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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Utilitarianism, properly understood, can accommodate spec... — Carmelics
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    321,452
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    Home/Moral Responsibility
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    Utilitarianism, properly understood, can accommodate special obligations and personal concerns.

    Consequentialism
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Individual knowledge of others and causal power to do good are limited to those near and dear and regular associates.
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    • 2.Given these limits, individuals produce better overall outcomes by focusing on associates rather than the world at large.
      ?

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    • 3.Focusing on associates generates outcomes that resemble the special obligations critics of utilitarianism invoke.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Special obligations derive their moral force from relationships of commitment and trust, not from instrumental efficiency calculations.
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    • 2.When a parent cares for their child because doing so maximizes utility, they fail to honor the relationship itself as morally fundamental.
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    • 3.Bernard Williams's integrity objection shows that reducing personal commitments to utility-maximizing strategies alienates agents from the very projects that constitute their identity.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.The epistemic argument for special obligations collapses under conditions where impartial calculation is demonstrably more effective, such as effective altruism scenarios.
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    • 2.A moral theory that grounds special obligations only in contingent causal efficiency provides no obligation when technology or institutions make global impact more tractable than local care.
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    • 3.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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    Topics

    Moral ResponsibilityConsequentialism

    Connections

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    Causation1 linked

    Related

    A moral theory that grounds special obligations only in contingent causal effici...Bernard Williams's integrity objection shows that reducing personal commitments ...Focusing on associates generates outcomes that resemble the special obligations ...Genuine special obligations must remain binding even when violating them would p...
    +5 moreShow less
    Given these limits, individuals produce better overall outcomes by focusing on a...Individual knowledge of others and causal power to do good are limited to those ...Special obligations derive their moral force from relationships of commitment an...The epistemic argument for special obligations collapses under conditions where ...When a parent cares for their child because doing so maximizes utility, they fai...

    Similar

    Voluntarism holds that special obligations must be contractual (i.e., ...80%It is permissible to treat persons as means to our ends.77%Special obligations are not genuinely special but only derivatively so74%Moral obligations must provide a basis for critical evaluation of othe...74%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: mill-moral-political
    View source passageHide passage
    This worry about the demands of utilitarianism is not easy to assess. One might wonder how to interpret and whether to accept the psychological realist constraint. If the constraint is relative to people’s actual psychologies, then it represents a potentially conservative constraint on moral theorizing that one might well reject. If the constraint is relative to possible or ideal psychology, then it is not clear that even a highly revisionary moral theory need flout the constraint. Then there is
    Extraction notes

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

    Details

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