Rationalist Teleological Maximalism

This chapter demonstrates how rationalism, maximalism, and teleology operate together to determine the deontic statuses of our options. And the chapter explains what rationalist teleological maximalism’s main virtues are. Last, the chapter explains why it’s important to work out the structure of our normative theories.

Opting for the Best

This chapter argues for the opting-for-the-best view: the view that, for any subject S and any member ϕ‎ of a certain subset of S’s options, S ought to ϕ‎ if and only if ϕ‎ is the best member of this subset in terms of whatever ultimately matters. It’s argued that we need to restrict ourselves to a subset of the subject’s options because of the problem of act versions. This problem arises in the following sort of case. One’s best option is to kiss one’s partner passionately. Kissing her nonpassionately would be disastrous. Indeed, it would be better not to kiss her at all. But, unfortunately, if you were to kiss her, you would do so nonpassionately. Should you kiss her? Of course, you have to kiss her to kiss her passionately, which is your best option. But kissing her would result in your kissing her nonpassionately, which is your worst option.

Which, if Either, Are We to Assess Directly in Terms of What Ultimately Matters

This chapter argues that our uncertainty with respect to whether a subject has violated a constraint in ϕ‎-ing can stem not only from our limited knowledge of the actual world but also from the indeterminacy that’s inherent in certain possible worlds. And this means that constraint-accepting theorists will need to find a way to deal with such uncertainty even when it comes to giving an account of objective rightness. And it’s argued that the best way for constraint-accepting theorists to deal with this issue is to adopt a teleological theory. In doing so, she needn’t give up on any of our common-sense moral intuitions. Nor would she need to give up the deontological idea that constraints are ultimately grounded in our duty to respect people and their capacity for rational, autonomous decision making. Thus, it’s argued that we should accept a teleological version of rationalist maximalism.

Which Options Have Their Deontic Statuses in Virtue of Their Own Goodness?

The problem of act versions arises because one’s best option can be a version of a bad option. For instance, kissing passionately is a version of kissing. But it may be that although kissing passionately is one’s best option, kissing is a bad option. For it could be that, as a matter of fact, one would kiss nonpassionately if one were to kiss. This chapter argues that the best solution to this problem lies with adopting maximalism. On this view, the only options that have their deontic status in virtue of their own goodness are maximal options—options that are entailed only by evaluatively equivalent options (those being options that are identical in terms of whatever ultimately matters). According to maximalism, then, one ought to kiss even if one would, as a matter of fact, kiss nonpassionately. On this view, one ought to kiss, because one ought to kiss passionately, and kissing passionately entails kissing.

What Are Our Options?

This chapter argues that whereas any event can be good or bad, only certain events can be obligatory. This, it’s argued, is because obligations have two additional roles to play beyond mere evaluation. One of these additional roles is a directive one. Obligations, unlike mere evaluations, must direct us to respond in certain ways, and for these directives to have any point at all, they must direct us to respond only in those ways that we have the option of responding. The other role that obligations play is an inculpatory one. For there is a conceptual connection between failing to abide by an obligation and being accountable for so failing—at least, absent some suitable excuse. And since it’s inappropriate to hold subjects to account for events over which they lacked control, we must restrict a subject’s options to those events over which she exerted the relevant sort of control.

Maximalism and the Ought-Most-Reason View

Maximalism forces us to deny either that we ought to do whatever we have most reason to do or that how much reason there is to perform a given option is directly proportional to how good that option is. In this chapter, I argue that we should deny the latter. We should instead hold that how much reason there is to perform a given option is directly proportional to how good the best version of that option is. Thus, how much reason I have to kiss my partner is not a function of, say, the bad consequences that would result from my doing so (for assume that I would in fact kiss her nonpassionately if I were to kiss her), but a function of the good consequences that would result from my kissing her passionately.

Rationalist Maximalism

Rationalism holds that our current options consist in all and only those events over which we presently exert rational control. Maximalism holds that the only options that have their deontic status in virtue of their own goodness are maximal options. When we combine these two, we get rationalist maximalism. This chapter argues that there are reasons to accept rationalist maximalism apart from the reasons that were already given for accepting each of its two components. First, it avoids the sorts of objections to which other versions of maximalism are susceptible. Second, it provides us with a plausible alternative to both actualism and possibilism. And, third, it is uniquely well situated to accommodate the idea that a moral theory ought to be such that the agents who satisfy it, whoever and however numerous they may be, are guaranteed to produce the morally best world that they could (in the relevant sense) together produce.

What’s the Relevant Sort of Control?

Our options include all and only those events over which we exert the relevant sort of control. This chapter argues that the relevant sort of control must be complete as opposed to partial and synchronic as opposed to diachronic (i.e., the sort of control that we exercise at a moment in time rather than over a span of time). And it’s argued that the relevant sort of control is personal as opposed to subpersonal (i.e., the sort of control that makes our actions intelligible in terms of reasons and not just in terms of cause and effect). Last, it’s argued that the relevant sort of control is not the sort that we exert directly over our intentional acts by forming certain volitions, but the sort that we exert directly over our reasons-responsive attitudes (e.g., our beliefs, desires, and intentions) by being both receptive and reactive to reasons.