Hooker's rule-consequentialism, disasters, demandingness, and arbitrary distinctions

Woollard, Fiona (2022) Hooker's rule-consequentialism, disasters, demandingness, and arbitrary distinctions. Ratio (new series), 35 (4), 289-300. (doi:10.1111/rati.12354).

Record type: Article

Abstract

According to Brad Hooker's rule-consequentialism, as well as ordinary moral prohibitions against lying, stealing, killing, and harming others, the optimific code will include an over-riding “prevent disaster clause”. This paper explores two issues related to the disaster clause. The first issue is whether the disaster clause is vague—and whether this is a problem for rule-consequentialism. I argue that on Hooker's rule-consequentialism, there will be cases where it is indeterminate whether a given outcome counts as a disaster such that it is permissible to infringe a given prohibition to avoid that outcome. I argue that it counts in favour of Hooker's rule-consequentialism that it makes this space for vagueness. The second issue is how to understand the disaster clause so that it does not make rule-consequentialism intolerably demanding—and more particularly whether avoiding over-demandingness requires the rule-consequentialist to place a counterintuitive limit on requirements to aid. I will argue that rule-consequentialism can avoid over-demandingness without placing a counterintuitive limit on requirements to aid.

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Accepted/In Press date: 27 July 2022

e-pub ahead of print date: 9 August 2022

Published date: December 2022

Additional Information: Funding Information: This paper was presented at Bradfest or Rules to Live By: A Conference in Honour of Brad Hooker, University of Reading, 24th April 2021. A later version was presented at the Claims in Distributive Justice Workshop, Institute for Future Studies, Stockholm, 16th June 2021. I thank Charlotte Newey and Luke Elson for organising Bradfest and Julia Mosquera and Anders Herlitz for organising the Claims workshop. I thank audiences at both events for helpful comments. I thank Chris Woodard for an insightful commentary. Most of all, I thank Brad Hooker for both his deep and significant contributions to a breathtaking range of topics in philosophy and for his apparently infinite generosity. I would not be where or who I am today without the support he has given me over the years. I know that many others would say the same. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Author. Ratio published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Keywords: Demandingness, Hooker, Rule-Consequentialism, Vagueness

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