PHIL:101 Reason & Reality Summer 2015 The following notes are based on an example. Consider there are only two people in a close-knit family which consists of my grandfather and me. My grandpa has already paid my food, boarding and college tuition expenses while I have been working toward my bachelor degree. I am about to graduate. It is time to celebrate my graduation along with my grandpa. We went together to a desert island where every day turned out to be a Friday night for us. Although we boozed we had full control over our senses. One day we decided to row a boat to see whether we would be able to catch fish. We didn’t find any fish close by. So we drifted with the boat away from the shore. We noticed that there were fish in that area. Suddenly, my grandpa began to complain about his serious chest pains. He told me, “Son, promise me that when I will die you will do a proper ritual.” I replied with a sad voice, “please don’t worry grandpa, I promise I will. But, you are not going to die right now.” Before I was able to complete my sentence, I found grandpa dropped down dead on my lap while the boat was afloat. My grandpa was very heavy. I realized that it would be painful for me to row him back to the shore. I began to use his body as bait. To my pleasant surprise, I began to catch big fish. I was very happy to be able to catch so many big fish during this short period of time. I didn’t do any ritual for my grandpa. Is my action of not doing a proper ritual for my grandfather morally right? This objection to utilitarianism (see its definition below) is called the Promise to the Dead Man Objection (PDM). Class Notes on Utilitarianism Introduction: I will discuss and criticize utilitarianism. You already studied different versions of utilitarianism. The one version of utilitarianism is what I called utilitarianism 2 (U2). Recall the formulation U2 (from your e-reserve notes on “Ethical Theories”): An act is morally right if and only if there is no other act the agent could have done instead that has higher utility than it has. Utilitarianism considers maximization of pleasure and minimization of pain as the only two relevant factors in assessing a moral action. 1. Promise-To-The-Dead-Man (PDM) Objection: (1) If U2 is true, then the grandson is not morally obligated to bury the body. (2) The grandson is morally obligated to bury the body. (3) Therefore, U2 is not true. 2. Utilitarian Responses to PDM Objection: (The First Kind) (A) (1) is false, because we neglected to include such factors as the pain the grandson will feel when his conscience begins to bother him. Response to (A): In our story, the youth is not conscience-stricken. (B) We miscalculated utilities. What is about considering pain it could have caused to his relatives? Response to (B): (a) It is a “desert island case”. (b) How far should we go to calculate utilities of breaking his promise? 3. Utilitarian Response to PDM Objection: (The Second Kind) One way is to distinguish between act utilitarianism (AU) and rule utilitarianism (RU). Act utilitarianism is too atomistic. That is, act utilitarianism requires that each act to be judged entirely on its own consequences. It could be better to consider whole classes of action rather than isolated individual acts. The motivation behind the attempt to formulate a coherent rule utilitarianism seems to be something like this: Utility is clearly of moral significance. But if we consider only the utility of individual acts, we derive unacceptable results. Thus, we must consider the utility of general patterns of behavior rather than of “atoms” of behavior. Particular acts will be shown to be right by showing them to fit into generally useful patterns. 4. Primitive Rule Utilitarianism (PRU): An act is morally right if and only if it is prescribed by a correct moral rule for its situation. Rule R is correct if and only if no alternative to R has higher utility than R has. An Example of a Rule: R1: If you made a promise, then keep it. 5. An Objection to PRU: AU and PRU are extensionally equivalent. To say that two normative theories are extensionally equivalent is to say that they generate exactly the same normative judgments. Any act judged to be right according to one theory is judged to be right according to the other. If it can be shown that a given theory is extensionally equivalent to another theory that is known to be unacceptable, then we have a refutation of the given theory. Show how AU and PRU are extensionally equivalent. 6. Examples of Alternative Rules: R2: If you have made a promise, then break it. R3: If you have made a promise, then do whatever you feel like doing. Summing Up: Maximization of pleasure and minimization of pain should not be the only relevant factors in making a moral evaluation.