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This book develops a new theory of the obligations to future generations, based on a new Rule Consequentialist account of the morality of individual reproduction. The result is a coherent, intuitively plausible moral theory that is not unreasonably demanding — even when extended to cover future people — and that accounts for a wide range of independently plausible intuitions covering individual morality, intergenerational justice, and international justice. In particular, it is superior to its two main rivals in this area: person-affecting theories and traditional Consequentialism. The former fall foul of Parfit’s Non-Identity Problem, while the latter are invariably implausibly demanding. Furthermore, many puzzles in contemporary value theory (such as Parfit’s Repugnant Conclusion) are best solved if strict Consequentialism is abandoned for a more moderate alternative. The heart of the book is the first systematic exploration of the Rule Consequentialist account of the morality of individual reproduction. This yields a strong commitment to reproductive freedom, and also provides the best foundation for a liberal theory of intergenerational and international justice. The final chapters argue that while it will include a Rule Consequentialist account of the morality of reproduction, the best overall moral theory is likely to be a composite one, such as the Combined Consequentialism the author developed in The Demands of Consequentialism.

Consequentialists oppose while absolutists and deontologists rely upon double-effect reasoning (DER) to address hard cases in which good inextricably binds with evil (such as destroying a legitimate military target while concomitantly and foreseeably killing innocents). This book addresses the history, application, and philosophical controversy concerning DER. It traces both the origin of DER in the thought of Aquinas and its development by subsequent ethicists. Considering consequentialist criticisms, proportionalism, and recent revisions of double effect, the book argues at length for the reasonableness of DER, particularly the intended/foreseen distinction. Intent is distinguished from foresight, and this distinction is applied to the classic cases of terror and tactical bombing. Most importantly, the book establishes the ethical relevance of this distinction, grounding its import both in broadly Aristotelian-Thomistic features of action as voluntary, and in a Kantian focus on the victim as an end in himself. The book also considers typically neglected albeit intriguing issues such as DER’s application to allowings and how constitutional legal systems that incorporate exceptionless norms employ a legal analogue to DER.

Buddhist ethical views have much in common with certain modern ethical theories, and contain many insights relevant to contemporary moral problems. This book examines the theoretical structure of the normative views found in a number of Indian and Tibetan Buddhist texts. Teachings from all three major traditions of Buddhism, the Theravāda, Mahāyāna, and Vajrayāna, are considered. Although Buddhist philosophy is quite diverse, and these traditions differ in their ethical perspectives, they can all be understood as versions of a general moral outlook known as welfarist consequentialism. Buddhist versions of consequentialism regard virtue as an intrinsic component of the good life. They range from the cautious indirect approach of the Theravāda, which focuses on following rules that lead to the welfare of many, to the bold and often shocking direct approach of the Vajrayāna. Buddhists can respond convincingly to certain often-discussed criticisms of consequentialism, including several powerful arguments due to Kant. Buddhist texts offer an interesting approach to the problem of the demands of morality. These texts also contain a powerful critique of what we would identify as the concept of free will, a critique which leads to a hard determinist view of human action. This view supports Buddhist values of compassion, nonviolence and forgiveness, and leads to a more humane approach to the justification of punishment.

In How Should Ethics Relate to (the rest of) Philosophy?, Stephen Darwall challenges both the claims of independence and priority. He argues that although metaethics and normative ethics are properly focused on different issues, they need to be brought into a dynamic relation with one another in order to produce a systematic and defensible philosophical ethics. Their mutual dependence, claims Darwall, is owing to the fact that issues of normativity are at the centre of the concerns of both metaethics and normative ethics. In making his case, Darwall examines Moore's doctrine that an irreducible notion of intrinsic value is fundamental in ethics, and argues that although Moore was correct in thinking that ethical notions are irreducible, he was incorrect in thinking that this is because they have a notion of intrinsic value at their core. Rather, according to Darwall, the notion of a normative reason is ethically fundamental, and a proper philosophical ethics that fully accommodates the normativity involved in ethical thought and discourse will require that metaethical issues and normative issues bearing on normativity be ‘pursued interdependently as complementary aspects of a comprehensive philosophical ethics’. He illustrates this claim by explaining how certain debates within normative ethics over consequentialism and over virtue depend upon metaethical issues about the nature of normativity.

This book looks at what enters into ethical judgment and choice. Interpretation of a case and of what the options are is always a factor, as is a sense of the possible values at stake. Intuitions also enter in, but often are unreliable. For a long time it seemed only fair that oldest sons inherited, and it struck few people as unfair that women were not allowed to attend universities. A moral judgment is putatively part of a moral order in a society that any reasonable person would accept. But what counts as “reasonable” is generally contestable. The unreliability of intuitions leads naturally to ethical theory. Kantian, contractualist, and consequentialist theories all have some important truth in them, but not the whole truth. Contractualism lacks the resources required for a fully determinate account of what counts as “reasonable.” Broad general rules are important to Kant and are at the center of everyday morality. But can Kantian ethics explain why they have to have this central role? Our evolving social contract now contains elements (e.g., the rejection of racism and sexism) that once would have seemed counter-intuitive to most people. But could consequentialists have predicted with entire confidence the consequences of social changes that we now think were desirable? The last part of this book contains a double argument. One is that ethical theory is employed by humans in a state of semi-ignorance of relevant factors, grasping at likely truths and evolved intuitions. The other is that consequentialist considerations have a major role at the fundamental level, but much more in justification or criticism than in ethical discovery.

The focus of this book is consequentialism, the moral theory upon which an action is morally right just in case its performance leads to the best state of affairs. The theory can with some plausibility claim a status as the default alternative in contemporary moral philosophy. Moreover, its pervasive deployment in spheres such as economics, public policy, and jurisprudence is one of the striking developments of the last 150 years. It is the thesis of this book that debates concerning the challenge of consequentialism tend to overlook a fundamental challenge to consequentialism, an unresolved tension between the theory and many of its most fundamental presuppositions. An appreciation of the nature of this tension grounds the articulation of a fundamental challenge to the theory from within. This challenge is developed and sharpened through the first 4 chapters of the book. Development of this challenge to consequentialism in turn reveals the apparent force of the challenge of consequentialism to be largely illusory. Chapter 5 demonstrates that many traditional rationales offered in its support draw upon systematic misappropriations of intuitions linking rightness of actions and goodness of actions, treating them as intuitions concerning rightness of actions and goodness of overall states of affairs. Chapters 6 and 7 demonstrate that one remaining rationale — a rationale grounded in the appeal to the impartiality of morality — does not provide support for the theory; indeed, that attempts to respond to the tension within consequentialism suggest a fundamental role for an alternative to the consequentialist's impersonal conception of impartiality, an interpersonal rather than an impersonal conception of equal concern. Unlike the consequentialist's impersonal conception, such interpersonal impartiality can allow for the ordinary moral convictions that actions that do not promote the best overall state of affairs are often morally permitted, and are sometimes morally required.

Begins by explaining and arguing for certain criteria for assessing normative moral theories. Then argues that these criteria lead to a rule‐consequentialist moral theory. According to rule‐consequentialism, acts should be assessed morally in terms of impartially justified rules, and rules are impartially justified if and only if the expected overall value of their general internalization is at least as great as for any alternative rules. In the course of developing this theory, the book discusses impartiality, well‐being, fairness, equality, and the question of how ‘general internalization’ of rules is to be interpreted. It also considers the main objections to rule‐consequentialism. The book also discusses contractualism, utilitarianism, act‐consequentialism, Ross‐style pluralism, and the question of which moral prohibitions and which duties to aid others rule‐consequentialism endorses. The last part of the book considers the implications of rule‐consequentialism for some current controversies in practical ethics.

In this book, William Talbott builds on the work of J.S. Mill, John Rawls, and Jürgen Habermas to develop a new equilibrium model for moral reasoning, in which moral reasoning is primarily bottom-up, from judgments about particular actual and hypothetical cases to norms or principles that best explain the particular judgments. Employing the equilibrium model, Talbott builds on the work of John Rawls, Amartya Sen, and Henry Shue to explain how, over the course of history, human beings have learned to adopt a distinctively moral standpoint from which it is possible to make reliable, though not infallible, universal judgments of right and wrong. He explains how this distinctively moral standpoint has led to the discovery of the moral importance of nine basic human rights. The book is constructed around pivotal examples. Talbott uses the example of Bartolomé de Las Casas and his opposition to the Spanish colonists’ treatment of the American natives in the 16th century to illustrate the possibility of attaining a universal moral standpoint. He uses the example of the development of women's rights as a microcosm of the development of basic human rights. He argues that assertions of basic human rights are almost always a response to oppressive norms justified by self-reinforcing paternalism. Talbott uses examples from Marxist dictatorships to show the importance of basic human rights in solving what he refers to as the reliable feedback problem and the appropriate responsiveness problem for governments. He uses Sen’s research on famines and psychological research on the ultimatum game and other related games to explain how individual fairness judgments from the moral standpoint make rights-respecting democracies self-improving self-regulating systems that become more just over time. Undoubtedly, the most controversial issue raised by the claim of universal human rights is the issue of moral relativism. How can the advocate of universal rights avoid being a moral imperialist? In this book, Talbott shows how to defend basic individual rights from a universal moral point of view that is not imperialistic. Talbott avoids moral imperialism, first, by insisting that all of us, himself included, have moral blindspots and that we usually depend on others to help us to identify those blindspots; second, by emphasizing the importance of avoiding moral paternalism. In the book, Talbott develops a new consequentialist account of the importance of the basic human rights, which he employs to augment the more familiar nonconsequentialist accounts.

The issue of humanitarian intervention has generated one of the most heated debates in international relations over the past decade, for both theorists and practitioners. At its heart is the alleged tension between the principle of state sovereignty, and the evolving norms related to individual human rights. This edited collection examines the challenges to international society posed by humanitarian intervention in a post-September 11th world. It brings scholars of law, philosophy, and international relations together with those who have actively engaged in cases of intervention, in order to examine the legitimacy and consequences of the use of military force for humanitarian purposes. The book demonstrates why humanitarian intervention continues to be a controversial question not only for the United Nations but also for Western states and humanitarian organisations.

This book presents an original moral theory which charts a course between the extremes of consequentialism and contractualism. It puts forward a radically new case for the existence of both agent-neutral and agent-relative values, and gives an innovative answer to the question how such disparate values can be weighed against each other. Practical judgement is shown to be guided in this by two very different ideals: an ideal of cooperation, which is held to shape the content of morality's demands, and one of self-governance, which is held to determine the nature of reason's requirements. Examination of the ideal of cooperation reveals that principles of impartial beneficence and rights protecting individual freedoms are equally fundamental to morality. Examination of the ideal of self-governance reveals that morality's dictates, though not necessarily overriding, are always in an important sense inescapable.

This book has four loosely connected parts. Part One discusses some ways in which theories about morality and rationality can be self‐defeating. Such theories give us certain aims, but also tell us to act in ways that frustrate these aims. If these theories are revised, these objections can be partly met.

Part Two discusses the relations between what a single person can rationally want or do at different times, and what different people can rationally want or do. I also discuss the rationality of four attitudes to time: temporal neutrality, and the three kinds of bias towards the present, the near, and the future.

Part Three discusses personal identity, or what is involved in our continuing to exist throughout our lives. Most of us, I argue, have certain beliefs about this subject that are false, but hard to give up. If we accept these claims, they may change some of our emotions or attitudes, and we should revise some of our beliefs about both rationality and morality.

Part Four discusses our obligations to future generations, and some related questions about what would be better or worse futures for mankind. The most difficult question here, which I fail to answer, is about the relative importance of the number of people who will exist, and the quality of life of these people.

What are virtue and vice, and how do they relate to other moral properties such as goodness and rightness? This book defends a perfectionist account of virtue and vice that gives distinctive answers to these questions. The account treats the virtues as higher‐level intrinsic goods, ones that involve morally appropriate attitudes to other, independent goods and evils. Virtue by itself makes a person's life better, but in a way that depends on the goodness of other things. This account was accepted by many early twentieth‐ century consequentialists, including Franz Brentano, G. E. Moore, Hastings Rashdall, and W. D. Ross. The book elaborates it further than has been done before, describing its mathematical structure, connecting it to individual virtues and vices, and applying it to specific issues such as the morality of fantasy and the proper roles of private charity and the welfare state. While doing so, it argues for the account's superiority over rival views of virtue, including those defended under the heading of “virtue ethics.”