As Anderson emphasizes, the larger question behind this issue is how a society can accommodate a plurality of goods that are valued in different ways (1993, esp. ch. 1 and 3).
Some argue that there is a plurality of goods to be maximized, and of course not all consequentialists restrict these goods to welfare type goods—some argue that goods like justice and equality ought to be included.
If intuition reveals a plurality of ultimate goods, then an adequate theory must recognize that plurality.
Instead, plausibly, their theory is based on a loose notion of human welfare comprising a plurality of basic goods.
First, it wrongly assumes that there is a 'general character which makes right acts right', that of maximising a plurality of intrinsic goods (RG 16).
The Mohists' ethical theory is an interesting, complex form of consequentialism that posits a plurality of intrinsic goods, which are to be promoted through a variety of strategies.
They formulated China's first explicit ethical and political theories and advanced the world's earliest form of consequentialism, a remarkably sophisticated version based on a plurality of intrinsic goods taken as constitutive of human welfare.
Armed with an account of the main convictions of common-sense morality, Ross attacked ideal utilitarianism and Kantianism, though ideal utilitarianism, the view that the only basic moral requirement is to maximally promote a plurality of intrinsic goods, was his main opponent.[1] Ross's basic complaint about his rivals is that each, in a different way, 'over-simplifies the moral life' (FE 189).
Must perfectionists be monists, holding that there is at bottom only one form of life that is best for all human beings; or can they hold that there exists a plurality of equally good forms of life for human beings?
Earlier Mohist texts give no simple, unified definition of benefit (li), instead characterizing it loosely as comprising a plurality of material and social goods, specifically wealth, population, and social order.
Charlie Beckett, a professor in the school of media and communications at LSE, tells me: "We've been arguing for some time now that plurality of news media is good.
