Does having a mental disorder, in general, affect whether someone is morally responsible for an action? Many people seem to think so, holding that mental disorders nearly always mitigate responsibility. Against this Naïve view, we argue for a Nuanced account. The problem is not just that different theories of responsibility yield different verdicts about particular cases. Even when all reasonab...

Recent work in the cognitive and neurobiological sciences indicates an important relationship between emotion and moral judgment. Based on this evidence, several researchers have argued that emotions are the source of our intuitive moral judgments. However, despite the richness of the correlational data between emotion and morality, we argue that the current neurological, behavioral, developmen...

In this paper, following the work of Hare, we consider moral reasoning not as the application of moral norms and principles, but as reasoning about what ought to be done in a particular situation, with moral norms perhaps emerging from this reasoning. We model this situated reasoning drawing on our previous work on argumentation schemes, here set in the context of Action-Based Alternating Trans...

The therapy-enhancement distinction occupies a central place in contemporary discussions of human genetics and has been the subject of much debate.1–7 At a recent conference on gene therapy policy, scientists predicted that within a few years researchers will develop techniques that can be used to enhance human traits.8 In thinking about the morality of genetic interventions, many writers have ...

Abstract In the first part of paper, I discuss Benatar’s asymmetry argument for claim that it would have been better each us to never lived at all. contrast other commentators, will argue there is a way interpreting premises his which makes all them come out true. (This require one departure from own presentation.) Once we see why are true, will, however, also realise trades on an ambiguity ren...

In the present research we analyze the interrelations of spatial distance and efficaciousness in helping needy others, and we investigate how these factors affect our judgments of moral helping obligations. The main question is under which conditions the location of an agent’s means of helping relative to a victim is regarded as morally relevant. We develop a new experimental design that allows...

PURPOSE To explore physicians' attitudes toward providing directive counsel when dealing with morally controversial medical decisions, and to examine associations between physicians' opinions and their demographic and religious characteristics. METHOD In 2008-2009, the authors mailed a survey to a stratified, random sample of 1,800 U.S. obstetrician-gynecologists. They asked participants whet...

The world has always been a dangerous place, and it remains so. There are different kinds of dangers, for there are different kinds of evils. Some of those evils are termed natural evils, some others, moral evils. Both of them are called evils for they cause death, sickness, devastation. Natural evil like death by old age is a common human lot. Other natural evils, like earthquakes or the pesti...