In Goodness and Justice, Joseph Mendola develops a unified moral theory that defends the hedonism of classical utilitarianism, while evading utilitarianism's familiar difficulties by adopting two modifications. His theory incorporates a developed form of consequentialism. When, as is common, someone is engaged in conflicting group acts, it requires that one perform one's role in that group act that is most beneficent. The theory also holds that overall value is distribution-sensitive, ceding maximum weight to the well-being of the worst-off (...) sections of sentient lives. It is properly congruent with commonsense intuition and required by the true metaphysics of value, by the unconstituted natural good found in our world. (shrink)

Computer and information ethics, as well as other fields of applied ethics, need ethical theories which coherently unify deontological and consequentialist aspects of ethical analysis. The proposed theory of just consequentialism emphasizes consequences of policies within the constraints of justice. This makes just consequentialism a practical and theoretically sound approach to ethical problems of computer and information ethics.

Elsewhere we have responded to the so-called demandingness objection to consequentialism – that consequentialism is excessively demanding and is therefore unacceptable as a moral theory – by introducing the theoretical position we call institutional consequentialism. This is a consequentialist view that, however, requires institutional systems, and not individuals, to follow the consequentialist principle. In this paper, we first introduce and explain the theory of institutional consequentialism and the main reasons that support it. In the remainder of (...) the paper, we turn to the global dimension where the first and foremost challenge is to explain how institutional consequentialism can deal with unsolved global problems such as poverty, war and climate change. In response, following the general idea of institutional consequentialism, we draw up three alternative routes: relying on existing national, transnational and supranational institutions; promoting gradual institutional reform; and advocating radical changes to the status quo. We evaluate these routes by describing normatively relevant properties of the existing global institutional system, as well as by showing what institutional consequentialism can say about alternatives to it: a world government; and multi-layered sovereignty/neo-medieval system. (shrink)

Over the past 10 years, John Harris has made important contributions to thinking about distributive justice in health care. In his latest work, Harris controversially argues that clinicians should stop prioritising patients according to prognosis. He argues that the good or benefit of health care is providing each individual with an opportunity to live the best and longest life possible for him or her. I call this thesis, opportunism. For the purpose of distribution of resources in health care, Harris (...) rejects welfarism (the thesis that the good of health care is well-being) and argues that utilitarianism in general may lead to de facto discrimination against groups of people needing health care. I argue that well-being is a superior theory of the good of health care to Harris' opportunism. Harris' concerns about utilitarianism can be better addressed by: (i) relating justice more closely to reasons for action; (ii) by conceptualising the relationship between reasons for action and the value of the consequences of those actions as a plateau rather than scalar relationship. Justice can be understood as satisfying as many equally rational claims on resources as possible. The rationality of a person's claim on health resources turns on the strength of that person's reasons to promote certain health-related states of affairs. I argue that the strength of that reason does not track the expected value of that state of affairs in a fully scalar fashion. Rather a person can have most reason to promote some state of affairs, even though he or she could promote other more valuable states of affairs. Thus there can be equal reason for a distributor of public resources to save either of two people, even though one will have a better and more valuable life. This approach, while addressing many of Harris' concerns about utilitarianism, does not imply that doctors should give up prioritising patients according to prognosis altogether, but it does allow that patients with lower but reasonable prognosis should have a share of public resources. (shrink)

Consequentialism is often criticised as being overly demanding, and this overdemandingness is seen as sufficient to reject it as a moral theory. This paper takes the plausibility and coherence of this objection – the Demandingness Objection – as a given. Our question, therefore, is how to respond to the Objection. We put forward a response that we think has not received sufficient attention in the literature: institutional consequentialism. On this view institutions take over the consequentialist burden, whereas individuals, (...) special occasions aside, are required to set up and maintain institutions. We first introduce the Objection, then explain the theory of institutional consequentialism and how it responds to the Objection. In the remainder of the paper, we defend the view against potential challenges. (shrink)

It is often argued that Kantian and consequentialist approaches to the philosophy of punishment differ on the question of whether using punishment to achieve deterrence is morally acceptable. I show that this is false: both theories judge it to be acceptable. Showing this requires attention to what the Formula of Humanity in Kant requires agents to do. If we use the correct interpretation of this formula we can also see that an anti-consequentialist moral principle used by Victor Tadros to criticize (...) consequentialism is implausible. I go on to examine the version of John Rawls' theory that is used by Sharon Dolovich to develop a Kantian theory of legal punishment. This makes clear why punishment to achieve deterrence in the 'circumstances of justice' is morally acceptable. However, in at least one respect consequentialism gives us a more convincing understanding of the limits on the pursuit of deterrence than the Kantian theory does. (shrink)

Computer and information ethics, as well as other fields of applied ethics, need ethical theories which coherently unify deontological and consequentialist aspects of ethical analysis. The proposed theory of just consequentialism emphasizes consequences of policies within the constraints of justice. This makes just consequentialism a practical and theoretically sound approach to ethical problems of computer and information ethics.

The article begins with a review of the structural differences between act consequentialist theories and human rights theories, as illustrated by Amartya Sen's paradox of the Paretian liberal and Robert Nozick's utilitarianism of rights. It discusses attempts to resolve those structural differences by moving to a second-order or indirect consequentialism, illustrated by J.S. Mill and Derek Parfit. It presents consequentialist (though not utilitarian) interpretations of the contractualist theories of Jürgen Habermas and the early John Rawls (Theory of Justice) (...) and of the capability theories of Sen and Martha Nussbaum. It also discusses two roles that well-being or a surrogate for well-being typically plays in theories of human rights: (a) well-being plays a role in the justification of at least some exceptions to human rights principles; and (b) some human rights seem to be best understood as rights to some level of well-being or expected well-being (or of a surrogate for one of them). It reviews two consequentialist challenges to the moral adequacy of non-consequentialist accounts of human rights, one based on a duty to relieve suffering and the other generated by Parfit's Non-Identity Problem, and concludes with a contrast between two ways of looking at the history of the development and implementation of human rights conventions and laws. Video abstract (click to view). (shrink)

One popular criticism of affirmative action is that it discriminates against those who would otherwise have been offered jobs without it. This objection must rely on the non- consequentialist distinction between what we do and what we merely allow to claim that doing nothing merely allows people to be harmed by the discrimination of others, while preferential programs actively harm those left out. It fails since the present effects of past discrimination result from social arrangements which result from actions of (...) ours. We can be responsible for the effects of past discrimination, even without having discriminated, if we are responsible for that discrimination having those effects. (shrink)

In Goodness and Justice, Joseph Mendola defends three related views in normative ethics: a novel form of consequentialism, a Bentham-style hedonism about “basic” value, and a maximin principle about the value of a world. In defending these views he draws on his views in metaethics, action theory, and the philosophy of mind. It is an ambitious and wide-ranging book. I begin with a quick explanation of Mendola’s views, and then raise some problems.

행위의 도덕성을 그 행위가 야기하는 결과적 사태의 가치로 판단하는 결과주의에서 원칙적으로 제시하는 유일한 도덕적 판단 기준은 비개인적 관점에서 바라본 전체 세계의 총합적 가치의 최대화이다. 이에 따라 전체의 이익과 충돌할 때마다 개인은 자신의 이익과 신념, 삶의 기획을 모두 포기하도록 도덕적으로 요구되고, 결과적으로 각 개인의 개별성은 적절하게 존중받을 근거를 잃어버리게 된다. 본 논문에서는 결과주의가 도덕적 이론으로서 지닌 한계를 온전성, 분배 정의, 그리고 교환 정의의 측면에서 살펴본다. 우선 온전성의 측면에서, 자신의 신념과 가치관에 따라 온전한 삶을꾸려가야 할 개인은 결과주의적 원칙 하에 전체의 선을 위해 (...) 필요할 때마다 자신의 이익이나 삶의 기획을 포기하도록 도덕적으로강요되며, 따라서 내적으로 분열된 삶을 살게 된다. 둘째, 분배 정의의 측면에서 결과주의는 개인과 사회의 관계를 왜곡시켜 개인이독립된 개별자가 아니라 전체 사회의 선을 위해 기능하는 부품이되게 하는데, 이러한 ‘전체의 선’은 특히 좋음의 관계적 개념에 근거하여 볼 때 공허하거나 부차적인 것으로 드러날 수 있다. 마지막으로 결과주의는 개인 간의 주고받음의 관계에서 손해와 이익이발생할 때 각 당사자가 자신의 손해를 적절하게 보상받아야 한다는 교환 정의의 원칙을 적절히 수용하지 못하는데, 이 교환 정의의원칙은 각 개인의 개별성의 존중을 위해서 뿐 아니라 공동체의 유지를 위해 반드시 필요한 원리이다. (shrink)

A standard criticism of act-utilitarianism is that it is only indirectly concerned with the distribution of welfare between individuals and, therefore, does not take adequate account of the separateness between individuals. In response a number of philosophers have argued that act-utilitarianism is only vulnerable to that objection because it adheres to a theory of the good which ignores non-welfarist sources of intrinsic value such as justice. Fred Feldman, for example, argues that intrinsic value is independently generated by the receipt (...) of welfare and the degree to which receipt accords with the demands of justice, and that an action is right insofar as it maximizes the sum of both those sources of value. In response it is argued that justicized consequentialism only blocks the objection at the expense of presupposing deontological constraints. In addition, it is argued that the value of justice cannot be explained non-deontically and, therefore, that the proposed theory is not consequentialist all the way down. (shrink)

1. Introduction. In a famous passage near the beginning of A Theory of Justice, John Rawls discusses utilitarianism’s notorious difficulties with justice. According to classic forms of utilitarianism, a certain course of action is morally right if it produces the greatest sum of satisfactions. And, as Rawls points out, the perplexing implication is “…that it does not matter, except indirectly, how this sum of satisfactions is distributed among individuals any more than it matters, except indirectly, how one man (...) distributes his satisfactions over time.” He concludes the passage by saying that “[u]tilitarianism does not take seriously the distinction between persons.”. (shrink)

It has been widely observed that virtue ethics, regarded as an ethics of the ancient, in contrast to deontology and consequentialism, seen as an ethics of the modern (Larmore 1996: 19–23), is experiencing an impressive revival and is becoming a strong rival to utilitarianism and deontology in the English-speaking world in the last a few decades. Despite this, it has been perceived as having an obvious weakness in comparison with its two major rivals. While both utilitarianism and deontology can (...) at the same time serve as an ethical theory, providing guidance for individual persons and a political philosophy, offering ways to structure social institutions, virtue ethics, as it is concerned with character traits of individual persons, seems to be ill-equipped to be politically useful. In recent years, some attempts have been made to develop the so-called virtue politics, but most of them, including my own (see Huang 2014: Chapter 5), are limited to arguing for the perfectionist view that the state has the obligation to do things to help its members develop their virtues, and so the focus is still on the character traits of individual persons. However important those attempts are, such a notion of virtue politics is clearly too narrow, unless one thinks that the only job the state is supposed to do is to cultivate its people’s virtues. Yet obviously the government has many other jobs to do such as making laws and social policies, many if not most of which are not for the purpose of making people virtuous. The question is then in what sense such laws and social policies are moral in general and just in particular. Utilitarianism and deontology have their ready answers in the light of utility or moral principles respectively. Can virtue ethics provide its own answer? This paper attempts to argue for an affirmative answer to this question from the Confucian point of view, as represented by Mencius. It does so with a focus on the virtue of justice, as it is a central concept in both virtue ethics and political philosophy. (shrink)

It has been widely observed that virtue ethics, regarded as an ethics of the ancient, in contrast to deontology and consequentialism, seen as an ethics of the modern (Larmore 1996: 19–23), is experiencing an impressive revival and is becoming a strong rival to utilitarianism and deontology in the English-speaking world in the last a few decades. Despite this, it has been perceived as having an obvious weakness in comparison with its two major rivals. While both utilitarianism and deontology can (...) at the same time serve as an ethical theory, providing guidance for individual persons and a political philosophy, offering ways to structure social institutions, virtue ethics, as it is concerned with character traits of individual persons, seems to be ill-equipped to be politically useful. In recent years, some attempts have been made to develop the so-called virtue politics, but most of them, including my own (see Huang 2014: Chapter 5), are limited to arguing for the perfectionist view that the state has the obligation to do things to help its members develop their virtues, and so the focus is still on the character traits of individual persons. However important those attempts are, such a notion of virtue politics is clearly too narrow, unless one thinks that the only job the state is supposed to do is to cultivate its people’s virtues. Yet obviously the government has many other jobs to do such as making laws and social policies, many if not most of which are not for the purpose of making people virtuous. The question is then in what sense such laws and social policies are moral in general and just in particular. Utilitarianism and deontology have their ready answers in the light of utility or moral principles respectively. Can virtue ethics provide its own answer? This paper attempts to argue for an affirmative answer to this question from the Confucian point of view, as represented by Mencius. It does so with a focus on the virtue of justice, as it is a central concept in both virtue ethics and political philosophy. (shrink)

Consider the reaction of Trayvon Martin’s family to the jury verdict. They were devastated that George Zimmerman, the defendant, was found not guilty of manslaughter or murder. Whatever the merits of this outcome, what does the Martin family’s emotional reaction mean? What does it say about criminal punishment – especially the reasons why we punish? Why did the Martin family want to see George Zimmerman go to jail? And why were – and are – they so upset that he didn’t? (...) -/- This Article will argue for three points. First, what fuels this kind of outrage is vengeance: the desire to see defendants like George Zimmerman be forced to “pay” for the harms that they needlessly and culpably inflict on others. While this point may seem obvious, it isn’t. Most people repudiate revenge and therefore the notion that it plays any role in the criminal justice system. -/- Second, this attitude toward revenge is misguided and needs to change. We need to recognize that vengeance not only does but should play a significant role in motivating criminal punishment. Our vengeful reactions to harmful crimes are not ugly or shameful; on the contrary, they manifest a deep valuation of victims and a bitter denunciation of individuals who actively renounce this valuation through their criminal behavior. -/- Third, these two points have significant implications for the two main theories of criminal punishment: “retributivism,” which says that criminals should be punished in order to give them their “just deserts,” and “consequentialism,” which says that criminals should be punished in order to bring about such good consequences as deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation. Traditionally, these two theories have been at war with one another. But I will show how recognizing revenge as a motivation and justification for punishment can help to end this war and bring these two theories together. (shrink)

We defend a scalar theory of the relationship between material scarcity and justice. As scarcity increases beyond a specified threshold, we argue that deontological egalitarian constraints should be gradually relaxed and consequentialist considerations should increasingly determine distributions. We construct this theory by taking a bottom-up approach that is guided by principles of medical triage. Armed with this theory, we consider the range of conditions under which justice applies. We argue that there are compelling reasons for thinking that (...) class='Hi'>justice applies under a far broader range of conditions than is standardly supposed, including those that could sensibly be labelled as conditions of extreme rather than moderate scarcity. (shrink)

In this paper I tell the story of the evolution of the climate change regime, locating its origins in "the dream of Rio," which supposed that the nations of the world would join in addressing the interlocking crises of environment and development. I describe the failure at Copenhagen and then go on to discuss the "reboot" of the climate negotiations advocated by Eric A. Posner and David Weisbach. I bring out some ambiguities in their notion of International Paretianism, which is (...) supposed to effectively limit the influence of moral ideals in international affairs, and pose a dilemma. I go on to discuss the foundations of their views regarding climate justice, arguing that the most reasonable understandings of their favored theoretical views would not lead to some of their conclusions. Finally, I return to the climate regime, and make some observations about the road ahead, concluding that for the foreseeable future the most important climate change action will be within countries rather than among them. (shrink)

The various features of bioethics center around a person’s right to decide what happens to her body and what she may do with it. This is true for patients and medical professionals. Our intuitions concerning rights in bioethics are similar to our intuitions concerning rights in other areas. Consider, for example, rights concerning movement, privacy, religion, sex, speech, and thought. Intuitively, these rights are consistent with one another, trump other moral considerations, and can be lost. If people were to own (...) themselves, this would provide a unified explanation of what justifies other rights, what particular rights people have, why these particular rights are consistent with one another, and why these particular rights have certain features, such as trumping utility. Here I explore whether people own themselves. (shrink)

In this paper I argue for the following conclusions: 1. The widely shared beliefs that in utilitarianism and consequentialism (a) the good has priority over the right and (b) the right is derived from the good, are both false. 2. The most plausible components of utilitarianism that are used to present it as an intuitively compelling moral theory - welfarism, consequentialism and maximization - do not in fact support utilitarianism because they do not establish that the best state (...) of affairs is the one with the highest sum total of the non-moral good. These components cannot determine which state of affairs is the best and therefore leave it entirely open whether one should opt for distribution-insensitive utilitarianism or a distribution-sensitive welfarist consequentialism. Since this is left open, it is not the case that distribution-insensitive utilitarianism is the default option and every deviation from it towards a more just distribution needs to be defended against utilitarianism. Rather, in light of our moral intuitions and the persistence of the objection from justice against utilitarianism, it seems to be the other way round, that distribution-sensitivity is the default option and any deviation from it bears the burden of proof. (shrink)

Within the criminal justice system, one of the most prominent justifications for legal punishment is retributivism. The retributive justification of legal punishment maintains that wrongdoers are morally responsible for their actions and deserve to be punished in proportion to their wrongdoing. This book argues against retributivism and develops a viable alternative that is both ethically defensible and practical. Introducing six distinct reasons for rejecting retributivism, Gregg D. Caruso contends that it is unclear that agents possess the kind of free (...) will and moral responsibility needed to justify this view of punishment. While a number of alternatives to retributivism exist - including consequentialist deterrence, educational, and communicative theories - they have ethical problems of their own. Moving beyond existing theories, Caruso presents a new non-retributive approach called the public health-quarantine model. In stark contrast to retributivism, the public health-quarantine model provides a more human, holistic, and effective approach to dealing with criminal behavior. (shrink)

The chapter concerns the relationship between the justification of criminal law and punishment and the justification of the state. It briefly surveys the debate between retributivists and consequentialists and argues that both are inappropriate when it comes to state punishment. It next turns to arguments by Vincent Chiao, Malcolm Thorburn, and Antony Duff that locate criminal law and punishment in public law. The final parts of the chapter develop an account of criminal law and punishment as best understood as constitutive (...) elements of a liberal political community necessary to ensure stability, to reinforce the commitment of the members to the rules as regulative of their plans of life, and to communicate and censure the offender for the wrong that has been done. (shrink)

"Meritocracy" has historically been understood in two ways. The first is as an approach to governance. On this understanding, we seek to put meritorious (somehow defined) people into public office to the benefit of society. This understanding has its roots in Confucius, its scope is political offices, and its justification is consequentialist. The second understanding of "meritocracy" is as a theory of justice. We distribute in accordance with merit in order to give people the things that they deserve, as (...) justice demands. This understanding has its roots in Aristotle, its scope is social goods broadly, and its justification is deontological. In this article, I discuss the differences--especially the conceptual differences--between these two, prima facie distinct, meritocratic traditions. I also argue that despite their differences Eastern Meritocracy and Western Meritocracy are harmonious. In Section I of the article I introduce the two meritocratic traditions through, in part, a highly abbreviated history of talk about "merit" and "meritocracy" in Chinese and Western philosophy. In Section II, I discuss a number of conceptual issues and partition meritocratic theories in accordance with their scopes and normative justifications. I also discuss two scenarios. In one scenario, Eastern Meritocracy appears to deliver the right result and Western Meritocracy, the wrong result. In the other scenario, vice versa. Finally, in Section III, I argue that Eastern Meritocracy and Western Meritocracy are each special cases of a single, compelling notion of "meritocracy.". (shrink)

Hugh V. Mclachlan Cet article est une réponse à la critique de Saunders de ma proposition de politique non conséquentialiste publiée précédemment concernant l’utilisation d’une loterie pour la distribution de vaccins rares par l’État face à une pandémie de grippe. J’y ai soutenu que, pour des raisons de justice, l’État devrait distribuer une partie du vaccin rare qu’il pourrait détenir à certains de ses employés de la santé et le reste aux citoyens de manière aléatoire et égale sur le (...) principe d’une loterie. Au coeur de la critique de Saunders se trouve l’affirmation selon laquelle j’ai omis à tort de prendre en compte les différences moralement pertinentes dans les besoins et la capacité de production entre les receveurs potentiels du vaccin. Le point central de ma réponse ici est que le fait que le besoin et la capacité de production soient ou non des facteurs moralement pertinents dépend de qui ou de quoi distribue le vaccin, à qui ils le distribuent et pourquoi ils le font. Par exemple, la discrimination entre les personnes dans la distribution de vaccins publics distribués à titre prophylactique sur la base de leur âge est injuste, qu’elle soit ou non moralement justifiable pour d’autres motifs. (shrink)

This article has three main parts, Section 2 considers the nature and extent to which individuals who are well-off have a moral obligation to aid the worlds needy. Drawing on a pluralistic approach to morality, which includes consequentialist, virtue-based, and deontological elements, it is contended that most who are well-off should do much more than they do to aid the needy, and that they are open to serious moral criticism if they simply ignore the needy. Part one also focuses on (...) the United States, and illustrates both how incredibly wealthy the U.S. is and some of the spending habits of its citizens; however, its considerations apply to the well-off generally. Section 3 considers whether justice provides reasons for helping the needy. Noting that justice in an extremely complex notion, it discusses numerous considerations relevant to justices scope and implications, including an extended Rawlsian conception of justice, an absolute conception, a comparative conception, the distinction between natural and social justice, and various elements of common-sense morality. Section 2 also distinguishes between agent-relative justice-based reasons, which are relevant to whether we act justly, and agent-neutral justice-based reasons, which are relevant to whether we have reasons of justicefor acting. Correspondingly, it argues that even if one can ignore the needy without acting unjustly, as philosophers like Robert Nozick and Jan Narveson contend, there may be powerful reasons of justicefor addressing their plight. Section 4 briefly address the responsibilities of international organizations like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and World Trade Organization (WTO). Drawing on Section 2, it is suggested that in addition to standard reasons to act justlytowards needy members of the worlds community, there will be reasons of justicefor such organizations to aid the needy in both present, and future, generations. The article concludes by contending that the well-off in countries like the U.S. have reason to view international organizations like the World Bank, IMF, and WTO as their agents, and to seek to insure that they alleviate misfortunes amongst the worlds needy. (shrink)

Within the United States, the most prominent justification for criminal punishment is retributivism. This retributivist justification for punishment maintains that punishment of a wrongdoer is justified for the reason that she deserves something bad to happen to her just because she has knowingly done wrong—this could include pain, deprivation, or death. For the retributivist, it is the basic desert attached to the criminal’s immoral action alone that provides the justification for punishment. This means that the retributivist position is not reducible (...) to consequentialist considerations nor in justifying punishment does it appeal to wider goods such as the safety of society or the moral improvement of those being punished. A number of sentencing guidelines in the U.S. have adopted desert as their distributive principle, and it is increasingly given deference in the “purposes” section of state criminal codes, where it can be the guiding principle in the interpretation and application of the code’s provisions. Indeed, the American Law Institute recently revised the Model Penal Code so as to set desert as the official dominate principle for sentencing. And courts have identified desert as the guiding principle in a variety of contexts, as with the Supreme Court’s enthroning retributivism as the “primary justification for the death penalty.” While retributivism provides one of the main sources of justification for punishment within the criminal justice system, there are good philosophical and practical reasons for rejecting it. One such reason is that it is unclear that agents truly deserve to suffer for the wrongs they have done in the sense required by retributivism. In the first section, I explore the retributivist justification of punishment and explain why it is inconsistent with free will skepticism. In the second section, I then argue that even if one is not convinced by the arguments for free will skepticism, there remains a strong epistemic argument against causing harm on retributivist grounds that undermines both libertarian and compatibilist attempts to justify it. I maintain that this argument provides sufficient reason for rejecting the retributive justification of criminal punishment. I conclude in the third section by briefly sketching my public health-quarantine model, a non-retributive alternative for addressing criminal behavior that draws on the public health framework and prioritizes prevention and social justice. I argue that the model is not only consistent with free will skepticism and the epistemic argument against retributivism, it also provides the most justified, humane, and effective way of dealing with criminal behavior. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Art of Life and Morality Morality: Act‐ and Rule‐Utilitarianism Further Reading.

The principle that each individual is entitled to an equal opportunity to benefit from any public health care system, and that this entitlement is proportionate neither to the size of their chance of benefitting, nor to the quality of the benefit, nor to the length of lifetime remaining in which that benefit may be enjoyed, runs counter to most current thinking about the allocation of resources for health care. It is my contention that any system of prioritisation of the resources (...) available for healthcare or of rationing such resources must be governed by this principle. -/- This can have apparently paradoxical conclusions in that it can seem wasteful to give someone with a very slim chance of a lifesaving treatment the same priority as someone with a much better chance. In an important and thoughtful recent paper, Julian Savulescu has concentrated on this apparent weakness and has argued for a particular conception of the good or benefit to be achieved by a healthcare system which purports to demonstrate the inadequacies of an equal opportunities approach to prioritisation and to replace it with an altogether better account. This paper will show that a rational ‘reasons based consequentialism’ is more in line with the equal opportunities approach, which I defended some time ago in these pages, than with that of Savulescu. I shall then examine more closely the conception of equal opportunities in health care and show that if we give weight to an individual's reasons, and what is expected to be good for them, we will opt for exactly the equality based account of distributive justice that I have recommended. (shrink)

The scarcity of resources required to produce justice is manifested in the relation between the accuracy, depth, and scope of materially possible forms of justice. Ceteris paribus , increases in the accuracy of justice must come at the expense of its depth and scope, and vice versa, though they are not linearly proportioned. The accuracy of justice is the degree of agreement between the possible results of attempts to implement a theory or principles of justice (...) and the desired result according to that theory or those principles of justice. The scope of justice measures how broadly the principle or theory of justice is intended to apply. The depth of justice measures the gap between existing social norms and the theory or principles of justice we examine within the specified scope. This three-dimensional model explains public policies, laws, and regulations that increase the scope or depth of justice at the cost of a decrease in its accuracy – rough forms of justice such as measures of transitional justice, affirmative action, mandatory sentencing, simplified tax codes, collective guilt and victimhood, and general amnesties. The scarcity of resources necessary for justice can contract or expand. The normative choice between principles of justice that prefer accuracy and those that favor scope or depth usually corresponds, respectively, with rights-based deontological theories and consequentialist ethics. (shrink)

The article discusses retributive justice and punitive restraint in response to the worst types of crime. I take the Breivik Case as a starting point. Anders Behring Breivik was sentenced to 21 years of preventive detention for killing 69 people, mainly youths, at Utøya and 8 people in Oslo on July 22nd, 2011. Retributivist theories as well as commonly held retributive intuitions suggest that much harsher punishment is required for such crimes. According to some retributivist theories, most notably on (...) the influential theories of Kant and Hegel, the death penalty is warranted for murderers like Breivik. This suggests that the rationale for punitive restraint in a case like the Breivik Case can only be found in forward- looking, consequentialist theories of punishment, or by adding to retributivist theories a side-constraint in the form of a principle of parsimony. However, I argue that if we look closer at the function of punishment in the retributivist theories of Kant and Hegel, they too imply a rationale for punitive restraint, even for such horrific crimes as here discussed. Against Kant and Hegel’s own views on the death penalty, I argue that their broader “freedom theories” of retributive justice do not imply the justice of the death penalty or life imprisonment. In the last part of the article, I explore differences in the concepts of freedom entailed by Kant and Hegel’s theories, and I relate these to some of the background factors relevant to the Breivik Case. (shrink)

Some things aren't what their names suggest. This is true of rubber ducks, stool pigeons, clay pigeons, hot dogs, and clothes horses. Frances Howard-Snyder's "Rule Consequentialism is a Rubber Duck" ("APQ", 30 (1993) 271-78) argues that the answer is Yes. Howard-Snyder thinks rule-consequentialism is a form of deontology, not a form of consequentialism. This thought is understandable: many recent definitions of consequentialism are such as to invite it. Thinking rule-consequentialism inferior to act-consequentialism, many philosophers, (...) when discussing consequentialism, have had act-consequentialism in mind. Having just one kind of consequentialism in mind has led them to offer definitions of consequentialism that are really definitions of just act-consequentialism. My paper discusses three different possible definitions of consequentialism and defends one that does justice to rule-consequentialism's family membership. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Egalitarian Liberalism Revisited: On the Meaning and Justification of Social Justice by Per SundmanBharat RanganathanEgalitarian Liberalism Revisited: On the Meaning and Justification of Social Justice Per Sundman uppsala, sweden: uppsala universitet, 2016. 242 pp. $72.50Across a range of contemporary disciplines, discussions about justice abound. Despite the prevalence of these discussions, however, there is little consensus about what justice is and whether (and, if so, (...) how) appeals to it should be made. Moreover, if the interconnectedness and pluralism that obtain in our rapidly globalizing world are taken seriously, concerns about the content, meaning, and use of justice are amplified. Against this backdrop, Per Sundman aims to explicate and evaluate one particular form of justice: egalitarian liberalism. On his definition, egalitarian liberalism is "best understood as a triune conjunction of equality of opportunity, desert and self-ownership" (10). Over the course of eight substantive chapters, Sundman labors to show how these criteria both reinforce and don't contradict each other, aiming to clarify the meaning of social justice while considering known alternatives.To develop this argument, Sundman covers a truly impressive range of topics in contemporary debates about justice, including consequentialism and deontology, equality of opportunity and equality of resources, capabilities and rights, corrective and distributive policies, the natural and social lotteries, status in moral and political communities, and the politics of recognition and misrecognition. On the whole, covering such a range of topics proves to be a strength. Sundman introduces the reader to a number of important topics and how several important thinkers have treated those topics, and his discussion of these topics and thinkers is evenhanded and insightful. If you're familiar with (and interested in) one or more of these debates, you will be delighted to find a theological ethicist engaging in them. There's also a further reason for delight: Sundman enters and engages in these debates without bringing the all-too-frequent (and oftentimes empty) charge that liberalism is "impoverished"—a point to which I'll return. But depending on your level of familiarity with recent debates in moral and political philosophy, you may be left unsatisfied with some aspects of Sundman's discussion. Specifically, some of these topics and thinkers deserve further attention and scrutiny than Sundman provides, especially important given Sundman's stated desire to navigate alternative understandings. [End Page 189]I do want to draw the reader's attention to the penultimate chapter of Sundman's book, "Save Us from Liberalism." But first I want to make a larger point. I mentioned what I think is an all-too-frequent charge made in theological ethics: namely, that liberalism is impoverished. Sometimes, this charge is entirely warranted. But oftentimes, at least in my experience, it is empty: the person bringing the charge neither distinguishes among the diversity that obtains within liberalism nor charitably reads and represents the thinker with whom they are trying to engage. Given this disciplinary shortcoming, Sundman is to be commended for turning to Christian critiques of liberalism only after he's carefully worked (and guided the reader) through the myriad topics and thinkers that constitute egalitarian liberalism writ large.So what about this chapter in particular? Focusing on Christian communitarians—for example, Stanley Hauerwas and John Milbank—Sundman explores whether authentic Christian ethics contradicts and is superior to egalitarian liberalism. In the first half of the chapter, he examines the different ways in which Christian communitarians understand obedience to God's commands and have criticized the putative liberal obsession with "autonomy." Following an important discussion where he contrasts Christian and liberal understandings of the circumstances of justice, the second half of Sundman's chapter argues briefly but persuasively against Christian exclusivity (e.g., the recently popular Benedict Option) and for Christians to act out of love, for justice, and in the world.There is much to recommend about this book. Both substantively and structurally, it is admirable and instructive.Bharat RanganathanUniversity of Notre DameCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

To a great extent, recent discussion of global obligations has been couched in the language of human rights. I argue that this is a mistake. If, as many theorists have supposed, a normative theory applicable to obligations of global justice must also respect the needs of justice internal to recipient nations, any such theory cannot take human rights as an important moral notion. Human rights are inapplicable for the domestic justice of poor nations, and thus cannot form (...) a plausible basis for international justice. Instead, I propose an alternative basis, a form of welfarist maximizing consequentialism. My alternative is superior to rights-based theories in dealing with the special problems of justice found in poor nations. (shrink)

The question "What can justify criminal punishment ?" becomes especially insistent at times, like our own, of penal crisis, when serious doubts are raised not only about the justice or efficacy of particular modes of punishment, but about the very legitimacy of the whole penal system. Recent theorizing about punishment offers a variety of answers to that question-answers that try to make plausible sense of the idea that punishment is justified as being deserved for past crimes; answers that try (...) to identify some beneficial consequences in terms of which punishment might be justified; as well as abolitionist answers telling us that we should seek to abolish, rather than to justify, criminal punishment. This book begins with a critical survey of recent trends in penal theory, but goes on to develop an original account (based on Duff's earlier Trials and Punishments) of criminal punishment as a mode of moral communication, aimed at inducing repentance, reform, and reconciliation through reparation-an account that undercuts the traditional controversies between consequentialist and retributivist penal theories, and that shows how abolitionist concerns can properly be met by a system of communicative punishments. In developing this account, Duff articulates the "liberal communitarian" conception of political society (and of the role of the criminal law) on which it depends; he discusses the meaning and role of different modes of punishment, showing how they can constitute appropriate modes of moral communication between political community and its citizens; and he identifies the essential preconditions for the justice of punishment as thus conceived-preconditions whose non-satisfaction makes our own system of criminal punishment morally problematic. Punishment, Communication, and Community offers no easy answers, but provides a rich and ambitious ideal of what criminal punishment could be-an ideal of what criminal punishment cold be-and ideal that challenges existing penal theories as well as our existing penal theories as well as our existing penal practices. (shrink)

Academic women experience working in higher education differently to their male counterparts. This article argues that the unequal position of women academics is unethical, irrespective of whether one takes a consequentialist or deontological ethical position. By drawing on a range of international studies, the article explores the reasons for this inequity, suggesting that the ?cult of individual responsibility?, the positioning of women academics as ?other? and the impact of having a family are significant factors. Having identified the reasons why university (...) women experience the system differently, the article then reflects on how the ethical university can move towards bringing about greater equity between male and female colleagues. (shrink)

This book develops a liberal theory of justice in exchange. It identifies the conditions that market exchanges need to fulfill to be just. It also addresses head-on a consequentialist challenge to existing theories of exchange, namely that, in light of new harms faced at the global level, we need to consider the combined consequences of millions of market exchanges to reach a final judgment about whether some individual exchange is just. The author argues that, even if we accept this (...) challenge, the effect of it is minimal. For different reasons, normatively problematic collective market outcomes like externalities, monopolies, violations of the Lockean proviso, inequality, and commodification do not pose particular problems to the justice of market exchanges. He outlines the various conditions a market exchange needs to fulfill to be considered just from a liberal background and in light of the new harms. Ultimately, he shows, it is not the market which is to blame; if we want to tackle issues like global warming or global economic injustice, we should not blindly follow the intuition that we best restrain and regulate markets. Commutative Justice is unique in its focus on justice in exchange rather than on end-state distributive justice, and the way in which it addresses the new harms we are facing today. It will be of interest to researchers and advanced students in philosophy, politics, and economics who are working on questions of economic justice. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn recent work, Joshua Horton and David Keith argue on distributive and consequentialist grounds that research into solar radiation management geoengineering is justified because the resulting knowledge has the potential to benefit everyone, particularly the ‘global poor.’ I argue that this view overlooks procedural and recognitional justice, and thus relegates to the background questions of how SRM research should be governed. In response to Horton and Keith, I argue for a multidimensional approach to geoengineering justice, which entails that (...) questions of how to govern SRM research should be addressed from the very outset – that is, now. (shrink)

The one sphere of life where a claimed right to privacy is most sympathetically received is in the inner realm of the mind. I will look briefly at Joseph Tussman’s claim that a government is not only entitled but morally required to be concerned with and involved in the minds of the nation’s citizens. I then further explore reasons why the realm of the mind matters not only morally but politically. There are consequentialist reasons, but more interestingly there are non-consequentialist (...) reasons on the basis of which I introduce the concept of “authentic social justice.” In particular, there are relevant insights to be gainedby reflecting on forms of oppression that are subtle but serious in nature, forms that involve neither violence nor the use of law. (shrink)

What do we owe to our descendants? How do we balance their needs against our own? Tim Mulgan develops a new theory of our obligations to future generations, based on a new rule-consequentialist account of the morality of individual reproduction. He also brings together several different contemporary philosophical discussions, including the demands of morality and international justice. His aim is to produce a coherent, intuitively plausible moral theory that is not unreasonably demanding, even when extended to cover future people. (...) While the book focuses on developing this new account, there are also substantial discussions of alternative views, especially contract-based accounts of intergenerational justice and competing forms of consequentialism. (shrink)

_Moral Theory_ sets out the basic system used to solve moral problems, the system that consequentialists deride as 'traditional morality'. The central concepts, principles and distinctions of traditional morality are explained and defended: rights; justice; the good; virtue; the intention/foresight distinction; the acts/omissions distinction; and, centrally, the fundamental value of human life.

A basic feature of liberal political philosophy is its commitment to religious neut‐rality. Contemporary philosophical discussion of intergenerational justice violates this com‐mitment, as it proceeds on the basis of controversial metaphysical assumptions. The Contractualist notion of a power imbalance between generations and Derek Parfit’s non‐identity claims both presuppose that humans are not reborn. Yet belief in rebirth underlies Hindu and Buddhist traditions espoused by millions throughout the world. These traditions clearly constitute what John Rawls dubs “reasonable comprehensive doctrines”, and (...) therefore cannot be dismissed by political liberals. In many societies, including the USA, the UK, and India, belief in rebirth exists alongside other traditions, as well as modern Western views. A liberal theory for such societies must be impartial regarding rebirth, and the after‐life in general. Two alternatives forms of liberal neutrality are sketched, based on Contractualism and Consequentialism. (shrink)