A new way of doing the best that we can: person‐based consequentialism and the equality problem

Abstract

This article sets out to demonstrate a plausible case for person-based consequentialism (PBC), a relatively new approach to normative ethics that competes well against the more established view of aggregative consequentialism (AC). The argument of the article proceeds in three stages. First, the article shows that PBC does a better job than AC addressing a particular set of problem cases that together seriously challenge AC. Second, it shows that PBC does exactly as good a job as AC addressing a second set of cases – a set of important cases that together nicely reveal just why AC has been such an attractive theory to so many for so long. Finally, the article suggests how PBC can plausibly be extended to address the problem of equality, a problem that has been especially problematic for consequentialist theories in general. – AI-generated abstract.