Incomparable Numbers

This chapter presents arguments for two slightly different versions of the thesis that the value of persons is incomparable. Both arguments allege an incompatibility between the demands of a certain kind of practical reasoning and the presuppositions of value comparisons. The significance of these claims is assessed in the context of the “Numbers problem”—the question of whether one morally ought to benefit one group of potential aid recipients rather than another simply because they are greater in number. It is argued that many of the popular approaches to this problem—even ones that avoid the aggregation of personal value—are imperiled by the incomparability theses.

A Kantian Solution to the Trolley Problem

This chapter proposes a solution to the Trolley Problem in terms of the Kantian prohibition on using a person ‘merely as a means.’ A solution of this type seems impossible due to the difficulties it is widely thought to encounter in the scenario known as the Loop case. The chapter offers a conception of ‘using merely as a means’ that explains the morally relevant difference between the classic Bystander and Footbridge cases. It then shows, contrary to the standard view, that a bystander who diverts the trolley in the Loop case need not be using someone ‘merely as a means’ in doing so. This makes it possible to show why the Loop scenario does not undermine the explanation of the salient moral difference between the Bystander and Footbridge cases.

The Rule Worship and Idealization Objections Revisited and Resisted

There are two familiar and important challenges to the rule consequentialist picture, Smart’s “rule worship objection” and the “idealization objection.” This chapter defends rule consequentialism (RC) against these challenges. It argues that to satisfactorily meet the rule worship objection, we need to reconceptualize RC. We need to think of it as not fundamentally a rival to act consequentialism or deontology or virtue theory. Instead, it can potentially adjudicate among these views. It is best viewed as a “second-order” theory that rests on a view about the nature and point of morality. The rule worship objection can be answered if we interpret RC in this way. The idealization objection can seem more difficult because it appears to arise from the basic RC approach to evaluating rules. This chapter suggests, however, that the idealization objection boils down to a familiar problem about conflicts of pro tanto duties. RC can handle it in the way that it handles such conflict.

Willful Ignorance and Moral Responsibility

Some agents are willfully ignorant regarding the behavior in which they propose to engage; they deliberately forgo the opportunity to inquire into the features that determine the behavior’s moral status. Examples include driving a car across an international border, suspecting that—but not verifying whether—the car contains contraband; buying cheap clothing, suspecting that—but not verifying whether—it was manufactured in a sweatshop; and so on. The law (when it applies) typically holds that such agents have no excuse for their ignorant wrongdoing, declaring them equally as culpable as those who engage in the same behavior but who are not ignorant of the relevant details. Legal and moral philosophers have tended to agree with this claim. This chapter argues that the case for equal culpability is not easily made.

Parfit on the Irrelevance of Deontological Distinctions

This chapter concerns Derek Parfit’s discussion in his On What Matters, volume 3 of the irrelevance of deontological distinctions. Parfit begins by expressing his concern that morality will be undermined because practical reason, which tells us all things considered what to do, will often conflict with what we consider to be morally right. Unlike Sidgwick, Parfit does not begin by identifying morality with a part of impartial practical reason but rather with what he considers common sense deontology. Also, unlike Sidgwick, he thinks it is clear that sometimes self-interest (which provides some reason even impartially considered) is overridden by (other) impartial practical reasons (e.g., there is decisive reason to give one’s penny to save millions of other people). This chapter first considers how Parfit thinks one’s practical reason should reconcile concerns about self-sacrifice, pursuing the greater good, and morality. It then considers his use of case-based reasoning to undermine moral principles embodying such distinctions as harming versus not aiding, harming as a mere means versus as a side effect, and redirecting threats (as in the Trolley Problem) versus starting new ones.

Introduction

Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics features new work in the field of normative ethical theory. This tenth volume features chapters on the following topics: defending deontology, justice as a personal virtue, willful ignorance and moral responsibility, moral obligation and epistemic risk, the so-called numbers problem in ethics, rule consequentialism, moral worth, respect and rational agency, a Kantian solution to the trolley problem, virtue and character, and the limits of virtue ethics....

The Limits of Virtue Ethics

Virtue ethics is often understood as a rival to existing consequentialist, deontological, and contractualist views. But some have disputed the position that virtue ethics is a genuine normative ethical rival. This chapter aims to crystallize the nature of this dispute by providing criteria that determine the degree to which a normative ethical theory is complete, and then investigating virtue ethics through the lens of these criteria. In doing so, it’s argued that no existing account of virtue ethics is a complete normative ethical view that rivals existing consequentialist, deontological, and contractualist views. Moreover, it is argued that one of the most significant challenges facing virtue ethics consists in offering an account of the right-making features of actions, while remaining a distinctively virtue ethical view.

Manifestations of Virtue

Few philosophers endorse a virtue theory of praiseworthiness. The widespread aversion to any virtue theory of moral worth rests chiefly on a skeptical argument that emphasizes the fact that praiseworthy acts can be performed by people who lack the relevant virtue. This chapter studies this skeptical argument closely. The response from virtue theorists has been to reject the premise of the argument by denying that someone can be fully praiseworthy for an act without possessing the relevant virtue. This chapter claims that this reply is unlikely to succeed. In its place, it argues that the skeptic’s core premise has been misleadingly characterized and used to conceal a questionable inference. The chapter concludes that it is possible for the virtue theory of praiseworthiness to escape the grip of the skeptical argument.

After Aristotle’s Justice

To the extent that we are interested in justice as a virtue of character, we might start with Aristotle’s conception, but a fresh look at justice can, potentially, open avenues of thought in more than one direction. The fruits of interaction between Aristotelian and Kantian thought have been manifest in a wide variety of ways in recent years, and this chapter aspires to rethink the virtue of justice in this light. It aims to offer a first cut at a conception of a virtue of justice that draws on both traditions. Its Aristotelian provenance provides the general understanding of virtue employed, and accepts Aristotle’s general picture of virtue and its centrality to the good life and to happiness. The Kantian (and contractualist) part of the union provides content for justice as a distinctive virtue of character.

Moral Obligation and Epistemic Risk

This chapter concerns pernicious predictive inferences: taking someone to be likely to possess a socially disvalued trait based on statistical information about the prevalence of that trait within a social group to which she belongs. Some scholars have argued that pernicious predictive inferences are morally prohibited, but are sometimes epistemically required, leaving us with a tragic conflict between the requirements of epistemic rationality and those of morality. Others have responded by arguing that pernicious predictive inferences are sometimes epistemically prohibited. The present chapter takes a different approach, considering the sort of reluctance to draw pernicious predictive inferences that seems morally praiseworthy and vindicating its epistemic status. We argue that, even on a simple, orthodox Bayesian picture of the requirements of epistemic rationality, agents must consider the costs of error—including the associated moral and political costs—when forming and revising their credences. Our attitudes toward the costs of error determine how “risky” different credences are for us, and our epistemic states are justified in part by our attitudes toward epistemic risk. Thus, reluctance to draw pernicious predictive inferences need not be epistemically irrational, and the apparent conflict between morality and epistemic rationality is typically illusory.