Fryer, Jonathan;
(2025)
The Scope and Force of the Ideal World
Objection.
Masters thesis (M.Phil.Stud), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
This thesis is concerned with the Ideal World Objection (IWO), how it has force, and how widely it applies. This is an objection that affects moral theories which determine what one morally ought to do by evaluating possible worlds that differ from the actual world in more than what is up to us. There are many moral theories that determine what one morally ought to do in this way, including various versions of Rule Consequentialism, Kantian Ethics, and Moral Contractualism. These are otherwise attractive moral theories — each has strong explanatory power, capturing many of our moral intuitions. I argue that the IWO’s force is widely misinterpreted. I do so by using Abelard Podgorski’s formulation of the IWO, which he calls the Distant World Objection (DWO). I argue that the IWO has a very wide scope — wider than even Podgorski believes. As well as providing an ordered exposition of various moral theories, this thesis makes three contributions to the existing literature on the IWO. First, it provides greater explanation of why solutions to the IWO from proponents of various versions of Rule Consequentialism are unsuccessful (3.3). Second, it argues that Korsgaard’s (1986) paper, The right to lie: Kant on dealing with evil, which attempts to resolve the IWO for Kantian Ethics, misinterprets the force of the objection (4.5-4.6). Korsgaard, and the proponents of Rule Consequentialism, have misunderstood the force of the IWO. Third, I argue that Podgorski’s claim that Rawls’ Theory of Justice is not affected by the DWO is false. In doing so, I show that the IWO has a wider scope than even Podgorski believes (5.4-5.5).
| Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | M.Phil.Stud |
| Title: | The Scope and Force of the Ideal World Objection |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2025. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Dept of Philosophy |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10203931 |
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