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> How can it be unethical if the person knows full well what's coming with no surprises, and the person judged that it was in their best interest to do it? That

> How can it be unethical if the person knows full well what's coming with no surprises, and the person judged that it was in their best interest to do it? That'd be saying it's unethical to provide someone with a benefit-cost > 0 which they've agreed to, and I don't see why that should be true. It's unethical to ask people to perform an action which you know they would never agree to if it wasn't for an imbalance of power or financial pressure/incentives. Otherwise you could say why did Harvey Weinstein get prosecuted. When he asked women to suck him off and they did it voluntarily then it's not wrong is it? I mean they could have just walked away and not get hired for his next film.

hackerlight 4y ago
"It's unethical to ask people to perform an action which you know they would never agree to if it wasn't for an imbalance of power or financial pressure/incentives." Under utilitarianism you need to compare it to the alternative. You can't say X is immoral if Y is the alternative and Y is worse than X. In many cases, X=terrible job, Y=nothing. Otherwise you're actively opposing someone's wellbeing. This is the fatal problem with these ad hoc ethical rules that aren't grounded in actual outcomes. Consider the reductio ad absurdum. Almost everyone has a job because of financial pressures. Even upper middle class people feel pressure to secure themselves for old age and unforeseen circumstances. Is almost every job unethical? If yes, then you're saying that our species functioning is unethical, which is an absurdity. If no, then you don't believe it yourself. "Harvey Weinstein" No because he violated two of the assumptions I laid out, making it unethical under utilitarianism. He often introduced it as a surprise after the business relationship started. And he engaged in what was effectively high pressure sales tactics which jeopardizes the ability for the person to decide whether it's truly in their best interests (this would be a form of compromised cognition, similar to mentally ill homeless people in the Bumfights example). A third thing: the attempts themselves were a sort of menacing assault which subtracted utility from the person, which they didn't agree to be subjected to upfront.

hackerlight 4y ago

"It's unethical to ask people to perform an action which you know they would never agree to if it wasn't for an imbalance of power or financial pressure/incentives." Under utilitarianism you need to compare it to the alternative. You can't say X is immoral if Y is the alternative and Y is worse than X. In many cases, X=terrible job, Y=nothing. Otherwise you're actively opposing someone's wellbeing. This is the fatal problem with these ad hoc ethical rules that aren't grounded in actual outcomes. Consider the reductio ad absurdum. Almost everyone has a job because of financial pressures. Even upper middle class people feel pressure to secure themselves for old age and unforeseen circumstances. Is almost every job unethical? If yes, then you're saying that our species functioning is unethical, which is an absurdity. If no, then you don't believe it yourself. "Harvey Weinstein" No because he violated two of the assumptions I laid out, making it unethical under utilitarianism. He often introduced it as a surprise after the business relationship started. And he engaged in what was effectively high pressure sales tactics which jeopardizes the ability for the person to decide whether it's truly in their best interests (this would be a form of compromised cognition, similar to mentally ill homeless people in the Bumfights example). A third thing: the attempts themselves were a sort of menacing assault which subtracted utility from the person, which they didn't agree to be subjected to upfront.