While I'm sympathetic to the article, I don't think it argues its points with enough substance. It could serve as a summary of some objections people have had in the past to consequentialism. 1...
While I'm sympathetic to the article, I don't think it argues its points with enough substance. It could serve as a summary of some objections people have had in the past to consequentialism.
1 and 3 Intent and Knowledge of the situation
Consequentialism can make distinctions here that the article doesn't acknowledge. While handing a candy to someone unknowingly and causing an allergic reaction would be 'bad' if you assume the moral agent is omniscient or in the grand scheme of things, it would not condemn a moral agent with insufficient information.
Usually when consequentialist theories are introduced, it's from an omniscient perspective. However, consequentialist theories are then immediately modified to be predicated on the knowledge of the agent involved. See the LessWrong for an example. Reasoning about morals is an important part of most moral theories.
2 Layers of consequence
In the case that only a first-order cause is examined, this is excessively simple. Typically, you would expect that the epistemic work involved in determining causes by included in your moral decision to keep working. This avoids both the first-order cause problem and the infinite number of possibilities problem.
3 Measuring happiness
This I have found to be the most persuasive. However, lets suppose you are giving sweets to five people. In cases of radical uncertainty, you can argue that your own mental state has the most epistemic weight, and use it to evaluate outcomes in trivial moral decisions, amounting to a kind of emergent virtue ethic. Of course, people who enjoy things a million times as much as we do could be a problem. Happily, they don't seem to exist. Another way to look at it: replace the candy with insulin. Now you have one person who needs the whole vial, but five people total who want it. In this case, giving the insulin to the person who needs it makes sense. The reason the candy example feels wrong is because we know from experience that the person who claims they enjoy candy five times more is a liar. However, this is knowledge to be built into our moral model. the resolution presented isn't so simple.
I think there are issues with Utilitarianism, but the article is, in my opinion, targeting a strawman.
Many spouse, or believe that spouse, a consequentialist[1] worldview. Inevitably, though, they are required to employ other kinds of ethics frameworks, and often do so without realizing it. It is...
Many spouse, or believe that spouse, a consequentialist[1] worldview. Inevitably, though, they are required to employ other kinds of ethics frameworks, and often do so without realizing it. It is not hard to perceive that it is unpractical and sometimes impossible to navigate reality through mountains of statistics. This article exposes some of the limits of consequentialism, which might, in my view, be the cause of that unconscious transition.
While I'm sympathetic to the article, I don't think it argues its points with enough substance. It could serve as a summary of some objections people have had in the past to consequentialism.
1 and 3 Intent and Knowledge of the situation
Consequentialism can make distinctions here that the article doesn't acknowledge. While handing a candy to someone unknowingly and causing an allergic reaction would be 'bad' if you assume the moral agent is omniscient or in the grand scheme of things, it would not condemn a moral agent with insufficient information.
Usually when consequentialist theories are introduced, it's from an omniscient perspective. However, consequentialist theories are then immediately modified to be predicated on the knowledge of the agent involved. See the LessWrong for an example. Reasoning about morals is an important part of most moral theories.
2 Layers of consequence
In the case that only a first-order cause is examined, this is excessively simple. Typically, you would expect that the epistemic work involved in determining causes by included in your moral decision to keep working. This avoids both the first-order cause problem and the infinite number of possibilities problem.
3 Measuring happiness
This I have found to be the most persuasive. However, lets suppose you are giving sweets to five people. In cases of radical uncertainty, you can argue that your own mental state has the most epistemic weight, and use it to evaluate outcomes in trivial moral decisions, amounting to a kind of emergent virtue ethic. Of course, people who enjoy things a million times as much as we do could be a problem. Happily, they don't seem to exist. Another way to look at it: replace the candy with insulin. Now you have one person who needs the whole vial, but five people total who want it. In this case, giving the insulin to the person who needs it makes sense. The reason the candy example feels wrong is because we know from experience that the person who claims they enjoy candy five times more is a liar. However, this is knowledge to be built into our moral model. the resolution presented isn't so simple.
I think there are issues with Utilitarianism, but the article is, in my opinion, targeting a strawman.
Many spouse, or believe that spouse, a consequentialist[1] worldview. Inevitably, though, they are required to employ other kinds of ethics frameworks, and often do so without realizing it. It is not hard to perceive that it is unpractical and sometimes impossible to navigate reality through mountains of statistics. This article exposes some of the limits of consequentialism, which might, in my view, be the cause of that unconscious transition.
[1] "this is good due to its consequences".