Ethical theory exam 1

Mill’s theory of morality

Utilitarianism

• actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness and wrong as they tend to produce the reverse. Happiness means pleasure and the absence of pain.

  • an action is right if and only if it produces at least as high an overall balance of pleasure over pain as any alternative, with everyone affected counted equally.

• grounded in the theory of life: Mill’s theory of life says what is good for people, which is happiness. His theory of morality then says the right action is the one that produces the most of that good. So the good comes first and the right is defined in terms of it.

Mill’s theory of life

Epicurean theory of life (also called hedonistic theory of value)

• pleasure and freedom from pain are the only things desirable as ends; and that all desirable things are desirable either for pleasure inherent in themselves or as means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain

  • You are well off insofar as you enjoy pleasure and bad off insofar as you suffer pain 

How to know this:

The only proof that something is visible is that people see it, and that a sound is audible is that people hear it. So the only evidence that something is desirable is that people actually desire it  

• Each person desires their own happiness, so happiness is a good to that person and the general happiness is a good to everyone together (happiness is an end, not necessarily the only one)

• All things, even virtue, music, health, etc. are desired for themselves, but as parts of happiness. They start as means and become part of the end through association

• Desiring something and finding it pleasant are two ways of naming the same fact. Human nature desires nothing that isn’t part of happiness or a means to it (psychological hedonism) 

• Happiness is the sole end, so it must be the criterion of morality, “since a part is included in the whole” 

Decided Preference Test

Of two pleasures, if all or almost all who have experienced both give a decided preference for one, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure 

• Qualitative superiority is the stronger case. If those who know both prefer one pleasure even knowing it comes with more discontent, and would not trade it for any quantity of the other, it is superior in quality in a way that outweighs quantity.

• Objection: Mill’s test looks like a preference theory, not hedonism 

  • Mill is supposed to be a hedonist, for whom value comes from the pleasure itself, from how it feels 

  • But the DPT says what makes one pleasure better than another is that people prefer it. That makes preference the determining factor not the pleasure derived 

  • Undercuts Mill’s claim that pleasure and absence of pain are the only things of intrinsic value which is his theory of life 

Nozick’s experience machine

tests the hedonist claim (the only thing that matters to how well a life goes is how it feels from the inside/the expeirences)

• if one refuses to be plugged in than experience isn’t all that matters, and then pleasure and freedom from pain can’t be the only thing of intrinsic value (challenge to hedonistic utilitarianism)

Desire fulfillment theory

an individual is well off insofar as his desires are fulfilled and bad off insofar as they are left unfulfilled 

• unrestricted DFT: any/all actual desires

• restricted DFT: desires about ones own life

• Idealized DFT: the desire you would have if you were fully informed, and rational, and not side tracked, etc. 

• Parfit's counterexample: what if you have a desire that is fulfilled, but you never find out 

  • Unrestricted DFT says your life went better if the desire was fulfilled, because it counts every actual desire (seems wrong, the outcome had zero connection to your life and your life does not change)

• Attitudinalism: your attitudes determine what in the world is good for you

decision procedure

Something an agent can use to figure out what to do when facing a decision, a method for arriving at the right verdict about an action 

• Has to be something human beings, with their limitations, can actually use in moral deliberation 

• is the practical aim of a moral theory

Actual consequence utilitarianism

an action is right if and only if it has a high an actual utility as any alternative, taking everyone affected equally into account 

• Actual utility is the value of the actual consequences of the action 

Not a good decision procedure because to apply it one would have to know what the actual consequences of each option would be and compare them (this is often extremely difficult/impossible)

• Also necessitates knowing the +/- of utility for all impacted which is again difficult/impossible

probable consequence utilitarianism

an action is right if and only if it has as high an expected utility as any alternative, taking everyone affected equally into account

• Expected utility: the sum of the products of the probability and value of each possible outcome

• works best as a decision procedure  

moral criterion

specifies what makes an action right or wrong. It answers the theoretical aim, which is to discover the underlying features that make actions right or wrong 

Similarity postulate

the assumption that once proper allowances have been made for the empirically given differences in taste, education, etc., between me and another person, then it is reasonable for me to assume that our basic psychological reactions to any given alternative will be otherwise much the same 

• It doesn’t say people are alike in tastes. It says that after you correct for known differences, the underlying capacity for satisfaction and dissatisfaction is similar.

Interpersonal utility comparison

we already in everyday life make these comparisons every day, using imaginative empathy by asking oneself what satisfaction you’d get if you were in the other person's position, with their tastes and background 

preference utilitariansim

the right action maximizes social utility, and social utility is defined in terms of individual utilities, with each person’s utility defined in terms of his personal preferences. So social utility is ultimately defined in terms of people’s preferences 

• Manifest preferences: his actual preferences as manifested by his observed behavior including preferences possibly based on erroneous factual beliefs or on careless logical analysis 

• True preferences: the preferences he would have if he had all the relevant factual information, always reasoned with the greatest possible care, and were in a state of mind most conducive to rational choice 

preference autonomy

 in deciding what is good or bad for an individual, the ultimate criterion can only be his own wants and his own preferences (you are the final authority on what is good for you)

adaptive preferences

preferences that have been shaped by a person’s circumstances, so that they come to want only what seems available to them 

objective view

an agent ought to do an act if and only if it is the best option she has (best means best in fact, however things actually turn out)

prospective view

an agent ought to do the act with the greatest expectable value for her

• Expectable value is calculated using the probabilities her evidence supports (probability times value, summed over all the possible outcomes, not just the most likely one)

Classical Utilitarianism/hedonistic Utilitarianism

An action is right if and only if it produces at least as high a balance of pleasure over pain as any alternative, counting everyone affected equally 

Act Utilitarianism

Each particular, unrepeatable act is judged directly by the utilitarian standard. Rules of thumb are shortcuts, not binding rules 

Rule Utilitarianism

An act is right if and only if it follows the correct rule, meaning the rule that would maximize utility if everyone followed it