Reconciling Our Aims: In Search of Bases for Ethics (Berkeley Tanner Lectures)

225 Pages·2008·1.08 MB·English

by  Allan Gibbard

Reconciling Our Aims
The Berkeley Tanner Lectures
The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, which honor the American
scholar,industrialist,andphilanthropistObertClarkTanner,arepresented
annually at each of nine universities in the United States and England.
TheywereestablishedattheUniversityofCalifornia,Berkeley,beginning
inthe2000/2001academicyear.Thisvolumeisthefifthinaseriesofbooks
based on the Berkeley Tanner Lectures. In this volume we include the
lecturesthatAllanGibbardpresentedinMarch2006,alongwiththere-
sponses of the three invited commentators on that occasion—Michael
Bratman,JohnBroome,andF.M.Kamm—andafinalrejoinderbyPro-
fessorGibbard.ThevolumeiseditedbyBarryStroud,whoalsocontributes
anintroduction.WehaveestablishedtheBerkeleyTannerLecturesSeries
in the belief that these distinguished lectures, together with the lively
debatesstimulatedbytheirpresentationinBerkeley,deservetobemade
availabletoawideraudience.Additionalvolumesarenowinpreparation.
RobertPost
SamuelScheffler
SeriesEditors
VolumesPublishedintheSeries
JosephRaz,ThePracticeofValue
EditedbyR.JayWallace
WithChristineM.Korsgaard,RobertPippin,andBernardWilliams
FrankKermode,PleasureandChange:TheAestheticsofCanon
EditedbyRobertAlter
WithGeoffreyHartman,JohnGuillory,andCareyPerloff
SeylaBenhabib,AnotherCosmopolitanism
EditedbyRobertPost
WithJeremyWaldron,BonnieHonig,andWillKymlicka
AxelHonneth,Reification:ANewLookatanOldIdea
EditedbyMartinJay
WithJudithButler,RaymondGeuss,andJonathanLear
Reconciling Our Aims
In Search of Bases for Ethics
ALLAN GIBBARD
With Commentaries by
Michael Bratman
John Broome
F. M. Kamm
Edited and Introduced by
Barry Stroud
1
2008
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LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Gibbard,Allan.
Reconcilingouraims:insearchofbasesforethics/AllanGibbard;
withcommentariesbyMichaelBratman,JohnBroome,F.M.Kamm;
editedandintroducedbyBarryStroud.
p.cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN978-0-19-537042-3
1. Ethics. 2. Utilitarianism. 3. Ethicalintuitionism.
I. Stroud,Barry. II. Title.
BJ354.G532R432008
1700.42—dc22 2007050470
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
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Contents
List of Contributors vii
Introduction 3
Barry Stroud
RECONCILING OUR AIMS
Allan Gibbard
I. Insight, Consistency, and Plans for Living 11
II. Living Together: Economic and Moral Argument 33
III. Common Goals and the Ideal Social Contract 59
Appendix: The Harsanyi-like Result 83
COMMENTS
Normative Thinking and Planning, Individual and Shared 91
Michael Bratman
Comments on Allan Gibbard’s Tanner Lectures 102
John Broome
Should You Save This Child? Gibbard on Intuitions,
Contractualism, and Strains of Commitment 120
F. M. Kamm
vi (cid:1) Contents
REPLY TO COMMENTATORS
Allan Gibbard
Reply to Commentators 147
Bibliography 189
Index 195
List of Contributors
AllanGibbardisRichardB.BrandtDistinguishedUniversityProfessor
of Philosophy at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He has been
PresidentoftheCentralDivisionoftheAmericanPhilosophicalAssocia-
tion and is Member of the American Philosophical Society, Membre Ti-
tulaireoftheInstitutInternationaldePhilosophie,FellowoftheAmerican
AcademyofArtsandSciences,andFellowoftheEconometricSociety.Heis
the author of Wise Choices, Apt Feelings (1990), Thinking How to Live
(2003),andnumerousarticlesbothinethicaltheoryandinsuchfieldsas
theory of social choice, decision theory, evolutionary moral psychology,
philosophyofmindandlanguage,andepistemology.
Michael Bratman is U. G. and Abbie Birch Durfee Professor in the
SchoolofHumanitiesandSciencesandProfessorofPhilosophyatStanford
University. He is the author of Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987; Reissued by CSLI Publica-
tions,1999),FacesofIntention:SelectedEssaysonIntentionandAgency
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), Structures of Agency:
Essays(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2007),andvariousotherar-
ticlesinthephilosophyofactionandrelatedfields.
JohnBroomeisWhite’sProfessorofMoralPhilosophyattheUniversity
of Oxford. He was previously Professor of Philosophy at the University
of St. Andrews and Professor of Economics at the University of Bristol.
His books include Weighing Lives (1991), Counting the Cost of Global
Warming (1992), Ethics Out of Economics (2001), and Weighing Lives
(2004).
F. M. Kamm isLittauerProfessorofPhilosophyandPublicPolicy,Ken-
nedy School of Government, and Professor of Philosophy, Department
of Philosophy, Harvard University. She is the author of Intricate Ethics
(2007),Morality,Mortality,vols.1and2(1992,1996),CreationandAbor-
tion(1992),and numerousessays onnormative ethicaltheory and prac-
ticalethics.
viii (cid:1) List of Contributors
BarryStroudisWillisS.andMarionSlusserProfessorofPhilosophyat
theUniversityofCalifornia,Berkeley.HeistheauthorofHume(1977),
TheSignificanceofPhilosophicalScepticism(1984),TheQuestforReality
(2000),andtwovolumesofcollectedessaysonavarietyofphilosophical
subjects.
Reconciling Our Aims