Distinguishing Agent-Relativity from Agent-Neutrality

Hammerton, Matthew

doi:10.1080/00048402.2018.1477166

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…6 These concerns can be addressed by turning to formal accounts of the distinction that mark it by pointing to differences in the logical structure of agent-relative and agent-neutral rules. In particular, the formal account developed by McNaughton and Rawling (1991) and Hammerton (2019) addresses these concerns while fitting well with Parfit's account.…”

Section: Three Fundamental Divisions In Ethicsmentioning

confidence: 82%

“…Parfit's terminology is now widely followed, including by Nagel himself (Nagel 1986). 4 See McNaughton and Rawling (1993, 83-86) and Hammerton (2019) for an important clarification of these standard classifications that shows how they resist a common line of criticism. 5 One might wonder why theories are defined in this asymmetrical way.…”

Section: Three Fundamental Divisions In Ethicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The fundamental divisions in ethics

Hammerton

2022

Inquiry

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What are the fundamental divisions in ethics? Which divisions capture the most important and basic options in moral theorizing? In this article, I reject the 'Textbook View' which takes the tripartite division between consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics to be fundamental. Instead, I suggest that moral theories are fundamentally divided into three independent divisions, which I call the neutral/relative division, the normative priority division, and the maximizing division. I argue that this account of the fundamental divisions of ethics better captures the main concerns that normative ethicists have when assessing moral theories. It also helps us make progress in comparative ethics and makes visible theoretical possibilities obscured by the Textbook View.

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Section: Three Fundamental Divisions In Ethicsmentioning

confidence: 82%

Section: Three Fundamental Divisions In Ethicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The fundamental divisions in ethics

Hammerton

2022

Inquiry

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“…Gardner is concerned to show that adopting a distinction between direct and vicarious responsibility does not commit one to ‘agent-relativism’ about reasons, or the idea, roughly, that there are some normative reasons which fundamentally bear on what I should do as opposed to anyone else (Hammerton 2018; Nagel 1986; Parfit 1984; Pettit 1987). The distinction between agent-neutralism and agent-relativism is widely regarded as one of the most important debates in ethics 10 .…”

Section: Vicarious Responsibilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Epistemic Complicity

Boult

2023

Episteme

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There is a widely accepted distinction between being directly responsible for a wrongdoing versus being somehow indirectly or vicariously responsible for the wrongdoing of another person or collective. Often this is couched in analyses of complicity, and complicity's role in the relationship between individual and collective wrongdoing. Complicity is important because, inter alia, it allows us to make sense of individuals who may be blameless or blameworthy to a relatively low degree for their immediate conduct, but are nevertheless blameworthy to a higher degree for their implication in some larger (or another person's) wrongdoing. In this paper, I argue that there is a distinctively epistemic kind of complicity. First, I motivate the distinction between direct and vicarious responsibility with three interlocking arguments, respectively appealing to: (i) the structure of rational agency; (ii) linguistic considerations; (iii) the role of ‘principal' vs. ‘accomplice’ in legal doctrine. I show how these arguments naturally extend to the epistemic domain, motivating an epistemic form of vicarious responsibility. I then examine complicity as a mechanism of vicarious epistemic responsibility. To fill this out, I engage with an epistemic analogue of the debate about the role of intention versus causal contribution in complicity. I propose a Casual Account of Epistemic Complicity, arguing that it accommodates a wide range of cases, and enables fine-grained explanations of degrees of culpability for epistemic complicity. With an adequate account of epistemic complicity on hand, we can explain what is objectionable about an important class of epistemic agent who, on an individual level, may be epistemically blameless or blameworthy to a relatively low degree, but whose relation to other individuals or collectives nevertheless makes them epistemically blameworthy to a higher degree. I explore some broader implications of this result.

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Why deontologists should reject agent-relative value and embrace agent-relative accountability

Schuessler

2020

ZEMO

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This paper claims that deontological and consequentialist ethics are best distinguished with reference to different assumptions concerning moral accountability and accounting. Deontological ethics can thereby be defended against the accusation of inordinate concern with the moral purity of agents. Moreover, deontological ethics can and should reject being based on the concept of agent-relative value. Even under the assumption that deontological ethics can be consequentialized, agent-relative value need not play a fundamental role. This is not the same as denying agent-relativity a key role in deontological ethics. Deontological moral accounting of universal value should be regarded as agent-relative, whereas consequentialist accounting assumes a shared moral account of all moral agents.

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Distinguishing Agent-Relativity from Agent-Neutrality

Cited by 5 publications

References 27 publications

The fundamental divisions in ethics

The fundamental divisions in ethics

Epistemic Complicity

Why deontologists should reject agent-relative value and embrace agent-relative accountability

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