In "The Paradox of Moral Complaint" I took up the question whether a person who has wronged others in certain ways may morally complain if other people then harm him illegitimately in similar ways. I argued that there are strong grounds for saying both 'yes' and 'no' here and, therefore, that our considered moral views are paradoxical. In her reply, Talia Shaham disagrees with the no part of my position. She presents two appealing philosophical arguments, and concludes that there is no 'paradox of moral complaint', seeking in particular to defend the unconditional moral 'right' of wronged wrongdoers to complain, as against my claims. I attempt to defend my position against her arguments.

In "The Paradox of Moral Complaint" I took up the question whether a person who has wronged others in certain ways may morally complain if other people then harm him illegitimately in similar ways. I argued that there are strong grounds for saying both 'yes' and 'no' here and, therefore, that our considered moral views are paradoxical. In her reply, Talia Shaham disagrees with the no part of my position. She presents two appealing philosophical arguments, and concludes that there is no 'paradox of moral complaint', seeking in particular to defend the unconditional moral 'right' of wronged wrongdoers to complain, as against my claims. I attempt to defend my position against her arguments.

If the social environment were arranged so that most people in the West could, with relatively little effort, be morally good to a reasonable degree, would this be a good thing? I claim that it is not entirely obvious that we should say yes. This is no idle question: mainstream Western social morality today seems to be approaching the prospect for a morality that is not taxing. This question has substantial theoretical interest because exploring it will help us understand the paradoxical relationship between morality and moral worth.

On the assumption that we are able to justify the institution of punishment, when people may be punished? Christopher New has recently argued that, despite our intuitions to the contrary, there is in principle nothing which forbids punishment' before the offense has been committed, i.e., prepunishment'. The issue, he argues, is only epistemological. I explore the challenge presented by New, and argue that prepunishment is deeply ethically unacceptable. The problem with prepunishment derives, in the end, from the widely recognized need to respect persons and from the unacceptability of the punishment' of the innocent.

Widespread and deep intuitions about the basic content of any satisfactory theory for justifying punishment, together with some plausible empirical assumptions, are seen to yield two closely related paradoxes about justice and the severity of punishment. Considerations of desert point in the opposite direction than do considerations of deterrence with regard to the severity of punishment of the underprivileged. And this leads to a situation in which, if considerations of the desert of the underprivileged are taken seriously, the convicted from privileged backgrounds are to be more severely punished, unnecessarily'.

Many people find themselves ruminating on the existence of others, and wishing that they had not been born. This may come about innocently enough, as when one is stuck in traffic and laments that there are so many other drivers on the road to where one is intending to go; but also exists in more ominous form, when people wish that whole groups had not been born or, at least, had not been in one’s vicinity: the poor or the rich, immigrants or locals, people of a certain ethnicity or religion. I call these thoughts "preferences for others' nonexistence" (PON). I show that the Nonidentity problem or effect by and large excludes PON thoughts, showing them to be (given plausible assumptions) irrational, and indeed self-defeating. The self is held hostage by the other. We come to exist together, or not at all.

I describe a case involving two countries at war, Benevolentia and Malevoran. Malevoran is an unjust aggressor, which does not follow the requirements of the prevailing morality of warfare. The leadership and army of Benevolentia closely follow those requirements, and as a direct result Benevolentia loses. I claim that this is a 'reductio' of the prevailing morality of warfare: in the victory of Malevoran over Benevolentia morality has lost. I draw some tentative conclusions concerning the morality of warfare, and urge that we need to gain a richer understanding of what it means for morality to win, see this as a distinct and important moral consideration, and think afresh how morality can triumph much more often.

"Teflon immorality'' (or TI) is immorality that goes on unchecked -- the wrongdoing is not stopped and its perpetrators, beyond the reach of punishment or other sanction, often persist in their immoral ways. The idea that the immoral prosper has been recognized as morally (and legally) disturbing presumably for as long as humanity has been reflective, and can be found already in the Bible. The reasons behind a great deal of successful immorality are important practically, but uninteresting philosophically. Sometimes, however, we face events that are more interesting philosophically, and Teflon immorality results from oddities such as moral paradoxes and perversions. These, however, have remained largely unnoticed. I will outline a tentative survey of this topic. After showing its pervasiveness and importance, I will briefly reflect on its relevance to the way we should think about morality and about the means to further it, and confront possible objections.