Introduction

The book adjudicates between objective and subjective consequentialism. Apart from presenting objective and subjective consequentialism and delineating the topic of the book, the introduction provides the background to the debate and lays out the plan of the book. Objective and subjective consequentialists disagree about the deontic properties of acts. According to objective consequentialism, an act is right if and only if the act’s outcome is at least as good as the outcome of any of the act’s alternatives; otherwise the act is wrong. According to subjective consequentialism, an act is right if and only if it has at least as much expected value as any of its alternatives; otherwise, the act is wrong. The approach taken in the book is based on the assumption that act-consequentialism is primarily to be understood as a theory of practical reason rather than a moral theory. The approach consists in examining the action-guidingness of normative theories against the backdrop of the assumption that duties can be reduced to reasons. An alternative approach, which focuses on blameworthiness and assumes that blameworthiness is closely linked to wrong-doing, is dismissed.