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Insane Consequentialism: A Pragmatic Objection to Direct Consequentialism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2018

NICK ZANGWILL
NICK ZANGWILL*
Affiliation:
University of Hullnick.zangwill@hull.ac.uk
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Abstract

I argue that direct consequentialism is not rationally believable. I focus on duties of love. Those feelings are so fundamental to us that believing consequentialism creates insanity. For it entails negative judgements not just about our loyal acts, but also about our deepest feelings. If direct consequentialism is true we should be able to believe it and stay sane. But we cannot, so it is not true.

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Article
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Utilitas , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , September 2018 , pp. 317 - 332
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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References

1 For example, Kagan, Shelley, The Limits of Morality (Oxford 1989), pp. 367–9Google Scholar.

2 Jackson, Frank, ‘Decision-theoretic Consequentialism and the Nearest and Dearest Objection’, reprinted in Mind, Method, and Conditionals: Selected Essays (London, 1998), pp. 220–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 221.

3 Jackson, ‘Decision-theoretic Consequentialism’, p. 222.

4 See, for example, Railton, Peter, ‘Alienation, Consequentialism and the Demands of Morality’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 13 (1984), pp. 134–71Google Scholar.

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7 See Zangwill, Nick, ‘Cordelia's Bond and Indirect Consequentialism’, Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics 1 (2011), pp. 143–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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10 Many of Rabindranath Tagore's short stories and novels explore with great insight the psychological and moral costs of political and religious fanaticism. For instance, see his The Home and the World (Harmondsworth, 2005) and Selected Short Stories (Harmondsworth, 2005).

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13 See, for example, Huxley, Aldous, The Doors of Perception (London, 1954)Google Scholar.

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22 He wrote: ‘his motivating thought, fully spelled out, would be the thought that it was his wife’ (Moral Luck, p. 18; my emphasis).

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24 See Zangwill, ‘Cordelia's Bond and Indirect Consequentialism’.

25 Williams, Moral Luck, p. 52.

26 This article was presented at Torquad Di Tella, in Buenos Aires. Thanks for helpful questions from Horacio Spector and Eduardo Rivera Lopez. Thanks also for comments from Brad Hooker, Geoffrey Scarre and a referee for this journal.