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Axiological Absolutism and Risk

Noûs 53 (1):97-113 (2019)

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  1. Doing Less Than Best.Emma J. Curran - 2023 - Dissertation, University of Cambridge
    This thesis is about the moral reasons we have to do less than best. It consists of six chapters. Part I of the thesis proposes, extends, and defends reasons to do less than best. In Chapter One (“The Conditional Obligation”) I outline and reject two recent arguments from Joe Horton and Theron Pummer for the claim that we have a conditional obligation to bring about the most good. In Chapter Two (“Agglomeration and Agent-Relative Costs”) I argue that agent-relative costs can (...)
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  • (1 other version)The weight of suffering.Andreas Mogensen - manuscript
    How should we weigh suffering against happiness? This paper highlights the existence of an argument from intuitively plausible axiological principles to the striking conclusion that in comparing different populations, there exists some depth of suffering that cannot be compensated for by any measure of well-being. In addition to a number of structural principles, the argument relies on two key premises. The first is the contrary of the so-called Reverse Repugnant Conclusion. The second is a principle according to which the addition (...)
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  • Embracing self‐defeat in normative theory.Samuel Fullhart - 2024 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 109 (1):204-225.
    Some normative theories are self-defeating. They tell us to respond to our situations in ways that bring about outcomes that are bad, given the aims of the theories, and which could have been avoided. Across a wide range of debates in ethics, decision theory, political philosophy, and formal epistemology, many philosophers treat the fact that a normative theory is self-defeating as sufficient grounds for rejecting it. I argue that this widespread and consequential assumption is false. In particular, I argue that (...)
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  • Getting Machines to Do Your Dirty Work.Tomi Francis & Todd Karhu - forthcoming - Philosophical Studies:1-15.
    Autonomous systems are machines that can alter their behavior without direct human oversight or control. How ought we to program them to behave? A plausible starting point is given by the Reduction to Acts Thesis, according to which we ought to program autonomous systems to do whatever a human agent ought to do in the same circumstances. Although the Reduction to Acts Thesis is initially appealing, we argue that it is false: it is sometimes permissible to program a machine to (...)
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  • Decision theory and de minimis risk.Martin Smith - 2024 - Erkenntnis 89 (6):2169-2192.
    A de minimis risk is defined as a risk that is so small that it may be legitimately ignored when making a decision. While ignoring small risks is common in our day-to-day decision making, attempts to introduce the notion of a de minimis risk into the framework of decision theory have run up against a series of well-known difficulties. In this paper, I will develop an enriched decision theoretic framework that is capable of overcoming two major obstacles to the modelling (...)
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  • Supererogation and Optimisation.Christian Barry & Seth Lazar - 2024 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 102 (1):21-36.
    This paper examines three approaches to the relationship between our moral reasons to bear costs for others’ sake before and beyond the call of duty. Symmetry holds that you are required to optimise your beneficial sacrifices even when they are genuinely supererogatory. If you are required to bear a cost C for the sake of a benefit B, when they are the only costs and benefits at stake, you are also conditionally required to bear an additional cost C, for the (...)
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  • Effective Altruism and Religion: Synergies, Tensions, Dialogue.Stefan Riedener, Dominic Roser & Markus Huppenbauer (eds.) - 2021 - Baden-Baden, Germany: Nomos.
    Effective altruism has become a worldwide phenomenon. The movement combines empathy and reason in the attempt to improve the world. Adherents don’t let moral gut instincts dictate their altruistic efforts, but use evidence and reflection to do the most good they can. Effective altruism originated, and primarily grew, in strongly secular environments—such as philosophy departments or Silicon Valley. So far, a religious perspective on this movement has been lacking. What can people of faith learn from effective altruism? What may they (...)
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  • Buddhism and effective altruism.Calvin Baker - 2021 - In Stefan Riedener, Dominic Roser & Markus Huppenbauer (eds.), Effective Altruism and Religion: Synergies, Tensions, Dialogue. Baden-Baden, Germany: Nomos. pp. 17-45.
    This article considers the contemporary effective altruism (EA) movement from a classical Indian Buddhist perspective. Following barebones introductions to EA and to Buddhism (sections one and two, respectively), section three argues that core EA efforts, such as those to improve global health, end factory farming, and safeguard the long-term future of humanity, are futile on the Buddhist worldview. For regardless of the short-term welfare improvements that effective altruists impart, Buddhism teaches that all unenlightened beings will simply be reborn upon their (...)
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  • Partial aggregation in ethics.Joe Horton - 2021 - Philosophy Compass 16 (3):1-12.
    Is there any number of people you should save from paralysis rather than saving one person from death? Is there any number of people you should save from a migraine rather than saving one person from death? Many people answer ‘yes’ and ‘no’, respectively. The aim of partially aggregative moral views is to capture and justify combinations of intuitions like these. These views contrast with fully aggregative moral views, which imply that the answer to both questions is ‘yes’, and with (...)
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  • Why Impossible Options Are Better: Consequentializing Dilemmas.Brian Talbot - 2021 - Utilitas 33 (2):221-236.
    To consequentialize a deontological moral theory is to give a theory which issues the same moral verdicts, but explains those verdicts in terms of maximizing or satisficing value. There are many motivations for consequentializing: to reconcile plausible ideas behind deontology with plausible ideas behind consequentialism, to help us better understand deontological theories, or to extend deontological theories beyond what intuitions alone tell us. It has proven difficult to consequentialize theories that allow for moral dilemmas or that deny that “ought” implies (...)
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  • Duty and Doubt.Seth Lazar - 2020 - Journal of Practical Ethics 8 (1):28-55.
    Deontologists have been slow to address decision-making under risk and uncertainty, no doubt because the standard approaches to non-moral decision theory appear superficially similar to consequentialist moral reasoning. I identify some central tenets of simple decision theory and show that they should not put deontologists off, before showing where we should go next to develop a comprehensive deontological decision theory.
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  • One-by-one: moral theory for separate persons.Bastian Steuwer - 2020 - Dissertation, London School of Economics
    You and I lead different lives. While we share a society and a world, our existence is separate from one another. You and I matter individually, by ourselves. My dissertation is about this simple thought. I argue that this simple insight, the separateness of persons, tells us something fundamental about morality. My dissertation seeks to answer how the separateness of persons matters. I develop a precise view of the demands of the separateness of persons. The separateness of persons imposes both (...)
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  • Aggregation, Risk, and Reductio.Joe Horton - 2020 - Ethics 130 (4):514-529.
    Is there any number of people you should save from paralysis rather than saving one person from death? Is there any number of people you should save from a migraine rather than saving one person from death? Many people answer “yes” and “no,” respectively. The aim of partially aggregative moral views is to capture and justify combinations of intuitions like these. In this article, I develop a risk-based reductio argument that shows that there can be no adequate partially aggregative view. (...)
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  • Morality, Uncertainty.Chad Lee-Stronach - 2021 - Philosophical Quarterly 71 (2):334-358.
    Non-Consequentialist moral theories posit the existence of moral constraints: prohibitions on performing particular kinds of wrongful acts, regardless of the good those acts could produce. Many believe that such theories cannot give satisfactory verdicts about what we morally ought to do when there is some probability that we will violate a moral constraint. In this article, I defend Non-Consequentialist theories from this critique. Using a general choice-theoretic framework, I identify various types of Non-Consequentialism that have otherwise been conflated in the (...)
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  • Morality Under Risk.Chad Lee-Stronach - 2019 - Dissertation,
    Many argue that absolutist moral theories -- those that prohibit particular kinds of actions or trade-offs under all circumstances -- cannot adequately account for the permissibility of risky actions. In this dissertation, I defend various versions of absolutism against this critique, using overlooked resources from formal decision theory. Against the prevailing view, I argue that almost all absolutist moral theories can give systematic and plausible verdicts about what to do in risky cases. In doing so, I show that critics have (...)
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  • Aggregation, Balancing, and Respect for the Claims of Individuals.Bastian Steuwer - 2021 - Utilitas 33 (1):17-34.
    Most non-consequentialists “let the numbers count” when one can save either a lesser or greater number from equal or similar harm. But they are wary of doing so when one can save either a small number from grave harm or instead a very large number from minor harm. Limited aggregation is an approach that reconciles these two commitments. It is motivated by a powerful idea: our decision whom to save should respect each person who has a claim to our help, (...)
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  • Absolutism and its Limits.John Hawthorne, Yoaav Isaacs & Clayton Littlejohn - 2023 - Journal of Moral Philosophy 21 (1-2):170-189.
    Many philosophers think that given the choice between saving the life of an innocent person and averting any number of minor ailments or inconveniences, it would be better to save the life. How, then, should one compare the risk of an innocent person’s life to such minor ailments and inconveniences? If lives are infinitely more important than insignificant factors then any risk cannot be outweighed, and that is untenable. An alternative approach seems more promising: let the values of such insignificant (...)
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  • Moral priorities under risk.Chad Lee-Stronach - 2018 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 48 (6):793-811.
    Many moral theories are committed to the idea that some kinds of moral considerations should be respected, whatever the cost to ‘lesser’ types of considerations. A person's life, for instance, should not be sacrificed for the trivial pleasures of others, no matter how many would benefit. However, according to the decision-theoretic critique of lexical priority theories, accepting lexical priorities inevitably leads us to make unacceptable decisions in risky situations. It seems that to operate in a risky world, we must reject (...)
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  • Ethical machine decisions and the input-selection problem.Björn Lundgren - 2021 - Synthese 199 (3-4):11423-11443.
    This article is about the role of factual uncertainty for moral decision-making as it concerns the ethics of machine decision-making. The view that is defended here is that factual uncertainties require a normative evaluation and that ethics of machine decision faces a triple-edged problem, which concerns what a machine ought to do, given its technical constraints, what decisional uncertainty is acceptable, and what trade-offs are acceptable to decrease the decisional uncertainty.
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  • Never Mind the Trolley: The Ethics of Autonomous Vehicles in Mundane Situations.Johannes Himmelreich - 2018 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 21 (3):669-684.
    Trolley cases are widely considered central to the ethics of autonomous vehicles. We caution against this by identifying four problems. Trolley cases, given technical limitations, rest on assumptions that are in tension with one another. Furthermore, trolley cases illuminate only a limited range of ethical issues insofar as they cohere with a certain design framework. Furthermore, trolley cases seem to demand a moral answer when a political answer is called for. Finally, trolley cases might be epistemically problematic in several ways. (...)
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  • In dubious battle: uncertainty and the ethics of killing.Seth Lazar - 2018 - Philosophical Studies 175 (4):859-883.
    How should deontologists concerned with the ethics of killing apply their moral theory when we don’t know all the facts relevant to the permissibility of our action? Though the stakes couldn’t be higher, and uncertainty is endemic where killing is concerned, few deontologists have an answer to this question. In this paper I canvass two possibilities: that we should apply a threshold standard, equivalent to the ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ standard applied for criminal punishment; and that we should fit our (...)
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  • Headaches for epistemologists.Brian Talbot - 2022 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 104 (2):408-433.
    Imagine that one must either lose all of one’s certainty about some very important topic – about the meaning of life, for example – or a small amount of certainty about each of one’s more “mundane” beliefs – beliefs about the color of one’s socks, where one’s keys are, whether it will rain, etc. One ought to take the latter loss, no matter how many mundane beliefs are at stake. Conversely, if one had to give up a tiny bit of (...)
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  • Partial Aggregation for Prioritarians.Makan Nojoumian - 2024 - Utilitas 36 (3):230-241.
    Prioritarianism is a family of views comparing distributions of well-being. What unites prioritarians is the thought that when deciding whether a distribution is overall better than another, the worse off have priority. There are different ways of making this idea more precise. However, some of these views have extreme aggregative implications and others have extreme anti-aggregative implications. This raises the question: can prioritarians accommodate partial aggregation (aggregating in some but not all cases) and avoid both extremes? In this paper, I (...)
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