Rationalist Maximalism

Abstract

Rationalism holds that our current options consist in all and only those events over which we presently exert rational control. Maximalism holds that the only options that have their deontic status in virtue of their own goodness are maximal options. When we combine these two, we get rationalist maximalism. This chapter argues that there are reasons to accept rationalist maximalism apart from the reasons that were already given for accepting each of its two components. First, it avoids the sorts of objections to which other versions of maximalism are susceptible. Second, it provides us with a plausible alternative to both actualism and possibilism. And, third, it is uniquely well situated to accommodate the idea that a moral theory ought to be such that the agents who satisfy it, whoever and however numerous they may be, are guaranteed to produce the morally best world that they could (in the relevant sense) together produce.