Opting for the Best

The book concerns what is, perhaps, the least controversial normative principle concerning action: you ought to perform your best option—best, that is, in terms of whatever ultimately matters. The book sets aside the question of what ultimately matters so as to focus on the following questions. What are our options? Which options do we assess directly in terms of their own goodness and which do we assess in terms of the goodness of the more encompassing options of which they’re a proper part? What do we hold fixed when assessing how good an option is? Do we, for instance, hold fixed the agent’s present beliefs, desires, and intentions? And do we hold fixed the agent’s predictable future misbehavior? The book argues that addressing these sorts of questions is the key to solving certain puzzles concerning what we ought to do, including those involving supererogation, indeterminate outcomes, overdetermined outcomes, and predictable future misbehavior. One of the book’s more controversial theses is that we have obligations not only to voluntarily perform certain actions, but also to nonvoluntarily form certain reasons-responsive attitudes (e.g., desires, beliefs, and intentions). This is important because what effect an act will have on the world depends not only on which acts the agent will simultaneously and subsequently be performing but also on which attitudes she will simultaneously and subsequently be forming.