Category
Applied ethics
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Doing harm and allowing harm differ morally, even when the outcome is the same
At the hospital where I work, the distinction between doing and allowing comes up every week. Withdrawing a ventilator from a patient with no prospect of recovery is treated very differently from giving a lethal injection, by law, by most religious authorities,…
Started by Omar Ragab5 replies -
Is a promise to someone who has died still binding if no one living would know?
Before she died, my husband's grandmother made me promise that the recipe for our bakery's bread would stay in the family. It is not a secret of state. It is flour, water, salt, a little of something, and the way you fold…
Started by Dilnoza Karimova4 replies -
Kant and the murderer at the door: can the essay be rescued?
In 1797 Kant published "On a Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropy", replying to Benjamin Constant. He maintains that you may not lie even to a murderer who asks where your friend is hiding. When I taught this, nearly every student found…
Started by Henrike Vogel4 replies -
What is the doctrine of double effect, and did Aquinas really come up with it?
Yesterday's lecture mentioned the "doctrine of double effect" and said it goes back to Thomas Aquinas. The lecturer moved on quickly and I didn't fully follow. Here's what I understood. If I swerve to avoid a child who runs into the road…
Started by Serkan Aydoğdu4 replies -
Why did Philippa Foot invent the trolley case, and what did Judith Jarvis Thomson change?
The trolley problem comes up at every debate tournament, usually as a gotcha: "so you'd push the fat man?" My students treat it as a puzzle with a trick answer. I'd like to teach it properly, which means knowing where it came…
Started by Sam Ellery4 replies -
Find the structure under the argument first: I tried it on three stories I covered
A lecturer's handout I picked up says that most applied-ethics disputes turn on a handful of recurring structures: moral status, where to draw a line on a continuum, doing versus allowing, intended versus foreseen harm, distribution under scarcity, consent and capacity, and…
Started by Sana Rizvi4 replies -
Filial duty, but whose? In most families I know, the daughter-in-law pays it
In my family, and in almost every family I know, when parents grow old the care is done by a woman who is not their daughter. The son has the duty; the son's wife does the work. Nobody says this out loud.…
Started by Thamarai Raman2 replies -
Lashon hara forbids true gossip. Does that make sense in the age of the screenshot?
Our Tuesday group has been working through the laws of speech. The striking thing about lashon hara, "the evil tongue", is that it concerns true statements. Lies are a separate and graver matter. Lashon hara is saying something accurate and damaging about…
Started by Eliana Halpern1 reply -
Compassion fatigue: does the duty to care have limits?
After a hard month at work I've been thinking about this. People in care work talk about "compassion fatigue": after enough exposure to suffering, you start to feel less. You become efficient and a little cold, and you hate yourself for it.…
Started by Elin Hedqvist1 reply