Douglas W. Portmore’s Online Papers (Last Updated: 7/29/08)
Working Drafts: (Comments and
citations are welcome, but please do not quote without permission.)
1. 
“Imperfect Reasons and Rational
Options.” Draft of 7/29/08.
Abstract: Agents
often face a choice of what to do. And it seems that, in most of these choice
situations, the relevant reasons do not require performing some particular act,
but instead permit performing any of numerous act alternatives. This is known as the basic
belief. Below, I argue that the best explanation for the basic belief is
not that the relevant reasons are incomparable (Raz) or that their justifying
strength exceeds the requiring strength of opposing reasons (Gert), but that
they are imperfect reasons—reasons
that do not support performing any specific act, but instead support choosing
any of the numerous alternatives that would each produce the same valuable
result. In the process, I develop and defend a novel theory of objective
rationality, arguing that it has a number of advantages over its rivals.
Keywords: Reasons – Rationality –
Incomparability – Imperfect Reasons – Objective Rationality –
Subjective Rationality – The Basic Belief – Justifying Strength
– Requiring Strength – Rational Options – Planning Theory of
Agency – Future Courses of Action – Joseph Raz – Joshua Gert
– Derek Parfit – Sergio Tenenbaum – Michael E. Bratman
– Fred Feldman – Michael J. Zimmerman.
2. “Consequentializing.” Draft of 7/28/08.
Abstract: A
growing trend of thought has it that any plausible nonconsequentialist theory
can be consequentialized, which is to say that it can be given a
consequentialist representation. In this essay, I explore whether this claim is
true and what does and doesn’t follow from it. I also explain the
procedure for consequentializing, give an account of the motivation for
consequentializing, and rebut one common objection to the consequentializing
project.
Keywords: Consequentialism –
Consequentializing – Maximizing rationality – Agent-relative
– Teleology – Deontology – Teleological conception of reasons
– Constraints – Options – Supererogation – Moral dilemmas
– Campbell Brown –
3. “The Teleological
Conception of Practical Reasons.” Draft of 6/27/08.
Abstract: In this paper, I defend the
teleological conception of practical reasons, which holds
that “since any rational action must aim at some result, reasons that
bear on whether to perform an action must appeal to the desirability or
undesirability of having that result occur, taking into account also the
intrinsic value of the act itself” (Scanlon 1998, 84). On this
conception, practical reasoning involves, first, determining which ends one has
reason to desire and, second, determining which available action will best
achieve those ends.
Keywords: Teleology – Consequentialism
– Practical reasons – Normativity – Internalism – Derek
Parfit – Thomas Scanlon – Elizabeth Anderson – Nicholas
Sturgeon – Thomas Hurka – Richard Arneson.
4. “Rule-Consequentialism
and Irrelevant Others.” Draft of 3/10/08.
Abstract: In this paper, I argue that Brad
Hooker’s rule-consequentialism implausibly makes what Earthlings are morally
required to do for the sake of aiding their fellow Earthlings depend on whether
or not people exist on some far-off distant planet even when the inhabitants of
that planet are so far away that it is physically impossible for Earthlings to
have any effect on their lives.
Keywords: Famine – Brad Hooker –
Obligations toward the needy – Richard Arneson –
Rule-consequentialism – Tim Mulgan.
5. “Welfare
and Posthumous Harm.” Draft of 9/6/2005.
Abstract: I argue that even if death marks the
unequivocal and permanent end to one’s existence, people have good reason
to be prudentially concerned with what’s going to happen after their
deaths, for, as I argue, a person’s welfare can be affected by posthumous
events. I begin the paper by addressing two widely discussed problems
concerning posthumous harm: the “problem of the subject” and the
“problem of retroactivity,” arguing that they can both be solved.
However, I show that even if these two problems can be solved, a significant
problem remains: the standard account of posthumous harm, which holds that
posthumous events can harm us by thwarting our desires, is untenable, since it
presupposes an implausible version of the desire-fulfillment theory of welfare.
We need, then, a new account of how posthumous events can affect one’s
welfare. On the account that I argue for, the extent to which the pain, hardship,
and sacrifice endured during one’s life diminishes one’s welfare
depends, in part, on the extent to which they were instrumental in producing
some desired end, which in turn depends on the course of posthumous events. In
other words, I argue that it is, prudentially speaking, better to suffer for
the sake of bringing some desired end to fruition than it is to suffer in vain,
and since posthumous events can determine which of these is the case, they can
be responsible for a person’s being better or worse off.
Keywords: Welfare – Wellbeing –
Posthumous harm – Desire fulfillment – Self-sacrifice – Past
desires – Meaningfulness – Thomas Scanlon – Simon Keller
– Steven Luper – Derek Parfit – Mark Overvold – George
Pitcher – Joel Feinberg.
Note: This paper is now pretty much defunct. Its
most interesting bits have been more fully developed in two other papers. These
two descendants are “Desire
Fulfillment and Posthumous Harm” and “Welfare, Achievement,
and Self-Sacrifice” (see below for abstracts). Nevertheless,
I’ll keep the link to this paper alive (for awhile—at least),
partly because it is cited in a couple places and partly because it contains
some material not discussed in either of its two descendants.
Published Papers: (If you don’t
have access to the various databases, e-mail me and I’ll send you copies
of whatever interests you.)
1. 
“Are Moral Reasons Morally Overriding?”
Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 11 (2008): 369-388.
Abstract: In
this paper, I argue that those moral theorists who wish to accommodate
agent-centered options and supererogatory acts must accept both that the reason
an agent has to promote her own interests is a nonmoral reason and that this
nonmoral reason can prevent the moral reason she has to sacrifice those
interests for the sake of doing more to promote the interests of others from
generating a moral requirement to do so. These theorists must, then, deny that
moral reasons morally override nonmoral reasons, such that even the weakest
moral reason trumps the strongest nonmoral reason in the determination of an
act’s moral status (e.g., morally permissible or impermissible). If I am
right, if these moral theorists are committed to the view that nonmoral reasons
are relevant to determining whether or not an act is morally permissible, then
it would seem that they have their work cut out for them. Not only will they
need to determine what moral reasons there are, but also what nonmoral reasons
there are and which of these are relevant to determining an act’s moral
status. Furthermore, they will need to account for how these two very different
sorts of reasons—moral and nonmoral reasons—“come
together” to determine an act’s moral status. I will not attempt to
do this work here, but only to argue that the work needs to be done.
Keywords: Moral reasons – Nonmoral
reasons – Overridingness – Agent-centered options – Rational
options – Supererogation – The basic belief – Imperfect
reasons –
Note: An earlier
version of this paper was presented, with Noell Birondo commenting, at the
2006 APA Pacific Division Meeting in
2. “Dual-Ranking
Act-Consequentialism,” Philosophical Studies
138 (2008): 409-427.
Abstract: Dual-ranking
act-consequentialism (DRAC) is a rather peculiar version of
act-consequentialism. Unlike more traditional forms of act-consequentialism,
DRAC doesn’t take the deontic status of an action to be a function of
some evaluative ranking of outcomes. Rather, it takes the deontic status of an
action to be a function of some non-evaluative ranking that is in turn a
function of two auxiliary, evaluative rankings. I argue that DRAC is promising
in that it can accommodate certain features of commonsense morality that no
single-ranking version of act-consequentialism can: supererogation,
agent-centered options, and the self-other asymmetry. I also defend DRAC
against two objections: (1) that its dual-ranking structure is ad hoc and
(2) that it denies (putatively implausibly) that it is always permissible to
make self-sacrifices that don’t make things worse for others.
Keywords:
Utilitarianism – Consequentialism – Self-other
asymmetry – Agent-centered
options – Supererogation – Ted
Sider – Clay Splawn.
3. 
“Welfare, Achievement,
and Self-Sacrifice,” Journal
of Ethics & Social Philosophy, www.jesp.org,
(2007), vol. 2, no. 2.
Abstract: Many
philosophers hold that the achievement of one’s goals can contribute to
one’s welfare apart from whatever independent contributions that the
objects of those goals, or the processes by which they are achieved, make. Call
this the Achievement View, and call those who accept it achievementists.
In this paper, I argue that achievementists should accept both (a) that one
factor that affects how much the achievement of a goal contributes to
one’s welfare is the amount that one has invested in that goal and (b)
that the amount that one has invested in a goal is a function of how much one
has personally sacrificed for its sake, not a function of how much effort one
has put into achieving it. So I will, contrary to at least one achievementist
(viz., Keller 2004, 36), be arguing against the view that the greater the
amount of productive effort that goes into achieving a goal, the more its
achievement contributes to one’s welfare. Furthermore, I argue that the
reason that the achievement of those goals for which one has personally
sacrificed matters more to one’s welfare is that, in general, the
redemption of one’s self-sacrifices in itself contributes to one’s
welfare. Lastly, I argue that the view that the redemption of one’s
self-sacrifices in itself contributes to one’s welfare is plausible
independent of whether or not we find the Achievement View plausible. We should
accept this view so as to account both for the Shape-of-a-Life Phenomenon and for the rationality of honoring
“sunk” costs.
Keywords: Welfare – Wellbeing –
Achievement – Self-sacrifice – Sunk costs – Redeeming
misfortunes – the Shape of a Life Phenomenon – Thomas Scanlon
– Simon Keller – Fred Feldman – J. David Velleman –
Thomas Hurka – Thomas Kelly.
4. “Desire
Fulfillment and Posthumous Harm,” American Philosophical
Quarterly 44 (2007): 27-38. (This is a preprint. For citation purposes,
please refer to the published version, which is available upon request as a
scanned PDF file.)
Abstract: This paper argues that the standard
account of posthumous harm is untenable. The
standard account presupposes the desire-fulfillment theory of welfare, but I
argue that no plausible version of this theory can allow for the possibility of
posthumous harm. I argue that there are, at least, two problems with the
standard account from the perspective of a desire-fulfillment theorist. First,
as most desire-fulfillment theorists acknowledge, the theory must be restricted
in such a way that only those desires that pertain to one’s own life
count in determining one’s welfare. The problem is that no one has yet
provided a plausible account of which desires these are such that desires for
posthumous prestige and the like are included. Second and more importantly, if
the desire-fulfillment theory is going to be at all plausible, it must, I
argue, restrict itself not only to those desires that pertain to one’s
own life but also to those desires that are future independent, and this would
rule out the possibility of posthumous harm. If I’m right, then even the
desire-fulfillment theorist should reject the standard account of posthumous
harm. We cannot plausibly account for posthumous harm in terms of desire
fulfillment (or the lack thereof).
Keywords: Welfare – Wellbeing –
Posthumous harm – Desire fulfillment – Past desires – Steven
Luper – Derek Parfit – MarK Overvold – George Pitcher –
Joel Feinberg.
5. 
“Consequentializing
Moral Theories,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 88
(2007): 39-73.
Abstract: To
consequentialize a given non-consequentialist theory, take whatever
considerations that the non-consequentialist theory holds to be relevant to
determining the deontic status of an action and insist that those
considerations are relevant to determining the proper ranking of outcomes. In
this way, the consequentialist can produce an ordering of outcomes that when
combined with her criterion of rightness yields the same set of moral verdicts
that the non-consequentialist theory yields. In this paper, I argue that any
plausible non-consequentialist theory can be consequentialized. I explain the
motivation for the consequentializing project and defend it against recent
criticisms by Mark Schroeder. Against further challenges, I argue that the fact
that any non-consequentialist theory can be consequentialized doesn’t
entail that we’re all consequentialists nor does it entail that
consequentialism is empty. Lastly, I argue that although the consequentializer
will need to appeal to our considered moral convictions in determining how to
rank outcomes, this in no way renders the resulting consequentialist position
circular or uninformative.
Keywords: Consequentialism –
Consequentializing – Maximizing rationality – Agent-relative
– Teleology – Deontology – Agent-centered constraints –
Agent-centered options – Supererogation – Campbell Brown –
James Dreier – Jennie Louise – Mark Schroeder – Samuel
Scheffler.
Note: This paper contains (among other things) a
reply to Mark Schroeder’s “Not
So Promising After All: Evaluator-Relative Teleology and Common-Sense Morality,”
Pacific Philosophical Quarterly
87 (2006): 348-356. Those interested in this debate should also see Mark
Schroeder’s “Teleology,
Agent-Relative Value, and ‘Good’,” Ethics 117
(2007): 265-295.
6. “Combining
Teleological Ethics with Evaluator Relativism: A Promising Result,”
Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 86 (2005): 95-113.
Abstract: Consequentialism is an agent-neutral
teleological theory, and deontology is an agent-relative non-teleological
theory. I argue that a certain hybrid of the two—namely,
non-egoistic agent-relative teleological ethics (NATE)—is quite
promising. This hybrid takes what is best from both consequentialism and
deontology while leaving behind the problems associated with each. Like
consequentialism and unlike deontology, NATE can accommodate the compelling
idea that it is always permissible to bring about the best available state of
affairs. Yet unlike consequentialism and like deontology, NATE accords
well with our commonsense moral intuitions.
Keywords: Consequentialism – Teleology
– Paradox of deontology – Evaluator-relative – Agent-relative
– Teleology – Deontology – Agent-centered constraints –
Agent-centered options – Fitting pro-attitudes – Amartya Sen
– Jorge L. A. Garcia – A. C. Ewing – Franz Brentano.
Note: For a critique, see Mark Schroeder’s
“Not
So Promising After All: Evaluator-Relative Teleology and Common-Sense Morality,”
Pacific Philosophical Quarterly
87 (2006): 348-356 as well as his “Teleology,
Agent-Relative Value, and ‘Good’,” Ethics 117
(2007): 265-295. For my reply, see my “Consequentializing
Moral Theories,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 88 (2007): 39-73.
7. 
“Position-Relative
Consequentialism, Agent-Centered Options, and Supererogation,” Ethics
113 (2003): 303-332.
Abstract: I argue that a version of maximizing
act-consequentialism can accommodate both agent-centered options and
supererogatory acts. Specifically, I argue that position-relative
consequentialism—the theory that holds that agents ought always to act so
as to bring about what is, from their own individual positions, the best
available state of affairs—can account for the fact that agents have a
moral option whenever the state of affairs in which the agent safeguards her
own interests is, from her position, all-things-considered better but morally
worse than the state of affairs in which she sacrifices these interests for the
sake of others.
Keywords: Consequentialism – Teleology
– Paradox of deontology – Evaluator-relative – Agent-relative
– Teleology – Deontology – Agent-centered constraints –
Agent-centered options – Duties to self – Supererogation –
Amartya Sen – Samuel Scheffler.
Note: Notes 31 and 32 should be transposed. Their
places in the text were reversed accidentally by the printers. In note 32, I
mention and feebly attempt to address an interesting objection by Stephen
Darwall. My latest view, as espoused in my “Dual-Ranking
Act-Consequentialism,” avoids this objection. Betsy Postow criticizes
the account of supererogation that I give here in her “Supererogation
Again,” Journal of Value Inquiry 39 (2005): 245-253. My latest view, as espoused in my
“Dual-Ranking
Act-Consequentialism,” avoids this objection as well.
8. “Can an Act-Consequentialist Theory Be
Agent-Relative?” American Philosophical Quarterly 38
(2001): 363-77. (This is a preprint. For citation purposes, please refer
to the published version, which is available upon request as a scanned PDF
file.)
Abstract: A theory is agent neutral if it gives
every agent the same set of aims and agent relative otherwise. Most
philosophers take act-consequentialism to be agent-neutral, but I argue that at
the heart of consequentialism is the idea that all acts are morally permissible
in virtue of their propensity to promote value and that, given this, it is
possible to have a theory that is both agent-relative and act-consequentialist.
Furthermore, I demonstrate that agent-relative act-consequentialism can avoid
the counterintuitive implications associated with utilitarianism while
maintaining the compelling idea that it is never wrong to bring about the best
outcome.
Keywords: Consequentialism – Deontology
– Teleology – Agent-relative – Paradox of deontology –
Samuel Scheffler – Frances Howard-Snyder.
9. 
“McNaughton
and Rawling on the Agent-Relative/Agent-Neutral Distinction,” Utilitas
13 (2001): 350-6. [From EBSCO Host – ASU access only.]
Abstract: In this paper, I criticize David
McNaughton and Piers Rawling's formalization of the
agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction. I argue that their formalization is
unable to accommodate an important ethical distinction between two types of
conditional obligations. I then suggest a way of revising their formalization
so as to fix the problem.
Keywords: Agent-relative – Agent-neutral
– Conditional obligations – David McNaughton – Piers Rawling.
Note: For a reply from McNaughton and Rawling, see
their “Conditional
and Conditioned Reasons,” Utilitas 14:2 (2002): 240-248.
10. “Commonsense
Morality and Not Being Required to Maximize the Overall Good,” Philosophical
Studies 100 (2000): 193-213.
Abstract: On commonsense morality, there are
two types of situations where an agent is not required to maximize the
impersonal good. First, there are those situations where the agent is
prohibited from doing so--constraints. Second, there are those situations where
the agent is permitted to do so but also has the option of doing something
else--options. I argue that there are three possible explanations for the
absence of a moral requirement to maximize the impersonal good and that the
commonsense moralist must appeal to all three in order to account for the vast
array of constraints and options we take there be.
Keywords: Commonsense morality –
Maximizing rationality – Overall good – Agent-centered constraints
– Agent-centered options – Imperfect reasons – Rational
options – Shelly Kagan.
11. “Does
the Total Principle Have Any Repugnant Implications?” Ratio
12 (1999): 80-98.
Abstract: Recently a number of philosophers
have suggested that the 'total principle' does not imply the 'repugnant
conclusion' provided that a certain axiological view (namely, the
'discontinuity view') is correct. Nevertheless, as I point out, there are three
different versions of the 'repugnant conclusion', and it appears that the
'total principle' will imply two of the three even if the 'discontinuity view'
is correct. I then go on to argue that one of the two remaining versions turns
out not to be repugnant after all. Second, I argue that the last remaining
version is not, as it turns out, implied by the 'total principle'. Thus, my
arguments show that the 'total principle' has no repugnant implications.
Keywords: Total principle – Repugnant
conclusion – Mere addition paradox – Incommensurable values –
Discontinuity View – Derek Parfit.
12. “Can
Consequentialism Be Reconciled with Our Common-Sense Moral Intuitions?”
Philosophical Studies 91 (1998): 1-19.
Abstract: Consequentialism is usually thought
to be unable to accommodate many of our commonsense moral intuitions. In
particular, it has seemed incompatible with the intuition that agents should
not violate someone's rights even in order to prevent numerous others from
committing comparable rights violations. Nevertheless, I argue that a certain
form of consequentialism can accommodate this intuition: agent-relative
consequentialism--the view according to which agents ought always to bring
about what is, from their own individual perspective, the best available
outcome. Moreover, I argue that the consequentialist's agent-focused account of
the impermissibility of such preventive violations is more plausible than the
deontologist's victim-focused account. Contrary to Frances Kamm, I argue that
agent-relative consequentialism can adequately deal with single-agent cases,
cases where an agent would have to commit one rights violation now in order to
minimize her commissions of such rights violations over time.
Keywords: Consequentialism –
Agent-relative – Commonsense Morality – Agent-centered constraints
– Minimizing violations – Paradox of deontology –
Single-agent cases – Patient-focused – Victim-focused –
Agent-focused – Frances Kamm – Richard Brook.