Lecture 4: utilitarianism

utilitarianism (consequentialism):

• weigh costs/benefits of all options, see which option is best
• only factor that morally matters are consequences of an action on the well-being of everyone, where everyone gets equal consideration.

comparisons:

• vs contractualism: starts from assumption that everyone matters equally, while contractualism says that we should do what’s in self-interest.
• vs ethical egoism: looks at well-being of everyone involved, not just own well-being.

“well-being” has different meanings, in principle any of the ones mentioned in Lecture 3: theories of well-being can be used

if you don’t know how an act will play out, you have to work with all of the potential consequences.

• that doesn’t mean we can’t take risks
• don’t always evaluate this, sometimes it takes long time to evaluate all possible consequences, and you won’t have time to act

how do you approach issues of e.g. health vs privacy (like tracking people with Corona)?

utilitarians: weigh costs/benefits of mass surveillance vs other strategies

• but how assign costs to mass surveillance if don’t know what’s valuable about privacy?
• argument: I have nothing to hide, please track me
  • counter 1: prevention of harm - info you share now might be used against you later
  • counter 2: intentional inequity - usually citizens don’t see how their data is used
  • counter 3: injustice and discrimination - personal data can be used to discriminate against you
  • counter 4: autonomy and human dignity - mass surveillance threatens our image of private mental life

problems for utilitarianism:

• “an individual’s rights may be trampled upon if enough other people benefit” (e.g. killing one person with a rare blood type to transplant their organs and save 5 other people)
  • response 1: violating people’s rights will typically not have the best consequences (e.g. if sacrificing people was common, society would be in stress and fear)
  • response 2: update view so it’s typically not ok to violate people’s rights. i.e. maximize everyone’s well-being, where everyone gets equal consideration
  • response 3: in some select cases, people’s rights may be violated (like with the privacy issue)