Act Consequentialism, Interpersonal Aggregation, and Scanlon's Contractualism: Key Ethical Concepts

Give an example of an option

a permission to favour your own interests even if doing so fails to produce the best overall consequences — for example, Pr. Southwood is permitted to buy his child a video game even though donating that money to malaria prevention would produce more overall good.

Explain what is meant by 'act consequentialism'.

the idea that what makes actions morally right and morally wrong has to do with the goodness of the state of affairs that they impact.

Explain what is meant by 'interpersonal aggregation'.

the adding up of reasons across different individuals, and combining them together, which Scanlon's individualist restriction explicitly rules out.

Explain what is meant by 'Scanlon's contractualism'.

an action is morally wrong if and only if it is forbidden by principles that no one could reasonably reject, given the aim of finding principles that others, similarly motivated, could not reasonably reject.

Give an example of a constraint.

a prohibition on doing certain things to a person, even where doing so would produce more overall good — for example, it is not permissible to forcibly take a healthy patient's kidney to save someone else's life.