Placement Practice Job Talk—Rowan Mellor

It seems possible for many actions to cause harm collectively, without any single action making a difference to the harm in question. This raises a puzzle. It is tempting for an individual to argue as follows: ‘Since my action makes no difference, I have no reason not to do it’. It seems as though this argument must go wrong somewhere. But where? The challenge of answering this question is what I call the ‘no-difference challenge’. This talk defends a skeptical approach, according to which there is no answer to the no-difference challenge: that is, there is nothing wrong with thinking ‘my action makes no difference, so I have no reason not to do it’. This approach has been largely dismissed. I will argue, however, that it warrants serious consideration.