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    Genuine special obligations must remain binding even when... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→Utilitarianism, properly understood, can accommodate special obligations and personal concerns.

    Genuine special obligations must remain binding even when violating them would produce marginally better aggregate outcomes, which utilitarianism structurally cannot guarantee.

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    1 reason for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Special obligations (e.g., to children, spouses) create agent-centered permissions that define our integrity and identity as moral agents.
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    • 2.A moral framework requiring constant calculation of aggregate welfare would undermine the stable, trust-based relationships that special obligations require.
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    • 3.Utilitarianism's aggregative logic treats all persons interchangeably, making it structurally unable to preserve the partiality that special obligations demand.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Special obligations can be grounded in consequentialist frameworks that value stable institutions and relationships—not only in aggregate utility calculation.
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    • 2.The claim conflates utilitarianism with act-utilitarianism; rule-utilitarianism can endorse special obligations as welfare-maximizing social rules.
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    • 3."Marginally better outcomes" is empirically unrealistic; violating special obligations typically produces worse aggregate outcomes due to trust-collapse.
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    Connections

    2 topics

    Consequentialism1 linkedMoral Responsibility1 linked

    Related

    "Marginally better outcomes" is empirically unrealistic; violating special oblig...A moral framework requiring constant calculation of aggregate welfare would unde...Special obligations (e.g., to children, spouses) create agent-centered permissio...Special obligations can be grounded in consequentialist frameworks that value st...
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    The claim conflates utilitarianism with act-utilitarianism; rule-utilitarianism ...Utilitarianism's aggregative logic treats all persons interchangeably, making it...Utilitarianism, properly understood, can accommodate special obligations and per...

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    claim
    Perspectives
    2 (1 for, 1 against)
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    1 edit