Aaron Thieme
Biographic Data
| ID | 978634 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Aaron Thieme |
| GIVEN NAMES | Aaron |
| FAMILY NAME | Thieme |
| SIGNATURE | THIEME A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1538-5639 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 5 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 0 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 5 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 0 |
Dilemmas, Teleology, and Incomparable Value
Sometimes, it may seem that an agent faces an obligation dilemma—a situation in which they cannot fulfill their obligations no matter what they do. However, there are at least three problems for any theory that embraces obligation dilemmas. The logical problem arises from a conflict between obligation dilemmas and venerable principles of deontic logic. The teleological problem arises from a conflict between obligation dilemmas and the compelling …
Question-centred consequentialism
Objective consequentialism provides a deceptively simple standard for choosing between alternatives: you should perform the best alternative. But sometimes there are different sets of alternatives, and the best alternative in one set is incompatible with the best alternative in another set. So, what should you do? This is the classic problem of act versions. In this paper, I argue against the extant candidate solutions to this problem, and I prov…
Actualism and joint harm
The actualist/possibilist debate concerns whether, when evaluating an agent's act, we should hold fixed what else they would freely choose to do. While this debate has shaped our deontic theories over the last several decades, it has not had a similar impact on theorizing about harm and benefit. As a result, the leading accounts of harm and benefit accept actualism. I argue that this makes them susceptible to a number of objections that are avoid…
The question‐centered account of harm and benefit
The counterfactual comparative account of harm and benefit (CCA) has faced a barrage of objections from cases involving preemption, overdetermination, and choice. In this paper I provide a unified diagnosis of CCA's vulnerability to these objections: CCA is susceptible to them because it evaluates each act by the same criterion. This is a mistake because, in a sense I make precise, situations raise prudential questions, and only some acts—the rel…
Death and Decline
In this paper, I investigate backward-looking accounts of death's badness. I begin by reviewing deprivationism—the standard, forward-looking account of death's badness. On deprivationism, death is bad for its victims when it deprives them of a good future. This account famously faces two problems—Lucretius’s symmetry problem and the preemption problem. This motivates turning to backward-looking accounts of death's badness on which death is bad fo…
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Death and Decline
In this paper, I investigate backward-looking accounts of death's badness. I begin by reviewing deprivationism—the standard, forward-looking account of death's badness. On deprivationism, death is bad for its victims when it deprives them of a good future. This account famously faces two problems—Lucretius’s symmetry problem and the preemption problem. This motivates turning to backward-looking accounts of death's badness on which death is bad fo…
The question‐centered account of harm and benefit
The counterfactual comparative account of harm and benefit (CCA) has faced a barrage of objections from cases involving preemption, overdetermination, and choice. In this paper I provide a unified diagnosis of CCA's vulnerability to these objections: CCA is susceptible to them because it evaluates each act by the same criterion. This is a mistake because, in a sense I make precise, situations raise prudential questions, and only some acts—the rel…
Question-centred consequentialism
Objective consequentialism provides a deceptively simple standard for choosing between alternatives: you should perform the best alternative. But sometimes there are different sets of alternatives, and the best alternative in one set is incompatible with the best alternative in another set. So, what should you do? This is the classic problem of act versions. In this paper, I argue against the extant candidate solutions to this problem, and I prov…
Actualism and joint harm
The actualist/possibilist debate concerns whether, when evaluating an agent's act, we should hold fixed what else they would freely choose to do. While this debate has shaped our deontic theories over the last several decades, it has not had a similar impact on theorizing about harm and benefit. As a result, the leading accounts of harm and benefit accept actualism. I argue that this makes them susceptible to a number of objections that are avoid…
Dilemmas, Teleology, and Incomparable Value
Sometimes, it may seem that an agent faces an obligation dilemma—a situation in which they cannot fulfill their obligations no matter what they do. However, there are at least three problems for any theory that embraces obligation dilemmas. The logical problem arises from a conflict between obligation dilemmas and venerable principles of deontic logic. The teleological problem arises from a conflict between obligation dilemmas and the compelling …
Free Will and Agency (3 works) · Deontic logic (2 works) · Economics (2 works) · Harm (2 works) · Law and economics (2 works) · Philosophical Ethics and Theory (2 works) · Philosophy (2 works) · Psychology (2 works) · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment (2 works) · War, Ethics, and Justification (2 works)