Consequentialism's double-edged sword

Utilitas

Volumn 22, Issue 3, 2010, Pages 258-271

  Sachs, Benjamin ^a  

^a NEW YORK UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 79956348499     PISSN: 09538208     EISSN: 17416183     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S095382081000018X     Document Type: Article

References (17)

1. James Dreier, 'Structures of Normative Theories', Monist 76 (1993), pp. 19-30;
2. Jennie Louise, 'Relativity of Value and the Consequentialist Umbrella', Philosophical Quarterly 54 (2004), pp. 518-36;
3. Michael Smith, 'Neutral and Relative Value after Moore', Ethics 113 (2003), pp. 576-98;
4. Douglas Portmore, 'Consequentializing Moral Theories', Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 88 (2007), pp. 39-73;
5. Graham Oddie and Peter Milne, 'Act and Value: Expectation and Representability of Moral Theories', Theoria 57.1-2 (1991), pp. 42-56.
6. Douglas Portmore, 'Consequentializing Moral Theories', and 'Consequentializing', Philosophy Compass 4 (2009), pp. 329-47.
7. For an argument to the effect that it cannot be done, or at least that it is not likely to be accomplished, see Mark Schroeder, 'Teleology, Agent-Relative Value, and "Good"', Ethics 117 (2007), pp. 265-95.
8. Portmore, 'Consequentializing', p. 333.
9. Shelly Kagan nicely elucidates the importance of moral explanation in The Limits of Morality (Oxford, 1989), pp. 13-15.
10. 'Consequentializing Moral Theories'.
11. Kagan, The Limits of Morality, p. 11.
12. See, for instance: John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), pp. 26, 28;
13. Bernard Williams, 'A Critique of Utilitarianism', in J. J. C. Smart and Bernard Williams, Utilitarianism: For and Against (Cambridge, 1973), p. 99;
14. Tim Mulgan, 'Rule Consequentialism and Famine', Analysis 54 (1994), pp. 187-92.
15. An exception is William Shaw, 'The Consequentialist Perspective', Contemporary Debates in Moral Theory, ed. J. Dreier (Malden, Mass., 2006).
16. Part of the problem is that the distinction between consequentialism's moral principles claims and its determination claims often goes unnoticed, and therefore some theorists think they are defending the latter when in fact they are defending the former. See, for instance, R. Euguene Bales, 'Act-Utilitarianism: Account of Right-Making Characteristics or Decision-Making Procedure?', American Philosophical Quarterly 8 (1971), pp. 257-65.
17. William K. Frankena makes roughly the same point in Ethics, 2nd edn. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1973), p. 14.