August 11, 2007

The Loop Case Poll
By S. Matthew Liao

Here’s another case on which you can vote. It came from Judith Jarvis Thomson’s 1985 article “The Trolley Problem.”

The Loop Case: A trolley is headed toward five people, and it can be redirected onto another track where one innocent bystander sits. However, the track loops back toward the five. Hence, if it were not the case that the trolley would hit the one and grind to a halt, the trolley would go around and kill the five. Assume also that if five were not present, the trolley would not loop toward the one, but would continue harmlessly down the track (Kamm, p. 92).

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Posted on August 11, 2007 at 1:23 am in Kamm Poll, Kamm Reading Group, Normative Ethics, S. Matthew Liao's Posts | 9 Comments

August 10, 2007

Kamm’s Intricate Ethics: Chapter 6
By Nir Eyal

Chapter Six presents Kamm’s response to Peter Unger’s Living High and Letting Die. According to Kamm, “Unger has tried to show that relying on intuitive judgments in cases is a worthless methodology for finding principles.” (p. 190). Therefore, for him, “when there is a conflict between the theses supported by general reflection (e.g., reduce suffering) and judgments about particular cases, we should stick with the results of general reflection, for our intuitions about cases are unreliable and manipulable by morally irrelevant factors.” (p.192).

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Posted on August 10, 2007 at 12:02 am in Kamm Reading Group, Nir Eyal's Posts, Normative Ethics | 6 Comments

August 3, 2007

Kamm’s Intricate Ethics: Chapter 5
By Dan Moller

Recall the big picture, which can all too easily pass us by. Kamm is exploring the part of ethics that deals with harming others. Her perspective is non-consequentialist: she is interested in permissions and constraints on harming that go beyond the good and bad effects of our actions. In layman’s terms, she is pursuing rules or principles that might block certain actions regardless of the consequences. (Connoisseurs should bear in mind the codicil about threshold-deontology, though.)

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Posted on August 3, 2007 at 10:42 am in Dan Moller's Posts, Kamm Reading Group, Normative Ethics | 4 Comments

July 30, 2007

Kamm’s Intricate Ethics: Chapter 4
By David Wasserman

I want to apologize in advance for the delay in this posting, and for the questionable way I’ve used the additional time. I’m afraid I lacked the discipline to adhere to the prescribed summary/critique format, or to frame my critique as questions for group discussion. I find Chapter 4 tremendously engaging but very frustrating. After some preliminaries, I intersperse criticism with exposition. This is partly to motivate Kamm’s arguments and further distinctions, but also, I admit, out of sheer impatience. In making this criticism, I offer some case-variants of my own; this imitation, however poor, should be taken as a sincere form of flattery. Anyway, I hope that I’ve succeeded in presenting enough of this Chapter’s striking, original, and idiosyncratic claims to provoke a lively discussion. Of course, you should consult the text of Chapter 4 closely, because I can’t vouch for the accuracy of my quotes or paraphrases, let alone my interpretations. I also apologize for the numerous typos you’ll come across, but I want to get this out while there are still a few days left for discussion.

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Posted on July 30, 2007 at 6:02 pm in David Wasserman's Posts, Kamm Reading Group, Normative Ethics | 11 Comments

July 21, 2007

Kamm’s Intricate Ethics: Chapter 3
By Daniel Star

Chapter 3, “Intention, Harm and the Possibility of a Unified Theory” is focused on responding to Warren Quinn’s attempt to provide and ground accounts of the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing (DDA) and the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE) in two very interesting essays that were published as Chapters 7 and 8 of Morality and Action (CUP, 1993).

This chapter is split into three sections, which I will now summarise in turn, raising issues that invite further discussion as I go along.

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Posted on July 21, 2007 at 2:42 pm in Daniel Star's Posts, Kamm Reading Group, Normative Ethics | 24 Comments

July 21, 2007

The Kamm Poll
By S. Matthew Liao

Introducing…the Kamm Poll! As it is well known, Kamm tests and develops her theories and principles by means of intuitive judgments about cases. As we read Intricate Ethics, if there is a particular case of Kamm’s regarding which you may have a different intuition than Kamm, or if you just wish to see what other people think about the case, please post details for the case here including the page reference to her book. We will then try to run a poll on that particular case.

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Posted on July 21, 2007 at 12:25 am in Kamm Poll, Kamm Reading Group, Normative Ethics, S. Matthew Liao's Posts | 13 Comments

July 13, 2007

Kamm’s Intricate Ethics: Chapter 2
By Toby Ord

Chapter Two examines the question of ‘whether the numbers count’. Suppose that we can either save the life of one person, A, or the life of one other person, B. Let us assume for this and each other example that everything else of moral relevance is kept equal (they are all strangers, there is no pre-exisitng promise to save any of them etc.). Kamm holds that in such a case we should give each of them maximal equal chances of being saved: that is, we should flip a coin giving them each a 50% chance of being saved. Now suppose that the choice is between saving A or saving both B and C. Should we continue to decide by flipping a coin, or should we directly choose to save B and C? This is the question at the heart of Chapter Two.

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Posted on July 13, 2007 at 2:05 am in Kamm Reading Group, Normative Ethics, Toby Ord's Posts | 21 Comments

July 6, 2007

Kamm’s Intricate Ethics: Chapter 1
By S. Matthew Liao

Chapter One contains a summary of Kamm’s two previous books, Morality, Mortality, volumes 1 and 2, and an overview of the key themes in Intricate Ethics. (Note: Kamm covered a lot of ground in this chapter, so my summary turned out also to be quite long. I experimented with making it shorter, but decided in the end to keep most of it in case it is useful to someone. I’m using her subheadings for easy navigation).

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Posted on July 6, 2007 at 2:34 am in Kamm Reading Group, Normative Ethics, S. Matthew Liao's Posts | 21 Comments

June 27, 2007

Schedule for Kamm Reading Group
By S. Matthew Liao

The Kamm Reading Group will kick off in about a week’s time. Each Friday, a commentator will provide a summary of a chapter and some points for consideration. The post will then be open for discussion. We have a very nice line up of commentators. So do join us for the discussions and let your colleagues know about this event.

The schedule is as follows:

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Posted on June 27, 2007 at 1:16 am in General Announcement, Kamm Reading Group, Normative Ethics, S. Matthew Liao's Posts | Leave a Comment

May 22, 2007

Kamm Reading Group
By S. Matthew Liao

To help launch Ethics Etc, we will shortly be running an online reading group on Frances Kamm’s new book Intricate Ethics: Rights, Responsibilities, and Permissible Harm. The Table of Contents for her book is as follows:

I. Nonconsequentialism and the trolley problem
1. Nonconsequentialism       
2. Aggregation and two moral methods        
3. Intention, harm, and the possibility of a unified theory    
4. The doctrines of double and triple effect and why a rational agent need not intend the means to his end
5. Toward the essence of nonconsequentialist constraints on harming : modality, productive purity, and the greater good working itself out
6. Harming people in Peter Unger’s Living high and letting die
II. Rights
7. Moral status         
8. Rights beyond interests     
9. Conflicts of rights : a typology
III. Responsibilities
10. Responsibility and collaboration
11. Does distance matter morally to the duty to rescue?
12. The new problem of distance in morality          
IV. Others’ ethics
13. Peter Singer’s ethical theory
14. Moral intuitions, cognitive psychology, and the harming/not-aiding distinction
15. Harms, losses, and evils in Gert’s moral theory
16. Owing, justifying, and rejecting
 
Each week one of us will give a brief summary of a chapter of her book and provide some points for discussion. The post will then be open for discussion, and we welcome comments on any aspects of the chapter.

Posted on May 22, 2007 at 12:56 am in General Announcement, Kamm Reading Group, Normative Ethics, S. Matthew Liao's Posts | 3 Comments

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