Paper's abstract

Marc Rüegger, Motivations and Justifications of Consequentialism
Consequentialism has often been accused of being unable to provide a plausible normative theory. The reason is that consequentialism seems to contradict some of our fundamental convictions about the value of our motives and character. In this paper, I am critically assessing some strategies that are supposed to improve the consequentialist theory of the right action by an account of the value motivational dispositions should have. These strategies are : sophisticated, motive and global consequentialism. My point is to show that these improved versions of consequentialism actually change its structure as a moral theory and, subsequently, to give an insight on how to develop a successful consequentialist theory.


Key Words : consequentialism, motives, global
t. 48, 2004 : p. 315-329

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