A Diachronic Consistency Argument for Minimizing One’s Own Rights Violations

Springer Science and Business Media LLC - Tập 24 - Trang 1109-1121 - 2021
Nicolas Côté1
1University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

Tóm tắt

Deontologists are united in asserting that there are side-constraints on permissible action, prohibiting acts of murder, theft, infidelity, etc., even in cases where performing such acts would make things better overall from an impartial standpoint. These constraints are enshrined in the vocabulary of rights apply even when violating those constraints would lead to fewer constraint-violations overall: I am prohibited from killing an innocent even when doing so is the only way to prevent you from killing five. However, deontologists are divided over whether we have a duty to violate a smaller number of rights when this is necessary to prevent ourselves from later violating a larger number of rights that are at least as stringent. I argue that individuals do have such a duty, a duty which follows from widely accepted consistency constraints on choice.

Tài liệu tham khảo

Heuer U (2011) The paradox of deontology. Revisited, vol 1. Oxford Studies In Normative Ethics, Oxford Otsuka M (2011) Are Deontological Constraints Irrational?. The Cambridge Companion to Nozick, Cambridge Bader R (2019) Agent-Relative Prerogatives and Suboptimal Beneficence, vol 11. Oxford Studies In Normative Ethics, Oxford Kamm F (2001) Morality, Mortality, vol 2. Oxford University Press, Oxford Parfit D (1984) Reasons and Persons. Oxford University Press, Oxford Williams B (1973) A Critique of Utilitarianism. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Kamm F (2007) Intricate Ethics. Oxford University Press, Oxford Kamm F (2013) Bioethical Prescriptions: To Create, End, Choose, and Improve Lives. Oxford University Press, Oxford Scheffler S (1994) The Rejection of Consequentialism. Oxford University Press, Oxford Davidson D (2001) Essays on Action and Events. Clarendon Press, Clarendon Thomson J (1985) The trolley problem. The Yale Law Journal 94:1395–1415 Kamm F (1987) The choice between people: ’Common sense’ morality, and doctors. Bioethics 1:255–271 Kamm F (1989) Harming some to save others. Philos Stud 3:227–260 Portmore D (1989) Can consequentialism be reconciled with our common-sense moral intuitions?. Philos Stud 3:1–19 Hammerton M (2016) Patient-Relativity In morality. Ethics 1:6–26 Taurek J (1977) Should the numbers count?. Philos Public Aff 6:293–316 Brook R (1991) Agency and morality. J Philos 88:190–212 Lopez T, Zamzow J, Gill M, Nichols S (2009) Side constraints and the structure of commonsense ethics. Philos Perspect 23:305–319 Sen A (1982) Rights and agency. Philos Public Aff 11:3–39 Voorhoeve A, Fleurbaey M (2012) Egalitarianism and the separateness of persons. Utilitas 24:382–398 Johnson C (2018) The intrapersonal paradox of deontology. J Moral Philos 16:279–301