Consequentialism and moral rationalism

Abstract

IN THIS PAPER, I make a presumptive case for moral rationalism: the view that agents can be morally required to do only what they have decisive reason to do, all things considered. 1 And I argue that this view leads us to reject all traditional versions of act-consequentialism.I begin by explaining how moral rationalism leads us to reject utilitarianism. §1The too-demanding objection: How moral rationalism leads us to reject utilitarianismUtilitarianism holds that an act is morally permissible if and only if it maximizes aggregate utility. 2 This view is too demanding.It implies that agents are morally required to sacrifice their projects, interests, and special relationships whenever doing so would produce more, even just slightly more, aggregate utility than not doing so would.Thus, according to utilitarianism, I'm morally required to sacrifice my life, to neglect my relationship with my daughter, and to abandon my project of completing this paper if I could thereby produce more, even just slightly more, aggregate utility.To demand that I make such sacrifices for the sake of such miniscule gains in aggregate utility is to demand more from me than can be rightfully or reasonably demanded of me.To say that a given theory is too demanding is not merely, or even necessarily, to say that it demands quite a lot from agents in certain circumstances.After all, almost all moral theories demand quite a lot from agents in at least some circumstances.3 What's more, a theory can be too demanding in part because some of its demands, though quite small, are 1 I assume, contrary to COPP 1997, that there is a normative standpoint from which we can judge what an agent has decisive reason to do, all things considered-in other words, that there is a normative standpoint from which we can judge what an agent just plain ought to do.See MCLEOD 2001 for a reply to Copp. 2 The aggregate utility produced by an act is the sum of all the utility it produces minus the sum of all the disutility it produces, where utility is a measure of whatever it is that enhances a subject's welfare, and disutility is a measure of whatever it is that diminishes a subject's welfare.An act maximizes aggregate utility just when there is no available alternative act that would produce more aggregate utility than it would.And note that I use 'utilitarianism' as shorthand for 'maximizing act-utilitarianism'. 3 Paul Hurley (2006, p. 681) makes this point as well.

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