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| 20883 | Modern utilitarians value knowledge, friendship, autonomy, and achievement, as well as pleasure |
| Full Idea: Most utilitarians now think that pleasure, even if construed widely, is not the only thing desirable in itself. ...Goods also include important knowledge, friendship, autonomy, achievement and so on. | |||
| From: Brad W. Hooker (Rule Utilitarianism and Euthanasia [1997], 2) | |||
| A reaction: That pleasure is desired is empirically verifiable, which certainly motivated Bentham. A string of other desirables each needs to be justified - but how? What would be the value of a 'friendship' if neither party got pleasure from it? |
| 20884 | Rule-utilitarians prevent things like torture, even on rare occasions when it seems best |
| Full Idea: For rule-utilitarians acts of murder, torture and so on, can be impermissible even in rare cases where they really would produce better consequences than any alternative act. | |||
| From: Brad W. Hooker (Rule Utilitarianism and Euthanasia [1997], 4) | |||
| A reaction: It is basic to rule-utilitarianism that it trumps act-ulitilarianism, even when a particular act wins the utilitarian calculation. But that is hard to understand. Only long-term benefit could justify the rule - but that should win the calculation. |
| 20885 | Euthanasia is active or passive, and voluntary, non-voluntary or involuntary |
| Full Idea: Six types of euthanasia: 1) Active voluntary (knowing my wishes), 2) Active non-voluntary (not knowing my wishes), 3) Active involuntary (against my wishes), 4) Passive voluntary, 5) Passive non-voluntary, 6) Passive involuntary. | |||
| From: Brad W. Hooker (Rule Utilitarianism and Euthanasia [1997], 5) | |||
| A reaction: 'Active' is intervening, and 'passive' is not intervening. A helpful framework. |
| 20882 | Euthanasia may not involve killing, so it is 'killing or not saving, out of concern for that person' |
| Full Idea: Passive euthanasia is arguably not killing, and the death involved is often painful, so let us take the term 'euthanasia' to mean 'either killing or passing up opportunities to save someone, out of concern for that person'. | |||
| From: Brad W. Hooker (Rule Utilitarianism and Euthanasia [1997], 1) | |||
| A reaction: This sounds good, and easily settled, until you think concern for that person could have two different outcomes, depending on whether the criteria are those of the decider or of the patient. Think of religious decider and atheist patient, or vice versa. |