{"product_id":"doing-the-best-we-can-an-essay-in-informal-deontic-logic-von-fred-feldman","title":"Doing the Best We Can","description":"Several years ago I came across a marvelous little paper in which Hector-Neri Castaneda shows that standard versions of act utilitarian l ism are formally incoherent. I was intrigued by his argument. It had long seemed to me that I had a firm grasp on act utilitarianism. Indeed, it had often seemed to me that it was the clearest and most attractive of normative theories. Yet here was a simple and relatively uncontrover sial argument that showed, with only some trivial assumptions, that the doctrine is virtually unintelligible. The gist of Castaneda's argument is this: suppose we understand act utilitarianism to be the view that an act is obligatory if and only if its utility exceeds that of each alternative. Suppose it is obligatory for a certain person to perform an act with two parts - we can call it 'A \u0026amp; B'. Then, obviously enough, it is also obligatory for this person to perform the parts, A and B. If act utilitarianism were true, we appar ently could infer that the utility of A \u0026amp; B is higher than that of A, and higher than that of B (because A \u0026amp; B is obligatory, and the other acts are alternatives to A \u0026amp; B).\u003cdiv class=\"aw-variant-hidden-subtitle-div\" id=\"aw-variant-subtitle-9789401085311\"\u003e\u003ch3\u003eAn Essay in Informal Deontic Logic\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"aw-variant-hidden-subtitle-div\" id=\"aw-variant-subtitle-9789027721648\"\u003e\u003ch3\u003eAn Essay in Informal Deontic Logic\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Libri","offers":[{"title":"Softcover - 9789401085311","offer_id":39452450324573,"sku":"9789401085311","price":106.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Hardcover - 9789027721648","offer_id":39680528416861,"sku":"9789027721648","price":106.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0940\/0622\/files\/f96e8148-e55f-4de0-a9a2-3fff66863586.jpg?v=1772345573","url":"https:\/\/shop.autorenwelt.de\/products\/doing-the-best-we-can-an-essay-in-informal-deontic-logic-von-fred-feldman","provider":"Autorenwelt Shop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}