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> The gist of the argument is that utilitarianism provides unintuitive responses in certain cases therefore, we should default to deontology. I'm not sure I se

by pdonis 5y ago

> The gist of the argument is that utilitarianism provides unintuitive responses in certain cases therefore, we should default to deontology. I'm not sure I see the argument of the article that way (even though the author does end by stating that we should default to deontology). I would phrase the core of the argument this way: utilitarianism is a form of deontology! Utilitarianism ultimately rests on the ethical intuition that maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain is the only value that should be pursued. That's not an alternative to deontology: that is a deontological claim. And, once it's put baldly like that, it's a pretty questionable claim: is maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain really the only value that should be pursued? The article is simply posing scenarios in which some other deontological value conflicts with that value.

randallsquared 5y ago
> utilitarianism is a form of deontology Systems of morals can all be expressed as rules, outcomes, or goals, so each can be phrased to subsume the others. > Utilitarianism ultimately rests on the ethical intuition that maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain is the only value that should be pursued. That sounds more like hedonism. Utilitarians don't necessarily believe that pleasure is perfectly aligned with utility.
- pdonis 5y ago
  > Utilitarians don't necessarily believe that pleasure is perfectly aligned with utility. Then say "maximizing utility" in place of "maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain". It doesn't change the fact that utilitarianism says there is just one value worth pursuing, whereas other deontological systems say there are multiple values worth pursuing. The latter seems to me to be far more in line with reality.
  - derbOac 5y ago
    I'm happy to see these kinds of discussions. Here's the thing: one of the biggest problems to deontological approaches, as the parent pointed out, is that you end up with conflicts between values. But it's worse than that, because there's not a clear way to resolve these conflicts, and in my experience there's just a "hands throwing up" moment, along with a denial that the conflict existed, or an appeal to "maintaining values" without even recognizing that another value was abandoned. So you could turn this on its head, and argue that if deontological and utilitarian approaches are equivalent at some level, why not advocate for the approach that at least offers a framework for resolving conflicts in theory? If two values confict, how do you decide? More importantly, how do you decide without appealing to utility at some level, including implicitly? This gets into very high-level ethical reasoning issues and I'm not sure I would ascribe as purely utilitarian or deontological perspectives. But I think if you take the perspective of equivalence (and I think that's a reasonable perspective), there's not much grounds for saying you're not deontological or not utilitarian.
    - pdonis 5y ago
      > If two values confict, how do you decide? I'm not sure there is any general rule for this. That's why there are conflicts like this in the first place: because there isn't one consistent set of ethical rules that can be applied to every situation. > More importantly, how do you decide without appealing to utility at some level, including implicitly? "Utility" in this context is just another way of saying "what people value". But if there were one single scale on which we could measure everything that people value, there wouldn't be ethical conflicts. The whole point is that there isn't any such scale: people have multiple different, incommensurable values, and there is no general rule for how to resolve conflicts between them.
- pdonis 5y ago
  > Systems of morals can all be expressed as rules, outcomes, or goals I have no problem with this, but utilitarians claim that utilitarianism is an alternative to deontology. If your statement here is true, then utilitarians are wrong in that claim.
  - randallsquared 5y ago
    These are just different levels of abstraction. You can write bel in Blub, but that doesn't mean they aren't in some sense alternatives.
kelseyfrog 5y ago
Why default to deontology then? If this framing doesn't escape moral conflicts then it's no better than utilitarianism!
- pdonis 5y ago
  > If this framing doesn't escape moral conflicts then it's no better than utilitarianism! It is if it recognizes that there is no magic framing that escapes moral conflicts. Utilitarianism claims to be such a framing, so showing that it doesn't actually deliver those goods seems to me to be a contribution worth making.

by pdonis 5y ago

randallsquared 5y ago

> utilitarianism is a form of deontology Systems of morals can all be expressed as rules, outcomes, or goals, so each can be phrased to subsume the others. > Utilitarianism ultimately rests on the ethical intuition that maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain is the only value that should be pursued. That sounds more like hedonism. Utilitarians don't necessarily believe that pleasure is perfectly aligned with utility.

pdonis 5y ago
> Utilitarians don't necessarily believe that pleasure is perfectly aligned with utility. Then say "maximizing utility" in place of "maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain". It doesn't change the fact that utilitarianism says there is just one value worth pursuing, whereas other deontological systems say there are multiple values worth pursuing. The latter seems to me to be far more in line with reality.
- derbOac 5y ago
  I'm happy to see these kinds of discussions. Here's the thing: one of the biggest problems to deontological approaches, as the parent pointed out, is that you end up with conflicts between values. But it's worse than that, because there's not a clear way to resolve these conflicts, and in my experience there's just a "hands throwing up" moment, along with a denial that the conflict existed, or an appeal to "maintaining values" without even recognizing that another value was abandoned. So you could turn this on its head, and argue that if deontological and utilitarian approaches are equivalent at some level, why not advocate for the approach that at least offers a framework for resolving conflicts in theory? If two values confict, how do you decide? More importantly, how do you decide without appealing to utility at some level, including implicitly? This gets into very high-level ethical reasoning issues and I'm not sure I would ascribe as purely utilitarian or deontological perspectives. But I think if you take the perspective of equivalence (and I think that's a reasonable perspective), there's not much grounds for saying you're not deontological or not utilitarian.
  - pdonis 5y ago
    > If two values confict, how do you decide? I'm not sure there is any general rule for this. That's why there are conflicts like this in the first place: because there isn't one consistent set of ethical rules that can be applied to every situation. > More importantly, how do you decide without appealing to utility at some level, including implicitly? "Utility" in this context is just another way of saying "what people value". But if there were one single scale on which we could measure everything that people value, there wouldn't be ethical conflicts. The whole point is that there isn't any such scale: people have multiple different, incommensurable values, and there is no general rule for how to resolve conflicts between them.
pdonis 5y ago
> Systems of morals can all be expressed as rules, outcomes, or goals I have no problem with this, but utilitarians claim that utilitarianism is an alternative to deontology. If your statement here is true, then utilitarians are wrong in that claim.
- randallsquared 5y ago
  These are just different levels of abstraction. You can write bel in Blub, but that doesn't mean they aren't in some sense alternatives.

kelseyfrog 5y ago

Why default to deontology then? If this framing doesn't escape moral conflicts then it's no better than utilitarianism!

pdonis 5y ago
> If this framing doesn't escape moral conflicts then it's no better than utilitarianism! It is if it recognizes that there is no magic framing that escapes moral conflicts. Utilitarianism claims to be such a framing, so showing that it doesn't actually deliver those goods seems to me to be a contribution worth making.