Impartiality and Associative Duties: David O. Brink

Utilitas 13 (2):152-172 (2001)
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Abstract

Consequentialism is often criticized for failing to accommodate impersonal constraints and personal options. A common consequentialist response is to acknowledge the anticonsequentialist intuitions but to argue either that the consequentialist can, after all, accommodate the allegedly recalcitrant intuitions or that, where accommodation is impossible, the recalcitrant intuition can be dismissed for want of an adequate philosophical rationale. Whereas these consequentialist responses have some plausibility, associational duties represent a somewhat different challenge to consequentialism, inasmuch as they embody neither impersonal constraints nor personal options, but rather personal constraints. Our intuitions about associational duties resist capture within the intellectual net of consequentialism, and such duties do admit of a philosophical rationale at least as plausible as anything the consequentialist has to offer.

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David Brink
University of California, San Diego

Citations of this work

The Ethics of Partiality.Benjamin Lange - 2022 - Philosophy Compass 1 (8):1-15.
Utilitarianism, Welfare, Children.Anthony Skelton - 2014 - In Alexander Bagattini & Colin Macleod, The Nature of Children's Well-Being: Theory and Practice. Springer. pp. 85-103.
On fellowship.Dale Dorsey - 2024 - Philosophical Studies 181 (1):133-152.
Impartiality.Troy Jollimore - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

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References found in this work

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Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality.Michael Walzer - 1983 - Journal of Business Ethics 4 (1):63-64.

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