Unknowable Obligations

Utilitas 7 (2):247-271 (1995)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

You face two buttons. Pushing one will destroy Greensboro. Pushing the other will save it. There is no way for you to know which button saves and which destroys. What ought you to do? Answer: You ought to make the correct guess and push the button that saves Greensboro. Second question: Do you have an obligation to push the correct button?

Categories

Keywords

Reprint years

DOI

10.1017/s0953820800002077

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 91,386

External links

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

Through your library

My notes

Similar books and articles

The unknowable: The pragmatist critique of matter.Glenn Tiller - 2006 - Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 42 (2):206-228.
Rational and moral obligations.Sadeq Larijani - 2007 - Topoi 26 (2):231-245.
Global obligations and the agency objection.Bill Wringe - 2010 - Ratio 23 (2):217-231.
Sorensen on Unknowable Obligations.Theodore Sider - 1995 - Utilitas 7 (2):273-279.
In Defence of Kantian Humility.Tom McClelland - 2012 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 1 (1):62-70.
Parental Obligation.Nellie Wieland - 2011 - Utilitas 23 (3):249-267.
Physicalism without unknowable colors.Peter W. Ross - 2003 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 26 (6):789-789.
Completing the incomplete: A defense of positive obligations to distant others.Joshua Kassner - 2009 - Journal of Global Ethics 5 (3):181 – 193.
Known, Unknown, and Unknowable Uncertainties.Rakesh K. Sarin & Clare Chua Chow - 2002 - Theory and Decision 52 (2):127-138.
Associative political obligations.A. John Simmons - 1996 - Ethics 106 (2):247-273.
Obligation and Joint Commitment.Margaret Gilbert - 1999 - Utilitas 11 (2):143.
External justifications and institutional roles.A. John Simmons - 1996 - Journal of Philosophy 93 (1):28-36.
What we owe the dead.J. Jeremy Wisnewski - 2009 - Journal of Applied Philosophy 26 (1):54-70.

Analytics

Added to PP
2010-08-30

Downloads
168 (#111,743)

6 months
14 (#168,878)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

Should we be dogmatically conciliatory?Clayton Littlejohn - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (5):1381-1398.
Moral Vagueness: A Dilemma for Non-Naturalism.Cristian Constantinescu - 2014 - In Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics: Volume 9. Oxford University Press. pp. 152-185.

View all 22 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

The Toxin Puzzle.Gregory S. Kavka - 1983 - Analysis 43 (1):33-36.
The Methods of Ethics.Henry Sidgwick - 1890 - International Journal of Ethics 1 (1):120-121.
Moral Luck.B. A. O. Williams & T. Nagel - 1976 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 50 (1):115-152.

View all 16 references / Add more references