Opting for the Best: Oughts and Options
New York, NY, USA: Oxford University Press (2019)
Abstract
The book concerns what I take to be the least controversial normative principle concerning action: you ought to perform your best option—best, that is, in terms of whatever ultimately matters. The book sets aside the question of what ultimately matters so as to focus on more basic issues, such as: What are our options? Do I have the option of typing out the cure for cancer if that’s what I would in fact do if I had the right intentions at the right times (e.g., the intention to type the letter T at t1, the intention to type the letter H at t2, the intention to type the letter E at t3, etc.)? If I can’t form intentions voluntarily, does that mean that I don’t have the option of forming the intention that I ought to form? Which options do we assess directly in terms of their own goodness and which do we assess in terms of their relations to the goodness of other options? What do we hold fixed when assessing how good an option is? Do we, for instance, hold fixed the agent’s future beliefs, desires, and intentions? And do we hold fixed the agent’s predictable future misbehavior? Lastly, how do the things that ultimately matter determine the goodness of an option? If one of the things that ultimately matters in determining the goodness of an option is that the option doesn’t involve violating anyone’s rights, do we evaluate the option itself in terms of whether it involves violating anyone’s rights or do we evaluate the option’s prospect in terms of this and then the option in terms of its prospect? And what if there is indeterminacy or uncertainty with regards to whether an option would involve violating someone’s rights?Author's Profile
ISBN(s)
9780190945350 0190945354 9780190945381
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Citations of this work
Supererogation and Conditional Obligation.Daniel Muñoz & Theron Pummer - 2022 - Philosophical Studies 179 (5):1429–1443.
Consequentializing agent‐centered restrictions: A Kantsequentialist approach.Douglas W. Portmore - forthcoming - Analytic Philosophy.
Desert, Control, and Moral Responsibility.Douglas W. Portmore - 2019 - Acta Analytica 34 (4):407-426.
References found in this work
Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility.Harry Frankfurt - 1969 - Journal of Philosophy 66 (23):829.
Internal and External Reasons.Bernard Williams - 1979 - In Ross Harrison (ed.), Rational Action. Cambridge University Press. pp. 101-113.