Timothy Chappell

Two Distinctions that do make a Difference: The Action/Omission Distinction and the Principle of Double Effect

Some performances that agents perform are more fully deserving of the name “actions” than others. Some performances are paradigm actions; some performances are not actions at all; many performances fall at intermediate points on a spectrum running from paradigm actions to outright non-actions. In brief, and with apologies for the neologism, there are degrees of actionhood. Again, agents are more responsible for some of their performances than for others. Some performances are paradigms of agent-responsibility; for some performances, agents are not responsible at all; for many performances, the agent’s responsibility falls at some intermediate point on a spectrum running from paradigm responsibility to outright non-responsibility. In brief, there are degrees of responsibility. Now degrees of actionhood explain degrees of responsibility; and AOD and PDE point us to cases where the degree of actionhood is lower. This is why it is reasonable to think that they also point us to cases where the degree of responsibility is lower.

Practical rationality for pluralists about the good

I argue that if a normative theory of practical rationality is to represent an adequate and coherent response to a plurality of incommensurable goods, it cannot be a maximising theory. It will have to be a theory that recognises two responses to goods as morally licit – promotion and respect – and one as morally illicit – violation. This result has a number of interesting corollaries, some of which I indicate. Perhaps the most interesting is that it makes the existence of a plurality of incommensurable goods incompatible with consequentialism.

A Way Out of Pettit's Dilemma

Philip Pettit has argued, in ‘Non-consequentialism and Universalizability’, PQ, 50 (2000), pp. 175–90, that there is a tension between non-consequentialism and universalizability. In response I argue that Pettits argument begs the question against the non-consequentialist, because it falsely assumes that the non-consequentialist must follow the consequentialist in neglecting the crucial distinction between promoting goods and respecting them.

Utopias and the Art of the Possible

Abstract I begin this paper by examining what MacIntyre has to tell us about radical disagreements: how they have arisen, and how to deal with them, within a polity. I conclude by radically disagreeing with Macintyre: I shall suggest that he offers no credible alternative to liberalism’s account of radical disagreements and how to deal with them. To put it dilemmatically: insofar as what MacIntyre says is credible, it is not an alternative to liberalism; insofar as he presents a genuine alternative to liberalism, this alternative is not credible. In large part the credibility problems that I see for MacIntyre’s project arise from the history on which he bases it; it is with this history that I begin. Reflection on MacIntyre’s profound and subtle political philosophy thus fails to dislodge liberalism from its contemporary intellectual supremacy-a supremacy which I think liberalism has well earned. If anything, such reflection enhances the hegemony of liberalism still further. And a good thing too.

Why Ethics is Hard

I argue that one central resource for ethical thinking, seriously under-explored in contemporary anglophone philosophy, is moral phenomenology, the exploration of the texture and quality (the “what-it’s-like-ness”) of moral experience. Perhaps a barrier that has prevented people from using this resource is that it’s hard to talk about experience. But such knowledge can be communicated, e.g. by poetry and drama. In having such experiences, either in real life or at second-hand through art, we can gain moral knowledge, rather as Mary the colour scientist can gain knowledge of colours; such knowledge is a real cognitive gain, but it is not knowledge of the propositional kind that philosophers have usually focused on.

The Polymorphy of Practical Reason

Natural law theory (NLT) offers an approach to normative ethics that is simple, distinctive, and persuasive. It posits a variety of different sorts of basic goods, things which are good in themselves rather than merely instrumentally good. These goods are the basis both of motivation and of justification: most if not all of our practical reasons arise from them, and to justify an action is to explain something about its relation to the goods. Our practical reasons are, irreducibly, polymorphous; and the source of that polymorphy is the variety of the goods.

Why god is not a consequentialist

Can there be a moral philosophy which combines Christianity and consequentialism? John Stuart Mill himself claimed that these positions were, at the least, not mutually exclusive, and quite possibly even congenial to one another; and some recent work by Christian philosophers in America has resurrected this claim. But there is a simple argument to show that consequentialism and orthodox Christianity are not so much as jointly assertible.

The Action-Omission and Double Effect Distinctions

One crucial question for the Natural Law Theory of ethics that has been advocated by Joseph Boyle over the course of his distinguished career is: Exactly what is to count as (minimal) respect for a good or value? Under what circumstances do we fail to reach the threshold even of respect for some good, and so count as violating it? I take this to be the hardest question of all for the New Natural Law Theory; it is obvious from Boyle’s writings that he takes it to be a crucial question too, and that he has done more than most to clarify it.

The Implications of Incommensurability

Agents have aims. Any aim can be either simple or complex. If an aim is complex, then its different components make irreducibly different demands on the agent. The agent cannot rationally respond to all these demands by promoting all her different component aims at once. She must recognise a distinction between the rational response to any component aim of promoting it, and the rational response of respecting it. If the goods are incommensurable, then rational agents have complex aims. So if the goods are incommensurable, rational agents do not only promote whatever aims they recognise. But consequentialism tells agents only to promote whatever aims they recognise. So if the goods are incommensurable, consequentialism is wrong. I note applications of this argument to the writings of Robert Nozick, Philip Pettit, and John Harris.

Why is Faith a Virtue

A virtue is a disposition of character which instantiates or promotes responsiveness to one or more basic goods – where a basic good is one which in itself can provide an agent with a sufficient motivation, and an observer with a full explanation. The basic goods to which faith is a responsiveness are truth and practical hope – the latter being the belief that action according to deliberate choice is not ultimately pointless for me. Now these goods are often in tension for an agent; indeed if there is no God, they will eventually come into irresoluble tension. If God does not exist, there is no single coherent disposition which is a responsiveness to both goods; that is, there is no virtue of faith. So faith is only a virtue if God exists.