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22 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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what is a Utilitarian?
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a person who believes that the rightness of an act can be defined of the goodness;
Believes that there is value in the world, the value will determine if act is right or wrong; a person who looks at the different actions they can perform, then looks at the consequences/benefits each action will produce (how it will affect you and others involved) and chooses the action that has the highest utility after the consequences have been taken into account |
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what is the difference between an Act Utilitarian and a (Primitive) Rule Utilitarian?
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Act Utilitarian: a person who believes that an act is right if and only if the act produces at least as much goodness of any alternative act
Primitive Rule Utilitarian: a person who believes that an act is right IF the act is done in accordance with a rule which when followed produces at least as much good (net value, utility) as following any alternative rule ex: football lover example |
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why did the Utilitarians come up with Rule Utilitarianism when they already had Act Utilitarianism?
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They have seen that some of the results generated by the application of a thorough going act utilitarianism are morally unacceptable. They may also have seen that there appears to be a pattern in the objections. For each objection seems to show, in its own way, that act utilitarianism is too atomistic. That is, act utilitarianism requires that each act be judged entirely on its own consequences. The motivation behind the attempt to formulate a coherent rule utilitarianism seems to be something like this: Utility is clearly of moral significance.
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What is a Deontologist?
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a person who believes that rightness can't be defined as terms of goodness;
'a person...' that some acts are right even though they don't do as much good as other acts and some acts are wrong even if they do the most good 'a person...' that there is at least one moral rule that ought not to be broken even when it does more good to break it. (ascribe to rules of Right) *a deontologist can be a hedonist *deontologists dont think you can define rightness in terms of good and evil |
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what is the difference between a Deontologist and any Utilitarian?
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Deontologists believe that rightness can't be defined in terms of goodness - which is inconsistent with the beliefs of Utilitarians
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what is the difference between the Deontologist and the (Primitive) Rule Utilitarian?
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Rule Utilitarian defines rightness in terms of goodness of the RELEVANT RULE and a Deontologist doesn't
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What were the examples given in class (both in explaining the Deontologist position and in listing objections to Utilitarianism) of acts done in circumstances that are characteristic of only the Deontologist? (That is, if a person does any of these acts, he or she is more likely to be a Deontologist)
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Dr. Ruth Case
Pedro Guerrilla Case Tyson Rape Case |
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Dr. Ruth Case
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● Wanted to divorce husband but didn’t want to split up the wealth
● There was this guy that raped women alone and came into their house, had been happening in that neighborhood ● She uses that case as an example to kill her husband, when her husband decides to go out drinking again, she knows that he can’t put his key into the door because he’s so drunk, scoots along the bushes to the window that’s open, she makes sure the window is open, and around midnight she hears husband try to put key into door, then hears him coming around, and she went to bed and had her shot gun right next to her, guy crawls towards her and she kills the guy and turns on light; then sees that its the late night rapist, did she do something wrong? ● What she did is attempted murder of husband. If intention is not part of the act then she killed someone who is a killer out of self-defense ● Some Deontologists say that shooting him in the dark like that was wrong ● Act Utilitarian can say that we have to separate act from person and evaluate the act on the basis of what happened, the actual consequences. ● Evaluate the person according to intentions, you can say she was a bad person, but the act was a right act since she killed a rapist |
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Pedro Guerrilla Case
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● You are a business transporting goods and taking out archaeological finds from Mayan cities for example and you have to pass through jungles sometimes. These jungles that you have to pass through are having a civil war. There’s a guerrilla war leader named Pedro and he likes to put people in moral dilemmas because he likes to see people squirm, and you finally one day you run into Pedro. He has tied up twenty natives that have nothing to do with the war, one of the people he has tied up is a little girl, and there’s a gun tied up next to her pointing at her. Pedro says he has a proposition, he says shoot the girl and let the natives go, don’t shoot and he kills all of them. If he would shoot the little girl, you would save more lives!
● Some Deontologists say that you shouldn’t do that, why? ○ They say because what you do is your moral responsibility and Pedro is responsible for his own morals; if he kills those people then it’s his fault not yours. You should not kill the little girl (just do nothing?), but whatever he ends up doing after your decision is his moral dilemma. ● The theory fails to recognize the moral independence of one moral agent from another |
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Tyson Rape Case
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● Found guilty, raped a girl at 2AM, went to jail
○ Normally yes, he should go to jail because rape is wrong; but suppose the following were true ● Tyson raped the girl, as a result she became wary of men, jaded, she didn’t marry the guy she would’ve married ○ If she had married him then she would’ve had a child, and that child would’ve become president of U.S. ○ He becomes president and starts WWIII; life on the planet is virtually snuffed out ○ Is the act of rape Tyson did wrong if everything would’ve followed? If he rapes girl, no war, if he doesn’t, WWII starts; so which act is right? ○ It looks like Tyson did best thing he could’ve done, he saved the planet! He didn’t know he was doing it ○ The state of your mind doesn’t matter whether the act is right or wrong, it’s the CONSEQUENCES (Act Utilitarian); act that has most utility is OBLIGATORY; Tyson did what he had to do, even if it doesn’t seem right ● Some Utilitarian’s try to alter theory and say that they try to see foreseeable consequences ● What’s really being attacked is this: the theory prevents one being certain that any act is right or wrong even in cases when one is in fact certain (e.g: Tyson Rape Case) ● It is certain that Tyson’s rape is wrong, but theory doesn’t allow us to be right or wrong; you cannot foresee all the consequences ● General feature of the theory is that it doesn’t allow you to be certain about moral acts * Punishment of the innocent / allows heavy punishments for small crimes (e.g. if sacrificing an innocent will cause more good to more people). * Let guilty go unpunished / allows light punishment for grave crimes (e.g. letting a wrong act go unpunished if the guilty person will go on and cause more good to more people than he hurt). * Allows promise breaking (diminishes value of one’s word to favor a greater amount of utility). |
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Why can’t a person be both a Deontologist and a Utilitarian? Or be a Deontologist with respect to some issues and a Utilitarian with respect to other issues? (You can’t)
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One cannot be both a Deontologist and a Utilitarian because Deontologists believe that there is at least one moral rule that cannot be broken whereas a Utilitarian would break any rules in order to favor the act that produces the most good regardless of other moral aspects.
Also a Utilitarian will always determine a “right” act in terms of goodness. A Deontologist believes the “most good” act is not always right and an act that may not produce the most good is not always a wrong act. |
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How can you tell whether or not someone is a Utilitarian?
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You can tell if a person is a Utilitarian if they do the thing that maximizes utility no matter if intuitively they feel it is wrong.
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What is the correct version of Act Utilitarianism, according to Feldman? How does he define utility? (from reading)
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Feldman regards U7 as the best version of Act Utilitarianism: U7 is stated as, "An act is right if and only if there is no other act the agent could have done instead that has higher utility than it has”.
- Feldman's definition of utility: is the value reached by subtracting the total pain resulting from a given act from the total pleasure resulting from the same act |
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State the versions of Act Utilitarianism U6 through U9. Identify the correct version by number, and for each of the remaining versions explain what its defect is. (from reading)
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U6: An act is right if and only its utility is higher than the utility of any other act the agent could have done instead.
Defect: there is no right act in a case where there are two acts with the same utility and no act with a higher utility than the two equal ones. - U7: An act is right if and only if there is no other act the agent could have done instead that has higher utility than it has. - U8: An act is right if and only if it produces the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Defect: requires us to maximize two independent variables." It opens it up for a case where one act produces the highest utility but a different act has the widest distribution of happiness, so no act is right on U8. - U9: An act is right if and only if it causes more pleasure and less pain than any other act the agent could have done instead. Defect: requires maximizing two independent variables. There may be cases where the act which results in the greatest amount of pleasure is not identical to the act which results in the least amount of pain, and no act will be right on U9 |
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State the titles of all of the objections to Act Utilitarianism that Feldman lists and explains in Chapter 4. Then explain each objection, using the examples that he uses to explain the objections. (from reading)
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Mailman passes a burning house. Fireman believe there is a baby inside but can’t get close enough. the mailman puts down is stuff and runs inside. Saves the baby from a terrible fate... “beyond the call of duty”
Supererogation objection - 1. if U7 is true, the mailman in the example is morally obligated to save the baby Suppose a girl comes into the kitchen to eat and sees 3 kinds of cereal Wheat, Rice and Oat Toasties, she doesn’t pay much attention and doesn’t really care, although she will get slightly more pleasure from eating the Oat toasties. neither she nor anyone else will suffer from her decision Triviality Objection If U7 is true, the girl is morally obligated to eat Oat Toasties Triviality Objection: Exposes the problem that U7 passes moral judgement on every act. U7 indicates that the girl must eat a certain type of cereal or it will be wrong. Obviously she does not, therefore the point of triviality objection is to indicate that you do not need to pass moral judgement on every single act. Some acts may be permitted even thought less utility is produced. Suppose a young man has been generously supported throughout his college career by his grandfather. As a graduation present, the grandfather has taken the youth on a round-the world- sailboat trip and he is pumped. The boat wrecks and was up on shore on a deserted tropical island. The youth is fit the grandfather is not. The grandfather dies and his last dieing request is for the son to bury him in a suitable grave and say a prayer over it and the son promises Promise- to - the- dead-man objection If U7 is true, the grandson is not morally obligate to bury the body Morality-of-Promises Objection - this follows the previous example If U7 is true, then the only moral reason for keeping a promise is that doing so would maximize utility Suppose a deranged killer has committed a series of horrible crimes. Finally commits suicide. The police suspect that the man is in fact the man who committed the crimes, but they have no proof. At this point, some otherwise law-abiding individuals unaware of the suicide of the suspect, decide that they have an especially good opportunity to commit similar crimes. By following the pattern set by the deranged killer, they make it seem that he’s still on the scene and doings these crimes. They assume that the police will never suspect that anyone other than the original killers is involved. Now imagine that a high-ranking police official makes the following proposal to the police chief to arbitrarily select some innocent citizen, proclaim him to the be the killer, produce a large body of manufacture evidence against him and then when he has been found guilty hang him in public. Doing this will stop the crime wave of the individuals Punish-the-innocent Objection If U7 is true, the chief is morally obligated to authorize the frame-up Morality-of-punishment objection - this follows the previous example If U7 is true, the only moral reason for punishing someone is that doing so would maximize utility. Suppose a dictator has it in his power to enact either of two laws governing taxation. Under one law each citizen pays exactly ten percent of his income in taxes. Under the other law, all members of the dictator’s political party pay no taxes at all, and each member of the opposition party pays twenty percent of his income in taxes. Assume that the revenue collected would be the same in either case, and that each citizen has the same income as every other citizen. It might happen, that the total amount of utility that would be produced by the uniform taxation scheme would be exactly equal to the total amount of utility that would be produced by the discriminatory taxation scheme. This could happen, for example, if the pain caused by paying twenty percent is just twice as great as the pain cause by paying ten percent and if paying no taxes produces no pain at all. U7 implies that in this case, either taxation scheme would be morally right Justice Objection If U7 is true, then the only moral reason for preferring one distribution of goods over another is that the one would produce more utility than the other |
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What according to Feldman is it for one ethical theory to be extensionally equivalent to another ethical theory? Explain why, according to Feldman, Primitive Rule Utilitarianism is extensionally equivalent to Act Utilitarianism? What is the importance of this equivalence? (from reading)
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Two theories are extensionally equivalent if they agree on which acts are right and which acts are wrong, even if they have different definitions of rightness (not goodness)
If two different theories differ on definition of good, but both choose the same acts as being right and the same acts as being wrong - Act Utilitarianism: the right act is that which produces the most utility. - Rule Utilitarianism: the right act is that which abides to the rule that, when followed, produces the most utility. Given that this rule is to always choose the act that produces the most utility, then both theories are extensionally equivalent. |
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How does Brandt’s Ideal Moral Code Theory escape Feldman’s criticism of Primitive Rule Utilitarianism? What objections does Feldman offer against Brandt’s theory? (from reading)
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- Theory prevents one from being certain that any act is right/wrong even in cases where one is in fact certain
- Theory fails to recognize the moral Independence of one moral agents from another moral agents - Theory fails to include the intention into the evaluation of the act |
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An intrinsically good thing or event is
(a) one that has good consequences but no bad ones, (b) one that has no consequences, (c) one that is made good by its good causes, (d) one that is good independently of its causes and effects, (e) one that has a net positive value when you subtract the evil that it does from the good it causes. |
D
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The reason that a Deontologist cannot be any kind of Rule Utilitarian (not even one like Brandt) is that
(a) the Rule Utilitarian defines rightness in terms of the goodness of rules and the Deontologist does not, (b) all Utilitarians (including Brandt) have theories that are extensionally equivalent to Act Utilitarianism, (c) Deontologists do not accept the basic ideas of good and evil —— just those of right and wrong, (d) a Deontologist cannot be a hedonist but a Rule Utilitarian can be, (e) the Deontologist thinks that goodness (net value) is always irrelevant to the rightness of an act whereas the Utilitarian thinks goodness is always relevant. |
A
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If you know that someone thinks that it is wrong to hand over an unwilling innocent person to a terrorist group even if would save more lives in the long run, then you can correctly infer that she is a(n)
(a) Rule Utilitarian (b) Pacifist (c) Act Utilitarian (d) Deontologist (e) none of the above. |
D
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One objection against Act Utilitarianism that Feldman stated was the Lack of Self— Development Objection, which says that by concentrating entirely on social utility the Act Utilitarian omits that aspect of morality that has to do with developing one’s inner self.
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FALSE
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Feldman rejects U6 (An act is right if and only if its utility is higher than the utility of any other act the agent could have done instead) because it does not deal adequately with cases in which a person has two equally good choices and no other choice is better.
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TRUE
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