Abstract
There is a magnificent old idea according to which the concept of obligation can be understood by appeal to the concepts of possibility and goodness. Roughly, the idea is that something is obligatory if and only if it is the best of the possibilities. This idea appears in very simple guise in the popular maxim that “you ought to do the best you can”. Classic act utilitarianism is perhaps the most famous theoretical development of the idea. On that view, the possibilities are taken to be the actions open to some person on some occasion, and the goodness of each is taken to be its “hedonic utility” — the amount of pleasure it would produce if performed, minus the amount of pain it would produce if performed. In standard terminology, the view is that a person morally ought to perform an act if and only if none of its alternatives has as great a hedonic utility as it has.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes to Chapter 1
The classic statements of utilitarinaism may be found in Bentham’s Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789)
and Mill’s Utilitarianism (1865).
Moore’s utilitarianism is developed in Principia Ethica (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903) and
Moore’s Ethics (London: Oxford University Press, 1912)
J. J. C. Smart’s An Outline of a System of Utilitarian Ethics (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1961) contains a clear exposition and defense.
I first encountered this puzzle in Harold Zellner’s paper, ‘The Inconsistency of Utilitarianism,’ presented at the 69th Annual Meeting of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association, Boston, December 27–29, 1972. An Abstract of the paper appears in The Journal of Philosophy LXIX, 19 (October 26, 1972), 676.
Hector-Neri Castañeda, ‘A Problem for Utilitarianism,’ Analysis 28 (1968), 141–142.
Castañeda’s paper provoked several replies, including: Harold Zellner, ‘Utilitarianism and Derived Obligation,’ Analysis 32 (1972), 124–125
Fred Westphal, ‘Utilitarianism and Conjunctive Acts: A Reply to Professor Castañeda,’ Analysis 32 (1972), 82–85
R. E. Bales, ‘Utilitarianism, Overall Obligatoriness and Deontic Logic,’ Analysis 32 (1972), 203–205
Lars Bergström, ‘Utilitarianism and Deontic Logic,’ Analysis 29 (1968), 43–44. Castañeda responded to Westphal and Bergström in his ‘On the Problem of Formulating a Coherent Act-Utilitarianism,’ Analysis 32 (1972), 118–124.
The concept of the “devilish machine” is derived from Lennart Ǻqvist, ‘Improved Formulations of Act Utilitarianism,’ Noûs 3 (1969), 299–323.
For a detailed account of this approach, see Lars Bergström, The Alternatives and Consequences of Action (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1966). Bergström has discussed this approach in several papers, including: ‘Alternatives and Utilitarianism,’ Theoria 34 (1968), 163–170; ‘Utilitarianism and Alternative Actions,’ Noûs 5 (1971), 237–252; and ‘On the Formulation and Application of Utilitarianism,’ Noûs 10 (1976), 121–144. Bergström’s approach is discussed at length in a critical review by R. E. Bales, in Theoria 40 (1974), 35–57.
Mainly because it is so simple, I have used Robert Stalnaker’s account of subjunctive conditionals. See his ‘A Theory of Conditionals,’ in Studies in Logical Theory ed. by Nicholas Rescher, American Philosophical Quarterly Monograph Series: Number 2 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1968), pp. 98–112. Where it really matters, I guess I prefer David Lewis’ view. See his Counterfactuals, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973).
A case relevantly similar to this one, but more amusing than it, is discussed by Ǻqvist in ‘Improved Formulations of Act Utilitarianism,’ Noûs 3 (1969), 318—321.
See, for example, G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903), pp. 77–81.
Several useful papers on this topic are mentioned by Dan Brock in ‘Recent Work in Utilitarianism,’ American Philosophical Quarterly 10 (1973), 242–243.
Some attacks on qualitative hedonism are evaluated in Norman O. Dahl, ‘Is Mill’s Hedonism Inconsistent?,’ in Studies in Ethics, ed. by Nicholas Rescher, American Philosophical Quarterly Monograph Series: Number 7 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1973), pp. 37–54.
G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903), 117, 21ff. See also Moore’s Ethics (London: Oxford University Press, 1912), pp. 24–25 and his Philosphical Studies (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1922), pp. 253–275.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1986 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Feldman, F. (1986). Utilitarian Foundations. In: Doing the Best We Can. Philosophical Studies Series in Philosophy, vol 35. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4570-8_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4570-8_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-010-8531-1
Online ISBN: 978-94-009-4570-8
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive