John Skorupski

Agent-Neutrality, Consequentialism, Utilitarianism … A Terminological Note *

It seems common at the moment to make agent-neutrality a necessary condition of ‘consequentialism” and to hold that deontological ethics are agent-relative. This note argues that both these tendencies regrettably obscure useful terms and distinctions. It concludes by considering what it would be best, now, to mean by ‘utilitarianism” and making a proposal.

Externalism and Self-governance

What outcomes are good, and what there is reason for one to do, is not generally determined by what one thinks or even what one has reason to think. But is a similarly ‘externalist’ account of the distinctively moral concepts, the concepts of moral duty or obligation, of moral wrongness, blameworthiness and guilt, appropriate? I argue not; and on that basis I suggest that an externalist account is not appropriate for the concept of a virtue either.

Blame, Respect and Recognition: A Reply to Theo van Willigenburg

In an article in Utilitas Theo van Willigenburg has argued that moral valuation is distinguished from other forms of valuation by the Kantian concept of respect. He criticizes, from that standpoint, an account I put forward, which builds on the connections between moral wrongdoing, blame and withdrawal of recognition. I examine the difference between these two approaches and defend my own.

Morality as Self-governance: Has it a Future?

In The Invention of Autonomy, Schneewind argues that a main development in early modern ethical thought is the transition from a conception of morality as obedience to a conception of morality as self-governance. I consider the presuppositions implicit in the latter conception and ask whether they can be maintained.

Desire and Will in Sidgwick and Green

This paper examines T. H. Greens and Henry Sidgwicks differing views of desireand the will, and connectedly, their differing views of an individuals good and freedom. It is argued that Sidgwick makes effective criticisms of Green, but that important elements in Greens idealist view of an individuals good and freedom survive the criticism and remain significant today. It is also suggested that Sidgwicks own account of an individuals good is unclear in an important way.

Review of Peter Railton, Facts, Values and Norms: Essays toward a Morality of Consequence

These valuable essays by Peter Railton date from 1984 to 2000. Taken as a whole, they show that the fundamentals of his moral philosophy have remained constant over that time; they also show how conscientious he is in responding to, and wherever possible trying to accommodate, competing points of view. Railton’s general ethical position is consequentialist, naturalistic and realist – in all cases in sweepingly radical ways. At the same time he has great insight into how people actually feel about questions of value, whether ethical or aesthetic, and he tries to accommodate those feelings. The resulting tensions make for fascinating attempts at reconciliation, more in the style of Mill than of Bentham. Like Mill, Railton tries to show that his argument is capable of surprising accommodations, and far from incompatible with what a serious and open-minded reader will find it natural to think. The essays are divided into three groups. Part I sets out Peter Railton’s meta-ethical views on moral realism and part II his views on moral and political theory; part III deals with general questions about normativity. Fine qualities are revealed throughout. But it is not possible to review Railton’s insightful treatment of all these big topics, even in a critical notice. So I shall give particular attention to his theory of reason, the good and morality, and then, more briefly, to his influential essays on meta-ethics and ‘the problem of normativity’.

The Philosophy of John Stuart Mill

Though John Stuart Mill’s ethics and politics are as important as ever, his overall philosophical reputation remains somewhat uncertain and obscure. Nick Capaldi says, in his new intellectual biography, that ‘Mill was an enigma to his contemporaries, and this enigma has remained down to the present’. Yet his is one of the most important nineteenth-century contributions to philosophy. Why then the uncertainty? ‘The main reason’, Capaldi suggests, ‘is that Mill expressed a total vision of liberal culture that was shared by almost no one and had in Britain no natural constituency’ (357). That is an interesting explanation to which I shall return. However, a more obvious reason is simply the breadth and scale of his thought. Few if any of us have the time or interest to find the vantage point, outside the concerns of current specialist philosophy, that is required to assess it. Mill’s idea of the role of philosophy in intellectual culture, and of its place in his own thinking and practice, is hard to capture from within the current divisions of academic research. What he was trying to do as a philosopher, and how far he succeeded, remains surprisingly unfamiliar. This ‘Mill problem’ is part of a larger ‘nineteenth-century philosophy’ problem. It is not just our understanding of Mill, it is our understanding of philosophical debate in the nineteenth century, in all its remarkable ambitiousness and diversity, that remains uncertain. Not only that; when it comes to some of its most prominent features, above all its historicism and British Journal for the History of Philosophy 15(1) 2007: 181 – 197