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Publication Details

Human Dignity and the Non-Utilitarist Consequentialist Ethics of Social Consequences

(Original title: Ľudská dôstojnosť a neutilitaristická konzekvencialistická etika sociálnych dôsledkov)
Filozofia, 59 (2004), 7, 502-507.
Type of work: Papers
Publication language: Slovak
Abstract

Prominent critics of consequentialism hold that utilitarianism is not capable of accepting authentic human values, because the consequentialist viewpoint is impersonal. According to it consequentialist rationality has no axiological limits and it can think about doing the unthinkable. The main objective of the paper is to show that human dignity has a significant position in the author’s conception of ethics of social consequences (a non-utilitarian consequentialism) arguing for a particular theory of the value of human dignity. The author argues that the ethics of social consequences is capable of accepting human dignity as well as all authentic human moral values. He believes that ethical theory of social consequences (as a form of non-utilitarian consequentialism) can provide the element missing whose lack was unveiled by the critics of utilitarianism.

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