Moral Absolutism Defended

Hawley, Patrick

doi:10.5840/jphil2008105544

Cited by 17 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…See also Simons 1999, p. 63, for a similar point. See Aboodi et al 2008 andHawley 2008 for replies. 7 Jackson and Smith use an example involving killing a skier who poses a mortal threat to several other people's lives, when one is not sure whether the skier is creating the threat intentionally.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 97%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Lexical Priority and the Problem of Risk

Huemer¹

2010

Pacific Philosophical Qtr

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Some theories of practical reasons incorporate a lexical priority structure, according to which some practical reasons have infinitely greater weight than others. This includes absolute deontological theories and axiological theories that take some goods to be categorically superior to others. These theories face problems involving cases in which there is a non-extreme probability that a given reason applies. In view of such cases, lexical-priority theories are in danger of becoming irrelevant to decision-making, becoming absurdly demanding, or generating paradoxical cases in which each of a pair of actions is permissible yet the pair is impermissible.p apq_1370 332..351

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…© 2010 The Author Pacific Philosophical Quarterly © 2010 University of Southern California and Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 27 This is intended as an approximation ofHawley's (2008) view in his response toJackson and Smith. 28 This is, as I understand it, the position advanced byAboodi et al (2008) in response to Jackson and Smith.…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%

Lexical Priority and the Problem of Risk

Huemer¹

2010

Pacific Philosophical Qtr

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Notes 6 Huemer [2010]; Isaacs [2014]; Jackson and Smith [2006]; Jackson and Smith [2015]. 7 Aboodi et al [2008]; Hawley [2008]. 8 For that literature, see for example Arrhenius [2005]; Arrhenius andRabinowicz [2005a, 2015]; Carlson [2000Carlson [ , 2001; Dorsey [2009]; Griffin [1986]; Jensen [2008].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For that literature, see for example Arrhenius []; Arrhenius and Rabinowicz [, ]; Carlson [, ]; Dorsey []; Griffin []; Jensen [].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Axiological Absolutism and Risk1

Lazar

Lee‐Stronach

2017

Nous

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Consider the following claim: given the choice between saving a life and preventing any number of people from temporarily experiencing a mild headache, you should always save the life. Many moral theorists accept this claim. In doing so, they commit themselves to some form of ‘moral absolutism’: the view that there are some moral considerations (like being able to save a life) that cannot be outweighed by any number of lesser moral considerations (like being able to avert a mild headache). In contexts of certainty, it is clear what moral absolutism requires of you. However, what does it require of you when deciding under risk? What ought you to do when there is a chance that, say, you will not succeed in saving the life? In recent years, various critics have argued that moral absolutism cannot satisfactorily deal with risk and should, therefore, be abandoned. In this paper, we show that moral absolutism can answer its critics by drawing on—of all things—orthodox expected utility theory.

show abstract

“…Heidi Hurd (1999) discusses such theories in depth, while Ron Aboodi, Adi Borer, and David Enoch (2008), Ralph Wedgwood (2011), and Patrick Hawley (2008 provide various defenses. Such deontologists might account for the wrongness of an action in terms of its being an instance of theft.…”

Section: Continuous Parameters and Scalar Rightnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scalar consequentialism the right way

Sinhababu

2017

Philos Stud

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Rightness and wrongness come in degrees that vary on a continuous scale. After demonstrating this with examples, I'll consider how to develop a consequentialist theory that accounts for ordinary thought about right and wrong, and present problems that some deontological theories face in doing so.Scalar properties can vary on a continuous scale. We often refer to them with gradable adjectives like "good", comparative forms like "better", and superlative forms like "best". Scalar properties differ from discrete properties, which don't vary on a continuous scale. We often refer to discrete properties with non-gradable adjectives including "right", "wrong", "permissible", and "obligatory", which lack such comparative and superlative forms.I'll argue that rightness is scalar, even though non-gradable adjectives apply to it in English. (The same holds for wrongness. For brevity, I'll frequently omit mention of wrongness.) "Righter" isn't a grammatical English expression, which might seem like evidence that rightness is discrete rather than scalar. In fact, "righter" expresses our moral thinking at least as well as "right". But we need not abandon unsuffixed "right". A variety of linguistic resources help us provide truth-conditions for claims including "right". This suggests new ways of developing scalar consequentialism, which was pioneered by Alastair Norcross (1997, 2006a, 2006b, 2008).Section 1 argues that we ordinarily judge the rightness of action to be a scalar property. Section 2 considers linguistic resources that scalar consequentialists can use to understand unsuffixed "right". Section 3 presents an advantage scalar consequentialism has over some agentcentered deontological theories in accounting for scalar rightness. Rightness and wrongness come in degreesOrdinary cases of action demonstrate that rightness and wrongness are scalar, as this section shows. Consider the following case: Betsy promised to see a documentary about Stalin's purges with her friend Daniel. It's time to go, but she doesn't feel up for anything so emotionally draining. So she texts Daniel to say that she isn't coming, puts her phone away, and plays video games while Daniel sits by himself at the movie. Daniel watches the movie unhappily, not only because of the grim events on the screen, but because Betsy broke her promise and didn't come. Their friendship suffers as a result.We see that rightness and wrongness are scalar when we consider other things Betsy could have done. It was wrong to break her promise and play video games, but she could've done worse. She could've burglarized Daniel's house while he was at the movie. She could've run around on the street merrily assaulting people until someone forced her to stop. She even could have fulfilled her promise in an awful way, wearing a suicide bomb vest under her jacket and detonating it at the end of the movie to kill everyone in the theater. (For those who prefer more mundane possibilities: she could've stayed home without sending a message to let him know that she wouldn't be comi...

show abstract

Moral Absolutism Defended

Cited by 17 publications

References 0 publications

Lexical Priority and the Problem of Risk

Lexical Priority and the Problem of Risk

Axiological Absolutism and Risk1

Scalar consequentialism the right way

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About