Gerald Lang

The Rule-Following Considerations and Metaethics: Some False Moves

In a series of influential papers, John McDowell has argued that the rule-following considerations explored in Wittgenstein’s later work provide support for a particularist form of moral objectivity. The article distinguishes three such arguments in McDowell’s writings, labelled the Anthropocentricism Argument, the Shapelessness Argument, and the Anti-Humean Argument, respectively, and the author disputes the effectiveness of each of them. As far as these metaethical debates are concerned, the article concludes that the rule-following considerations leave everything in their place.

Luck Egalitarianism, Permissible Inequalities, and Moral Hazard

In this article, I appeal to the phenomenon of moral hazard in order to explain how at least some of the inequalities permitted by Luck Egalitarianism can be given an alternative, more plausible grounding than that which is supplied by Luck Egalitarianism. This alternative grounding robs Luck Egalitarianism of a potentially significant source of intuitive support whilst enabling conditional welfare policies to survive the attacks on them made by Elizabeth Anderson, Jonathan Wolff, and others.

A Dilemma for Objective Act-Utilitarianism

Act-utilitarianism comes in two standard varieties: ‘subjective’ act-utilitarianism, which tells agents to attempt to maximize utility directly, and ‘objective’ act-utilitarianism, which permits agents to use non-utilitarian decision-making procedures. This article argues that objective actutilitarianism is exposed to a dilemma. On one horn of it is the contention that objective act-utilitarianism makes inconsistent claims about the rightness of acts. On the other horn of it is the contention that objective act-utilitarianism collapses back into what is, essentially, subjective act-utilitarianism. Three objective act-utilitarian responses to this dilemma are explored and rejected. The recommended conclusion is that a consistent utilitarian must either embrace subjective act-utilitarianism, or abandon act-utilitarianism altogether.

Should Utilitarianism Be Scalar

Scalar utilitarianism, a form of utilitarianism advocated by Alastair Norcross, retains utilitarianisms evaluative commitments while dispensing with utilitarianisms deontic commitments, or its commitment to the existence or significance of moral duties, obligations and requirements. This article disputes the effectiveness of the arguments that have been used to defend scalar utilitarianism. It is contended that Norcrosss central ‘Persuasion Argument’ does not succeed, and it is suggested, more positively, that utilitarians cannot easily distance themselves from deontic assessment, just as long as scalar utilitarians admit – as they should do – that utilitarian evaluation generates normative reasons for action.

Numbers scepticism, equal chances and pluralism: Taurek revisited

The ‘standard interpretation’ of John Taurek’s argument in ‘Should the Numbers Count?’ imputes two theses to him: first, ‘numbers scepticism’, or scepticism about the moral force of an appeal to the mere number of individuals saved in conflict cases; and second, the ‘equal greatest chances’ principle of rescue, which requires that every individual has an equal chance of being rescued. The standard interpretation is criticized here on a number of grounds. First, whilst Taurek clearly believes that equal chances are all-important, he actually argues for a position weaker than the equal greatest chances principle. Second, the argument Taurek gives for the importance of equal chances ought to commit him to being more hospitable to the significance of numbers than he seems to be. Third, and as a result, Taurek should not have dismissed the significance of numbers but embraced a form of pluralism instead. Fourth, this result should be welcomed, because pluralism is more plausible than either the equal greatest chances principle or the saving the greater number principle.

What's the Matter? Review of Derek Parfit, On What Matters

In the Preface to this enormous work, Derek Parfit makes a reference to Sidgwicks ‘great, drab book’ The Methods of Ethics (xxxiii). The juxtaposition of adjectives is amusing and oddly endearing; for Parfit, Sidgwicks drabness is not in any serious competition with his greatness. Parfits two-volume book is not drab – though it can be exhausting – and, although it is probably too early to tell for sure, it also shows certain signs of greatness. Time and time again, one is impressed, even moved, by Parfits enthralling and indefatigable resourcefulness and level of immersion in these issues, and by his dogged and transparently sincere commitment to discovering the truth about them. Despite its length, On What Matters demands careful study by everyone with a serious interest in philosophical ethics.

Owning Up: Dworkin on Responsibility

The concept of responsibility is frequently discussed in Ronald Dworkin’s important book Justice for Hedgehogs. In an evaluative system with the holistic character of Dworkin’s, one expects values to mutually intersect at different points, and one expects to be able to plot connections among any and all of the different evaluative points of the overall interpretive weave. Even so, responsibility earns its place as a particularly deep load-bearing value in his system. Two chapters mention responsibility by name: Chapter 6, entitled ‘Moral Responsibility’, which belongs to the section concerned with interpretation, or moral epistemology; and Chapter 10, entitled ‘Free Will and Responsibility’, which belongs to the section concerned with ethics, or with what it is to live well. In this article, I will focus principally on Dworkin’s treatment of responsibility and free will, though this topic will also require me to pay attention to the role of responsibility in his theory of moral epistemology. I will also be enrolling into the discussion Dworkin’s dismissal of the ‘causal impact hypothesis’, which is undertaken in Chapter 4, in Part One. I provide an exposition of Dworkin’s ideas about free will and responsibility in section 1, and discuss them critically in section 2. In section 3, I try to find answers to these criticisms. Finally, a comparison between Dworkin’s account and neo-Kantian conceptions of agency is briefly explored in section 4.

Is There Potential in Potentiality

Michael Tooley’s ‘Abortion and Infanticide’, which is nearing the fortieth anniversary of its original publication in Philosophy and Public Affairs, has by no means fallen into a state of neglect: it has been both widely reprinted and avidly discussed. It continues to enjoy a sizeable influence over the enormous philosophical debate on abortion, and over some of the sub-topics encompassed by that debate—most significantly, the moral significance of potentiality. It has bequeathed a notable contribution, concerning kittens and personhood serum (of which more anon), to the growing bestiary of eye-catching and outlandish cases in the philosophical canon. And it is written in a style—analytically scrupulous but critically aggressive—which did so much to shape the character and development of applied ethics over the last forty years. It would be hard, in truth, to overstate its importance. My aim here is to revisit Tooley’s article, particularly in connection with its treatment of potentiality, in order to assess its force. Tooley’s argument against the moral significance of potentiality strikes me as the most powerful in the contemporary philosophical literature. But it does not offer a killer blow against the moral significance of potentiality. The argument will be structured as follows. In Section 1, I do some