Douglas W. Portmore is Professor of Philosophy in the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies at Arizona State University. He is also an Associate Editor for Ethics: An International Journal of Social, Political and Legal Philosophy. His research focuses mainly on morality, rationality, and the interconnections between the two, but he has also written on well-being, posthumous harm, moral responsibility, and the non-identity problem. His latest book is Opting for the Best: Oughts and Options (OUP 2019).

Contents
1. Introduction, Douglas W. Portmore
I. Foundational Issues
2. Consequentializing, Paul Hurley
3. Relativized Rankings, Matthew Hammerton
4. Fault Lines in Ethical Theory, Shyam Nair
5. Consequences, Dale Dorsey
6. Alternatives, Holly M. Smith
7. Actualism, Possibilism, and the Nature of Consequentialism, Yishai Cohen and Travis Timmerman
8. Consequentialism, Blame, and Moral Responsibility, Elinor Mason
9. Consequentialism and Reasons for Action, Christopher Woodard
10. What should a consequentialist promote?, Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek

II. Objections
11. Understanding the Demandingness Objection, David Sobel
12. Consequentialism and Partiality, Diana Jeske
13. Must I Benefit Myself?, Michael Cholbi
14. Consequentialism and Supererogation, Alfred Archer
15. Consequentialism and Promises, Alida Liberman
16. Consequentialism, Ignorance, and Uncertainty, Krister Bykvist
17. Consequentialism and Action Guidingness, Frank Jackson
18. Consequentialism and Indeterminacy, Caspar Hare
19. Value Comparability, Alastair Norcross
20. Consequentialism, the Separateness of Persons, and Aggregation, David Brink
21. The Alienation Objection to Consequentialism, Barry Maguire and Calvin Baker

III. Forms and Limits
22. Global Consequentialism, Hilary Greaves
23. Rule Consequentialism, Brad Hooker
24. Consequentialism, Virtue, and Character, Julia Driver
25. Population Ethics, the Mere Addition Paradox, and the Structure of Consequentialism, Melinda Roberts
26. Deontic Pluralism and the Right Amount of Good, Richard Yetter Chappell
27. Conflicts and Cooperation in Act Consequentialism, Joseph Mendola

IV. Policy, Practice, and Social Reform
28. The Science of Effective Altruism, Victor Kumar
29. Effective Altruism: A Consequentialist Case Study, Judith Lichtenberg
30. Consequentialism and Nonhuman Animals, Tyler M. John and Jeff Sebo
31. Public Policy, Consequentialism, the Environment, and Non-Human Animals, Mark Budolfson and Dean Spears
32. The Love-Hate Relationships between Feminism and Consequentialism, Samantha Brennan
33. Act-Consequentialism and the No-Difference Challenge, Holly Lawford-Smith and William Tuckwell

Bibliography
Index

Consequentialism is a major moral theory in contemporary philosophy: it is the view that the only thing that matters when making moral decisions is the outcome of those decisions. Consequentialists hold that to morally assess an act, we must first evaluate and rank the various ways that things could turn out depending on whether it or some alternative act is performed. Whether we should perform that act thus depends on how its outcome ranks relative to those of its alternatives. Consequentialism rivals deontology, contractualism, and virtue ethics, but, more importantly, it has influenced contemporary moral philosophy such that the consequentialist/non-consequentialist distinction is one of the most central in normative ethics. After all, every plausible moral theory must concede that the goodness of an act's consequences is something that matters, even if it's not the only thing that matters. Thus, all plausible moral theories will accept that both 1) an act's producing good consequences constitutes a moral reason to perform it, and 2) the better its consequences, the more of a moral reason there is to perform it. In this way, much of consequentialist ethical theory is important for normative ethics in general.
This Oxford Handbook contains thirty-two previously unpublished contributions by top moral philosophers examining the current state of play in consequentialism and pointing to new directions for future research. The volume is organized into four major sections: foundational issues; objections to consequentialism; its forms and limits; and consequentialism's implications for policy, practice, and social reform.