Decision-making typically requires judgments about causal relations: we need to know the causal effects of our actions and the causal relevance of various environmental factors. We investigate how several individuals' causal judgments can be aggregated into collective causal judgments. First, we consider the aggregation of causal judgments via the aggregation of probabilistic judgments, and identify the limitations of this approach. We then explore the possibility of aggregating causal judgments independently of probabilistic ones. Formally, we introduce the problem of causal-network aggregation. (...) Finally, we revisit the aggregation of probabilistic judgments when this is constrained by prior aggregation of qualitative causal judgments. (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)

Fitting Attitudes accounts of value analogize or equate being good with being desirable, on the premise that ‘desirable’ means not, ‘able to be desired’, as Mill has been accused of mistakenly assuming, but ‘ought to be desired’, or something similar. The appeal of this idea is visible in the critical reaction to Mill, which generally goes along with his equation of ‘good’ with ‘desirable’ and only balks at the second step, and it crosses broad boundaries in terms of philosophers’ other (...) commitments. For example, Fitting Attitudes accounts play a central role both in T.M. Scanlon’s [1998] case against teleology, and in Michael Smith [2003], [unpublished] and Doug Portmore’s [2007] cases for it. And of course they have a long and distinguished history. (shrink)

Intrinsic value has traditionally been thought to lie at the heart of ethics. Philosophers use a number of terms to refer to such value. The intrinsic value of something is said to be the value that that thing has “in itself,” or “for its own sake,” or “as such,” or “in its own right.” Extrinsic value is value that is not intrinsic.

Practical reason is the general human capacity for resolving, through reflection, the question of what one is to do. Deliberation of this kind is practical in at least two senses. First, it is practical in its subject matter, insofar as it is concerned with action. But it is also practical in its consequences or its issue, insofar as reflection about action itself directly moves people to act. Our capacity for deliberative self-determination raises two sets of philosophical problems. For one thing, (...) there are questions about how deliberation can succeed in being practical in its issue. What do we need to assume—both about agents and about the processes of reasoning they engage in—to make sense of the fact that deliberative reflection can directly give rise to action? Can we do justice to this dimension of practical reason while preserving the idea that practical deliberation is genuinely a form of reasoning? For another, there are large issues concerning the content of the standards that are brought to bear in practical reasoning. Which norms for the assessment of action are binding on us as deliberating agents? Do these norms provide resources for critical reflection about our ends, or are they exclusively instrumental? Under what conditions do moral norms yield valid standards for reasoning about action? The first set of issues is addressed in sections §§1–3 of the present article, while sections §§4–6 cover the second set of issues. (shrink)

The term “value theory” is used in at least three different ways in philosophy. In its broadest sense, “value theory” is a catch-all label used to encompass all branches of moral philosophy, social and political philosophy, aesthetics, and sometimes feminist philosophy and the philosophy of religion — whatever areas of philosophy are deemed to encompass some “evaluative” aspect. In its narrowest sense, “value theory” is used for a relatively narrow area of normative ethical theory of particular concern to consequentialists. In (...) this narrow sense, “value theory” is roughly synonymous with “axiology”. Axiology can be thought of as primarily concerned with classifying what things are good, and how good they are. For instance, a traditional question of axiology concerns whether the objects of value are subjective psychological states, or objective states of the world. (shrink)

To consequentialize a non-consequentialist theory, take whatever considerations that the non-consequentialist theory holds to be relevant to determining the deontic statuses of actions and insist that those considerations are relevant to determining the proper ranking of outcomes. In this way, the consequentialist can produce an ordering of outcomes that when combined with her criterion of rightness yields the same set of deontic verdicts that the non-consequentialist theory yields. In this paper, I argue that any plausible non-consequentialist theory can be consequentialized. (...) I explain the motivation for the consequentializing project and defend it against recent criticisms by Mark Schroeder and others. (shrink)

It seems like a problem to say that love can be merited—its value is located in its transcendence of comparative judgments. However, we commonly make judgments about who is and is not worth loving. We deem certain romantic partners, friends, and family members as worth or not worth our loving time, attention, and effort. In this paper, I argue that love can be merited, and it is merited because of a person’s intrinsic valuable qualities. However, it is not the fact (...) that such qualities can be compared that is relevant. What is relevant is the fact that such qualities are gradable, and what it means for someone to merit love is that their qualities meet a threshold or standard of value for love. Moreover, love requires some amount of practical wisdom in discerning these thresholds and when someone meets or fails to meet them. This is important to recognize since we are creatures of finite love. We do not have the capacity to love everyone who is both worthy and unworthy of love. Given our finite capacities, I argue that making wise and discerning judgments about whom to love should be kept in mind when philosophizing about love. (shrink)

Informing others about the world is often a helpful act. In this paper, I study agents who conduct experiments to gather information about the world, committing in advance to fully disclose the nature of the experiment together with all experimental findings. While this appears to be a benign activity, I characterize a type of exploitative informing that is possible even within this restricted setup. I show how exploitative informants use public experiments to predictably manipulate interlocutors’ beliefs and actions to their (...) own advantage. I discuss epistemic and practical grounds on which it may be permissible for agents to resist acts of exploitative informing, then conclude by discussing implications for epistemic injustice and duties to gather evidence. (shrink)

What justifies political power? Most philosophers argue that consent or democracy are important, in other words, it matters how power is exercised. But this book argues that outcomes primarily matter to justifying power.

Ordinary and philosophical thought suggests recognizing a distinction between two ways something can be of final value. Something can be of final value in virtue of its connection to other things of value (“non-basic final value”) or something can be of final value regardless of its connection to other things of value (“basic final value”). The primary aim of this paper is to provide an account of this distinction. I argue that we have reason to draw this distinction as it (...) helps avoid certain problems. I criticize accounts of this distinction due to Warren Quinn, Fred Feldman, and Michael Zimmerman. I then provide my own positive account which incorporates several of the insights of those accounts while avoiding their pitfalls. I conclude by relating my account to issues concerning partiality and appropriate attitudes. (shrink)

What are the fundamental divisions in ethics? Which divisions capture the most important and basic options in moral theorizing? In this article, I reject the ‘Textbook View’ which takes the tripartite division between consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics to be fundamental. Instead, I suggest that moral theories are fundamentally divided into three independent divisions, which I call the neutral/relative division, the normative priority division, and the maximizing division. I argue that this account of the fundamental divisions of ethics better captures (...) the main concerns that normative ethicists have when assessing moral theories. It also helps us make progress in comparative ethics and makes visible theoretical possibilities obscured by the Textbook View. (shrink)

This paper offers a partial defence of the Epicurean claim that death is not bad for the one who dies. Unlike Epicurus and his present-day advocates, this defence relies not on a hedonistic or empiricist conception of value but on the concept of ‘existential’ value. Existential value is agent-relative value for which it is constitutive that it can be truly self-ascribed in the first person and present tense. From this definition, it follows that death (post-mortem non-existence), while perhaps bad in (...) some respects, cannot be an existential harm for the one who dies. This paper argues that existential goods are central to any explanation of why life appears good to us from a self-interested perspective, which means that death is not bad in the very respect in which life is most saliently good (from that perspective). A corresponding error theory shows why this truth is easily overlooked and explains why we tend to think that death is significantly worse than it really is. (shrink)

This is an encyclopedia entry on consequentializing. It explains what consequentializing is, what makes it possible, why someone might be motivated to consequentialize, and how to consequentialize a non-consequentialist theory.

I propose and defend a novel view called “de se consequentialism,” which is noteworthy for two reasons. First, it demonstrates—contra Doug Portmore, Mark Schroeder, Campbell Brown, and Michael Smith, among others—that agent-neutral consequentialism is consistent with agent-centered constraints. Second, it clarifies the nature of agent-centered constraints, thereby meriting attention from even dedicated nonconsequentialists. Scrutiny reveals that moral theories in general, whether consequentialist or not, incorporate constraints by assessing states in a first-personal guise. Consequently, de se consequentialism enacts constraints through the (...) very same feature that nonconsequentialist theories do. (shrink)

The verdicts standard consequentialism gives about what we are obligated to do crucially depend on what theory of value the consequentialist accepts. This makes it hard to say what separates standard consequentialist theories from non-consequentialist theories. This article discusses how we can draw sharp lines separating standard consequentialist theories from other theories and what assumptions about goodness we must make in order to draw these lines. The discussion touches on cases of deontic constraints, cases of deontic options, and cases involved (...) in the so-called "actualism"/"possibilism" debate. What emerges is that there are various interesting patterns relating the different commitments of consequentialism, different principles about obligation and about goodness, and different rules concerning how facts about values determine facts about obligation. (shrink)

This paper claims that deontological and consequentialist ethics are best distinguished with reference to different assumptions concerning moral accountability and accounting. Deontological ethics can thereby be defended against the accusation of inordinate concern with the moral purity of agents. Moreover, deontological ethics can and should reject being based on the concept of agent-relative value. Even under the assumption that deontological ethics can be consequentialized, agent-relative value need not play a fundamental role. This is not the same as denying agent-relativity a (...) key role in deontological ethics. Deontological moral accounting of universal value should be regarded as agent-relative, whereas consequentialist accounting assumes a shared moral account of all moral agents. (shrink)

Consequentialists say we may always promote the good. Deontologists object: not if that means killing one to save five. “Consequentializers” reply: this act is wrong, but it is not for the best, since killing is worse than letting die. I argue that this reply undercuts the “compellingness” of consequentialism, which comes from an outcome-based view of action that collapses the distinction between killing and letting die.

This essay begins by describing T.M. Scanlon’s contractualism according to which an action is right when it is authorised by the moral principles no one could reasonably reject. This view has argued to have implausible consequences with regards to how different-sized groups, non-human animals, and cognitively limited human beings should be treated. It has also been accused of being theoretically redundant and unable to vindicate the so-called deontic distinctions. I then distinguish between the general contractualist framework and Scanlon’s version of (...) contractualism. I explain how the general framework enables us to formulate many other versions of contractualism some of which can already be found in the literature. Understanding contractualism in this new way enables us both to understand the structural similarities and differences between different versions of contractualism and also to see the different objections to contractualism as internal debates about which version of contractualism is correct. (shrink)

Deontic constraints prohibit an agent performing acts of a certain type even when doing so will prevent more instances of that act being performed by others. In this article I show how deontic constraints can be interpreted as either maximizing or non-maximizing rules. I then argue that they should be interpreted as maximizing rules because interpreting them as non-maximizing rules results in a problem with moral advice. Given this conclusion, a strong case can be made that consequentialism provides the best (...) account of deontic constraints. (shrink)

In traditional consequentialism the good is position-neutral. A single evaluative ranking of states of affairs is correct for everyone, everywhere regardless of their positions. Recently, position-relative forms of consequentialism have been developed. These allow for the correct rankings of states to depend on connections that hold between the state being evaluated and the position of the evaluator. For example, perhaps being an agent who acts in a certain state requires me to rank that state differently from someone else who lacks (...) this connection. In this chapter several different kinds of position-relative rankings related to agents, times, physical locations, and possible worlds are explored. Arguments for and against adopting a position-relative axiology are examined, and it is suggested that position-relative consequentialism is a promising moral theory that has been underestimated. (shrink)

Consequentialism is a state of affairs centered moral theory that finds support in state of affairs centered views of value, reason, action, and desire/preference. Together these views form a mutually reinforcing circle. I map an exit route out of this circle by distinguishing between two different senses in which actions can be understood as bringing about states of affairs. All actions, reasons, desires, and values involve bringing about in the first, deflationary sense, but only some appear to involve bringing about (...) in a second, rationalizing sense. I demonstrate that the views making up this circle hold, implausibly, that all reasons, values, desires, and actions involve bringing about in both senses, and that failure to distinguish these senses obscures the implausibility of these views as a set. I demonstrate, in addition, that the distinction blocks two common arguments that otherwise threaten to leverage us back in to the consequentialist circle. (shrink)

We all have agent-relative permissions to give extra weight to our own well-being. If you and two strangers are drowning, and you can save either yourself or two strangers, you have an agent-relative permission to save yourself. But is it possible for you to ‘vest’ your agent-relative permissions in a third party – a ‘proxy’ – who can enact your agent-centered permissions on your behalf, thereby permitting her to do what would otherwise be impermissible? Some might think that the answer (...) is ‘no’; it is definitive of agent-centered permissions that they apply only to the individuals ineliminably referenced in the content of that reason, which means that they lack reason-giving force for any ostensible proxy. The purpose of this paper is to show that vesting agent-relative permissions is indeed possible, provide an account of how agent-relative permissions are vested by considering the structure of rights more generally, and show that we have a right to vest such permission in this way. (shrink)

abstractThe paper explores a new interpretation of the consequentializing project. Three prominent interpretations are criticized for neglecting the explanatory dimension of moral theories. Instead...

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 (...) deontological ethical theory into the apparatus of decision theory. I show that the first approach faces insurmountable obstacles, while the second holds much more promise for deontologists than they might first have assumed. (shrink)

According to the guise of the good thesis, we desire things under the ‘guise of the good.’ Here I sympathetically articulate a generic formulation of the guise of the good thesis, and addre...

I challenge the common picture of the “Standard Story” of Action as a neutral account of action within which debates in normative ethics can take place. I unpack three commitments that are implicit in the Standard Story, and demonstrate that these commitments together entail a teleological conception of reasons, upon which all reasons to act are reasons to bring about states of affairs. Such a conception of reasons, in turn, supports a consequentialist framework for the evaluation of action, upon which (...) the normative status of actions is properly determined through appeal to rankings of states of affairs as better and worse. This covert support for consequentialism from the theory of action, I argue, has had a distorting effect on debates in normative ethics. I then present challenges to each of these three commitments, a challenge to the first commitment by T.M. Scanlon, a challenge to the second by recent interpreters of Anscombe, and a new challenge to the third commitment that requires only minimal and prima facie plausible modifications to the Standard Story. The success of any one of the challenges, I demonstrate, is sufficient to block support from the theory of action for the teleological conception of reasons and the consequentialist evaluative framework. I close by demonstrating the pivotal role that such arguments grounded in the theory of action play in the current debate between evaluator-relative consequentialists and their critics. (shrink)

We present a new “reason-based” approach to the formal representation of moral theories, drawing on recent decision-theoretic work. We show that any moral theory within a very large class can be represented in terms of two parameters: a specification of which properties of the objects of moral choice matter in any given context, and a specification of how these properties matter. Reason-based representations provide a very general taxonomy of moral theories, as differences among theories can be attributed to differences in (...) their two key parameters. We can thus formalize several distinctions, such as between consequentialist and non-consequentialist theories, between universalist and relativist theories, between agent-neutral and agent-relative theories, between monistic and pluralistic theories, between atomistic and holistic theories, and between theories with a teleological structure and those without. Reason-based representations also shed light on an important but under-appreciated phenomenon: the “underdetermination of moral theory by deontic content”. (shrink)

According to T. M. Scanlon's buck‐passing account, the normative realm of reasons is in some sense prior to the domain of value. Intrinsic value is not itself a property that provides us with reasons; rather, to be good is to have some other reason‐giving property, so that facts about intrinsic value amount to facts about how we have reason to act and to respond. The paper offers an interpretation and defense of this approach to the relation between reasons and values. (...) I start by acknowledging the role that substantive values play in specifications of our reasons, noting that this poses an apparent challenge to the buck‐passing account. The challenge can be met, however, if we adopt a deliberative understanding of substantive value, an interpretation that I proceed to develop and defend. In conclusion I consider recent attempts to capture the agent‐relativity of reasons within a teleological framework for thinking about the relation between reasons and values. I argue that these approaches rest on a deliberative understanding of value; the teleological framework thus turns out to illustrate the basic insight of the buck‐passing approach, rather than offering an alternative to it. (shrink)

Recently, a number of philosophers have argued that we can and should “consequentialize” non-consequentialist moral theories, putting them into a consequentialist framework. I argue that these philosophers, usually treated as a group, in fact offer three separate arguments, two of which are incompatible. I show that none represent significant threats to a committed non-consequentialist, and that the literature has suffered due to a failure to distinguish these arguments. I conclude by showing that the failure of the consequentializers’ arguments has implications (...) for disciplines, such as economics, logic, decision theory, and linguistics, which sometimes use a consequentialist structure to represent non-consequentialist ethical theories. (shrink)

This paper develops the Value-Based Theory of Reasons in some detail. The central part of the paper introduces a number of theoretically puzzling features of normative reasons. These include weight, transmission, overlap, and the promiscuity of reasons. It is argued that the Value-Based Theory of Reasons elegantly accounts for these features. This paper is programmatic. Its goal is to put the promising but surprisingly overlooked Value-Based Theory of Reasons on the table in discussions of normative reasons, and to draw attention (...) to a number of areas for fruitful further research. (shrink)

According to a naïve view sometimes apparent in the writings of moral philosophers, ‘ought’ often expresses a relation between agents and actions – the relation that obtains between an agent and an action when that action is what that agent ought to do. It is not part of this naïve view that ‘ought’ always expresses this relation – on the contrary, adherents of the naïve view are happy to allow that ‘ought’ also has an epistemic sense, on which it means, (...) roughly, that some proposition is likely to be the case, and adherents of the naïve view are also typically happy to allow that ‘ought’ also has an evaluative sense, on which it means, roughly, that were things ideal, some proposition would be the case.1 What is important to the naïve view is not that these other senses of ‘ought’ do not exist, but rather that they are not exhaustive – for what they leave out, is the important deliberative sense of ‘ought’, which is the central subject of moral inquiry about what we ought to do and why – and it is this deliberative sense of ‘ought’ which the naïve view understands to express a relation between agents and actions.2 In contrast, logically and linguistically sophisticated philosophers – with a few notable exceptions3 – have rejected this naïve view. According to a dominant perspective in the interpretation of deontic logic and in linguistic semantics, for example, articulated by Roderick Chisholm (1964) and Bernard Williams (1981) in philosophy and in the dominant paradigm in linguistic semantics as articulated in particular by.. (shrink)

For a long time many philosophers felt the incoherence objection was a decisive objection to rule-consequentialism, but that position has recently become less secure, because Brad Hooker has offered a clever new way for rule-consequentialists to avoid the incoherence objection. Hooker’s response defeats traditional forms of the incoherence objection, but this paper argues that another version of the problem remains. Several possible solutions fail. One other does not, but it introduces other problems into the theory. I conclude that the new (...) incoherence objection still poses a major challenge to rule-consequentialism, though not for the reasons usually assumed. It does not constitute a fatal objection to rule-consequentialism but instead highlights a theoretical drawback in the theory which must be taken into account during a more holistic evaluation of rule-consequentialism and its rivals. (shrink)

The paper presents main conceptual distinctions underlying much of modern philosophical thinking about value. The introductory Section 1 is followed in Section 2 by an outline of the contrast between non-relational value and relational value. In Section 3, the focus is on the distinction between final and non-final value as well as on different kinds of final value. In Section 4, we consider value relations, such as being better/worse/equally good/on a par. Recent discussions suggest that we might need to considerably (...) extend traditional taxonomies of value relations. (shrink)

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). (shrink)

Morality seems important, in the sense that there are practical reasons — at least for most of us, most of the time — to be moral. A central theoretical motivation for consequentialism is that it appears clear that there are practical reasons to promote good outcomes, but mysterious why we should care about non-consequentialist moral considerations or how they could be genuine reasons to act. In this paper we argue that this theoretical motivation is mistaken, and that because many arguments (...) for consequentialism rely upon it, the mistake substantially weakens the overall case for consequentialism. We argue that there is indeed a theoretical connection between good states and reasons to act, because good states are those it is fitting to desire and there is a conceptual connection between the fittingness of a motive and reasons to perform the acts it motivates. But while some of our motives are directed at states, others are directed at acts themselves. We contend that just as the fittingness of desires for states generates reasons to promote the good, the fittingness of these act-directed motives generates reasons to do other things. Moreover, we argue that an act’s moral status consists in the fittingness of act-directed feelings of obligation to perform or avoid performing it, so the connection between fitting motives and reasons to act explains reasons to be moral whether or not morality directs us to promote the good. This, we contend, de-mystifies how there could be non-consequentialist reasons that are both moral and practical. (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)

Philosophers have used the terms 'impersonal' and 'personal value' to refer to, among others things, whether something's value is universal or particular to an individual. In this paper, I propose an account of impersonal value that, I argue, better captures the intuitive distinction than potential alternatives, while providing conceptual resources for moving beyond the traditional stark dichotomy. I illustrate the practical importance of my theoretical account with reference to debate over the evaluative scope of cultural heritage.

The practices of using hostages to obtain concessions and using human shields to deter aggression share an important characteristic which warrants a univocal reference to both sorts of conduct: they both involve manipulating our commitment to morality, as a means to achieving wrongful ends. I call this type of conduct “moral coercion”. In this paper I (a) present an account of moral coercion by linking it to coercion more generally, (b) determine whether and to what degree the coerced agent is (...) liable for the harms resulting from acceding to moral coercion, and (c) investigate factors relevant to determining whether we ought to accede to moral coercion. In so doing, I provide grounds for the intuition that we “allow evil to succeed” when we accede to moral coercion. (shrink)

According to an influential tradition in value analysis, to be valuable is to be a fitting object of a pro-attitude – a fitting object of favoring. If it is fitting to favor an object for its own sake, then, in this view, the object has final value. If it is fitting to favor an object for the sake of its effects, then its value is instrumental. Disvalue is connected in the analogous way to disfavoring, i.e., to con-attitudes. For a history (...) of this fitting-attitudes analysis, or FA-analysis for short, see the following text. The label itself was coined rather recently, though, in Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen. (shrink)

This paper presents a new objection to the buck-passing account of value. I distinguish the buck-passing account of predicative value from the buck-passing account of attributive value. According to the latter, facts about attributive value reduce to facts about reasons and their weights. But since facts about reasons’ weights are themselves facts about attributive value, this account presupposes what it is supposed to explain. As part of this argument, I also argue against Mark Schroeder's recent account of the weights of (...) reasons, which purports to explain the weights of reasons in terms of further reasons without circularity. I then argue that if we abandon the buck-passing account of attributive value, it would be ad hoc and unjustifiable to continue to endorse the buck-passing account of predicative value. In short, there seems to be little hope for the buck-passing account in either form. The paper ends by sketching a novel alternative theory according to which reasons are analysed in terms of the attributive value of motives. I suggest that a normative reason to is something that would be a good motive for -ing. At least at first glance, this view has numerous merits and few problems. (shrink)

Consequentialism is often criticized for rendering morality too pervasive. One somewhat neglected manifestation of this pervasiveness is the obligatory self-benefit objection. According to this objection, act-consequentialism has the counterintuitive result that certain self-benefitting actions turn out, ceteris paribus, to be morally obligatory rather than morally optional. The purposes of this paper are twofold. First, I consider and reject four strategies with which consequentialists might answer the obligatory self-benefit objection. Despite the apparent consequentialist credentials of these answers, none of these strategies (...) is adequate because each fails to justify agents failing to benefit themselves when benefiting themselves would be otherwise required by the imperative that overall good meet a certain threshold. Second, I argue that no plausible consequentialist response to this objection is forthcoming because consequentialism denies the central axiological fact propelling this objection, namely, that the self possesses a normative architecture relating the self as agent and self as patient. This architecture, I propose, justifies the option not to benefit oneself. (shrink)