scholarly journals Consequentialism and Promises

2020 ◽  
pp. 288-309
Author(s):  
Alida Liberman
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Moral Force ◽  
Intrinsic Good ◽  
Common Sense Morality ◽  
Promise Keeping ◽  
Promissory Obligation

I explore the debate about whether consequentialist theories can adequately accommodate the moral force of promissory obligation. I outline a straightforward act consequentialist account grounded in the value of satisfying expectations, and I raise and assess three objections to this account: that it counterintuitively predicts that certain promises should be broken when common-sense morality insists that they should be kept, that the account is circular, and Michael Cholbi’s argument that this account problematically implies that promise-making is frequently obligatory. I then discuss alternative act consequentialist accounts, including Philip Pettit’s suggestion that promise-keeping is an intrinsic good and Michael Smith’s agent-relative account. I outline Brad Hooker’s rule consequentialist account of promissory obligation and raise a challenge for it. I conclude that appeals to intuitions about cases will not settle the dispute, and that consequentialists and their critics must instead engage in substantive debate about the nature and stringency of promissory obligation.

Moral Responsibility for Unwitting Omissions

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana Kay Nelkin ◽  
Samuel C. Rickless
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Value Judgments ◽  
Moral Significance ◽  
Common Sense Morality ◽  
And Control

Unwitting omissions pose a challenge for theories of moral responsibility. For common-sense morality holds many unwitting omitters morally responsible for their omissions, even though they appear to lack both awareness and control. People who leave dogs in their car on a hot day or forget to pick something up from the store as they promised seem to be blameworthy. If moral responsibility requires awareness of one’s omission and its moral significance, it appears that the protagonists of these cases are not morally responsible. This chapter considers and rejects a number of influential views on this problem, including a view that grounds responsibility for such omissions in previous exercises of conscious agency, and “Attributionist” views that ground responsibility for such omissions in the value judgments or other aspects of the agents’ selves. The chapter proposes a new tracing view that grounds responsibility for unwitting omissions in past opportunities to avoid them.

Act Consequentialism and Common Sense Morality

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek Parfit
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Act Consequentialism ◽  
Common Sense Morality

This chapter reveals some insights into act consequentialism. It begins with the claim that it would often be wrong to treat people in certain ways, such as deceiving or coercing them, or breaking our promises to them, even when such acts would make things go better. The chapter then turns to deontic and non-deontic badness. These are different kinds of badness, as is shown by cases in which such acts are not wrong, because their non-deontic badness is outweighed by the goodness of their effects. Since these acts would have this intrinsic badness, though they would not be wrong, it could not be their wrongness that made them intrinsically bad.

Common-Sense Morality and Consequentialism. Michael Slote

Ethics ◽  
1987 ◽  
Vol 98 (1) ◽  
pp. 168-172
Author(s):  
Dale Jamieson
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Michael Slote ◽  
Common Sense Morality

Respect for persons

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Hill
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Special Kind ◽  
Respect For Persons ◽  
Moral Requirement ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Theoretical Status ◽  
Moral Duties ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Common Sense Morality

The idea that one should treat persons with due respect is an important part of common sense morality, but opinions differ about when respect is called for, what it requires, and why. Respect for persons is also a central concept in many ethical theories. Some theories even hold respect for persons to be the foundation of all other moral duties and obligations. Respect is distinguished commonly, on one side, from fear and submission, and on another, from admiration, liking and affection. Respect for all persons as such is distinguished normally from esteem or special regard for persons of unusual merit. Some philosophers identify respect with agapē, a special kind of love, but respect is perhaps most often regarded as a distinct attitude that should constrain and complement the promptings of love. Kant, for example, held that the requirements of respect and love are different, though compatible, and that both are dependent upon the more general and fundamental idea that humanity in every person is an end in itself. Other key issues in discussions of respect for persons include: what moral requirement, if any, there is to respect all persons; what the grounds, scope, and theoretical status are of that requirement; whether one can forfeit all claim to respect as a person; what ‘respect for persons’ demands with regard to specific problems, such as conflicts rooted in race and gender differences; and whether there is the same ground and obligation to respect oneself as to respect others.

A Challenge to Common Sense Morality

Ethics ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 108 (2) ◽  
pp. 394-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeff McMahan
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Common Sense Morality

Common-Sense Morality and Consequentialism

2009 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 116-118
Author(s):  
R. W. BEARDSMORE
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Common Sense Morality

Agent-Relative and Agent-Neutral Reasons

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krister Bykvist
Keyword(s):  
Explicit Form ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Main Question ◽  
Recent Contribution ◽  
Level Of Significance ◽  
High Level ◽  
Common Sense Morality

The distinction between agent-relative and agent-neutral reasons, at least in its explicit form, is a fairly recent contribution to normative ethics. That the distinction is both well-defined and significant is often taken for granted in contemporary normative ethics. For example, it is supposed to help us characterize many aspects of common-sense morality, such as personal duties, and deontological restrictions or constraints. The main question of this chapter is whether there is a well-defined distinction between agent-relative and agent-neutral reasons that has this high level of significance. Is the distinction really “an extremely important one,” as Nagel said, or perhaps even one of “the greatest contributions of recent ethics,” as Tom Hurka suggests? A variety of accounts of this distinction is discussed and it is argued that none live up to this hype, at least if the distinction is supposed not to beg other important questions in normative ethics.

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