The ability of a group of adults with high functioning autism (HFA) or Asperger Syndrome (AS) to distinguish moral, conventional and disgust transgressions was investigated using a set of six transgression scenarios, each of which was followed by questions about permissibility, seriousness, authority contingency and justification. The results showed that although individuals with HFA or AS (HFA...

In his recent book 'Moral Skepticisms' Walter Sinnott-Armstrong argues in great detail for contrastivism with respect to justified moral belief and moral knowledge. In this paper I raise three questions concerning this view. First, how would Sinnott-Armstrong account for constraints on admissible contrast classes? Second, how would he deal with notorious problems concerning relevant reference c...

Today, consumers expect companies to be socially responsible. However, the literature is undecided about effects of communicating one's corporate social responsibility activities consumers. This raises question how sustainability-driven can best advertise their products stimulate ethical consumption: using self-benefit frames, where main beneficiary consumer, or other-benefit a third party. Usi...

People are motivated to defend and rationalize the status quo, a phenomenon known as system justification. We propose the existence of a second, countervailing system-level motivation: system-change motivation, which is concerned with bettering the status quo over time. The opportunity to receive diagnostic information about the status quo pits the two system-level motives against each other. W...

Abstract In this review, I summarize Elinor Mason’s Ways to be Blameworthy and raise some worries concerning three aspects of her book: account the knowledge condition on moral responsibility, notion blame its justification as well conception extended blameworthiness.

This paper has two central aims. The first is to explore philosophical complications that arise when we move from (i) explaining the evolutionary origins of genetically influenced traits associated with human cooperation and altruism, to (ii) explaining present manifestations of human thought, feeling and behaviour involving cooperation and altruism. While the former need only appeal to causal ...

Moral hazard and adverse selection create inefficiencies in private health insurance markets. We use claims data from a large firm to study the independent roles of both moral hazard and adverse selection. Previous studies have attempted to estimate moral hazard in private health insurance by assuming that individuals respond only to the spot price, end-of-year price, average price, or a relate...

One of the most pressing dilemmas of the moment concerns pluralism and the issue of justification: how does one defend a commitment to any particular position? The fear is that pluralism undercuts our ability to justify our moral and political views, and thereby leads to relativism. As I argue here, Isaiah Berlin provides an exemplary argument concerning the ties between pluralism and liberalis...

Criticism of contract theory has always played an important role in Hartmut Kliemt’s writings on political philosophy. Notwithstanding his objections to a consent-based justification of the state he has never subscribed to an anarchist position. In Hartmut Kliemt’s view, a minimal state which protects the basic liberties of its citizens has to be considered legitimate. The article begins with a...

Recent scholarship on Hegel has employed the Wittgensteinian concept of a “form of life” in order to explain how sociality shapes and determines the reflective practices of self-conscious individuals. However, few of these scholars have considered how the non-reflective aspects of inhabiting a form of life—especially the abilities to form habits and to have feelings—contribute to the reflective...