According to a simple form of consequentialism, we should base decisions on our judgments about their consequences for achieving our goals. Our goals give us reason to endorse consequentialism as a standard of decision making. Alternative standards invariably lead to consequences that are less good in this sense. Yet some people knowingly follow decision rules that violate consequentialism. For example, they prefer harmful omissions to less harmful acts, they favor the status quo over alternatives they would otherwise judge to be (...) belter, they provide third-party compensation on the basis of the cause of an injury rather than the benefit from the compensation, they ignore deterrent effects in decisions about punishment, and they resist coercive reforms they judge to be beneficial. I suggest that nonconsequentialist principles arise from overgeneralizing rules that are consistent with consequentialism in a limited set of cases. Commitment to such rules is detached from their original purposes. The existence of such nonconsequentialist decision biases has implications for philosophical and experimental methodology, the relation between psychology and public policy, and education. (shrink)

When it comes to epistemic normativity, should we take the good to be prior to the right? That is, should we ground facts about what we ought and ought not believe on a given occasion in facts about the value of being in certain cognitive states (such as, for example, the value of having true beliefs)? The overwhelming answer among contemporary epistemologists is “Yes, we should.” This essay argues to the contrary. Just as taking the good to be prior to (...) the right in ethics often leads one to sanction implausible trade-offs when determining what an agent should do, so too, this essay argues, taking the good to be prior to the right in epistemology leads one to sanction implausible trade-offs when determining what a subject should believe. Epistemic value—and, by extension, epistemic goals—are not the explanatory foundation upon which all other normative notions in epistemology rest. (shrink)

In the long history of moral theory, non-human animals—hereafter, just animals—have often been neglected entirely or have been relegated to some secondary status. Since its emergence in the early 19th century, utilitarianism has made a difference in that respect by focusing upon happiness or well-being (and their contraries) rather than upon the beings who suffer or enjoy. Inevitably, that has meant that human relations to and use of other animals have appeared in a different light. Some cases have seemed easy: (...) once admit that the interests of animals matter and there can be little hesitation in condemning their cruel treatment. Among the more difficult cases has been the bearing of utilitarianism upon the use of animals in various kinds of research where, though the animals might suffer, there were believed to be prospects of great human benefit and where no cruel or malicious motives need be involved. What I shall provide in the current paper is an extended discussion of the bearing of utilitarianism upon practices of animal research. Since such practices have attracted both utilitarian criticism and defense, this will require the examination of arguments on both sides, including consideration of the human benefits, the animal costs, and the ways in which the one can be weighed against the other. (shrink)

I argue that you can be permitted to discount the interests of your adversaries even though doing so would be impartially suboptimal. This means that, in addition to the kinds of moral options that the literature traditionally recognises, there exist what I call other-sacrificing options. I explore the idea that you cannot discount the interests of your adversaries as much as you can favour the interests of your intimates; if this is correct, then there is an asymmetry between negative partiality (...) toward your adversaries and positive partiality toward your intimates. (shrink)

Martha C. Nussbaum, in the context of ancient philosophy, formulated ethics of human development based on 10 basic human capabilities as a precondition of meaningful human development, i.e. the ability to live a dignified human life. The paper, thus, deals with a capabilities approach with the aim of analysing the content of the idea of human dignity in Nussbaum’s understanding and its place in the conception of ethics of human development, since human dignity is the very core of the conception (...) in question. (shrink)

This thesis comprises a study of the ethical thought of Iris Murdoch with special emphasis, as evidenced by the title, on how morality is intimately connected to self-improvement aiming at perfection and how the study of fiction has an important role to play in our strive towards bettering ourselves within the framework set by Murdoch’s moral philosophy.

It is common for moral philosophers to reject a moral theory on the basis that its verdicts are unreasonably demanding—it requires too much of us to be a correct account of our moral obligations. Even though such objections frequently strike us as convincing, they give rise to two challenges: Are demandingness objections really independent of other objections to moral theories? Do standard demandingness objections not presuppose that costs borne by the comfortably off are more important than costs borne by the (...) poor? These challenges have led some writers to question whether there really can be convincing demandingness objections, notwithstanding their strong initial appeal. David Sobel has argued that standard demandingness objections are ‘impotent’, Liam Murphy that they can be ‘dissolved’. In this paper, I aim to vindicate the possibility of demandingness objections by addressing these two challenges. (shrink)

In their article, “Shrewd Bargaining on the Moral Frontier,” J. Gregory Dees and Peter C. Crampton challenge us with a puzzle about deception in bargaining. How can the practice of misleading others about our settlement preferences—the terms on which we are willing to come to an agreement —possibly be justified? On any standard ethical theory, they claim, Brer Rabbit's trick of professing fear of the briar patch in order to avoid being eaten by the fox would seem to be wrong, (...) and yet we read this tale to our children for their moral edification. The discussion by Dees and Crampton of this apparent inconsistency is penetrating, instructive, and well-informed. It is also a delight to read. (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)

This thesis is about what a normative reason is and how reasons relate to oughts. I argue that normative reasons are to be understood as relational properties of favouring or disfavouring. I then examine the question: What is the relation between reasons, so understood, and what we ought to do, believe, or feel? I argue that the relation is an explanatory one. We should explain what we ought to do in terms of reasons, and not the other way around. This (...) view faces a number of difficulties, in particular in accounting for supererogatory acts and the distinction between an action being required and an action being recommended. The analysis that I provide explains how we can solve these problems. In providing such an analysis, this thesis aims to be a contribution to the discussion of how we might elucidate the structure of what is sometimes called normativity. (shrink)

I want to look at one aspect of the human good: how it serves as the basis for judgments about the moral right. One important view is that the right is always derived from the good. I want to suggest that the more one understands the nature of the human good, the more reservations one has about that view. I. One Route to Consequentialism Many of us think that different things make a life good, with no one deep value underlying (...) them all. My own list includes: enjoyment, accomplishing something with one's life, deep personal relations, certain sorts of understanding, and the elements of a characteristically human existence. Most of us also think that moral right and wrong are based, in some way or other, in how well individual lives go, and that the moral point of view is, in some sense or other, impartial between lives. Utilitarianism is a prominent, but not the only, way of spelling out this intuition. There is no reason why an account of the human good needs to be confined, in the classical utilitarian way, to happiness or to fulfillment of desire. Nor is there any reason why impartiality has to be confined to maximizing the good, counting everybody for one and nobody for more than one. We may generalize. Let us broaden the notion of the good. We might say, for instance, that though happiness is a good, so are the other items on my list. But though broadened, this notion of the good stays within the confines of individual goods; it still has to do with human well-being, with what promotes the quality of one person's life. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe standard view of demandingness understands demandingness exclusively as a matter of costs to the agent. The paper discusses whether the standard view must be given up because we should think of demandingness as a matter of difficulty or restriction of options. I will argue that difficulty can indeed increase demandingness, but only insofar as it leads to further costs. As to restrictions of options, I will show that confinement can become costly and thus increase demandingness in three ways, by (...) prohibiting actions that the agent wants to perform in order to promote his well-being, by limiting the development of future preferences and projects and also by making the society less open. The paper thus defends a new variant of the standard view by arguing that difficulty and restrictions of options can increase the demandingness of morality on grounds of being costly. (shrink)

According to a simple form of consequentialism, we should base decision on our judgments about their consequences for achieving out goals. Our goals give us reason to endorse consequentialism as a standard of decision making. Alternative standards invariably lead to consequences that are less good in this sense. Yet some people knowingly follow decision rules that violate consequentialism. For example, they prefer harmful omissions to less harmful acts, they favor the status quo over alternatives they would otherwise judge to be (...) better, they provide third-party compensation on the basis of the cause of an injury rather than the benefit from the compensation, they ignore deterrent effects in decisions about punishment, and they resist coercive reforms they judge to be beneficial. I suggest that nonconsequentialist principles arise from overgeneralizing rules that are consistent with consequentialism in a limited set of cases. Commitment to such rules is detached from their original purposes. The existence of such nonconsequentialist decision biases has implications for philosophical and experimental methodology, the relation between psychology and public policy, and education. (shrink)

Having taught management ethics for several years, I have been repeatedly frustrated by the practical mismatch between management problems and moral philosophy…. Unless we can connect ethical theory more closely with management practice, we may be dressing our business curriculum windows with philosophical finery but failing to meet the urgent need for clarity of thought in management ethics.