Posts Tagged deontology

McNaughton on W.D. Ross (and Particularism, Pluralism and the double weighing of duties)

One of the more interesting broad questions of metaethics is whether we can expect to craft moral theories that provide principles for right action that serve as guiding decision procedures. Moral pluralists argue that we can have a list of criteria for what makes actions right, but from there we must use practical judgment to […]

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Tsarnaev (and capital punishment, the morality of the death penalty, and equivocation)

The Justice Department has announced that it will seek the death penalty against the surviving Boston bomber, 20 year old, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Now seems a good time to consider the arguments for whether the death penalty is a just punishment. I recognize, of course, that the Justice Department might be pursuing the death penalty in […]

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Inception (and the experience machine, utilitarianism, and existentialism)

SelfAwarePattern’s post from the other day on the problem of solipsism got me thinking about (my favorite solipsistic movie – no apologies to fans of the Matrix) Inception, and its tension with a thought experiment meant to undermine hedonistic utilitarianism posited by Robert Nozick. The Experience Machine Nozick asks us to consider whether we would […]

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Is Surveillance by the NSA Just? (deontology, Kant, Ross, and the priority of the right)

To say that there has been a vociferous response to the continuing revelations of surveillance conducted by the NSA might be to state the facts mildly; there has been heated debate in the public sphere on the matter, culminating in a presidential address yesterday declaring that (modest) changes would be made. President Barack Obama’s remarks […]

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Equality (and congressional Republicans, deontology, and in theory vs. in practice)

Inequality is back in the public discourse, due in part, to the 50th anniversary of Lyndon Johnson’s declaration of a war on poverty, and the recent realization by Republicans that they might actually have to start representing some interests of persons other than wealthy white men if they want to keep representing the wealthy white […]

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The Call of Duties (Thoughts on W.D. Ross’s The Right and the Good) pt I

  For a person who professes to be a proponent of ethical pluralism (which posits the CALL OF prima facie DUTIES), I am surely among the few who have not read W.D. Ross’s The Right and the Good from cover to cover (I have read excepts in anthologies, and secondary sources, of course). I was […]

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