AbstractI claim that objective consequentialism (OC) faces a problem stemming from the existence in some situations of a plurality of chances relevant to the outcomes of an agent's acts. I suggest that this phenomenon bears structural resemblance to the well-known Reference Class problem. I outline a few ways in which one could attempt to deal with the issue, suggesting that it is the higher-level chance that should be employed by OC.
Abstract There has always been a degree of tension between, on the one hand, the writings of philosophers, theologians and lawyers on the ethics of war, and, on the other, the moral approach of soldiers, those actually engaged in combat. The former base their thinking on deontological reasoning, albeit with occasional reluctant gestures towards notions such as 'military necessity', while the latter are by temperament consequentialist, stressing, in particular, the importance of reciprocity. This tension is controllable in the implausible context of war between liberal, Western European countries, but comes to the surface in situations where regular Western armies are in combat with the armed forces of non-liberal states, or in situations of asymmetric warfare. The question is posed – can the notion of a just war survive in the absence of reciprocity?
[Excerpt] "Justice Stephen Breyer's announcement of his intention to retire at the end of the Supreme Court's current term provides occasion to contrast his approach to judging with the very different approach of the court majority he leaves behind. The contrast is frequently explained in partisan terms: Justice Breyer is a "liberal" who was appointed by a Democratic president (Bill Clinton), whereas the majority is "conservative," having been appointed by three different Republican presidents (George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump). The use of partisan labels to describe the different approaches to judging employed by the court's two principal voting blocs is both understandable and fair, given the highly politicized nature of the Supreme Court confirmation process; the rhetoric used by President Trump (who frequently made sneering references to "Obama judges"); and the party-line outcomes that characterize many of the court's recent, high-profile cases. Yet, partisan descriptors can obscure more than they clarify. I therefore am going to reflect on the difference between Justice Breyer's philosophy and that of the court's majority in jurisprudential rather than partisan terms. And in a series of follow-up commentaries, I will use this same framework to try to supply additional context for thinking about important developments at the court."
The article analyzes the content of the monograph by I.V. Kolosov, which shows the history of the emergence and development of legal consequentialism as a complex of legal theories that evaluate the correctness of the actions of the legislator and the law enforcer depending on the result. The author's contribution to the study of historical and theoretical ideas about consequentialism in law is emphasized, starting from the use of the principle of utility in ancient Indian and ancient Chinese monuments of legal thought, in ancient philosophy, etc., including the legal thought of the early modern period, classical utilitarianism, near-conventional ideas of Russian Philosophy of Law of the late 18th - early 20th century, as well as various versions of modern Western consequentialism. Directions for further study of this issue are outlined, related to the comprehension of the utilitarian orientation of the Bolshevik ideology and the understanding of Soviet law conditioned by it as a means of achieving goals external to the legal system; with the substantiation of the position on the debatable issues of legal theory, referred to as "economic analysis of law" (Law and Economics); with an assessment of the possibility and limits of using the ideas of consequentialism in Russian judicial practice; with the disclosure of the heuristic potential, significant for law, of the interpretation of utilitarianism developed in modern Russian philosophy as an ideological factor in Russian modernization.
I want to look at one aspect of the human good: how it serves as the basis for judgments about the moral right. One important view is that the right is always derived from the good. I want to suggest that the more one understands the nature of the human good, the more reservations one has about that view.I. OneRoute toConsequentialismMany of us think that different things make a life good, with no one deep value underlying them all. My own list includes: enjoyment, accomplishing something with one's life, deep personal relations, certain sorts of understanding, and the elements of a characteristically human existence (autonomy, liberty).Most of us also think that moral right and wrong are based, in some way or other, in how well individual lives go, and that the moral point of view is, in some sense or other, impartial between lives. Utilitarianism is a prominent, but not the only, way of spelling out this intuition. There is no reason why an account of the human good needs to be confined, in the classical utilitarian way, to happiness or to fulfillment of desire (on the usual understanding of that notion). Nor is there any reason why impartiality has to be confined to maximizing the good, counting everybody for one and nobody for more than one. We may generalize.Let us broaden the notion of the good. We might say, for instance, that though happiness is a good, so are the other items on my list. But though broadened, this notion of the good stays within the confines of individual goods; it still has to do with human well-being, with what promotes the quality of one person's life.
