Sarah Stroud

La pensée morale ordinaire semble incorporer une adhésion à des contraintes ou des restrictions déontologiques : des interdictions qui restent en vigueur même dans des cas où les actions interdites constituent le seul moyen de prévenir des conséquences encore pires. La source de ces normes déontologiques, cependant, n'est pas évidente. Plusieurs tentatives récentes pour trouver une base aux restrictions déontologiques ou pour expliquer ce qui les génère sont examinées. La plus prometteuse insiste sur la valeur intrinsèque du statut moral protégé que la morale déontologique attribue à chacun de nous. On discutera brièvement les points forts d'une telle approche et les difficultés auxquelles elle fait face.Ordinary moral thought seems to reflect a commitment to deontological constraints or restrictions on conduct: to prohibitions which remain in force even if such actions are the only way to avert still worse consequences. The source of these deontological norms, however, is not clear. Several recent attempts to offer a basis for deontological restrictions or to explain what gives rise to them are examined. The most promising such attempt emphasizes the intrinsic value of the protected moral status which deontological morality ascribes to each of us. The strong points of such an approach and the difficulties facing it are briefly discussed

RÉSUMÉ Dans ce texte, l'accent est mis sur les contraintes ou restrictions dites déontologiques. Croire en l'existence de telles contraintes, c'est croire qu'il peut être moralement inadmissible de faire quelque chose, même si cette action se révélait la seule manière d'empêcher un résultat encore pire. La question que pose et examine ce texte est celle de savoir pourquoi il est mal de faire des actions qui semblent violer une contrainte déontologique. Plus particulièrement, ce texte étudie l'hypothèse séduisante que nous pourrions expliquer ce qu'il y a de mal dans ce type d'actions en termes de droits. L’article argumente que cette idée, bien que toute naturelle, ne nous permettra pas d'expliquer de manière satisfaisante nos convictions déontologiques. Les droits peuvent être interprétés de plusieurs manières différentes, mais peu importe l'option choisie, nous rencontrons des difficultés. Le problème principal est que l'appel aux droits fait souvent usage des jugements d'admissibilité que nous essayons d'expliquer. Le supposé explanans n'a donc pas l'indépendance requise face à l' explanandum pour en constituer une véritable explication. ABSTRACT The focus of this paper is deontological restrictions or constraints. To believe in the existence of such constraints is to think that it can be morally impermissible to do something even if doing that is the only way to prevent an even worse outcome. The question which this article poses and considers is why it is wrong to perform acts which seem to violate a deontological restriction. In particular, the paper investigates the attractive possibility that we could explain this wrongness in terms of rights. argue that this idea, while natural, will not yield a satisfying explanation of our deontological convictions. Rights can be understood in several different ways, but no matter which option we take we encounter difficulties. The principal problem is that appeals to rights often make use of the very judgments of permissibility which we are trying to explain. The supposed explanans thus lacks sufficient independence from the explanandum to constitute a genuine explanation of it.

This chapter considers whether our moral entitlement to manifest certain kinds of partiality stems from a morally basic permission to be partial, or whether it can be accounted for in some other way. In particular, it explores the possibility of justifying partial conduct via a general moral prerogative to pursue our own projects. On this approach, in contexts of plural agency, where two or more people together pursue a joint project, we would have permission to favour our co-agents — but only in ways that relate to our joint project. While this approach might limit the scope of morally permissible partiality, it seems more faithful to the concerns that animate the partiality debates than the alternative of claiming an unrestricted basic right to be partial to whomsoever we wish.

Richard Brandt's last book discusses foundational questions in metaethics and normative ethics. Many of the central views expressed, as well as the topics taken up, will be familiar to those who know Brandt's earlier works, although some parts of the book represent new and welcome additions to his corpus. Brandt was very much a systematic moral philosopher, a theory builder. I can here only sketch the outlines of the theory he developed in the book, and suggest some points at which one might wish to demur.

The first four chapters develop his account of reason and reasons in general. Baier calls actions, beliefs, and feelings that can be assessed as rational or irrational “performances”. He argues that the aim of the enterprise of reason is to arrive at performances that are as good as possible ; in order to further this aim, societies promulgate guidelines of rationality. Baier thinks that a being cannot be fully rational unless it has the benefit of such publicly available guidelines. Indeed, “a being’s performances cannot be judged rational or irrational until he and his “fellows” have available to them [socially provided] apparatus for determining what … is according and what contrary to reason”. Reason is thus essentially social.

This paper examines the nature of what I call moral commitment: that is, a standing commitment to live up to moral demands. I first consider what kind of psychological state moral commitment might be, arguing that moral commitment is a species of commitment to a counterfactual condition. I explore the general structural features of attitudes of this type in order to shed light on how moral commitment might function in an agent’s motivational economy. I then use this understanding of moral commitment to respond to charges raised by prominent critics of moral theory; I argue that the counterfactual-condition account of moral commitment can successfully defuse the worries they express about the effects of moral commitment on one’s other attachments. In the final section, I suggest that these attractive general results may not be available to the consequentialist, which, if true, is a count against consequentialism.

I begin by proposing and explicating a plausible articulation of the view that morality is overriding. I then argue that it would be desirable for this thesis to be sustained. However, the prospects for its vindication will depend crucially on which moral theory we adopt. I examine some schematic moral theories in order to bring out which are friendly and which unfriendly to moral overridingness. In light of the reasons to hope that the overridingness thesis can be sustained, theories apparently incompatible with it – I argue that consequentialism is one – have a count against them.

A practical judgement is one which enjoys an internal, necessary relation to subsequent action or intention, and which can serve as a sufficient explanation of such action or intention. Does the phenomenon of weakness of will show that deliberation does not characteristically issue in such practical judgements? The author argues that the possibility of akrasia does not threaten the view that we make practical judgements, when the latter thesis is properly understood. Indeed, the author suggests that the alleged possibility of global akrasia actually supports the practical‐judgement model over what she considers its main rival, a kind of ‘Humean externalism’ about practical reason.