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...
| Publié dans: | Ethical theory and moral practice |
|---|---|
| Auteur principal: | |
| Type de support: | Électronique Article |
| Langue: | Anglais |
| Vérifier la disponibilité: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | En cours de chargement...
|
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Publié: |
Springer Science + Business Media B. V
[2015]
|
| Dans: |
Ethical theory and moral practice
|
| RelBib Classification: | NCA Éthique VA Philosophie |
| Sujets non-standardisés: | B
Epistemic objection
B Statistics B Consequentialism |
| Accès en ligne: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Résumé: | 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. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1572-8447 |
| Contient: | Enthalten in: Ethical theory and moral practice
|
| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1007/s10677-015-9602-8 |