The Weight of Harm
Harmed States and Reasons Against Harming
Keywords:
counterfactual, harm, reasons, responsibility, thresholdAbstract
In this paper I intend to analyse the meaning of harm as well as the strength of the reasons against harming provided by harmstates. I will argue that there are two kinds of harms: absolute harms and relative harms. Also, I will argue that when certain harm has been completely covered by considering such harm as absolute, the consideration of such harm as –also– relative is displaced. Such considerations should be taken into account when the suffered harms cannot be entirely explained by considerations regarding absolute harms. If these claims are right, we will have guidelines to measure, among other things, the agent´s moral responsibility in different kind of cases.
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