People need to understand why an instance of suffering occurred and what purpose it might have. One widespread account of suffering is a repressive suffering construal (RSC): interpreting suffering as occurring because people deviate from social norms and as having the purpose of reinforcing the social order. Based on the theorizing of Emile Durkheim and others, we propose that RSC is associate...

I begin this commentary with an expanded typology of theories that endorse an internal morality of medicine. I then subject these theories to a philosophical critique. I argue that the more robust claims for an internal morality fail to establish a stand-alone method for bioethics because they ignore crucial non-medical values, violate norms of justice and fail to establish the normativity of m...

This thesis considers the problem of how people should deal with moral change. I examine various conceptions of morality and induce the essence of morality, or the set of formal features that is fundamental to all moralities. In particular, I claim that the essence of morality consists of four features: (1) it performs some function (namely, solving the problem of cooperation); (2) it is prescr...

Moral relativism, as I understand it, is the claim that there is not a single objectively true morality but only many different moralities, just as there is not a single true language but only many different languages. Different people may have different moralities as reflected in the way they act and the ways they react to the actions of others and there is no objective way to show that one of...

This is one of the first batch in a series called 'Philosophy at Work', designed to show contemporary philosophy being fruitfully applied to practical problems. Mr. Atkinson's first concern is to examine arguments which are commonly used in defence of, and in opposition to, such things as preand extra-marital intercourse, contraception, artificial insemination, divorce, homosexuality. He unrave...

In the book Unfit for the Future Persson and Savulescu portray the problems and challenges humanity will have to cope with in the near future. Problems technological progress and demographic growth have evoked can’t be solved through common moral psychology, which was assimilated to small, nontechnological societies many many years ago. There is a need of moral enhancement for humanity to be ab...