Doing the Best We Can: An Essay in Informal Deontic Logic - Couverture rigide

Feldman, Fred

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 9027721645 ISBN 13 : 9789027721648

Editeur : Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1986

Synopsis

Several years ago I came across a marvelous little paper in which Hector-Neri Castaneda shows that standard versions of act utilitarian- l ism are formally incoherent. I was intrigued by his argument. It had long seemed to me that I had a firm grasp on act utilitarianism. Indeed, it had often seemed to me that it was the clearest and most attractive of normative theories. Yet here was a simple and relatively uncontrover- sial argument that showed, with only some trivial assumptions, that the doctrine is virtually unintelligible. The gist of Castaneda's argument is this: suppose we understand act utilitarianism to be the view that an act is obligatory if and only if its utility exceeds that of each alternative. Suppose it is obligatory for a certain person to perform an act with two parts - we can call it 'A & B'. Then, obviously enough, it is also obligatory for this person to perform the parts, A and B. If act utilitarianism were true, we appar- ently could infer that the utility of A & B is higher than that of A, and higher than that of B (because A & B is obligatory, and the other acts are alternatives to A & B).

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Kluwer Academic Publishers
• Date d'édition: 1986
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 9027721645
• ISBN 13: 9789027721648
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 260
• Coordonnées du fabricant: GPSR Kontakt; ProductSafety@springernature.com; ; Tiergartenstr. 17; Heidelberg; 69121; Allemagne