Utilitarian vs. Deontological

LD & Philosophy across debate

The Trolley Problem

1. What is right/moral depends on the consequences which result from the action

CONSEQUENTIALIST MORAL REASONING-locates morality in the result-Bentham & JSM

2. Reasons from the intrinsic quality of the act itself

CATEGORICAL MORAL REASONING -locates morality in certain absolutes

-Kant & Rawls

Utility• Jeremy Bentham

All humans are governed by same impulses: maximizepleasure/happiness, minimize pain/suffering

Government’s job is to maximize ‘utility’

Greatest good for the greatest number-society is thesum of all individuals who comprise it

Cost benefit analysis - tobacco & cell phones

Can you put a price on life?

Utility: Problems

• 1. Does this adequately respect the individual or minority rights?

• 2.Can we aggregate utility?

• 3. Can we measure pleasure? Are pleasures commensurable? Can qualitative distinctions be made?

Utility: JSM answers• Can calculus be enlarged or modified to include humanitarian

concerns? • On Liberty, 1845• Utilitarianism, 1861

• Individual rights are based on some utility, rights are privileged, a more paramount obligation to any others because it is in the long-term interest of human kind

• Higher pleasures vs. lower pleasuresShakespeareThe Jersey ShoreSimpsons

Strong Theories of Rights• Libertarianism: Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (

1974) argues among other things that a distribution of goods is just if brought about by free exchange among consenting adults and from a starting position, even if large inequalities subsequently emerge from the process

• 1. no paternalistic legislation

• 2. no morals legislation

• 3. no taxation to redistribute resources/$

Locke

Some rights cannot be overridden, natural right to life, liberty, and property, these rights are pre-political not given by laws. The social contract idea.

State of nature, free and equal beings with absolute liberty, rights are unalienable, they cannot be traded away.

Influence on American Revolution.

Ultimate property is own person, how much gov’t should we allow? Limited to allow protection of natural rights by the majority.

Deontologists: the Other Side• Immanuel Kant: man is not merely a means

Critique of Pure Reason-rejects utilitarianism, all men of equal dignity, all rational and capable of acting as rational beings, capable of reason.

Yes, we experience pleasure and pain, but we are the sovereign masters of our rational capacity, is what separates us from animals.

Freedom is not getting what we want, don’t act as a slave to appetites, rather, freedom is the opposite of necessity. Freedom is to act autonomously.

Do not treat others instrumentally, they are ENDS not MEANS. Respect others’ dignity, do not use for own well being

An act is moral/just/good not based on consequences, but the intention, the quality of the will. MOTIVE key.

Kant• Moral worth of an action depends on motive

• Shopkeeper example – charging customers• Cheating example

• Act autonomously (on rationality) or heteronomously (action based on desires), REASON determines my actions

So, what formula should we use, what principles organize society?

Kant• Categorical Imperative

• 1.Formula of Universal Law- act only on that maxim whereby you at the same time will that it should become a universal law. Lying Wrong. Murder wrong.

• 2.Formula of Humanity as an end-man is an end in himself with absolute dignity and value. Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the persons of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time, as an ends.

Kant – A Lesson in Lying• A murderer comes to you door looking for your friend who is

currently hiding in your closet.

• Lying is categorically wrong…do you answer truthfully?

• Kant, even here is wrong because if we start carving out exceptions we just become utilitarians

• Nazi example – larger moral issue

• The “misleading” answer…not technically know if moved…are there “white lies”

How design a just government?

• Modern Justice theorists: Rawls, Dworkin, Sandel• More we, less me?• If just laws arise from a certain type of social contract, how is this

seen in the real world? What is the moral force of this hypothetical contract?

• John Rawls, A Theory of Justice• A critic of utilitarianism- each person has an inviolability that is not

subject to social bargaining• Principles of social justice are derived from this hypothetical social

contract

• But how do we fairly design a just system if we all come to the table with special interests?

Rawls• Behind the Veil of Ignorance• Arrive at the rights we want to be respected, a framework of

rights and duties, imagine we gather together without knowledge of any particular facts about ourselves

• A thought experiment! Sometimes there may be inequalities, how deal with them?

• The Difference PrincipleThe difference principle permits inequalities in the

distribution of goods only if those inequalities benefit the worst-off members of society

Rawls• Rawls believes that this principle would be a rational choice

for the representatives in the original position because• each member of society has an equal claim on their society’s

goods. Natural attributes should not effect this claim, so the basic right of any individual, before further considerations are taken into account, must be to an equal share in material wealth. What, then, could justify unequal distribution? Rawls argues that inequality is acceptable only if it is to the advantage of those who are worst-off.

Rawls• Objections to the Difference Principle

• 1. what about incentives?

• 2. what about effort?

• 3. what about self-ownership?

Alternative views…• The Communitarian school: Michael Sandel, Amitai Etzioni

• Website at Harvard, Justice, book and class

• Communitarian based notion of the good society• What can I do for others?

Other ethics do not allow for cooperative decision making

Are there rights of groups, separate from rights of individuals as an aggregate?

Alternate views…• Ronald Dworkin, prof. Yale, now NYU• Taking Rights Seriously. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University

Press, 1977

• His theory of law as integrity in which judges interpret the law in terms of consistent and communal moral principles, especially justice and fairness, is amongst the most influential contemporary theories about the nature of law.

• He advocates a ‘moral reading’ of the US Constitution and an interpretivist approach to law and morality.

Alternate views…• Amitai Etzioni, George Washington Univ, Director of the

Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies

• He was the editor of The Responsive Community: Rights and Responsibilities, the organization's quarterly journal, from 1991-2004. In 1991, the press began referring to Etzioni as the 'guru' of the movement.

• Why treat others in the Community different? International affairs…

The other direction…Ayn Rand, author, ObjectivismRand argued for rational egoism (self interest), as the guiding moral principle. The individual should exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. She referred to egoism as the “Virtue of Selfishness”. She condemned ethical altruism as incompatible with the requirements of human life and happiness. Rejects all faith and religion.

• Rand's political philosophy emphasized individual rights (including property rights), and she considered laissez-faire capitalism the only moral social system because in her view it was the only system based on the protection of those rights.[98] She was a fierce opponent of all forms of collectivism and statism.

• Rand believed rights should be enforced by a constitutionally limited government