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    Negative utilitarianism implies that a government should ... — Carmelics
    Home/Consequentialism
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    Negative utilitarianism implies that a government should provide free contraceptives, because doing so reduces pain and other disvalues.

    Consequentialism
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Negative utilitarianism holds that an act is morally wrong if and only if its consequences contain more pain or other disvalues than an alternative, regardless of positive values.
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    • 2.Providing free contraceptives reduces overcrowding and thereby reduces hunger, disease, and pain.
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    • 3.The reduction in pain counts as morally relevant even if total net pleasure decreases.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.Negative utilitarianism, as Smart argued, entails that painlessly exterminating all sentient life is obligatory, since it eliminates all future suffering.
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    • 2.If the foundational logic of negative utilitarianism demands extinction, contraception policy cannot be derived from it without invoking the same reductio that undermines the framework.
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    • 3.A principle that generates obligatory extinction cannot coherently ground partial population-reduction policies without an arbitrary threshold.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.The supporting argument conflates reducing the number of pain-bearers with reducing pain, a distinction Parfit's non-identity problem makes philosophically critical.
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    • 2.Persons who would exist without the policy cannot be harmed by their own existence if that existence is worth living, as Parfit establishes in Reasons and Persons.
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    • 3.Negative utilitarianism applied to contraception therefore presupposes a repugnant conclusion-style comparison between existing and non-existing persons that negative utilitarianism itself lacks resources to adjudicate.
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    Consequentialism

    Related

    A principle that generates obligatory extinction cannot coherently ground partia...If the foundational logic of negative utilitarianism demands extinction, contrac...Negative utilitarianism applied to contraception therefore presupposes a repugna...Negative utilitarianism holds that an act is morally wrong if and only if its co...
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    Negative utilitarianism, as Smart argued, entails that painlessly exterminating ...Persons who would exist without the policy cannot be harmed by their own existen...Providing free contraceptives reduces overcrowding and thereby reduces hunger, d...The reduction in pain counts as morally relevant even if total net pleasure decr...The supporting argument conflates reducing the number of pain-bearers with reduc...

    Similar

    Classic utilitarianism implies that a government should not provide fr...91%Providing free contraceptives reduces overcrowding and thereby reduces...76%Precise welfare determination makes utilitarianism a superior decision...75%Negative utilitarianism holds that an act is morally wrong if and only...75%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: consequentialism
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    A related issue arises from population change. Imagine that a government considers whether to provide free contraceptives to curb a rise in population. Without free contraceptives, overcrowding will bring hunger, disease, and pain, so each person will be worse off. Still, each new person will have enough pleasure and other goods that the total net utility will increase with the population. Classic utilitarianism focuses on total utility, so it seems to imply that this government should not provi
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit