David Schmidtz

Scottish Enlightenment theorists focused on the nature and causes of the wealth of nations, or more generally, on what makes the world a better place. Today’s act-utilitarianism, by comparison, sometimes seems remarkably inattentive to what has any robust history of good consequences. One prominent strand of today’s utilitarianism is useless not because it is obsessed with consequences, but because it largely ignores them. Yet, the target in this chapter is not utilitarianism per se. The chapter raises a number of questions, including: What would it be like to theorize about the nature and causes of good outcomes? How would theorizing about outcomes be unlike theorizing about acts?

We have learned from progress in the field of psychology that certain biases are baked into the human condition. However, the fact that we live and process information in real time, in a temporal order, is not a mistake. It affects what we end up thinking, so it is a bias in a way; yet it is not a mistake, and there is no way for human information processors to avoid it. Even so, open-mindedness pays dividends. Because each of us set out to defend children rather than to defend theories, in the course of our back-and-forth each of us ended up learning something about what serves that more or less common aim. In particular, we understand that one of society’s legitimate aspirations is to be a place of opportunity, and above all a place of opportunity for its least advantaged citizens. We also understand what this overarching aspiration leaves open. It does not determine the particular missions of more specialized institutions within society, including institutions of education. We leave that as a question for the reader, but we hope to have shed some light on how to think about it.

Whatever is good about market society at its observable, realistic best boils down to the bilateral right to say no. Whatever is good about market society boils down to how well it works as a way of institutionalizing an expectation that people will respect each other as self-owners. At the other end of the realistic spectrum, markets at their observable worst are heavily subsidized, with products that over time become increasingly expensive and obsolete. This indefensible variation on the theme of market logic operates in many industries, including publicly funded and publicly delivered systems of education.

The evolution of educational institutions has been shaped by an uneasy mix of standards-based and market-based reforms. How we understand education’s outcomes for students and for society at large will shape how we think about the general idea of market-based reforms. Yet any given reform is a particular intervention in a particular time and place, so a responsible evaluation of reform ultimately must be an analysis of particular observations. General principles of philosophy and economics can illuminate, but real cases have a way of turning out to be special cases. So while this is a debate about the role of market-based reforms in education, we want to avoid engaging in a duel of rival theories and instead speak on behalf of real children, real parents, and real teachers.

Derek Parfit’s much discussed “repugnant conclusion” that concerns moral questions about population size presumably makes trouble for certain forms of utilitarianism. After explaining in some detail Parfit’s case for the repugnant conclusion, this chapter goes on to argue that the problem generalizes not only to other versions of utilitarianism, but to all standard act-centered theories of right conduct, including standard deontological theories. Inspired by Tom Hill’s influential article, “Ideals of Human Excellence and Preserving Natural Environments,” which has one shift attention from questions about actions that involve rights violations or involve interfering with the interests of sentient creatures to questions of character, this chapter proceeds to appropriate Hill’s character-based approach as a way of addressing the repugnant conclusion.

Species egalitarianism is the view that all species have equal moral standing. To have moral standing is, at a minimum, to command respect, to be something more than a mere thing. Is there any reason to believe that all species have moral standing in even this most minimal sense? If so — that is, if all species command respect — is there any reason to believe they all command equal respect. The article summarises critical responses to Paul Taylor’s argument for species egalitarianism, then explains why other species command our respect but also why they do not command equal respect. The intuition that we should have respect for nature is part of what motivates people to embrace species egalitarianism, but one need not be a species egalitarian to have respect for nature. The article closes by questioning whether species egalitarianism is even compatible with respect for nature.

Extensively revised and expanded in this second edition, Environmental Ethics: What Really Matters, What Really Works examines morality from an environmental perspective. Featuring seventy-one accessible selections--from classic articles to examples of cutting-edge original research--it addresses both theory and practice. Asking what really matters, the first section of the book explores the abstract ideas of human value and value in nature. The second section turns to the question of what it would take to solve our real-world environmental problems. This second edition features new chapters on climate change, urban management issues, and technology (Chapters 12-14) and twenty-nine new readings, including two selections that were custom-written for this anthology.

Libertarians often bill their theory as an alternative to both the traditional Left and Right. _The Routledge Handbook of Libertarianism_ helps readers fully examine this alternative, without preaching it to them, exploring the contours of libertarian (sometimes also called _classical liberal_) thinking on justice, institutions, interpersonal ethics, government, and political economy. The 31 chapters--all written specifically for this volume--are organized into five parts. Part I asks, what should libertarianism learn from other theories of justice, and what should defenders of other theories of justice learn from libertarianism? Part II asks, what are some of the deepest problems facing libertarian theories? Part III asks, what is the right way to think about property rights and the market? Part IV asks, how should we think about the state? Finally, part V asks, how well (or badly) can libertarianism deal with some of the major policy challenges of our day, such as immigration, trade, religion in politics, and paternalism in a free market. Among the _Handbook_’s chapters are those from critics who write about what they believe libertarians get right as well as others from leading libertarian theorists who identify what they think libertarians get wrong. As a whole, the _Handbook_ provides a comprehensive, clear-eyed look at what libertarianism has been and could be, and why it matters.

In clinical trials involving experimental subjects who are also patients, what is supposed to become of the imperative to focus on the patient’s best interest? A second set of policy questions concerns patients who want to die. Are there limits to the imperative to let patients choose for themselves? Is commodification a threat to autonomy? When, if ever, do costs and benefits become decisively important? Can we know what to count as a cost-effective preparation for the next pandemic? When we put procedures in place to protect against abuse, is there any way to prevent such measures from becoming bureaucratic obstacles to accomplishing anything at all?

Imagine that you are the last human being. When you are gone, the only life remaining will be plants, microbes, invertebrates. For some reason, this thought runs through your head: Before I die, it sure would be fun to blow up the last remaining redwood. What, if anything, would be wrong with destroying that redwood? Destroying it won’t hurt any person, or even any sentient creature. It won’t hurt anything. So, what’s the problem? This chapter reflects on the possibility of finding intrinsic value, objective value, incommensurate value, moral standing, and grounds for self-respect in the nonhuman natural world.

A philosopher might presume that principles of justice somehow are more fundamental than principles of conflict resolution. But moral philosophy done well is neither as autonomous as that, nor as naïve. Moral philosophy done well tracks truth about the human condition, which means it tracks truth about what it actually takes in the real world for people to live in peace. Accordingly, the relationship between justice and conflict resolution is an evolving process of mutual specification, anchored to facts about what helps people get along and make progress. If we want to understand what people have reason to expect from each other and to regard as their due, we would do well to start by learning how people avoid and resolve conflict.

Poverty can be an ephemeral life stage of a young person whose skill sets will become more valuable with training and experience, a personal setback such as losing a job, or a systemic affliction that puts a whole community in danger of widespread famine. A common theme of this volume’s essays is that we cannot understand poverty and famine unless we acknowledge that poor people are not mouths to be fed but agents. Amartya Sen got this right, crediting Adam Smith for the seeds of his insight. What has been enabling people by the billions since Smith’s time to work their way out of poverty?