accepted ideals; however, some questions put things in a new light. The question about whether to abandon planet earth and instead colonize a different planet cannot be resolved by merely analyzing benefits and
In theory, we could harm numerous people instead of one. However, if the harm were obvious to the first generation before they had any offspring, then, presumably, they would elect not to pass on such a heritance. Furthermore, that a change is heritable does not necessarily imply that it ...
is a theory that holds that the best way to make a moral decision is to look at the potential consequences of each available choice; then, one should pick the option that either does the most to increase happiness or does the least to increase suffering. Utilitarianism...
There's not much danger that you and I will quarrel over a picture, a poem, or even a scientific theory that I admire and you despise. Neither of us can reasonably care very much about them. They ought all of them to be matters of little significance to us both, so that although ...
This article is organized as follows. It begins with an explication of the traditionaleconomic theoryof moral hazard. Next, it provides some challenges to this theory. After that, empirical evidence is provided, first, from the RAND Health Insurance Experiment (HIE) and a critique of it, as ...
The National Flood Insurance Program, created in 1968 under LBJ on the theory that the private insurance market couldn’t handle flood damage, presumed that Washington could. Like many of his Great Society initiatives, it has turned out to be an expensive tutorial on the perils of government in...
The categorical imperative.“Act only on that principle whereby you can will that it should become a universal law.” Immanuel Kant, the author of this rule, has formulated other rules as well, but our object here is not a history of moral theory but a consideration of the use of moral ...
The theory is that cooking meat made our brains bigger. As it turns out, our brains run mainly on carbohydrates and we developed a special enzyme in our saliva called AMY-1 that helped us break down compounds in complex carbohydrates around the same time we learned to cook. The main item...
Paul declares to the Corinthians, “No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it” (I Cor. 10:13, ...
The moral is then clear: it is so much the worse for utilitarianism, and all morally sensitive people will thus reject it as an ethical theory. The point is that utilitarianism takes the end to justify the means and so allows, indeed requires, the use of any form of treatment that maximi...