Philosopher views

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ashford, Elizabeth. “Utilitarianism, integrity, and partiality.” JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY, August, 2000, pp. 421-39.
Baron, Jonathan. “Utility maximization as a solution: Promise, difficulties, and impediments.” AMERICAN BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST, May, 1999, pp. 1301-21.
Brandt, Richard B. MORALITY, UTILITARIANISM, AND RIGHTS (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
Clune, Alan C. “Biomedical testing on nonhuman animals: An attempt at a rapprochement between utilitarianism and theories of inherent value.” MONIST, April, 1996, pp. 230-46.
Dhillon, Amrita and Mertens, Jean-Francois. “Relative utilitarianism.” ECONOMETRICA, May, 1999, pp. 471-498.
Feldman, Fred. UTILITARIANISM, HEDONISM, AND DESERT: ESSAYS IN MORAL PHILOSOPHY (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
Freeman, Samuel. “Utilitarianism, deontology, and the priority of right.” PHILOSOPHY AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS, Fall, 1994, pp. 313-49.
Jeske, Diane. “Persons, compensation, and utilitarianism.” PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW, October, 1993, pp. 541-75.
Levy, Sanford S. “Utilitarian alternatives to act utilitarianism.” PACIFIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY, March, 1997, pp. 93-112.
Lyons, David, ed. MILL’S UTILITARIANISM: CRITICAL ESSAYS (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997).
Mill, John Stuart and Bentham, Jeremy. UTILITARIANISM AND OTHER ESSAYS (New York: Penguin Books, 1987).
Miller, Harlan B. and Williams, William H., eds. THE LIMITS OF UTILITARIANISM (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982).
Quinton, Anthony. UTILITARIAN ETHICS (La Salle, Ill: Open Court, 1988, 1973).
Scarre, Geoffrey. UTILITARIANISM (New York: Routlege, 1996).
Shaw, William H. CONTEMPORARY ETHICS: TAKING ACCOUNT OF UTILITARIANISM (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, 1999).
Smart, J.J.C. and Williams, Bernard. UTILITARIANISM: FOR AND AGAINST (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973).
Sterba, James P. “Utilitarianism as a Public Philosophy.” ETHICS, October 1997, pp. 223-225
Wood, James. UTILITARIANISM, INSTITUTIONS, AND JUSTICE (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).

UTILITARIANISM IS AN INADEQUATE VALUE THEORY

1. CONSEQUENCES CANNOT DETERMINE VALUES

Bernard Williams, professor of philosophy at University of Cambridge, UTILITARIANISM FOR AND AGAINST, 1973, p. 82.

No one can hold that everything, of whatever category, that has value, has it in virtue of its consequences. If that were so, one would just go on forever, and there would be an obviously hopeless regress. That regress would be hopeless even if one takes the view, which is not an absurd view, that although men set themselves ends and work towards them, it is very often not really the supposed end, but the effort towards it on which they set value—that they travel, not really in order to arrive (for as soon as they have arrived they set out for somewhere else), but rather they choose somewhere to arrive, in order to travel.

It is impossible to ascribe certain consequences to certain agents

Bernard Williams, professor of philosophy at University of Cambridge, UTILITARIANISM FOR AND AGAINST, 1973, p. 94.

So from a consequentialist point of view it goes into the calculation of consequences along with any other state of affairs accessible to me. Yet from some, at least, non-consequentialist points of view, there is a vital difference between some such situations and others: namely, that in some a vital link in the production of the eventual outcome is provided by someone else’s doing something. But for consequentialism, all causal connections are on the same level, and it makes no difference, so far as that goes, whether the causation of a given state of affairs lies through another agent, or not.

Bernard Williams, professor of philosophy at University of Cambridge, UTILITARIANISM FOR AND AGAINST, 1973, p. 131.

First, many of the qualities that human beings prize in society and in one another are notably non-utilitarian, both in the cast of mind that they involve and in the actions they are disposed to produce. There is every reason to suppose that people’s happiness is linked in various ways to these qualities. It is no good the utilitarian saying that such happiness does not count. For as we have already seen in this connection, modern utilitarianism is supposed to be a system neutral between the preferences that people already have, and here are some preferences which some people actually have. To legislate them out is not to pursue people’s happiness, but to remodel the world towards forms of “happiness” more amendable to utilitarian ways of thought.

UTILITARIANISM IS TOTALITARIAN

1. UTILITARIANISM JUSTIFIES RACISM AND GENOCIDE

Bernard Williams, professor of philosophy at University of Cambridge, UTILITARIANISM FOR AND AGAINST, 1973, p. 105.

Suppose that there is in a certain society a racial minority. Considering merely the ordinary interests of the other citizens, as opposed to their sentiments, this minority does no particular harm; we may suppose that it does not confer any great benefits either. Its presence is in those terms neutral or mildly beneficial. However, the other citizens have such prejudice that they find the sight of this group, even the knowledge of its presence, very disagreeable. Proposals are made for removing in some way this minority. If we assume various quite plausible things (as that programs to change the majority sentiment are likely to be protracted and ineffective) then even if the removal would be unpleasant for the minority, a utilitarian calculation might well end up favoring this step, especially if the minority were a rather small minority and the majority were very severely prejudiced, that is to say, were made very severely uncomfortable by the presence of the minority.

Bernard Williams, professor of philosophy at University of Cambridge, UTILITARIANISM FOR AND AGAINST, 1973, p. 139.

It is worth noticing that the idea of a utilitarian elite involves to a special degree the elements of manipulation. It is possible in general for there to be unequal or hierarchical societies which nevertheless allow for respect and decent human relations, so long as people are unconscious that things could be otherwise; but which, once such consciousness has arisen, must inevitably become a different and more oppressive thing.
3. UTILITARIANISM ALLOWS THE SUFFERING OF SOME INDIVIDUALS

Martha C. Nussbaum, Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, FORDHAM LAW REVIEW, November, 1997, p. 281.

First, there is the familiar problem that utilitarianism tends to think of the social total, or average, as an aggregate, neglecting the salience of the boundaries between individual lives. As Rawls pointed out, this approach means that utilitarianism can tolerate a result in which the total is good enough, but where some individuals suffer extremely acute levels of deprivation, whether of resources or of liberty.
4. UTILITARIANISM DEVALUES RIGHTS IN FAVOR OF SATISFACTIONS

Joseph Mendola, Professor of Philosophy at University of Nebraska-Lincoln, SMU LAW REVIEW, Winter 1999, p. 124.

Traditional utilitarianism, with its moral conception that the good is a summation of the satisfaction of individual preferences (or more generally a summation of individual goods), faces certain standard objections rooted in intuitive conceptions of moral rights. The utilitarian Bentham's insistence that talk of rights is "nonsense upon stilts" seems to reflect an obvious moral implication of traditional utilitarianism, an implication that if enough satisfaction for others can be achieved by violation of traditional rights to bodily integrity, property, liberty, or even life, then a utilitarian is bound to hold such violations appropriate or even morally mandatory.
5. UTILITARIANISM JUSTIFIES VIOLATING INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS

Joseph Mendola, Professor of Philosophy at University of Nebraska-Lincoln, SMU LAW REVIEW, Winter 1999, pp. 124-5.

One diagnosis of this set of traditional problems with utilitarianism is that utilitarianism unfortunately allows other people's preferences about what one does, perhaps rooted in conceptions of morality or in tastes one does not share, to trump one's own preferences. The sum of individual satisfactions gained by others from restraining someone by law from activity that is intuitively that individual's own business, which is intuitively their right, will yet be greater than the satisfaction that the individual will hence lose.