Option Ranges

Timothy Chappell
University of Dundee, Scotland

Many moral theories (e.g. most consequentialisms, and some versions of Kantianism and Ross-style intuitionism too) say that the rightness of each act enjoined by their first-order theories follows simply from the enjoined act's being the best option of all those available at the time--the best option in the relevant option range. But there are always indefinitely many possible ways of formulating any option range. So defining an option range is not an evaluatively neutral act, the form of which is simply given by the nature of the case. Rather, it is itself a crucial part of the agent's moral activity. If consequentialism ignores this, it begs most of the interesting questions. I close by sketching a non-consequentialist account of how option ranges might be determined.