A quick objection to utiltarianism for a collage class.
Posted: Wed Dec 11, 2013 5:01 pm
I had to write a short paper for my ethics class. I threw this together in a rushed 20minutes as an objection to Utilitarianism.
When does the sacrifice end, and whose decision is it with Utilitarianism? By leaving the goal vague, the maximization of happiness for humanity as a whole, there is no way to determine what course of action to take at any one time. The authors reply is to use rules of thumb, don’t lie, don’t steal, etc, but those don’t always work. The idea behind Utilitarianism is not a bad one. If humanity as a whole worked toward maximizing happiness everyone would be happy, but it fails to account for every individual human is unique and does not necessarily follow this moral code.
How about this scenario half the population of humanity are cannibals. It makes them happy to eat people. The other half are Utilitarian. Is it their duty to sacrifice themselves to the cannibals? Lets add weight to how unhappy it makes the cannibals if they don’t get to eat people. If a cannibal doesn’t get to eat someone they become so unhappy they kill themselves, it makes all the other cannibals really unhappy, and some of the utilitarian’s too lowering the overall happiness of humanity more than it is raised when a utilitarian is eaten. At what point is sacrifice for the happiness of humanity as a whole too much?
When does the sacrifice end, and whose decision is it with Utilitarianism? By leaving the goal vague, the maximization of happiness for humanity as a whole, there is no way to determine what course of action to take at any one time. The authors reply is to use rules of thumb, don’t lie, don’t steal, etc, but those don’t always work. The idea behind Utilitarianism is not a bad one. If humanity as a whole worked toward maximizing happiness everyone would be happy, but it fails to account for every individual human is unique and does not necessarily follow this moral code.
How about this scenario half the population of humanity are cannibals. It makes them happy to eat people. The other half are Utilitarian. Is it their duty to sacrifice themselves to the cannibals? Lets add weight to how unhappy it makes the cannibals if they don’t get to eat people. If a cannibal doesn’t get to eat someone they become so unhappy they kill themselves, it makes all the other cannibals really unhappy, and some of the utilitarian’s too lowering the overall happiness of humanity more than it is raised when a utilitarian is eaten. At what point is sacrifice for the happiness of humanity as a whole too much?