Playing Dice with Morality
Weighted Lotteries and the Number Problem
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12228379 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mathieu Doucet (0000-0002-2453-3915, University of Waterloo, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2013 |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 161-181 |
| Publication date | 2013-06-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Utilitas (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0953-8208 • E-ISSN: 1741-6183 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0953820812000374 |
| OpenAlex | W1992103826 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 20 |
In this article I criticize the non-consequentialist Weighted Lottery (WL) solution to the choice between saving a smaller or a larger group of people. WL aims to avoid what non-consequentialists see as consequentialism's unfair aggregation by giving equal consideration to each individual's claim to be rescued. In so doing, I argue, WL runs into another common objection to consequentialism: it is excessively demanding. WL links the right action with the outcome of a fairly weighted lottery, which means that an agent can only act rightly if s/he has actually run the lottery. In many actual cases, this involves epistemic demands that can be almost impossible to meet. I argue that plausible moral principles cannot make such extreme epistemic demands
Action (physics · Consequentialism · Dice · Economics · Epistemology · Law and economics · Lottery · Mathematical economics · Microeconomics · Morality · Outcome (game theory · Positive economics · Statistics · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Mathematics · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
Groundwork of The Metaphysic of Morals
Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of Morality (1984)
V—Fairness
Utilitarianism
The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of the Double Effect
Famine, Affluence, and Morality
What We Owe to Each Other
Virtues and Vices
In Defense of a Version of Satisficing Consequentialism
Who Is Afraid of Numbers
The Demandingness of Scanlon’s Contractualism
The Numbers Problem
Consequentialism and Cluelessness
Can a Nonconsequentialist Count Lives
| Highly cited | No |
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