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UTILITARIANISM IS A BANKRUPT MORAL FRAMEWORK
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- WILLIAMS ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY IS FLAWED
UTILITARIANISM IS A BANKRUPT MORAL FRAMEWORK1. UTILITY CONFUZES MORAL ACTS AND MORAL OUTCOMES Neil Erian, Symposium Reconsidering 20th Century Philosophy, OFF THE PRECIPICE INTO THE GORGE: WHY UTILITARIANISM CAN’T SAVE US," March 25 2003. http://www.fordham.edu/philosophy/fps/symposia/upcoming.htm, Accessed June 1, 2003. p-np. But this is exactly what consequentialism prescribes, a standard of right action that need not be comparable with any realistic state of affairs or conform to the moral agent's conscience or integrity. In essence, consequentialism substitutes imagination run wild for what is in essence a traditional cognitive approach to deciding right actions. Williams offers a warning: to say 'there is nothing which is just right no matter what its consequences' is not the same thing as saying 'right depends upon the consequences.' It is this illicit shift from moral actions to moral outcomes, based upon the equation of those two notions, which undermines the ability of utilitarianism to make itself a practicable morality. 2. UTILITY CANNOT MAINTAIN ITS OWN POSITION OF NEUTRALITY Neil Erian, Symposium Reconsidering 20th Century Philosophy, OFF THE PRECIPICE INTO THE GORGE: WHY UTILITARIANISM CAN’T SAVE US," March 25 2003. http://www.fordham.edu/philosophy/fps/symposia/upcoming.htm, Accessed June 1, 2003. p-np. Williams demonstrates, however, that utilitarianism must smuggle into its calculus the agent's motivational moral feelings in its attempt to get him to act. In Williams' first example, the moral agent, George, is ideologically opposed to working in a laboratory that makes chemical and biological weapons. Acting on the principle of utility, the man trying to hire him tells George that if he doesn't take the job, a zealous advocate of such weapons is waiting in the wings to accept it. Thus, by means of George's own conscience the employer attempts to induce the utilitarian action from George. In Williams' second example, the moral agent, Jim, finds himself in charge of the fate of twenty South American Indians. If he refuses to go along with a plan that demands a violation of his conscience, the utilitarian might accuse him of a "self-indulgent squeamishness." The problem with such an accusation is that it violates utilitarianism's own principle of impartiality towards the agent. In principle, the utilitarian may only make the calculation of the best state of affairs and then passively accept without evaluation what the agent chooses. In principle, any evaluation of the agent destroys the alleged impartiality utilitarianism claims as its central principle. This, of course, makes utilitarianism a completely impracticable code of ethics, because it demands the agent's self-destruction (and utilitarianism's self defeat). Any attempt to live by utilitarianism can only lead the agent to feeling alienated from and defeated by his ethical principles.
Neil Erian, Symposium Reconsidering 20th Century Philosophy, OFF THE PRECIPICE INTO THE GORGE: WHY UTILITARIANISM CAN’T SAVE US," March 25 2003. http://www.fordham.edu/philosophy/fps/symposia/upcoming.htm, Accessed June 1, 2003. p-np. What happens when the principle of utility is invoked in a certain dilemma, and it clashes with such a commitment? If the clash was with a short-term commitment then deferring to the utilitarian response might be practicable. But for the agent who has been committed to some project over a period of decades, to defer to the utilitarian response would be to sacrifice his integrity. Utilitarians cannot respond to this and claim that of course the commitment should be abided since it has great potential utility. This is illicit, given that we have already seen that the agent's commitments are not rooted in utilitarian states of affairs, rather the recognition of the agent's own projects. Utilitarianism requires that the committed agent act against and alienate himself from his own projects. It demands an assault on his integrity.
1. WILLIAMS VIEW OF INTEGRITY IS NOT A VIRTUE Damian Cox, Marguerite La Caze, and Michael Levine, Authors, "Integrity", THE STANFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY, 2001 One apparent consequence of defining integrity as maintenance of identity-conferring commitments is that integrity cannot really be a virtue. This is Williams's view. He argues that although it is an admirable quality, integrity is not related to motivation as virtues are. A virtue either motivates a person to act in desirable ways (as benevolence moves a person to act for another's good), or it enables a person to act in desirable ways (as courage enables a person to act well). If integrity is no more than maintenance of identity, however, it can play neither of these roles. On the identity view of integrity, to act with integrity is just to act in a way that accurately reflects your sense of who you are; to act from motives, interests and commitments that are most deeply your own. (Williams 1981a p.49) A further consequence of this view of integrity as maintenance of identity-conferring commitments is that there appears to be no normative constraints either on what such commitments may be, or on what the person of integrity can do in the pursuit of those commitments. The person of integrity can do horrific things and maintain their integrity so long as they are acting accordance with their core commitments. A number of criticisms of the identity view of integrity have been made. First, integrity is usually regarded as something worth striving for and the identity account of integrity fails to make sense of this. (See Cox, La Caze, Levine 1999.) It disconnects integrity from the prevalent view that it is a virtue of some kind and generally praiseworthy. Second, the identity theory of integrity ties integrity to commitments with which an agent identifies, but acts of identification can be ill-informed, superficial and foolish. A person may, through ignorance or self-deception, fail to understand or properly acknowledge the source of their deepest commitments and convictions and we are unlikely to attribute integrity to a person who held true to a false and unrealistic picture of themselves. (On the other hand, this view of integrity as maintenance of identify-conferring commitments, recognizes the relevance of self-knowledge to acting with integrity. If a person fails to act on their core commitments, through self-deception, weakness of will, cowardice, or even ignorance, then they lack integrity.) Third, on the identity view of integrity, a person's integrity is only at issue when their deepest, most characteristic, or core convictions and aspirations are brought into play. However, we expect persons of integrity to behave with integrity in many different contexts, not only those of central importance to them. (See Calhoun 1995, p.245.) Fourth, as noted above, the identity view of integrity places only formal conditions upon the kind of person that might be said to possess integrity. The identity view of integrity shares this feature with the self-integration view of integrity and similar criticism can be made of it on this ground. It seems plausible to observe certain substantive limits on the kinds of commitments had by a person of integrity. 2. WILLIAMS VIEW DOES NOT INCLUDE ENOUGH CONCEPTS Heidi Li Feldman, Assistant Professor of Law, University of Michigan, OBJECTIVITY IN LEGAL JUDGMENT, Michigan Law Review , March, 1994, p. 1193. At the same time, Williams's delineation includes too few concepts. Williams focuses on action as the upshot of application. But consider, for example, negligence. A judgment that somebody's conduct has been negligent does not lead to action in any straightforward way. Even if we grant that finding liability counts as an action, judging conduct negligent does not even lead directly to such a finding; even when it does, the connection between that judgment and action can be tenuous. The defendant may refuse to pay damages, the plaintiff may not try to enforce the judgment, and others might not be deterred from acting the way the defendant had acted. A judgment of negligence is as compatible with inaction as with action, even if such judgments often do provoke action. Directory: uploads uploads -> 587 Return function, r i(X) r i(0) r i(1) r i(2) r i(3) 1 0 2 4 6 Thermal Station, I 2 0 1 5 6 3 0 3 5 6 10 uploads -> Department of science and humanities department of mathematics part-a questions and answers uploads -> The Case Against the nypd’s Quota-Driven ‘Broken Windows’ Policing What Is It? uploads -> For want of a nail uploads -> Ownership Models There are two different types of ownership models uploads -> Police Militarization uploads -> City of rising star regular meting thursday, july 14, 2016 uploads -> Township of winfield uploads -> Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act of 2014 uploads -> The Black Panther Party’s Ten-Point Program What We Want Now! Download 5.81 Mb. Share with your friends:
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