{"title":"Conditional Obligation, Permissibility, and the All or Nothing Problem","authors":"Xueshi Wang","doi":"10.1007/s11406-024-00771-z","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>In Horton’s All or Nothing Problem, the agent has three options: a permissible act that saves no one, a wrongful act that saves only one child, or a supererogatory act that saves two children. Some may argue that if the agent is not going to save two children, she should save none rather than just one. However, this conclusion is counterintuitive. Although there are many proposed solutions to this problem, none of them provides a fully satisfactory answer. In this article, I argue that it is plausible to accept the Individualist Obligation Principle according to which, the agent is morally permitted to fulfill a <i>prima facie</i> obligation to save an individual in grave peril, provided that doing so demonstrates a substantial engagement with the individualized obligations to each individual involved.</p>","PeriodicalId":46695,"journal":{"name":"PHILOSOPHIA","volume":"15 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"PHILOSOPHIA","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-024-00771-z","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"PHILOSOPHY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
In Horton’s All or Nothing Problem, the agent has three options: a permissible act that saves no one, a wrongful act that saves only one child, or a supererogatory act that saves two children. Some may argue that if the agent is not going to save two children, she should save none rather than just one. However, this conclusion is counterintuitive. Although there are many proposed solutions to this problem, none of them provides a fully satisfactory answer. In this article, I argue that it is plausible to accept the Individualist Obligation Principle according to which, the agent is morally permitted to fulfill a prima facie obligation to save an individual in grave peril, provided that doing so demonstrates a substantial engagement with the individualized obligations to each individual involved.
期刊介绍：
Founded in 1971, Philosophia is a much-respected journal that has provided a platform to many well-known philosophers, including Kenneth Arrow, A.J. Ayer, Roderick Chisholm, Bas van Fraassen, William Frankena, P.T. Geach, Alan Gewirth, Jaakko Hintikka, Richard Popkin, W.V.O. Quine, Gilbert Ryle, Marcus Singer, Peter Singer, J.J.C. Smart, P.F. Strawson, and many others. Philosophia also published papers of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Rudolf Carnap.
Philosophia is an international journal in scope, submissions and readership. The journal publishes contributions fitting within various philosophical traditions, but manifests a preference of the analytic tradition in the broad sense of commitment to clarity and responsibility.
Besides papers in the traditional subfields of philosophy and its history, Philosophia also publishes work on topical subjects such as racism, silence of God, terrorism, the nature of philosophy, emotion, AIDS, scientific discovery, punishment, modality, and institutional theory of art.
Philosophia welcomes a wide range of contributions to academic philosophy, covering all fields of philosophy. Contributions to the journal may take the form of topical papers, philosophical surveys of literature, symposia papers, short discussion notes, puzzles, profiles, book reviews and more extensive critical studies of new books. The journal includes a ''books revisited'' section where a book and its impact are reconsidered a decade or more after its appearance. Double-blind review procedure The journal follows a double-blind reviewing procedure. Authors are therefore requested to place their name and affiliation on a separate page. Self-identifying citations and references in the article text should either be avoided or left blank when manuscripts are first submitted. Authors are responsible for reinserting self-identifying citations and references when manuscripts are prepared for final submission.Please read our Editorial Policies carefully before you submit your paper to this journal https://www.springer.com/gp/editorial-policies
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：
京公网安备 11010802042870号
