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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Backward-looking reasons for adopting rules cannot count as genuine justifications within utilitarianism.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Rule utilitarianism justifies rules by their expected utility when generally adopted, which can include the social utility of honoring past commitments and expectations.
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    • 2.A rule that rewards desert and respects entitlements produces forward-looking benefits: stable expectations, trust, and cooperative incentives that maximize aggregate welfare.
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    • 3.Thus, backward-looking reasons can serve as the content of utility-maximizing rules without themselves being the foundational justification, dissolving the alleged incompatibility.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Mill's account in 'Utilitarianism' ch. 5 explicitly grounds justice-claims, including desert, in the utility of security, showing backward-looking concepts are instrumentally integrated into utilitarian reasoning.
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    • 2.If backward-looking considerations reliably track patterns that produce superior consequences when institutionalized, utilitarianism has systematic, not merely incidental, grounds to endorse them.
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    • 3.The claim therefore conflates the genetic origin of desert-claims with their justificatory role inside a consequentialist framework, committing a non sequitur.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.Utilitarianism evaluates rules solely by the consequences of adopting them.
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    • 2.Desert and entitlement are created by events in the past, making them backward-looking reasons.
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    • 3.It is never a good utilitarian reason for adopting a rule that it gives people what they deserve or are entitled to when desert or entitlement derive from past events.
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