Hendricks (2018) has defended an argument that abortion is (usually) immoral, which he calls the impairment argument. This argument purports to apply regardless of the moral status of the fetus. It has recently been bolstered by several amendments from Blackshaw and Hendricks (2021a; 2021b). In this paper, three problems are presented for their Strengthened Impairment Argument (SIA). In the first, it is observed that even with the new modifications the argument, contrary to their insistence, does seem to depend on Marquis’ argument. In order for it not to do so, they would need to provide some other plausible reason why impairing a fetus is wrong that persists in cases of abortion. Because of the restrictions regarding what reasons can be used, they are not entitled to stipulate that some plausible reason can be found. In the second section, the use of an over-ridingness caveat – the most recent modification – is scrutinised. This is shown to either beg the question about the permissibility of abortion by assuming that opposing reasons are insufficient in most cases, or require an entirely separate argument to establish that such reasons are insufficient. Thirdly, I observe that the principle utilised in the latest version of the argument fails to account for undercutting reason, which suggest that the principle, in its current form, is false.
Satisficing consequentialism is an unpopular theory. Because it permits gratuitous suboptimal behaviour, it strikes many as wildly implausible. It has been widely rejected as a tenable moral theory for more than twenty years. In this paper, I rehearse the arguments behind this unpopularity, before examining an attempt to redeem satisficing.Richard Yetter Chappell has recently defended a form of "effort satisficing consequentialism". By incorporating an "effort ceiling" --a limit on the amount of willpower a situation requires --and requiring that agents produce at least as much good as they could given how much effort they are exerting, Chappell avoids the obvious objec-
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