Michael B. Gill

Paying for Kidneys: The Case against Prohibition

We argue that healthy people should be allowed to sell one of their kidneys while they are alive—that the current prohibition on payment for kidneys ought to be overturned. Our argument has three parts. First, we argue that the moral basis for the current policy on live kidney donations and on the sale of other kinds of tissue implies that we ought to legalize the sale of kidneys. Second, we address the objection that the sale of kidneys is intrinsically wrong because it violates the Kantian duty of respect for humanity. Third, we address a range of consequentialist objections based on the idea that kidney sales will be exploitative. Throughout the paper, we argue only that it ought to be legal for an individual to receive payment for a kidney. We do not argue that it ought to be legal for an individual to buy a kidney.

From Cambridge Platonism to Scottish Sentimentalism

The Cambridge Platonists were a group of religious thinkers who attended and taught at Cambridge from the 1640s until the 1660s. The four most important of them were Benjamin Whichcote, John Smith, Ralph Cudworth, and Henry More. The most prominent sentimentalist moral philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment – Hutcheson, Hume, and Adam Smith – knew of the works of the Cambridge Platonists. But the Scottish sentimentalists typically referred to the Cambridge Platonists only briefly and in passing. The surface of Hutcheson, Hume, and Smiths texts can give the impression that the Cambridge Platonists were fairly distant intellectual relatives of the Scottish sentimentalists – great great-uncles, perhaps, and uncles of a decidedly foreign ilk. But this surface appearance is deceiving. There were deeply significant philosophical connections between the Cambridge Platonists and the Scottish sentimentalists, even if the Scottish sentimentalists themselves did not always make it perfectly explicit.

Moral Phenomenology in Hutcheson and Hume

moral phenomenology, as i will use the term in this paper, is the study of our experience of morality. it is the study of morality “as experienced from the firstperson point of view,”1 the study of the “what-it-is-like features of concrete moral experiences,”2 the study of introspectively accessible features that can be discerned by “a direct examination of the data of men’s moral consciousness.”3 a crucial part of moral phenomenology is the study of what it is like to make a moral judgment. This part of moral phenomenology seeks to delineate the introspectively accessible mental features that are essentially involved in judging that an act ought or ought not to be performed, and in judging that a person is virtuous or vicious. an adequate moral theory must account for the phenomenological facts. it must accommodate or explain in some way the introspectively accessible mental features essentially involved in our moral experience. an adequate moral theory must cohere with what it is like to make moral judgments.

Humean moral pluralism

associated with the nonnaturalist metaethics of W. D. Ross. The sentimentalist metaethical view of the origins of moral judgment has often been closely associated with the Utilitarian view of the content of morality. Through an examination of David Humes moral theory, I hope to show that it is sentimentalism and pluralism that are most compellingly paired. In the first section, I will explain the contours of Humes sentimental ist pluralism. In the second section, I will show how Humes pluralism can provide a powerful account of the pluralist phenomena Ross identi fies as central to our moral thinking. In the third section, I will explore how Humes theory deals with cases of moral conflict. 1. Humes Conflict Moral Pluralism Moral pluralism is the view that there are multiple ultimate moral ends. It is typically contrasted with moral monism, which is the view that there is one and only one ultimate moral end. Conflict moral plu ralism is the view that one ultimate moral end can require an action that is incompatible with the action required by another ultimate moral end. It is typically contrasted with nonconflict moral pluralism, which is the view that the different ultimate moral ends always harmonize perfectly with each other. In this section, I will show that Hume is a conflict moral pluralist. According to Hume, the four principles underlying our judgments of the natural virtues are approval of personal qualities that are useful to others, useful to the agent herself, immediately agreeable to others, and immediately agreeable to the agent herself (T 3.3.1.24-27,3.3.5.1, 3.3.2.16; E 9.1; D 37). These principles are distinct from each other. They are responsive to different kinds of things. We approve of qualities that are agreeable not because we think their agreeability is a small piece of usefulness. We approve of their agreeability for its own sake.

A moral defense of Oregon's physician-assisted suicide law

Since 1998, physician-assisted suicide has been legal in the American state of Oregon. In this paper, I defend Oregons physician-assisted suicide (PAS) law against two of the most common objections raised against it. First, I try to show that it is not intrinsically wrong for someone with a terminal disease to kill herself. Second, I try to show that it is not intrinsically wrong for physicians to assist someone with a terminal disease who has reasonable grounds for wanting to kill herself.

PICU Prometheus: Ethical issues in the treatment of very sick children in paediatric intensive care

Abstract Through a focus on one childs extended stay in a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, I raise four general questions about pediatric medicine: How should physicians communicate with parents of very sick children? How should physicians involve parents of very sick children in treatment decisions? How should care be coordinated when a child is being treated by different medical teams with rotating personnel? Should the guidelines for making judgments of medical futility and discontinuation of treatment differ when the patient is a child rather than an adult?

Rationalism, Sentimentalism, and Ralph Cudworth

Moral rationalism is the view that morality originates in reason alone. It is often contrasted with moral sentimentalism, which is the view that the origin of morality lies at least partly in (non-rational) sentiment. The eighteenth century saw pitched philosophical battles between rationalists and sentimentalists, and the issue continues to fuel disputes among moral philosophers today. The eighteenth-century rationalists took Ralph Cudworth to be one of their champions, and the sentimentalists ofthe period—Hume among them—agreed, placing Cudworth squarely in the opposing camp.1 This view of Cudworth as moral rationalist was further solidified in 1897, when Selby-Bigge published his influential two-volume collection of the writings of the British moralists.2 In his preface, Selby-Bigge explained that the first volume contained the writings of moral sentimentalists and the second volume the writings of moral rationalists. Cudworth appeared in the second—the rationalist—volume. Passmore has argued, however, that we should not think of Cudworth as a moral rationalist.3 Proper attention to all of Cudworths writings, Passmore maintains, reveals that his position was in important respects much closer to that of sentimentalists such as Hutcheson and Hume than it was to rationalists such as Clarke and Balguy. Both characterizations of Cudworth are accurate, up to a point. The mistake is to think that Cudworths overall philosophy falls neatly onto one side of the rationalist-sentimentalist distinction or the other.

Love of Humanity in Shaftesbury's Moralists

ABSTRACT Shaftesbury believed that the height of virtue was impartial love for all of humanity. But Shaftesbury also harboured grave doubts about our ability to develop such an expansive love. In The Moralists, Shaftesbury addressed this problem. I show that while it may appear on the surface that The Moralists solves the difficulty, it in fact remains unresolved. Shaftesbury may not have been able to reconcile his view of the content of virtue with his view of our motivational psychology.

Shaftesbury on life as a work of art

ABSTRACT This paper explicates Shaftesbury’s idea that we ought to live our lives as though they are works of art. I show that this idea is central to many of Shaftesbury’s most important claims, and that an understanding of this idea enables us to answer some of the most contested questions in the scholarship on Characteristics.

Implanted Medical Devices and End-of-Life Decisions

If competent patients request that physicians participate in the deactivation of total artificial hearts and left ventricular assist devices, should physicians always comply? Patients and physicians currently have unsettled attitudes towards this question. I maintain that this issue is unsettling largely because the prospect of deactivation seems to give rise to a conflict between two deeply entrenched commitments of medical ethics: a commitment to the moral equivalency of withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining treatment, and a commitment to the prohibition on physicians’ harming patients. I examine this apparent conflict and look at different ways of resolving it. I argue that the moral equivalency of withholding and withdrawing provides a decisive reason for physicians to participate in deactivation when a competent patient requests it, and that the prohibition on harming patients does not constitute a reason for physicians not to participate in deactivation. I also argue that an understanding of why it is acceptable for physicians to participate in deactivation reveals why physician-assisted death is morally acceptable in certain kinds of cases.