Public controversies - such as those about the distribution of goods between rich and poor, trade and population policies, allocation of medical resources, and the tradeoff between environment al protection and economic efficiency - often hinge on fundamental views about how we ought to make decisions tImt affect each other, that is, what principles we ought to follow. Efforts to find an acceptable public philosophy, a set of such principles on which people might agree, have foundered because of dis agreement among philosophers and others who are concerned with such issues. One view, which I...

This book develops and defends a version of utilitarianism, including expected-utility theory, as a normative model of decision making. The defense, based on the idea of utility as achievement of goals, considers the endorsement of a norm as a decision and asks what reasons we have to endorse norms for decision making. The reasons derive from our pre-existing goals, so any norm we endorse must not fly in the face of these goals, although it must not be selfishly biased, either. This approach is further clarified by drawing distinctions between decisions for the self, for a single other...