Abstract

In the first part of the book, I argue that there are reasons to think that non-consequentialismNon-consequentialism fails. It fails because the heart of non-consequentialism is an attempt to show how people may treat others in the case of cooperation and conflict. Cooperation occurs via consent because it is through consent and its cousin, promise, that people voluntarily accept permissions and incur duties. In particular, it is the way in which people voluntarily change their perimeter of rights, specifically to their body and property. Consent is, roughly, the means by which one waives a right and thus changes his perimeter of rights with regard to another. Consent lies at the heart of many topics in law, medicine, politics, and ethics. A common idea is that consent in itself matters toward the right and the good. This chapter rejects this idea. More specifically, it defends two theses. First, the maximization theory of consentConsentmaximization theory is true. The maximization theory asserts, roughly, consent functions to maximize what justifies rights (for example, autonomyAutonomy or interests). Second, because the maximization theory is true, consent does not matter in and of itself. Specifically, consent by itself does not matter for the right or the good. If consent does not matter in and of itself, then non-consequentialism is in real trouble for consent is at the heart of how non-consequentialism handles moral transformation in the context of cooperation. Consequentialism asserts that an act is permissible because, and only because, it brings about, whether directly or indirectly, as much good as any other act available to the agent. The direct-versus-indirect condition is designed to allow for rule-consequentialismConsequentialismrule-consequentialism. It is compatible with agent-relative or agent-neutral accounts of the good. For example, egoism as a moral theory might be seen as consequentialism about prudential good. On this account, consequentialism does not address things that are not acts (for example, motives), although it does address acts that bring these other things about. Non-consequentialismNon-consequentialism asserts that there are permissible acts and that consequentialism is false.