For Knapp, the issue is that he apparently ignores the possibility that a person might have only (very) bad choices. In his thinking, necessary evils always end up producing \u201ca greater good\u201d \u2013 that is, they produce a good. But this is not the only kind of necessary evil: sometimes it\u2019s also the case that a person has to do something very wrong (that is, on consequentialism, something that produces very bad consequences) because all of the other available options will be still more wrong (that is, produce still worse consequences). This seems to have occurred to Libresco \u2013 she does reference the concept of a \u201cleast bad choice,\u201d at least \u2013 but then she goes and conflates adverbial morality (how one acts) with, and I can\u2019t believe that this isn\u2019t a real word,* verbial morality (what one does). An evil, I think it makes the most sense to say, is something that we do \u2013 murder, for instance, or showing a Carrot Top stand-up special to one\u2019s relatives. One can act evilly as well, of course, but acting evilly needn\u2019t produce an evil: you could try to show your relatives a stand-up special of Carrot Top\u2019s but accidentally put in the wrong DVD, say. Plus, the phrase isn\u2019t \u201ca necessary evilly\u201d and so I find this response to be less than compelling. Whatever the connections between immoral actions and acting immorally, the two are at least conceptually different.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The discussion seems to be headed towards Isn\u2019t deontology or virtue ethics really consequentialism with a particular\u00a0consequence chosen as the good?<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0Excellent for me, since I\u2019ve been having that argument offline a lot frequently, and I\u2019ve noticed it bubbling up in some of the comments threads. \u00a0Looking forward to addressing it after a study break.<\/p>\n
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