The rights and wrongs of consequentialism |
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Authors: | Brian McElwee |
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Institution: | (1) Lincoln College, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK |
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Abstract: | I argue that the strongest form of consequentialism is one which rejects the claim that we are morally obliged to bring about
the best available consequences, but which continues to assert that what there is most reason to do is bring about the best
available consequences. Such an approach promises to avoid common objections to consequentialism, such as demandingness objections.
Nevertheless, the onus is on the defender of this approach either to offer her own account of what moral obligations we do
face, or to explain why offering such a theory is ill-advised. I consider, and reject, one attempt at the second sort of strategy,
put forward by Alastair Norcross, who defends a ‘scalar’ consequentialism which eschews the moral concepts of right, wrong
and obligation, and limits itself to claims about what is better and worse. I go on to raise some considerations which suggest
that no systematic consequentialist theory of our moral obligations will be plausible, and propose instead that consequentialism
should have a more informal and indirect role in shaping what we take our moral obligations to be. |
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