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Harm: Essays on Its Nature and Normative Significance
Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Department of Philosophy, Ethics and Social Philosophy.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-7350-4010
2025 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Description
Abstract [en]

This thesis examines how we should understand the concept of harm, and its moral and prudential importance. It discusses various analyses of harm and normative principles that appeal to harm. In broad terms, it offers a defense of the view that harm is normatively important and useful for philosophical theorizing. Further it proposes a novel analysis of harm, which aligns with that view.

The first paper, "The Harm Principle and the Nature of Harm", defends John Stuart Mill’s Harm Principle against the criticism that the principle has unacceptable implications regardless of which analysis of harm we plug into it. I argue that the criticism is built on mistaken assumptions – most importantly, the assumption that the Harm Principle is plausible only if there exists an unproblematic analysis of harm.

The second paper, "Feit on the Normative Importance of Harm", criticizes Neil Feit’s suggested solution to the so-called Failing to Benefit Problem for the Counterfactual Comparative Account (CCA). Feit argues that CCA’s inability to align with some commonsense views about harm’s moral importance is no flaw since those views are false. I object to that argument, in part by showing that the cases that Feit appeals to are not genuine counterexamples.

The third paper, "Doing Away with Skepticism about Harm", scrutinizes the elimination thesis, which states that we should do away with the concept of harm in philosophical theorizing. I examine various claims in support of that thesis – for instance that the concept is defective – but conclude that we lack good reasons to accept it.  

The fourth paper, "Misfortune and Missing Out", focuses on Kaila Draper’s famous challenge for deprivationism – the view that death harms a subject in so far as it deprives her of life’s goods. Since not winning the lottery is also a deprivation, the challenge is to explain why only death is a misfortune in the sense that it merits negative emotional responses. I argue that the challenge is serious, in part by criticizing some prominent suggested solutions, and identify a parallel challenge for CCA.

The fifth paper, "A Fitting Attitudes Analysis of Harm", puts forward a novel analysis of harm. Roughly, this analysis says that an event harms me if, and only if, it is fitting for me to disfavor the event for my own sake.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Uppsala: Department of Philosophy , 2025. , p. 38
Keywords [en]
harm, benefit, the counterfactual comparative account, omission, pre-emption, normative reasons, well-being, skepticism, fitting attitudes, misfortune, The Harm Principle
National Category
Philosophy
Research subject
Practical Philosophy
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-543566ISBN: 978-91-513-2328-2 (print)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:uu-543566DiVA, id: diva2:1917032
Public defence
2025-02-06, Humanistiska teatern, Engelska Parken, Thunbergsvägen 3C, Uppsala, 13:15 (English)
Opponent
Supervisors
Available from: 2025-01-15 Created: 2024-11-29 Last updated: 2025-01-15
List of papers
1. The Harm Principle and the Nature of Harm
Open this publication in new window or tab >>The Harm Principle and the Nature of Harm
2022 (English)In: Utilitas, ISSN 0953-8208, E-ISSN 1741-6183, Vol. 34, no 2, p. 139-153Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

This article defends the Harm Principle, commonly attributed to John Stuart Mill, against recent criticism. Some philosophers think that this principle should be rejected, because of severe difficulties with finding an account of harm to plug into it. I examine the criticism and find it unforceful. Finally, I identify a faulty assumption behind this type of criticism, namely that the Harm Principle is plausible only if there is a full-blown, and problem-free, account of harm, which proponents of the principle can refer to.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Cambridge University Press, 2022
Keywords
Harm Principle, John Stuart Mill
National Category
Philosophy
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-460364 (URN)10.1017/S0953820821000352 (DOI)000734986700001 ()
Available from: 2021-12-06 Created: 2021-12-06 Last updated: 2024-11-29Bibliographically approved
2. Feit on the normative importance of harm
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Feit on the normative importance of harm
2023 (English)In: Theoria, ISSN 0040-5825, E-ISSN 1755-2567, Vol. 89, no 2, p. 176-187Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

An important objection to the Counterfactual Comparative Account (CCA) of harm is that the account fails to cohere with standard views about the normative significance of harm. In response, some proponents of CCA suggest that the concept of harm should play a more limited role in normative theorising than philosophers might usually think. This paper addresses the most elaborate defence of CCA of this sort, namely that by Neil Feit (2019) Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 22, 809-823, and argues that it is unsuccessful.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
John Wiley & Sons, 2023
Keywords
benefit, counterfactual comparative account, harm, moral asymmetry, omission
National Category
Philosophy Ethics Law and Society
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-510928 (URN)10.1111/theo.12453 (DOI)000930775400001 ()
Available from: 2023-09-14 Created: 2023-09-14 Last updated: 2024-11-29Bibliographically approved
3. Doing Away with Skepticism about Harm
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Doing Away with Skepticism about Harm
(English)In: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, ISSN 1386-2820, E-ISSN 1572-8447Article in journal (Refereed) Accepted
Keywords
Harm; Moral Significance; Skepticism; The Elimination Thesis
National Category
Philosophy
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-540828 (URN)
Available from: 2024-10-21 Created: 2024-10-21 Last updated: 2024-12-09
4. Misfortune and Missing Out
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Misfortune and Missing Out
(English)In: Article in journal (Other academic) Submitted
Keywords
harm; badness; death; deprivationism; fitting attitudes
National Category
Philosophy
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-540832 (URN)
Available from: 2024-10-21 Created: 2024-10-21 Last updated: 2024-11-29
5. A Fitting Attitudes Analysis of Harm
Open this publication in new window or tab >>A Fitting Attitudes Analysis of Harm
(English)Manuscript (preprint) (Other academic)
Keywords
harm; fitting attitudes; benefit; badness; skepticism
National Category
Philosophy
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-540834 (URN)
Available from: 2024-10-21 Created: 2024-10-21 Last updated: 2024-11-29

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