Ethics paper
jerliu
week3-day1.pptxUtilitarianism
And the debate therein
Utilitarianism as a Radical Idea
Late 18th and early 19th Centuries
Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill
What’s happening at the time?
Why is Utilitarianism a revolutionary idea?
Let’s examinate some problems.
Euthanasia
Euthanasia
Consider: A person in extreme pain, and on their deathbed.
They ask for mercy; death.
Is it moral to help this person kill themselves?
What is the argument against this?
What is the argument against this?
It is immoral to kill, and therefore it is immoral to help someone take their life.
Where does this come from?
What is the argument against this?
It is immoral to kill, and therefore it is immoral to help someone take their life.
Where does this come from?
Religious doctrine. God says so.
What is the argument for this?
The man is incredibly unhappy
Under Utilitarianism, what is the act that will produce the greatest balance of happiness over unhappiness?
Does this necessarily fly in the face of our conception of moral law and God?
2. Marijuana
2. Marijuana
Consider: a younger person may deny any negative side-effects of marijuana
An older person may think that drug use, ipso facto, is immoral
What would a Utilitarian say? Is it immoral to smoke pot?
What is the argument from Utilitarianism?
What is the main principle we should analyze this from?
What is the argument from Utilitarianism?
What is the main principle we should analyze this from?
What happiness can pot use cause?
What unhappiness can pot use cause?
What about pot and the law?
Considerations?
What about pot and the law?
Considerations? Immoral (society worse off):
People would be less productive
People could drive while high
What about pot and the law?
Considerations? Society better off:
Pot might replace alcohol, which is even worse
Pot fuels drug wars
Lost revenue
Harm inflicted upon offenders
Ill will that drug enforcement causes
3. Nonhuman Animals
3. Nonhuman Animals
Traditional thinking: animals are for our own use
We use them in experiments
We eat them
We use them for amusement
In traditional thinking, does this mean we can also torture them?
3. Nonhuman Animals
They are made for us
They are not human
They are not rational
They cannot speak
3. Nonhuman Animals
What about from a Utilitarian view?
3. Nonhuman Animals
What about from a Utilitarian view?
If an animal can experience happiness, then that’s all that matters.
The day may come when the rest of animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may one day come to be recognized that the number of legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or perhaps the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day or a week or even a month old. But suppose they were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?
Does this mean that animals are equals?
The Debate Over Utilitarianism
Classical Utilitarianism
The morality of an action depends solely on the consequences of the action; nothing else matters.
An action’s consequences matter only insofar as they involve the greater or lesser happiness of individuals.
In the assessment of consequences, each individual’s happiness gets equal consideration.
Problems?
Is Pleasure all that matters?
Consider
A friend talking behind your back, but you never find out
This does not technically cause you harm…
A pianist who injures her hands severely
But could she find pleasure elsewhere?
2. Are consequences all that matter?
Justice
Suppose a utilitarian were visiting an area in which there was racial strife, and that, during his visit, a Negro rapes a white woman, and that race riots occur as a result of the crime, white mobs, with the connivance of the police, bashing and killing Negroes, etc. Suppose too that our utilitarian is in the area of the crime when it is committed such that his testimony would bring about the conviction of a particular Negro. If he knows that a quick arrest will stop the riots and lynchings, surely, as a utilitarian, he must conclude that he has a duty to bear false witness in order to bring about the punishment of an innocent person.
Rights
Or a woman goes to the police after being abused, and the police take pictures as evidence.
But then the images are circulated throughout the police department…
Backward-Looking Reasons
You make a promise to meet someone for dinner, but then decide you’d rather stay home than go out. You can’t notify your friend, but you stay home anyway.
You are happy, your friend is mildly annoyed.
3. Should we be equally concerned for everyone?
You cannot buy things that you want (PlayStation, new car, etc)
We are, in reality, deeply partial to certain people.
Responses
Contesting Consequences
What are the actual consequences of lying in our situation of the false accusation?
Contesting Consequences
What are the actual consequences of lying in our situation of the false accusation?
This is not an excellent defense, though, because it does not apply to all situations. I.e. the white lie
2. Rules, Not Acts
Which set of rules is optimal from the utilitarian viewpoint?
For instance, what rules of conduct promote the most happiness in the case of our liar? “Don’t bear false witness.”
*but to do rules have exceptions?*
3. Common Sense Cannot be Trusted
If we consult our “common moral consciousness,” many considerations other than utility seem morally important.
“There must be still other countless errors of the same sort that no living man can yet detect, because of the fog within which our type of Western culture envelops us. Cultural influences have set up the assumptions about the mind, the body, and the universe with which we begin; pose the questions we ask; influence the facts we seek; determine the interpretations we give these facts; and direct our reaction to these interpretations and conclusions.”
