Abstract

The problem of mediated consequences is perhaps the most daunting obstacle that all utilitarian theories face. An act, A's, consequences are mediated when another agent acts as a result of action A being done. The problem is to justify when the mediated consequences should count in determining the agent's obligations and when they should not. For some utilitarian theories, an agent may fail in his moral responsibilities even if he does not realize which consequences will occur as a result of his action. All forms of consequentialist theories must either resolve the problem of mediated consequences or be rejected as inadequate. ;In my dissertation, I attempt to solve the problem of mediated consequences by formulating the best utilitarian theory. I contend that a version of Fred Feldman's world utilitarianism has the best chance of succeeding at this task. Feldman's world utilitarianism bases an agent's moral duties on the intrinsic value of states of affairs, lives, and possible worlds; an agent is always morally obligated to do the best she can. Specifically, an agent is obligated to bring a state of affairs about at time T if and only if the state occurs in all the best possible worlds open to the agent at T. By bringing about this state, the agent thereby selects one of the best possible worlds open to her at that particular time. Worlds are open to an agent if the agent can bring about the state of affairs which ipso facto selects the worlds. ;Regrettably, though world utilitarianism is the best consequentialist theory, it still cannot solve the problem of mediated consequences. The rules for determining which mediated consequences count in different situations are either implausible or insufficient to resolve the problem. As a result, there are times when world utilitarianism necessarily says that victims of crimes such as rape have failed in their obligations to do what is best. The rape victim is at fault for selecting the world where she is sexually assaulted. Since world utilitarianism must sometimes assign fault to the victim of a horrendous crime, even it must be inadequate.