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    Sanction utilitarianism has disadvantages that act utilit... — Carmelics
    Home/Consequentialism
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    Sanction utilitarianism has disadvantages that act utilitarianism does not

    Consequentialism
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    2 reasons for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Sanction utilitarianism requires agents to evaluate actions by asking what a fully informed utilitarian legislator would sanction, creating a problematic double standard.
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    • 2.This double standard means an agent may be obligated to perform acts that, if sanctioned, would produce less utility than directly maximizing utility would require.
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    • 3.Act utilitarianism avoids this bifurcation by maintaining a single evaluative standard: the act that produces the most utility is both obligatory and the proper object of approval.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.As Railton's distinction between sophisticated and crude consequentialism shows, indirect theories succeed only when their decision procedures reliably converge on direct utility maximization.
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    • 2.Sanction utilitarianism, unlike rule utilitarianism, ties obligation to empirical facts about actual social enforcement mechanisms, which are notoriously unreliable and subject to cultural distortion.
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    • 3.Act utilitarianism, as Smart defended in 'Utilitarianism: For and Against,' imposes no dependence on contingent institutional facts and therefore remains action-guiding even in societies with corrupt or suboptimal sanction systems.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Sanction utilitarianism has a hybrid structure that combines an indirect utilitarian theory of duty with a direct utilitarian account of when sanctions should be applied
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    • 2.This hybrid structure generates both an infinite regress problem and an internal inconsistency
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    • 3.Act utilitarianism does not employ this hybrid structure and therefore does not face these particular problems
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    Topics

    Consequentialism

    Connections

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    Justice & Punishment1 linked

    Related

    Act utilitarianism avoids this bifurcation by maintaining a single evaluative st...Act utilitarianism does not employ this hybrid structure and therefore does not ...Act utilitarianism, as Smart defended in 'Utilitarianism: For and Against,' impo...As Railton's distinction between sophisticated and crude consequentialism shows,...
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    Sanction utilitarianism has a hybrid structure that combines an indirect utilita...Sanction utilitarianism requires agents to evaluate actions by asking what a ful...Sanction utilitarianism, unlike rule utilitarianism, ties obligation to empirica...This double standard means an agent may be obligated to perform acts that, if sa...This hybrid structure generates both an infinite regress problem and an internal...

    Similar

    Sanction utilitarianism does not face the problems that act utilitaria...86%Sanction utilitarianism is inconsistent with act utilitarianism.86%Sanction utilitarianism is preferable to act utilitarianism85%Sanction utilitarianism enjoys no real advantage over act utilitariani...85%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: mill-moral-political
    View source passageHide passage
    Moreover, sanction utilitarianism appears to have disadvantages that act utilitarianism does not. One such problem derives from its hybrid structure. Sanction utilitarianism is impurely indirect. For while it provides an indirect utilitarian theory of duty, the account it provides of when sanctions should be applied to conduct is direct—it depends upon the consequences of applying sanctions. Sanction utilitarianism provides an indirect utilitarian account of the conditions under which an action—
    Extraction notes

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

    Details

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