What matters and how it matters: A choice-theoretic representation of moral theories

Franz Dietrich and Christian List

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: We present a new “reason-based” approach to the formal representation of moral theories, drawing on recent decision-theoretic work. We show that any moral theory within a very large class can be represented in terms of two parameters: (i) a specification of which properties of the objects of moral choice matter in any given context, and (ii) a specification of how these properties matter. Reason-based representations provide a very general taxonomy of moral theories, as differences among theories can be attributed to differences in their two key parameters. We can thus formalize several important distinctions, such as between consequentialist and non-consequentialist theories, between universalist and relativist theories, between agent-neutral and agent-relative theories, between monistic and pluralistic theories, between atomistic and holistic theories, and between theories with a teleological structure and those without.

Keywords: moral choice; reason-based choice; consequentialism versus deontology; universalism versus relativism; agent-neutrality versus agent-relativity; monism versus pluralism; atomism versus holism; teleology versus non-teleology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B0 B4 B40 D6 D63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hpe and nep-mic
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https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/80742/1/MPRA_paper_80742.pdf revised version (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: What matters and how it matters: a choice-theoretic representation of moral theories (2017)
Working Paper: What matters and how it matters: a choice-theoretic representation of moral theories (2017)
Working Paper: What matters and how it matters: a choice-theoretic representation of moral theories (2017)
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