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Strengths and Weaknesses (Strengths (Humane and compassionate -…
Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths
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Mechanical and easy to apply - solves all ethical decisions - as close as we can get to a science of ethics
Associated with an attractive meta-ethics - naturalistic, empirical understanding of goodness, as well as an objective, absolutist approach to morality
Weaknesses
Reduces the complex phenomenon of human morality to a prediction of pain and pleasure - is this principle versatile enough to serve as guidance for entire spectrum of human moral life?
Too demanding
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Response: Ought implies can, wrong doesn't imply blameworthy, morally required doesn't mean normatively required
There is no upper limit to what we can do to help others - as long as the resources at our disposal can generate more happiness for other people, we should use them exclusively for this
Response: morality is demanding, as it should be
Encourages us to sacrifice personal projects in order to maximise the general welfare - seems an altruistic aim, but not realistic
Example: should a wealthy person give all their money away until they are equally as poor as those they are giving money to?
Difficulty of not knowing the consequences - the number of potential courses of action is unlimited - even if we think we can predict the future, we cannot think through every possible outcome in every situation
Counter-argument: the laws of human nature help us make decisions and also help us predict the consequences of human behaviour
Another response: we should only act on consequences we can predict e.g. shouldn't kill baby Hitler because we can't foresee that far into the future - but saving someone from drowning is likely to increase their welfare and that's easier to predict
Weaknesses
Impartiality
We are emotional creatures, and cannot ever achieve total impartiality
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our emotional attachments to others, and indeed to ourselves, do then reveal to us certain reasons which impartial utilitarianism does not capture