Commonsense Consequentialism

Wherein Morality Meets Rationality

Douglas W. Portmore

Oxford Moral Theory

Highly ambitious in its scope, attempting to systematize our thinking about both morality and rationality.
Develops a new kind of consequentialist moral theory, one that ranks outcomes, not according to their impersonal value, but according to how much reason the relevant agent has to desire that each outcome obtains. This agent-relative version of consequentialism can, it is shown, do a better job of accommodating our commonsense moral intuitions than even many versions of deontology can.
Argues that it is important for normative theories to be able to evaluate not just individual actions but also sets of actions, consisting in acts that are simple or compound, synchronous or asynchronous, consecutive or inconsecutive, instantaneous or temporally-extended.
Argues that the deontic status of an individual action is a function of its role in some larger, temporally-extended plan of action, and that this plan of action is to be evaluated, not with respect to whether the agent will be able to perform the corresponding temporal parts of the plan as they each arise, but with respect to whether, in embarking on the plan now, the agent can secure at the current time her subsequent performance of all the corresponding temporal parts of the plan.

Commonsense Consequentialism

Wherein Morality Meets Rationality

Douglas W. Portmore

Description

Commonsense Consequentialism is a book about morality, rationality, and the interconnections between the two. In it, Douglas W. Portmore defends a version of consequentialism that both comports with our commonsense moral intuitions and shares with other consequentialist theories the same compelling teleological conception of practical reasons.

Broadly construed, consequentialism is the view that an act's deontic status is determined by how its outcome ranks relative to those of the available alternatives on some evaluative ranking. Portmore argues that outcomes should be ranked, not according to their impersonal value, but according to how much reason the relevant agent has to desire that each outcome obtains and that, when outcomes are ranked in this way, we arrive at a version of consequentialism that can better account for our commonsense moral intuitions than even many forms of deontology can. What's more, Portmore argues that we should accept this version of consequentialism, because we should accept both that an agent can be morally required to do only what she has most reason to do and that what she has most reason to do is to perform the act that would produce the outcome that she has most reason to want to obtain.

Although the primary aim of the book is to defend a particular moral theory (viz., commonsense consequentialism), Portmore defends this theory as part of a coherent whole concerning our commonsense views about the nature and substance of both morality and rationality. Thus, it will be of interest not only to those working on consequentialism and other areas of normative ethics, but also to those working in metaethics. Beyond offering an account of morality, Portmore offers accounts of practical reasons, practical rationality, and the objective/subjective obligation distinction.

Commonsense Consequentialism

Wherein Morality Meets Rationality

Douglas W. Portmore

Oxford Moral Theory

1. Why I Am Not a Utilitarian
1.1 Utilitarianism: The good, the bad, and the ugly
1.2 The plan for the rest of the book
1.3 My aims
1.4 Objective oughts and objective reasons
1.5 Conventions that I will follow throughout the book
2. Consequentialism and Moral Rationalism
2.1 The too-demanding objection: How moral rationalism leads us to reject utilitarianism
2.2 The argument against utilitarianism from moral rationalism
2.3 How moral rationalism compels us to accept consequentialism
2.4 What is consequentialism?
2.5 The presumptive case for moral rationalism
2.6 Some concluding remarks
3. The Teleological Conception of Practical Reasons
3.1 Getting clear on what the view is
3.2 Clearing up some misconceptions about the view
3.3 Scanlon's putative counterexamples to the view
3.4 Arguments for the view
4. Consequentializing Commonsense Morality
4.1 How to consequentialize
4.2 The deontic equivalence thesis
4.3 Beyond the deontic equivalence thesis: How consequentialist theories can do a better job of accounting for our considered moral convictions than even some nonconsequentialist theories can
4.4 The implications of the deontic equivalence thesis
4.5 An objection
5. Dual-Ranking Act-Consequentialism: Reasons, Morality, and Overridingness
5.1 Some quick clarifications
5.2 Moral reasons, overridingness, and agent-centered options
5.3 Moral reasons, overridingness, and supererogation
5.4 A meta-criterion of rightness and how it leads us to adopt dual-ranking act-consequentialism
5.5 Norcross's objection
5.6 Splawn's objection
5.7 Violations of the transitivity and independence axioms
6. Imperfect Reasons and Rational Options
6.1 Kagan's objection: Are we sacrificing rational options to get moral options?
6.2 Imperfect reasons and rational options
6.3 Securitism
6.4 Securitism and the basic belief
6.5 Securitism's suppositions and implications
7. Commonsense Consequentialism
7.1 The best version of act-utilitarianism: commonsense utilitarianism
7.2 Securitist consequentialism and the argument for it
7.3 Commonsense consequentialism and how it compares with traditional act-consequentialism
7.4 What has been shown and what remains to be shown

Commonsense Consequentialism

Wherein Morality Meets Rationality

Douglas W. Portmore

Oxford Moral Theory

Author Information

Douglas W. Portmore, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Arizona State University, United States

Douglas W. Portmore is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Arizona State University. His research focuses mainly on morality, rationality, and the interconnections between the two, but he also writes on wellbeing, posthumous harm, and the nonidentity problem.

Commonsense Consequentialism

Wherein Morality Meets Rationality

Douglas W. Portmore

Oxford Moral Theory

Reviews and Awards

"The main contribution of the book is in arguing for a particular account of the structure of practical reasons, the upshot of which is a much more commonsensical account of consequentialism than is standardly offered ... In sum, this a very rich book, an important contribution to the consequentialist literature, but more broadly, an important contribution to our understanding of practical reason in general." - Elinor Mason, Mind

"an impressive, ambitious book - a welcome addition to the literature, especially given recent anti-consequentialist trends. Even devout non-consequentialists will be intrigued by much of it." - Jean-Paul Vessel, Journal of Utilitas