Denying the Suberogatory |
| |
Authors: | Hallie Rose Liberto |
| |
Institution: | (1) Department of Philosophy, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA |
| |
Abstract: | Julia Driver has argued that there is a special set of actions, lodged between neutral actions and wrongful actions called
suberogatory actions. These actions are not impermissible, according to Driver, but still strike us as troubling or bad, and
are therefore worse than morally neutral (1992). Since this paper was written 20 years ago, many philosophers have utilized
or alluded to this moral territory. The existence of some action-types that are not wrong but still carry some dis-value has
become a staple in the realm of moral evaluation. However, Driver's argument for the existence of this moral territory amounts
to three types of moral cases that, according to Driver, can only be explained by the existence of the suberogatory. In this
short paper, I will respond by saying that we can account for these cases using our traditional notions of moral neutrality
and moral wrongness. The temptation of invoking the suberogatory is that it can be used as a substitute for answering a variety
of hard ethical questions. However appealing this substitute may be, we should resist it so long as the problem cases put
forward to motivate the new evaluative realm can be handled, and handled well, by our traditional apparatus. |
| |
Keywords: | |
本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|