I don't think either utilitarianism or deontology can claim precedence over one another. We are doomed to have the two fighting in the human brain for as long as there will be human brains. And different people will come up with different conclusions in the same circumstances. A third principle is "First, do not harm". Not just for the medical profession but for everybody in any circumstances. I think in many cases that one should let that take precedence over both utilitarianism or deontology. Both utilitarianism and deontology assume we are smarter than we actually are. We cannot compute the pleasure of all human beings in the aggregate. Nor are we very far-sighted prioritizing between principles in many cases. I am sure this conclusion is a disappointing one to the philosophers in the room but I think it is true.
Why I am not a utilitarian
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Re: Why I am not a utilitarian
#22Bentham is always credited with utilitarianism, but Francis Hutcheson (1694-1746), the PhD advisor of Adam Smith, formulated "the greatest happiness for the greatest number" nearly 100 years before Bentham.
Smith referred to him lovingly as "the never-to-be-forgotten Hutcheson." Oops.
Hutcheson also devised a system of "moral computation" (complete with a series of equations—and applicable to AI systems) and specifically indicated how it should be used in conjunction with human intuitions.
Re: Why I am not a utilitarian
#23I feel like the examples that were given were quite narrow-minded. Utilitarians aren't narrow-minded robots, I think most people will include the bigger picture when making decisions, including ethics.
Re: Why I am not a utilitarian
#24Should you murder the healthy patient so you can distribute his organs, thus saving 5 lives?
This question is constantly trotted out and it's a great example of the deeply unreal world ethicists insist on operating in. In the real world, you don't, because making people people live in a world where that happens costs more than doing it would benefit you. Doing the murder is therefore not, I repeat, not the utilitarian answer.
They always refuse to pose the question in a way that might actually make students consider whether the murder is worth it. For example, suppose the seven people are the crew of a spacecraft sent to divert an asteroid from wiping out human civilization. Is murdering one to save billions justified?
Re: Why I am not a utilitarian
#25Pretty much any political or moral philosophy reduced to a single sentence or paragraph becomes silly – if not downright evil – if applied uncritically to any and all situations.
Many people are utilitarian to some degree, and most – including those who might self-identify as utilitarian – would say there are limits to it, too. There are extremists who push the utilitarian limits very far, but those are relatively rare.
The same applies to many other philosophies. Many people – on both the left and right – would agree that anyone "should have the freedom as they want, without too much interference of government or other organisations", and are libertarians to some degree. It's only when applied to the extremes without critically considering the trade-offs that it becomes silly, or even evil.
The author prefers deontology; that okay, but it's not hard to come up with crazy examples for that, too. If a patient's life can be saved by investing all the hospital's financial resources then deontology, pushed to its extreme, says we should do this. This would be silly, and no doubt the author would agree, because you don't have infinite money and need to think about the patients that come in tomorrow, too.
In short, I feel this article is rather myopic, as well as an example of "nut picking" (that is, pick the nuttiest/craziest views and then criticise the entire concept with those views).
Re: Why I am not a utilitarian
#26Most ‘don't be utilitarian’ arguments are really ‘don't be a stupid utilitarian’. If a course of action where you do some amount of harm to mitigate a larger amount of harm would clearly result in a worse world, then you are NOT actually summing up all the resulting negative utility in your so-called-utilitarian calculations. It is in fact the case that we do often do bad things for more important goals. We kill peop…
And in the "don't be stupid" line of thought - the examples are fundamentally unrealistic because examples have to be. For example, the murdering doctor example assumes that there are no dangerous second order consequences to randomly murdering people. That isn't a safe assumption. A doctor might reasonably conclude there is enough value in having trustworthy institutions that the locally optimum choice is different…
No, those unrealistic scenarios make it easier to see the problems without having to deal with all the real world complications. Many of the examples just try to point out that utilitarianism allows you to treat one group as badly as you want as long as you overcompansate their suffering by just making another group happy enough. It's a stupid idea in its pure form.
Re: Why I am not a utilitarian
#27Most ‘don't be utilitarian’ arguments are really ‘don't be a stupid utilitarian’. If a course of action where you do some amount of harm to mitigate a larger amount of harm would clearly result in a worse world, then you are NOT actually summing up all the resulting negative utility in your so-called-utilitarian calculations. It is in fact the case that we do often do bad things for more important goals. We kill peop…
> Most ‘don't be utilitarian’ arguments are really ‘don't be a stupid utilitarian’
Someone being a "stupid utilitarian" a subjective judgement.
> then you are NOT actually summing up all the resulting negative utility in your so-called-utilitarian calculations
Well that's the trick isn't it. What's the correct calculation? There is no objective answer to this. You can change the calculation to suit your opinion.
Re: Why I am not a utilitarian
#28I think the fallacy for some of these examples come from assuming a theoretical world where the future or alternatives are known with certainty.
>Say you’re a surgeon. You have 5 patients who need organ transplants, plus 1 healthy patient who is compatible with the other 5. Should you murder the healthy patient so you can distribute his organs, thus saving 5 lives?
There is no mention about possible complications with surgery (all five patients could die shortly after recovering from surgery) or whether there are other humans in the world that could donate the organs without sacrificing a life.
In real life you would wait (i.e., do nothing, do no harm) to find alternatives, which would redefine the problem. In the theoretical world there's no gain in waiting because the problem is strictly defined and immutable.
Re: Why I am not a utilitarian
#29Should you murder the healthy patient so you can distribute his organs, thus saving 5 lives? This question is constantly trotted out and it's a great example of the deeply unreal world ethicists insist on operating in. In the real world, you don't, because making people people live in a world where that happens costs more than doing it would benefit you. Doing the murder is therefore not , I repeat, not the utilitari…
Is murdering one to save billions justified?
No.
Re: Why I am not a utilitarian
#30Should you murder the healthy patient so you can distribute his organs, thus saving 5 lives? This question is constantly trotted out and it's a great example of the deeply unreal world ethicists insist on operating in. In the real world, you don't, because making people people live in a world where that happens costs more than doing it would benefit you. Doing the murder is therefore not , I repeat, not the utilitari…
Is murdering one to save billions justified? No.
Without the support of human civilization they are probably a bit boned anyhow. :)