Fischer & Ravizza and Utilitarianism

Fischer & Ravizza: Reflective Equilibrium

There is a balance between our specific, concrete moral judgments and our principles and theories. We create principles and theories from our concrete moral judgments, and our concrete moral judgments can be evaluated from principles and theories.

Fischer and Ravizza maintain that what can be useful in ethics?

thought experiments

Consequentialist Theory

In deciding what the right thing to do is, one should focus on the course of action that will bring about the best available outcome

Utilitarianism

that action is right which maximizes pleasure/good/preferences/value/benefits/utility for the most people, and minimizes the bad

The heart of utilitarianism is the requirement to…

bring about the best overall outcome

act-utilitarianism vs. rule-utilitarianism

Act: seeks to maximize the net utility produced by each action

Rule: seeks to find general rules that will produce the greatest utility over the long run

• Intrinsic value is the true measure of utility according to utilitarianism

What are the additions & subtractions of utilitarianism?

add up the goods, add up the pains based on their features (intensity, duration, fertility, nearness in time)

Pros of Utilitarianism

• attractive because it is natural to suppose that the right thing to do is to maximize good results and minimize bad ones

• tries to maximize human welfare

Cons of Utilitarianims

• counterintuitive: would even justify slavery and genocide

• when you try to “maximize the good“, you try to predict what will happen in the future, which is never guaranteed (there are too many possible outcomes that you can’t even think of), so it contradicts rational decision-making

• incommensurability of values: utilitarianism doesn’t measure things of the same unit, can’t be measured = irrationality

Deontological Theory

In determining which course of action is right, one can’t just weigh the overall values that would be produced in each possible outcome; one must also consider the paths that must be traversed to reach these ends

• Deontological theories deny the consequentialist claim that the rightness of an action is solely a function of the outcome produced

According to Fischer and Ravizza, deontological theories of ethics say:

the ends do not justify the means

Fischer and Ravizza say deontological theories claim to be better than utilitarianism with regard to:

respecting individual persons