Abstract

Rather than respond to Gibbard, point by point, I will comment on what I take to be the general spirit of his argument. The old consensus on some form or another of utilitarianism, a consensus that dominated discussions in moral and political theory only a few years ago, has now largely evaporated before the heat of distributional objections founded on justice, the “separateness of persons,” and other concerns for the severe sacrifices that utilitarianism might require of some for the sake of greater gains to others