Individualist Utilitarianism and Converging Theories of Rights

Abstract

Abstract The paper develops two core themes of Derek Parfit’s philosophy. The first is his goal of unifying the two main rival impartial moral theories, Kantian deontology and consequentialism, therefore reinforcing their claim to pertain to objective moral truths. The second is his focus on the moral significance of the combined effects of many agents’ behaviour, and on the challenges this poses to ordinary moral thinking. This is a theme that runs throughout his work, that he returns to at the very end of volume iii of On What Matters. Kantianism and consequentialism have been thought to fundamentally diverge on the issue of rights and trade-offs. The chapter first outlines the version of consequentialism taken to be most plausible, calling it ‘individualist utilitarianism’, which differs from so-called ‘classical utilitarianism’ in taking the moral importance of well-being to be grounded on the moral importance of the persons whose well-being it is. This paves the way for a pluralist Kantian and utilitarian account of human rights, grounded on the moral significance both of persons’ well-being and their dignity as rational autonomous agents. The chapter then turns to the topic of the threat to access to the means of subsistence, both for the current poor and future generations, posed by global as well as domestic socio-economic structures and anthropogenic climate change. This harm is the combined effect of the ongoing patterns of behaviour of a vast number of agents. The chapter argues that individualist utilitarianism and Kantianism converge on the conclusion that the duty to avoid harms of this kind should be analysed as a shared duty of basic justice, non-fulfilment of which constitutes a structural human rights violation.