Maximalism versus Omnism about Permissibility

Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 98 (S1):427-452 (2016)
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Abstract

Roughly speaking, maximalism is the view that only certain options are to be assessed in terms of whether they have some right‐making property (such as that of producing optimal consequences), whereas omnism is the view that all options are to be assessed in terms of whether they have this property. I argue that maximalism is preferable to omnism because it provides a more plausible solution to what's known as the problem of act versions and is not subject to any significant problems of its own. If I'm right, then most moral theories, which are versions of omnism, need revision.

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Douglas W. Portmore
Arizona State University

Citations of this work

Maximalism and Moral Harmony.Douglas W. Portmore - 2018 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (2):318-341.
Actualism and Possibilism in Ethics.Travis Timmerman & Yishai Cohen - 2019 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Prospective Possibilism.Michael J. Zimmerman - 2017 - The Journal of Ethics 21 (2):117-150.
Actualism, Possibilism, and the Nature of Consequentialism.Yishai Cohen & Travis Timmerman - 2020 - In Douglas W. Portmore (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Consequentialism. New York, USA: Oxford University Press.

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References found in this work

The Toxin Puzzle.Gregory S. Kavka - 1983 - Analysis 43 (1):33-36.
Oughts, options, and actualism.Frank Jackson & Robert Pargetter - 1986 - Philosophical Review 95 (2):233-255.
Utilitarianism and Co-Operation.Donald Regan - 1980 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.

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