Transcript preference utilitarianism ppt

Peter Singer’s Challenge
Practical Ethics (1993)
9 April 2016
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Questions asked of any moral theory
• Derivation: How is the value or norm (idea of
goodness) derived?
• Application: How easy is the norm to apply to
real world situations?
• Realism: How realistic is the theory in its view
of human nature?
• Motivation: How does this theory answer the
question: why should I be moral?
Acronym D.A.R.M learn and apply to any theory
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Aims of this lesson
• To understand Singer’s preference
utilitarianism.
• To apply it to animal rights and
euthanasia/infanticide.
• To understand the radical implications
of his theory.
• To evaluate it according to its Realism
and Motivation of moral agents.
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Three versions of utilitarianism
Utilitarianism
Act utilitarianism
•Bentham
•Goodness = actions
that maximise
pleasure minus pain
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Rule utilitarianism
•Mill
•Goodness =
happiness of
greatest number
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Preference utilitarianism
•Singer
•Goodness =
maximising
preferences and
interests of all
Dilemmas
• If curing cancer requires research that kills ten embryos, should
we do the research? What if it involves killing ten babies?
• In November 2009 the NHS announced it could not afford to
give expensive life-enhancing drugs to liver cancer patients.
Are they right?
• If redistributing European excess food production to the 25m
starving in Africa in the drought of 2009 will save their lives,
should we do it?
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Radicalism
“Singer’s principle is, “If it is in our power to prevent
something bad from happening, without thereby
sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance,
we ought, morally, to do it.”
A moment’s reflection on the implications of this
principle should convince you of its radicalness. If
we were to follow it, we would be left just slightly
better off than the worst off people in the world (who
would be much better off). People would have to
turn in their second cars and second homes and
share the ones they already have”.
Louis Pojman (2007:251)
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Preference Utilitarianism
• Happiness is maximised by allowing people to satisfy
as many of their first preferences as possible.
• “An action contrary to the preference of any being is,
unless outweighed by contrary preferences, wrong.
Killing a person who prefers to continue living is
therefore wrong, other things being equal”.
Practical Ethics
• Utility, not rights, is the deciding principle.
• But what of the rights of people eg infants or the
handicapped, who cannot state preferences?
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How does this work?
• Take an impartial view that of
the impartial spectator.
• “Our own preferences cannot
take priority over the
preferences of others”.
• So the preferences and
interests of all those involved
must be considered.
• There’s strict equality of all in
the weighing of interests.
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Animal Liberation
• He approves of Bentham’s dictum: “the question is not,
can they reason? Nor “can they talk”? But, “can they
suffer”?
• Mill talks of extending “the standard of morality..so far
as the nature of things permits, to the whole of sentient
creation.” Utilitarianism
• Singer accords animals rights as sentient (feeling)
beings; they have valid interests.
• So eating meat, consuming battery-farmed eggs,
cosmetic testing on animals, or wearing fur are wrong.
• It is preferences or interests, that we ought to value.
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Rachels comments:
“ The utilitarian argument is simple
enough. The system of meat
production causes great suffering
to the animals. Because we do
not need to eat them –
vegetarian meals are also tasty
and nourishing – the good that is
done does not, on balance,
outweigh the evil. Therefore it is
wrong. Singer concludes that we
should become vegetarians”.
James Rachels (2006:101)
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Should doctors be permitted to kill humans?
• Singer points out that doctors often withhold treatment
from the terminally ill. Surely this is crueller than
euthanasia?
• Even new-born infants have little ethical significance.
“If the foetus does not have the same claim to life as a
person, it appears that the newborn baby does not
either, and the life of the newborn baby is of less value
than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee is to a
non-human animal…the grounds for not killing persons
do not apply to newborn infants”.
Practical Ethics
• Singer suggests a new commandment: “Recognize that
the worth of human life varies”.
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Problems
• “The notion of what makes a better person is secondary
to the right thing to do” Peter Singer.
• Virtue Ethicists like MacIntyre argue that humans who
kill in one situation (infanticide) are more likely to kill in
another.
• Religious Philosophers like Plantinga argue that it’s
dangerous to violate the sanctity of life.
• Susan Wolf suggests such an ethically perfect world
would be dreary, without wit, extravagance, cathedrals,
or works of art.
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Too high a standard?
• David Norton argues that Singer misses the point in setting the
standard so high: that morality is learnt step by step. Mill’s
utilitarianism is more minimalist.
• So only the moral elite will be capable of this sort of sacrifice implied
by maximising preferences.
• We don’t have the same moral duties: to a moral beginner something
may seem a huge sacrifice compared with a moral saint.
• The general duty we do have is to develop our moral capacities to a
point where we can experience greater happiness or take greater
responsibility.
• So it is better to espouse a theory of moral progress than to apply
Singer’s principle in a consistent way.
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Singer ignores reality of kinship duties
“Kinship or closeness is a
very important element in
thinking about every aspect
of our lives. To deny the
reality of the influence this
factor has on our decisionmaking in favour of some
abstraction like absolute
equality may be considered
saintly, but is probably not
possible for most mortals
faced with moral decisions”.
Lori Gruen in Singer ed
(1993:250)
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A wrong view of human nature?
• “Deep down we don’t want to live with Singer
because we can’t live with ourselves this way.
Singer can’t understand why Hindu
vegetarians, Catholic paupers and Jewish
scribes – some of the best people there are –
are rarely built on utilitarian principles. Animal
lovers, Singer’s biggest fans, usually love
animals, not utility. And that’s true of
humans too.”
Mark Oppenheimer
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Is Singer’s end goal a kind of transcendent ideal, almost
religious ?
• Singer believes religion is an illusion. But he also
writes:
“If we regard time as a fourth dimension, then we can
think of the universe, throughout all the times at
which it contains sentient life, as a four-dimension
entity. We can then make that world a better place
by causing there to be less pointless suffering in one
particular place, at one particular time, than there
would otherwise have been.”
Peter Singer How are we to live?
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Evaluate Preference Utilitarianism
• Write down three strengths of Singer’s
theory.
• Write down three weaknesses.
• Compare Singer’s theory with Mill’s rule
utilitarianism. What are the similarities and
differences?
• Discuss: Singer allows for the interests of
animals (who can’t express preferences) but
not infants. Isn’t this inconsistent?
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Singer’s invitation to speak in Germany is withdrawn in
1991 because of this view. Was this action justified?
“Parents of severely disabled newborn infants should
be able to decide, together with their physician,
whether their infant should live or die. If the parents
and their medical adviser are in agreement that the
infant’s life will be so miserable or so devoid of
minimal satisfactions that it would be inhumane to
prolong life, then they should be allowed to ensure
that death comes about speedily and without much
suffering”.
Practical Ethics p342
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Wrap up Peter Singer
• On the piece of paper/ post it note, write one thing
you have learned today…
• Could be a concept you are now familiar with.
• Or, a new key term in your vocabulary.
• A theory that you are more confident in
understanding.
• Developed an academic/exam skill.
• If nothing, be honest. But say why you feel nothing.
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