Abstract

Utilitarianism could still be a viable moral and political theory, although an emphasis on justice as distributing burdens and benefits has hidden this from current conversations. The traditional counterexamples prove that we have good grounds for rejecting classical, aggregative forms of consequentialism. A nonaggregative, liberal form of utilitarianism is immune to this rejection. The cost is that it cannot adjudicate when the basic needs of individuals or groups are in conflict. Cases like this must be solved by other methods. This is not a weakness in liberal utilitarianism, on the contrary. The theory clarifies what we should admit to begin with: that ethical doctrines do not have universally acceptable solutions to all difficult problems or hard cases. The theory also reminds us that not all problems are in this sense difficult or cases hard. We could alleviate the plight of nonhuman animals by reducing meat eating. We could mitigate climate change and its detrimental effects by choosing better ways of living. These would imply that most people's desire satisfaction would be partly frustrated, but liberal utilitarianism holds that this would be justified by the satisfaction of the basic needs of other people and nonhuman animals.

Highlights

  • Utilitarianism could still be a viable moral and political theory, an emphasis on justice as distributing burdens and benefits has hidden this from current conversations

  • After a brief historical overview, I will describe where I see that the “justice turn” in normative thinking has left us in terms of views on ethics and social policy

  • I will list some of the main reasons for not taking my suggestion seriously and invite comments for making the approach more palatable, feasible, and applicable

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Summary

Introduction

Utilitarianism could still be a viable moral and political theory, an emphasis on justice as distributing burdens and benefits has hidden this from current conversations. The cost is that it cannot adjudicate when the basic needs of individuals or groups are in conflict Cases like this must be solved by other methods. This is not a weakness in liberal utilitarianism, on the contrary. The theory clarifies what we should admit to begin with: that ethical doctrines do not have universally acceptable solutions to all difficult problems or hard cases. We could mitigate climate change and its detrimental effects by choosing better ways of living These would imply that most people’s desire satisfaction would be partly frustrated, but liberal utilitarianism holds that this would be justified by the satisfaction of the basic needs of other people and nonhuman animals. In private life and in business, different rules may apply, but we expect public decisions to be “good” in some important sense— reliable, sound, perhaps scientific to some extent, rational as we understand it, and reasonable

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