Dispensing with the Subjective Moral ‘Ought’

There are cases in which, intuitively, an agent’s action is both morally right in one sense and morally wrong in another sense. Such cases (along with other intuitions about blameless wrongdoing and action-guidance) support distinguishing between the objective moral ‘ought’ and the subjective moral ‘ought.’ This chapter argues against drawing this distinction on the grounds that the prescriptions delivered by an adequate objective moral theory must be sensitive to the mental states of agents. Specifically, an adequate theory of the objective moral ‘ought’ must respect a strong ought-implies-can principle—morally ought implies agentially can—in order to prescribe actions to real-life agents. An agent’s mental states determine what is agentially possible for that agent; thus, what an agent objectively morally ought to do is in part determined by the agent’s mental states. This chapter describes the structure of a compelling non-ideal moral theory that is both objective and mental state-sensitive. This non-ideal theory illuminates the shortcomings of extant objectivist and subjectivist moral theories and illustrates how we can dispense with the subjective moral ‘ought.’

Consequentialism, Blame, and Moral Responsibility

In this chapter I examine various accounts of the relationship between consequentialism and moral responsibility. The first idea is that the only reason we have for praising and blaming, for holding responsible, is that it will produce good consequences. This view is widely derided, but a descendant, the view that our responsibility practices as a whole can be defended on consequentialist grounds, has been gaining popularity in recent years. I go on to look at the idea of blameless wrongdoing and give an account of how that might fit into to a consequentialist picture. Finally, I discuss the possibility that the direction of influence is the other way: that consequentialist ethical theories are constrained by theories of moral responsibility, and I discuss possible upshots of a responsibility constrained account of consequentialism.

Blameless Wrongdoing and Agglomeration: A Response to Streumer

Bart Streumer argues that a certain variety of consequentialism – he calls it ‘semi-global consequentialism’ – is false on account of its falsely implying the possibility of ‘blameless wrongdoing’. This article shows (i) that Streumer's argument is nothing new; (ii) that his presentation of the argument is misleading, since it suppresses a crucial premiss, commonly called ‘agglomeration’; and (iii) that, for all Streumer says, the proponent of semi-global consequentialism may easily resist his argument by rejecting agglomeration.

Semi-global Consequentialism and Blameless Wrongdoing: Reply to Brown

Campbell Brown is right that my argument against semi-global consequentialism relies on the principle of agglomeration. However, semi-global consequentialists cannot rescue their view simply by rejecting this principle.