PHIL 200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Supererogation
16 Oct 2018
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Suffering and death from a lack of food, shelter and medical aid is bad. If we have the power to alleviate, or prevent something bad happening without sacrificing something of moral importance then we ought to do it. One has only to ask this question to see the absurdity of the view that numbers lessen obligation. Bystander effect. if it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing any thing else morally significant, we ought, morally, to do it. = the morally right action is the action that produces the most good. This approach holds that the action is agent neutral agent-relative theory. It holds that an act is permissible if and only if it maximizes the agent"s utility. Keeping promises: this forces the agent to be obliged to keep the promise whether the consequence of breaking are better or not.
