Utilitarianism and Heuristics
- PDF / 573,399 Bytes
- 19 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 96 Downloads / 219 Views
Utilitarianism and Heuristics Bernward Gesang1
© The Author(s) 2020
1 Methodic and Empirical Arguments against Expected Utility Analyses W. Sinnott-Armstrong states that individuals have no moral obligation to avoid unnecessary drives with regard to global warming, which “will still occur even if I do not drive just for fun.”1 This constitutes a provocation. A consequentialist ethicist is obligated to examine this statement by calculating the expected utility with regard to a single car ride. The expected utility is a product of the scale of the utility (including harm) along with the likelihood that these effects will occur. Such calculations of expected utility are the standard consequentialist response to the problem as to how the consequences of an action can be calculated in advance: “But if my discussion of this sort of case (call it a ‘relevance of a single action type of case,’ B.G.) is correct, then the consequentialist can handle such cases using the familiar appeal to expected utility.”2 The consequentialist argues that he is capable of orienting his decisions towards this sort of knowledge about consequences. The criticism has always been made that such calculations of expected utility are too demanding in an epistemic sense and are overly elaborate in their actual execution. Let us take the statement by Sinnott-Armstrong. What do we need to know in order to decide whether he is correct? A. Hiller calls upon us to make the following calculation: “(Step 1) Estimate the amount of GHG emitted by the one drive d. 1 Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, “It’s Not My Fault: Global Warming and Individual Moral Obligations,” Perspectives on Climate Change: Science, Economics, Politics and Ethics, Advances in the Economics of Environmental Research 5 (2005): 285–307, p. 297. 2 Shelly Kagan, “Do I make a difference?” Philosophy & Public Affairs 39 (2011): 105–141, p. 129.
I would like to thank especially V. Andric, C. Fehige, C. Lumer, T. Visak, M. A. Weber and anonymous reviewers for valuable criticism. Special thanks for the intensive exchange are due to M. Schlaich. For the translation I would like to thank G. F. Takis. * Bernward Gesang Bernward.Gesang@uni‑mannheim.de 1
Philosophisches Seminar, Universität Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany
13
Vol.:(0123456789)
B. Gesang
(Step 2) Estimate the total amount of GHG emissions responsible for climate change e. (Step 3) Estimate the total amount of harm that climate change will cause h. (Step 4) Calculate (d/e) x h.”3 This is not a matter of an expected-utility analysis because no attention is paid to the issue of probable occurrence of effects. In this calculation of costs and utility, the sole focus is on the factor of the extent of harm. But here as well, there are multiple grounds for criticism: S. Kagan criticized this kind of calculation as “bookkeeping” because of its statistical allocation of harm to the individual.4 The consequentialist, who in this case is a utilitarian, wants to know whether his concrete car ride makes a causal difference for the world.
Data Loading...
