A Consequentialist Response to the Demandingness Objection
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Defending Options Author(S): Shelly Kagan Source: Ethics, Vol. 104, No. 2 (Jan., 1994), Pp
Defending Options Author(s): Shelly Kagan Source: Ethics, Vol. 104, No. 2 (Jan., 1994), pp. 333-351 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2381581 Accessed: 13-08-2014 16:42 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Ethics. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 130.132.173.11 on Wed, 13 Aug 2014 16:42:57 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Defending Options ShellyKagan Suppose some act would best promote the overall good, objectively speaking. Are we morallyrequired to do it? Not necessarily,says ordi- nary,commonsense morality: after all, the act in question mightviolate someone's rightsor run afoul of some otheragent-centered constraint. Well, then, are we at least morallyrequired to performthe act with the best resultsof those acts that are not otherwiseforbidden? Here, too, ordinarymorality says no: thereis no such general moral require- ment to promote the good (not even within the confines of moral constraints).Rather, ordinary morality claims that in a certainbroad, but not unlimited,range of cases, agents have moraloptions: although they are morallypermitted to performthe act with the best conse- quences overall,they are not morallyrequired to do so; on the contrary, they are also morallypermitted to performinstead acts that are less than optimal, such as pursuing theirown interests. -
The Evidential Weight of Considered Moral Judgments
San Jose State University SJSU ScholarWorks Master's Theses Master's Theses and Graduate Research 2009 The evidential weight of considered moral judgments Christopher Michael Cloos San Jose State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/etd_theses Recommended Citation Cloos, Christopher Michael, "The evidential weight of considered moral judgments" (2009). Master's Theses. 3352. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31979/etd.28pf-kx6u https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/etd_theses/3352 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Master's Theses and Graduate Research at SJSU ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of SJSU ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE EVIDENTIAL WEIGHT OF CONSIDERED MORAL JUDGMENTS A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the Department of Philosophy San José State University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts by Christopher Michael Cloos December 2009 © 2009 Christopher Michael Cloos ALL RIGHTS RESERVED THE EVIDENTIAL WEIGHT OF CONSIDERED MORAL JUDGMENTS by Christopher Michael Cloos APPROVED FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY SAN JOSÉ STATE UNIVERSITY December 2009 Dr. William H. Shaw Department of Philosophy Dr. Anand J. Vaidya Department of Philosophy Dr. Richard L. Tieszen Department of Philosophy ABSTRACT THE EVIDENTIAL WEIGHT OF CONSIDERED MORAL JUDGMENTS by Christopher Michael Cloos The input objection to reflective equilibrium (RE) claims that the method fails as a method of moral justification. According to the objection, considered moral judgments (CMJs) are not truth-conducive. Because the method uses inputs that are not credible, the method does not generate justified moral beliefs. -
The Ethical Consistency of Animal Equality
1 The ethical consistency of animal equality Stijn Bruers, Sept 2013, DRAFT 2 Contents 0. INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................................ 5 0.1 SUMMARY: TOWARDS A COHERENT THEORY OF ANIMAL EQUALITY ........................................................................ 9 1. PART ONE: ETHICAL CONSISTENCY ......................................................................................................... 18 1.1 THE BASIC ELEMENTS ................................................................................................................................. 18 a) The input data: moral intuitions .......................................................................................................... 18 b) The method: rule universalism............................................................................................................. 20 1.2 THE GOAL: CONSISTENCY AND COHERENCE ..................................................................................................... 27 1.3 THE PROBLEM: MORAL ILLUSIONS ................................................................................................................ 30 a) Optical illusions .................................................................................................................................... 30 b) Moral illusions .................................................................................................................................... -
The Definition of Effective Altruism
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 19/08/19, SPi 1 The Definition of Effective Altruism William MacAskill There are many problems in the world today. Over 750 million people live on less than $1.90 per day (at purchasing power parity).1 Around 6 million children die each year of easily preventable causes such as malaria, diarrhea, or pneumonia.2 Climate change is set to wreak environmental havoc and cost the economy tril- lions of dollars.3 A third of women worldwide have suffered from sexual or other physical violence in their lives.4 More than 3,000 nuclear warheads are in high-alert ready-to-launch status around the globe.5 Bacteria are becoming antibiotic- resistant.6 Partisanship is increasing, and democracy may be in decline.7 Given that the world has so many problems, and that these problems are so severe, surely we have a responsibility to do something about them. But what? There are countless problems that we could be addressing, and many different ways of addressing each of those problems. Moreover, our resources are scarce, so as individuals and even as a globe we can’t solve all these problems at once. So we must make decisions about how to allocate the resources we have. But on what basis should we make such decisions? The effective altruism movement has pioneered one approach. Those in this movement try to figure out, of all the different uses of our resources, which uses will do the most good, impartially considered. This movement is gathering con- siderable steam. There are now thousands of people around the world who have chosen -
CONSEQUENTIALISM Brad Hooker
37 CONSEQUENTIALISM Brad Hooker The definition of consequentialism A consequentialist theory evaluates things exclusively in terms of consequences. For example, beliefs could be evaluated in terms of the consequences of holding them (an approach often called pragmatism). The most common forms of con- sequentialism, however, focus on the evaluation of acts and sets of rules. And the rest of this chapter will stick to that focus. The most familiar kind of consequentialism is the kind of utilitarianism maintaining that an act is morally right if and only if no alternative act has con- sequences containing greater welfare (or net benefit), impartially assessed. In uti- litarians’ impartial assessment of welfare, a benefit (i.e. addition to someone’s welfare) or harm (loss to welfare) to any one individual gets the same weight as the same size benefit or harm to anyone else. Thus, benefits and harms to everyone count equally, no matter what his or her ethnic group, religion, wealth, education, political views, talent, or conscientiousness; all that matters is the size of the benefits and harms. This kind of utilitarianism is maximizing in the sense that it calls for an act with unsurpassed consequences (anything less than the best isn’t good enough, according to act-utilitarianism). And this theory is direct in the sense that the acts are assessed solely and directly by their own consequences (not, for example, by whether the acts are allowed by the rules with the best consequences). Thus the theory is known as maximizing act-utilitarianism. While maximizing act-utilitarianism is the most familiar form of con- sequentialism, defining consequentialism so that this is the only form is a naive mistake. -
2014-PDF-Of-Philosophy-News
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSO PHY FALL 2014 IAN HACKI NG WSEI E NPAGS E 3BALZAN PRIZ E! PRACT ICAL ETH ICS – SHEL LY KAG AN ON SPECIESISM By Ellen Roseman Shelly Kagan, the Clark Professor of Philosophy at Yale University, drew a capacity crowd to the Roseman Lecture in Practical Ethics last fall. He is an engaging, funny and whip- smart speaker. And he chose an intriguing topic, one that is not usually explored in mainstream philosophy courses. The title: What’s wrong with speciesism? In a bestselling 1975 book, Animal Liberation , Australian philosopher Peter Singer claimed that most of us Shelly Kagan with Ellen Roseman are “speciesists” in our attitude toward, and treatment of, animals. Singer, now a bioethics professor than persuasive. “People have rights. Animals don’t,” he tells Speciesism is supposed to be a kind at Princeton University, created me after the lecture. “There’s a of morally unjustified prejudice, akin a splash when he called for an huge crowd of people working to racism or sexism, Kagan said in animal rights movement. Kagan on this issue. I thought a lot of his notes for the lecture. “Although read the book while in graduate the arguments were weak.” I found that charge compelling for school. He became a vegetarian. years, I now find that I have my But in a second reading of the Kagan thinks the crucial concept doubts,” he explained. “It now seems book in 2011, while preparing is to define the meaning of a to me that most people are not actu - to give an animal ethics seminar “person.” Going back to British ally speciesists at all, but something to Yale students, Kagan found philosopher John Locke’s work rather different.” some of Singer’s arguments less ...continued on Page 2 We wish to thank the generous donors to the Department of Philosophy, without whom Philosophy News would not be possible. -
Metaethics and the Autonomy of Morality
Philosophers’ volume8,no.6 july2008 Imprint 1. Introduction SincethepublicationofG.E.Moore’sPrincipia Ethicaithasbecome commonplace for philosophers to distinguish between questions in metaethics and those in normative ethics.1 A sympathetic character- Metaethics izationofthecenturyofself-consciouslymetaethicalresearchthatfol- lowedwouldemphasizetheextraordinarydevelopmentbothinour understandingofthecentralmetaethicalproblemsandinthesophis- ticationofthetheorieselaboratedtomeetthem.However,someare & notsosympathetic.Inthispaper,Iexamineonesourceofdistrustin metaethicalresearch:itsapparenttensionwiththenotionthatmoral- ityisautonomous. Tobegin,IbrieflysketchhowIamthinkingofmetaethics,ofthe the Autonomy of autonomyofmorality,andofthetensionthatcanappeartoexistbe- tweenthem.Onetraditionalconceptionofmetaethicstakesittocon- cern only the analysis of moral language.2 However, contemporary philosophers typically use the term more expansively.3 Here, I use Morality the term to pick out elements common to these contemporary dis- cussions.Thiscommoncoreencompassesmoralontologyandmoral psychologyaswellasmoralsemantics.Bycontrast,normativeethics (sometimesalsocalled‘substantiveethics’)concernsthestructureand contentofthecorrectmoralevaluationofagents,statesofaffairs,and actions.Normativeethicaltheoriestypicallyofferaccountsofmoral valueandmoralreasons,ofvirtuouscharactertraits,ofrightness,and Tristram McPherson oftherelationshipsbetweenthese. 1. The word ‘metaethics’ came into regular philosophical usage much later. University of Minnesota Duluth -
Downloadable%20File/New Published Maps and Institutional Affiliations
Swazo et al. Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine (2020) 15:7 https://doi.org/10.1186/s13010-020-00091-6 RESEARCH Open Access A Duty to treat? A Right to refrain? Bangladeshi physicians in moral dilemma during COVID-19 Norman K. Swazo1*, Md. Munir Hossain Talukder2 and Mohammad Kamrul Ahsan2 Abstract Background: Normally, physicians understand they have a duty to treat patients, and they perform accordingly consistent with codes of medical practice, standards of care, and inner moral motivation. In the case of COVID-19 pandemic in a developing country such as Bangladesh, however, the fact is that some physicians decline either to report for duty or to treat patients presenting with COVID-19 symptoms. At issue ethically is whether such medical practitioners are to be automatically disciplined for dereliction of duty and gross negligence; or, on the contrary, such physicians may legitimately claim a professional right of autonomous judgment, on the basis of which professional right they may justifiably decline to treat patients. Methods: This ethical issue is examined with a view to providing some guidance and recommendations, insofar as the conditions of medical practice in an under-resourced country such as Bangladesh are vastly different from medical practice in an industrialized nation such as the USA. The concept of moral dilemma as discussed by philosopher Michael Shaw Perry and philosopher Immanuel Kant’s views on moral appeal to “emergency” are considered pertinent to sorting through the moral conundrum of medical care during pandemic. Results: Our analysis allows for conditional physician discretion in the decision to treat COVID-19 patients, i.e., in the absence of personal protective equipment (PPE) combined with claim of duty to family. -
Gibbard, Allan
ThinkingH ow to Live with Each Other ALLAN GibbARD The Tanner Lectures on Human Values Delivered at TheU niversity of California, Berkeley February 28–March 2, 2006 Allan Gibbard is Richard Brandt Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan. He graduated from Swarth- more College and received his Ph.D. from Harvard University. He taught at Achimota School in Ghana while in the Peace Corps, and at the Uni- versity of Chicago and the University of Pittsburgh. He has also been a visiting professor at Stanford University. He is a member of the American Philosophical Society and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has served as president of the Central Division of the Ameri- can Philosophical Society. His many publications include Manipulation of Voting Schemes: A General Result (1973); Wise Choices, Apt Feelings: A Theory of Normative Judgment (1990); Moral Discourse and Practice (co- editor with Stephen Darwall and Peter Railton, 1997); and ThinkingH ow to Live (2003). I. INSight, CONSISTENCY, AND PLANS FOR LiviNG Jonathan Haidt, the social psychologist, entitles a fascinating article “The Emotional Dog and Its Rational Tail.” His topic is moral judgment, and the emotional dog is what he calls “intuition.” Mostly, he argues, we don’t arrive at our moral conclusions by reasoning. We jump to them with emo- tional judgments, with “affectively valenced intuitions,” as he puts it. We will often be firmly convinced that our moral judgments rest on sound reasoning, and that unless others are driven by bias, they will appreciate the force of our arguments. -
Ethics and the Future -- Assigned Readings
Ethics and the Future -- Assigned Readings Note: This is a list of the readings that I assigned (or recommended) to the students (a mix of undergraduates and graduate students) for my seminar, “Ethics and the Future,” taught at Yale in Spring 2021. As the reading list was prepared only for the students in the course, I’m afraid I didn’t include links for any papers that I was including in the course pack, though I believe all of these readings can be easily found online, with the exception, of course, of Ord’s The Precipice, and Parfit’s Reasons and Persons. I am making the reading list publicly available at the request of Pablo Stafforini. In choosing suitable readings I was aided tremendously by the list of readings selected by William MacAskill and Christian Tarsney for their own seminar taught at Oxford in 2019, and especially by the potential syllabus that Joshua Monrad wrote up for my benefit. (Since it was Joshua who rightly insisted to me that this would make an interesting and important topic for a seminar, I am doubly in his debt.) The readings are organized by topic. We spent a week on each. --Shelly Kagan Background on Existential Risks: 1. Toby Ord, The Precipice, Chapters 3-6 and Appendices C and D (about 124 pages) The Basic Case for Longtermism: 1. Perhaps start with this very brief overview: Todd, “Future Generations and Their Moral Significance” (about 7 pages), which can be found online at: https://80000hours.org/articles/future-generations/ 2. Then look at the somewhat longer (but still breezy) exposition in Ord, The Precipice, Intro and Chapters 1-2, and Appendix E (65 pgs.) 3. -
Hedonism (For International Encyclopedia of Ethics)
Hedonism Word Count: 4,488 Hedonism is among the oldest, simplest, and most widely discussed theories of value – theories that tell us what makes the world better or what makes a person’s life go better. Hedonism, in a word, is the view that “pleasure is the good.” In its most comprehensive form, hedonism about value holds that the only thing that ultimately ever makes the world, or a life, better is its containing more pleasure or less pain. The term ‘hedonism’ is also sometimes used to refer to doctrines about other topics. ‘Universal hedonism’ sometimes stands for the view that we ought to bring the greatest balance of pleasure over pain into the world that we can (see UTILITARIANISM), and ‘psychological hedonism’ the view that all human behavior is motivated ultimately by desires to obtain pleasure or avoid pain. Our topic here is hedonism about value. 1. What is hedonism about value? a. What is hedonism a theory of? An important distinction among kinds of value is the distinction between something’s being good for some person (or other subject), and something’s simply being a good thing (see GOOD AND GOOD FOR). The former kind of value – called ‘welfare’ or ‘well-being’ – makes our lives better, or makes things go better for us (see WELL-BEING), while the latter kind of value makes the world better. Typically, whenever a person receives some benefit, or has his life made better, this also makes the world better. But it is at least conceivable that the two come apart, as when an undeserving person receives some benefit, making things go better for him 1 without perhaps making the world better. -
Philosophy 1 Philosophy
Philosophy 1 Philosophy Connecticut Hall, 203.432.1665 http://philosophy.yale.edu M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D. Acting Chair Kenneth Winkler Director of Graduate Studies Stephen Darwall ([email protected]) Professors David Charles, Stephen Darwall, Michael Della Rocca, Keith DeRose, Paul Franks, Tamar Gendler, John Hare, Verity Harte, Brad Inwood, Shelly Kagan, Joshua Knobe, Laurie Paul, Thomas Pogge, Scott Shapiro, Sun-Joo Shin, Steven Smith, Jason Stanley, Zoltán Szabó, Kenneth Winkler, Gideon Yaffe Associate Professors Daniel Greco, John Pittard Assistant Professors Robin Dembroff, Manon Garcia Fields of Study The department offers a wide range of courses in various traditions of philosophy, with strengths and a well-established reputation in the history of philosophy, ethics, philosophy of law, epistemology, philosophy of language, and philosophy of religion as well as other central topics. Special Requirements for the Ph.D. Degree 1. In the first two years all students must complete a total of twelve term courses. Graduate courses are grouped: (1) metaphysics, theory of knowledge, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of science; (2) ethics, aesthetics, philosophy of religion, political philosophy, philosophy of law, and theory of value; (3) history of philosophy. No more than six of the twelve and no fewer than two courses may be taken in each group. At least one of the twelve courses taken must be logic (unless the logic requirement is satisfied in some other way), and this course does not count toward the required minimum of two within any of the three categories. 2. Two qualifying papers must be submitted, one in the history of philosophy, the other in another distribution area.