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Single Idea 18624

[filed under theme 23. Ethics / E. Utilitarianism / 1. Utilitarianism ]

Full Idea

Utilitarianism is essentially a 'standard of rightness', not a 'decision-procedure'. ...It is an open question whether we should employ a utilitarian decision-procedure - indeed, this question itself is to be answered by examining its consequences.

Gist of Idea

Utilitarianism is not a decision-procedure; choice of the best procedure is an open question

Source

Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 2.3.b)

Book Ref

Kymlicka,Will: 'Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn)' [OUP 1992], p.29

A Reaction

The point is that the aim is to maximise happiness, and you might do that by just maximising baked bean consumption, and not even thinking about happiness. This idea is labelled 'indirect utilitarianism'. Happiness does seem to be a by-product.

The 37 ideas with the same theme [belief that good is maximising happiness]:

6218 The happiness of individuals is linked to the happiness of everyone (which is individuals taken together) [Cumberland]
6220 The happiness of all contains the happiness of each, and promotes it [Cumberland]
6245 That action is best, which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest number [Hutcheson]
3928 Virtue just requires careful calculation and a preference for the greater happiness [Hume]
7214 Ethics rests on utility, which is the permanent progressive interests of people [Mill]
7202 The English believe in the task of annihilating evil for the victory of good [Nietzsche on Mill]
5935 Mill's qualities of pleasure is an admission that there are other good states of mind than pleasure [Ross on Mill]
3764 Actions are right if they promote pleasure, wrong if they promote pain [Mill]
3776 Utilitarianism only works if everybody has a totally equal right to happiness [Mill]
4129 It is self-evident (from the point of view of the Universe) that no individual has more importance than another [Sidgwick]
24106 Talk of 'utility' presupposes that what is useful to people has been defined [Nietzsche]
14811 In Homer it is the contemptible person, not the harmful person, who is bad [Nietzsche]
9258 If pain were instrinsically wrong, it would be immoral to inflict it on ourselves [Prichard]
5907 Relationships imply duties to people, not merely the obligation to benefit them [Ross on Moore,GE]
5912 We should use money to pay debts before giving to charity [Ross]
22405 Negative utilitarianism implies that the world should be destroyed, to avoid future misery [Smart]
22463 Morality is seen as tacit legislation by the community [Foot]
4010 In later utilitarianism the modern stress on freedom leads to the rejection of paternalism [Taylor,C]
22407 Utilitarianism cannot make any serious sense of integrity [Williams,B]
23278 For utilitarians states of affairs are what have value, not matter who produced them [Williams,B]
3279 Utilitarianism inappropriately scales up the individual willingness to make sacrifices [Rawls, by Nagel]
8038 Since Moore thinks the right action produces the most good, he is a utilitarian [MacIntyre]
3782 Satisfaction of desires is not at all the same as achieving happiness [Glover, by PG]
9762 We should focus less on subjects of experience, and more on the experiences themselves [Parfit]
18624 Utilitarianism is not a decision-procedure; choice of the best procedure is an open question [Kymlicka]
18626 One view says start with equality, and infer equal weight to interests, and hence maximum utility [Kymlicka]
18627 A second view says start with maximising the good, implying aggregation, and hence equality [Kymlicka]
3542 We should do good when necessary, not maximise it [Annas]
4280 Utilitarianism is wrong precisely because it can't distinguish animals from people [Scruton]
4282 Morality is not a sort of calculation, it is what sets the limits to when calculation is appropriate [Scruton]
4281 Utilitarianism says we can't blame Stalin yet, but such a theory is a sick joke [Scruton]
4287 Utilitarianism merely guides us (by means of sympathy) when the moral law is silent [Scruton]
4328 Preference utilitarianism aims to be completely value-free, or empirical [Hursthouse]
4338 Deontologists usually accuse utilitarians of oversimplifying hard cases [Hursthouse]
4343 We are torn between utilitarian and deontological views of lying, depending on the examples [Hursthouse]
20583 If maximising pleasure needs measurement, so does fulfilling desires [Tuckness/Wolf]
20584 Desire satisfaction as the ideal is confused, because we desire what we judge to be good [Tuckness/Wolf]