objections to utilitarianism

Question 1

genuine moral theory?

Answer 1

if the purpose of a moral theory is to do good, a theory including evil seems hardly a moral theory at all - permitting harm to be done; provided its outweighed by good, questions its morality

Question 2

harm > good?

[example of points & Mill’s poisons/opium argument]

Answer 2

1st instance, doing good is 500 points w/out any evil.
2nd instance, doing good is 501 points but w/ 1000 points of evil
- since there is more good, the 2nd option is preferred albeit a huge amount of evil with it
- links to Mill’s arguments about buying opium/poisons, where to preserve the rule, indiv. are permitted to do great harm to themselves

Question 3

practicality?

[time/capability/info]

Answer 3

• how capable are we of calcultaing outcomes?
• to make sound decision, need all relevant info; not always available
• may be restricted in time - need to decide actions quickly (life & death situations) not possible of going through a process of calculation

Question 4

decision making ability:

Answer 4

need sufficient intellectual ability to make the appropriate decisions - which isn’t applicable at all stages of life/for every person

Question 5

long term consquences?

[example of saving somone from drowning]

• given the future is uknown and there unforeseen consequences, are we ever able to describe a given act a unequivocally ‘good’ or ‘bad’?

Answer 5

it’s difficult to determine whether someone has performed a ‘good’ act
- saving a person from drowning is an immdiate good act, having saved a human life, however if they later bcome a mass murderer then does the act of saviour become bad?

Question 6

authority of judgement:

• if i were a benthamite hedonist, concerned only with [my] own pleasure, shld [I] counsel [you] to act in [your] best interests or what’d be best for [me]?

Answer 6

if it is hard to determine [my] own best interests, it is perhaps harder to determine the good outcome from [your] perspective than from [my] own
- judgements of any type seem fraught with difficulty

Question 7

absence of rights?

[example of Kantianism]

• a good is surely a good only if it’s experienced as a good, and such exp can only be felt by someone (sentient, suffering animals)

Answer 7

in utilitarinism, human(s) [rights] come seceondary to the ‘general happiness’

• kantians (& others) wld find this unacceptable, as they believe in treating everyone as an ‘end’ not a mere ‘means’
• the denial of natural rights seems to permit actual harm for a person for the sake of the general good.

Question 8

following utilitarianism?

[sir Bernand Williams]

“…𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐟𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧’𝐬 𝐚𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐛𝐞 𝐚 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐟 𝐢𝐧 𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐦 𝐚𝐬 𝐚𝐧 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐝𝐨𝐜𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐨𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐛𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭…”

Answer 8

a conscientious utilitarian will always be on their guard trying to prevent harm - which may call for preventative action (doing unpleasant to prevent worse) - if everyone did this, there’d be terrible acts of evil taking place everwhere so overall wld be worse than if noone were to do this; sggest shld only be a small elite - if true most of us ought not to follow utilitatinism