6. Utlititarianism Flashcards
Paths to transcending self interest and minimizing bias
Utilitarianism - do my actions improve net social welfare
Duty - actions grounded in proper motives
Justice - is the process fair
Consequentialism
An action is good if it has good consequences regardless of motives
Well being is evaluated in terms of individual preferences
Preferences are aggregated over all individuals
What is the objective of consequentialism
Create greatest possible well being
In consequentialism what are benefits?
Let’s decision makers evaluate alternatives and decide things even if some people become worse off (nearly every decision)
In consequentialism what role do rights play?
They are purely instrumental to deliver good consequences
What are the two forms of utilitarianismv
Act and rule utilitarianism
Act utilitarianism is:
Choose the action that maximizes social utility in the situation
Rule utilitarianism is:
Choose a rule of behavior which if followed by everyone maximizes social utility across all situations (eg oredict a rule such as a company policy and oredict the aggregate utility consequences of that rule. Take the sum of the aggregate social welfare across all such situations)
Problems with utilitarianism
Not sensitive to rights
Not sensitive to distribution
Difficult to predict consequences
Utilities of people living today or people who will ever live? What discount rate?
Problems specific to rule utilitarianism
How do you define the set of situations you apply to this rule?
Tempting to make the set of situations to narrow which turns into act utilitarianism and makes it subject to rationalization
Does not minimize harm and maximize benefits in specific situations
Is bribery justified according to utilitarianism?
From an act utilitarianism perspective yes.
From a rule utilitarianism perspective it is harder to justify
