Dibattito sull' utilitarismo. Caplan vs Summer
- Una serie di controesempi confutano l'u.
- risposta standard: l evol. ha inoculato dei bias nelle ns. intuizioni morali.
- controreplica: xchè allora postulare la sofferenza come male e la felicità come bene nn è un bias?
- la caricatura dell utilitarismo si rifiuta di guardare all utilitarismo delle regole concentrandosi sui buchi dell utilitarismo degli atti
- ma l ut. degli atti si può sempre trasformare in utilitarismo delle regole. es.: regola: punire il colpevole a meno che...
- critica: calcolare le conseguenze richiede tempo... risposta: nulla impedisce di calcolare a spanne
- critica: calcolare è impossibile... risposta: quello che conta è la propensione utilitarista... controreplica: se onesta conduce a conclusioni assurde
- critica: l u. ci chide troppo. singer accetta la critica e macchia d ipocrisia la sua proposta... altri cercano di modificare u. con il concetto di supererogatorio oppure il precetto di uguaglianza... altri trasformano u. da etica individuale a precetto x le politiche pubbliche
- critica: le preferenze degli individui nn sono confrontabili... risposta: a volte è necessario farlo e noi stessi lo facciamo... controrisp: ma l utilitarismo fa di un inconveniente un cardine
- most hard-line utilitarians concede that the standard counter-examples seem extremely persuasive.... think that pushing one fat man in front of a trolley to save five skinny kids... is morally obligatory. But the opposite moral intuition in their heads refuses to shut up.
- The smart utilitarian answer blames evolution. Scott Sumner: …………Other "counterexamples" take advantage of illogical moral intuitions that have evolved for Darwinian reasons,
- But what's the epistemically sound response to the specter of evolved bias? "Be agnostic about every belief that, regardless of its truth, helps your genes," is tempting. But it's also absurd.... every moral philosophy - including utilitarianism - agrees that a happy life is better than (a) death, or (b) suffering. But evolutionary heavily favors these value judgments!... Should we therefore dismiss our anti-death, anti-suffering views as "illogical moral intuitions that have evolved for Darwinian reasons"?..nihilist, who bites even more bullets than the utilitarian, can enthusiastically agree.
- None of this means that moral intuition is infallible. Serious intuitionists question their moral intuitions all the time.
- ………Suppose that a sheriff were faced with the choice either of framing a Negro for a rape... whom the sheriff knows not to be guilty)—and thus preventing serious anti-Negro riots... In such a case the sheriff, if he were an extreme utilitarian, would appear to be committed to framing the Negro………….
- this story might be quoted as part of a justification for moving from act to rule utilitarianism... the rule "do not punish an innocent person";.... However, McCloskey asks, what about the rule "punish an innocent person when and only when to do so is not to weaken the existing institution of punishment and when the consequences of doing so are valuable"?
- Predicting consequences... consequences are inherently unknowable...the Three Mile Island effect.[91]... ma... From the beginning, utilitarianism has recognized that certainty in such matters is unobtainable and both Bentham and Mill said that it was necessary to rely on the tendencies
- Utilitarismo troppo esigente... Too demanding[edit] Act utilitarianism not only requires everyone to do what they can to maximise utility, but to do so without any favouritism.... The well-being of strangers counts just as much as that of friends, family or self. "What makes this requirement so demanding is the gargantuan number of strangers in great need
- One response to the problem is to accept its demands. This is the view taken by Peter Singer... Others argue that a moral theory that is so contrary to our deeply held moral convictions must either be rejected or modified.[98]
- One approach is to drop the demand that utility be maximized. In Satisficing Consequentialism, Michael Slote argues for a form of utilitarianism where "an act might qualify as morally right through having good enough consequences,
- Robert Goodin takes yet another approach and argues that the demandingness objection can be "blunted" by treating utilitarianism as a guide to public policy rather than one of individual morality.
- AGGREGAZIONE UTILITÀ. The objection that "utilitarianism does not take seriously the distinction between persons"[105]
- A response to this criticism is to point out that whilst seeming to resolve some problems it introduces others.
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