is conclusively shown to be wrong, and one should know this, it might become unreasonable to hold the view. In the first part of this article, I consider a set of objections for using human embryonic stem cells (hESC) that are often considered reasonable. I shall argue that although they might not be unreasonable, they are nevertheless not correct. In the second part of this article, I shall consider alternatives to current methods for acquiring stem cells that are being pursued because they are thought to obviate the objections I considered in the first part of the article. I

Rescuing Ivan Ilych: How We Live and How We Die*

We are all likely to agree that Ivan Ilych did not live as he should have. The question is, what does this have to do with the sort of death he had? That is, would someone who had lived differently necessarily have a different sort of death, in the sense that his process of dying and also what his death itself signified would be different? And would everyone who lived as Ivan lived have Ivan’s sort of death? Tolstoy exhibits a critical attitude toward Ivan, his wife, and doctors when they think that there

Aggregation and Two Moral Methods

I begin by reconsidering the arguments of John Taurek and Elizabeth Anscombe on whether the number of people we can help counts morally. I then consider arguments that numbers should count given by F. M. Kamm and Thomas Scanlon, and criticism of them by Michael Otsuka. I examine how different conceptions of the moral method known as pairwise comparison are at work in these different arguments and what the ideas of balancing and tie-breaking signify for decision-making in various types of cases. I conclude by considering how another moral method that I call virtual divisibility functions and what it helps reveal about an argument by Otsuka against those who do not think numbers count.

Genes, justice, and obligations to future people.

In this essay, I shall discuss ethical issues that arise with our increasing ability to affect the genetic makeup of the human population. These effects can be produced directly by altering the genotype (through germ-line or somatic changes), or indirectly by aborting, not conceiving, or treating individuals because of their genetic makeup in ways made possible by genetic pharmacology. I shall refer to all of these sorts of procedures collectively as the Procedures. Some of the ethical issues the Procedures raise are old, arising quite generally when we can affect the well-being of people, even in the absence of the ability to affect them in the ways just described. My examination of these issues is prompted by the recent at-length discussion of them, From Chance to Choice (henceforth CC ), by Allen Buchanan, Dan Brock, Norman Daniels, and Daniel Wikler.

The moral target : aiming at right conduct in war and other conflicts

Introduction 1. Making War and Its Continuation Unjust 2. Conduct in War: Justifications for Killing Noncombatants in War 3. Conduct in War: Failures of Just War Theory 4: Conduct in War: The Morality of Killing in War 5: Collaboration and with the Enemy: Harming Some to Save Others from the Nazis 6. Post Conflict: Moral Improvisation and New Obligations 7. Post Conflict: Just Post Bello, Proportionality, and Rehabilitation 8. Terrorism and Several Moral Distinctions 9. Self Defense, Resistance, and Suicide: The Taliban Women 10. Nuclear Deterrence and Noncombatants

TERRORISM AND SEVERAL MORAL DISTINCTIONS

In this article, I examine several distinctions that may be relevant to the morality (and conceptual characterization) of terrorism: (1) the state/nonstate agent distinction, (2) the combatant/noncombatant distinction, (3) the intention/foresight distinction, (4) the means/side-effect distinction, (5) the interrelated necessary/nonnecessary means and produce/sustain distinctions, (6) the mechanical/nonmechanical use distinction, (7) the military/political distinction, (8) the harm/terror distinction, and (9) the harm-for-terror/terror-for-goal distinction. I conclude that some of these factors (though not those most commonly cited) account for the prima facie wrongness of terrorism and that the nondistinctive properties of terrorism (which it shares with some nonterrorist acts) are what make it most seriously wrong. I also provide a conceptual examination of terrorism as we commonly think of it and its relation to torture. In the course of discussing the distinctions and also in concluding the article, I consider why terrorism may sometimes be morally permissible.