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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 Sanction utilitarianism has disadvantages that act utilitarianism does not

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

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 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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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 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 against 2 of 2
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    • 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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