This is a common misunderstanding of utilitarianism: failure to count side-effects. Properly applied, utilitarianism probably doesn't endorse this murder.
-
-
Ease of application is orthogonal to conceptual validity. You're can't get from "utilitarianism is messy in application" to "utilitarianism is wrong in principle". And I still haven't heard you propose an alternative system.
-
Straw man. I'm not saying it's messy in application, I'm saying it's messy in theory. There is no metric by which to measure the greatest happiness of the greatest people, so any morality based on it risks the danger of becoming the morality of the individual instead.
- 30 more replies
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.