title: Identifying harms.
abstract: Moral disagreements often revolve around the issue of harm to others. Identifying harms, however, is a contested enterprise. This paper provides a conceptual toolbox for identifying harms, and so possible wrongdoing, by drawing several distinctions. First, I distinguish between four modes of human vulnerability, forming four ways in which one can be in a harmed state. Second, I argue for the intrinsic disvalue of harm and so distinguish the presence of harm from the fact that it is instrumental to or constitutive of a valued act, practice or way of life. Finally, I distinguish between harm and wrongdoing, arguing that while harm is a normative concept requiring justification, not all harmed states are automatically unjustified. The advantage of this view is that it refocuses the moral debate on the normative issues involved while establishing a common basis to which both sides can agree: the presence of harm to others.
authors: University of Oxford, University College Oxford, United Kingdom. shlomit.harrosh@univ.ox.ac.uk
authors: Shlomit
authors: S
authors: Harrosh
mesh_terms: D004992:Ethics, Medical; D006806:Human Rights; D006801:Humans; D009014:Morals; D012945:Social Values; D035862:Vulnerable Populations