'What would happen if everyone acted that way?' This question is often used in everyday moral assessments, but it has a paradoxical quality: it draws not only on Kantian ideas of a universal moral law but also on consequentialist claims that what is right depends on the outcome. In this book, Alex Tuckness examines how the question came to be seen as paradoxical, tracing its history from the theistic approaches of the seventeenth century to the secular accounts of the present. Tuckness shows that the earlier interpretations were hybrid theories that included both consequentialist and non-consequentialist elements, and argues that contemporary uses of this approach will likewise need to combine consequentialist and non-consequentialist commitments.

Examines consequentialist and non-consequentialist interpretations of the question 'what would happen if everyone acted that way?'

About the Author
Alex Tuckness is Professor of Political Science at Iowa State University. He is the author of Locke and the Legislative Point of View (2002), The Decline of Mercy in Public Life (with John Michael Parrish, Cambridge University Press, 2014) and This is Political Philosophy (with Clark Wolf, 2016).


Book Information
ISBN 9781009055611
Author Alex Tuckness
Format Paperback
Page Count 243
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Weight(grams) 360g
Dimensions(mm) 228mm * 152mm * 13mm