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Hooker’s Consequentialism and the Depth of Moral Experience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2009

Edmund Wall
Edmund Wall*
Affiliation:
East Carolina University
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Abstract

ABSTRACT: In Ideal Code, Real World, Brad Hooker seeks to offer a version of ideal rule consequentialism that is immune from standard criticisms. I will attempt to challenge Hooker’s ideal rule-consequentialist theory by arguing that there are philosophical problems at the ultimate foundation of his maximizing consequentialist and pluralist approach toward well-being and other basic goods. I find that no amount of revision is likely to insulate his approach from standard criticisms. I suggest that any maximizing rule-consequentialist approach toward well-being, taken in a rich and pluralist sense, is likely to fall prey to standard criticisms. In later work, Hooker drops ideal rule consequentialism in favor of an incremental rule-consequentialist approach. That piecemeal approach is also challenged in this paper.

RÉSUMÉ: Avec Ideal Code, Real World, Brad Hooker cherche à offrir une version du conséquentialisme de la règle qui serait à l’abri des critiques habituelles. Nous tentons de la mettre en question en soutenant que le principe fondateur de son approche, qui non seulement maximise le conséquentialisme, mais est aussi pluraliste envers le bien-être et les autres nécessités, repose sur des problèmes philosophiques. Il semble qu’aucune adaptation ne puisse protéger cette approche des critiques habituelles. Je suggère que toute approche qui maximise le conséquentialisme de la règle envers le bien-être, interprété dans un sens riche et pluraliste, sera probablement susceptible de tomber sous les critiques habituelles. Nous mettons aussi en question l’approche différentielle qu’adopte Hooker dans ses travaux ultérieurs après avoir délaissé le conséquentialisme de la règle.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , June 2009 , pp. 337 - 351
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2009

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References

Notes

An earlier version of this paper, which was entitled “Problems with Hooker’s Rule Consequentialism,” was presented at an APA Pacific Division colloquium in March 2008. This paper benefited considerably from comments made by Matthew Talbert, who was the commentator at that colloquium. I am also grateful for comments made by an anonymous referee for Dialogue, which improved this paper.

* Assume that new generations are not changed genetically. If genetic engineering alters human genetic makeup, the codes that are best will probably be different. [Hooker’s footnote. Asterisk in place of footnote number.]

1 Brad Hooker, Ideal Code, Real World: A Rule-consequentialist Theory of Morality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), pp. 1-2.

2 Hooker, p. 3.

3 Hooker, p. 32.

4 Richard Arneson, “Sophisticated Rule Consequentialism: Some Simple Objections,” Philosophical Issues Vol.15, Normativity (2005), pp. 248-49.

5 Arneson, p. 249.

6 Ibid.

7 Hooker, “Reply to Arneson and McIntyre,” Philosophical Issues Vol.15, Normativity (2005), pp. 268-69.

8 Ibid.

9 Hooker, Ideal Code, Real World, p. 75.

10 Ibid., p. 76.

11 Ibid., p. 5. Original emphasis.

12 Ibid., p. 84.

13 Ibid., p. 76.

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid., p. 36.

16 Ibid., pp. 36-7.

17 Ibid., p. 34.

18 Ibid., p. 36.

19 Ibid., pp. 32-33, 36.

20 Ibid., p. 33.

21 Ibid.

22 Ibid., p. 34.

23 Ibid., p. 131.

24 Ibid., p. 59. Note omitted.

25 Ibid., pp. 43, 59.

26 Ibid., p. 59.

27 Ibid., p. 56.

28 Ibid., p. 65.

29 Ibid. Note omitted.

30 Ibid., p. 2.

31 Ibid.

32 Ibid., p. 42.

33 Ibid.

34 Ibid., p. 37.

35 Ibid., pp. 37-9.

36 Ibid., pp. 39-41.

37 Ibid., p. 41.

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid., pp. 41-2.

40 Ibid., pp. 42-3.

41 Ibid., p. 43.

42 Ibid.

43 Alison McIntyre, “The Perils of Holism: Brad Hooker’s Ideal Code, Real World,” Philosophical Issues Vol.15, Normativity (2005), pp. 256-58.

44 Brad Hooker, “Reply to Arneson and McIntyre,” p. 277. See, also, p. 278. See, also, Ideal Code, Real World, p. 114.

45 Brad Hooker, “Reflective Equilibrium and Rule Consequentialism,” in Morality, Rules, and Consequences: A Critical Reader, edited by Brad Hooker, Elinor Mason, and Dale E. Miller (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2000), p. 232.

46 Ibid.

47 Ibid.

48 Ibid. Note omitted. Original emphasis.

49 Ibid., p. 233.

50 Hooker, Ideal Code, Real World, pp. 4, 9-16, 104-7.

51 Ibid., p. 4.

52 Ibid., p. 10.

53 Ibid.

54 Ibid.

55 Ibid., p. 106.

56 Ibid., pp. 134-5. In “Sophisticated Rule Consequentialism: Some Simple Objections,” pp.237-9, Richard Arneson argues against Hooker’s attempt to incorporate the “prevent disaster” rule into his system.

57 Hooker, Ideal Code, Real World, pp. 135-6.

58 Although Hooker is unclear about these matters — see ibid., pp. 91-2, 134 — his approach seems to be that his “prevent disaster” provision is a rule that can override other moral rules(p. 135).

59 See n. 31.