Contemporary Utilitarianism

Julia Driver

She is refering to the work of Bernard Williams and analyzes ways to respond to criticism of utilitarianism

Justice

Demandingness

Integrity and Negative Responsibility

Friendship and Special Obligations

Justice

One way that utilitarianism is criticized is that it can advocated for less just situations such as a society where the majority work for the pleasure of a few or for a sheriff to kill an innocent man to save livrs from a potential riot

Act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism are different but rule utilitarianism can become rule worship which leads to exceptiosn based on acts which eventually collapses to act utilitarianism

Demandingness

it can demand a lot from a person such as helping the poor and sending a sweater that is premade instead of handmaking a somewhat good one for a birthday.

It can be niche situations but a response is that there could be balance as someone who scarifices themselves become less productive and happy to help others in need.

But we can have people change their psychology to want less but then it leads to over less happiness

If more lenient theories get higher complients then better happiness then there is a utilitarian argument to not follow the gr3eatest happiness principle

Integrity and Negative Responsibility

It is a variation of demandingness.

It can have people give up integrity, Killing a man to save the lives of 20.

Negative responsibility - responsibility for not acting.

Bernard Williams argues. If we are to maximize good then we have an obligation to make sure the greatest amount of good. They are responsible for failtures to act as well as direct acts to harm.

Lie to stop a man from drowning a tolder. The lie being bad compared to the tolder drowning.

Williams might not have rejcted negative responsibility totally

Friendship and Special Obligations

We need to act for the most happiness. A mother should not give a gift to her child but to the one who will be made the most happy.

One argument is that it’s a better world for people to be able to have close relationships because it’s not a good world where no one can because they don’t know who needs the relationship the most.

Following a moral theory closely might not be popular but a theory cannot just be the reflection of our intuition