Introduction

Common-sense Morality and Consequentialism seeks to assess the merits of two major forms of moral theory by means of mutual comparison and an attempt to elicit the implications and tendencies of each theory taken individually. This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book concentrates on the other sort of divergence between common-sense morality and (act-)consequentialism that has featured in recent discussions: common-sense moral permissions to fulfil one’s own non-optimific projects and commitments. It considers a possible way of developing (act-)consequentialism that is both of interest in its own right and capable of doing something to mitigate the common-sense moral criticism that act-consequentialism unreasonably restricts the moral autonomy of moral agents (to fulfil whatever innocent projects and commitments they wish).