Bøger i Elements in Ethics serien

David Hume's moral system involves considerations that seem at odds with one another. This Element addresses these puzzles in Hume's moral theory, with reference to historical and contemporary discussions.

Prioritarianism holds that improvements in someone's life (gains in well-being) are morally more valuable, the worse off the person would otherwise be. The doctrine is impartial, holding that a gain in one person's life counts exactly the same as an identical gain in the life of anyone equally well off. If we have some duty of beneficence to make the world better, prioritarianism specifies the content of the duty. Unlike the utilitarian, the prioritarian holds that we should not only seek to increase human well-being, but also distribute it fairly across persons, by tilting in favor of the worse off. A variant version adds that we should also give priority to the morally deserving - to saints over scoundrels. The view is a standard for right choice of individual actions and public policies, offering a distinctive alternative to utilitarianism (maximize total well-being), sufficiency (make everyone's condition good enough) and egalitarianism (make everyone's condition the same).

This Element examines the concept of moral responsibility as it is used in contemporary philosophical debates and explores the justifiability of the moral practices associated with it, including moral praise/blame, retributive punishment, and the reactive attitudes of resentment and indignation. After identifying and discussing several different varieties of responsibility-including causal responsibility, take-charge responsibility, role responsibility, liability responsibility, and the kinds of responsibility associated with attributability, answerability, and accountability-it distinguishes between basic and non-basic desert conceptions of moral responsibility and considers a number of skeptical arguments against each. It then outlines an alternative forward-looking account of moral responsibility grounded in non-desert-invoking desiderata such as protection, reconciliation, and moral formation. It concludes by addressing concerns about the practical implications of skepticism about desert-based moral responsibility and explains how optimistic skeptics can preserve most of what we care about when it comes to our interpersonal relationships, morality, and meaning in life.

Deontology is a theory about how we should act, morally speaking. It comes in several varieties, but all share certain doctrines, many of which are close to those found in the so-called 'common-sense morality' of the Western world. And all varieties are united in their opposition to consequentialism, a theory that, in its simplest form, tells us that we should always act so as to maximize impersonal value by bringing about the best consequences. This Element presents some of the different versions of deontology, including the views of W. D. Ross, and, to a lesser extent, Immanuel Kant. It defends certain deontological tenets, while challenging others, and contrasts them with consequentialism. Deontology and consequentialism are two of the main contenders in ethical theory, but virtue ethics is another, and it too is addressed (briefly), with an attempt to see it, in its most plausible form, as part of deontology.

This Element examines the many facets of ethical realism and the issues at stake in metaethical debates about it-both between realism and non-realist alternatives, and between different versions of realism itself. Starting with a minimal core characterization of ethical realism focused on claims about meaning and truth, we go on to develop a narrower and more theoretically useful conception by adding further claims about objectivity and ontological commitment. Yet even this common understanding of ethical realism captures a surprisingly heterogeneous range of views. In fact, a strong case can be made for adding several more conditions in order to arrive at a proper paradigm of realism about ethics when understood in a non-deflationary way. We then develop this more robust realism, bringing out its distinctive take on ethical objectivity and normative authority, its unique ontological commitments, and both the support for it and some challenges it faces.

This Element provides an opinionated introduction to the debate in moral philosophy over identifying the basic elements of well-being and to the related debate over the nature of happiness. The question of the nature of happiness is simply the question of what happiness is (as opposed to what causes it or how to get it), and the central philosophical question about well-being is the question of what things are in themselves of ultimate benefit or harm to a person, or directly make them better or worse off.

As Socrates famously noted, there is no more important question than how we ought to live. The answer to this question depends on how the reasons that we have for living in various different ways combine and compete. To illustrate, suppose that I've just received a substantial raise. What should I do with the extra money? I have most moral reason to donate it to effective charities but most self-interested reason to spend it on luxuries for myself. So, whether I should live my life as I have most moral reason to live it or as I have most self-interested reason to live it depends on how these and other sorts of reasons combine and compete to determine what I have most reason to do, all things considered. This Element seeks to figure out how different sorts of reasons combine and compete to determine how we ought to live.

This Element introduces several prominent themes in contemporary work on the epistemology and methodology of ethics. Topics addressed include skeptical challenges in ethics, epistemic arguments in metaethics, what (if anything) is epistemically distinctive of the ethical. Also considered are methodological questions in ethics, including questions about which ethical concepts we should investigate, and what our goals should be in ethical inquiry.

Ethical constructivism holds that truths about the relation between rationality, morality, and agency are best understood as constructed by correct reasoning, rather than discovered or invented. Unlike other metaphors used in metaethics, construction brings to light the generative and dynamic dimension of practical reason. On the resultant picture, practical reasoning is not only productive but also self-transforming, and socially empowering. The main task of this volume is to illustrate how constructivism has substantially modified and expanded the agenda of metaethics by refocusing on rational agency and its constitutive principles. In particular, this volume identifies, compares and discusses the prospects and failures of the main strands of constructivism regarding the powers of reason in responding to the challenges of contingency. While Kantian, Humean, Aristotelian, and Hegelian theories sharply differ in their constructivist strategies, they provide compelling accounts of the rational articulation required for an inclusive and unified ethical community.

A systematic defense of moral contractarianism as a distinct approach to the social contract, with particular relevance for morally diverse societies. It elucidates, in comparison to moral conventionalism and moral contractualism, the distinct features of moral contractarianism, its scope, and conceptual and practical challenges.

This Element provides an overview of some of the central issues in contemporary moral psychology. It explores what moral psychology is, whether we are always motivated by self-interest, what good character looks like and whether anyone has it, whether moral judgments always motivate us to act, whether what motivates action is always a desire of some kind, and what the role is of reasoning and deliberation in moral judgment and action. This Element is aimed at a general audience including undergraduate students without an extensive background in philosophy.

This Element begins by describing T.M. Scanlon's contractualism according to which an action is right when it is authorised by the moral principles no one could reasonably reject. This view has argued to have implausible consequences with regards to how different-sized groups, non-human animals, and cognitively limited human beings should be treated. It has also been accused of being theoretically redundant and unable to vindicate the so-called deontic distinctions. I then distinguish between the general contractualist framework and Scanlon's version of contractualism. I explain how the general framework enables us to formulate many other versions of contractualism some of which can already be found in the literature. Understanding contractualism in this new way enables us both to understand the structural similarities and differences between different versions of contractualism and also to see the different objections to contractualism as internal debates about which version of contractualism is correct.

The Element provides an overview of Immanuel Kant's arguments regarding the content of the moral law (the categorical imperative), as well as an exposition of his arguments for the bindingness of the moral law for rational agents. The Element also considers common objections to Kant's ethics.

Ethical subjectivists hold that moral judgements are descriptions of our attitudes. Expressivists hold that they are expressions of our attitudes. Can these views accommodate three central features of moral practice: practicality of moral judgements, phenomenon of moral disagreement, and mind-independence of some moral truths?

Is ethics grounded in human nature? Yes, claims our oldest ethical theory. This Element outlines the history of natural law theory, alternative traditions, and methods along which natural law norms can be discovered. It investigates and rebuts seminal challenges to natural law methodology, and outlines and criticises the 'new' natural law theory.

Presents an interpretation and defence of Philippa Foot's ethical naturalism. Moral virtues understood as perfections of human powers are central to Foot's account of ethical judgment. The thrust of the interpretation offered here is that Foot's metaethics takes ethical judgment to be tied to our self-understanding as a sort of rational animal.

Derek Parfit (1942-2017) was one of the most important and influential moral philosophers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. This Element offers a critical introduction to his wide-ranging ethical thought, focusing on Reasons and Persons (1984) and On What Matters (2011), and their contribution to the consequentialist moral tradition.

There is presently a debate between Subjectivists and Objectivists about moral wrongness. After outlining and evaluating the various arguments both against Subjectivism and against Objectivism, this Element offers a tentative defense of Objectivism about moral wrongness.

An account of Thomas Aquinas's moral philosophy, emphasizing the intrinsic connection between happiness and the human good, human virtue, and the precepts of practical reason. Humans achieve happiness by performing good human acts, which are produced by the intellect and the will, and perfected by the relevant virtues.

This Element provides an overview of the central components of recent work in virtue ethics. The first section explores central themes in neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics, while the second turns the discussion to major alternative theoretical perspectives. The third section focuses on some of the challenges to virtue ethics.

Utilitarianism's central commitment is to the promotion of well-being, impartially considered. If scarce resources should be directed where they will best promote well-being, and if theoretical attention is a scarce resource, then moral theorists should focus on topics that are most important to the future promotion of well-being.

This Element discusses Nietzsche's ethics in his late works, from 1886 onwards. Explaining the basics of his ethical theory and exploring his goals in writing a history of Christian morality, it also takes a broader look, respectively, at Nietzsche's wider philosophy in light of his ethics.

This Element offers a brief overview of Buddhist thought and modern scholarly approaches to its diverse forms of moral reflection. It then explores two of the most prominent philosophers from the main strands of the Indian Buddhist tradition - Buddhaghosa and Santideva - in a comparative fashion.

Presenting Thomas Reid's agency-centered ethical theory. This means, one according to which agency intersects with the subject matter of ethics in a sufficiently wide range of important ways that we cannot satisfactorily engage in ethical theorizing without committing ourselves to and, ultimately developing, particular understandings of agency.

A critical survey of the full range of G. E. Moore's ethical thought, including his rejection of naturalism in favor of the view that 'good' designates a simple indefinable property, his understanding of intrinsic value, his doctrine of organic wholes, and his critique of egoism and subjectivism.