If we overlook no consequences when we assess the act, and no relevant features when we generalize, can it matter whether we ask 'What would happen if everyone did the same?' instead of 'What would happen if this act were performed?'? David Lyons has argued that it cannot. Two examples are here articulated to show that it can. The first turns on the way consequences are identified and assessed and in particular on the treatment accorded 'threshold consequences'. The second example (...) turns on the way in which the 'social context' of the act (what others would be doing) is taken into account in the generalization. Also included is a formal theory of conditionals from which implications are drawn for utilitarianism and with which I attempt to dispel certain doubts concerning cases employed in my arguments. (shrink)

Can I will that my maxim becomes a universal law? . . .It would be easy to show how common human reason, with this compass, knows well how to distinguish . . . what is consistent or inconsistent with duty. (Kant, Foundations, 403–4)How exactly is this compass to work? Cases bring out connected difficulties to do, (1), with whether ''social contexts'' are to be in or out of descriptions of actions maxims would have agents do – for example, ''disarming alone'' (...) and ''voting when enough others would even if one did not'', or ''disarming'' and ''voting'' simply; and, (2), with a seldom noticed ambiguity of ''everyone''s acting in accordance with a maxim'' and ''a maxim''s becoming universal law''. The paper argues dilemmatically for the inadequacy of Kant''s test for maxims consistent with duty whatever policy for social contexts and manner of maxims becoming universal laws it is said to invoke. (shrink)