The problem with yuppie ethics (2018)
Author(s): I Gabriel
Journal: Utilitas 30 (1), 32-53
Abstract
This paper focuses on the demandingness of morality in an age where spending on luxury goods and extreme poverty continue to exist side by side. If morality grants the wealthy permissions, then what do they allow? If there are limits on what morality may demand of us, then how much does it permit?
For a view Henry Shue has termed ‘yuppie ethics’, the answer to both questions is a great deal. It holds that rich people are morally permitted to spend large amounts of money on themselves, even when this means leaving those living in extreme poverty unaided.
Against this view, I demonstrate that personal permissions are limited in certain ways: their strength must be continuous with the reasons put forward to explain their presence inside morality to begin with.
Typically, these reasons include non-alienation and the preservation of personal integrity. However, when personal costs do not result in alienation or violate integrity, they are things that morality can routinely demand of us. Yuppie ethics therefore runs afoul of what I call the ‘continuity constraint’.
Permissible secrets (2018)
Author(s): H Lazenby, I Gabriel
Journal: The Philosophical Quarterly 68 (271), 265-285
Abstract
Award-winning paper (OUP Best of Philosophy, 2018) that offers an account of the information condition on morally valid consent in the context of sexual relations. The account is grounded in rights. It holds that a person has a sufficient amount of information to give morally valid consent if, and only if, she has all the information to which she has a claim-right.
A person has a claim-right to a piece of information if, and only if: a. it concerns a deal-breaker for her; b. it does not concern something that her partner has a strong interest in protecting from scrutiny, sufficient to generate a privilege-right; c.i. her partner is aware of the information to which her deal-breaker applies, or c.ii. her partner ought to be held responsible for the fact that he is not aware of the information to which her deal-breaker applies; and d. she has not waived or forfeited her claim-right.
Effective altruism and its critics (2017)
Author(s): I Gabriel
Journal: Journal of Applied Philosophy 34 (4), 457-473
Abstract
Effective altruism is a philosophy and a social movement that aims to revolutionise the way in which we do philanthropy. It encourages individuals to do as much good as possible, typically by contributing money to the best-performing aid and development organizations.
Surprisingly, this approach has met with considerable resistance among aid practitioners. They argue that effective altruism is insensitive to justice insofar as it overlooks the value of equality, urgency and rights. They also hold that the movement suffers from methodological bias, which means that it takes materialistic, individualistic and instrumental approach to doing good.
Finally, they maintain that effective altruists hold false empirical beliefs about the world, and that they reach mistaken conclusions about how best to act for that reason. This paper weighs the force of each objection in turn, and looks at responses to the challenge they pose.
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