Against the Worse Than Nothing Account of Harm [Elektronisk resurs] A Reply to Immerman

• The counterfactual comparative account of harm (cca) faces well-known problems concerning preemption and omission. In a recent article in this journal, Daniel Immerman proposes a novel variant of cca, which he calls the worse than nothing account (wtna). According to Immerman, wtna nicely handles the preemption and omission problems. We seek to show, however, that wtna is not an acceptable account of harm. In particular, while wtna deals better than cca with some cases that involve preemption and omission, it has implausible implications in other similar cases – cases that, moreover, pose no problems for cca. 

Ämnesord

Humanities and the Arts  (hsv)

Philosophy, Ethics and Religion  (hsv)

Philosophy  (hsv)

Humaniora och konst  (hsv)

Filosofi, etik och religion  (hsv)

Filosofi  (hsv)

Genre

government publication  (marcgt)

Indexterm och SAB-rubrik

harm

counterfactual comparative account of harm

worse than nothing account of harm

preemption

omission