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Lives, Limbs, and Liver Spots: The Threshold Approach to Limited Aggregation Utilitas Pub Date : 2024-03-18 S. Matthew Liao, James Edgar Lim
Limited Aggregation is the view that when there are competing moral claims that demand our attention, we should sometimes satisfy the largest aggregate of claims, depending on the strength of the claims in question. In recent years, philosophers such as Patrick Tomlin and Alastair Norcross have argued that Limited Aggregation violates a number of rational choice principles such as Transitivity, Separability
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The Good and the Wrong of Hypocritical Blaming Utilitas Pub Date : 2023-12-21 Kartik Upadhyaya
Provided we blame others accurately, is blaming them morally right even if we are guilty of similar wrongdoing ourselves? On the one hand, hypocrisy seems to render blame morally wrong, and unjustified; but on the other, even hypocritical blaming seems better than silence. I develop an account of the wrongness of hypocritical blaming which resolves this apparent dilemma. When holding others accountable
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Reciprocity, Inequality, and Unsuccessful Rescues Utilitas Pub Date : 2023-12-21 Romy Eskens
Forced choices between rescuing imperilled persons are subject to a presumption of equality. Unless we can point to a morally relevant difference between these persons' imperilments, each should get an equal chance of rescue. Sometimes, this presumption is overturned. For example, when one imperilled person has wrongfully caused the forced choice, most think that this person (rather than an innocent
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Intersubstrate Welfare Comparisons: Important, Difficult, and Potentially Tractable Utilitas Pub Date : 2023-11-22 Bob Fischer, Jeff Sebo
In the future, when we compare the welfare of a being of one substrate (say, a human) with the welfare of another (say, an artificial intelligence system), we will be making an intersubstrate welfare comparison. In this paper, we argue that intersubstrate welfare comparisons are important, difficult, and potentially tractable. The world might soon contain a vast number of sentient or otherwise significant
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A Less Bad Theory of the Procreation Asymmetry and the Non-Identity Problem Utilitas Pub Date : 2023-11-16 Jonas H. Aaron
This paper offers a unified explanation for the procreation asymmetry and the non-identity thesis – two of the most intractable puzzles in population ethics. According to the procreation asymmetry, there are moral reasons not to create lives that are not worth living but no moral reasons to create lives that are worth living. I explain the procreation asymmetry by arguing that there are moral reasons
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Must We Always Pursue Economic Growth? Utilitas Pub Date : 2023-11-15 Jeffrey Carroll
Must we always pursue economic growth? Kogelmann answers yes. Not only should poor countries pursue growth, but rich countries should as well. Kogelmann aims to provide a wealth-insensitive argument – one demonstrating all countries should pursue growth regardless of their wealth. His central argument – the no halting growth (NHG) argument – says no country experiencing growth should stop it, because
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Fit and Well-Being Utilitas Pub Date : 2023-10-26 Teresa Bruno-Niño
In this paper, I argue for Fit, a prudential version of the claim that attitudes must fit their objects, the claim that there is an extra benefit when one's reactions fit their objects. I argue that Fit has surprising and powerful consequences for theories of well-being. Classic versions of the objective list theory, hedonism, desire views, and loving-the-good theories do not accommodate Fit. Suitable
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For the Greater Individual and Social Good: Justifying Age-Differentiated Paternalism Utilitas Pub Date : 2023-10-25 Viki Møller Lyngby Pedersen
What justifies differences in the acceptance of paternalism towards competent minors and older people? I propose two arguments. The first argument draws on the widely accepted view that paternalism is easier to justify the more good it promotes for the paternalizee. It argues that paternalism targeting young people generally promotes more good for the people interfered with than similar paternalism
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Egyptians, Aliens, and Okies: Against the Sum of Averages Utilitas Pub Date : 2023-09-29 Christian Tarsney, Michael Geruso, Dean Spears
Grill (2023) defends the sum of averages view (SAV), on which the value of a population is found by summing the average welfare of each generation or birth cohort. A major advantage of SAV, according to Grill, is that it escapes the Egyptology objection to average utilitarianism. But, we argue, SAV escapes only the most literal understanding of this objection, since it still allows the value of adding
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In Defence of Pigou–Dalton for Chances Utilitas Pub Date : 2023-08-22 H. Orri Stefánsson
I defend a weak version of the Pigou–Dalton principle for chances. The principle says that it is better to increase the survival chance of a person who is more likely to die rather than a person who is less likely to die, assuming that the two people do not differ in any other morally relevant respect. The principle justifies plausible moral judgements that standard ex post views, such as prioritarianism
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Trivially Satisfied Desires: A Problem for Desire-Satisfaction Theories of Well-Being Utilitas Pub Date : 2023-08-09 Luca Hemmerich
In this article, I argue that desire-satisfaction theories of well-being face the problem of trivially satisfied desires. First, I motivate the claim that desire-satisfaction theories need an aggregation principle and reconstruct four possible principles desire-satisfactionists can adopt. Second, I contend that one of these principles seems implausible on numerous counts. Third, I argue that the other
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Well-being and the Problem of Unstable Desires Utilitas Pub Date : 2023-08-07 Atus Mariqueo-Russell
This paper considers a new problem for desire theories of well-being. The problem claims that these theories are implausible because they misvalue the effects of fleeting desires, long-standing desires, and fluctuations in desire strength on well-being. I begin by investigating a version of the desire theory of well-being, simple concurrentism, that fails to capture intuitions in these cases. I then
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Benatar and Beyond: Rethinking the Consequences of Asymmetry Utilitas Pub Date : 2023-08-04 Kaila Draper
David Benatar's asymmetry argument in defense of anti-natalism is unconvincing, but not, as most of his critics would have it, because the alleged asymmetry on which it is based does not exist. Rather, the problem is that the existence of that asymmetry does not warrant the conclusion that it is better never to have been. This paper explains Benatar's mistake and identifies the correct conclusions
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Principle, Pragmatism, and Piecework in On Liberty Utilitas Pub Date : 2023-07-27 Dale E. Miller
In a well-known passage in chapter V of On Liberty, J. S. Mill notes that while economic competition is generally socially beneficial and should be permitted, this “Free Trade” doctrine does not follow from the liberty or harm principle because “trade is a social act.” In a largely overlooked passage in chapter IV of the same essay, however, Mill contends that for society to coercively prohibit the
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The Counterfactual Argument Against Abortion Utilitas Pub Date : 2023-06-22 Ryan Kulesa
In this article, I present a novel argument against abortion. In short, what makes it wrong to kill someone is that they are a counterfactual person; counterfactual persons are individuals such that, were they not killed, they would have been persons. My view accommodates two intuitions which many views concerning the wrongness of killing fail to account for: embryo rescue cases and the impermissibility
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Concurrent Awareness Desire Satisfactionism Utilitas Pub Date : 2023-05-31 Paul Forrester
Desire satisfactionists are united by their belief that what makes someone well-off is the satisfaction of their desires. But this commitment obscures a number of underlying differences, since there are several theoretical choice points on the way to making this commitment precise. This article is about two of the most important choice points. The first concerns an epistemic requirement on well-being
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Doing Harm: A Reply to Klocksiem Utilitas Pub Date : 2023-05-29 Erik Carlson, Jens Johansson, Olle Risberg
In a recent article in this journal, Justin Klocksiem proposes a novel response to the widely discussed failure to benefit problem for the counterfactual comparative account of harm (CCA). According to Klocksiem, proponents of CCA can deal with this problem by distinguishing between facts about there being harm and facts about an agent's having done harm. In this reply, we raise three sets of problems
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How Should Risk and Ambiguity Affect Our Charitable Giving? Utilitas Pub Date : 2023-05-16 Lara Buchak
Suppose we want to do the most good we can with a particular sum of money, but we cannot be certain of the consequences of different ways of making use of it. This article explores how our attitudes towards risk and ambiguity bear on what we should do. It shows that risk-avoidance and ambiguity-aversion can each provide good reason to divide our money between various charitable organizations rather
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Indeterminacy in Global Warming: A Supervaluationist Response Utilitas Pub Date : 2023-04-13 Patrick Dieveney
Global warming is a very complex collective harm. While various models have been proposed to assign moral responsibility in such cases, global warming presents an additional problem. The complexity of the climate system gives rise to ineliminable indeterminacy, which makes it impossible to determine the extent to which any particular emissions contribute to this collective harm. This indeterminacy
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Pattern-Based Reasons and Disaster Utilitas Pub Date : 2023-01-23 Alexander Dietz
Pattern-based reasons are reasons for action deriving not from the features of our own actions, but from the features of the larger patterns of action in which we might be participating. These reasons might relate to the patterns of action that will actually be carried out, or they might relate to merely hypothetical patterns. In past work, I have argued that accepting merely hypothetical pattern-based
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Moral Significance and Overpermissiveness Utilitas Pub Date : 2023-01-16 Fırat Akova
As opposed to overdemanding principles which ask individuals to sacrifice too much, there are overpermissive principles which ask individuals to sacrifice too little. Determining the extent to which one should sacrifice often comes with the need of understanding what is of moral significance. By analysing different readings of moral significance, and singling out one specific interpretation of moral
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The Sum of Averages: An Egyptology-Proof Average View Utilitas Pub Date : 2023-01-16 Kalle Grill
Contemporary population ethics is dominated by views that aggregate by summing, whether of well-being or of some construct based on well-being. In contrast, average well-being is generally considered axiologically irrelevant. To many of us, however, the number of future people does not seem important, as long as it is sufficient to enable rich and varied life experiences, and as long as the population
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The Morality of Creating Lives Not Worth Living: On Boonin's Solution to the Non-Identity Problem Utilitas Pub Date : 2022-12-12 Olle Risberg
David Boonin argues that in a choice between creating a person whose life would be well worth living and creating a different person whose life would be significantly worse, but still worth living, each option is morally permissible. I show that Boonin's argument for this view problematically implies that in a choice between creating a person whose life would be well worth living and creating another
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Of trolleys and self-driving cars: What machine ethicists can and cannot learn from trolleyology Utilitas Pub Date : 2022-12-01 Peter Königs
Crashes involving self-driving cars at least superficially resemble trolley dilemmas. This article discusses what lessons machine ethicists working on the ethics of self-driving cars can learn from trolleyology. The article proceeds by providing an account of the trolley problem as a paradox and by distinguishing two types of solutions to the trolley problem. According to an optimistic solution, our
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Troubled Hedonism and Social Justice: Mill and the Epicureans on the Ataraxic Life Utilitas Pub Date : 2022-11-16 Chris Barker
J. S. Mill is typically thought of as a liberal utilitarian disciple of Jeremy Bentham, and in other readings as a modern Socratic or even a modern Epicurean. Mill and the Epicureans are alike in several respects: they theorize personal freedom and active character versus determinism and passivity, they oppose excessive love and praise friendship, and they are critical of traditional religiosity. In
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Self-Respect Paternalism Utilitas Pub Date : 2022-10-31 Søren Flinch Midtgaard
According to the influential disrespect account of what paternalism is, and why it is wrong, paternalism involves an anti-egalitarian, disrespectful attitude on the part of the paternalist: X (the paternalist) assumes an attitude of superiority when interfering in Y's matters for Y's good. Pace this account, the article argues that an important, although somewhat overlooked, form of paternalism is
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When a Free Act Costs a Motive: Clearing Consequentialism of Conflict Utilitas Pub Date : 2022-10-27 Austen McDougal
Consequentialist theories that directly assess multiple focal points face an important objection: that one right option may conflict with another. Robert Adams raises an instance of this objection regarding the possibility that the right act conflicts with the right motives. Whereas only partial responses have previously been given, assuming particular views of the relation between motives and acts
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Three Forms of Actualist Direct Consequentialism Utilitas Pub Date : 2022-10-17 Shyam Nair
One family of maximizing act consequentialist theories is actualist direct theories. Indeed, historically there are at least three different forms of actualist direct consequentialism (due to Bentham, Moore, and contemporary consequentialists). This article is about the logical differences between these three actualist direct theories and the differences between actualist direct theories and their
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We Must Always Pursue Economic Growth Utilitas Pub Date : 2022-10-07 Brian Kogelmann
Why pursue economic growth? For poor countries this is an easy question to answer, but it is more difficult for rich ones. Some of the world's greatest philosophers and economists – such as John Stuart Mill, John Maynard Keynes, and John Rawls – thought that, once a certain material standard of well-being has been achieved, economic growth should stop. I argue the opposite in this article. We always
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A Thomistic Solution to the Deep Problem for Perfectionism Utilitas Pub Date : 2022-09-16 Matthew Shea, James Kintz
Perfectionism is the view that what is intrinsically good is the fulfillment of human nature or the development and exercise of the characteristic human capacities. An important objection to the theory is what Gwen Bradford calls the “Deep Problem”: explaining why nature-fulfillment is good. We argue that situating perfectionism within a Thomistic metaethical framework and adopting Aquinas's account
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Hidden Desires: A Unified Strategy for Defending the Desire-Satisfaction Theory Utilitas Pub Date : 2022-08-31 Xiang Yu
According to the desire-satisfaction theory of well-being, your life goes well to the extent that your desires are satisfied. This theory faces the problem of prudential neutrality: it apparently cannot avoid saying that, from the point of view of prudence or self-interest, you ought to be neutral between satisfying an existing desire of yours and replacing it with an equally strong desire and satisfying
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Harm, Failing to Benefit, and the Counterfactual Comparative Account Utilitas Pub Date : 2022-08-30 Justin Klocksiem
In the literature about harm, the counterfactual comparative account has emerged as a main contender. According to it, an event constitutes a harm for someone iff the person is worse off than they would otherwise have been as a result. But the counterfactual comparative account faces significant challenges, one of the most serious of which stems from examples involving non-harmful omitted actions or
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Bain's Theory of Moral Judgment and the Development of Mill's Utilitarianism Utilitas Pub Date : 2022-08-23 Aaron Zimmerman
In Utilitarianism, Mill defers to Alexander Bain's expertise on the subject of moral judgment to answer common criticisms of the creed. First, we do not blame people or label them immoral when they are less than ideal. Judgments of immorality are commonly reserved for substandard behavior, not suboptimal comportment. Second, we do not commonly insist on full neutrality in benevolence. Indeed, some
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Bentham's Mugging Utilitas Pub Date : 2022-08-22 Johan E. Gustafsson
A dialogue, in three parts, on utilitarian vulnerability to exploitation.
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John Stuart Mill's Passage on Pimps and the Limits on Free Speech Utilitas Pub Date : 2022-08-22 Mark Tunick
Mill didn't resolve this puzzle: if prostitution must be tolerated according to his principle of liberty as it doesn't non-consensually harm others, why punish the accessory – the pimp? Yet in On Liberty's passage on pimps (CW 18:296–7) Mill seriously considers restricting pimps’ speech for reasons other than preventing harm: pimps’ speech undermines decisional autonomy for purposes the state regards
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Superiority Discounting Implies the Preposterous Conclusion Utilitas Pub Date : 2022-08-15 Mitchell Barrington
Many population axiologies avoid the Repugnant Conclusion (RC) by endorsing Superiority: some number of great lives is better than any number of mediocre lives. But as Nebel shows, RC follows (given plausible auxiliary assumptions) from the Intrapersonal Repugnant Conclusion (IRC): a guaranteed mediocre life is better than a sufficiently small probability of a great life. This result is concerning
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The Definition of Consequentialism: A Survey Utilitas Pub Date : 2022-08-05 Oscar Horta, Gary David O'Brien, Dayron Teran
There are different meanings associated with consequentialism and teleology. This causes confusion, and sometimes results in discussions based on misunderstandings rather than on substantial disagreements. To clarify this, we created a survey on the definitions of ‘consequentialism’ and ‘teleology’, which we sent to specialists in consequentialism. We broke down the different meanings of consequentialism
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Reply to Jay on Subjective Consequentialism and Deontic Variance Utilitas Pub Date : 2022-07-25 Scott Forschler
Christopher Jay has recently argued that one version of subjective consequentialism is objectionable because it entails ‘arbitrary deontic variance’ in which the permissibility of some action can depend upon an arbitrary, non-moral choice of which possible results of the action to investigate or even reflect upon. This author argues that this deontic variance is actually entirely innocuous, and results
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What if We Contain Multiple Morally Relevant Subjects? Utilitas Pub Date : 2022-07-25 Dustin Crummett
First, I introduce the concept of a “non-agential subject,” where a non-agential subject (1) exists within an organism and (2) has phenomenally conscious experiences in a morally significant way, but (3) is not morally responsible for (some or all of) the organism's voluntary actions. Second, I argue that it's a live possibility that typical adult humans contain non-agential subjects. Finally, I argue
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The Decline of Egoism Utilitas Pub Date : 2022-07-21 Robert Shaver
Sidgwick saw egoism as important and undefeated. Not long afterward, egoism is largely ignored. Immediately after Sidgwick, many arguments were given against egoism – most poor – but one argument deserves attention as both influential and plausible. Call it the “grounds objection.” It has two strands. It objects that there are justifying reasons for action other than that an action will maximize my
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The Prospects for ‘Prospect Utilitarianism’ Utilitas Pub Date : 2022-07-20 Ben Davies
Hun Chung argues for a theory of distributive justice – ‘prospect utilitarianism’ – that overcomes two central problems purportedly faced by sufficientarianism: giving implausible answers in ‘lifeboat cases’, where we can save the lives of some but not all of a group, and failing to respect the axiom of continuity. Chung claims that prospect utilitarianism overcomes these problems, and receives empirical
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Clifford's Consequentialism Utilitas Pub Date : 2022-06-15 Brian Zamulinski
It is morally negligent or reckless to believe without sufficient evidence. The foregoing proposition follows from a rule that is a modified expression of W. K. Clifford's ethics of belief. Clifford attempted to prove that it is always wrong to believe without sufficient evidence by advancing a doxastic counterpart to an act utilitarian argument. Contrary to various commentators, his argument is neither
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Joseph Heath, Philosophical Foundations of Climate Change Policy (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2021), pp. 339. Utilitas Pub Date : 2022-04-21 Marc D. Davidson
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Never Just Save the Few Utilitas Pub Date : 2022-04-21 Leora Urim Sung
Most people have the intuition that, when we can save the lives of either a few people in one group or many people in another group, and all other things are equal, we ought to save the group with the most people. However, several philosophers have argued against this intuition, most famously John Taurek, in his article ‘Should the Numbers Count?’ They argue that there is no moral obligation to save
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F. M. Kamm, Almost Over: Aging, Dying, Dead (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), pp. xii + 330. Utilitas Pub Date : 2022-04-07 Teresa Bruno-Niño
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The Golden Rule: A Naturalistic Perspective Utilitas Pub Date : 2022-04-07 Nathan Cofnas
A number of philosophers from Hobbes to Mill to Parfit have held some combination of the following views about the Golden Rule: (a) It is the cornerstone of morality across many if not all cultures. (b) It affirms the value of moral impartiality, and potentially the core idea of utilitarianism. (c) It is immune from evolutionary debunking, that is, there is no good naturalistic explanation for widespread
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J. S. Mill's Anti-Imperialist Defence of Empire Utilitas Pub Date : 2022-03-24 Tim Beaumont, Yuan Li
It is possible to distinguish between empire, as a form of political order, and imperialism, as a process of aggressive expansion. Mill's liberalism allows for a legitimate empire, in which a civilized state rules a less civilized foreign people paternalistically to prepare them for liberal democratic self-rule. However, it rejects paternalistic imperialism, in the sense of aggression designed to establish
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Weak Superiority, Imprecise Equality and the Repugnant Conclusion – Erratum Utilitas Pub Date : 2022-03-17 Karsten Klint Jensen
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Age and Illness Severity: A Case of Irrelevant Utilities? Utilitas Pub Date : 2022-02-23 Borgar Jølstad, Niklas Juth
Illness severity is a priority setting criterion in several countries. Age seems to matter when considering severity, but perhaps not small age differences. In the following article we consider Small Differences (SD): small differences in age are not relevant when considering differential illness severity. We show that SD cannot be accommodated within utilitarian, prioritarian or egalitarian theories
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Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls: Against Hayward's “Utility Cascades” Utilitas Pub Date : 2022-02-10 Ryan Doody
In his article “Utility Cascades”, Max Khan Hayward argues that act-utilitarians should sometimes either ignore evidence about the effectiveness of their actions or fail to apportion their support to an action's effectiveness. His conclusions are said to have particular significance for the effective altruism movement, which centers seeking and being guided by evidence. Hayward's argument is that act-utilitarians
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Normative Resilience Utilitas Pub Date : 2022-02-08 Henrik Andersson, Jakob Werkmäster
This article discusses the phenomenon of normative resilience, with a focus on evaluative resilience. An object can become more or less valuable. In addition to this change in an object's value, the object's value can become more or less resilient. If it is less resilient, it cannot withstand as much evaluative change without its degree of value changing, as compared to an object with more resilient
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The Cosmic Significance of Directed Panspermia: Should Humanity Spread Life to Other Solar Systems? Utilitas Pub Date : 2022-02-02 Oskari Sivula
The possibility of seeding other planets with life poses a tricky dilemma. On the one hand, directed panspermia might be extremely good, while, on the other, it might be extremely bad depending on what factors are taken into consideration. Therefore, we need to understand better what is ethically at stake with planetary seeding. I map out possible conditions under which humanity should spread life
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Ex-Ante Prioritarianism Violates Sequential Ex-Ante Pareto Utilitas Pub Date : 2021-12-17 Johan E. Gustafsson
Prioritarianism is a variant of utilitarianism. It differs from utilitarianism in that benefiting individuals matters more the worse off these individuals are. On this view, there are two standard ways of handling risky prospects: Ex-Post Prioritarianism adjusts for prioritizing the worse off in final outcomes and then values prospects by the expectation of the sum total of those adjusted values, whereas
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Does Abortion Harm the Fetus? Utilitas Pub Date : 2021-12-06 Karl Ekendahl, Jens Johansson
A central claim in abortion ethics is what might be called the Harm Claim – the claim that abortion harms the fetus. In this article, we put forward a simple and straightforward reason to reject the Harm Claim. Rather than invoking controversial assumptions about personal identity, or some nonstandard account of harm, as many other critics of the Harm Claim have done, we suggest that the aborted fetus
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The Harm Principle and the Nature of Harm Utilitas Pub Date : 2021-12-06 Anna Folland
This article defends the Harm Principle, commonly attributed to John Stuart Mill, against recent criticism. Some philosophers think that this principle should be rejected, because of severe difficulties with finding an account of harm to plug into it. I examine the criticism and find it unforceful. Finally, I identify a faulty assumption behind this type of criticism, namely that the Harm Principle
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Who Authored On Liberty? Stylometric Evidence on Harriet Taylor Mill's Contribution Utilitas Pub Date : 2021-12-02 Christoph Schmidt-Petri, Michael Schefczyk, Lilly Osburg
It is well known that John Stuart Mill (JSM) repeatedly acknowledges Harriet Taylor Mill's (HTM) substantial contribution to On Liberty. After her death, however, he decides to publish the book under his name only. Are we justified in continuing this practice, initiated by JSM, of refusing unequivocal co-authorship status to HTM? Drawing on stylometric analyses, we make a preliminary case that JSM
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Human Extinction and Moral Worthwhileness Utilitas Pub Date : 2021-11-29 Elizabeth Finneron-Burns
In this article I make two main critiques of Kaczmarek and Beard's article ‘Human Extinction and Our Obligations to the Past’. First, I argue that there is an ambiguity in what it means to realise the benefits of a sacrifice and that this ambiguity affects the persuasiveness of the authors’ arguments and responses to various objections to their view. Second, I argue that their core argument against
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T. M. Scanlon, Why Does Inequality Matter? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 192. Utilitas Pub Date : 2021-11-17 David O'Brien
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Climate Change and Non-Identity Utilitas Pub Date : 2021-11-17 Lukas Tank
What is the practical relevance of the Non-Identity Problem (NIP) for our climate change-related duties? Climate change and the NIP are often discussed together, but there is surprisingly little work on the practical relevance of the NIP for the ethics of climate change. The central claim of this article is that the NIP makes a relatively minor difference to our climate change-related duties even if