Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Two Anti-Utilitarian Thoughts...
which connect pleasingly. Although it may not necessarily be a reductio of utilitarianism that it can be used to justify torture - I think the ticking bomb scenario should be difficult, and it may even be the case, as in Bernard Williams' Jim and the Indians example, that we ought to do something terrible, even if we are not obliged to do it - it should be a reductio of utilitarianism that it can be used to justify torture in cases where the torturer gains enough enjoyment from it. There are no circumstances under which we count happiness gained from morally despicable activities, and that is because, as Rochenko points out, happiness, insofar as we are morally interested in it at all, has qualitative not quantitative value: it's irrelevant whether torturing makes someone happy or not, because it shouldn't.
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3 comments:
Good stuff. I hadn't thought of it that way.
I'm dubious about some of the cases where people say 'sadistic pleasures shouldn't count'. If it's in a case of aiming at equal welfare/happiness, for example, not counting a sadistic pleasure means the torturer will get more other pleasure - to bring him to equality plus the (not counted) sadistic pleasure.
I think it's generally correct to say he has no claim to such, but if there's pleasure there it should be counted somehow not ignored (as a few seem to suggest, by lazy writing or thinking)
That problem seems like a good reason to be skeptical of (welfare) egalitarianism to me...
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