Ethics (103) (original) (raw)
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Moral Demands and Ethical Theory: The Case of Consequentialism
The Bloomsbury Companion to Analytic Philosophy, eds. Barry Dainton and Howard Robinson, London: Bloomsbury), 2015
Morality is demanding; this is a platitude. It is thus no surprise when we find that moral theories too, when we look into what they require, turn out to be demanding. However, there is at least one moral theory—consequentialism—that is said to be beset by this demandingness problem. This calls for an explanation: Why only consequentialism? This then leads to related questions: What is the demandingness problematic about? What exactly does it claim? Finally, there is the question of what we do if we accept that there is a demandingness problem for consequentialism: How can consequentialists respond? The present chapter sets out to answer these questions (or at least point to how they could be answered).
Consequentialism and Moral Rationalism
Commonsense ConsequentialismWherein Morality Meets Rationality, 2011
IN THIS PAPER, I make a presumptive case for moral rationalism: the view that agents can be morally required to do only what they have decisive reason to do, all things considered. 1 And I argue that this view leads us to reject all traditional versions of act-consequentialism. I begin by explaining how moral rationalism leads us to reject utilitarianism. §1 The too-demanding objection: How moral rationalism leads us to reject utilitarianism Utilitarianism holds that an act is morally permissible if and only if it maximizes aggregate utility. 2 This view is too demanding. It implies that agents are morally required to sacrifice their projects, interests, and special relationships whenever doing so would produce more, even just slightly more, aggregate utility than not doing so would. Thus, according to utilitarianism, I'm morally required to sacrifice my life, to neglect my relationship with my daughter, and to abandon my project of completing this paper if I could thereby produce more, even just slightly more, aggregate utility. To demand that I make such sacrifices for the sake of such miniscule gains in aggregate utility is to demand more from me than can be rightfully or reasonably demanded of me. To say that a given theory is too demanding is not merely, or even necessarily, to say that it demands quite a lot from agents in certain circumstances. After all, almost all moral theories demand quite a lot from agents in at least some circumstances. 3 What's more, a theory can be too demanding in part because some of its demands, though quite small, are 1 I assume, contrary to COPP 1997, that there is a normative standpoint from which we can judge what an agent has decisive reason to do, all things considered-in other words, that there is a normative standpoint from which we can judge what an agent just plain ought to do. See MCLEOD 2001 for a reply to Copp. 2 The aggregate utility produced by an act is the sum of all the utility it produces minus the sum of all the disutility it produces, where utility is a measure of whatever it is that enhances a subject's welfare, and disutility is a measure of whatever it is that diminishes a subject's welfare. An act maximizes aggregate utility just when there is no available alternative act that would produce more aggregate utility than it would. And note that I use 'utilitarianism' as shorthand for 'maximizing act-utilitarianism'. 3 Paul Hurley (2006, p. 681) makes this point as well.
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2018
Most ethical systems define how the individuals ought morally act, being part of a society. The process of elicitation of a moral theory governing the agents in a society requires them to express their own norms with the aim to find a moral theory on which all may agree upon. We address this issue by proposing a formal framework that can instantiate in agents' dialogues moral/rational criteria, such as the maximin principle, Pareto efficiency, and impartiality, which were used, e.g., by John Rawls' theory or rule utilitarianism.
Encyclopedia of Global Bioethics, 2015
Moral theories are among the tools that the philosophical tradition has developed to help clear thinking about moral issues. In the bioethical debate, a number of moral theories have confronted themselves with each other and with the prominent problems raised by the advancement of the biomedical sciences. A particular theory, called "principlism," has been proposed as specifically tailored for biomedical ethics, but the main ethical theories in the debate are recent versions of long traditions of thought, such as utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, virtue ethics, natural law theory, and rights theory. Other theories enter the picture, although they are less influent in the debate. Moral theory has received strong impulse from bioethics, and it has sustained a rich and fruitful confrontation of reasons among scholars and in the public arena. New challenges create the premises for new developments.
Three Contemporary Perspectives on Moral Philosophy
Philosophical Investigations, 2007
Each of these books is grappling with one or another aspect of a supposedly impersonal and universalist element of morals. Two of them aim to show the good sense that can be made of that element from a specific perspective: Hilary Putnam from the perspective of post-metaphysical (or post-ontological) philosophy, and Christine Swanton from the perspective of virtue theory. Jonathan Dancy's relation to that element is different. He targets for criticism one specific and common way, via an understanding of reasons for action, in which a universalist (or "generalist") conception has been promoted. I shall begin with Dancy: in discussing him I explicitly thematise the issue of universalism. (Because for most of this article I explore my differences with these authors, I should state clearly that all three books are well worth reading. Each is fertile, well-pondered and illuminating in a range of ways; and in what follows I take a great many of the merits of each for granted.)