The Broad Structure of Buddhist Ethics

This chapter argues that Buddhist ethics does not fit into any of the standard Western metaethical theories. It is neither an instance of a virtue theory, nor of a deontological theory, nor of a consequentialist theory. It is closer to a sentimentalist theory, but different from those as well. Instead, it defends a reading of Buddhist ethics as a moral phenomenology and as particularist, utilizing casuistic reasoning. That is, Buddhist ethics is concerned primarily with the transformation of experience, of the way we perceive ourselves and other moral agents and patients. This chapter also argues that the metaphor of path structures Buddhist ethical thought.

Applying utilitarianism to the presumed consent system for organ donation to consider the moral pros and cons

In May 2020, England adopted an opt-out approach for organ donation, also referred to as the deemed consent system, with the aim of alleviating the demand for organs in the UK. This system dictates that those who have not opted out will have their organs donated following their death, with the exception of those meeting certain criteria. This article applies the philosophical theory of utilitarianism to the deemed consent system for organ donation, focusing particularly on topics such as that of informed consent and family refusal. Utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory that attempts to determine whether an action is morally right or wrong based on whether or not it maximises the preferences of the greatest number of people, with each person's satisfaction being considered as equal to another's.

Rawlsian Contractualism and Healthcare Allocation: A response to Torbjörn Tännsjö

The consideration of the problem of healthcare allocation as a special case of distributive justice is especially alluring when we only consider consequentialist theories. I articulate here an alternative Rawlsian non-consequentialist theory which prioritizes the fairness of healthcare allocation procedures rather than directly setting distributive parameters. The theory in question stems from Rawlsian commitments that, it is argued, have a better Rawlsian pedigree than those considered as such by Tännsjö. The alternative framework is worthy of consideration on its own merits, but it also casts light on two related difficulties with Tännsjö’s approach: (i) the limits of his supposedly ecumenical methodology, which is revealed to be dialectically suspect and (ii) issues with the type of abstraction and idealization from actual judgements and preferences which the approach requires.

Kant and Consequentialism in Context: The SecondCritique’s Response to Pistorius

Commentators disagree about the extent to which Kant’s ethics is compatible with consequentialism. A question that has not yet been asked is whether Kant had a view of his own regarding the fundamental difference between his ethical theory and a broadly consequentialist one. In this paper I argue that Kant does have such a view. I illustrate this by discussing his response to a well-known objection to his moral theory, namely that Kant offers an implicitly consequentialist theory of moral appraisal. This objection was most famously raised by Mill and Schopenhauer, but also during Kant’s time by Pistorius and Tittel. I show that Kant’s response to this objection in the second Critique illustrates that he sees the fundamental difference between his moral theory and a broadly consequentialist one to be one that concerns methodology.

Effective Altruism

In this essay I examine the contemporary movement known as effective altruism (EA). I argue that most understandings of EA imply some version of consequentialism. That in itself may sound like a rather modest conclusion (dictated by a certain vagueness in EA and the cornucopia of forms of consequentialism), but the arguments for it illuminate aspects of both EA and consequentialism. I also argue that the claim that one is obligated to maximize the good is not essential to consequentialism, that in fact this is a difficult claim to defend, and that therefore the standard “demandingness objection” misses the target. Nevertheless, what is essential to any consequentialist theory is the view that producing more good is always morally better than producing less. Deontological criticisms of this view are familiar. I focus instead on its clash with common-sense views about moral goodness and admirability.

Morality by Degrees

Consequentialist theories of the right connect the rightness and wrongness (and related notions) of actions with the intrinsic goodness and badness of states of affairs consequential on those actions. The most popular such theory is maximization, which is said to demand of agents that they maximize the good, that they do the best they can, at all times. Thus it may seem that consequentialist theories are overly demanding, and, relatedly, that they cannot accommodate the phenomenon of going above and beyond the demands of duty (supererogation). However, a clear understanding of consequentialism leaves no room for a theory of the right, at least not at the fundamental level of the theory. A consequentialist theory, such as utilitarianism, is a theory of how to rank outcomes, and derivatively actions, which provides reasons for choosing some actions over others. It is thus a purely scalar theory, with no demands that certain actions be performed, and no fundamental classification of actions as right or wrong. However, such notions may have pragmatic benefits at the level of application, since many people find it easier to guide their conduct by simple commands, rather than to think in terms of reasons of varying strength to do one thing rather than another. A contextualist semantics for various terms, such as “right,” “permissible,” “harm,” when combined with the scalar approach to consequentialism, allows for the expression of truth-apt propositions with sentences containing such terms.

The Good of Consequentialized Deontology

This chapter critically discusses the hitherto most radical and ambitious proposal for accommodating consequentialism with our commonsense moral intuitions. According to this proposal, which has been most forcefully developed by Douglas Portmore, it is possible to consequentialize every plausible deontological moral theory, i.e., to translate a deontological theory into a consequentialist theory that yields exactly the same moral verdicts as the original deontological theory. The hoped for result of this move is a moral theory that (i) retains the compelling idea of consequentialism, (ii) has no counterintuitive moral implications, and (iii) avoids the paradox of deontology. After describing some of the details of the consequentializing procedure the chapter mounts several objections that lead to the conclusion that the consequentializing project cannot achieve any of its goals.

Epistemic Value and the Jamesian Goals

William James famously tells us that there are two main goals for rational believers: believing truth and avoiding error. Horowitz argues that epistemic consequentialism—in particular its embodiment in epistemic utility theory—seems to be well positioned to explain how epistemic agents might permissibly weight these goals differently. After all, practical versions of consequentialism render it permissible for agents with different goals to act differently in the same situation. Nevertheless, Horowitz argues that epistemic consequentialism doesn’t allow for this kind of permissivism and goes on to argue that this reveals a deep disanalogy between decision theory and the formally similar epistemic utility theory. This raises the question whether epistemic utility theory is a genuinely consequentialist theory at all.

Flourishing and Welfare

This chapter argues that the moral end of property is human flourishing, a concept which the author uses in a neo-Aristotelian sense. The bulk of the chapter is devoted to an analysis of the concept of human flourishing. It stresses three points: First, human flourishing, although overlapping at times with the concept of welfare, is fundamentally different from welfare. Second, human flourishing is a value-plural concept, encompassing multiple and incommensurable moral values; hence property has multiple ends. Third, property’s pluralistic moral foundation does not mean that rationality and consistency must be sacrificed when property’s various ends come into conflict. Value pluralism is reconcilable with both rational choice and rule-of-law values such as consistency. The human flourishing theory is a consequentialist theory, but in measuring human flourishing, its primary focus is on capabilities rather than resources, and thus the theory draws upon the capabilities approach of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum.

Objectivism and Prospectivism About Rightness

In this paper I present a new argument for prospectivism: the view that, for a consequentialist, rightness depends on what is prospectively best rather than what would actually be best. Prospective bestness depends on the agent’s epistemic position, though exactly how that works is not straightforward. I clarify various possible versions of prospectivism, which differ in how far they go in relativizing to the agent’s limitations. My argument for prospectivism is an argument for moderately objective prospectivism, according to which the right thing to do is what would make sense given reasonable beliefs, reasonable probability estimates and a reasonable understanding of value. My argument is an argument for this form of prospectivism over objectivism. Arguments about prospectivism and objectivism usually use an example with the following form: an agent has a choice between options – one she knows would be acceptable, while the other could either be catastrophic or very good. Objectivists argue that the right thing to do is what would in fact be best (though the agent cannot know which option that is) while prospectivists argue that the agent’s ignorance is relevant, and the right thing to do is to compromise. The question is how we should understand the underlying argument. It is not about action guidance. Moderately objective prospectivism is not action guiding, because an actual agent may not have access to reasonable beliefs, probability estimates and so on. Another common argument is that the objective notion is the primary one. I show that there are no good grounds for this claim. My argument uses the distinction between rightness and goodness to show that a consequentialist theory, that bases rightness on goodness, should take into account how much goodness is at stake. Crucially, potential losses as well as gains are relevant. So long as goodness, rather than rightness, is in the driving seat, we should not be “bestness fetishists.” As the name suggest, this would be an irrational privileging of the best option. This argument does not apply to pure deontology: a pure deontology does not use the notion of goodness at all, and so there is nothing to compromise with. If the agent does not know what is right, there is nothing further to say. I end by arguing against a recent strategy that aims to show that although objectivism is true (the right option is the best one), we should sometimes do what is wrong (i.e. what is prospectively best). I argue that insofar as this is correct, it is simply prospectivism with awkward terminology.