You boil things down very effectively. To respond in kind: There's not, and he or she can. But that doesn't make conversation, debate, argument, etc. about capital punishment pointless. Why not? Because there's more to discourse about morals than vehement insistence. Moral conversations can shape participants values, their sentiments, their ways of seeing things so that they come to feel and think differently about issues like capital punishment. Participants might be unaware of certain facts (such as the ways race and class and error play into capital punishment or the effects of capital punishment on those who administer it). They might be unaware of various logical inconsistencies in their positions (for example, the inconsistency between capital punishment and the 8th Amendment to the US Constitution, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment). They might through the course of their conversation come to change their metaphysical commitments (for example, about the nature of a person or...

Consider the question, ‘Is cannibalism morally wrong?’ One can first ask whether this question is about some sort of fact. And if it isn’t, does that mean that all possible answers are personal opinions, social conventions, or something else such that ‘true’ and ‘false’ simply have no meaning here. Of course, even if there is a fact of the matter with regard to this question (and hence it makes sense to say that answers to the question may be either true or false), could anyone ever know what it is? Those who think there are facts of the form ‘such and such is morally right or wrong’ are called moral realists. If, in addition, they think that such facts can be known, they are called cognitivists. Those who deny there is any fact of the matter about which acts are morally wrong are called non-realists or anti-realists. Some non-realists think that their position entails that all moral judgements are therefore meaningless. But others disagree. They think that although there are no moral facts, or anyway...

No, I think there are times when it's better to conceal the truth. Part of wisdom in ethics involves not just being truthful but knowing when and how the truth should be told. Mind you, there are good reasons for being maximally truthful; but they do not count in every case.

Yes, that's because inheritance underwrites certain virtues and social goods--for example, (1) it stimulates productivity among those who create wealth, (2) it provides financial security, (3) it binds families together, (4) it produces general social stability. But note that it's also the case that it's ethically sound to limit inheritance and to tax inheritance. That's because doing so mitigates the vices of inheritance and produces vitrues of its own. Among the vices of inheritance are (1) the cementing and even magnifying of social inequalities of power and priviledge, (2) intensifying class-based prejudice and hostility, and (3) dulling incentives to create wealth among inheritors. Among the goods that limiting and taxing inheritance produces are (1) a stronger democracy through greater equality of social goods and social power and (2) improved general welfare through the gathering of revenue to underwrite goods provided by government such as educatiion, healthcare, national defense,...

I agree with Thomas Pogge's remarks, but I also have a couple of cents to add. First, consider very seriously and act in light of the fact that your information comes to you second hand (from a lab tech and not the child's physician or parent)--unless, of course you are the MRI technician. Second hand reports are notoriously inaccurate, and so I suggest proceeding with caution and when you act qualifying your comments with the acknowledgment that your information may be inaccurate. The tech may be exaggerating the physician's instructions or otherwise distorting them. Secondly, it's worth pointing up front that (again unless you are the technician) that it was probably unethical for the technician to have given you medical information about the boy. Medical information is by law, custom, and moral principle extremely private material. The technician's poor conduct in providing you with medical information about the child further calls his or her credibility into question. Thirdly,...

This is a fascinating question because medical care is not a commodity like many others--for example televisions or ice cream. It is a service related to the most pround of human needs. For that reason, I answer your first question with a "no"--but with qualification. It really depends upon what you mean by "economic considerations." I think it would be wrong to use simple supply-and-demand considerations where the supplier (the surgeon) charged the highest price the market will bear. Why? Because higher prices will exclude those with less money from the service, and I don't think it morally defensible to distribute essential medical services on the basis of wealth. Moreover, people suffering from illness are not in a position to bargain for fees with medical providers in the absence of coercion. (Think of how little a surgeon would charge if he or she were at risk of dying if a prospective patient decided to seek care elsewhere.) For this reason, I find the American medical system on the whole...

It's a fine question, isn't it. Short, sweet, and deeply provocative. In the interests of full disclosure, however, I should, at the outset, let you know that I don't think we should eat beef--in part because of the sort of reasons this question elicits. That being said, I don't think that the claim the question seems to advance is by itself decisive--namely that it's human's superior intelligence that provides grounds for eating beef. After all, if minimal intelligence itself justified eating an organism, then humans with minimal intelligence (including the aged, those with brain injuries, infants and fetuses, the mentallly retarded, public officials, etc.) would be candidates for consumption, and various computers would have moral standing. But establishing moral standing isn't simply a matter of determining intelligence. Rather, I'd say that what principally (not exclusively) marks an entity as one not to be consumed is its sharing or its capacity to share (or have shared) in certain projects and...

You and your friend have articulated extremely well a philosophical problem that's been debated for thousands of years. Some of my favorite ancient places to think about the question are Plato's Republic and Gorgias and Cicero's De Finibus . I'm afraid I must tell you, however, that the matter really isn't settled--though I do think we're a bit more sophisticated today in working through the alternatives. Some philosophers think there is an objective truth to morality--that morals is somehow grounded in elements of the world independent of our subjective feelings. There are various candidates for this kind of grounding--the divine, nature, language, even the idea that 'goodness' is an objective property of conduct. Others think that the essential element, or at least a necessary condition, of morality is subjective. A couple of things you might consider of the debate you're having with your friend: First, the idea that morality is grounded in something subjective, entirely or just in...

Yes, in short, I think you're right about restricting the display of pornography while preserving the liberty of those who wish access to it. And isn't that just the kind of balance that is often sought. Pornographic materials are sold from separate rooms of shops, encased in opaque wrappings, excluded from billboards--but access to them for those who wish to acquire them is often in many parts of the U.S., anyway, nevertheless not unreasonably difficult to obtain. It's a tricky thing to figure, however, this balance. On the one hand, there is the liberty interest of those who choose to acquire pornography; and clearly many people find it enjoyable. Arguably, there is also a general political value to pornographic materials insofar as they are part of the conversation about what proper sexual morality and proper sexual expression should be. On the other hand those who find pornography obnoxious have an interest in not being harmed in the sense of embarrassed or annoyed or grossed out by...

This is a fascinating question, in some ways, I think, it's connected to the question of whether we have responsibilities to things bigger than us in the sense of things that can continue to exist without us--e.g. things like families, nations, political and artistic movements, cultures, universities, businesses. Generally, I would say there is a moral obligation to sustain good things generally--at least where sustaining some good thing doesn't require undermining another of greater value. To your specific question: I would say that considering the species itself, there is no obligation to sustain it, since the simple existence of the species is neither good nor bad, so long as there are other species to substitute for it. Considering the species as part of the larger ecosystems of the planet, where genetic diversity is salutary for the health of living things generally, there is an obligation insofar as the well being of living things is good. Considering the existence of the species as the...