 One need not deny the very possibility of an agent-neutral ranking of states of affairs in terms of value, in order to recognize the existence of deontological prohibitions of this sort. One need only hold that such an impersonal ranking does not in itself determine our moral obligations. Philosophers such as John Taurek have taken the further step and argued that the various goods of individual persons cannot be added up to a total ‘overall’ good in any meaningful sense, and that the traditional consequentialist conception of right action as maximizing the overall good is therefore incoherent (Taurek 1977). Indeed, Taurek claims, such decision-making actually fail to show equal respect for all persons concerned. (Taurek’s denial that one can aggregate various individual goods can be regarded as a strong version of the Rawlsian claim that morality must respect a ‘distinction between persons.’) Suppose a lifeguard must choose between saving one drowning person or saving five; whomever she chooses not to save will drown, and she cannot save both groups. Most consequentialists (and many others) would take it as obvious that, at least in the absence of very special circumstances (the solitary drowner’s being the potential author of Telemachus, for instance) the five should be saved rather than the one. But to assume this, Taurek argues, would be to fail to show the one the same respect one shows the five: after all, this response leaves the single victim no chance at all of being rescued. Taurek’s controversial suggestion is that the lifeguard would show equal respect by flipping a coin, as this would offer every person involved an equal chance (fifty percent) of being rescued. Not surprisingly, Taurek’s argument has engendered a substantial amount of discussion and criticism (see for instance Kamm 1993 Chapters 5 &amp; 6, Kavka 1979, Otsuka 2000, Parfit 1978.)