Aggregation, Risk, and Reductio

Ethics 130 (4):514-529 (2020)
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Abstract

Is there any number of people you should save from paralysis rather than saving one person from death? Is there any number of people you should save from a migraine rather than saving one person from death? Many people answer “yes” and “no,” respectively. The aim of partially aggregative moral views is to capture and justify combinations of intuitions like these. In this article, I develop a risk-based reductio argument that shows that there can be no adequate partially aggregative view. I then argue that the only plausible response to this reductio is to accept a fully aggregative view.

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Joe Horton
University College London

Citations of this work

Numbers without aggregation.Tim Henning - 2023 - Noûs (3):755-777.
Partial aggregation in ethics.Joe Horton - 2021 - Philosophy Compass 16 (3):1-12.
How (and How Not) to Defend Lesser-Evil Options.Kerah Gordon-Solmon - 2022 - Journal of Moral Philosophy 20 (3-4):211-232.

View all 14 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

What We Owe to Each Other.Thomas Scanlon (ed.) - 1998 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Should the numbers count?John Taurek - 1977 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 6 (4):293-316.
Contractualism and Social Risk.Johann Frick - 2015 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 43 (3):175-223.
In defence of repugnance.Michael Huemer - 2008 - Mind 117 (468):899-933.
Love and the Value of a Life.Kieran Setiya - 2014 - Philosophical Review 123 (3):251-280.

View all 16 references / Add more references