Plural Harm

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 90 (2):361-388 (2013)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

In this paper, I construct and defend an account of harm, specifically, all-things-considered overall harm. I start with a simple comparative account, on which an event harms a person provided that she would have been better off had it not occurred. The most significant problems for this account are overdetermination and preemption cases. However, a counterfactual comparative approach of some sort is needed to make sense of harm, or so I argue. I offer a counterfactual comparative theory that accounts nicely for such cases, by taking claims about harm to be, potentially, irreducibly plural. In some cases, there are some events such that they are harmful, even if no one of them is such that it is harmful. I try to work out the details

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Mortal harm.Steven Luper - 2007 - Philosophical Quarterly 57 (227):239–251.
A unified analysis of the English bare plural.Greg N. Carlson - 1977 - Linguistics and Philosophy 1 (3):413 - 456.
The Moral Status of Enabling Harm.Samuel C. Rickless - 2011 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 92 (1):66-86.
Monism, Emergence, and Plural Logic.Einar Duenger Bohn - 2012 - Erkenntnis 76 (2):211-223.
Sharvy's theory of definite descriptions revisited.Berit Brogaard - 2007 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 88 (2):160–180.
Plural quantification.Ø Linnebo - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
The harm principle.Nils Holtug - 2002 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 5 (4):357-389.
We and the plural subject.Boudewijn de Bruin - 2009 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 39 (2):235-259.
Superplurals in English.Øystein Linnebo & David Nicolas - 2008 - Analysis 68 (3):186–197.
Plural Reference and Reference to a Plurality. Linguistic Facts and Semantic Analyses.Friederike Moltmann - 2016 - In Massimiliano Carrara, Alexandra Arapinis & Friederike Moltmann (eds.), Unity and Plurality. Logic, Philosophy, and Semantics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 93-120.
Plural Logicism.Francesca Boccuni - 2013 - Erkenntnis 78 (5):1051-1067.

Analytics

Added to PP
2013-04-09

Downloads
211 (#87,478)

6 months
6 (#203,358)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Neil Feit
Fredonia State University

Citations of this work

A Simple Analysis of Harm.Jens Johansson & Olle Risberg - 2022 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 9:509-536.
Harming as making worse off.Duncan Purves - 2019 - Philosophical Studies 176 (10):2629-2656.
A dilemma for Epicureanism.Travis Timmerman - 2019 - Philosophical Studies 176 (1):241-257.
Harm: Omission, Preemption, Freedom.Nathan Hanna - 2016 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 93 (2):251-73.
Plural harm: plural problems.Erik Carlson, Jens Johansson & Olle Risberg - 2023 - Philosophical Studies 180 (2):553-565.

View all 51 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Reasons and Persons.Derek Parfit - 1984 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Well-being and death.Ben Bradley - 2009 - New York: Oxford University Press.

View all 15 references / Add more references