This is the first issue of volume 16. We are glad that our publisher agreed to increase our annual page budget from 600 to 900 pages. This will hopefully enable us to diminish the backlog of articles not assigned to an issue more quickly. The waiting time for inclusion in an issue is currently more than one year, which is much too long.

In the first article, Douglas Paletta discusses Darwall’s thesis, in The Second Person Standpoint, that all value-oriented foundations for ethics make a category mistake. Calling it Strawson’s point, Darwall argues these foundations explain moral authority in terms of a value, which essentially concerns what makes the world go best. However, whether it would be good for me to blame you simply asks a different question than whether I have standing to blame you. Palettta defends a value oriented foundation for contractualism by identifying one way to overcome Strawson’s point. At bottom, Darwall’s objection relies on the assumption that all values are world regarding. Paletta argues that another class of values exists: second-personal values. Grounding morality on a second personal value, in particular the ideal of acting justifiably towards others, does not make the category mistake at the heart of Strawson’s point and better captures traditional contractualist ideals than Darwall’s formal foundation.

Michael Garnett critically examines the belief that agents are self-ruled only when ruled by their (authentic) selves. Though this view is rarely argued for explicitly, one tempting line of thought suggests that self-rule is just obviously equivalent to rule by the self. However, the plausibility of this thought evaporates upon close examination of the logic of ‘self-rule’ and similar reflexives. Moreover, attempts to rescue the account by recasting it in negative terms are unpromising. In light of these problems, Garnett instead proposes that agents are self-ruled only when not ruled by others. One reason for favouring this negative social view is its ability to yield plausible conclusions concerning various manipulation cases that are notoriously problematic for nonsocial accounts of self-rule. A second reason is that the account conforms with ordinary usage. It is concluded that self-rule may be best thought of as an essentially social concept.

The classical theory of just war requires leaders to consider ius ad bellum and soldiers to consider ius in bello. This division of labour has been increasingly challenged by recent work in just war theory. In doing so, it raises the question of when it is permissible for soldiers to resort to force. In his article, James Pattison argues that the rejection of collectivism in just war should go further still. More specifically, he defends the ‘Individual-Centric Approach’ to the deep morality of war, which asserts that the justifiability of an individual’s contribution to the war, rather than the justifiability of the war more generally, determines the moral acceptability of their participation. He then goes on to present five implications of the Individual-Centric Approach, including for individual liability to attack in war.

Melissa Fahmi challenges the common view that participants in assisted and collaborative reproduction (ACR) such as gamete donors, embryologists, fertility doctors, etc., are simply providing a desired biological product or medical services. Drawing on vocabulary from the common law tradition, she suggests that it may be helpful to refer to the various participants in assisted and collaborative reproduction (ACR) as accessories to procreation. Doing so highlights the fact that these agents are not just providing medical services or products. They are participating in a supply chain designed to bring about new persons. She concludes by arguing that regulative standards in the fertility industry should be structured such that they permit, facilitate, and encourage agents to satisfy the requirements of procreative responsibility.

Educational neutrality states that decisions about school curricula and instruction should be made independently of particular comprehensive doctrines. Many political philosophers of education reject this view in favour of some non-neutral alternative. Contrary to what one might expect, some prominent liberal neutralists have also rejected this view in parts of their work. In the first part of his article, Matt Sensat Waldren examines arguments by Rawls and Nagel and argues that some of the same arguments they use to justify liberal neutrality also justify educational neutrality; thus, if we accept these arguments for liberal neutrality, we should also accept educational neutrality. In the second part of the article Waldren defends educational neutrality against objections that it is impossible and objections that it is undesirable.

The topic of the next article is the tendency in contemporary theories of virtue to excise the notion of a final end from their accounts of virtue. Jennifer Baker attempts to establish that the justification of contemporary virtue ethics suffers if moved this one step too far from the resources in traditional accounts. This is because virtue, as we tend to describe it, rests on an account of practical rationality wherein the role of the final end is integral. She highlights the puzzles that are generated by the ellipsis that is “the role of a final end” in contemporary theories of virtue. The authors of these theories devise ad hoc solutions for these puzzles, puzzles that do not exist for traditional final end-based accounts. Recent critics of virtue ethics have certainly not been satisfied the explanations being offer in lieu of references to a final end. As a remedy, she recommends that the role of a final end be reintroduced in contemporary virtue ethics.

In the view of Jason Lindsey, for Gianni Vattimo, the renunciation of violence is the starting point for constructing a post foundational politics. So far, criticism of Vattimo’s argument has focused on his larger commitment to metaphysical nihilism and whether the renunciation of violence is a thicker principle than his post foundational philosophy can support. Lindsey argues that Vattimo’s renunciation of violence can also be criticized for two other reasons. First, Vattimo attempts to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable uses of violence through an under developed idea of self-defense. Second, despite his attention to the political and philosophical impact of mass communications technology, Vattimo ignores emerging technological challenges to our understanding of violence. Nonetheless, Lindsey argues that Vattimo’s renunciation can still serve as a useful starting point for contemporary political thinking. What Vattimo’s logic shows is that we can enhance the moral standing of democracy by decisively detaching its practices and institutions from historical artifacts of political violence.

Situationist social psychologists focus on the influence of situational factors on behaviour. Doris and Harman argue, first, that situationist research presents an empirical challenge to the moral psychology presumed within virtue ethics. Second, they argue that situationist research supports a theoretical challenge to virtue ethics as a foundation for ethical behaviour and moral development. In her article, Deborah S. Mower offers a response from moral psychology using an interpretation of Xunzi—a Confucian virtue ethicist from the Classical period. According to Mower, Xunzi’s account of virtue ethics not only responds to the situationist empirical challenge by uncovering problematic assumptions about moral psychology, but also demonstrates that it is not a separate empirical hypothesis. Further, Xunzi’s virtue ethic responds to the theoretical challenge by offering a new account of moral development and a ground for ethical norms that fully attends to situational features while upholding robust character traits.

Luck egalitarianism is a much discussed topic nowadays. It argues that inequalities in individuals’ circumstances are unfair or unjust, whereas inequalities traceable to individuals’ own responsible choices are fair or just. On this basis, the distinction between so-called brute luck and option luck has been seen as central to luck egalitarianism. Luck egalitarianism is interpreted, by advocates and opponents alike, as a view that condemns inequalities in brute luck but permits inequalities in option luck. It is also thought to be expressed in terms of the view that no individual ought to be worse off other than because of a fault or choice of his or her own. Gideon Elford argues that these two characterizations of luck egalitarianism are not equivalent and that, properly understood, luck egalitarianism is compatible with widespread, potentially radical, inequalities in brute luck.

According to Dale Dorsey welfare is, at least occasionally, a temporal phenomenon: welfare benefits befall me at certain times. But this fact seems to present a problem for a desire-satisfaction view. Assume that X desires, at 10am, January 12th, 2010, to climb Mount Everest sometime during 2012. Also assume, however, that during 2011, X’s desires undergo a shift: X no longer desires to climb Mount Everest during 2012. In fact, X develops an aversion to so doing. Imagine, however, that despite X’s aversion, X is forced to climb Mount Everest. Does climbing Mount Everest benefit X? If so, when? A natural answer seems to be that if in fact it does benefit X, it benefits X at no particular time, and hence the desire-satisfaction view cannot accommodate the phenomenon of temporal welfare. In his article, Dorsey argues, first, that a desire-satisfaction view can accommodate the phenomenon of temporal welfare only by accepting what he calls the “time-of-desire” view: that p benefits x at t only if x desires p at t. Second, he argues that this view can be defended from important objections.

In the debate on free will and moral responsibility, Saul Smilansky is a hard source-incompatibilist who objects to source-compatibilism for being morally shallow. After criticizing John Martin Fischer’s too optimistic response to this objection, Stefaan E. Cuypers dissipates the charge that compatibilist accounts of ultimate origination are morally shallow by appealing to the seriousness of contingency in the framework of, what Paul Russell calls, compatibilist-fatalism. Responding to the objection from moral shallowness thus drives a wedge between optimists and fatalists within the compatibilist camp.

Christian Barry and Gerhard Øverland explore what sacrifices you are morally required to make to save a child who is about to die in front of you. It has been argued that you would have very demanding duties to save such a child (or any adult who is in similar circumstance through no fault of their own, for that matter), and some examples have been presented to make this claim seem intuitively correct. Against this, the authors argue that you do not in general have a moral requirement to bear more than moderate cost to save even a child who is just in front of you. Moreover, they explain why you have a much more demanding moral requirement in certain cases by appealing to the notions of undue risk and cost sharing.

In the last article of this issue, Ilse Oosterlaken defends the capability theory against Pogge who ridicules capability theorists for demanding compensation for each and every possible natural difference between people, including hair types. Not only does Pogge, argues Oosterlaken, misconstrue the difference between the capability approach and Rawlsian resourcism, he himself is actually implicitly relying on the idea of capabilities in his defence of the latter. According to him the resourcist holds that the institutional order should not be biased towards the average person or the needs of some. Yet, as his own case of blind people and traffic lights can illustrate, whether or not this is the case is impossible to assess without resorting to some concept like people’s capabilities. Oosterlaken contends that the real issue at stake is not at all the best metric of justice—primary goods or capabilities—but rather the scope of theories of justice. Whereas Pogge insists that questions of justice only concern the institutional structure of society, many capability theorists support the inclusion of culture and social practices as possible sources of injustice. Unfortunately Pogge does not properly acknowledge this, as right from the start of his paper he frames the debate between both approaches in terms of institutions only.