2/20/14

The Trolley Problem

What would you do?

Major Norma5ve Theories

Consequen5alist v. Nonconsequen5alist
U5litarianism (Mill)

Kan5an Deontology (Kant)

Natural Law (Aquinas)

Virtue Ethics (Aristotle)

U5litarianism
Ac5ons are not good/evil in themselves
Depends on the consequences
Not concerned with mo5ve

Ac5ons evaluated as instrumental means

toward the end of happiness/pleasure

U5litarianism
Balancing the needs and interests of
everyone
Greatest Happiness for the Greatest
Number
Cost-Benet analysis

Sacricing Some for the Benet of

others?
Ex. Speed Limits
Ex. Torture
Ques5ons
Does it work?
What about rights or
integrity or moral
intui5ons?
How doe we calculate the
outcomes?

2/20/14

Peter Singer

Bentham and Mill

My own interests cannot count

for more, simply because they
are my own, than the interests of
others (p. 93)

Equal Considera5on of each

Democra5c, progressive,
empiricist, and op5mis5c
Equality of concern
Not aristocra5c

Ques5oning the status quo

Who Counts?

Each human?
Each member of our own society?
Each sen5ent being?

Peter Singer
b. 1946

Hedonism?
All other goods are
instrumental for producing
pleasure/happiness
Cf. psychological egoism

Is this merely a philosophy for

pigs?
Are there qualita5ve dierences
with regard to higher human
pleasures?

Cri5cisms of U5litarianism
Too hard to predict/calculate outcomes
Ignores moral intui5ons about what really
maeers
Reduces to hedonism
Rejects egois5c self-interest

Do our moral/legal rules promote

happiness or not?

Look at the facts of the world

Jeremy Bentham
1748-1832

U5litarianism is NOT Egoism

Cumula5ve happiness of
each
Universalist
My own happiness is only
part of the whole
May have to sacrice my
happiness for the benet of
others

In favor of u5litarianism
Happiness (pleasure) does seem to be the
nal end that we all pursue and desire
Impar5ality and neutrality are key
Quan5ta5ve analysis of pleasure/happiness
allows for a calculus

2/20/14

Act v. Rule U5litarianism

John Stuart Mill, U"litarianism

NOT merely Epicureanism

Ex. Promise keeping

ACT: evaluate from case to case and
maximize happiness for everyone
Can breaking a promise help make them
happy?

RULE: Does the general rule of

keeping promises tend to produce
happiness for everyone?
what if everyone broke their promises?

NOT a philosophy for swine

Be.er to be a human being

dissa"sed than a pig sa"sed;
be.er to be Socrates
dissa"sed than a fool sa"sed.
And if the fool or the pig are of
a dierent opinion, it is because
they only know their own side
of the ques"on .

J.S. Mill
1806-1873

Mill
Humans experience higher goods
Some kinds of pleasure are more
desirable
No human wants to be a mere beast
Higher being needs higher pleasures to
make him happy (more sensi5ve?)

Ex. Love of liberty and independence
maeer for human beings

Mill: Not Egoism

That standard is not the agents own greatest happiness, but
the greatest amount of happiness altogether; and if it may
possibly be doubted whether a noble character is always the
happier for its nobleness, there can be no doubt that it makes
other people happier, and that the world in general is
immensely a gainer by it. U"litarianism, therefore, could only
a.ain its end by the general cul"va"on of nobleness of
character, even if each individual were only beneted by the
nobleness of others, and his own, so far as happiness is
concerned, were a sheer deduc"on from the benet.

Mill: Golden Rule is the basic principle of altruism

Mill: Society produces swine

Capacity for the nobler feelings is in most natures a very tender
plant, easily killed, not only by hos"le inuences, but by mere
want of sustenance; and in the majority of young persons it
speedily dies away if the occupa"ons to which their posi"on in
life has devoted them, and the society into which it has thrown
them, are not favorable to keeping that higher capacity in
exercise. Men lose their high aspira"ons as they lose their
intellectual tastes, because they have not "me or opportunity for
indulging them; and they addict themselves to inferior pleasures,
not because they deliberately prefer them, but because they are
either the only ones to which they have access or the only ones
which they are any longer capable of enjoying.

Mill is an.-aristocra.c socialist

Mill: U5litarianism and Golden Rule

As between his own happiness and that of
others, u"litarianism requires him to be as
strictly impar"al as a disinterested and
benevolent spectator. In the golden rule of
Jesus of Nazareth, we read the complete spirit
of the ethics of u"lity. To do as you would be
done by, and to love your neighbour as
yourself, cons"tute the ideal perfec"on of
u"litarian morality.
(NOT included in MF, Chapter 5)

2/20/14

Mill: Empirical Approach

What maeers is what people want
and they want happiness
Virtue is desired because it is part of
happiness
As a means to happiness (and
protec5on from pain)
Useful for general happiness of the
whole

Is happiness/pleasure what maeers?

Is virtue useful for producing
happiness?