Critics of Consequentialism have often assumed that hedonism (or preference-satisfaction) must be the theory of the good, that the deontic principle must be maximizing, and that the principle should be applied to individual acts. Indeed, this version is often called "classical utilitarianism" and attributed to Bentham and sometimes even to Mill. Rather than a "classical" view it is a recent construction foisted on to the tradition.

If we're interested in the continuation of the human experiment we need to focus on resilience and coping with change (whether natural or anthropogenic) rather than living as if God or nature has given us a nice, orderly, calm, Babbit-like existence.

I played with English and Sociology in college but dropped out to work in the anti-war movement. I was going around denouncing the Viet Nam war as immoral but one day it dawned on me that I didn't know what that meant. I signed up for an ethics class at San Francisco State to find out the answer.

The Enlightenment dream is a good one. The idea that people should rationally appreciate their place in nature, assess threats and possibilities, and regulate their behavior in response is inspiring.

The millennium development goals are important, both morally and economically, because much of the world's population maybe is as much as a third of the world's population hasn't yet reached the level of economic development where we begin to get a dissociation from people's economic status and their reports about personal happiness. So we really do need to do much more and much more effectively in order to give everyone the kind of basis for which they can have good vibes.

If I drive my car to the store, those carbon molecules that are emitted actually get into the atmosphere circulation systems and affect climate in a global basis. This is shocking, this is amazing! No one in the 18th Century would have believed that anything like this were at all possible and I don't think we have, as part of our common sense, morality, norms and values that are really responsive to those kinds of issues, to the kind of power that we now are able to exert over the future and over people who live very far from us.

If you look globally you see a patchwork of jurisdictions (nations, states, provinces, cities) that have taken aggressive action on climate change, and a patchwork of jurisdictions that have not. These various policies reflect the politics of each jurisdiction and the values of its citizens.