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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 July 2022
Christopher Jay has recently argued that one version of subjective consequentialism is objectionable because it entails ‘arbitrary deontic variance’ in which the permissibility of some action can depend upon an arbitrary, non-moral choice of which possible results of the action to investigate or even reflect upon. This author argues that this deontic variance is actually entirely innocuous, and results from what may be the best subjective strategy for such investigation and reflection in cases involving uncertainty and cognitive limitations.
1 Jay, Christopher, Subjective Consequentialism and the Unforeseeable, Utilitas 32 (2020), pp. 33–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 Greaves, Hilary, Cluelessness, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 116 (2016), pp. 311–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 318.
3 I include in the category of ‘investigatory’ actions not merely research into external facts or causal relationships but calculation and reflection upon or vivid imagination of the nature of various actions or possible results thereof, etc. In short, anything which could provide some additional practically available evidence about the results of φ-ing, bringing these to the agent's awareness in a way which makes the agent able to grasp or treat them as evidence and hence as subjective reasons for or against φ-ing.
4 Jay, p. 40. This author sees no reason to doubt that this is Greaves’ view, making Jay's speculations about other possibilities moot. Indeed, it is by far the most natural interpretation of any subjective consequentialism in which A's obligations are a function of A's evidence. But if it is not Greaves’ position, the reader should treat what follows simply as a defense of this possible view.
5 Jay, p. 41.
6 Sartre, Jean-Paul, Existentialism and Human Emotions, trans. by Frechtman, Bernard (New York: Citadel Press, 1987), pp. 24–25Google Scholar. Readers who disagree about the balancing claim should modify the example further so that the factors appear more evenly balanced.