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Is consequentialist perdurantism in moral trouble?

Authors :
Longenecker, Michael Tze-Sung
Source :
Synthese; Nov2021, Vol. 198 Issue 11, p10979-10990, 12p
Publication Year :
2021

Abstract

There has been a growing worry (raised in some form or another by Dean Zimmerman, Eric Olson, A.P. Taylor, Mark Johnston and Alex Kaiserman) that perdurantism—and similarly ontologically abundant views—is morally untenable. For perdurantism posits that, coinciding with persons, are person-like objects, and giving them their moral due seems to require giving up prudentially driven self-sacrifice. One way to avoid this charge is to adopt consequentialism. But Mark Johnston has argued that the marriage of consequentialism and perdurantism is in moral trouble. For, depending on the nature of time, consequentialist perdurantists either are unable to do more than one good act or they are morally obliged to adopt a repugnant form of ageism. I argue both that perdurantist consequentialism doesn't have the latter implication, and that there's at least one plausible form of consequentialism that perdurantists can adopt to avoid the former implication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subjects

Subjects :
ETHICS
AGEISM
SELF-sacrifice

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
00397857
Volume :
198
Issue :
11
Database :
Complementary Index
Journal :
Synthese
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
152624462
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02764-3