Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-b6zl4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-12T05:22:05.920Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Three Forms of Actualist Direct Consequentialism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 October 2022

Shyam Nair Open the ORCID record for Shyam Nair [Opens in a new window]
Shyam Nair*
Affiliation:
Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
*
Email: gsnair@asu.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

One family of maximizing act consequentialist theories is actualist direct theories. Indeed, historically there are at least three different forms of actualist direct consequentialism (due to Bentham, Moore, and contemporary consequentialists). This article is about the logical differences between these three actualist direct theories and the differences between actualist direct theories and their competitors. Three main points emerge. First, the sharpest separation between actualist direct theories and their competitors concerns the so-called ‘inheritance’ principle. Second, there are a myriad of other logical differences among actualist direct theories. Third, one theory (Moore's theory) stands out among actualist direct theories because it entails a variety of logical principles. This fact may count in favor of that theory.

Type
Article
Information
Utilitas , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , March 2023 , pp. 1 - 24
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bergström, Lars (1966). Alternatives and Consequences of Actions. Stockholm: Almquist and Wiksell.Google Scholar
Bradley, Ben (2006). Against Satisficing Consequentialism. Utilitas 18(2), pp. 97–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Campbell (2018). Maximalism and the Structure of Acts. Noûs 52(4), pp. 752–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bykvist, Krister (2002). Alternative Actions and the Spirit of Consequentialism. Philosophical Studies 107 (1), pp. 45–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bykvist, Krister (2007). Violations of Normative Invariance. Theoria 73(2), pp. 98–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carlsson, Erik (1995). Consequentialism Reconsidered. Dordrecht: Spring-Science + Business Media.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carlsson, Erik (1999). Consequentialism, Alternatives, and Actualism. In Philosophical Studies 96(3), pp. 253–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chellas, Brian (1974). Conditional Obligation. In Logical Theory and Semantic Analysis: Essays Dedicated to Stig Kanger on His Fiftieth Birthday, ed. by Stenlund, Sören. Boston: Reidel, pp. 23–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galles, David, and Pearl, Judea (1998). An Axiomatic Characterization of Causal Counterfactuals. Foundation of Science 3(1), pp. 151–82.Google Scholar
Goble, Lou (1996). Utilitarian Deontic Logic. Philosophical Studies 82(3), pp. 317–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldman, Holly (1978). Doing the Best One Can. In Values and Morals, ed. by Goldman, Alvin and Kim, Jaegwon. Dordrecht: Reidel, pp. 185–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gustafsson, Johan (2014). Combinative Consequentialism and the Problem of Act Versions. Philosophical Studies 167, pp. 585–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gustafsson, Johan (2018). Bentham's Binary Form of Maximizing Utilitarianism. British Journal of for the History of Philosophy 26(1), pp. 87–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halpern, Joseph (2000). Axiomatizing Causal Reasoning. Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research 12, pp. 317–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansson, Sven Ove (2001). The Structure of Values and Norms. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hooker, Brad (2001). Ideal Code, Real World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Icard, Thomas (2017). From Programs to Causal Models. Proceedings of the 21st Amsterdam Colloquium, pp. 35–44.Google Scholar
Jackson, Frank, and Pargetter, Robert (1986). Oughts, Actions, and Actualism. The Philosophical Review 95(2), pp. 233–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kiesewetter, Benjamin (2015). Instrumental Normativity: In Defense of the Transmission Principle. Ethics 125(4), pp. 921–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kiesewetter, Benjamin (2018). Contrary-to-Duty Scenarios, Deontic Dilemmas, and Transmission Principles. Ethics 129(1), pp. 98–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, David (2001 [1973]). Counterfactuals. 2nd edn. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Moore, G. E. (1960 [1903]). Principia Ethica. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Nair, Shyam (2020). Fault Lines in Ethical Theory. In The Oxford Handbook of Consequentialism, ed. by Portmore, Douglas. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 67–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Portmore, Douglas (2019). Opting for the Best. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, Jacob (2012). Actualism, Possibilism, and Beyond. In Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, ed. by Timmons, Mark. Vol. 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 243–82.Google Scholar
Stalnaker, Robert (1968). A Theory of Conditionals. In Studies in Logical Theory, ed. by Rescher, Nicholas. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 98–112.Google Scholar
Timmerman, Travis, and Cohen, Yishai (2019). Actualism and Possibilism in Ethics. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. by Zalta, Edward. Summer 2019. url: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2019/entries/actualism-possibilism-ethics/.Google Scholar
White, Stephen (2017). Transmission Failures. Ethics 127(3), pp. 719–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhang, Jiji (2013). A Lewisian Logic of Causal Counterfactuals. Minds and Machines 23, pp. 77–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar