Brad Hooker

Considers whether rule‐consequentialism is undermined by the unpredictability of the consequences of whole codes of rules. Argues that, where we can calculate that some alternative is better than the status quo, we press forward with reform, and that where we cannot calculate that some alternative code is better than the status quo, we should stick with the status quo. Concludes by considering how ideal codes have to compromise with extant conventions, and how rule‐consequentialism can support public goods.

We typically think that morality prohibits certain kinds of behaviour, such as killing the innocent, stealing, breaking promises, etc. This chapter explores rule‐consequentialism's ability to underwrite these prohibitions, and, in particular, to underwrite our views about when such prohibitions should be amended or overridden. Argues against absolute prohibitions and explores the role of judgement in rule‐consequentialism. The final section explains how rule‐consequentialism can endorse rules giving agents special obligations towards family and friends.

What determines whether an action is right or wrong? Morality, Rules, and Consequences: A Critical Reader explores for students and researchers the relationship between consequentialist theory and moral rules. Most of the chapters focus on rule consequentialism or on the distinction between act and rule versions of consequentialism. Contributors, among them the leading philosophers in the discipline, suggest ways of assessing whether rule consequentialism could be a satisfactory moral theory. These essays, all of which are previously unpublished, provide students in moral philosophy with essential material and ask key questions on just what the criteria for an adequate moral theory might be.

_Developing Deontology_ consists of six new essays in ethical theory by leading contemporary moral philosophers. Each essay considers concepts prominent in the development of deontological approaches to ethics, and these essays offer an invaluable contribution to that development. Essays are contributed by Michael Smith, Philip Stratton-Lake, Ralph Wedgewood, David Owens, Peter Vallentyne, and Elizabeth Harman - all leading contemporary moral philosophers Each essay offers an original and previously unpublished contribution to the subject A significant addition to the field for anyone with an interest in the development of deontology The collection is edited by a leading philosophical scholar

The chapter juxtaposes the fairly quick and automatic thinking and decision making that constitutes everyday moral thought and action with the slower, more complicated, and more reflective thinking that steps beyond everyday moral thought. Various difficulties that can slow down everyday moral thought are catalogued in this paper. The paper explains how dealing with many of these difficulties leads to thinking about moral principles. And, even where there are not such difficulties, everyday moral thought can be challenged by repeated “why?” questions. Pushed far enough, such questions have to be answered by admitting ignorance or by pointing to theses about whatever ultimately makes acts morally required, permissible, or prohibited. Such theses are moral theories. As a point about moral theories, the paper ends by pointing out a respect in which everyday moral thought is more like rule-consequentialism, contractualism, foundational pluralism, and virtue ethics than everyday moral thought is like traditional act-consequentialism.

What distinguishes moral judgements from judgements of other kinds? In addressing this question, this paper tries to remain as neutral as possible about which moral judgments are correct. The paper addresses objections to thinking that the defining feature of moral judgements is their other-regarding grounds, or their social function, or their motivational force, or their connection to reactive attitudes such as guilt, indignation, and resentment. The proposal this paper makes is that a judgment is a moral judgment if and only if this judgment is a member of a group of judgments of which some do carry commitment to the appropriateness of such reactive attitudes.

Most of us believe morality requires us to help the desperately needy. But most of us also believe morality doesn't require us to make enormous sacrifices in order to help people who have no special connection with us. Such self‐sacrifice is of course praiseworthy, but it isn't morally mandatory. Rule‐consequentialism might seem to offer a plausible grounding for such beliefs. Tim Mulgan has recently argued in Analysis and Pacific Philosophical Quarterly that rule‐consequentialism cannot do so. This paper replies to Mulgan's arguments.

The duty to keep promises has many aspects associated with deontological moral theories. The duty to keep promises is non-welfarist, in that the obligation to keep a promise need not be conditional on there being a net benefit from keeping the promise—indeed need not be conditional on there being at least someone who would benefit from its being kept. The duty to keep promises is more closely connected to autonomy than directly to welfare: agents have moral powers to give themselves certain obligations to others. And these moral powers, which enable promisors to create agent- relative obligations to promisees, correlate with rights the promisees acquire in the process, such as rights to waive the duty or insist on its performance. As a result of promises, promisees acquire (not only rights but also) a special status: the promisees are the ones wronged when promises to them that they have not waived are not kept. One more aspect of the duty to keep promises that is associated with deontological moral theories is that what actions the duty requires is at least partly backward-looking: what actions the duty requires depends on facts about the past, namely facts about what promises were made and then waived or not. This paper surveys these aspects of the duty to keep promises and then explores whether rule-consequentialism can be reconciled with them.

The prevailing theory of self-interest (personal utility or individual welfare) holds that one’s Iife goes well to the extent that one’s desires are fulfilled. In a couple of seminal papers, Overvold raised a devastating objection to this theory---namely that the theory (added to commonsensical beliefs about the nature of action) makes self-sacrifice logically impossible. He then proposed an appealing revision of the prevailing theory, one which provided adequate logical space for self-sacrifice. And he analyzed his revised theory’s implications for the question whether being moral is in one’s self-interest. My paper assesses Overvold’s arguments and proposals, and it shows how they can be modified in certain ways so as to be even more attractive.

Some things aren't what their names suggest. This is true of rubber ducks, stool pigeons, clay pigeons, hot dogs, and clothes horses. Frances Howard-Snyder's "Rule Consequentialism is a Rubber Duck" ("APQ", 30 (1993) 271-78) argues that the answer is Yes. Howard-Snyder thinks rule-consequentialism is a form of deontology, not a form of consequentialism. This thought is understandable: many recent definitions of consequentialism are such as to invite it. Thinking rule-consequentialism inferior to act-consequentialism, many philosophers, when discussing consequentialism, have had act-consequentialism in mind. Having just one kind of consequentialism in mind has led them to offer definitions of consequentialism that are really definitions of just act-consequentialism. My paper discusses three different possible definitions of consequentialism and defends one that does justice to rule-consequentialism's family membership

This paper employs (and defends where needed) a familiar four-part methodology for assessing moral theories. This methodology makes the most popular kind of moral pluralism--here called Ross-style pluralism--look extremely attractive. The paper contends, however, that, if rule-consequentialism's implications match our considered moral convictions as well as Ross-style pluralism's implications do, the methodology makes rule-consequentialism look even more attractive than Ross-style pluralism. The paper then attacks two arguments recently put forward in defence of Ross-style pluralism. One of these arguments is that no moral theory containing some single normative principle to justify general pro tanto duties can do justice to the ineliminable role of judgment in moral thinking. The other argument is that no such theory is plausible in light of the fact that our moral ideas come from disparate historical sources