Hi Tim, welcome aboard.

I'm not a professional philosopher, and from a practical standpoint I too largely agree with utilitarianism.

I think the easiest critique of it, though, is the impossibility of prospectively weighing one good outcome against another so as to make the correct choice; and also the relativistic nature of people's priorities, which means that bias becomes very central to decisionmaking (like a mother who would sacrifice 100 strangers to save her baby).

Of course deontology has its own ridiculous situations too.

I'm not sure if I understand this, it seems to simply be saying that we don't know whats going to happen, therefore utilitarianism doesn't work as a decision making function. But can't we just use a probalistic workaround (weighting outcomes by expected utility)?

I'm also not sure that the relativistic nature of priorities, at least not expressed the way it is here provides a very strong counter either. Perhaps the real meaning of the situation is that the mother isn't being a 'good person' from an utilitarian perspective.

If will produce the greatest amount of happiness to sacrifice one to save others, then the act is morally valid. But what about the rights of that one individual?

A) I like your signature

B) I think that is the entire point of being an utilitarian not a deontologist, ie I tend to think the rights of one person should be ignored if it is best for everyone.

An aspect of this is I tend to think about utilitarianism in terms of numbers of lives lost or saved situations, and in that context I feel (note there is a strong emotive basis for this reaction) that it is somehow obscene to let concerns regarding rights kill people. And failing to stop a death is functionally the same as killing them.

That is the whole point really, what individual rights do we have in an utilitarian system? If I was told (not asked) to sacrifice myself for the greater good, I truly wonder what I would do.

As for your professional philosophers circle question, if your school is anything like mine, my old profs seem to be enamoured with the whole virtue ethics theory.

Why is it is considered incorrect in professional circles? I think I can generally answer this.

There are two types of Utilitarianism that are spoken of in the professional circles (in general); act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism.

Act Utilitarianism: This is the very strict interpretation of what Mill put forward and not accepted in professional circles what-so-ever (as far as I am aware). One of the traditional examples (hypothetical) showcasing why this type of Utilitarianism is not supported is as follows (there are real world-like examples, but I will leave them for you to consider):

Say a young man goes into a doctor's office. He is there for a routine physical. There are five patients in the doctor's clinic that are terminally ill. Each one of these patients has a different problem resulting in organ failure of one type or another. The doctor discovers while running blood tests that the young man is compatible with the five patients. Further, it is known by the doctor that if the organs of this young man were to be implanted in to the five patients, the five patients have a very very high chance of full recovery... with only the expense of the young man's life. The doctor could admit this fact to the young man and, further, for sake of argument, say that he does. The young man refuses. What does the doctor do?

Act Utilitarianism would permit the doctor to use the young man for his organs against his will. And, as you likely know, intuitively, not many people are willing to volunteer for such a thing, if they were the young man. So the question arises, "Does the good of many really out weigh the good of one always?" In this instance and others like it, the majority says, "no".

Rule Utilitarianism: This is the softer, more generalized version of Utilitarianism. This one actually has followers (or, at least, sympathizers) in professional circles. This is because it is more of an adoption on principles, kind of like the maxims of Kant. "You ought not to kill" You ought not to torture" ...so on and so forth. I admit to not being too familiar with 'satisfaction utilitarianism'. But I would imagine it would go under this heading.

First, as I understand it satisfaction utilitarianism is a form of act utilitarianism, with its distinguishing characteristic being that what we are trying to maximize is the satisfaction of people's wishes.

When I first was faced with that hypothetical the reason I didn't find it compelling was 1) Ultimately if its a choice of five dead, or one dead, we should choose for one to die. 2) It seemed like a false dilemma, couldn't we get the organs in a better way, perhaps by taking them from someone on death row, or something similar (and as a result of this I decided it is a horrible thing that we don't, as far as I know, use the organs of all executed criminals)?

A third point I would make as a current defender of utilitarianism, is that almost certainly the doctor actually doing that would not be supported by act utilitarianism, because then it will scare everyone contemplating going to a doctor. And the negative effects of that will almost certainly outweigh the positive effects of even everyone on the transplant list getting organs.

Anyways I'm familiar with a bit of work thats been done under the heading of 'experimental philosophy' which perhaps explains a bit of what is going on when people think killing the person is the wrong thing to do.

Philosophers have asked large numbers of people questions like what should be done in this situation, modifying the details to see what happens. And as a result we know that the more it seems like an active intervention is being made the more hesitant people are in making the tradeoff of killing someone to save the larger number of lives.

Additionally, while I don't know if there are any experiments regarding this, I suspect if you change the number of lives saved by murdering one person from five, to 100 you will change whether people think it should be done. Also I at least know personally that if my volunteering to die would save five lives I would refuse to do it, but I'm fairly sure I would if it would save 100.

Very good question. Overall I think utalitarianism has a lot going for it as a non-religious basis for the moral order. The only criticism I have been able to come up with that if you had, for example, a vast population of a billion people, who lived under a non-elected government of some kind, the populace could easily be persuaded that the oppression of a non-conforming ethnic minority might result in 'the greatest good for the greatest number'. And in fact it might even be correct, insofar as the billion or so majority would sleep easier knowing that the troublesome minority had been placed under a state of martial law.

But it wouldn't make it right, would it? So at the end of the day, it is only as good as a particular social order can make it. If there is no other basis for that society to be good, then it could be used to support all kinds of invidious purposes.

So, let's consider the first part of your sentence: "When I first was faced with that hypothetical the reason I didn't find it compelling was 1) Ultimately if its a choice of five dead, or one dead, we should choose for one to die..."

I am interpreting this as you supporting , "1) Ultimately if its a choice of five dead, or one dead, we should choose for one to die." But, you say later, "Also I at least know personally that if my volunteering to die would save five lives I would refuse to do it?"

So, a clarification, reconciliation, and/or modification of these two points you have made is required for your argument to be valid.

Moving onto the second part of the same sentence, "2) It seemed like a false dilemma, couldn't we get the organs in a better way, perhaps by taking them from someone on death row, or something similar (and as a result of this I decided it is a horrible thing that we don't, as far as I know, use the organs of all executed criminals)?"

Firstly, I ought to note a practical problem with this. Criminals have a higher rate of some diseases like STD's because of things like unsafe sexual practices, drug use, etc. So, they are, often, considered poor choices for organ donating. However, there are a few that could, I am sure. And inmates on death row usually do volunteer for things like organ donation in order to curry favor from judges and the like.

So what about the case of the inmate who was not wrongfully sentenced to death row and who could donate organs and refuses? Why should we not take their organs? The reason given is an abstract one. Going something like:

If it is okay with taking a person's organs without consent, it is, conceivably, okay to do X without the person's consent. X can be anything? sex, abortion, pregnancy, human experimentation, vivisection (unconscious and conscious), relocation, ? and so on.

Jeeprs' remark above is a reflection of this en mass. If you can do it to one person, you can do it to anyone and, therefore, everyone it is possible to do it to.

Next, I consider your point, "? almost certainly the doctor actually doing that would not be supported by act utilitarianism, because then it will scare everyone contemplating going to a doctor. And the negative effects of that will almost certainly outweigh the positive effects of even everyone on the transplant list getting organs."

It appears here, that you are interpreting 'act utilitarianism' through the lens of 'satisfaction utilitarianism'.

I will stop here and note that this is an incorrect method of understanding. This is because doing so leads to misunderstanding of the argument you are looking at (meaning you are only hearing/reading what you want to hear/read and not what is being presented), and, if you do not understand the argument you are looking at, you cannot properly address it, defend it or what-have-you. In order to correct this, we interpret something (i.e. Scripture) through itself (see Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise).

The next set of sentences, I am unable to properly address until I hear more about it and how it supports your argument. They sentences are:

"Anyways I'm familiar with a bit of work thats been done under the heading of 'experimental philosophy' which perhaps explains a bit of what is going on when people think killing the person is the wrong thing to do.

Philosophers have asked large numbers of people questions like what should be done in this situation, modifying the details to see what happens. And as a result we know that the more it seems like an active intervention is being made the more hesitant people are in making the tradeoff of killing someone to save the larger number of lives."

Lastly, I need you to extrapolate on why you suspect, "?if you change the number of lives saved by murdering one person from five, to 100 you will change whether people think it should be done." I note that you personally would not give your life for five but would likely for a hundred as you said in the following sentence, "?I at least know personally that if my volunteering to die would save five lives I would refuse to do it, but I'm fairly sure I would if it would save 100." And, so, your suspicion may have some personal basis. So, what I mean when I say I need you to extrapolate, is what your personal motivation is and why you believe others would do the same. Further, I would like to know where on this scale you would draw the line between willingly dying for a group of people and not willingly dying for a group of people and how you came up with it.

What do you mean, "functionally"?

Presumably, then, you regard yourself as functionally responsible for a great many poverty-related deaths, as you could have stopped them by donating more to charity?


On the OP question of arguments against Utilitarianism, if you follow it to its conclusion, you would have scenarios whereby healthy people would be killed to harvest their organs, which could theoretically save many more lives than the one it cost. Plainly preposterous.