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Funding Information: Open Access funding provided by Aalto University. The research was supported financially by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Finland–project decision VN/2470/2022 “Justainability”. Publisher Copyright: © 2023, The Author(s). Nudging, according to its inventors and defenders, is supposed to provide a non-coercive way of changing human behavior for the better—a freedom-respecting form of “libertarian paternalism.” Its original point was to complement coercive modes of influence without any need of justification in liberal frameworks. This article shows, using the example of food-product placement in grocery stores, how this image is deceptive. Although nudging practices may not restrict the freedom of consumers, nudging arrangements by public health authorities do restrict the freedom of shopkeepers in standard liberal senses. Libertarianism cannot justify this coercion, and the creed is best left out of the equation as the ideological ruse that it, in this discussion, is. Other liberal theories can justify the coercion, but on grounds that can also be applied to other methods of public health promotion by subsidies and regulation. This result reaffirms that nudging should be seen to complement, not to replace, those other methods.

I present a qualified new defense of antinatalism. It is intended to empower potential parents who worry about their possible children's life quality in a world threatened by environmental degradation, climate change, and the like. The main elements of the defense are an understanding of antinatalism's historical nature and contemporary varieties, a positional theory of value based on Epicurean hedonism and Schopenhauerian pessimism, and a sensitive guide for reproductive decision-making in the light of different views on life's value and risk-taking. My conclusion, main message, to the concerned would-be parents is threefold. If they believe that life's ordinary frustrations can make it not worth living, they should not have children. If they believe that a noticeably low life quality makes it not worth living and that such life quality can be reasonably expected, they should not have children, either. If they believe that a noticeably low life quality is not reasonably to be expected or that the risk is worth taking, they can, in the light of their own values and beliefs, have children. The conclusion is supported by a combination of the extant arguments for reproductive abstinence, namely the arguments from consent, moral asymmetry, life quality, and risk.

The article examines five controversial views, expressed in Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal, Helga Kuhse and Peter Singer’s Should the Baby Live? The Problem of Handicapped Infants, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva’s “After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?”, Julian Savulescu’s “Procreative beneficence: why we should select the best children”, and the author’s “A rational cure for prereproductive stress syndrome”. These views have similarities and differences on five levels: the grievances they raise, the proposals they make, the justifications they explicitly use, the justifications they implicitly rely on, and the criticisms that they have encountered. A comparison of these similarities and differences produces two findings. First, some controversial views based on utilitarian considerations would probably fare better flipped upside down and presented as Juvenalian satires. Secondly, a modicum of humor or modesty could help presenters of controversial views to stir polite critical discussion on the themes that they put forward.

The European Union’s 2018 updated bioeconomy strategy A Sustainable Bioeconomy for Europe: Strengthening the connection between economy, society and the environment aims to fulfill the requirements of sustainability and justice while transitioning economy from fossil-based to bio-based. We ask whether and to what extent the economically ambitious strategy succeeds in achieving its non-economic goals. We present a map of justice that shows the tensions and alliances between key interpretations of equality, identify the definition of sustainability informing the strategy, and show how this definition steers the strategy toward a limited view of justice that is geared to ignore social and ecological concerns. The governance framework that the strategy adheres to is the 2015 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals approach, which is an outgrowth of the 1987 Brundtland Commission’s view on sustainability. Since this framework forms the basis of many other international environmental agreements, our observations are largely applicable to them, too. From the viewpoint of justice, comprehensively understood, the whole system is, and has since the Brundtland Report been, fundamentally flawed.

This Element traces the origins and development of bioethics, the principles and values involved in the discipline, and the roles of justice among these principles and values. The main tasks given to the concept of justice have since the late 1970s been nondiscrimination in research, prioritization in medical practice, and redistribution in healthcare. The Element argues that in a world challenged by planet-wide political and environmental threats this is not sufficient. The nature and meaning of justice has to be rethought. The Element does this by dissecting current bioethical approaches in the light of theories of justice as partly clashing interpretations of equality. The overall findings are twofold. Seen against the background of global concerns, justice in bioethics has become a silent guardian of economic sustainability. Seen against the same background, we should set our aims higher. Justice can, and must, be put to better use than it presently is. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

When humanity has either suppressed coronavirus disease 2019 or learned to come to terms with its continued existence, governments and corporations probably return to their prepandemic stances. Solutions to the world’s problems are sought from technology and business innovations, not from considerations of equality and well-being for all. This is in stark contrast with the pandemic-time situation. Many governments, at least initially, listened to the recommendations of expert advisers, most notably public health authorities, who proceeded from considerations of equality and common good. I suggest that we should continue on this path when the immediate threat of the disease is over. Other crises are already ongoing—poverty, conflicts, climate change, financial bubbles, and so on—and it would be good to use expert knowledge rather than interests and ideologies in dealing with them. To assist in this, I outline the characteristics of a new kind of counsellor, impartial adviser, who is normatively motivated by a sense of copathy and who takes into account all views, nice and not-so-nice alike. I illustrate the nature and ideological orientation of copathic impartial advisers by placing them on a map of justice and examining their relationships with the main political moralities of our time.

Moral and political philosophers no longer condemn harm inflicted on nonhuman animals as self-evidently as they did when animal welfare and animal rights advocacy was at the forefront in the 1980s, and sentience, suffering, species-typical behavior, and personhood were the basic concepts of the discussion. The article shows this by comparing the determination with which societies seek responsibility for human harm to the relative indifference with which law and morality react to nonhuman harm. When harm is inflicted on humans, policies concerning negligence and duty of care and principles such as the ‘but for’ rule and the doctrine of double effect are easily introduced. When harm is inflicted on nonhumans, this does not happen, at least not any more. As an explanation for the changed situation, the article offers a shift in discussion and its basic terminology. Simple ethical considerations supported the case for nonhuman animals, but many philosophers moved on to debate different views on political justice instead. This allowed the creation of many conflicting views that are justifiable on their own presuppositions. In the absence of a shared foundation, this fragments the discussion, focuses it on humans, and ignores or marginalizes nonhuman animals.

The ethics of warfare and military leadership must pay attention to the rapidly increasing use of artificial intelligence and machines. Who is responsible for the decisions made by a machine? Do machines make decisions? May they make them? These issues are of particular interest in the context of Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems (LAWS). Are they autonomous or just automated? Do they violate the international humanitarian law which requires that humans must always be responsible for the use of lethal force and for the assessment that civilian casualties are proportionate to the military goals? The article analyses relevant documents, opinions, government positions, and commentaries using the methods of applied ethics. The main conceptual finding is that the definition of autonomy depends on what the one presenting it seeks to support. Those who want to use lethal autonomous weapon systems call them by another name, say, automated instead of autonomous. They impose standards on autonomy that machines do not meet, such as moral agency. Those who wish to ban the use of lethal autonomous weapon systems define them much less broadly and do not require them to do much more than to be a self-standing part of the causal chain.The article’s argument is that the question of responsibility is most naturally perceived by abandoning the most controversial philosophical considerations and simply stating that an individual or a group of people is always responsible for the creation of the equipment they produce and use. This does not mean that those who press the button, or their immediate superiors, are to blame. They are doing their jobs in a system. The ones responsible can probably be found in higher military leadership, in political decision-makers who dictate their goals, and, at least in democracies, in the citizens who have chosen their political decision-makers.

Utilitarianism could still be a viable moral and political theory, although an emphasis on justice as distributing burdens and benefits has hidden this from current conversations. The traditional counterexamples prove that we have good grounds for rejecting classical, aggregative forms of consequentialism. A nonaggregative, liberal form of utilitarianism is immune to this rejection. The cost is that it cannot adjudicate when the basic needs of individuals or groups are in conflict. Cases like this must be solved by other methods. This is not a weakness in liberal utilitarianism, on the contrary. The theory clarifies what we should admit to begin with: that ethical doctrines do not have universally acceptable solutions to all difficult problems or hard cases. The theory also reminds us that not all problems are in this sense difficult or cases hard. We could alleviate the plight of nonhuman animals by reducing meat eating. We could mitigate climate change and its detrimental effects by choosing better ways of living. These would imply that most people’s desire satisfaction would be partly frustrated, but liberal utilitarianism holds that this would be justified by the satisfaction of the basic needs of other people and nonhuman animals.

openaire: EC/H2020/741677/EU//InSPIRES Increasingly high-profile research is being undertaken into the socio-environmental challenges associated with the over-production and consumption of food from animals. Transforming food systems to mitigate climate change and hidden hunger, ensure food security and good health all point to reducing animal-based foods as a key lever. Moving beyond animal-based food systems is a societal grand challenge requiring coordinated international research by the social sciences and humanities. A ‘selective openness’ to this range of disciplines has been observed within multi-discipline research programmes designed to address societal grand challenges including those concerned with the sustainability of food systems, inhibiting the impact of social sciences and humanities. Further, existing research on animal-based foods within these disciplines is largely dispersed and focused on particular parts of food systems. Inspired by the ‘Sutherland Method’ this paper discusses the results of an iterative research prioritisation process carried out to enhance capacity, mutual understanding and impact amongst European social sciences and humanities researchers. The process produced 15 research questions from an initial list of 100 and classified under the following five themes: (1) debating and visioning food from animals; (2) transforming agricultural spaces; (3) framing animals as food; (4) eating practices and identities; and (5) governing transitions beyond animal-based food systems. These themes provide an important means of making connections between research questions that invite and steer research on key challenges in moving beyond animal-based food systems. The themes also propose loci for future transdisciplinary research programmes that join researchers from the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities and stakeholders from beyond academia to develop cooperative research and implementation initiatives. The experiences gained from the prioritisation process draw attention to the value of spending time to discuss and collaboratively steer research enquiry into emergent and controversial matters of concern. Fundamental, ethical questions around the continuation or complete cessation of the use of animals for food was a key tension. The positioning of research towards these questions affects not only the framing of the research area but also the partners with whom the research can be carried out and for whom it may be of benefit.

Is there such a thing as corona solidarity? Does voluntary mutual aid solve the problems caused by COVID-19? I argue that the answer to the first question is “yes” and to the second “no.” Not that the answer to the second question could not, in an ideal world, be “yes,” too. It is just that in this world of global capitalism and everybody looking out for themselves, the kind of communal warmth celebrated by the media either does not actually exist or is too weak to rule out the uglier manifestations of group togetherness, driven partly by the pandemic. I make my point by offering two approaches to understanding what solidarity is. According to the first, it is essentially partiality: “us” against “them.” According to the second, it can be many things, including the impartial promotion of the good of others. I show that the second reading would make it possible for mutual aid to solve the problems caused by COVID-19 and other crises. This would happen at the expense of conceptual clarity, but that is a minor concern. The major concern is that the more natural manifestations of group togetherness are incited by negative feelings. This is par for the course within the narrower reading of solidarity, but it means that the potentially positive ideas of identity, care, communal values, and special relations are displayed in violent confrontation instead of a calm recognition of the threats that most of us face together.

Governmental reactions to crises like the COVID-19 pandemic can be seen as ethics communication. Governments can contain the disease and thereby mitigate the detrimental public health impact; allow the virus to spread to reach herd immunity; test, track, isolate, and treat; and suppress the disease regionally. An observation of Sweden and Finland showed a difference in feasible ways to communicate the chosen policy to the citizenry. Sweden assumed the herd immunity strategy and backed it up with health utilitarian arguments. This was easy to communicate to the Swedish people, who appreciated the voluntary restrictions approach and trusted their decision makers. Finland chose the contain and mitigate strategy and was towards the end of the observation period apparently hesitating between suppression and the test, track, isolate, and treat approach. Both are difficult to communicate to the general public accurately, truthfully, and acceptably. Apart from health utilitarian argumentation, something like the republican political philosophy or selective truth telling are needed. The application of republicanism to the issue, however, is problematic, and hiding the truth seems to go against the basic tenets of liberal democracy.

The role of bioethicists amidst crises like the COVID-19 pandemic is not well defined. As professionals in the field, they should respond, but how? The observation of the early days of pandemic confinement in Finland showed that moral philosophers with limited experience in bioethics tended to apply their favorite theories to public decisions, with varying results. Medical ethicists were more likely to lend support to the public authorities by soothing or descriptive accounts of the solutions assumed. These are approaches that Tuija Takala has called the firefighting and window dressing models of bioethics. Human rights lawyers drew attention to the flaws of the government’s regulative thinking. Critical bioethicists offered analyses of the arguments presented and the moral and political theories that could be used as the basis of good and acceptable decisions.

Justice can be approached from many angles in ethical and political debates, including those involving healthcare, biomedical research, and well-being. The main doctrines of justice are liberal egalitarianism, libertarianism, luck egalitarianism, socialism, utilitarianism, capability approach, communitarianism, and care ethics. These can be further elaborated in the light of traditional moral and social theories, values, ideals, and interests, and there are distinct dimensions of justice that are captured better by some tactics than by others. In this article, questions surrounding these matters are approached with the hermeneutic idea of a distinction between “American” and “European” ways of thinking.

Fear of life, fear of death, and fear of causing death form a combination that prevents reasoned changes in laws concerning end-of-life situations. This is shown systematically in this article using the methods of conceptual analysis. Prevalent fears are explicated and interpreted to see how their meanings differ depending on the chosen normative stance. When the meanings have been clarified, the impact of the fears on the motivations and justifications of potential legislative reforms are assessed. Two main normative stances are evoked. The first makes an appeal to individual self-determination, or autonomy, and the second to the traditional professional ethics of physicians. These views partly share qualifying elements, including incurability and irreversibility of the patient’s medical condition, proximity of death, the unbearable nature of suffering, and issues of voluntariness further shade the matter. The conclusion is that although many motives to change end-of-life laws are admirable, they are partly contradictory, as are calls for autonomy and appeals to professional ethics; to a degree that good, principled legislative solutions remain improbable in the foreseeable future.

This article explores the ethical issues that have been identified in emerging technologies, from early genetic engineering to synthetic biology. The scientific advances in the field form a continuum, and some ethical considerations can be raised time and again when new developments occur. An underlying concern is the cumulative effect of scientific advances and ensuing technological innovation that can change our understanding of life and humanity.

This paper explores how Finnish research ethics deals with matters of justice on the levels of practical regulation, political morality, and theoretical studies. The bioethical sets of principles introduced by Tom Beauchamp and James Childress in the United States and Jacob Dahl Rendtorff and Peter Kemp in Europe provide the conceptual background, together with a recently introduced conceptual map of theories of justice and their dimensions. The most striking finding is that the internationally recognized requirement of informed consent for research on humans can be ideologically tricky in a Scandinavian welfare state setting.

Moralism in bioethics and elsewhere means going beyond accepted moral principles, either by exaggerating good ethical concerns, by applying them to areas where they do not belong, or simply by assuming anything else than concrete physical or mental harm as normative guides. This paper explores the conceptual background of moralism especially in the consequentialist tradition, presents cases of allegedly bad moralism in the light of this exploration, introduces six approaches to justice, and argues that these approaches question our prevailing views on the goodness and badness of moralism in its various forms.

Background Scientists have cloned animals since the late 19th century, but the crucial step for ethics was the cloning of the first mammal by somatic cell nuclear transfer in 1997. This suggested that scientists could also clone, and possibly enhance, human beings. Sources of data This survey examines ethical literature on cloning since the 1960s. Areas of agreement The one ethical area of agreement in this issue is that we should not try to create new human beings by somatic cell nuclear transfer now. Areas of controversy Ethicists disagree, however, on what justifies this norm. Some appeal to preference satisfaction and freedom from external constraints, others question this approach by more profound religious and moral considerations. Growing points The discussion is currently not progressing, as the same arguments have been in use since the 1970s. Areas timely for developing research Philosophers should prepare deeper analyses of the presuppositions of the ethical arguments used in the discussion before the issue surfaces again.

This article provides an overview of approaches to bioethics—practical and theoretical, philosophical and nonphilosophical. It is argued that those who yearn for pragmatism and real-life relevance would do well to concentrate on politics, legislation, social policy, and lobbying. Those, on the other hand, who seek knowledge about our moral thought might be interested in philosophical bioethics—in the explication of concepts, arguments, views, and normative statements.

This paper shows how most modern theories of justice could require or at least condone international aid aimed at alleviating the ill effects of disability. Seen from the general viewpoint of liberal egalitarianism, this is moderately encouraging, since according to the creed people in bad positions should be aided, and disability tends to put people in such positions. The actual responses of many theories, including John Rawls's famous view of justice, remain, however, unclear. Communitarian, liberal egalitarian, and luck egalitarian thinkers alike have to consider their attitude towards cosmopolitan ideals before they can extend their theories across national borders. The only view of justice that automatically rejects the obligation of international aid based on disability is libertarianism. This is significant for two reasons. Libertarianism is arguably the economic doctrine of globalisation; and its moral appeal to voluntary charity draws attention to the foundations of voluntary corporate social res...

Philosophers should express their ideas clearly. They should do this in any field of specialization, but especially when they address issues of practical consequence, as they do in bioethics. This article dissects a recent and much-debated contribution to philosophical bioethics by Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva, examines how exactly it fails to meet the requirement of clarity, and maps a way forward by outlining the ways in which philosophical argumentation could validly and soundly proceed in bioethics.

Academic freedom can be defined as immunity against adverse reactions from the general public, designed to keep scholars unintimidated and productive even after they have published controversial ideas. Francesca Minerva claims that this notion of strict instrumental academic freedom is supported by Ronald Dworkin, and that anonymity would effectively defend the sphere of immunity implied by it. Against this, I argue that the idea defended by Minerva finds no support in the work by Dworkin referred to; that anonymity would not in most cases effectively protect the kind of immunity sought after; and that in some cases it would not even be desirable to protect scholars from public reactions to their controversial claims.

Justice, both in theory and in practice, is a crucial matter in global ethics. On 29 August 2014, a research symposium – ‘Global Ethics and Justice’ – was held at the Aalto University School of Bus...

This article explicates two approaches to the basis of moral worth and status: Eva Kittay’s relational view and Jeff McMahan’s psychological personhood view. It is argued that these theories alone do not provide adequate support for the conclusions Kittay and McMahan want to draw concerning individuals whose entitlement to fundamental protections can be challenged—infants with severe cognitive disabilities and infants without the support of their families and social environments. The real justification can in each case be found in deeply held convictions regarding entities that must and entities that must not be included in the core community of moral equals. Philosophical discussions about these convictions would be more useful for the advancement of our moral thinking than vain attempts to show that the absolute truth lies on either side of the ongoing debate.

In this article, I present what I believe to be the core of Jürgen Habermas’s views on the morality, ethics, and regulation of emerging genetic and reproductive technologies in his book The Future of Human Nature.

This paper examines the logic and morality of the German Stem Cell Act of 2002. After a brief description of the law’s scope and intent, its ethical dimensions are analysed in terms of symbolic threats, indirect consequences, and the encouragement of immorality. The conclusions are twofold. For those who want to accept the law, the arguments for its rationality and morality can be sound. For others, the emphasis on the uniqueness of the German experience, the combination of absolute and qualified value judgments, and the lingering questions of indirect encouragement of immoral activities will probably be too much.