Inclusive Ethics
Ingmar Persson
Abstract
The main aim of this book is, first, to defend the view that beings can be benefited (or harmed) by being caused to exist and so—since there are moral reasons to benefit—that these reasons can include reasons to cause beings to exist. Secondly, it is to put forward an extensive principle of egalitarian justice to the effect justice requires everyone to be equally well off, unless some autonomously choose to be worse off. A morality comprising these two general principles will be exceedingly hard to apply. This will be so because these principles will have to be balanced against each other in a ... More
The main aim of this book is, first, to defend the view that beings can be benefited (or harmed) by being caused to exist and so—since there are moral reasons to benefit—that these reasons can include reasons to cause beings to exist. Secondly, it is to put forward an extensive principle of egalitarian justice to the effect justice requires everyone to be equally well off, unless some autonomously choose to be worse off. A morality comprising these two general principles will be exceedingly hard to apply. This will be so because these principles will have to be balanced against each other in an intuitive fashion, but also because the notion of what benefits beings is quite complex, comprising both experiential components of pleasure and successful exercises of autonomy. It may be wondered whether moral philosophy has any point if it cannot but result in a largely inapplicable morality. But moral philosophy will rather be pointless because it is bound to be inconclusive, resulting in no rational consensus about what morality tells us to do. In such a situation of disagreement, we may seek guidance in a philosophy of life, suited to our individual aims. This book concludes by outlining such a philosophy of life which roughly supports the same behaviour as its two principles of inclusive beneficence and egalitarian justice.
Keywords:
benefiting by causing to exist,
egalitarian justice,
benefiting (harming),
philosophy of life,
autonomy,
pleasure,
the point of morality,
the point of moral philosophy
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2017 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780198792178 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: February 2017 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198792178.001.0001 |
