Rights, indirect utilitarianism, and contractarianism

Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 1982

Social Choice and Welfare, 2004

The paper axiomatises a generalised utilitarian aggregation rule, under which different weights are assigned to utilities depending on the different rights involved. The relationship between actions, rights and the evaluation of utilities is investigated. Application is made to a famous example, Edwin-Angelina-the Judge, which appears in the social choice literature.

Journal of Philosophy

Philosophia, 1987

Rights are conceived of and upheld both philosophically and institutionally as being necessary to ensure justice. It is accepted in philosophical discourses that the presence of injustice presupposes the absence of rights. This paper aims to investigate why rights are so crucial to having justice as a just condition in light of this perspective. The paper makes an effort to investigate and emphasise the key aspects of rights that have been advocated in various philosophical discourses in order to achieve this goal. To accomplish the goal, the current work makes an effort to represent the arguments as claims and to define them in terms of philosophical notions

Metodo International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy, 2014

Some legal rights are paired to moral rights (but most legal rights do not institutionalize moral rights). Dual-status rights reflect the value of individual autonomy in the Kantian tradition. In the nineteenth century the Will Theory sought to analyze these rights by relating them to the autonomy of the will. Today dual-status rights are analyzed as deontic constraints in Anglo-American moral philosophy. In this paper I try to provide an anatomy of deontic constraints. I explain how deontic constraints are linked to two different forms of personal separateness: agent separateness and patient separateness. I also offer an expressive theory of deontic constraints. This theory appeals to a second-tier deontic distinction: the distinction between a moral system positively permitting the violation of rights and a moral system merely allowing it. An expressive deontic moral theory should combine rights against others and duties to oneself in order to express both facets of personal separateness. In general terms, the Kantian theory of moral duties got it right.

Journal of Applied Philosophy, 2018

Philip Pettit has been one of the pioneering figures in the contemporary development of consequentialism toward an approach to ethical theory more adequate to our understanding of ourselves and of our lives together. He has shown how consequentialism has resources for contending with many of the most serious criticisms that have been levelled against it. Two fundamental elements of this development make an appearance in ‘Three Mistakes’. The first element is broadening the base of intrinsic goods in terms of which consequentialism makes its fundamental evaluations of acts and outcomes. At the outset of ‘Three Mistakes’, Pettit urges that consequentialists should go beyond the hedonic concerns of Benthamite utilitarianism to include among fundamental intrinsic goods friendship, promise-keeping, truth-telling, and the kind of respect for others shown when we impose upon ourselves limits on how we are willing to treat them. So sensible is this recommendation, that pluralism about intri...

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 2010

To consequentialise a moral theory means to account for moral phenomena usually described in nonconsequentialist terms, such as rights, duties, and virtues, in a consequentialist framework. This paper seeks to show that all moral theories can be consequentialised. The paper distinguishes between different interpretations of the consequentialiser's thesis, and emphasises the need for a cardinal ranking of acts. The paper also offers a new answer as to why consequentialising moral theories is important: This yields crucial methodological insights about how to pursue ethical inquires.

Human Rights Review, 2002