Ethics and Values / Unit 4 Ethics 173 short lesson, about 20 seconds
The Backward-Looking-Reasons Objection
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The idea
The backward-looking-reasons objection: promises made and debts incurred give reasons from the past, and a theory facing only forward cannot see them.
In practice
You promised your late friend to tend the garden. Utility finds better uses for the hour; the promise still pulls, quietly, from behind.
Your place on the trail
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