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The Oxford Handbook of Consequentialism

Online ISBN:
9780190905354
Print ISBN:
9780190905323
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

The Oxford Handbook of Consequentialism

Douglas W. Portmore (ed.)
Douglas W. Portmore
(ed.)
Philosophy, Arizona State University
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Douglas W. Portmore is Professor of Philosophy at Arizona State University. His research focuses mainly on morality, rationality, and the interconnections between the two, but he has also written on blame, well-being, moral worth, posthumous harm, moral responsibility, and the nonidentity problem. He is the author of two books: Commonsense Consequentialism: Wherein Morality Meets Rationality (Oxford University Press, 2011) and Opting for the Best: Oughts and Options (Oxford University Press, 2019).

Published online:
8 October 2020
Published in print:
17 December 2020
Online ISBN:
9780190905354
Print ISBN:
9780190905323
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

This handbook contains thirty-two previously unpublished contributions to consequentialist ethics by leading scholars, covering what’s happening in the field today as well as pointing to new directions for future research. Consequentialism is a rival to such moral theories as deontology, contractualism, and virtue ethics. But it’s more than just one rival among many, for every plausible moral theory must concede that the goodness of an act’s consequences is something that matters even if it’s not the only thing that matters. Thus, all plausible moral theories will accept both that the fact that an act would produce good consequences constitutes a moral reason to perform it and that the better that act’s consequences the greater the moral reason there is to perform it. Now, if this is correct, then much of the research concerning consequentialist ethics is important for ethics in general. For instance, one thing that consequentialist researchers have investigated is what sorts of consequences matter: the consequences that some act would have or the consequences that it could have—if, say, the agent were to follow up by performing some subsequent act. And it’s reasonable to suppose that the answer to such questions will be relevant for normative ethics regardless of whether the goodness of consequences is the only thing that matters (as consequentialists presume) or just one of many things that matter (as nonconsequentialists presume).

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