Do I Make a Difference?

Do I Make a Difference?
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DOI:
10.1111/j.1088-4963.2011.01203.x
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发表时间:
2011-03-01
影响因子:
2.2
通讯作者:
Kagan, Shelly
Kagan, Shelly
中科院分区:
人文科学1区
文献类型:
--
作者:
Kagan, Shelly

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让我们从“过去的美好时光”开始讲起。想象一下,我曾经经营过一家工厂,我定期将一些有毒废物(制造过程中的副产品)排放到工厂后面的溪流中。这条小溪流向附近的村庄,那里的一些水被一个死于毒药的女孩喝掉了。显然,无论从道德的角度还是从受害者的角度来看,这都不是一个好故事。但从结果主义道德理论的角度来看,这是一个令人满意的故事,因为它是一个可以用熟悉的结果主义术语直接处理的例子。如果我没有把垃圾排入小溪,女孩就不会喝下毒药,也就不会过早死亡。这就是说:如果我的行为不同,结果会更好;所以我的行为是错误的。
Let's start with a story from the" good old days." Imagine that I used to run a factory, from which I periodically released some of the poisonous waste (by-products of the manufacturing process) into the stream which ran behind the plant. The stream traveled down to the nearby village, where some of the water was drunk by a girl who died from the poison.Obviously enough, this is not at all a good story from the standpoint of morality, nor from the standpoint of the victim. But it is, in its way, a satisfying story from the perspective of consequentialist moral theory, for it is an example which can be straightforwardly handled in familiar consequentialist terms. Had I not released the waste into the stream, the girl would not have drunk poison, and so would not have died prematurely. Which is to say: the results would have been better had I acted differently; so my act was wrong.