I argue that the social dimension of alienation, as discussed by Williams and Railton, has been underappreciated. The lesson typically drawn from their exchange is that moral theory poses a threat to the internal integrity of the agent, but there is a parallel risk that moral theory will implicitly construe agents as constitutively alienated from one another. I argue that a satisfying account of agency will need to make room for what I call ‘genuine ethical contact’ with others, both as (...) concrete objects in the world external to ourselves and as subjects who can recognize us reciprocally. (shrink)

This paper puts forward an account of blame combining two ideas that are usually set up against each other: that blame performs an important function, and that blame is justified by the moral reasons making people blameworthy rather than by its functionality. The paper argues that blame could not have developed in a purely instrumental form, and that its functionality itself demands that its functionality be effaced in favour of non-instrumental reasons for blame—its functionality is self-effacing. This notion is sharpened (...) and it is shown how it offers an alternative to instrumentalist or consequentialist accounts of blame which preserves their animating insight while avoiding their weaknesses by recasting that insight in an explanatory role. This not only allows one to do better justice to the authority and autonomy of non-instrumental reasons for blame, but also reveals that autonomy to be a precondition of blame’s functionality. Unlike rival accounts, it also avoids the “alienation effect” that renders blame unstable under reflection by undercutting the authority of the moral reasons which enable it to perform its function in the first place. It instead yields a vindicatory explanation that strengthens our confidence in those moral reasons. (shrink)

A traditional picture is that cases of deontic constraints--- cases where an act is wrong (or one that there is most reason to not do) even though performing that act will prevent more acts of the same morally (or practically) relevant type from being performed---form a kind of fault line in ethical theory separating (agent-neutral) consequentialist theories from other ethical theories. But certain results in the recent literature, such as those due to Graham Oddie and Peter Milne in "Act and (...) Value", do not sit well this traditional wisdom. My aim in this paper is to argue that both the traditional wisdom and Oddie and Milne are mistaken. I begin by looking more closely at the traditional wisdom and why it fails (§1). Then I develop my account of this fault line in ethical theory and its importance (§2). Finally I show that a diagnosis of where Oddie and Milne go wrong follows as a corollary of this new account (§3). An important upshot will be that discussions of cases of deontic constraints would do best to focus on the account of the nature and importance of the cases identified in this paper rather than continuing to work with the mistaken traditional picture. (shrink)

The zetetic turn in epistemology raises three questions about epistemic and zetetic norms. First, there is the relationship question: what is the relationship between epistemic and zetetic norms? Are some epistemic norms zetetic norms, or are epistemic and zetetic norms distinct? Second, there is the tension question: are traditional epistemic norms in tension with plausible zetetic norms? Third, there is the reaction question: how should theorists react to a tension between epistemic and zetetic norms? Drawing on an analogy to practical (...) philosophy, I develop a focal point view to resolve these motivating questions. On the focal point view, traditional epistemic norms and zetetic norms answer different types of normative questions. There is nevertheless a familiar type of evaluative tension between traditional epistemic norms and zetetic norms, but this tension is an unavoidable feature of the normative landscape and not a sign that traditional epistemic norms need revision. But if traditional epistemic norms are not zetetic norms, then in what sense is zetetic epistemology a project for epistemologists? I conclude by articulating a sense in which some nontraditional epistemic norms are zetetic norms, and in which zetetic epistemology is an important part of the study of theoretical rationality. (shrink)

Explores five fault lines in the fledgling field of responsibility theory, serious methodological disputes traceable to P.F. Strawson's "Freedom and Resentment.".

This chapter asks two questions about the ethics of expectations: one about the nature of expectations, and one about the wrongs of expectations. On the first question, expectations involve a rich constellation of attitudes ranging from beliefs to also include imaginings, hopes, fears, and dreams. As a result, sometimes expectations act like predictions, like your expectation of rain tomorrow, sometimes prescriptions, like the expectation that your students will do the reading, sometimes like proleptic reasons like the hope that your mentee (...) will flourish, and sometimes expectations are peremptory in that they carry the force of moral law. Turning to the second question, given the multiple roles played by expectations it shouldn’t be surprising that there are also multiple ways expectations can be wrong to hold. Sometimes they wrong as beliefs do, e.g., doxastic wronging, and sometimes they result in alienation because of who holds that expectation of us. The upshot of this chapter is that getting clear on these potential ways expectations can wrong not only delivers an ethics of expectations that mirrors familiar discussions of the ethics of belief, but an ethics of expectations further opens the door for taking seriously an ethics of mental attitudes more generally. (shrink)

In this paper I present an account of a distinctive form of ‘practical’ or ‘deliberative’ uncertainty that has been central in debates in both ethics and metaethics. Many writers have assumed that such uncertainty concerns a special normative question, such as what we ought to do ‘all things considered.’ I argue against this assumption and instead endorse an alternative view of such uncertainty, which combines elements of both metaethical cognitivism and non-cognitivism. A notable consequence of this view is that even (...) if there are objective and irreducible truths about how we ought to act, all things considered, the ‘central deliberative question,’ as it’s sometimes called, doesn’t concern such truths. Instead, that question doesn’t have a true answer. (shrink)

Regress arguments show that to do something for a reason, one does not have to have reflectively endorsed that reason. This might seem to establish that reflection does not play a fundamental role in agency. This paper argues that this conclusion rests on too narrow a conception of agency. If agents are not just creatures who act for reasons but also creatures who can take ownership of the reasons for which they act, then there is a central role for reflection (...) to play in agency even if it's not the role that philosophers of action have typically envisioned for it. (shrink)

John Harsanyi has offered an argument grounded in Bayesian decision theory that purports to show that John Rawls's original position analysis leads directly to utilitarian conclusions. After explaining why a prominent Rawlsian line of response to Harsanyi's argument fails, I argue that a seemingly innocuous Bayesian rationality assumption, the continuity axiom, is at the heart of a fundamental disagreement between Harsanyi and Rawls. The most natural way for a Rawlsian to respond to Harsanyi's line of analysis, I argue, is to (...) reject continuity. I then argue that this Rawlsian response fails as a defence of the difference principle, and I raise some concerns about whether it makes sense to posit the discontinuities needed to support the other elements of Rawls's view, although I suggest that Rawls may be able to invoke discontinuity to vindicate part of his first principle of justice. (shrink)

Any good ethical theory aspires to provide as comprehensive a guide to moral value and motivation as possible. Within modern moral philosophy, conceptions of moral value have been dominated largely by considerations of justice and concerns for the common good, and moral shortcomings have been accounted for primarily by appeal to ignorance, weakness, indifference or outright hostility to moral values. Yet the ways in which we fall short are far more complicated. By discussing one interesting example here, I hope to (...) provide some support for the claim that our conceptions of moral value and motivation need enrichment. In making my case, I utilize a character who is more like a caricature than a figure from ordinary life. This touch of hyperbole is deliberate. Reflect for a moment on the function of a good cartoon caricature. By exaggerating physical features, it draws our attention to characteristics that go unnoticed in their normal context. Whereas cartoon caricatures aim at amusement, my goal is to distil some of our perceptions of moral excellence. (shrink)

Abstract: In her recent book Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, and Integrity, Christine Korsgaard does a wonderful job developing her Kantian account of normativity and the rational necessity of morality. Korsgaard's account of normativity, however, has received its fair share of attention. In this discussion, the focus is on the resulting moral theory and, in particular, on Korsgaard's reason for rejecting consequentialist moral theories. The article suggests that we assume that Korsgaard's vindication of Kantian rationalism is successful and ask whether, nonetheless, her (...) account is consistent with consequentialism. It suggests further that we grant that moral reasons are not based on substantive principles, and that they must instead emerge from the purely formal principles of practical reason. Can consequentialist principles nonetheless emerge from the formal constraints of practical reason? Why can't a consequentialist embrace Korsgaard's account of self-constitution and normativity? (shrink)

Kantian respect for persons is based on the special status and dignity of humanity. There are, however, at least three distinct kinds of interpretation of the principle of respect for the dignity of persons: the contractualist conception, the substantive conception and the direct conception. Contractualist theories are the most common and familiar interpretation. The contractualist assumes that some form of consent or agreement is the crucial factor that is required by respect for persons. The substantive conceptions of dignity, on the (...) other hand, treat the concept of dignity as a substantive value that justifies a deontological conception of respect for persons. A third conception of respect for the dignity of persons, the conception that I favor, focuses directly on the special value of our rational nature. According to this consequentialist conception, we respect the dignity of persons by promoting the flourishing of rational nature. (shrink)

This paper is a plea for hedonism to be taken more seriously. It begins by charting hedonism's decline, and suggests that this is a result of two major objections: the claim that hedonism is the 'philosophy of swine', reducing all value to a single common denominator, and Nozick's 'experience machine' objection. There follows some elucidation of the nature of hedonism, and of enjoyment in particular. Two types of theory of enjoyment are outlined-intemalism, according to which enjoyment has some special 'feeling (...) tone'. and externalism, according to which enjoyment is any kind of experience to which we take some special attitude, such as that of desire. lnternalism-the traditional view--is defended against current externalist orthodoxy. The paper ends with responses to the philosophy of swine and the experience machine objections. (shrink)

This paper is a plea for hedonism to be taken more seriously. It begins by charting hedonism's decline, and suggests that this is a result of two major objections: the claim that hedonism is the ‘philosophy of swine’, reducing all value to a single common denominator, and Nozick's ‘experience machine’ objection. There follows some elucidation of the nature of hedonism, and of enjoyment in particular. Two types of theory of enjoyment are outlined–internalism, according to which enjoyment has some special ‘feeling (...) tone’, and externalism, according to which enjoyment is any kind of experience to which we take some special attitude, such as that of desire. Internalism–the traditional view–is defended against current externalist orthodoxy. The paper ends with responses to the philosophy of swine and the experience machine objections. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop an objection to agent-based accounts of right action. Agent-based accounts of right action attempt to derive moral judgment of actions from judgment of the inner quality of virtuous agents and virtuous agency. A moral theory ought to be something that moral agents can permissibly use in moral deliberation. I argue for a principle that captures this intuition and show that, for a broad range of other-directed virtues and motives, agent-based accounts of right action fail to (...) satisfy this principle. (shrink)

Metaethicists typically develop and assess their theories—in part—on the basis of the consistency of those theories with “ordinary” first-order normative judgment. They are, in this sense, “methodologically conservative.” This article shows that this methodologically conservative approach obstructs a proper assessment of the debate between internalists and externalists. Specifically, it obstructs one of the most promising readings of internalism. This is a reading—owed to Bernard Williams—in which internalism is part of a practically and politically motivated revision of the assessment of action. (...) The article uses this case study to highlight the role of methodological conservatism in contemporary metaethics more generally. (shrink)

This paper revisits the “morality pays” approach to answering the “Why be moral?” question in business. First I argue that “morality pays” is weakest when it needs to be strongest, and thus inadequate to the task. Then I examine and reject a proposed virtue-ethics alternative, arguing that it either collapses into “morality pays” or else introduces a new problem. After sketching an account of moral reasons, I go on to argue that “morality pays” can be reframed, not so much as (...) an answer to “Why be moral,” but as a prescription for reforming corporate institutions. (shrink)

This paper explores the relation between metaethical reflection and value experience, and does so by focusing on robust realism. Robust realism is typically criticized for its ontological and epistemological commitments. In this paper, however, we hope to shed new critical light on the plausibility of the theory by using two concepts – ‘reification’ and ‘alienation’ – that have their origin in critical social theory. We use the concept of ‘reification’ as an interpretative lens to look at robust realism and show (...) that it is reifying in two respects: it turns values into things, and, correspondingly, turns human agents into disengaged observers of those things. This analysis is then used to argue that robust realism is alienating in the sense that it distances us from the world that presents itself to us in value experience, and that it separates us from what we call our engaged responsiveness. We also argue that its alienating effects give us good reason to reject the theory. (shrink)

Why, morally speaking, ought we do more for our family and friends than for strangers? In other words, what is the justification of special duties? According to partialists, the answer to this question cannot be reduced to impartial moral principles. According to impartialists, it can. This paper briefly argues in favour of impartialism, before drawing out an implication of the impartialist view: in addition to justifying some currently recognised special duties, impartialism also generates new special duties that are not yet (...) widely recognised. Specifically, in certain situations, impartial principles generate duties to take actions and adopt attitudes in our personal lives that increase the chance of new or different special relationships being formed—new or different friendships, family-like relationships, relationships akin to co-nationality, and so on. In fact, even if one thinks partialism is the best justification of the duties we have once in special relationships, impartialist justifications for taking steps to form such relationships should have some sway. Moreover, a little reflection shows that these duties are not as demanding or counterintuitive as one might expect. (shrink)

Despite widespread agreement that ambivalence precludes agency “at its best,” in this paper I argue that ambivalence as such is no threat to one’s agency. In particular, against “unificationists” like Harry Frankfurt I argue that failing to be fully integrated as an agent, lacking purity of heart, or being less than wholehearted in one’s choices, tells us nothing about whether an agent’s will is properly functioning. Moreover, it will turn out that in many common circumstances, wholeheartedness with respect to some (...) motive or course of action is itself a defect in an agent’s will. (shrink)

A moral theory T is esoteric if and only if T is true but there are some individuals who, by the lights of T itself, ought not to embrace T, where to embrace T is to believe T and rely upon it in practical deliberation. Some philosophers hold that esotericism is a strong, perhaps even decisive, reason to reject a moral theory. However, proponents of this objection have often supposed its force is obvious and have said little to articulate it. (...) I defend a version of this objection—namely, that, in light of the strongly first-personal epistemology of benefit and burden, esoteric theories fail to justify the allocation of benefits and burdens to which moral agents would be subject under such theories. Because of the holistic nature of moral-theory justification, this conclusion in turn implies that the entirety of a moral theory must be open to public scrutiny in order for the theory to be justified. I conclude by answering several objections to my account of the esotericism objection. (shrink)

Right- and wrong-making features ("moral grounds") are widely believed to play important normative roles, e.g. in morally apt or virtuous motivation. This paper argues that moral grounds have been systematically misidentified. Canonical statements of our moral theories tend to summarize, rather than directly state, the full range of moral grounds posited by the theory. Further work is required to "unpack" a theory's criterion of rightness and identify the features that are of ground-level moral significance. As a result, it is not (...) actually true that maximizing value is the relevant right-making feature even for maximizing consequentialists. Focusing on the simple example of utilitarianism, I show how careful attention to the ground level can drastically influence how we think about our moral theories. (shrink)

Developing a British perspective on the abortion debate, I take up some ideas from Patrick Lee’s fine paper, and pursue, in particular, the idea of individual humans as goods in themselves. I argue that this notion helps us to avoid the familiar mistake of making moral value impersonal. It also shows us the way out of consequentialism. Since the most philosophically viable notion of the person, the individual human, is (as Lee argues) a notion of an individual substance that is (...) there from conception, the move has a third effect, which is to rule out abortion. (shrink)

Lodges a number of challenges to the threshold argument on the basis of which some consequentialists have objected to consumer meat purchases. Maintains that the argument misunderstands relevant market dynamics.

This paper draws on the 'Fitting Attitudes' analysis of value to argue that we should take the concept of fittingness (rather than value) as our normative primitive. I will argue that the fittingness framework enhances the clarity and expressive power of our normative theorising. Along the way, we will see how the fittingness framework illuminates our understanding of various moral theories, and why it casts doubt on the Global Consequentialist idea that acts and (say) eye colours are normatively on a (...) par. We will see why even consequentialists, in taking rightness to be in some sense determined by goodness, should not think that rightness is conceptually reducible to goodness. Finally, I will use the fittingness framework to explicate the distinction between consequentialist and deontological theories, with particular attention to the contentious case of Rule Consequentialism. (shrink)

[About the book] Although this collection of articles is not formally a commentary on Elizabeth Anscombe's famous article of the same title, in which she criticised the moral philosophy prevalent in 1958, a number of the contributors do take Anscombe's work as a starting point. Taken together the collection could be seen as a demonstration of the extent to which moral philosophers have since attempted to answer Anscombe's challenge, and to develop an approach to their subject which, while psychologically plausible, (...) is neither based on divine law nor permissive of the impermissible. (shrink)

Across eight experiments (N = 2310), we studied whether people would prioritize rescuing individuals who may be thought to contribute more to society. We found that participants were generally dismissive of general rules that prioritize more socially beneficial individuals, such as doctors instead of unemployed people. By contrast, participants were more supportive of one-off decisions to save the life of a more socially beneficial individual, even when such cases were the same as those covered by the rule. This generality effect (...) occurred robustly even when controlling for various factors. It occurred when the decision-maker was the same in both cases, when the pairs of people differing in the extent of their indirect social utility was varied, when the scenarios were varied, when the participant samples came from different countries, and when the general rule only covered cases that are exactly the same as the situation described in the one-off condition. The effect occurred even when the general rule was introduced via a concrete precedent case. Participants' tendency to be more supportive of the one-off proposal than the general rule was significantly reduced when they evaluated the two proposals jointly as opposed to separately. Finally, the effect also occurred in sacrificial moral dilemmas, a general phenomenon occurring in multiple moral contexts. We discuss possible explanations of the effect, including concerns about negative consequences of the rule and a deontological aversion against making difficult trade-off decisions unless they are absolutely necessary. (shrink)

Susan Wolf famously claimed that the life of the moral saint is unattractive from the “point of view of individual perfection.” I argue, however, that the unattractive moral saints in Wolf’s account are self-defeating on two levels, are motivated in the wrong way, and are called into question by real-life counter-examples. By appealing to a real-life case study, I argue that the best life from the moral point of view is not necessarily unattractive from the individual point of view.

The situationist challenge to global character traits claims that on the basis of findings in social psychology, we should only accept at most the existence of local or context-sensitive traits. In this article I explore a neglected area of J. S. Mill's work to outline an account of context-sensitive traits. This account of traits, coupled with a sophisticated consequentialist ethical framework, suggests an interesting view on which persons govern the circumstances of their actions in order to best promote overall well-being.

Rule-consequentialism is frequently regarded as problematic since it faces the following powerful dilemma: either rule-consequentialism collapses into act-consequentialism or rule-consequentialism is inconsistent. Recent defenders of this theory such as Brad Hooker provide a careful response to this objection. By explicating the nature and theoretical commitments of rule-consequentialism, I contend that these maneuvers are not successful by offering a new way of viewing the dilemma which retains its force even in light of these recent discussions. The central idea is that even (...) the most well-developed contemporary form of the view is ensnared in the following dilemma: as an agent-neutral consequentialist theory, rule-consequentialism is either inconsistent or it is desperately unmotivated as a form of consequentialism since it is committed to a non-consequentialist form of ultimate moral value. (shrink)

A powerful objection to impersonal moral theories states that they cannot accommodate the good of friendship. This paper focuses on the problem as it applies to consequentialism and addresses the recent criticism that even the most sophisticated forms of consequentialism are incompatible with genuine friendship. I argue that this objection fails since those who pose this challenge either seriously oversimplify consequentialism's theory of value, misunderstand its theory of practical reason, or put too much weight on the good of friendship itself. (...) I conclude by assessing a contemporary consequentialist response in order to suggest a workable conception of consequentialist friendship. (shrink)

Consequentialist theories of virtue and vice, such as the theories of Jeremy Bentham and Julia Driver, characterize virtue and vice in terms of the consequential, or instrumental, properties of these character traits. There are two problems with theories of this sort. First they imply that, under the right circumstances, paradigmatic virtues, such as benevolence, are vices and paradigmatic vices, such as maliciousness, are virtues. This is conceptually problematic. Second, they say nothing about the intrinsic nature of the virtues and vices, (...) which is less than we could hope for from a theory of virtue and vice. Thus, we have reason to reject consequentialist theories in favour of theories that characterize virtue and vice in terms of the intrinsic properties of these character traits. Aristotle and Thomas Hurka have theories this sort. (shrink)

The concept of biodiversity has played a central role within conservation biology over the last thirty years. Precisely how it should be understood, however, is a matter of ongoing debate. In this paper we defend what we call a classic multidimensional conception of biodiversity. We begin by introducing two arguments for eliminating the concept of biodiversity from conservation biology, both of which have been put forward in a recent paper by Santana. The first argument is against the concept’s scientific usefulness. (...) The other is against its value as a target of conservation. We show that neither of these objections is successful against the classic multidimensional conception of biodiversity. Biodiversity thus understood is important from a scientific perspective, because it plays important explanatory roles within contemporary ecology. Moreover, although it does not encompass all valuable features of the natural world, this does not show that we should abandon it as a target of conservation. Instead, biodiversity should be conceived as one of many grounds of value associated with ecosystems. This is consistent with concluding that a central aim of conservationists should be to protect biodiversity. (shrink)

Businesses frequently exclude spiritual values, viewing such values as impositions that belong in business as much as a priest belongs at a bachelor party. Yet spirituality should not be viewed as impositions from without, but as inclusions from within. Spiritual values should be included in a company to the extent that these values are shared by the principals of a firm. Excluding spiritual values found in a “convergent consensus” runs contrary to freedom and liberty that Milton Friedman, among others, champions. (...) Furthermore, the exclusion of such values from a business threatens to alienate business persons from their moral integrity. By cultivating what I will call “the spiritual imagination,” businesses can facilitate fidelity between the convergent values of its principals, and the actions, policies, and culture of a company. (shrink)

To 'consequentialise' is to take a putatively non-consequentialist moral theory and show that it is actually just another form of consequentialism. Some have speculated that every moral theory can be consequentialised. If this were so, then consequentialism would be empty; it would have no substantive content. As I argue here, however, this is not so. Beginning with the core consequentialist commitment to 'maximising the good', I formulate a precise definition of consequentialism and demonstrate that, given this definition, several sorts of (...) moral theory resist consequentialisation. My strategy is to decompose consequentialism into three conditions, which I call 'agent neutrality', 'no moral dilemmas', and 'dominance', and then to exhibit some moral theories which violate each of these. (shrink)

Following John Rawls, writers like Bernard Williams and Christine Korsgaard have suggested that a transparency condition should be put on ethical theories. The exact nature of such a condition and its implications is however not anything on which there is any consensus. It is argued here that the ultimate rationale of transparency conditions is epistemic rather than substantively moral, but also that it clearly connects to substantive concerns about moral psychology. Finally, it is argued that once a satisfactory form of (...) the transparency condition is formulated, then, at least among the main contenders within ethical theory, it speaks in favor of a broadly Aristotelian approach to ethical theorizing. (shrink)

Political instrumentalism claims that the right to rule should be distributed such that justice is promoted best. Building on a distinction made by consequentialists in moral philosophy, I argue that instrumentalists should distinguish two levels of normative thinking about legitimacy, the critical and applied level. An indirect instrumentalism which acknowledges this distinction has significant advantages over simpler forms of instrumentalism that do not.

A recent resurgence of interest within analytical political philosophy in the status of ethnic and national minorities coincides with the re-emergence of national identity as a primary organizing principle of political conflict, and with an increasing attentiveness to identity and recognition as organizing principles of political struggle. The recent theoretical literature within political philosophy has focused very much on recognizing the importance of national identity, and allowing attention to national sentiment to inform the design of social institutions.In this paper I (...) shall state the case for a version of the position which Will Kymlicka has dubbed ‘benign neglect’ toward cultural identities. Benign neglect is the position that the state should, as far as possible, be neutral among the cultural sentiments of its citizens. The position is, I think, implicit in the theoretical work of many contemporary liberals, and also in much socialist theory and some socialist practice. But it is rarely defended explicitly. Liberal theory is generally developed on the unrealistic assumptions that the society to be regulated is closed and coincides with the membership of a single nation. (shrink)

Over the last decades the traditional emphasis on moral rules, or principles, has been attacked by particularists like Jonathan Dancy. I argue that particularists are correct in rejecting traditional attempts at moral codification, but that it is still possible to have a rule-oriented approach to morality if we distinguish between different ways in which features can be morally relevant. I suggest that there are first a limited number of features that can serve as basic moral reasons for action, and then (...) a class of relational features that can change the relevance of these features. I then argue that while particularists do well in drawing attention to the fact that sometimes our basic moral duties are put out of play by other relevant features, they fail to make sense of the exceptional nature of such situations. Only a rule-oriented understanding of morality can do this. (shrink)