Risk and mid-level moral principles

Bioethics

Volumn 26, Issue 1, 2012, Pages 8-14

  Espinoza, Nicolas ^a   Peterson, Martin ^b  

^a LULEÅ UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY   (Sweden)

^b EINDHOVEN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY   (Netherlands)

Author keywords

Degree of rightness; Incomparability; Mid level principle; Moral indeterminacy; Risk

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; BIOETHICS; ETHICS; HUMAN; MORALITY; RISK; SOCIAL BEHAVIOR;

BIOETHICAL ISSUES; HUMANS; MORALS; PRINCIPLE-BASED ETHICS; RISK; SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY;

EID: 83655196804     PISSN: 02699702     EISSN: 14678519     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8519.2010.01813.x     Document Type: Article

References (15)

1. See [Accessed 19 Aug 2009].
2. T. Beauchamp & J Childress. 2001. Principles of Biomedical Ethics 5th edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 206.
3. Beauchamp and Childress admit later in their book (see e.g. page 399) that there might be cases in which no determinate conclusion can be reached, but they do not provide any extensive analysis of what this means and why this may sometimes be the case.
4. W.D. Ross. 1930. The Right and the Good. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 19.
5. European Medicines Agency. 2005. Action Plan to Further Progress the European Risk Management Strategy. Do Ref. EMEA/115906/2005/Final. Available at: [Accessed 8 Feb 2010].
6. For a good introduction to the literature on incomparability, see R. Chang. The Possibility of Parity. Ethics 2002; 112: 659-688.
7. A. Sen Incompleteness and Reasoned Choice Synthese, 2004; 140(1-2): 43-59.
8. The most commonly employed way of 'detecting' incomparability is by advancing the so-called small-improvement argument. For a detailed account of this argument see Chang
9. For a recent critical examination see J. Gustafsson & N. Espinoza. Conflicting Reasons in the Small-Improvement Argument. Philos Q (forthcoming).
10. We assume that only the right action, i.e. the action demanded by the strongest obligations, is permissible and that all other actions, however good they may be, are impermissible. From this assumption, and the assumption that the obligations demanding to permit the vaccine are incomparable to the obligations demanding not to do so, it follows trivially that it is neither permissible nor impermissible to permit the vaccine.
11. A similar position is defended in M. J. Selgelid. A Moderate Pluralist Approach to Public Health Policy and Ethics. Public Health Ethics In Selgelid's view, we should speak about 'the degree to which. any given liberty restriction was acceptable or not rather than talking about whether it was acceptable'. We agree with this and believe that the present contribution may eventually help to render Selgelid's position more precise.2009; 2: 195-205.
12. This is the traditional consequentialist view. See e.g. D. Parfit. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Clarendon Press.1984
13. We are aware that Beauchamp and Childress sometimes indicate that it may sometimes be impossible to determine what one ought to do all things considered (see e.g. p. 399) However, they never really explain what this means (is it an epistemic or metaphysical point?) and why this is so.
14. M Peterson. 2009. An introduction to decision theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
15. The weighted force rule can be formulated in the following way: Let F(A) and F(B) be the respective forces of A and B. Then, by letting p(A) and p(B) be the probability of choosing A and B, the weighted force rule recommends that we choose A and B with probabilities p(A) and p(B) such that: p(A) = F (A) / F (A) + F (B) and p(B) = F (B) / F (A) + F (B).