S. Matthew Liao » Ethics

Agency and Human Rights

S. Matthew Liao — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:52:52 +0000

What grounds human rights? How do we determine that something is a human right? James Griffin has persuasively argued that the notion of agency should determine the content of human rights. However, Griffin’s agency account faces the question of why agency should be the sole ground for human rights. For example, can Griffin’s notion of agency by itself adequately explain such human rights as that against torture? Or, has Griffin offered a plausible explanation as to why one should not broaden the ground for human rights to include other elements of a good life such as freedom from great pain, understanding, deep personal relations, and so on? These concerns have been raised regarding Griffin’s agency account, but in his new book, On Human Rights, Griffin has offered new arguments in support of his view that agency is the sole ground for human rights. In this paper, I examine these new arguments, and I argue that Griffin’s arguments are ultimately unsuccessful. [Journal of Applied Philosophy 27(1) 2010: 15-25] [pdf | html]

The Basis of Human Moral Status

S. Matthew Liao — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 16:23:55 +0000

When philosophers consider what moral status human beings have, they tend to find themselves either supporting the idea that not all human beings are rightholders or adopting what Peter Singer calls a ‘speciesist’ position, where speciesism is defined as morally favoring a particular species – in this case, human beings – over others without sufficient justification. In this paper, I develop what I call the ‘genetic basis for moral agency’ account of rightholding, and I propose that this account can allow all human beings to be rightholders without being speciesist. While my aim is to set out this account clearly rather than to defend it, I explain how this account is different from a potentiality account and I argue that it is preferable to an actual moral agency account of human moral status. [Journal of Moral Philosophy 7(2) 2010: 159-179] [pdf | html]

The Loop Case and Kamm’s Doctrine of Triple Effect

S. Matthew Liao — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:57:49 +0000

Judith Jarvis Thomson’s Loop Case is particularly significant in normative ethics because it calls into question the validity of the intuitively plausible Doctrine of Double Effect, according to which there is a significant difference between harm that is intended and harm that is merely foreseen and not intended. Recently, Frances Kamm has argued that what she calls the Doctrine of Triple Effect (DTE), which draws a distinction between acting because-of and acting in-order-to, can account for our judgment about the Loop Case. In this paper, I first argue that even if the distinction drawn by DTE can be sustained, it does not seem to apply to the Loop Case. Moreover, I question whether this distinction has any normative significance. The upshot is that I am skeptical that DTE can explain our judgment about the Loop Case. [Philosophical Studies 146(2) 2009: 223-231] [pdf | html]

Selecting Children: The Ethics of Reproductive Genetic Engineering

S. Matthew Liao — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:51:30 +0000

Advances in reproductive genetic engineering have the potential to transform human lives. Not only do they promise to allow us to select children free of diseases, they can also enable us to select children with desirable traits. In this paper, I consider two clusters of arguments for the moral permissibility of reproductive genetic engineering, what I call the Perfectionist View and the Libertarian View; and two clusters of arguments against reproductive genetic engineering, what I call the Human Nature View and the Motivation View. I argue that an adequate theory of the ethics of reproductive genetic engineering should take into account insights gained from these views. [Philosophy Compass 3 2008: 1-19] [pdf | html]

Issues in the Pharmacological Induction of Emotions

S. Matthew Liao — Sun, 04 May 2008 00:38:55 +0000

In this paper, David Wasserman and I examine issues raised by the possibility of regulating emotions through pharmacological means. We argue that emotions induced through these means can be authentic phenomenologically, and that the manner of inducing them need not make them any less our own than emotions arising “naturally.” We recognize that in taking drugs to induce emotions, one may lose opportunities for self-knowledge; act narcissistically; or treat oneself as a mere means. But we propose that there are circumstances in which none of these concerns arise. Finally, we consider how the possibility of drug-regulation might affect duties to feel emotions. [Journal of Applied Philosophy 25(3) 2008: 178-192] [pdf | html]

Who Is Afraid of Numbers?

S. Matthew Liao — Fri, 02 May 2008 03:47:59 +0000

In recent years, many nonconsequentialists such as Frances Kamm and Thomas Scanlon have been puzzling over what has come to be known as the Number Problem, which is how to show that the greater number in a rescue situation should be saved without aggregating the claims of the many, a typical kind of consequentialist move that seems to violate the separateness of persons. In this paper, I argue that these nonconsequentialists may be making the task more difficult than necessary, because allowing aggregation does not prevent one from being a nonconsequentialist. I shall explain how a nonconsequentialist can still respect the separateness of persons while allowing for aggregation. [Utilitas 20(4) 2008: 447-461] [pdf | html]

The Right of Children to Be Loved

S. Matthew Liao — Fri, 02 May 2008 03:47:12 +0000

A number of international organizations have claimed that children have a right to be loved, but there is a worry that this claim may just be an empty rhetoric. In this paper, I seek to show that there could be such a right by providing a justification for this right in terms of human rights, by demonstrating that love can be an appropriate object of a duty, and by proposing that biological parents should normally be made the primary bearers of this duty, while all other able persons in appropriate circumstances have the associate duties to help biological parents discharge their duties. I also consider some policy implications of this right. [The Journal of Political Philosophy 14(4) 2006: 420-440] [pdf | html] [ Related Link ]

Time-Relative Interests and Abortion

S. Matthew Liao — Fri, 02 May 2008 03:46:39 +0000

The concept of a time-relative interest is introduced by Jeff McMahan to solve certain puzzles about the badness of death. Some people (e.g. McMahan and David DeGrazia) believe that this concept can also be used to show that abortion is permissible. I first argue that if the Time-Relative Interest Account permits abortion, then it would also permit infanticide. I next reject the suggestion that the Time-Relative Interest Account can at least explain the permissibility of early abortion, even if it cannot explain the permissibility of late abortion. Given this, early and late abortions have to be justified on other grounds. [The Journal of Moral Philosophy 4(2) 2007: 242-256] [pdf | html]

Are ‘Ex Ante’ Enhancements Always Permissible?

S. Matthew Liao — Fri, 02 May 2008 03:45:57 +0000

Frances Kamm distinguishes between changes or enhancements that are made before a child exists (ex ante changes) and those that are made once a child exists (ex post changes), and she argues that ex ante changes do not show disrespect or, as Michael Sandel would put it, lack of love, for a person, since the person does not yet exist. In this paper, I argue that it is important to distinguish between ex ante enhancements that are morally neutral and those that are morally dubious, and that the latter ones are morally objectionable even if the persons do not yet exist. [The American Journal of Bioethics 5(3) 2005: 23-25] [pdf | html]

The Embryo Rescue Case

S. Matthew Liao — Fri, 02 May 2008 03:41:17 +0000

In the debate regarding the moral status of human embryos, the Embryo Rescue Case has been used to suggest that embryos are not rightholders. This case is premised on the idea that in a situation where one has a choice between saving some number of embryos or a child, it seems wrong to save the embryos and not the child. If so, it seems that embryos cannot be rightholders. In this paper, I argue that the Embryo Rescue Case does not independently show that embryos are not rightholders. [Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 27(2) 2006: 141-147] [pdf | html]