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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Deontological constraints cannot be rejected simply because complying with them produces worse aggregate states of affairs.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Threshold deontology (Scheffler, Moore) holds that constraints lose their binding force when consequences become sufficiently catastrophic.
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    • 2.If constraints can be overridden at extreme thresholds, then aggregate states of affairs are already doing normative work within deontological frameworks.
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    • 3.Therefore the claim that constraints cannot be rejected based on worse aggregate outcomes is itself inconsistent with how most deontologists actually apply their own constraints.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Consequentialists like Railton argue that agent-relative constraints are best explained as useful heuristics that reliably track agent-neutral value across ordinary cases.
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    • 2.If constraints derive their justificatory force from their tendency to produce better outcomes, then a constraint that systematically produces worse outcomes loses its normative grounding.
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    • 3.The supporting argument's charge of question-begging applies equally to deontologists who simply assert constraint-inviolability without independent justification for why agent-relative restrictions trump aggregate welfare.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.Arguing that constraints should be dropped to minimize harm presupposes that rights-violations and non-violations are comparable states of affairs.
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    • 2.This presupposition begs the question against deontological constraints.
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    • 3.A victim of a rights-violating using may suffer less harm than others might have suffered had the rights-violation not occurred, yet this does not eliminate the constraint.
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