Impartial Reasons, Moral Demands

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 14 (4):457-466 (2011)
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Abstract

Consequentialism is often charged with demandingness objections which arise in response to the theory’s commitment to impartiality. It might be thought that the only way that consequentialists can avoid such demandingness objections is by dropping their commitment to impartialism. However, I outline and defend a framework within which all reasons for action are impartially grounded, yet which can avoid demandingness objections. I defend this framework against what might appear to be a strong objection, namely the claim that anyone who accepts the theory will be practically irrational.

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Author's Profile

Brian McElwee
University of Southampton

Citations of this work

Impartiality.Troy Jollimore - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Moral Demands and Ethical Theory: The Case of Consequentialism.Attila Tanyi - 2013 - In Barry Dainton & Howard Robinson (eds.), The Bloomsbury Companion to Analytic Philosophy. London: Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 500-527.
The Ambitions of Consequentialism.Brian McElwee - 2020 - Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 17 (2):198--218.

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References found in this work

What we owe to each other.Thomas Scanlon - 1998 - Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Utilitarianism.J. S. Mill - 1861 - Oxford University Press UK. Edited by Roger Crisp.
What We Owe to Each Other.Thomas Scanlon - 2002 - Mind 111 (442):323-354.
Utilitarianism.John Stuart Mill - 1863 - Cleveland: Cambridge University Press. Edited by Geraint Williams.

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