Utilitarian Grounds Research Articles

How do affected interests support global democracy?

ABSTRACTIn this paper, I critique one way of arguing for global democracy on grounds of affected interests and defend another. A famous argument for global democracy, which I call the Demos-Based Argument, attempts to justify global democracy based on the claim that affected interests vindicate individual claims to democratic participation or representation. I analyze and evaluate the Demos-Based Argument and consider different ways of interpreting and justifying its crucial premise: the Principle of Affected Interests. The result is that the argument fails. One lesson of the discussion of the Demos-Based Argument is that the most promising, though eventually unsuccessful, justification of the Principle of Affected Interests is utilitarian. Given the failure of the Demos-Based Argument, the question suggests itself if there is another way to argue for global democracy on utilitarian grounds. I will outline a promising alternative argument for global democracy, which I call the Direct Argument. Like the Demos-Based Argument, the Direct Argument is based on affected interests and ultimately on utilitarianism, but unlike the former, the Direct Argument avoids the detour over stating a criterion for individual claims to democratic participation and representation.

Causal Inefficacy and Utilitarian Arguments Against the Consumption of Factory-Farmed Products

Utilitarian objections to the consumption of factory-farmed products center primarily on the harms such farms cause to animals. One problem with the utilitarian case against the consumption of factory-farmed products is that the system of production is so vast and complex that no typical, individual consumer can, through her consumer behavior, make any difference to the welfare of animals. I grant for the sake of argument that this causal inefficacy objection is sound and go on to argue that the utilitarian nevertheless has the resources to conclude that at least in some cases it is wrongful on utilitarian grounds for an individual to consume factory-farmed products. When a consumer who believes that factory farming is wrongful consumes the products of factory farms, she endorses wrongful practices, and by doing so she engages in a form of self-harm. Self harm, like harm to others, must be taken into consideration when a utilitarian agent deliberates about the permissibility of her proposed course of action. Therefore, the causal inefficacy objection, while powerful, is not decisive against utilitarian objections to consuming factory-farmed products.

Why Organ Conscription Should Be off the Table: Extrapolation from Heidegger’s Being and Time

The question, what measures to address the shortage of transplantable organs are ethically permissible? requires careful attention because, apart from its impact on medical practice, the stance we espouse here reflects our interpretations of human freedom and mortality. To raise the number of available organs, on utilitarian grounds, bioethicists and medical professionals increasingly support mandatory procurement. This view is at odds with the Catechism of the Catholic Church (2003, p. 2296), according to which ‘[o]rgan donation after death is a noble and meritorious act’ but ethically impermissible absent consent. Those who concur with this position, but would oppose conscription on independent philosophical grounds, have not yet found a voice in the Western tradition comparable in strength to the utilitarian basis of the policy’s support, for Kantian and Aristotelian ethics, too, lend themselves to a requirement that we make our organs available to others when they can no longer serve ourselves. One finds an ethical wedge against conscription in an unexpected philosophical locale: the ‘fundamental ontology’ of Heidegger’s Being and Time, where pertinent individual choices arc protectively over what happens post mortem. Heidegger’s perspective on this issue thus meshes, not with other philosophical voices, but with Catholic doctrine—a surprising convergence of atheistic and theistic approaches to our flourishing whose ground I address in the article’s conclusion.

Excuses! Excuses!: The Failure to Amend Britain’s Immigration Policy, 1942–1943

The British government’s wartime immigration policy was to refuse admission to anyone from Nazi-controlled territory unless they could prove that they were useful to the war effort. The Independent MP Eleanor Rathbone led the campaign to persuade the government to amend this policy so as to allow refugees into Britain on humanitarian rather than merely utilitarian grounds. Campaigners also pleaded with the government to do its utmost to rescue Jews and facilitate their entry into Palestine, the colonies and the dominions. This article presents the government’s reasons for refusing to recognize humanitarian factors as a basis for admitting Jews to Britain, and cites campaigners in their efforts to influence government policy. It seeks to question the myth that Britain’s response to the Jewish plight was as wonderful as is presented to the public.

The incoherence of the only serious argument for torture

The ticking-bomb scenario is a thought experiment designed to establish the moral permissibility of interrogational torture in a limited number of circumstances on utilitarian grounds. This article demonstrates that utilitarianism does not support the use of torture in any circumstances, not only because another method of interrogation is more efficient and effective, but also because the practice of interrogational torture undermines individual security and, in turn, the ability of authorities to provide collective security. Therefore, utilitarianism demands the absolute prohibition of torture.

Humanism, Illness, and Elective Death

The author offers a defense for elective death on utilitarian grounds, but one that is presented specifically from the perspective of someone who: 1) faces a potentially terminal illness and diminishing quality of life; 2) views death as nothing more than a return to prenatal nonbeing; and 3) maintains common humanist ethical commitments. The argument, then, is uniquely situated and limited in scope, rooted both in the particulars of his recent experience with a rheumatic autoimmune illness and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma as well as in a worldview shaped largely by emerging narratives in the sciences. Drawing upon the work of J.S. Mill and P. Singer, the author begins by assuming that one is generally free to act on a preference for nonbeing so long as others are not unduly harmed or thwarted in pursuing their own aims as a result. But a humanist, he suggests, ideally ought to press beyond this minimum criterion and do one’s best to maximize eudaimonia by carefully weighing how elective death would likely affect others to whom one is currently obligated in significant ways. The focus of one’s ethical reasoning, then, should remain on maximizing well-being and minimizing harm, not on creating a logical flawless and internally coherent defense that may satisfy a set of abstract or universally applicable criteria drawn up by others in an effort to define precisely what might render a given suicide “rational” or “morally permissible.”

INCENTIVE-COMPATIBILITY AND COASEAN INVARIANCE IN PROPERTY AFFAIRS

1. IntroductionLegal rules about bundles of rights (or property law) are answers to questions such as those raised by Cooter and Ulen (p. 71): How are ownership rights established? What can be privately owned? What may owners do with their property? What are remedies for violation of property rights? Answers (legal rules) are drafted subject to, primarily, various philosophical constraints as well as security and economic pragmatism.Property law is influenced by philosophical views. According to liberal philosopher John Rawls, as explained by Sen (p. 12), we ought to desire to establish institutions, firmly chosen for basic structure of society (which) would demand one specific resolution of principles of but he does not explain the difficulties in arriving at a unique set of principles to guide institutional choice. Sen questions this Rawlsian notion of transcendental institutionalism and he doubts that it is either possible or essential; in turn, he states that there is simply a plurality of philosophical principles (not only Rawls's liberal principles) that justify conflicting property claims.1 As stated by Cooter and Ulen (pp. 107-110), property has capability to advance, among other, utilitarianism, justice, liberty and selfexpression. More specifically,On utilitarian grounds, it can be taken from (a person) in principle if beneficiaries of expropriation gain more in utility than owner loses.On distributive justice grounds, in Aristotle's conception, aristocrats use (wealth) for more worthy ends than do others. (Therefore), redistribution of property would favor rich and penalize poor. ... Another school of philosophical thought ... emphasizes a just process for defining and enforcing property rights rather than a just outcome.On liberty grounds, private property has ... been viewed by some philosophers as a bulwark against dictatorial authority of governments ... The U.S. Constitution was probably drafted with this idea in mind.On self-expression grounds, artist transforms natural objects and makes them artist's own. ... Creators' rights of ownership ... (extend) beyond art to most of works of humans.On natural selection grounds, Eswaran and Neary (2014, p.206), demonstrate that, given evolutionarily stable preferences, producers value output more than interlopers do. In this way, natural selection hardwires attachment to fruits of one's own labor more than attachment to fruits of someone else's labor. The asymmetry in valuation arises because of asymmetric role of contesting individuals in production of output. Asymmetric valuation generates an innate enforcement mechanism whereby a producer would spend more effort in defense of his output than would an interloper in its attempted appropriation. As same authors state (p. 221), their setting provides an evolutionary basis for both doctrine of first possession and Locke's labor theory of property rights, which are crucial ingredients of philosophical and legal approaches to property rights.Property law violations (dubbed negative externalities) are present whenever well-being of consumers or production possibilities of firms are negatively affected by actions of other agents in society. Negative externalities give rise to market failure (which may be corrected through imposition of standards, taxation and bargaining between parties involved) and they may range from, among other, bilateral to multilateral and from intellectual to pollution (e.g., environmental, noise, and aesthetic) or from positional to those that involve informational asymmetry. Several specific case examples are instructive.The often-cited case of Pierson v. Post, 2 Am. Dec. 264 (N.Y. 1805) illustrates an archetypal bilateral dispute. There, Supreme Court of New York resolved that in order to own an animal, you must physically possess it. …

Alternatives to War from the Bottom Up

Alternatives to War from the Bottom Up

Drone Warfare

The United States is now relying on Reaper and Predator drone strikes as its primary strategy in the continuing War on Terrorism. This paper argues for the rational scrutiny drone warfare has yet to receive. It is argued that drone warfare is immoral as it fails both the jus in bello and the jus ad bellum conditions of Just War theory. Drone warfare cannot be accepted on utilitarian grounds either, as it is very probable that terrorists will acquire drones capable of lethal strikes and deploy them against defenseless civilians. Moreover, by examining the psychological bases for reliance on drone warfare, as well as the message the United States is sending adversaries, we need to be concerned that, rather than reduce the likelihood of terrorists strikes, the U.S. reliance on drones strikes threatens to institutionalize terrorism as the status quo for the foreseeable future.

Regulating ride-sharing in the peer economy

The rise of the peer economy poses complex new regulatory challenges for policy-makers. The peer economy, typified by services like Uber and AirBnB, promises substantial productivity gains through the more efficient use of existing resources and a marked reduction in regulatory overheads. These services are rapidly disrupting existing established markets, but the regulatory trade-offs they present are difficult to evaluate. In this paper, we examine the peer economy through the context of ride-sharing and the ongoing struggle over regulatory legitimacy between the taxi industry and new entrants Uber and Lyft. We first sketch the outlines of ride-sharing as a complex regulatory problem, showing how questions of efficiency are necessarily bound up in questions about levels of service, controls over pricing, and different approaches to setting, upholding, and enforcing standards. We outline the need for data-driven policy to understand the way that algorithmic systems work and what effects these might have in the medium to long term on measures of service quality, safety, labour relations, and equality. Finally, we discuss how the competition for legitimacy is not primarily being fought on utilitarian grounds, but is instead carried out within the context of a heated ideological battle between different conceptions of the role of the state and private firms as regulators. We ultimately argue that the key to understanding these regulatory challenges is to develop better conceptual models of the governance of complex systems by private actors and the available methods the state has of influencing their actions. These struggles are not, as is often thought, struggles between regulated and unregulated systems. The key to understanding these regulatory challenges is to better understand the important regulatory work carried out by powerful, centralised private firms – both the incumbents of existing markets and the disruptive network operators in the peer-economy.

Perceptions of hedonic and utilitarian values in consumer choice based on use and future adoption of technological products and innovations

This work studies the usability, acceptance and adoption of technological products which consumers choose for their hedonic value but which are justified by such consumers on utilitarian grounds. The principal objective of this article is to discuss the behaviour of users of netbooks for didactic purposes. In order to analyse this behaviour which in this case is concerned with the usage and value perceptions that define consumer preferences, a 'netnographic' analytic method is used, which, similar to an ethnographic approach, examines the behaviour of individuals through a (written) description of the needs and values of virtual communities and cyberculture. The authors argue that the utilitarian value of the product is not key in its position and acceptance in the market; when the product presents ambiguous values (both utilitarian and hedonic), consumers tend to base their preference on the product's hedonic values. It is also argued that technological products link satisfaction to social status, creating differentiation through the level of actualisation of the users' products and a utilitarian preference for integrated products, given practical applications of these integrated features.

Free Will and Retribution Today

The paper addresses two issues that have been recently debated in the literature on free will, moral responsibility, and the theory of punishment. The first issue concerns the descriptive project, the second both the substantive and the prescriptive project. On theoretical, historical and empirical grounds, we claim that there is no rationale for fearing that the spread of neurocognitive findings will undermine the ordinary practice of responsibility attributions. We hypothetically advocate two opposite views: (i) that such findings would cause the collapse of all punitive practices; (ii) that, on the contrary, such findings would open the way to more humane forms of punishment, which would be justified on purely utilitarian grounds. We argue that these views are both wrong, since whereas a sound punitive system can be justified without any reference to moral responsibility, it will certainly not improve the humaneness of punishment.

The pursuit of longevity - the bringer of peace to the middle East.

Despite the common apprehensions regarding the aging population, this work aims to argue, on both deontological and utilitarian moral grounds, that any increase in general life-expectancy will be beneficial for the Middle East, countering the common fears associated with this increase. A set of ethical arguments concerning increasing longevity is presented, from both the deontological and utilitarian perspective. A wide selection of economic, psychological, demographic and epidemiological literature and databases is analyzed to determine common correlates of extended longevity. On the deontological grounds, the value of extended longevity is derived from the value of life preservation, regardless of its term. On the utilitarian grounds, the value of extended longevity is demonstrated by its correlation with further human values, such as education level and intellectual activity, economic prosperity, equality, solidarity and peacefulness. With the common apprehensions of stagnation and scarcity due to life extension found wanting, the pursuit of longevity by the population can be seen as a cross-cultural and cross-generational good. Though the current study mainly refers to sources and data relevant to the Middle East, a similar pro-longevity argument can be also made for other cultural contexts. In view of its numerous benefits, normatively, the goal of longevity should be set clearly and openly by the society, and actively pursued, or at least discussed, in academia, the political system and broader public.

Bailouts, Opportunity Cost and Utilitarian Ethics: A Law & Economics Analysis

This article applies the concepts of opportunity cost and utilitarian ethics to corporate bailouts. When one thinks about bailing out a failing or distressed industry it is also necessary to consider alternative uses for the funds. Opportunity cost analysis concludes that the funds used for bailouts could be better utilized elsewhere. Utilitarian analysis, the dominant methodology among economists, also concludes that funding bailouts cannot be justified. This article constructs a simple mathematical model that is based on utilitarian analysis and concludes that bailouts cannot be ethically justified on utilitarian grounds because the result is a negative-sum game. Possible avenues for future research are also identified and discussed briefly.

‘Pass the Cocoamone, Please’: Causal Impotence, Opportunistic Vegetarianism and Act-Utilitarianism

It appears that utilitarian arguments in favor of moral vegetarianism cannot justify a complete prohibition of eating meat. This is because, in certain circumstances, forgoing meat will prevent no pain, and so, on utilitarian grounds, we should be opportunistic carnivores rather than moral vegetarians. In his paper, ‘Puppies, pigs, and people: Eating meat and marginal cases,’ Alastair Norcross argues that causal impotence arguments like these are misguided. First, he presents an analogous situation, the case of chocolate mousse a-la-bama, in order to argue that we, individually, are not causally impotent. Second, Norcross offers a threshold argument in which he argues that while we may individually be causally impotent, when we adopt moral vegetarianism in concert with others, we become causally potent in preventing harms by factory farming. We argue that Norcross's responses ultimately fail to address the causal impotence objection. The former argument fails because it vastly oversimplifies the world in which we find ourselves. Given the size of factory farming, the reasonable conclusion is that we are in fact powerless to prevent harms to animals in factory farms in many or most cases. The latter argument fails because even if collective action will have an impact on factory farming, this does not provide us with an argument against being carnivores in certain circumstances.

Singapore's Cultural Experimentation: Gay Rights, Stem Cells, Casinos and the Evangelical Response

Since the early 1990s the Singapore government has been taking a more liberal stance on controversial issues such as gay rights, embryonic stem cell research and the gaming industry. My paper analyses the Singapore state's utilitarian justification and its authoritarian enactment of these liberal policies. The first part looks at the underlying motivation for the cultural makeover. I frame my analysis around the reaction of the Singapore Christian community to these developments. I focus on the criticisms of the state's ‘liberal’ agenda made by Evangelicals, and describe how the People's Action Party (PAP) regime has defended these policies on utilitarian grounds. The first part ends with a comparative analysis of how the ‘cultural war’ debate was played out in Singapore and the USA. In the second part I examine the procedural aspects of this cultural experimentation. I start with a review of Singapore's political reform. I show that civil society in Singapore has attained a new openness. Yet there remain constraints, leading critics to label the PAP-led government as a ‘soft-authoritarian’ democracy. Singapore's cultural policies, I explain, are essentially an ‘elitist’ state-engineered top-down development. This is in contrast to the experience in the USA, where grassroots activists exercise tangible bottom-up influence on how cultural contests are resolved. My main thesis is to argue that Singapore's recent cultural liberalisation is guided by social–economic expediency notwithstanding the alleged moral risks, and that these are state-commanded liberal experimentations, imposed by the ruling elite upon a constituency that is still largely conservative in moral outlook.

An Ethical Investigation into the Impact of Mophane Worm Depletion on the Environment in the North-Eastern Part of Botswana: A Case Study of Gungwe and Mbalambi Villages

Mophane worm is a name given to caterpillars hosted by the Mophane tree. The
 mophane worm is harvested as food supplement in most of the Southern African
 countries. For the past few years, there have been some reports indicating that the
 worm has disappeared in some parts of Botswana. Hence, the aim of this research
 study has been to investigate from an ethical perspective the impact of mophane
 worm depletion on the environment. A qualitative approach was used in this study
 and data was collected from the following target groups of people: villagers, headmen
 of the stated two villages and the Ministry of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism
 (MEWT) officers both at local and national level. The theoretical framework involved
 traditional theories (i.e., Value Theory and Utilitarianism) and environmental ethical
 theories (i.e., Social Ecology, Environmental and Intergenerational Justice).
 The research instruments employed were individual interview schedules, focus
 group discussions and observation. A fourfold model of analysis was used focusing
 on the biological, economical, social and political dimensions. From the findings
 of the study, it emerged that both natural and anthropogenic factors contributed to
 mophane worm depletion. The natural factors were drought and predation while the
 anthropogenic factors included massive usage of the host tree, destructive methods of
 harvesting and demand for more land for agricultural and residential purposes. It also
 emerged that mophane worm depletion had both negative and positive impacts on
 the environment. These included lack of money by the local people to buy their daily
 needs, lack of relish and poor livelihoods, loss of wildlife that fed on mophane worm
 and tension between government and local people over the regulation of the resource.
 Ethical evaluation revealed that the dominant value for the local people was utility
 value to the almost total lack of explicit awareness of intrinsic and inherent value,
 and that on utilitarian grounds, the overall evil that depletion of the mophane worm
 brought about outweighed its overall good effects. With regard to justice issues, the
 findings revealed that unjust social structures and injustices resulting from the unequal
 distribution of benefits and burdens as well as from the lack of adequate participation
 by the local communities in decision-making had a greater negative than positive
 impact. Finally, recommendations were made emphasising the utmost importance of
 government intervention to mitigate, if not, stop the depletion of the mophane worm.

Comparative Survival and Economic Benefits of Deceased Donor Kidney Transplantation and Dialysis in People with Varying Ages and Co-Morbidities

BackgroundDeceased donor kidneys for transplantation are in most countries allocated preferentially to recipients who have limited co-morbidities. Little is known about the incremental health and economic gain from transplanting those with co-morbidities compared to remaining on dialysis. The aim of our study is to estimate the average and incremental survival benefits and health care costs of listing and transplantation compared to dialysis among individuals with varying co-morbidities.MethodsA probabilistic Markov model was constructed, using current outcomes for patients with defined co-morbidities treated with either dialysis or transplantation, to compare the health and economic benefits of listing and transplantation with dialysis.FindingsUsing the current waiting time for deceased donor transplantation, transplanting a potential recipient, with or without co-morbidities achieves survival gains of between 6 months and more than three life years compared to remaining on dialysis, with an average incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of less than $50,000/LYS, even among those with advanced age. Age at listing and the waiting time for transplantation are the most influential variables within the model. If there were an unlimited supply of organs and no waiting time, transplanting the younger and healthier individuals saves the most number of life years and is cost-saving, whereas transplanting the middle-age to older patients still achieves substantial incremental gains in life expectancy compared to being on dialysis.ConclusionsOur modelled analyses suggest transplanting the younger and healthier individuals with end-stage kidney disease maximises survival gains and saves money. Listing and transplanting those with considerable co-morbidities is also cost-effective and achieves substantial survival gains compared with the dialysis alternative. Preferentially excluding the older and sicker individuals cannot be justified on utilitarian grounds.

Using and Refusing

James Rachels has argued on Utilitarian grounds that since removing life-sustaining treatment and physician-assisted suicide both aim at the very same end,hastening death to limit suffering, there are no morally significant moral distinctions between them. Others have argued for maintaining this distinction based on various forms of deontological and rights-based ethical theories that maintain that all acts of killing are inherently wrong. I argue that the enduring controversy over physician-assisted suicide might not be caused by such fundamental differences of opinion about moral theory, such as that which exists between Utilitarianism and Deontology, so much as by a commonly held misunderstanding of technology. In particular, the conclusion that there are no relevant ethical distinctions between killing and letting die can only be drawn by a Utilitarian, such as Rachels, by ignoring the recent work of philosophers of technology on the non-neutrality thesis.

In Reply

Haridas rejects our assertion1that Humphry Davy might be considered the first anesthesiologist. Curiously, Haridas avoids any mention of Davy's groundbreaking experimental results, not only as they pertain to nitrous oxide, but also in the realm of respiratory physiology. He instead mounts an ad hominem attack on Davy for his youth and recklessness. If youth truly deserves our censure in connection with scientific discovery, then Haridas must broaden his denouncement. With respect to self-experimentation, undertaken, as Haridas observes, at considerable peril, Davy would doubtless hold himself guilty as charged; to Davy, science was exploration, and incidental threats to his personal safety were of little consequence. In this regard, we may perhaps compare Davy's experiments to those of August Bier and August Hildebrant in spinal anesthesia,2or of William Halstead in local anesthesia.3Halstead, as a consequence of his studies, struggled with and ultimately overcame cocaine addiction,4and Haridas, in turn, invites us to speculate whether Davy may have been addicted to nitrous oxide. Although Davy's pattern of daily nitrous oxide use during his time at the Bristol Pneumatic Institute suggests, at a minimum, a maladaptive pattern of behavior, there is no indication either from Davy's exhaustive notes, or from the many accounts of friends and colleagues, that Davy would have met modern criteria for substance dependence. There is, furthermore, no record of Davy having consumed nitrous oxide following his tenure in Bristol. Inexplicably, Haridas equates Davy's work with nitrous oxide to Charles Thomas Jackson's claims of priority with ether anesthesia, before abruptly conceding that Jackson never published experimental results pertaining to the anesthetic properties of ether.5Haridas' critique ultimately appears to crystallize into one of pragmatism: Davy, he asserts, was a failure because he did not put nitrous oxide into practical use as an anesthetic. Haridas asks us to believe that Davy's body of work at the Pneumatic Institute has no intrinsic value: No matter that Davy conducted and published an unprecedented series of experiments on nitrous oxide and other inhaled gases, he did not “follow up.” Haridas will have us stop there, but many, ourselves included, will continue to wonder why not only Davy, but also the innumerable readers of his work, did not follow up, or why not even Horace Wells' failed attempt to demonstrate nitrous oxide anesthesia did not provoke greater interest in the technique. Science does not exist in a vacuum, nor do its results always succeed, in the near term, on their merits; rather it is, and always has been, vulnerable to cultural context and a socially determined sense of possibility. Haridas chooses to evaluate Davy's work on strictly utilitarian grounds and concludes that it was a failure on this basis, in that it did not lead directly to the development of nitrous oxide anesthesia. We instead see in Davy's experiments the first systematic approach to the evaluation of several gases of immense practical significance to anesthesiology; it is this approach which, to our minds, defines the first practice of anesthesiology as a science, whereby we call Davy the first anesthesiologist.