DRAFTS
Consequentialism and Its Demands: The Role of Institutions (with Andras Miklos)
Abstract. It isn’t saying much to claim that morality is demanding; the question, rather, is: can morality be so demanding that we have reason not to follow its dictates? According to many, it can, if that morality is a consequentialist one. This paper takes the plausibility and coherence of this objection – the Demandingness Objection – as a given. Our question, therefore, is how to respond to the Objection. We put forward a response that we think has not received sufficient attention in the literature: institutional consequentialism. This is a consequentialist view that, however, requires institutional systems, and not individuals, to follow the consequentialist principle. We first introduce the Objection, then explain the theory of institutional consequentialism and how it responds to the objection. In the remainder of the paper, we defend the view against potential objections.
A globalizáció nyomában (with Eric Brown)
Abstract. The aim of the paper is to study the pre-history of the concept of globalization in political philosophy. In doing so, the paper examines the development of two intertwined concepts, those of universalism and cosmopolitanism. The application of these two concepts has been much influenced by the socio-economical situation of the relevant societies; hence the paper aims to place their discussion in this context. Accordingly, the first part of the paper deals with the idea of universalism in classical Greek and stoic philosophy, in renaissance humanism and in the early-modern period. The second part of the paper adds to this the discussion of cosmopolitanism in Immanuel Kant’s philosophy.
On The Road to Meaning
Abstract. The paper offers a philosophically infused analysis of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. The main idea is that McCarthy’s novel is primarily a statement on the meaning of life. Once this idea is argued for and endorsed, by using a parallel between The Road and a 19th century Hungarian dramatic poem, The Tragedy of Man, the paper goes on to argue that the most plausible – although admittedly not the only possible – interpretation of The Road is that it advocates a religious account of the meaning of life that is able to accommodate all other possible interpretations of how the question of meaning figures in the novel.
What Are Basic Liberties? (with Stephen McLeod)
Abstract. Two moral powers are central to Rawls’s approach to specifying the basic liberties: the capacity for a sense of justice and the capacity for a conception of the good. The fundamental case in which the first capacity is exercised is in “the application of the principles of justice to the basic structure and its social policies”. The fundamental case in which the second capacity is exercised is in “forming, revising, and rationally pursuing such a conception over a complete life”. Rawls distinguishes between two phases of specification. In the first, a list of basic liberties is identified at a high level of abstraction; in the second, the significance of different particular liberties is determined and adjudication over conflicts between them occurs. Rawls’s complete account, we argue, defines as basic those liberties that are necessary to the provision of the social conditions essential for the full and informed exercise of the moral powers (first phase) in the two fundamental cases (second phase). We argue that this account excludes certain particular liberties that it should not: e.g., some forms of freedom of movement. We suggest that probability should take over the role assigned to necessity in Rawls’s account. On this approach also, however, some particular freedoms rightly regarded by Rawls as basic liberties do not meet the definition. To remedy this, we appeal to the liberal principle of legitimacy and we defend this move.
Consequentialist Demands, Intuitions, and Experimental Methodology (with Joseph Sweetman)
Abstract. Can morality be so demanding that we have reason not to follow its dictates? According to many, it can, if that morality is a consequentialist one. We take the plausibility and coherence of this objection – the Demandingness Objection – as a given and are also not concerned with finding the best response to the Objection. Instead, our main aim is to explicate the intuitive background of the Objection and to see how this background could be investigated. This double aim leads to different albeit connected threads of inquiry. We first outline the Objection, its different forms and how intuition figures in them. After this, we move on to consider the ongoing debate about the use of intuitions in (moral) philosophy with a focus on two challenges: what intuitions are and how we can detect them. To answer these challenges, we propose an account according to which moral intuitions are seemings that are characterized by being non-inferential, spontaneous, non-doxastic, phenomenologically distinctive, non-sensory, intrinsically motivating, and stable. Armed with these seven “markers” of moral intuition, we put a forward a complex experimental methodology and raise and respond to possible problems with it.
What Is the Incoherence Objection to Legal Entrapment? (with Daniel Hill and Stephen McLeod)
Abstract. Some legal theorists say that legal entrapment to commit a crime is incoherent. So far, there is no satisfactorily precise statement of this objection in the literature: it is obscure even as to the type of incoherence that is purportedly involved. Perhaps consequently, substantial assessment of the objection is also absent. In order to inform such assessment in the future, we aim to provide a new statement of the objection that is more precise and more rigorous than are its predecessors. After discussing some forms of incoherence that those that have endorsed or entertained the objection might have had in mind, we argue that the most plausible form of the objection has it that, in attempting to entrap, law-enforcement agents lapse into a form of practical incoherence best characterized as the agents’ simultaneously attempting to pursue contrary ends. We suggest, further, that the objection is particularly dangerous as this pursuit makes law-enforcement agents act against the requirements of practical reason.
Abstract. It isn’t saying much to claim that morality is demanding; the question, rather, is: can morality be so demanding that we have reason not to follow its dictates? According to many, it can, if that morality is a consequentialist one. This paper takes the plausibility and coherence of this objection – the Demandingness Objection – as a given. Our question, therefore, is how to respond to the Objection. We put forward a response that we think has not received sufficient attention in the literature: institutional consequentialism. This is a consequentialist view that, however, requires institutional systems, and not individuals, to follow the consequentialist principle. We first introduce the Objection, then explain the theory of institutional consequentialism and how it responds to the objection. In the remainder of the paper, we defend the view against potential objections.
A globalizáció nyomában (with Eric Brown)
Abstract. The aim of the paper is to study the pre-history of the concept of globalization in political philosophy. In doing so, the paper examines the development of two intertwined concepts, those of universalism and cosmopolitanism. The application of these two concepts has been much influenced by the socio-economical situation of the relevant societies; hence the paper aims to place their discussion in this context. Accordingly, the first part of the paper deals with the idea of universalism in classical Greek and stoic philosophy, in renaissance humanism and in the early-modern period. The second part of the paper adds to this the discussion of cosmopolitanism in Immanuel Kant’s philosophy.
On The Road to Meaning
Abstract. The paper offers a philosophically infused analysis of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. The main idea is that McCarthy’s novel is primarily a statement on the meaning of life. Once this idea is argued for and endorsed, by using a parallel between The Road and a 19th century Hungarian dramatic poem, The Tragedy of Man, the paper goes on to argue that the most plausible – although admittedly not the only possible – interpretation of The Road is that it advocates a religious account of the meaning of life that is able to accommodate all other possible interpretations of how the question of meaning figures in the novel.
What Are Basic Liberties? (with Stephen McLeod)
Abstract. Two moral powers are central to Rawls’s approach to specifying the basic liberties: the capacity for a sense of justice and the capacity for a conception of the good. The fundamental case in which the first capacity is exercised is in “the application of the principles of justice to the basic structure and its social policies”. The fundamental case in which the second capacity is exercised is in “forming, revising, and rationally pursuing such a conception over a complete life”. Rawls distinguishes between two phases of specification. In the first, a list of basic liberties is identified at a high level of abstraction; in the second, the significance of different particular liberties is determined and adjudication over conflicts between them occurs. Rawls’s complete account, we argue, defines as basic those liberties that are necessary to the provision of the social conditions essential for the full and informed exercise of the moral powers (first phase) in the two fundamental cases (second phase). We argue that this account excludes certain particular liberties that it should not: e.g., some forms of freedom of movement. We suggest that probability should take over the role assigned to necessity in Rawls’s account. On this approach also, however, some particular freedoms rightly regarded by Rawls as basic liberties do not meet the definition. To remedy this, we appeal to the liberal principle of legitimacy and we defend this move.
Consequentialist Demands, Intuitions, and Experimental Methodology (with Joseph Sweetman)
Abstract. Can morality be so demanding that we have reason not to follow its dictates? According to many, it can, if that morality is a consequentialist one. We take the plausibility and coherence of this objection – the Demandingness Objection – as a given and are also not concerned with finding the best response to the Objection. Instead, our main aim is to explicate the intuitive background of the Objection and to see how this background could be investigated. This double aim leads to different albeit connected threads of inquiry. We first outline the Objection, its different forms and how intuition figures in them. After this, we move on to consider the ongoing debate about the use of intuitions in (moral) philosophy with a focus on two challenges: what intuitions are and how we can detect them. To answer these challenges, we propose an account according to which moral intuitions are seemings that are characterized by being non-inferential, spontaneous, non-doxastic, phenomenologically distinctive, non-sensory, intrinsically motivating, and stable. Armed with these seven “markers” of moral intuition, we put a forward a complex experimental methodology and raise and respond to possible problems with it.
What Is the Incoherence Objection to Legal Entrapment? (with Daniel Hill and Stephen McLeod)
Abstract. Some legal theorists say that legal entrapment to commit a crime is incoherent. So far, there is no satisfactorily precise statement of this objection in the literature: it is obscure even as to the type of incoherence that is purportedly involved. Perhaps consequently, substantial assessment of the objection is also absent. In order to inform such assessment in the future, we aim to provide a new statement of the objection that is more precise and more rigorous than are its predecessors. After discussing some forms of incoherence that those that have endorsed or entertained the objection might have had in mind, we argue that the most plausible form of the objection has it that, in attempting to entrap, law-enforcement agents lapse into a form of practical incoherence best characterized as the agents’ simultaneously attempting to pursue contrary ends. We suggest, further, that the objection is particularly dangerous as this pursuit makes law-enforcement agents act against the requirements of practical reason.
