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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 May 2023
If every act is either right or wrong simpliciter, a morally conscientious agent is rationally permitted to perform any of the right acts but none of the wrong ones. But what should a morally conscientious agent do when faced with a choice between options that are somewhat right and somewhat wrong? Five possible decision criteria are discussed. According to the maximizing criterion, it is rationally permissible to perform act a if and only if no option is right to a greater degree. The liberal criterion holds that it is rationally permissible to perform every act that is not entirely wrong, and the threshold criterion asserts that is rationally permissible to perform an act just in case it is not more wrong than right. The gappy criterion holds that if an act is neither right nor wrong simpliciter, then there is no fact of the matter about whether it is rationally permissible to perform. Finally, the probabilistic criterion maintains that if an act is neither entirely right nor entirely wrong, then the act is rationally permissible to perform if and only if it is chosen randomly with a probability that reflects its degree of rightness.
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