Patient-Relativity in Morality

Ethics 127 (1):06-26 (2016)
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Abstract

It is common to distinguish moral rules, reasons, or values that are agent-relative from those that are agent-neutral. One can also distinguish moral rules, reasons, or values that are moment-relative from those that are moment-neutral. In this article, I introduce a third distinction that stands alongside these two distinctions—the distinction between moral rules, reasons, or values that are patient-relative and those that are patient-neutral. I then show how patient-relativity plays an important role in several moral theories, gives us a better understanding of agent-relativity and moment-relativity, and provides a novel objection to Derek Parfit’s “appeal to full relativity” argument.

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Matthew Hammerton
Singapore Management University

Citations of this work

Distinguishing agent-relativity from agent-neutrality.Matthew Hammerton - 2019 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 97 (2):239-250.
Consequentializing Moral Dilemmas.Jussi Suikkanen - 2020 - Journal of Moral Philosophy 17 (3):261-289.
Relativized Rankings.Matthew Hammerton - 2020 - In Douglas W. Portmore (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Consequentialism. New York, USA: Oxford University Press. pp. 46-66.

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References found in this work

What we owe to each other.Thomas Scanlon - 1998 - Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Reasons and Persons.Derek Parfit - 1984 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Should the numbers count?John Taurek - 1977 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 6 (4):293-316.
Structures of Normative Theories.James Dreier - 1993 - The Monist 76 (1):22-40.
The Consequentialist Perspective.Philip Pettit - 1997 - In M. Baron, P. Pettit & M. Slote (eds.), Three Methods of Ethics. Blackwell.

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