R. G. Frey

Value, Welfare, and Morality

List of contributors Preface 1. Value, welfare and morality R. G. Frey and Christopher W. Morris 2. The land of lost content Simon Blackburn 3. Putting rationality in its place Warren Quinn 4. Can a Humean be moderate? John Broome 5. Welfare, preference and rationality L. W. Sumner 6. Preference Arthur Ripstein 7. Reason and needs David Copp 8. Desired desires Gilbert Harman 9. On the winding road from good to right James Griffin 10. Value, reasons and the sense of justice David Gauthier 11. Agent-relativity of value, deontic restraints and self-ownership Eric Mack 12. Agent-relativity - the very idea Jonathan Dancy 13. The separateness of persons, distributive norms and moral theory David Brink 14. Harmful goods, harmless bads Larry Temkin.

Medicine, animal experimentation, and the moral problem of unfortunate humans.

We live in an age of great scientific and technological innovation, and what seemed out of the question or at least very doubtful only a few years ago, today lies almost within our grasp. In no area is this more true than that of human health care, where lifesaving and life-enhancing technologies have given, or have the enormous potential in the not so distant future to give, relief from some of the most terrible human illnesses. On two fronts in particular, xenograft or cross-species transplantation and genetic engineering of animals on behalf of gene therapy in humans, such relief appears very promising, if not actually on the horizon. Certainly, extensive research work on both fronts is underway both in the United States and abroad.

Vivisection, morals and medicine

If one wishes to accept that some painful animal experimentation can be justified on grounds that benefit is conferred, one is faced with a difficult moral dilemma argues the first author, a philosopher. Either one needs to be able to say why human lives of any quality however low should be inviolable from painful experimentation when animal lives are not; or one should accept that sufficient benefit can justify certain painful experiments on human beings of sufficiently low quality of life. Alternatively, one can reject the original premise and accept antivivisectionism. Replies to his paper follow from an antivivisectionist philosopher and an eminent pharmacologist long involved in animal experimentation. Dr Frey responds to both replies.

Making exceptions without abandoning the principle: or how a Kantian might think about terrorism

THE PROBLEM FOR KANTIANS AND THE LARGER ISSUE Terrorism poses a practical problem that is urgent and difficult. How, within the bounds of conscience, can we respond effectively to violent terrorist activities and threats, especially given the ideological fanaticism and nonnegotiable demands that typically accompany them? The problem is partly instrumental and partly moral. The instrumental task is to find, among the morally permissible means, the best way to minimize terrorist violence, taking into account our other goals and values. The moral task is to determine what means of response are morally permissible. I shall focus here on this second problem, or rather on one way of thinking about it. Terrorists, of course, often claim that their ends are morally worthy and that their means are morally justified in the context. Some of these claims deserve a serious hearing, and even the more outrageous claims can pose challenges that moral philosophers should not ignore. For present purposes, however, I shall simply assume that terrorism is morally indefensible, at least in the cases to be considered; and I will not be discussing why this is so. My inquiry, instead, is about what responses are permissible when terrorists immorally threaten the lives of innocent hostages. Even this somewhat more limited question is too large to undertake here. To give an adequate answer would require us not only to resolve deep issues in moral theory but also to investigate relevant matters of fact, make careful distinctions among cases, review our moral judgments regarding similar problems, and so on.

Animal Parts, Human Wholes

Is the use of animals as a source of organs for human transplants morally permissible? I think that such use is or can be permissible; but, as with my defense of vivisection in “Vivisection, Medicine, and Morals,” in the Journal of Medical Ethics,1 and in my book, Rights, Killing, and Suffering,2 I also think that this permissibility can only be obtained at a cost that few people appear prepared to pay. I am not prepared to pay it indiscriminately, without regard to the nature and extent of the benefit to be derived in the particular case; and I do not think one can pay this price in the animal case without being prepared to pay it in the cases of some humans. In a word, I do not think we can use animals as a resource for humans without being prepared to use some humans as a resource for humans; and if the benefit to be derived in the particular case can make the use of animals appear worth it, so the benefit can make the use of humans appear worth it.

Suicide and Self-inflicted Death

The most common view of suicide today is that it is intentional self-killing.1 Because of the self-killing component, suicide is often described as self-inflicted death or as dying by ones own hand, and the victim is in turn often described as having done himself to death or as having taken his own life. But must ones death be self-inflicted in order to be suicide? The answer, I want to suggest, is arguably no.

Did Socrates Commit Suicide

It is rarely, if at all, thought that Socrates committed suicide; but such was the case, or so I want to suggest. My suggestion turns not upon any new interpretation of ancient sources but rather upon seeking a determination of the concept of suicide itself.

Refusals/Withdrawals and Physician-Assisted Suicide

In Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide, Gerald Dworkin and I set out a case in favor of physician-assisted suicide (PAS), and Sissela Bok a case against it (Dworkin, Frey and Bok, 1998). The tactic that Dworkin and I employ is to show that several important arguments in the arsenal of those who oppose physician-assisted suicide do not work, and we seek especially to explore and rebut arguments that purport to find a moral asymmetry in intention and/or causality between refusal/withdrawal of treatment and assisted dying. I want here to return and give more detailed attention to an issue of causality in a particular kind of withdrawal case that has come to figure prominently in discussions of physician-assisted suicide, namely, cases of withdrawal of food and hydration.

On Why We Would Do Better To Jettison Moral Rights

I want to approach the issue of animal rights indirectly, by considering a broader issue about moral rights generally.

Consequences in an act-utilitarianism

With what view of consequences shall we equip an act-utilitarianism? This question; of obvious importance as the search for a satisfactory form and version of utilitarianism continues in earnest, is increasingly being answered in terms of a conception of consequences which leads, I want to suggest, to counterintuitive and, therefore, unwelcome results. Traditionally, act-utilitarians have cast the net of consequences as widely as possible: a consequence is anything caused or brought about by the act, whether by the act alone or by the act together with other concurrent happenings, including the acts of other agents. Thus, for example, though an act-utilitarian might distinguish between those consequences to which his act merely contributes and those consequences which his act alone brings about and might as a result confine his assessment of consequences for the purpose of determining rightness only to consequences of the latter sort, he is mostly unlikely to do so. For it flies in the face of his liberal view of consequences, by restricting the consequences of an act to those things brought about or determined by the act alone.1 In short, on a traditional act-utilitarianism, if the utility of an act has been the value of its causal consequences, then its causal consequences have been those subsequent future states of the world caused or brought about by the act, either alone or in conjunction with the acts of other agents. Increasingly, this broad conception of consequences is being challenged by a narrower one. If one takes seriously the act-utilitarians concern to perform that one of the alternatives which has consequences better than those of any other alternative open to him, then attention is bound to focus upon the difference the performance of each alternative will make to the subsequent future state of the world. For it is upon these differences in consequences, in subsequent future states of the world, that the decision among alternatives rests. As a result, a narrower conception of consequences has arisen, according to which the consequences of act A are not any and all subsequent future states of the world caused or brought about by the act but rather just those subsequent future states of the world