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Human Interests: or Ethics for Physicalists

Online ISBN:
9780191763007
Print ISBN:
9780199682829
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

Human Interests: or Ethics for Physicalists

Joseph Mendola
Joseph Mendola
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
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Published online:
22 May 2014
Published in print:
10 April 2014
Online ISBN:
9780191763007
Print ISBN:
9780199682829
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

This book develops an ethical theory in the consequentialist tradition, but incorporating contractarian and deontological elements. It argues that this theory is required by the conjunction of physicalism and the correct metaethics. It has three parts. Part I is an account of our alternatives, the objects of ethical evaluation. It defends an account of individual alternatives in action that is rooted in the conditional analysis of ability. It argues that these options incorporate objective ex ante probabilities but not lucky flukes. It develops a related conception of social alternatives. But it argues that in reality there is some indeterminacy of alternatives. Part II propounds a way to evaluate alternatives. This moral theory is supported by an account of the meaning of key moral terms. The theory includes an account of individual well‐being rooted in actual preference satisfaction, an egalitarian principle for evaluating outcomes that reflects the limited comparability of different individuals’ good, and a novel form of consequentialism based on group acts. Familiar competitor views are shown to be either not viable in reality or reconciled in this view. Part III applies the theories of Part I and II to deliver the most crucial commonsense moral judgments, and hence to answer standard objections to consequentialism. It develops accounts of our general deontological obligations not to lie, murder, injure, or steal, of our special obligations, and of virtues. It considers the demandingness of morality.

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