The Unreliability of Foreseeable Consequences: A Return to the Epistemic Objection
Consequentialists maintain that an act is morally right just in case it produces the best consequences of any available alternative. Because agents are ignorant about some of their acts consequences, they cannot be certain about which alternative is best. Kagan (1998) contends that it is reasonable...
| Veröffentlicht in: | Ethical theory and moral practice |
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| 1. VerfasserIn: | |
| Medienart: | Elektronisch Aufsatz |
| Sprache: | Englisch |
| Verfügbarkeit prüfen: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Lade...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Veröffentlicht: |
Springer Science + Business Media B. V
[2015]
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| In: |
Ethical theory and moral practice
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| RelBib Classification: | NCA Ethik VA Philosophie |
| weitere Schlagwörter: | B
Epistemic objection
B Statistics B Consequentialism |
| Online Zugang: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Zusammenfassung: | Consequentialists maintain that an act is morally right just in case it produces the best consequences of any available alternative. Because agents are ignorant about some of their acts consequences, they cannot be certain about which alternative is best. Kagan (1998) contends that it is reasonable to assume that unforeseen good and bad consequences roughly balance out and can be largely disregarded. A statistical argument demonstrates that Kagans assumption is almost always false. An acts foreseeable consequences are an extremely poor indicator of the goodness of its overall consequences. Acting based on foreseeable consequences is barely more reliably good than acting completely at random. |
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| ISSN: | 1572-8447 |
| Enthält: | Enthalten in: Ethical theory and moral practice
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1007/s10677-015-9602-8 |