Ideal Code, Real World A Rule-Consequentialist Theory of Morality

by Hooker, Brad

• ISBN13: 9780199256570
• ISBN10: 0199256578
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-01-30
• Publisher: Clarendon Press

Summary

What are appropriate criteria for assessing a theory of morality? In Ideal Code, Real World, Brad Hooker begins by answering this question, and then argues for a rule-consequentialist theory. According to rule-consequentialism, acts should be assessed morally in terms of impartially justifiedrules, and rules are impartially justified if and only if the expected overall value of their general internalization is at least as great as for any alternative rules. In the course of developing his rule-consequentialism, Hooker discusses impartiality, well-being, fairness, equality, the questionof how the 'general internalization' of rules is to be interpreted by rule-consequentialism, and the main objections to rule-consequentialism. He also discusses the social contract theory of morality, act-consequentialism, and the question of which moral prohibitions and which duties to help othersare the ones that rule-consequentialism endorses. The last part of the book considers the implications of rule-consequentialism for some current controversies in practical ethics.

Author Biography

Brad Hooker is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Reading.

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(31)
Rule-consequentialism	1	(3)
Methodology	4	(5)
Coherence between Moral Theories and Our Considered Convictions	9	(7)
Moral Convictions We Share	16	(3)
Why Look for a Unifying Account?	19	(4)
Why Seek a Fundamentally Impartial Theory?	23	(6)
A Preliminary Picture	29	(1)
Objections to be Addressed	30	(2)
What Are the Rules to Promote?	32	(40)
A Picture of Rule-consequentialism	32	(1)
Rules are Not to be Valued in Terms of Numbers of Acts	33	(4)
Well-Being	37	(6)
Well-Being versus Equality	43	(2)
Fairness, Justice, Desert	45	(7)
Fairness, Contracts, and Proportion	52	(3)
Priority to the Well-being of the Worst Off	55	(4)
Utilitarian Impartiality versus Priority to the Worst Off	59	(7)
Whose Well-being Counts? Rule-consequentialism versus Contractualism	66	(4)
Value in the Natural Environment	70	(2)
Questions of Formulation	72	(21)
Reasonably Expected, Rather than Actual, Consequences	72	(3)
Compliance versus Acceptance	75	(5)
What Level of Social Acceptance?	80	(5)
Publicity, Yes; Relativizing, No	85	(3)
The Operation of Rules	88	(5)
Is Rule-Consequentialism Guilty of Collapse or Incoherence?	93	(19)
Introduction	93	(1)
Collapse into Extensional Equivalence with Act-consequentialism	93	(6)
Why Rule-consequentialism Need Not Be Inconsistent	99	(3)
Is Rule-consequentialism Really Crypto-contractualism?	102	(2)
Is Rule-consequentialism Really Merely Intuitionism?	104	(4)
Is Rule-consequentialism Not Really Consequentialist?	108	(4)
Predictability and Convention	112	(14)
Introduction	112	(1)
Predictability	113	(4)
Unrestricted Conventionalism	117	(1)
Satisficing Conventionalism	118	(3)
Compromising with Convention out of Fairness	121	(3)
Public Goods and Good Dispositions	124	(2)
Prohibitions and Special Obligations	126	(16)
Basic Rule-consequentialist Prohibitions	126	(1)
Our Intuitions about Prohibitions	127	(4)
Rule-consequentialism, Prohibitions, and Judgement	131	(3)
Rule-consequentialism and Absolute Prohibitions	134	(2)
Special Obligations to Others	136	(6)
Act-consequentialism	142	(17)
Act-consequentialism as a Criterion of Rightness, Not a Decision Procedure	142	(3)
Act-versus Rule-consequentialism on Prohibitions	145	(2)
The Economics of World Poverty	147	(2)
Act-consequentialism and the Needy	149	(10)
Rule-consequentialism and Doing Good for the World	159	(16)
Introduction	159	(1)
The Large Gap Principle	159	(1)
Beneficence as an Imperfect Duty	160	(2)
Doing What, if Everyone Did It, would Maximize the Good	162	(2)
Behaving Decently in a Selfish World	164	(5)
Other Possible Worlds	169	(4)
Why Count the Costs of Getting Rules about Aid Internalized by the Poor?	173	(2)
Help with Practical Problems	175	(13)
Rule-consequentialism and Sex	175	(2)
Kinds of Euthanasia	177	(2)
Euthanasia as a Primarily Moral Matter	179	(1)
Potential Benefits of Euthanasia	180	(1)
The Potential Harms of Allowing Involuntary Euthanasia	181	(2)
Potential Harms of Allowing Voluntary and Non-voluntary Euthanasia	183	(3)
Rule-consequentialist Conclusions about Euthanasia	186	(2)
Afterword	188	(3)
References	191	(18)
Index	209