Most ethical work is done at a low level of formality. This makes practical moral questions inaccessible to formal and natural sciences and can lead to misunderstandings in ethical discussion. In this paper, we use Bayesian inference to introduce a formalization of preference utilitarianism in physical world models, specifically cellular automata. Even though our formalization is not immediately applicable, it is a first step in providing ethics and ultimately the question of how to “make the world better” with (...) a formal basis. (shrink)

A well-known problem for preference-utilitarianism is to what extent it should exclude from consideration certain preferences. In this paper I focus on past preferences. I outline three general and some particular positions that a preference-utilitarian reasonably would want to take with regard to past preferences and why I think that endorsing each of these positions create new problems for the preference-utilitarian. At the end I sketch on a possible solution to the axiological problems here presented. However, (...) although the pluralistic approach that I outline shares with preference-utilitarianism the idea that what is valuable is the satisfaction of preferences, it is not a viable option for a utilitarian. My conclusion is therefore that preference-utilitarianism faces a serious axilogical problem. (shrink)

This paper revisits Richard Hare's classical and much discussed argument for preference utilitarianism, which relies on the conception of moral deliberation as a process of thought experimentation, with concomitant preference change. The paper focuses on an apparent gap in Hare's reasoning, the so-called No-Conflict Problem. A solution to this difficulty which was proposed in is re-examined and shown to lead to a number of difficulties. The paper therefore also considers an alternative idea, due to Daniel Elstein. This (...) new proposal may well turn out to be the best way of filling the gap in Hare's argument. The paper also examines whether the gap is there to begin with: The problem should perhaps be dissolved rather than solved. This suggestion goes back to an idea of Zeno Vendler. Unfortunately, it turns out that Vendler's move does not save Hare from criticism: It does dissolve the No-Conflict Problem, but at the same time it gives rise to another, potentially more serious difficulty. (shrink)

This paper revisits Richard Hare's classical and much discussed argument for preference utilitarianism, which relies on the conception of moral deliberation as a process of thought experimentation, with concomitant preference change. The paper focuses on an apparent gap in Hare's reasoning, the so-called No-Conflict Problem. A solution to this difficulty which was proposed in is re-examined and shown to lead to a number of difficulties. The paper therefore also considers an alternative idea, due to Daniel Elstein. This (...) new proposal may well turn out to be the best way of filling the gap in Hare's argument. The paper also examines whether the gap is there to begin with: The problem should perhaps be dissolved rather than solved. This suggestion goes back to an idea of Zeno Vendler. Unfortunately, it turns out that Vendler's move does not save Hare from criticism: It does dissolve the No-Conflict Problem, but at the same time it gives rise to another, potentially more serious difficulty. (shrink)

My purpose in this paper is to summarize some aspects of utilitarianism and to provide a general overview of Hare's preference utilitarianism, followed by a critique of Hare's preference theory.

For many philosophers working in the area of Population Ethics, it seems that either they have to confront the Repugnant Conclusion , or they have to confront the Non-Identity Problem . To them it seems there is no escape, they either have to face one problem or the other. However, there is a way around this, allowing us to escape the Repugnant Conclusion, by using what I will call Negative Average Preference Utilitarianism – which though similar to anti-frustrationism, (...) has some important differences in practice. Current “positive” forms of utilitarianism have struggled to deal with the Repugnant Conclusion, as their theory actually entails this conclusion; however, it seems that a form of Negative Average Preference Utilitarianism easily escapes this dilemma. (shrink)

This paper attempts to square libertarian principles with the reality of formal education by asking how far we should and can allow people to do as they wish in educational settings. The major focus is on children in schools, as the concept ‘childhood’ ipso facto implies restrictions on doing as one wishes, and schools as institutions entail inevitable constraints. Children by definition tend to enjoy stronger protection rights but weaker liberty rights than adults. A local preferential calculus is developed as (...) a guide for teachers, suggesting wishes should be granted where feasible and at least welfare neutral. In the case of teachers, employers set the parameters for the feasibility criterion but should also ensure at least welfare neutrality, while students in adult and higher education should be responsible for the feasibility and welfare outcomes of their own choices. (shrink)

This paper discusses the argument for preference utilitarianism proposed by Richard Hare in Moral Thinking(Hare, 1981). G. F. Schueler (1984) and Ingmar Persson (1989) identified a serious gap in Hare’s reasoning, which might be called the No-Conflict Problem. The paper first tries to fill the gap. Then, however, starting with an idea of Zeno Vendler, the question is raised whether the gap is there to begin with. Unfortunately, this Vendlerian move does not save Hare from criticism. Paradoxically, it (...) instead endangers the whole argumentative enterprise. (shrink)

This article presents a rule-utilitarian theory which lies much closer to the social contract tradition than most other forms of consequentialism do: calculated-rates rule preference utilitarianism. Being preference-utilitarian allows the theory to be grounded in instrumental rationality and the equality of agents, as opposed to teleological assumptions about impartial goodness. The calculated-rates approach, judging rules’ consequences by what would happen if they were accepted by whatever number of people is realistic rather than by what would happen if (...) they were accepted universally or by exactly 90% of the population, allows it to select rules based not just on their ability to give good advice to their followers but also on their ability to attract followers in the first place. The result is a theory that, although fully utilitarian and not at all pluralistic or intuitionist, nevertheless offers a principled justification for giving some weight to seemingly non-utilitarian considerations: Lockean natural rights, Kantian respect for autonomy, and Scanlonian distributive justice. (shrink)

Is Utilitarianism Bad for Women? Philosophers and policy-makers concerned with the ethics, economics, and politics of development argue that the phenomenon of ‘adaptive preference’ makes preference-utilitarian measures of well-being untenable. Poor women in the Global South, they suggest, adapt to deprivation and oppression and may come to prefer states of affairs that are not conducive to flourishing. This critique, however, assumes a questionable understanding of preference utilitarianism and, more fundamentally, of the concept of preference (...) that figures in such accounts. If well-being is understood as preference-satisfaction it is easy to see why poor women in the Global South are badly off: even if they do not desire more favorable conditions they nevertheless prefer them, and that preference is not satisfied. Preferentism provides a rationale for improving economic conditions and dismantling the unjust institutions that prevent them from climbing higher on their preference-rankings. Utilitarianism, therefore, insofar as utility is understood as preference satisfaction, is good for women. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to present an outline of the views of the contemporary Australian ethicist, Peter Singer, on utilitarian ethics. It is the intention of the author the show that he ponders with great commitment over contemporary bioethical issues, including those connected to euthanasia. From the point of view of the impartial observer, he also attempts to test our deep-rooted beliefs. He emphasizes the aspect that the principle of the sacrosanct value of human life is subject to (...) be questioned in the course of everyday life, due to the fact that nowadays attempts to assign a disparate value to human beings are no longer arbitrary. Attention is drawn to the fact that the consequences of Singer’s ethics may cause controversy. (shrink)

Personal utilitarianism applies act-utilitarianism to the problem of individual choice. It is based on the view that the good life is achieved through maximizing the sum of individual measures of utility over a population. the population being the sequence of semi-autonomous selves from which the individual is composed. I begin by showing how our lives can usefully be partitioned into selves because the weights put on our various choice motives are constantly changing and, consequently, our preferences themselves concerning (...) what we should choose at any given time can also change from moment-to-moment. In particular, because we put disproportionate weight on our present needs relative to our future ones, we often become impatient and choose options that offer immediate gratification. I use concepts from game theory to describe multiple selves, and to discuss how strategic interactions between selves are possible, and then conclude by considering the practical problem of how to achieve the good life, or how can we get our selves to choose what is best for us in the long run. (shrink)

I argue, first, that the deprived individuals whose predicaments Nussbaum cites as examples of "adaptive preference" do not in fact prefer the conditions of their lives to what we should regard as more desirable alternatives, indeed that we believe they are badly off precisely because they are not living the lives they would prefer to live if they had other options and were aware of them. Secondly, I argue that even where individuals in deprived circumstances acquire tastes for conditions (...) that we regard as bad, they are typically better off having their acquired preferences satisfied. If they are badly off it is because they cannot get what we and they, would regard as more desirable alternatives. Preference utilitarianism explains why individuals in such circumstances are badly off whether they have adapted to their deprived circumstances or not. Even if they prefer the conditions of their lives to all other available alternatives, most would prefer alternatives that are not available to them which would, on the preferentist account, make them better off. And that, on the preferentist account, is the basis for a radical critique of unjust institutions that limit people's options and prevent them from getting what they want. (shrink)

Utilitarianism does best to approach justice, rationality, and various virtues in symmetric and impartialist fashion. A scalar form of utilitarianism that makes only comparative judgments of better and worse may be preferable for abstract theoretical purposes, though not in practice.

The author re-examines Hare's multiple ways of connecting his metaethical with his normative doctrine, which is in formal sense determined as "Kantian utilitarianism", and in substantive sense as "preference-utilitarianism". Critical references to both dimensions of utilitarian doctrine aim at indication on scopes and limits of Hare's ambitious redefinition of the doctrine. Further on he discusses about so-called "necessary ingredient" of moral reasoning under the name of "sympathetic imagination", which Hare grasps in his developed theory not only as (...) a normative demand but also as a logical thesis. Finally, he considers kinds of preferences that can or cannot be recognized as morally relevant. Autor preispituje Herove visestruke pokusaje povezivanja metaetickog i normativno-etickog ucenja, koje je u formalnom smislu odredjeno kao "kantijanski utilitarizam", a u supstantivnom kao "utilitarizam preferencija". Kriticki osvrti na obe dimenzije utilitaristicke doktrine ciljaju na to da ukazu na domete i granice Herove ambiciozne redefinicije ove teorije. Potom se raspravlja o tzv. "nuznom sastojku" moralnog rasudjivanja pod imenom "simpateticka imaginacija", koju Her u svojoj razvijenoj teoriji poima ne samo kao normativni zahtev vec i kao izvesnu logicku tezu. I najzad, razmatraju se vrste preferencija koje, uz pomoc odredjenog niza kriterijuma, mogu ili ne mogu biti priznate kao moralno relevantne. (shrink)

What distinguishes preference utilitarianism from other utilitarian positions is the axiological component: the view concerning what is intrinsically valuable. According to PU, intrinsic value is based on preferences. Intrinsically valuable states are connected to our preferences being satisfied.

Preference utilitarianism is widely considered a significant advance on classical utilitarianism when it comes to explaining why it is wrong to kill people. This paper focuses attention on the nature of the preference utilitarian 'direct' objection to killing a person and on the related claim that a person's preferences are non-replaceable. I argue that the preference utilitarian case against killing people is overstated and overrated. My concluding remarks indicate the relevance of this discussion to deeper (...) issues in normative moral theory. (shrink)

What are the distributive implications of utilitarianism? Is it compatible with a concern for equality, as many utilitarians have argued? We analyse these questions in the context of a pure allocation problem. We consider an infinitely-lived economy and, drawing on the behavioural literature, assume that individuals have reference-dependent preferences: agents’ utility is a function of current consumption and a reference point which captures consumption habits, or the agents’ upbringing. Assuming a history of inequalities in consumption, we show that the (...) utilitarian allocation is equalising: starting from an unequal distribution, inequalities decrease over time at the utilitarian optimum. However, even though agents are in a relevant sense identical, equality does not obtain at any finite time. (shrink)

Modern utilitarianism has largely abandoned the view that human well-being consists solely in pleasurable sensations. Too much was wanting in that view for it to withstand the critique of a more refined philosophical psychology than was available to Bentham and Mill. The objections are by now familiar and need no detailed rehearsal. The older view failed to characterize adequately the structure of human satisfactions, forgetting that we can care about things that will happen after we are dead, that we (...) generally prefer to be told a distasteful truth to a comforting lie, and that we wish to be actors in our own lives and not merely passive recipients of pleasures from external sources. The extent to which a life is a flourishing one cannot be determined by summing the pleasures and pains, and calculating the balance. Nor, indeed, can it be determined by summing anything else. A life that is happy or eudaimon in the Aristotelian sense is an organic unity in which the significance of its parts rests on their contribution to the meaning of the whole. Nur im Zusammenhange eines Lebens hat ein Erlebnis Bedeutung. Utilitarianism needs to find a way of incorporating an organic view of human satisfaction. (shrink)

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. Requires signed TDF. ;In this thesis, I begin with some of the key assumptions of utilitarianism and argue that even in its own terms utilitarianism is in need of considerable revision. This is largely because its two central tenets come into conflict with each other in some cases. I argue that utilitarianism is in need of a fuller account of equality than it has traditionally employed, and that such (...) an improved conception of equality will lead the would-be utilitarian to drop the claim that all well-being must count morally. In particular, I argue that the fundamental step of morality might best be understood in terms of a right to equal consideration. However, a proper understanding of what this right entails leads one to a theory very much like utilitarianism. ;In Chapter II I attempt to put my utilitarian target in its most favourable light by considering which account of well-being is the most plausible as a thing which one might want to maximize as the basis of morality. Then, in Chapter III, I proceed to consider the possibility of a right-based moral theory. I examine the relationship between interests and rights, and argue that even if it is a necessary condition for the existence of rights that there be interests which they must protect, it is possible to have a right-based moral theory. This is made possible by the nature of the relationship between prudential value and moral value. I also argue that rights are particularly well suited to describe the importance of choice and autonomy in morality. Furthermore, I suggest that moral standing itself might best be seen in terms of possession of a waivable right. ;In Chapters IV and V, I set out the main argument that not all well-being can be allowed to count morally. In particular, I argue that enjoyment-producing preferences whose content is that others not be counted equally must be counted by utilitarianism but undermine that theory if it does try to count them. In the course of this criticism, I develop the sketch of an alternative but related theory which I call "right-based utilitarianism". In Chapter VI, I expand the description of this theory, and in Chapter VII I consider some of its implications and possible extensions, compared with standard forms of utilitarianism. Such a "right-based utilitarianism" is able to show utilitarianism the way out of at least some of its dilemmas while preserving that which gives utilitarianism its appeal. (shrink)

Classical utilitarianism attempts to reduce the moral significance of the individual to something more basic: the value of the individual is seen as fully grounded in considerations of utility maximization. This paper criticizes this aspect of utilitarianism and tries to do so through an appeal to considerations that would be acceptable to one who embraces utilitarianism. First, an example is developed in which (1) a pair of mutually exclusive actions each yield infinite utility; (2) neither action can (...) be said to yield more utility than the other, and (3) one of the actions is clearly preferable. This provides a case in which the moral significance of the individual cannot be fully reduced to considerations of utility maximizing features of the action. A second example, developed along the lines of the first example, involves only finite utilities. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 24 Moral theories which include a preference-fulfillment aspect should not restrict their concern to some subset of people’s preferences such as “now-for-now” preferences. Instead, preferences with all contents—e.g. ones which are external, diachronic, or even modal—should be taken into account. I offer a conceptualization of preferences and preference fulfillment which allows us to understand odd species of preferences, and I give a series of examples showing what it would mean to fulfill such preferences and (...) why we ought to do so. (shrink)

Lara Buchak argues for a version of rank-weighted utilitarianism that assigns greater weight to the interests of the worse off. She argues that our distributive principles should be derived from the preferences of rational individuals behind a veil of ignorance, who ought to be risk averse. I argue that Buchak’s appeal to the veil of ignorance leads to a particular way of extending rank-weighted utilitarianism to the evaluation of uncertain prospects. This method recommends choices that violate the unanimous (...) preferences of rational individuals and choices that guarantee worse distributions. These results, I suggest, undermine Buchak’s argument for rank-weighted utilitarianism. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to show how some of the controversial questions concerning utilitarianism can be clarified by the modelling techniques and the other analytical tools of decision theory (and, sometimes, of game theory). It is suggested that the moral rules of utilitarian ethics have a logical status similar to that of the normative rules (theorems) of such formal normative disciplines as decision theory and game theory.The paper argues that social utility should be defined, not in hedonistic (...) or in ideal-utilitarian terms, but rather in terms of individual preferences, in accordance with the author's equiprobability model of moral value judgments. (shrink)

Adaptive preferences are preferences formed in response to circumstances and opportunities – paradigmatically, they occur when we scale back our desires so they accord with what is probable or at least possible. While few commentators are willing to wholly reject the normative significance of such preferences, adaptive preferences have nevertheless attracted substantial criticism in recent political theory. The groundbreaking analysis of Jon Elster charged that such preferences are not autonomous, and several other commentators have since followed Elster’s lead. On a (...) second front, Capacity Theorists Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen have objected that adaptive preferences lead people away from objective goods and constitute an impediment to progressive change in developing countries. In this paper I argue that the criticisms of Elster, Sen and Nussbaum fail on the one hand to take into account what may be positively said in favour of this type of preference formation, and fail on the other hand to distinguish between different types of psychological changes – with the result that many of the critiques offered have a narrower purview than is currently allowed. My analysis of adaptive preferences, even in their most ideal form, is however not entirely positive; I adduce reasons why we can be cautious about allowing adaptive preferences to play certain types of roles in political processes, even as we accept those very preferences as normative and autonomous for the agent holding them. [International scholars without access to the AJPAE are invited to email [email protected] for a pdf copy of this article.]. (shrink)

Apparently the Western philosophical tradition has (wrongly) preferred speech over writing – so claims Jacques Derrida. In this paper, I consider whether utilitarianism involves such a preference. There are at least two arguments against the claim.

In his recent book,Rational Behaviour and Bargaining Equilibrium In Games and Social Situations, John C. Harsanyi devotes a chapter to his new theory of morality, which he calls ‘Critical Rule Utilitarianism’, and which contains his solution to the problem of the interpersonal comparison of utility. After a detailed exposition of his theory, arguments will be presented to show that:there are certain formal difficulties in the solution that he offers which leads to a rejection of the axiom that there is (...) to be agreement between an individualj’s personal preferences and individuali’s (i ≠j) extended utility function out of which the social welfare function is to be constructed; andHarsanyi’s theory of critical rule utilitarianism cannot be accepted as a theory of morality because it presupposes a more fundamental theory in its actual construction. (shrink)

I shall define a free action as one a man is able to do. Various things limit a man's freedom. The most unpopular is the government, or other people who have the power of preventing us from doing what we want. But our freedom is also circumscribed by lack of physical and mental strength or skill, including that of knowing how to manage other human beings. Other factors limiting our freedom are our ignorance, our passions and our habits. Some men (...) say they value their freedom from these things, especially their freedom from passion, so much that they would prefer to be in prison or on the rack rather than be a slave to them, but one suspects they exaggerate. (shrink)

How should we think of the preferences of citizens? Whereas self-optimal policy is relatively straightforward to produce, socially optimal policy often requires a more detailed examination. In this paper, we identify an issue that has received far too little attention in welfarist modelling of public policy, which we name the "hidden assumptions" problem. Hidden assumptions can be deceptive because they are not expressed explicitly and the social planner (e.g. a policy maker, a regulator, a legislator) may not give them the (...) critical attention they need. We argue that ethical expertise has a direct role to play in public discourse because it is hard to adopt a position on major issues like public health policy or healthcare prioritisation without making contentious assumptions about population ethics. We then postulate that ethicists are best situated to critically evaluate these hidden assumptions, and can therefore play a vital role in public policy debates. (shrink)

Is ethics about happiness? Aristotle thought so and for centuries Christians agreed, until utilitarianism raised worries about where this would lead. In this volume, Peter Singer, leading utilitarian philosopher and controversial defender of infanticide and euthanasia, addresses this question in conversation with Christian ethicists and secular utilitarians. Their engagement reveals surprising points of agreement and difference on questions of moral theory, the history of ethics, and current issues such as climate change, abortion, poverty and animal rights. The volume explores (...) the advantages and pitfalls of basing morality on happiness; if ethics is teleological, is its proper aim the subjective satisfaction of preferences? Or is human flourishing found in objective goods: friendship, intellectual curiosity, meaningful labour? This volume provides a timely review of how utilitarians and Christians conceive of the good, and will be of great interest to those studying religious ethics, philosophy of religion and applied ethics. (shrink)

Utilitarianism seems to be going out of fashion, amidst increasing concerns for issues of freedom, equality, and justice. At least, anti-utilitarian and non-utilitarian moral philosophers have been very active. This paper is a very modest attempt to defend utilitarianism in particular and welfarism in general. Section I provides an axiomatic defence of welfarism and utilitarianism. Section II discusses the divergences between individual preferences and individual welfares and argues in favour of welfare utilitarianism. Section III criticizes some (...) non-utilitarian principles, including knowledge as intrinsically good, rights-based ethics, and Rawls's second principle. Section IV argues that most objections to welfarism are probably based on the confusion of non-ultimate considerations with basic values. This is discussed with reference to some recent philosophical writings which abound with such confusion. Section V argues that the acceptance of utilitarianism may be facilitated by the distinction between ideal morality and self-interest which also resolves the dilemma of average versus total utility maximization in optimal population theory. (shrink)

According to Singer, it is not directly wrong to kill 'non-self-conscious beings', such as lower animals, human foetuses and newborn infants, provided that any consequent loss of happiness is made good by the creation of new sentient life. In contrast, normal adult humans, being 'self-conscious', generally have a strong preference for going on living, the flouting of which cannot, Singer argues, be morally counterbalanced by creating new, equally happy individuals. Singer's case might be reinforced by taking account, not only (...) of the preference for continued life itself, but also of other preferences for whose satisfaction continued life is essential. It proves difficult, however, to find a formulation of 'preference utilitarianism' which, while lacking other obviously unacceptable consequences, supports Singer's 'non-replaceability principle'. Also, Singer's position fails adequately to accommodate our conviction that the lives of human beings are, in general, more valuable than those of other animals. Finally, his thesis that lower animals (let alone human infants) are replaceable, has decidely counterintuitive implications. (shrink)

Ramsey famously condemned discounting “future enjoyments” as “ethically indefensible”. Suppes enunciated an equity criterion which, when social choice is utilitarian, implies giving equal weight to all individuals’ utilities. By contrast, Arrow accepted, perhaps reluctantly, what he called Koopmans’ :287–309, 1960) “strong argument” implying that no equitable preference ordering exists for a sufficiently unrestricted domain of infinite utility streams. Here we derive an equitable utilitarian objective for a finite population based on a version of the Vickrey–Harsanyi original position, where there (...) is an equal probability of becoming each person. For a potentially infinite population facing an exogenous stochastic process of extinction, an equitable extinction biased original position requires equal conditional probabilities, given that the individual’s generation survives the extinction process. Such a position is well-defined if and only if survival probabilities decline fast enough for the expected total number of individuals who can ever live to be finite. Then, provided that each individual’s utility is bounded both above and below, maximizing expected “extinction discounted” total utility—as advocated, inter alia, by the Stern Review on climate change—provides a coherent and dynamically consistent equitable objective, even when the population size of each generation can be chosen. (shrink)

This dissertation argues for a particular interpretation of John Stuart Mill’s utilitarianism, namely that Mill is best read as a sanction utilitarian. In general, scholars commonly interpret Mill as some type of act or rule utilitarian. In making their case for these interpretations, it is also common for scholars to use large portions of Mill’s Utilitarianism as the chief source of insight into his moral theory. By contrast, I argue that Utilitarianism is best read as an ecumenical (...) text where Mill explains and defends the general tenets of utilitarianism rather than setting out his own preferred theory. The exception to this ecumenical approach to the text comes in the fifth chapter on justice which, I argue on textual and historical grounds, outlines the central features of Mill’s utilitarianism. -/- With this understanding of Utilitarianism in place, many of the passages commonly cited in favor of the previous interpretations are rendered less plausible, and interpretations emphasizing Mill’s other writings are strengthened. Using this methodology, I critique four of the most prominent act or rule utilitarian interpretations of Mill’s moral theory. I then provide an interpretation of Mill’s theory of moral obligation and utilitarianism. On Mill’s account of moral obligation (which purportedly holds for moral theories generally, not just utilitarianism) there is a tight relation between an action being wrong and it being subject to punishment by an agent’s conscience. The utilitarian aspect of Mill’s theory concerns the role of rules in an agent’s conscience. According to Mill’s sanction utilitarian view, the actions that are punished are those actions that violate the moral rules which, if widely internalized across society, would promote general utility. On this account, an action is wrong when an agent violates a justified moral rule and is properly punished, at least by one’s conscience. An action is right when conditions are such that if the action were not performed, then the action would be properly punished by at least the agent’s conscience. I apply this interpretation to other notable components of Mill’s approach such as his account of practical action (the Art of Life) and his theory of liberty. (shrink)

In “The Concept of the Irreplaceable,” John N. Martin claims that utilitarian arguments can explain the environmentalist position concerning the preservation of natural objects as long as human attitudes toward preservation are considered along with the direct benefits of environmental preservation. But this type of utilitarian justification is biased in favor of the satisfaction of human preferences. No ethical theory which calculates goodness in terms of the amount of human satisfaction can present an adequate justification of environmental preservation. Since human (...) interests must be considered primary, natural objects will only be preserved when their preservation is in accord with human preferences. (shrink)

Despite the prevalence of the terms utilitarianism and utilitarian in the health care and health policy literature, anecdotal evidence suggests that authors are often not fully aware of the diversity of utilitarian theories, their principles, and implications. Further, it seems that authors often categorically reject utilitarianism under the assumption that it violates individual rights. The tendency of act utilitarianism to neglect individual rights is attenuated, however, by the diminishing marginal utility of wealth and the disutility of a (...) protest by those who are disadvantaged. In practice, act utilitarians tend to introduce moral rules and preserve traditional rules. At the same time, the tenability of rule utilitarianism is limited because it ultimately collapses into act utilitarianism or a deontological theory. Negative utilitarianism is a viable utilitarian variant only if we accept complete aversion to suffering, ie, if we disregard any forgone opportunities to increase pleasure. Finally, the adoption of preference utilitarianism requires us to accept the subjectivity of individual claims which may be perceived as unfair. (shrink)

Utilitarians and their critics commonly assume that maximizing utilitarianism necessarily aggregates over cardinal comparable personal utility rankings that are homogeneous in quality independently of their sources or objects, whether utility is conceived in terms of pleasure or preference satisfaction. Although familiar versions of utilitarianism, crude or sophisticated, do make such rich homogeneous utility information part of the very meaning of the doctrine, utilitarian philosophy loses credibility as a result. A more credible version of maximizing utilitarianism along (...) John Stuart Mill's lines relies instead on plural kinds of ordinal non-comparable personal utilities that are heterogeneous in quality. One kind of utility is qualitatively superior to another if and only if the higher kind is more valuable than the lower kind irrespective of quantity. Given that the kind of utility associated with the moral sentiment of justice is qualitatively superior to any competing kinds, Mill's pluralistic ordinal utilitarianism gives absolute priority to a social code of equal rights and duties over competing considerations. Some key practical implications of this extraordinary utilitarianism are discussed with reference to various examples of the sort discussed in the literature. (shrink)

Perhaps the most salient feature of Rawls's theory of justice which at once attracts supporters and repels critics is its apparent egalitarian conclusion as to how economic goods are to be distributed. Indeed, many of Rawls's sympathizers may find this result intuitively appealing, and regard it as Rawls's enduring contribution to the topic of economic justice, despite technical deficiencies in Rawls's contractarian, decision-theoretic argument for it which occupy the bulk of the critical literature. Rawls himself, having proposed a “coherence” theory (...) of justification in metaethics, must regard the claim that his distributive criterion “is a strongly egalitarian conception” as independently a part of the overarching moral argument. The alleged egalitarian impact of Rawls's theory is crucial again in normative ethics where Rawls is thought to have developed a major counter-theory to utilitarianism, one of the most popular criticisms of which has been its alleged inadequacy in handling questions of distributive justice. Utilitarians can argue, however, as Brandt recently has, that the diminishing marginal utility of money, along with ignorance of income-welfare curves, would require a utility-maximizing distribution to be substantially egalitarian. The challenge is therefore for Rawls to show that his theory yields an ethically preferable degree of equality. (shrink)

Landesman criticizes the act utilitarianism presented in j j c. Smart's "an outline of a system of utilitarian ethics". A system which eschews rules and proposes the maximization of happiness as the "only" reason for preferring one action over another, He charges, Cannot justify fairness and impartiality in ethics. (staff).

Ng and singer derive the principle of utility from the fact of finite sensibility and another principle, weak majority preference: "for a community of n individuals choosing between two possibilities, x and y, if no individual prefers y to x, and at least n/2 individuals prefer x to y, then x increases social welfare and is preferable." this derivation is regarded as incorrect in a comment. this reply explains why the derivation is valid and shows that the comment is (...) based on confusing a general social ordering with a utilitarian one. (shrink)