F. M. Kamm - Böcker

In Almost Over, F. M. Kamm presents a wide-ranging philosophical discussion of the moral, legal, and medical issues related to aging, dying, and death. She begins by considering different views about whether and why death is bad for the person who dies and what these views imply about the death of humanity. She then considers whether there are conditions under which it might make sense to deliberately bring a person's death about, given the processes of aging and dying that precede it. In the opinion of some it is not only serious illness but ordinary aging that may give rise to this question and Kamm pays particular attention to the various ways in which aging could affect the distribution of "goods" and "bads" in a particular life. Specifically, she considers how the limitations and changes due to aging and the dying process affect meaning in one's life, and whether the absence of meaning affects the reasonableness of not resisting or even seeking one's death. Kamm explores these questions not only as they relate to individuals' decisions but also as they relate to public policy and state action. Recently attempts have been made to help the general public think about end-of-life issues by devising questionnaires and conversation guides; Kamm evaluates some of these resources and articulates the moral implications of the assumptions they make about aging, dying, and value. She also takes up the issue of physician-assisted suicide as a way of ending one's life, considering its moral permissibility and whether or not it ought to be legalized as a matter of public policy. In doing so, she examines arguments from discussions about capital punishment concerning state action and also methods of balancing costs and benefits (including cost effectiveness analysis). In her analysis, Kamm engages with the views of such prominent philosophers, medical doctors, and legal theorists as Shelly Kagan, Susan Wolf, Atul Gawande, Ezekiel Emanual, and Neil Gorsuch, among others, shedding new light on conversations about the moral complexities and consequences of aging, dying, and death.

This book presents a new argument attacking the view that if the foetus has the moral standing of a person it has a right to life and abortion is impermissible. Most discussion of abortion has assumed that this premise is correct, and so has focused on the question of the personhood of the foetus. Frances Kamm, however, argues that abortion can be moral even if the foetus is indeed a person.

Frances Kamm's book deals with the question of the badness of death. Death is generally felt to be the worst wrong that can happen to one. Philosophers from Epicurus onwards have argued, on the contrary, that as death involves the absence of experience, and bad things involve bad sensations, death cannot be bad; also, for something to be bad, it must be bad for someone, yet as we cease to exist when we die, it cannot be bad for us.Kamm discusses this view and the objections made to it by Nagel, Williams, and others, and considers the question of whether there is an asymmetry between dying and never having come into existence; and she goes on to consider the question of saving lives, and whether it is better to save more lives at a lower level of happiness or fewer lives at a higher level of happiness. The final section of the book deals with the question of organ transplantation and the distribution of resources which are unequally available.The book contains much theoretical and methodological argument, but is firmly grounded in practical ethical issues, and is illustrated throughout by examples.

Continuing the examination of life and death that F.M. Kamm began in Morality, Mortality, Volume I, this second volume begins with a discussion of the questions of the moral (in)equivalence of killing and letting die, harming and not aiding, intending and foreseeing harm, and also focuses on the methodology used in analysing these questions. This discussion includes consideration of such problems as the effect of contextual interaction, agent regret, and conflicting measures of the relative stringency of acts. Part II offers an examination of the so-called Survival Lottery and Trolley Problem, and some other closely related dilemmatic situations, for the purpose of developing a principled account of when harming some to save others is permissable and impermissable. Part III is concerned with the further examination of the relation between restrictions on conduct and prerogatives not to make sacrifices, and the contrast between a victim-focused and agent-relative account of rights. Kamm attempts to find the relation between these topics and both the existence of entities with significant status and the existence of valuable states of affairs, forging a link between deontological and consequentialist theories.

Why is death bad for us, even on the assumption that it involves the absence of experience? Whom should we save from death if we cannot save everyone? Kamm considers these questions, critically examining some answers other philosophers have given. She also examines specifically what differences between persons are relevant to the distribution of any scarce resources, e.g. bodily organs for transplantaion.

In Morality, Mortality, Volume II, Kamm continues to explore questions of life and death as illustrations of general issues in moral theory. Resuming her development of non- consequentialist ethical theory and its application to practical ethical problems, she explores the distinction between killing and letting die, between harming and not aiding, and between intending and foreseeing harm. Throughout this examination, she focues on the methodology used in analyzing these questions. Kamm develops a principled account of when harming some to save others is permissable and impermissable. In the process, she discusses the "Survival Lottery and Trolley Problem," and other related dilemmatic situations. Kamm then covers the concepts of rights and prerogatives, contrasting a victim-focused ccount of rights with that of an agent-relative account. Here, she considers the problem of minimizing rights violations, and the significance of the status of inviolability. She concludes Volume II by assessing whether agreements or superogatory conduct may permissably override restrictions, and what their doing or not doing indicates about morality, duties, and prerogatives.

F.M. Kamm is one of the leading ethical theorists working in philosophy today. She has become well known for her brand of exacting analysis, largely in defense of a non-consequentialist perspective - the view that some actions are right or wrong by virtue of something other than their consequences. In Intricate Ethics, Kamm questions the moral importance of some non-consequentialist distinctions and then introduces and argues for the moral importance of other distinctions. The first section provides a general introduction to non-consequentialist ethical theory followed by more detailed discussion of distinctions relevant to instrumental rationality and to the famous "Trolley Problem"; the second deals with the notions of moral status and rights; the third takes up the notions of responsibility and complicity, and discusses new issues in non-consequentialist theory including the "problem of distance." Finally, adding to the first section's discussions of the views of Warren Quinn and Peter Unger, the fourth section analyzes the views of others in the non-consequentialist and consequentialist camps such as Peter Singer, Daniel Kahnemann, Bernard Gert, and Thomas Scanlon.

Ethics for Enemies comprises three original philosophical essays on torture, terrorism, and war. F. M. Kamm deploys ethical theory in her challenging new treatments of these most controversial practical issues. First she considers the nature of torture and the various occasions on which it could occur, in order to determine why it might be wrong to torture a wrongdoer held captive, even if this were necessary to save his victims. In the second essay she considers what makes terrorism wrong--whether it is the intention to harm civilians, rather than harm to them being 'collateral damage,' or something else--and whether terrorism is always wrong. The third essay discusses whether having a right reason, in the sense of a right intention, is necessary in order for a war to be just. Kamm then examines ways in which the harms of war can be proportional to the achievement of the just cause and other goods that war can bring about, so as to make the declaration of war permissible.