PHIL 251 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Consequentialism
14 Apr 2016
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Strong principle: if you can prevent something bad without sacrificing something of comparable moral importance, you"re morally obligated to do so. Meaning: without causing anything comparably bad to happen, or doing something that"s wrong in itself, or failing to promote some comparable moral good. Moderate principle: if you can prevent something very bad, without sacrificing something morally significant, you"re morally obligated to do so. Reconstruction of the argument: at least on of the strong or moderate principles is true, we can do what they say by making big sacrifices, so, we"re morally obligated to do so. Sometimes is can be hard to compare the cost-benefit situation. However, even in a case of uncertainty, we may be able to certain. If it is a moral situation, we are expected to weigh the cost-benefit relationship and accordingly take a decision. We have to obviously predict the consequences. Do your best and it isn"t hard to do very well.
