[SydPhil] A Trilemma for Deontology: Thursday @ 3.00

[Kristie Miller]

This week’s current projects seminar will be given by Matthew Hammerton on:

A Trilemma for Deontology
 
All deontological moral theories are committed to agent-centered constraints. In this paper I argue that agent-centered constraints, as standardly formulated, are ambiguous and have three distinct interpretations. Thus, a deontologist must clarify which of these three interpretations her theory endorses. However, I argue that once we sift through the various options we discover a trilemma for deontology. The deontologist must either accept that: (i) deontological constraints are maximizing-state rules, or (ii) deontological constraints give no moral advice in cases where commonsense morality expects moral advice, or (iii) deontology adopts a counterintuitive decision procedure as a contrary-to-duty obligation. I argue that each of these options is a tough bullet to bite.

As usual, seminars are in the Muniment room at 3.00.



Associate Professor Kristie Miller
Senior ARC Research Fellow
Joint Director, the Centre for Time
School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry and
The Centre for Time
The University of Sydney
Sydney Australia
Room 407, A 14

kmiller at usyd.edu.au
kristie_miller at yahoo.com
Ph: +612 9036 9663
http://www.kristiemiller.net/KristieMiller2/Home_Page.html















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