The Rejection of Consequentialism: A Philosophical Investigation of the Considerations Underlying Rival Moral Conceptions

by Samuel Scheffler

In contemporary philosophy, substantive moral theories are typically classified as either consequentialist or deontological. Standard consequentialist theories insist, roughly, that agents must always act so as to produce the best available outcomes overall. Standard deontological theories, by contrast, maintain that there are some circumstances where one is permitted but not required to produce the best overall results, and still other circumstances in which one is positively forbidden to do so. Classical utilitarianism is the most familiar consequentialist view, but it is widely regarded as an inadequate account of morality. Although Samuel Scheffler agrees with this assessment, he also believes that consequentialism seems initially plausible, and that there is a persistent air of paradox surrounding typical deontological views. In this book, therefore, he undertakes to reconsider the rejection of consequentialism. He argues that it is possible to provide a rationale for
the view that agents need not always produce the best possible overall outcomes, and this motivates one departure from consequentialism; but he shows that it is surprisingly difficult to provide a satisfactory rationale for the view that there are times when agents must not produce the best possible overall outcomes. He goes on to argue for a hitherto neglected type of moral conception, according to which agents are always permitted, but not always required, to produce the best outcomes.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

206 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1982

Reviews

[Charlie · Rating 5 out of 5]

What's really good about this book is the way it reconceives a lot of old moral problems.

Scheffler is always good at coming to philosophy from a really broad perspective. I like the way he's realistic about what his argument achieves and the way he talks about methodology in general.

Nice to read.

It's fuelled by this great observation that there's something paradoxical about restricting certain forms of behaviour based on evaluative grounds - e.g. we shouldn't ever kill - because in every example we can give of this, it's conceptually possible to come up with an example in which the restriction stops us from reaching a more evaluatively desirable goal - killing one person to save many others from being killed.

[Kramer Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A clearly written and balanced exploration of the rationale behind consequentialist and agent-centered conceptions of morality. Quite interesting, and I think given Scheffler's modest attempts to simply demonstrate a rationale behind accepting agent-centered prerogatives, the book was fairly convincing.