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Social Philosophy and Policy

Volumn 26, Issue 1, 2009, Pages 126-147

  Hooker, Brad ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF READING   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 56749138103     PISSN: 02650525     EISSN: 14716437     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0265052509090062     Document Type: Article

References (70)

1. This is not the place to get bogged down in debates about what naturalism is. Although the matter is controversial, I will assume here that natural properties are ones that can be known by empirical means and thus are appropriate subjects for investigation by the natural and social sciences. See G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica, 2d ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 13;
2. David Copp, "Why Naturalism?" Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 6, no. 2 (2003): 179-200, at p. 181;
3. cf. Nicholas Sturgeon, "Moore on Ethical Naturalism," Ethics 1.1.3, no. 3 (2003): 528-56, at pp. 534-38.
4. For a related argument that a desire-fulfillment theory of good reasons for action does not have the naturalistic purity some philosophers have supposed it has, see Jean Hampton, The Authority of Reason (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), esp. chap. 5.
5. John Harsanyi, "Morality and the Theory of Rational Behaviour," in Amartya Sen and Bernard Williams, eds., Utilitarianism and Beyond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 39-62, at pp. 60-61.
6. I explain this in my essay "Theories of Welfare, Theories of Good Reasons for Action, and Ontological Naturalism," Philosophical Papers 20, no. 1 (1991): 25-36.
7. Recent defenses of nonnaturalism include T. M. Scanlon, What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 58-61;
8. Russ Shafer-Landau, Moral Real-ism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003);
9. and Derek Parfit, Climbing the Mountain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, forthcoming).
10. See Elizabeth Anscombe, Intention (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1957), 70;
11. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), 432;
12. Warren Quinn, Morality and Action (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 236;
13. Roger Crisp, Mill on Utilitarianism (London: Routledge, 1997), 56;
14. and Robert Audi, Ethical Theory and Moral Character (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 77, 78.
15. But what about desires for ends such as hitting small white balls into distant holes, as in golf, or, more generally, desires for sporting achievements that are in some sense the achievement of contrived goals? For a discussion, see Thomas Hurka, "Games and the Good," Aristotelian Society Supplementary Proceedings 80 (2006): 217-35;
16. John Tasioulas, "Games and the Good," Aristotelian Society Supplementary Proceedings 80 (2006): 237-64;
17. and my "The Meaning of Life: Subjectivism, Objectivism, and Divine Support," in Nafsika Athanassoulis and Samantha Vice, eds., Morality and the Good Life: Essays in Honour of John Cottingliam (London: Palgrave, 2008): 184-200.
18. See Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), appendix I;
19. John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980);
20. Finnis, Fundamentals of Ethics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983);
21. David Brink, Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 221-36;
22. Crisp, Mill on Utilitarianism, chap. 3;
23. Bernard Gert, Morality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 92-94;
24. and Richard Arneson, "Human Flourishing Versus Desire Satisfaction," Social Philosophy and Policy 16, no. 1 (1999): 113-42.
25. For an influential discussion, see Joseph Raz, The Morality of Freedom (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 227.
26. Derek Parfit, "Justifiability to Each Person," Ratio 16, no. 4 (2003): 368-90.
27. Here I am following David McNaughton and Piers Rawling, "Agent-Relativity and the Doing-Happening Distinction," Philosophical Studies 63, no. 2 (1991): 167-85.
28. For influential earlier discussions, see Thomas Nagel, The Possibility of Altruism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970), 90-96;
29. Nagel, The View from Nowhere (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 153;
30. and Parfit, Reasons and Persons, 143. Michael Ridge puts forward metaphysical objections to this account of agent-relative duties (Ridge, "Reasons for Action: Agent-Relative vs. Agent-Neutral," http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasons-agent/#4). I am not persuaded by these objections.
31. Peter Singer, "Famine, Affluence, and Morality," Philosophy and Public Affairs 1, no. 1 (1972): 249-73.
32. See also Samuel Scheffler, The Rejection of Consequentialism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982);
33. James Fishkin, The Limits of Obligation (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982);
34. Shelly Kagan, The Limits of Morality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989);
35. Peter Unger, Living High and Letting Die (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996);
36. Liam Murphy, Moral Demands in Nonideal Theory (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000);
37. Tim Mulgan, The Demands of Consequentialism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002);
38. Garrett Cullity, The Moral Demands of Affluence (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004);
39. and Tim Chappell, ed., Moral Demand-ingness (London: Palgrave, 2008).
40. Here I have been most influenced by Garrett Cullity, "Moral Character and the Iteration Problem," Utilitas 7, no. 2 (1995): 279-89.
41. See my Ideal Code, Real World: A Rule-Consequentialist Theory of Morality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 147-74;
42. my "Rule-Consequentialism and Internal Consistency: A Reply to Card," Utilitas 19, no. 4 (2007): 514-19;
43. and my "The Demandingness Objection," in Chappell, ed., Moral Demandingness.
44. As far as I know, Michael Slote first called attention to this aspect of common-sense morality. See Slote, Common-Sense Morality and Consequentialism (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985), chap. 1;
45. and Slote, From Morality to Virtue (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 13-16.
46. More recently, Douglas Portmore has stressed this aspect in Portmore, "Position-Relative Consequentialism, Agent-Centered Options, and Supererogation," Ethics 113, no. 2 (2003): 303-32, at pp. 311-14;
47. Portmore, "Consequentializing Moral Theories," Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 88, no. 1 (2007): 39-73, at p. 58;
48. and Portmore, "Dual-Ranking Act-Consequentialism," Philosophical Studies 138 (2008): 409-27.
49. I go into more detail about this in my "When Is Impartiality Morally Appropriate?" in John Cottingham, Brian Feltham, and Philip Stratton-Lake, eds., Partiality and Impartiality: Morality, Special Relationships, and the Wider World (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2009).
50. See, for example, Singer, "Famine, Affluence, and Morality"; and Kagan, The Limits of Morality;
51. cf. Gilbert Harman, "Moral Relativism Defended," Philosophical Review 84, no. 1 (1975): 3-22.
52. Bernard Williams, Moral Luck (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), x.
53. See David O. Brink, "Common Sense and First Principles in Sidgwick's Metltods," Social Philosophy and Policy 11, no. 1 (1994): 179-201.
54. The theme is prominent in Robert Audi's moral philosophy. See, for example, Audi, "Intuitionism, Pluralism, and the Foundations of Ethics," in Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Mark Timmons, eds., Moral Knowledge? (New York: Oxford University Press, 1.996), 101-36;
55. and Audi, The Good in the Right: A Theory of Intuition and Intrinsic Value (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004).
56. It is a point I take up at the end of my "Intuitions and Moral Theorizing," in Philip Stratton-Lake, ed., Ethical Intuitionism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002), 161-83.
57. An influential discussion of weighted prioritarianism can be found in Derek Parfit, "Equality and Priority," Ratio 10, no. 4 (1997): 202-21. For a ground-breaking discussion of the aggregative aspect of most versions of weighted prioritarianism, see Marc Fleurbaey, Bertil Tungodden, and Peter Vallentyne, "On the Possibility of Nonaggregative Priority for the Worst Off" (elsewhere in this volume).
58. The concept of noninstrumental benefit and the concept of noninstrumental harm seem to me as basic as any in practical reasoning. For a different view, see Talbot Brewer, "Is Welfare an Independent Good?" (elsewhere in this volume). Stephen Darwall takes the concept of someone's welfare to be explained as what anyone who cares about her would rationally want for her for her own sake. See his Welfare and Rational Care (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002). In contrast, I take the concept of rationally caring about someone for her sake to be explained in terms of caring about her welfare.
59. Cf. Thomas Nagel, Equality and Partiality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 65-70. I am grateful to Michael Otsuka for discussion about these matters.
60. Fred Feldman, Confrontations with the Reaper: A Philosophical Study of the Nature and Value of Death (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 182-85;
61. Feldman, Utilitarianism, Hedonism, and Desert: Essays in Moral Philosophy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 164-69.
62. W. D. Ross, The Right and the Good (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1930);
63. Ross, Foundations of Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1939).
64. See also Thomas Nagel, "Fragmentation of Value," in Nagel, Mortal Questions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 128-41.
65. Many recent ideas about combining act-consequentialism with agent-relative restrictions and rights were inspired by Amartya Sen, "Rights and Agency," Philosophy and Public Affairs 11, no. 1 (1982): 3-39;
66. Sen, "Evaluator Relativity and Consequential Evaluation," Philosophy and Public Affairs 12, no. 2 (1983): 113-32;
67. and Sen, "Positional Objectivity," Philosophy and Public Affairs 22, no. 2 (1993): 126-45. For more recent material, see Portmore's essays cited in note 14, though I stress that the views about goodness I attribute to agent-relative act-consequentialism are ones that Portmore's more recent essays have replaced with claims about what the agent has reason to prefer.
68. As Frances Kamm has said to me in discussion, there may be better objections to agent-relative act-consequentialism than mine. I accept that observation, but at least these objections are mine.
69. A common conception of the distinction between consequentialism and deontology is as follows. Consequentialism starts with a fairly minimal conception of the good (e.g., as welfare) and then derives the value of restrictions, rights, special obligations, permissions, and desert as instruments in the promotion of welfare; deontology gives restrictions, rights, special obligations, permissions, and desert a more foundational, less instrumental role. This common conception of the consequentialism/deontology distinction is threatened by any consequentialist theory that postulates, rather than derives, the value of restrictions, rights, special obligations, permissions, or desert. But my objection to agent-relative act-consequentialism is not that it plays havoc with the common conception of the consequentialism/deontology distinction. For an attack on the consequentialism/deontology distinction, see Adrian S. Piper, "A Distinction without a Difference," Midwest Studies in Philosophy VII (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982), 403-35.
70. See chapters 6 and 8 of my Ideal Code, Real World.