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UP AND DOWN WITH AGGREGATION

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 November 2008

Brad Hooker
Brad Hooker
Affiliation:
Philosophy, University of Reading
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Abstract

This paper starts by addressing some objections to the very idea of aggregate social good. The paper goes on to review the case for letting aggregate social good be not only morally relevant but also sometimes morally decisive. Then the paper surveys objections to letting aggregate social good determine personal or political decisions. The paper goes on to argue against the idea that aggregate good is sensitive to desert and the idea that aggregate good should be construed as incorporating agent-relativity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Philosophy and Policy , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , January 2009 , pp. 126 - 147
Copyright
Copyright © Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation 2008

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References

1 This is not the place to get bogged down in debates about what naturalism is. Although the matter is controversial, I will assume here that natural properties are ones that can be known by empirical means and thus are appropriate subjects for investigation by the natural and social sciences. See Moore, G. E., Principia Ethica, 2d ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 13Google Scholar; Copp, David, “Why Naturalism?” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 6, no. 2 (2003): 179–200, at p. 181CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. Sturgeon, Nicholas, “Moore on Ethical Naturalism,” Ethics 113, no. 3 (2003): 528–56, at pp. 534–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 For a related argument that a desire-fulfillment theory of good reasons for action does not have the naturalistic purity some philosophers have supposed it has, see Hampton, Jean, The Authority of Reason (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), esp. chap. 5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Harsanyi, John, “Morality and the Theory of Rational Behaviour,” in Sen, Amartya and Williams, Bernard, eds., Utilitarianism and Beyond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 39–62, at pp. 60–61Google Scholar.

4 I explain this in my essay “Theories of Welfare, Theories of Good Reasons for Action, and Ontological Naturalism,” Philosophical Papers 20, no. 1 (1991): 25–36.

5 Recent defenses of nonnaturalism include Scanlon, T. M., What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 58–61Google Scholar; Shafer-Landau, Russ, Moral Realism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Parfit, Derek, Climbing the Mountain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, forthcoming)Google Scholar.

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7 But what about desires for ends such as hitting small white balls into distant holes, as in golf, or, more generally, desires for sporting achievements that are in some sense the achievement of contrived goals? For a discussion, see Hurka, Thomas, “Games and the Good,” Aristotelian Society Supplementary Proceedings 80 (2006): 217–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tasioulas, John, “Games and the Good,” Aristotelian Society Supplementary Proceedings 80 (2006): 237–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and my “The Meaning of Life: Subjectivism, Objectivism, and Divine Support,” in Athanassoulis, Nafsika and Vice, Samantha, eds., Morality and the Good Life: Essays in Honour of John Cottingham (London: Palgrave, 2008): 184–200CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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10 Parfit, Derek, “Justifiability to Each Person,” Ratio 16, no. 4 (2003): 368–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Here I am following McNaughton, David and Rawling, Piers, “Agent-Relativity and the Doing-Happening Distinction,” Philosophical Studies 63, no. 2 (1991): 167–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For influential earlier discussions, see Nagel, Thomas, The Possibility of Altruism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970), 90–96Google Scholar; Nagel, , The View from Nowhere (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 153Google Scholar; and Parfit, Reasons and Persons, 143. Michael Ridge puts forward metaphysical objections to this account of agent-relative duties (Ridge, , “Reasons for Action: Agent-Relative vs. Agent-Neutral,” http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasons-agent/#4Google Scholar). I am not persuaded by these objections.

12 Singer, Peter, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 1, no. 1 (1972): 249–73Google Scholar. See also Scheffler, Samuel, The Rejection of Consequentialism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982)Google Scholar; Fishkin, James, The Limits of Obligation (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982)Google Scholar; Kagan, Shelly, The Limits of Morality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989)Google Scholar; Unger, Peter, Living High and Letting Die (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Murphy, Liam, Moral Demands in Nonideal Theory (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000)Google Scholar; Mulgan, Tim, The Demands of Consequentialism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002)Google Scholar; Cullity, Garrett, The Moral Demands of Affluence (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Chappell, Tim, ed., Moral Demandingness (London: Palgrave, 2008)Google Scholar.

13 Here I have been most influenced by Cullity, Garrett, “Moral Character and the Iteration Problem,” Utilitas 7, no. 2 (1995): 279–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See my Ideal Code, Real World: A Rule-Consequentialist Theory of Morality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 147–74; my “Rule-Consequentialism and Internal Consistency: A Reply to Card,” Utilitas 19, no. 4 (2007): 514–19; and my “The Demandingness Objection,” in Chappell, ed., Moral Demandingness.

14 As far as I know, Michael Slote first called attention to this aspect of common-sense morality. See Slote, , Common-Sense Morality and Consequentialism (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985), chap. 1Google Scholar; and Slote, , From Morality to Virtue (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 13–16Google Scholar. More recently, Douglas Portmore has stressed this aspect in Portmore, , “Position-Relative Consequentialism, Agent-Centered Options, and Supererogation,” Ethics 113, no. 2 (2003): 303–32, at pp. 311–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Portmore, , “Consequentializing Moral Theories,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 88, no. 1 (2007): 39–73, at p. 58CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Portmore, , “Dual-Ranking Act-Consequentialism,” Philosophical Studies 138 (2008): 409–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 I go into more detail about this in my “When Is Impartiality Morally Appropriate?” in Cottingham, John, Feltham, Brian, and Stratton-Lake, Philip, eds., Partiality and Impartiality: Morality, Special Relationships, and the Wider World (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2009)Google Scholar.

16 See, for example, Singer, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”; and Kagan, The Limits of Morality; cf. Harman, Gilbert, “Moral Relativism Defended,” Philosophical Review 84, no. 1 (1975): 3–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Williams, Bernard, Moral Luck (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), xCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 See Brink, David O., “Common Sense and First Principles in Sidgwick's Methods,” Social Philosophy and Policy 11, no. 1 (1994): 179–201Google Scholar. The theme is prominent in Robert Audi's moral philosophy. See, for example, Audi, , “Intuitionism, Pluralism, and the Foundations of Ethics,” in Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter and Timmons, Mark, eds., Moral Knowledge? (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 101–36Google Scholar; and Audi, , The Good in the Right: A Theory of Intuition and Intrinsic Value (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004)Google Scholar. It is a point I take up at the end of my “Intuitions and Moral Theorizing,” in Stratton-Lake, Philip, ed., Ethical Intuitionism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002), 161–83Google Scholar.

19 An influential discussion of weighted prioritarianism can be found in Parfit, Derek, “Equality and Priority,” Ratio 10, no. 4 (1997): 202–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a ground-breaking discussion of the aggregative aspect of most versions of weighted prioritarianism, see Marc Fleurbaey, Bertil Tungodden, and Peter Vallentyne, “On the Possibility of Nonaggregative Priority for the Worst Off” (elsewhere in this volume).

20 The concept of noninstrumental benefit and the concept of noninstrumental harm seem to me as basic as any in practical reasoning. For a different view, see Talbot Brewer, “Is Welfare an Independent Good?” (elsewhere in this volume). Stephen Darwall takes the concept of someone's welfare to be explained as what anyone who cares about her would rationally want for her for her own sake. See his Welfare and Rational Care (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002). In contrast, I take the concept of rationally caring about someone for her sake to be explained in terms of caring about her welfare.

21 Cf. Nagel, Thomas, Equality and Partiality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 65–70Google Scholar. I am grateful to Michael Otsuka for discussion about these matters.

22 Feldman, Fred, Confrontations with the Reaper: A Philosophical Study of the Nature and Value of Death (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 182–85Google Scholar; Feldman, , Utilitarianism, Hedonism, and Desert: Essays in Moral Philosophy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 164–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 Ross, W. D., The Right and the Good (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1930)Google Scholar; Ross, , Foundations of Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1939)Google Scholar. See also Nagel, Thomas, “Fragmentation of Value,” in Nagel, , Mortal Questions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 128–41Google Scholar.

24 Many recent ideas about combining act-consequentialism with agent-relative restrictions and rights were inspired by Sen, Amartya, “Rights and Agency,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 11, no. 1 (1982): 3–39Google Scholar; Sen, , “Evaluator Relativity and Consequential Evaluation,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 12, no. 2 (1983): 113–32Google Scholar; and Sen, , “Positional Objectivity,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 22, no. 2 (1993): 126–45Google Scholar. For more recent material, see Portmore's essays cited in note 14, though I stress that the views about goodness I attribute to agent-relative act-consequentialism are ones that Portmore's more recent essays have replaced with claims about what the agent has reason to prefer.

25 As Frances Kamm has said to me in discussion, there may be better objections to agent-relative act-consequentialism than mine. I accept that observation, but at least these objections are mine.

26 A common conception of the distinction between consequentialism and deontology is as follows. Consequentialism starts with a fairly minimal conception of the good (e.g., as welfare) and then derives the value of restrictions, rights, special obligations, permissions, and desert as instruments in the promotion of welfare; deontology gives restrictions, rights, special obligations, permissions, and desert a more foundational, less instrumental role. This common conception of the consequentialism/deontology distinction is threatened by any consequentialist theory that postulates, rather than derives, the value of restrictions, rights, special obligations, permissions, or desert. But my objection to agent-relative act-consequentialism is not that it plays havoc with the common conception of the consequentialism/deontology distinction. For an attack on the consequentialism/deontology distinction, see Piper, Adrian S., “A Distinction without a Difference,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy VII (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982), 403–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 See chapters 6 and 8 of my Ideal Code, Real World.