Brad Hooker

The main body of this paper assesses a leading recent theory of fairness, a theory put forward by John Broome. I discuss Broome's theory partly because of its prominence and partly because I think it points us in the right direction, even if it takes some missteps. In the course of discussing Broome's theory, I aim to cast light on the relation of fairness to consistency, equality, impartiality, desert, rights, and agreements. Indeed, before I start assessing Broome's theory, I discuss two very popular conceptions of fairness that contrast with his. One of these very popular conceptions identifies fairness with the equal and impartial application of rules. The other identifies fairness with all-things-considered moral rightness.

Consider the idea that moral rules must be suitable for public acknowledgement and acceptance, i.e., that moral rules must be suitable for being ‘widely known and explicitly recognized’, suitable for teaching as part of moral education, suitable for guiding behaviour and reactions to behaviour, and thus suitable for justifying one’s behaviour to others. This idea is now most often associated with John Rawls, who traces it back through Kurt Baier to Kant.[1] My book developing ruleconsequentialism, Ideal Code, Real World, accepted the ‘publicity requirement’ on moral rules.[2] Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer attack my moral theory on precisely this matter.[3] Here I reply to their attack. The question under discussion is whether moral rightness is a matter of the application of principles or rules that must be suitable for public acceptance. No, answered Henry Sidgwick, holding that perhaps the principles that determine moral right and wrong should be kept secret, because publicizing these principles would not maximize utility.[4] Since I think not-purely utilitarian forms of consequentialism may be more plausible than purely utilitarian forms, let me make the point in terms of consequentialism instead of utilitarianism. The standard form of act-consequentialism is maximizing and ‘global’, i.e., direct about everything.[5] This act-consequentialism includes, among the acts to be evaluated by their consequences, instances of espousing principles, teaching morality, blaming, feeling indignation, feeling guilt, and punishing. On this form of act-consequentialism, an act that maximizes good consequences might be one that others should blame and even punish, since blaming and punishing the agent of the good-maximizing act might also for some reason maximize good consequences. Likewise, on this standard form of act-consequentialism, it may be right to do what it would be right neither to advocate openly nor even to recommend privately. All these ideas are entailed by the kind of act-consequentialism that evaluates, by their consequences, all ‘acts’—in a very broad sense of the term that takes in not only acts of doing or allowing but also acts of blaming, punishing, and recommending. De Lazari-Radek and Singer accept that there are strong consequentialist considerations in support of ‘board support for transparency in ethics’ and avoiding esoteric morality in most circumstances..

E. E. Constance Jones was a student of Henry Sidgwick's. Her article is mainly about the idea that there are ‘two supreme principles of human action, both of which we are under a “manifest obligation” to obey.’ One is the principle of Rational Benevolence and the other is the principle of Rational Self-Love. Jones contends that ‘Rational Benevolence implies or includes the Rationality of Self-Love’. There is one reading of Jones's contention that makes it undeniable but other readings that make it implausible. Near the end, I comment upon Jones’s remarks about the relation of utilitarianism to common-sense moral intuitions.

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 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.