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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
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    42
    Home/Original/inverse
    See Original
    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Foot's argument against act-consequentialism fails.

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    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Foot's argument relies on the claim that it can never be right to prefer a worse state of affairs to a better one.
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    • 2.Foot is wrong that it can never be right to prefer a worse state of affairs to a better one.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Foot's argument presupposes a robust agent-neutral ranking of states of affairs that consequentialists like Parfit and Scheffler have shown to be theoretically optional.
      ?

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    • 2.If no agent-neutral ranking is presupposed, Foot's inference that act-consequentialism demands preferring 'better' states collapses into circularity.
      ?

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    • 3.Act-consequentialism can be formulated without any pre-theoretic notion of 'better states,' making Foot's critique target a strawman version of the view.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Foot's argument assumes that agent-relative constraints cannot be accommodated within a consequentialist framework, but scalar consequentialism (as defended by Norcross) denies this.
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    • 2.Scalar consequentialism evaluates acts on a continuum of moral quality rather than binary right/wrong, dissolving Foot's challenge that constraints generate impermissible trade-offs.
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