Volume 41, 2016
Ryan Jenkins
Pages 527-537
Rule Consequentialism and Moral Relativism
Rule consequentialism is usually taken to recommend a single ideal code for all moral agents. Here I argue that, depending on their theoretical motivations, some rule consequentialists have good reasons to be relativists. Rule consequentialists who are moved by consequentialist considerations ought to support a scheme of multiple relativized moral codes because we could expect such a scheme to have better consequences in terms of impartial aggregate wellbeing than a single universal code. Rule consequentialists who find compelling the theory’s coherence with our considered moral intuitions should do the same because a scheme of multiple codes could better cohere with our intuitions about costless benefits, though these intuitions must be weighed against our allegiance to moral universalism.