Books
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Utilitarianism: A Guide for the Perplexed offers a concise, yet fully comprehensive introduction to utilitarianism, its historical roots, key themes, and current debates. It provides a survey of the modern debate about utilitarianism and goes on to evaluate utilitarianism in comparison with other theories, in particular virtue ethics and Kantianism. The book offers a critical examination of utilitarianism, distinguishing problems that are unique to utilitarianism from those that are shared by other moral theories. Geared towards the specific requirements of students who need to reach a sound understanding of utilitarianism, this book serves as an ideal companion to study of this influential and challenging of philosophical concepts.
Reviews "This volume, written in a clear and accessible style, is an excellent introduction to the main contemporary debates about utilitarianism. A special virtue of the book is that utilitarianism is not evaluated in isolation but by comparing it with other theories, in particular, virtue ethics, deontology, and Kantianism. In doing so, Bykvist convincingly shows that many of the problems afflicting utilitarianism are actually problems for all plausible moral theories. Hence, this book will be very useful reading for friends and foes of utilitarianism alike." - Gustaf Arrhenius, Stockholm University, Sweden "...for a book of its smaller size, I know of no utilitarianism introduction that is better. I recommend it for use as a supplementary text to contemporary readings in utilitarianism." - David Kaspar, University of Nevada, in Teaching Philosophy 34(1), 2011, https://doi.org/10.5840/teachphil201134112 |
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Very often we're uncertain about what we ought, morally, to do. We don't know how to weigh the interests of animals against humans, how strong our duties are to improve the lives of distant strangers, or how to think about the ethics of bringing new people into existence. But we still need to act. So how should we make decisions in the face of such uncertainty?
Though economists and philosophers have extensively studied the issue of decision-making in the face of uncertainty about matters of fact, the question of decision-making given fundamental moral uncertainty has been neglected. Philosophers William MacAskill, Krister Bykvist, and Toby Ord try to fill this gap. Moral Uncertainty argues that there are distinctive norms that govern how one ought to make decisions. It defends an information-sensitive account of how to make such decisions by developing an analogy between moral uncertainty and social choice, arguing that the correct way to act in the face of moral uncertainty depends on whether the moral theories in which one has credence are merely ordinal, cardinal, or both cardinal and intertheoretically comparable. It tackles the problem of how to make intertheoretical comparisons, discussing potential solutions and the implications of their view for metaethics and practical ethics. Download the book for free at: https://www.moraluncertainty.com/ Review "...this book is an impressive achievement. It may not be the complete and final theory of moral uncertainty, but it provides a superb foundation upon which future scholars will undoubtedly build. It will be an important part of the library of every moral philosopher." - Marcus Pivato, Professor of Economics at CY Cergy Paris Université, in Philosophy and Economics, 2022;38(1):152-158. |
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The Oxford Handbook of Population Ethics presents up-to-date theoretical analyses of various problems associated with the moral standing of future people and animals in current decision-making. Future people pose an especially hard problem for our current decision-making, since their number and their identities are not fixed but depend on the choices the present generation makes. Do we make the world better by creating more people with good lives? What do we owe future generations in terms of justice? How should burdens and benefits be shared across generations so that justice prevails? These questions are philosophically difficult and important, but also directly relevant to many practical decisions and policies. Climate change policy provides an example, as the increasing global temperature will kill some people and prevent many others from ever existing. Many other policies also influence the size and make-up of future populations both directly and indirectly, for example those concerning family planning, child support, and prioritization in health-care. If we are to adequately assess these policies, we must be able to determine the value of differently sized populations.
The essays in this handbook shed light on the value of population change and the nature of our obligations to future generations. It brings together world-leading philosophers to introduce readers to some of the paradoxes of population ethics, challenge some fundamental assumptions that may be taken for granted in the debate about the value of population change, and apply these problems and assumptions to real-world decisions. |
Articles (selection)
Normative ethics |
Wellbeing
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Transformative experience
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Population ethics
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Consequentialism
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Metaethics |
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Value theory |
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Applied ethics |
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History of moral philosophy
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