An Introduction to Ethics

Week Two: Utilitarianism

UtilitarianismRecap…

Hedonic Calculus

Haydn and the Oyster (higher Vs. lower pleasures)

Act Vs. Rule

UtilitarianismA few problems…

1. Utilitarianism and torture? (minimize suffering)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FR-FuhN2HM

2. The ‘dirty dentist’ (net pleasure)

3. ‘The Sheriff’ (minimize suffering)

Utilitarianism The Sheriff:

Suppose that in order to prevent a riot in which thousands would certainly be killed a sheriff were to frame and execute an innocent man. On utilitarian principles would not the sacrifice of one life in order to save thousands be justified? The usual utilitarian reply is that if such a thing were to be done it would probably be detected, or would leak out, that an innocent man had been punished, and the resulting destruction of faith in the law would lead to more harm than would result even from thousands of people being killed in the riot. If faith in the due processes of the law is destroyed the very foundations of society are shaken. If a potential criminal thinks that innocent people may be punished, he will be less likely to be deterred by the threat of punishment, since he may reasonably enough think that he might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a goat. Nevertheless, this sort of reply will not do, because the case can be made a very strong one: we may assume that detection of the sheriff's deceit is almost impossible. If need be the story can also be altered so as to make the likely harm done in the riot even greater than it was in the original story. There must come a time at which it will be agreed on all sides that the harm done by punishing the innocent man would be less (even much less) than that which would be done by the riot….

Utilitarianism Smart’s smart response:

Certainly it is cases such as this one which make me wonder whether after all I really am a utilitarian. To do a serious injustice to someone is a terrible thing. How terrible it must be for a man to know that he is about to be executed, or that he must stay in prison for many years. How much worse it must be for the man if he knows that he is innocent: to all the usual pains and penalties is added the anguish of his believing himself to be disgraced and held in contempt because people had false beliefs about him. It really is distressing even to think about such a case, let alone to be the victim oneself. And yet one can argue that our feelings of distress are (at least partly) due to looking at only one aspect of the situation. If the harm done to the victim really is (as on the hypothesis) much less than the harm that would have been caused by the riot, with the thousands of deaths, the fatherless and motherless children, and so on, then it ought to give us even more anguish if we contemplate this side of the story.

….The case is analogous to one in which I might have the knowledge to perform a life saving operation, but in which I just could not bring myself to cut into human flesh. This would be weakness of will, however laudable (because generally optimific) a squeamishness about cutting into human flesh would be in normal circumstances.

UtilitarianismAnscombe on thought experiments:

“the point of considering hypothetical situations, perhaps very improbable ones, seems to be to elicit from yourself or someone else a hypothetical decision to do something of a bad kind. I don’t doubt that this has the effect of predisposing people- who will never get into the situations for which they have made hypothetical choices – to consent to similar bad actions, or to praise and flatter those who do them, so long as their crowd does so too, when the desperate circumstances imagined do not hold at all.”

UtilitarianismDo we value pleasure absolutely?

Nozick’s happiness machine

UtilitarianismIntuition mongering?

Problem of consistency and conflicting intuitions.

Destructive Boss Vs. Environmental Boss

UtilitarianismSummary

Benefits:

UtilitarianismSummary

Benefits: simple theory, easy(ish) to apply, ‘naturalistic’, coheres with our initial thoughts on morality.

UtilitarianismSummary

Benefits: simple theory, easy(ish) to apply, ‘naturalistic’, coheres with our initial thoughts on morality.

Problems:

UtilitarianismSummary

Benefits: simple theory, easy(ish) to apply, ‘naturalistic’, coheres with our initial thoughts on morality.

Problems: permits acts we would not feel comfortable calling ‘morally good’, doesn’t seem to respect absolute authority of rights (not necessarily a problem), simplistic/reductive.