Instrumental Normativity: In Defense of the Transmission Principle

If you ought to perform a certain act, and some other action is a necessary means for you to perform that act, then you ought to perform that other action as well – or so it seems plausible to say. This transmission principle is of both practical and theoretical significance. The aim of this paper is to defend this principle against a number of recent objections, which (as I show) are all based on core assumptions of the view called actualism. I reject actualism, provide an alternative explanation of its plausible features, and present an independent argument for the transmission principle.