Isserow, J orcid.org/0000-0001-5900-8363 (2019) Moral Worth and Doing the Right Thing by Accident. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 97 (2). pp. 251-264. ISSN 0004-8402
Abstract
Kantian conceptions of moral worth are thought to enjoy an advantage over their rivals in virtue of accommodating two plausible intuitions—that the praiseworthiness of an action is never accidental, and that how an agent might have acted in other circumstances does not determine the moral worth of her actual conduct. In this paper, I argue that neither the Kantian nor her rivals can adequately accommodate both intuitions, in as much as non-accidentality presupposes counterfactual robustness. If we are to adequately accommodate both claims, then we must reconsider the kind of non-accidentality that really matters to moral worth. I propose that the kind of non-accidentality worth caring about requires only that the agent who does what is right acts competently from morally relevant concerns. Under this account, both the Kantian and (some of) her rivals can ensure that the praiseworthiness of an action is never accidental without counting the behaviour of non-actual agents as being relevant to assessments of moral worth.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018 Australasian Association of Philosophy. This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Australisian Journal of Philosophy on 22 April 2018, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/00048402.2018.1463270. |
Keywords: | moral worth; duty; praiseworthiness |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science (Leeds) > School of Philosophy (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 10 Sep 2018 10:54 |
Last Modified: | 22 Oct 2019 00:38 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Taylor & Francis |
Identification Number: | 10.1080/00048402.2018.1463270 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:135456 |