What role should trust have in biobank research? Is it a scarce resource to be cultivated, or does its moral significance lie elsewhere? How does it relate to the researcher’s individual responsibility? In this thesis I draw four general conclusions. First, trust is still very much present in at least some biobanking settings, notably in Sweden, but possibly also internationally. Second, a morally relevant conception of trust entails that to be trustworthy, researchers must consider the normative expectations that people have of them, and renegotiate expectations that are mistaken. Third, this conception differs from “public trust” assessed through surveys. The main use of the latter is to legitimate policy, not to identify moral duties. Fourth, in spite of ethics review, guidelines and informed consent procedures, ethical issues will always arise during the course of a research project. Researchers can therefore never avoid their individual moral responsibility. Ensuring that one is adequately trusted is one step towards conducting morally acceptable research. Study I indicates that few Swedes refuse storage of samples in healthcare-associated biobanks and their use in research. Study II suggests that people are somewhat more willing to donate samples than surveys indicate, especially when approached face-to-face by health care personnel. Relationships of trust might thus be important in people’s decision-making. Study III investigates trust as a moral concept. The trustee is often in a unique position to determine what the other’s trust amounts to. When it is mistaken, the trustee has an obligation to counteract it, compensate for it, or renegotiate the expectations that cannot be met. In Study IV, I critique the feasibility of guaranteeing the trustworthiness of the research apparatus through formal measures such as ethics review and guidelines. Not only are there limitations of such measures to consider. They also risk blinding researchers to ethical issues that are not covered by the rules, fostering moral complacency, and alienating researchers to ethics.

An application of biotechnology that has been rapidly matured under the last ten years is genetically modified food. The deliberative release of GMO faces the challenge of complying with sustainable development and implies a precautionary approach to all possible risk involved. This study purpose is to investigate the problems of risks concerning deliberative release of GMO and to define the question of responsibility. These two themes, risk and responsibility, are discussed in relation to society, citizens, corporations andscience. A more profound understanding of the relation between risk and responsibility in the GMO context could contribute to the sensitivity and deliberation in bio-politics, so it better can cope with democratic governance, public debate and risk deliberations. Politicians and other decisions-makers have a responsibility to assure that they have sufficient knowledge and understanding for the issue at hand before taking any decision. A responsible bio-politics departs from the precautionary principle in decisions making, gaining knowledge in dialogue with concerned GMO actors and tries to correspond to sustainable development. Hence, knowledge and understanding is needed which are reached in dialogue with other parties in order to allowed values, attitudes and knowledge to be deliberate more extensively.

In his 1962 paper “Freedom and Resentment," Peter Strawson attempts to reconcile incompatibilism and compatibilism about moral responsibility and determinism. First, I present the error committed by the proponents of both these traditional views, which Strawson diagnoses as the source of their standoff, and the remedy Strawson offers to avoid the conflict. Second, I reconstruct the two arguments Strawson offers for a theory of moral responsibility that is based on his proposed remedy. Third, I present and respond to two proposed problems for the Strawsonian theory: moral luck and revisionism. I conclude with a summary of my defense of Strawsonian “expressivism” about moral responsibility, and offer suggestions for further research.

The focus of this thesis is the normative base of moral liability to defensive harm. Many argue that liability is what makes it morally permissible to seriously injure or kill in self-defense or in the defense of others. Authors such as Jonathan Quong and Jeff McMahan argue that liability not only has important implications for the individual morality of self-defense, but that it plays a major role in the principles of just war conduct. How you determine when someone is liable will have a significant impact on when someone can be harmed. In this paper, I focus on the question of what a person must do to be morally liable to defensive harm. More specifically, I take a close look at Jeff McMahan’s moral responsibility account of liability and argue that it is unsatisfying as an explanation of when and why a person is liable. I then argue that an evidence-based account of liability better captures our moral intuitions surrounding liability. I end by considering an argument put forward by Quong on why we should not support an evidence-based account of liability. / Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2012-09-30 12:44:32.85

The aim of the thesis is to systematically present, analyse and critically reflect Hans Jonas's (1903-1993) conception of moral responsibility with respect to his axiological ontology, anthropology, speculative theology and conception of modern technology with account of the most important topically relevant German secondary sources, including the latest ones. The first chapter maps the relevant Czech and Slovak secondary sources, whereby it evaluates to what extent Jonas's ethics of responsibility represented a general or applied approach, whether it was only an ethics of survival and whether in this context Jonas's thinking can be labelled anthropocentric. The second chapter offers insight primarily into Jonas's ethical thought in the chronological context of his life. The third chapter analyses Jonas's axiological ontology, anthropology, speculative theology and conception of modern technology. Against this philosophical and speculative-theological background the fourth chapter critically examines Jonas's conception of moral responsibility proper. The fifth chapter critically reflects on both the philosophical and speculative-theological background of Jonas's conceptions of responsibility and the conception itself. An excursus into applied ethics, which concludes the fifth chapter and the work as a whole, finally solves a topical ethical challenge in the sphere of assisted reproduction having to do with the categorical imperative of Jonas's responsibility for future generations. The main results of critical analysis and reflection: Jonas's ethics of responsibility is a supplementary applied conception, an ethics of survival, whose normative axiom commands the preservation (perpetuation) of the human capacity to responsibility. Jonas's thought is monistically anthropocentric. That follows from Jonas's integral monism, in which the difference between god and world, spirit and matter, reality and possibility is levelled out. These monistic confusions are more or less also projected into the ethical points of departure of Jonas's conception of responsibility, especially his specific axiological onto(theo)logy, in which the difference between ontology and axiology is levelled out. The main characteristic of Jonas's proper conception of responsibility consists in confusion (identification) of the object of responsibility with the instance of responsibility - from which at the level of theory of responsibility Jonas's specific two-place relationship of responsibility (subject - object=instance) follows. Although Jonas within his ethics of responsibility, in order to justify responsibility for future generations, broadened his specific two-place relationship to a three-place one, the author of this thesis finds none of the versions of Jonas's three-place relationship plausible - though the author agrees that an at least three-place conception of responsibility is necessary (instance - subject - object). However, for a more differentiated analysis of responsibility a five-place conception is suitable (normative standard - instance - subject - action - object affected by the action), with respect to the possibility of solving some of the problems of Jonas's responsibility for future generations a six-place conception (last instance - normative standard - instance - subject - action - object affected by the action).

Are implicit biases something we can rightly be held responsible for, and if so, how? A variety of social and cognitive psychological studies have documented the existence of wide-ranging implicit biases for over 30 years. These implicit biases can best be described as negative mental attitudes that operate immediately and unconsciously in response to specific stimuli. The first chapter of this thesis surveys the psychological literature, as well as presents findings of real-world experiments into racial biases. I then present the dominant model of implicit attitudes as mere associations, followed by evidence that at least some implicit attitudes take on a propositional form and involve making inferences based on evidence. I then reject adopting either of these two rigid models in favor of a dispositional approach that treats implicit biases as on the same spectrum of, but adjacent to, beliefs. I then evaluate the moral wrongdoing associated with holding explicitly prejudicial beliefs, appealing first to Kantian notions of respecting individuals as agents, then appealing to Strawson’s argument that we are responsible for expressions of our will. Our status as human agents involves participating in complex and sustained interactions with others, which necessarily implies that we take part in the social practice of holding each other responsible for the quality of their will. The reactive attitudes we display in our everyday interactions indicate which features and circumstances are most important when investigating this practice. After applying this approach to implicit attitudes, I then pose the objection that their unconscious and unendorsed nature disqualifies implicit attitudes as proper expressions of our will. I develop this objection using Scanlon’s account of moral responsibility, which requires the capacity to self-govern in light of principles that are generally agreed upon as good reasons for guiding interactions with one another. Finally, I critique Real Self theories that seek to arbitrarily privilege one part of ourselves in favor of the Whole Self, which privileges those features that are most integrated into our overall character.

Philosophical zombies are beings that look exactly like humans and behave in the same way as humans do. The only difference between humans and philosophical zombies is that philosophical zombies lack consciousness. This means that they can complain, cry, laugh and say that they are in pain. However, emotionally, they will never experience these feelings. Philosophical zombies have no desires, no values, and no empathy. Despite philosophical zombies lacking all these qualities, the question can be raised whether, if they were to exist in our world, would they have any moral responsibility? This question becomes pressing because even though philosophical zombies feel nothing and lack consciousness, they are still capable of doing harm and able to act immorally. By using David Shoemaker's (2015) 'Tripartite Theory of Responsibility', I will in this essay analyse whether philosophical zombies are eligible for moral responsibility, and if so what type of moral responsibility they would be eligible for, i.e., whether it would be attributability, answerability or accountability. Furthermore, this essay will discuss if philosophical zombies and psychopaths are similar, and whether they are meant to be qualified for the same moral responsibility types, and if so, which type that would be. Additionally, this essay will discuss the dilemma that might arise if philosophical zombies are not suitable of being moral agents and bring up the debate of the moral agency of AI's. Thereby coming to the point if philosophical zombies are not fit to be held morally responsible.

The neuroscience of decision making is laying the puzzle of how the brain computes decisions. It tries to sort out which factors are responsible for causing us to choose one way or the other. This thesis reviews to what extent emotional brain processes and their neural circuits impact decision making. The somatic marker hypothesis (SMH) provides a solid dual-system framework for decision making. Dissociating an impulsive system, in which the amygdala is central, and a reflective system mediated by the ventromedial prefrontal cortex(VMPFC). The SMH emphasizes the function of the VMPFC as necessary and crucial formaking favorable long-term decisions. Research on moral decision making also shows that similar systems as used by the SMH has a key role in how we think about moral dilemmas as well. Damage or maldevelopment of these neural circuits can cause myopia for the future and deeply immoral behavior. Abnormalities in emotional neuronal circuits can also be linked to addictive behavior and psychopathy. The findings on decision making and its neuralsubstrates dismantle the common sense notion of free will and moral responsibility. An explanation of how the feeling of free will arises is given using the Interpreter system theoryof consciousness. Moral responsibility without the need for a free will is defended by analternative approach with a framework of a brain in-control versus out-of-control.

The purpose of this thesis is to contrast the academic discussion on whether the affluent countries have a responsibility or not to provide food aid for the LDCs, to the views of food aid recipients. In addition to the issue of responsibility I also discuss the responsibilities of individuals contra governments, and what type of aid (if any) that is best to ensure food security. In order to gather information on the recipients’ points of views I have conducted a minor field study in The Gambia and interviewed former food aid recipients. In the academic discussion Thomas Pogge, Peter Singer, Dale Jamieson and David Miller are represented. The results of the field study shows that most of the recipients argue that the affluent countries in the world have a moral responsibility to assist the LDCs since they have the ability to assist.In contrast to the academic discussion, it becomes clear that the interviewees base their arguments on a different moral foundation than some of the theorists, and that they have different perspective on how to eradicate poverty and ensure food security.

This research focuses on the impact of the moral community (or social context) on the formation of conscience and its implication for moral responsibility. It is an interdisciplinary approach to theological reflection that is particularly attentive to psychological, philosophical, sociological, and neurobiological viewpoints showing how these have either distorted or broadened our understanding of conscience in its relation to community and social responsibility, or its formation in relationship to our moral development. It stresses reciprocity of conduct (for we are "responders") and the complementarities of internal and external sanctions. It insists that the influence of conscience on behavior is undermined by a fixation on its cognitive aspect at the detriment of the feeling aspect such that retrieving the latter will broaden our appreciation of its deep but subtle influence. While admitting the richness of African <italic>communalism<<</he basis for a healthy formative process, it also sees in it a perplexing paradox given the socio-political realities of venal leadership and systemic corruption that de-colors the African landscape. Focusing on Nigeria, it identifies "tribalism" as a socio-moral "pathology" (an institutionalized self-interest) that not only distorts the traditional process of moral formation but has evolved as a core driver of systemic corruption. It claims that globalization enables "external powers" to impact local moral orientation. It links "local tribalism" and "international tribalism" as "pathologies" based on kinship of disordered self-interest. It exposes how the latter influences local moral disorientation in a way analogous to how the local moral community impacts the malformation of individual conscience and thus influencing irresponsibility. Its recommendations include: a "glocalized" moral reform aimed at "updating" conscience formation process and overcoming tribalism; a paradigm shift in foreign policy agenda towards a new ethic; and a "three-stage-process" that focuses on deconstructing unhealthy belief systems and building "active" moral communities as part of a robust long-term strategy against systemic corruption and deeper socio-moral transformation. / McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts; / Theology / PhD; / Dissertation;