Should consequentialists make Parfit's second mistake? A refutation of Jackson

Eggleston, Ben

doi:10.1080/00048400012349301

Cited by 4 publications

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“…Ben Eggleston defends Parfit against Jackson's arguments. 39 Although I agree with Eggleston that Parfit's rejection of TSM withstands Jackson's arguments, my reasons are somewhat different.…”

Section: Jackson's Defence Of Tsmmentioning

confidence: 79%

The Second Mistake in Moral Mathematics is not about the Worth of Mere Participation

Petersson

2004

Utilitas

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'The Second Mistake' (TSM) is to think that if an act is right or wrong because of its effects, the only relevant effects are the effects of this particular act. This is not (as some think) a truism, since 'the effects of this particular act' and 'its effects' need not co-refer. Derek Parfit's rejection of TSM is based mainly on intuitions concerning sets of acts that over-determine certain harms. In these cases, each act belongs to the relevant set in virtue of a causal relation (other than marginal contribution) to a specific harmful event. This feature may make an act wrong, in a fashion consequentialists could admit. That explication of TSM does not rely on the questionable assumption that the set of acts is what harms here. Independently of this, there are several other reasons to prefer it to the 'mere participation' approach.

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Section: Jackson's Defence Of Tsmmentioning

confidence: 79%

The Second Mistake in Moral Mathematics is not about the Worth of Mere Participation

Petersson

2004

Utilitas

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“…But the point applies whether or not one looks at the proposal through a consequentialist lens. For discussions of whether Parfit's idea should be accepted by consequentialists, see Jackson (1997) and Eggleston (2000Eggleston ( , 2003. 11 But a way that does not fit with what Parfit himself was going for, namely, a consequentialist answer to the puzzle.…”

Section: Acknowledgementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

Collective harm and the inefficacy problem

Nefsky

2019

Philosophy Compass

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This paper discusses the inefficacy problem that arises in contexts of “collective harm.” These are contexts in which by acting in a certain sort of way, people collectively cause harm, or fail to prevent it, but no individual act of the relevant sort seems to itself make a difference. The inefficacy problem is that if acting in the relevant way won't make a difference, it's unclear why it would be wrong. Each individual can argue, “things will be just as bad whether or not I act in this way, so there's no point in doing otherwise.” The goal of this paper is to give an overview of some of the main responses available to the problem and to highlight central issues that arise for each type of response. In the final section, I explain what I take to be the most promising strategy and discuss the form that this strategy should take.

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“…For a discussion, see e.g Eggleston (2000)Gruzalski (1986);Jackson (1997);Parfit (1986);Petersson (2004); Shrader-Frechette (1987).10 The example is inaccurate historywise (cf.Suetonius 2003 [121]).…”

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confidence: 99%

Causing Global Warming

Gunnemyr

2019

Ethic Theory Moral Prac

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Do I cause global warming, climate change and their related harms when I go for a leisure drive with my gas-guzzling car? The current verdict seems to be that I do not; the emissions produced by my drive are much too insignificant to make a difference for the occurrence of global warming and its related harms. I argue that our verdict on this issue depends on what we mean by 'causation'. If we for instance assume a simple counterfactual analysis of causation according to which 'C causes E' means 'if C had not occurred, E would not have occurred', we must conclude that a single drive does not cause global warming. However, this analysis of causation is wellknown for giving counterintuitive results in some important cases. If we instead adopt Lewis's (2000) analysis of causation, it turns out that it is indeterminate whether I cause global warming (etc.) when I go for a single drive. Still, in contexts where we seek to control or understand global warming, there is a pressure to adopt a more fragile view of this event. When we adopt such a view, it turns out that a single drive does cause global warming (etc.). This means that we cannot like Sinnott-Armstrong (2005) and Kingston and Sinnott-Armstrong (2018) reject the idea that I should refrain from going for a leisure drive simply because such a drive does not cause global warming. Keywords Causation. Causing harm. Causal influence. Global warming. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong. David Lewis If I go for a leisure drive with my gas-guzzling car, am I then causing global warming and its related harms? In BIt's not my fault: Global Warming and Individual Moral Obligations^(2005) Walter Sinnott-Armstrong makes the case that I do not. This is the claim I question in this paper. Sinnott-Armstrong's paper has been extensively discussed, (for instance by Braham and Van

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Should consequentialists make Parfit's second mistake? A refutation of Jackson

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

The Second Mistake in Moral Mathematics is not about the Worth of Mere Participation

The Second Mistake in Moral Mathematics is not about the Worth of Mere Participation

Collective harm and the inefficacy problem

Causing Global Warming

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