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Consequentialism and Permissibility

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2010

BRIAN MCELWEE
BRIAN MCELWEE*
Affiliation:
Lincoln College, University of Oxfordbrian.mcelwee@lincoln.ox.ac.uk
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Abstract

Scalar consequentialism, recently championed by Alastair Norcross, holds that the value of an action varies according to the goodness of its consequences, but eschews all judgements of moral permissibility and impermissibility. I show that the strongest version of scalar consequentialism is not vulnerable to the objection that it is insufficiently action-guiding. Instead, the principle objection to the scalar view is simply that it leaves out important and interesting ethical judgements. In demonstrating this, I counter Rob Lawlor's contention that consequentialists cannot consistently care about permissibility and impermissibility.

Type
Research Article
Information
Utilitas , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , June 2010 , pp. 171 - 183
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

1 Norcross, Alastair, ‘The Scalar Approach to Utilitarianism’, The Blackwell Guide to Mill's Utilitarianism, ed. West, H. (Oxford, 2006)Google Scholar. See also Slote, Michael, Common-Sense Morality and Consequentialism (London, 1985)Google Scholar.

2 Lawlor, Rob, ‘The Rejection of Scalar Consequentialism’, Utilitas 21.1 (March 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Mulgan, Tim, The Demands of Consequentialism (Oxford, 2001), ch. 5Google Scholar.

4 Lawlor, ‘The Rejection’, p. 113.

5 Lawlor, ‘The Rejection’, p. 109.

6 One might argue that an ethical theory is insufficiently action-guiding if it fails to distinguish moral reasons from egoistic reasons, and offer an account of how they interact. (Lawlor has suggested this in personal communication.) For an account of how we should view the relationship between egoistic reasons and impartial reasons, see Brian McElwee, ‘Consequentialism, Demandingness and the Monism of Practical Reason’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, vol. CVIII, pt. 3.

7 See Norcross, ‘The Scalar Approach’, p. 220.

8 Lawlor, ‘The Rejection’, p. 105.

9 Mill, John Stuart, Utilitarianism, ed. Crisp, R. (Oxford, 1997), ch. 5Google Scholar.

10 Obviously, there is a significant distinction between acting in a way that is morally impermissible and acting in a way that is legally impermissible. I will not discuss this complication here as it provides no special problem for the consequentialist.

11 Lawlor, ‘The Rejection’, p. 105.

12 Mulgan, The Demands, p. 143. See also Hooker, Brad, ‘Right, Wrong and Rule-Consequentialism’, The Blackwell Guide to Mill's Utilitarianism, ed. West, H. (Oxford, 2006)Google Scholar.

13 Norcross, ‘The Scalar Approach’, p. 228.

14 Norcross, ‘The Scalar Approach’, p. 228.

15 See Scheffler, Samuel, ‘Prerogatives without Restrictions’, Philosophical Perspectives 6 (1992), pp. 377–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For other possible approaches, see Slote, Common-Sense Morality; Murphy, Liam, Moral Demands in Non-Ideal Theory (New York, 2000)Google Scholar; Hooker, Brad, Ideal Code, Real World (Oxford, 2000)Google Scholar, Mulgan, The Demands, pt. IV.

16 My own favoured approach is one which endorses an account which is less systematic than Scheffler's in determining what moral requirements we face.

17 I am grateful to Rob Lawlor and Gerald Lang for useful discussion of the issues raised in this article.