Consequentialism: New Directions, New Problems
Abstract
Consequentialism is a focal point of discussion and a driving force behind developments in moral philosophy. Recently, the debate has shifted in focus and in style: by seeking to consequentialize rival moral theories—in particular those with agent-relative characteristics—and by framing accounts in terms of reasons rather than in terms of value, an emerging new wave consequentialism has presented, at much higher levels of abstraction, theories that proved extremely flexible and powerful in meeting long-standing and influential objections. This volume on new wave consequentialism initiates and stimulates novel lines of discussion among proponents and their critics. The contributions explore new directions in new wave consequentialism and present refined conceptual frameworks (part I), raise challenging fundamental problems for these frameworks and the new wave’s theoretical basis (part II), and give a balanced assessment of the new wave’s limits and achievements in specific contexts of commonsense moral practice (part III).
