The performance of one option can entail the performance of another. For instance, I have the option of baking a pumpkin pie as well as the option of baking a pie, and the former entails the latter. Now, suppose that I have both reason to bake a pie and reason to bake a pumpkin pie. This raises the question: Which, if either, is more fundamental than the other? Do I have reason to bake a pie because I have reason to (...) perform some instance of pie-baking—perhaps, pumpkin-pie baking? Or do I have reason to bake a pumpkin pie because I have reason to bake a pie? Or are they equally fundamental, as they would be if, say, I had reason to do each because each would have optimal consequences? The aim of this paper is to compare two possible answers to this question—omnism and maximalism—and to argue that the latter is preferable. Roughly speaking, maximalism is the view that only those options that are not entailed by any other option are to be assessed in terms of whether they have some feature (such as that of having optimal consequences), whereas omnism is the view that all options are to be assessed in terms of whether they have this feature. I argue that there are at least two reasons to prefer maximalism, for it is able to overcome two critical problems with omnism. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

The performance of one option can entail the performance of another. For instance, I have the option of baking a pie as well as the option of baking, and baking a pie entails baking. Now, suppose that I have both reason to bake and reason to bake a pie. Which, if either, grounds the other? Do I have reason to bake in virtue of my having reason to perform some instance of baking, such as pie baking? Or do I have (...) reason to bake a pie in virtue of my having reason to bake? Or does neither ground the other? Perhaps, the reason in each case is grounded in the fact that each option would itself have optimal consequences. The aim of this paper is to compare two alternative responses to this issue—omnism and maximalism—and to argue that the latter is more plausible. Omnism is the view that what grounds a reason for performing an option is always that it has some feature F. By contrast, maximalism holds that sometimes what grounds a reason for performing an option is not that it is itself F, but that it is entailed by some other option that is F. I’ll argue that maximalism is more plausible, for it avoids two critical problems that befall omnism. (shrink)

The performance of one option can entail the performance of another. For instance, I have the option of baking a pumpkin pie as well as the option of baking a pie, and the former entails the latter. Now, suppose that both of these options are permissible. This raises the issue of which, if either, is more fundamental than the other. Is baking a pie permissible because it’s permissible to perform some instance of pie-baking, such as pumpkin-pie baking? Or is baking (...) a pumpkin pie permissible because it’s permissible to bake a pie? Or are they equally fundamental, as they would be if they were both permissible because, say, they both have optimal consequences? The aim of this paper is to compare two alternative responses to this issue—omnism and maximalism—and to argue that the latter is preferable. Roughly speaking, maximalism is the view that only those options that are not entailed by any other option are to be assessed in terms of whether they have some right-making feature F (such as that of having optimal consequences), whereas omnism is the view that all options are to be assessed in terms of whether they are F. I argue that maximalism is preferable to omnism because it provides a more plausible solution to the problem of act versions and is not subject to any problems of its own. And if I’m right about maximalism’s being preferable to omnism, then most moral theories, which are all versions of omnism, need significant revision. (shrink)