No subject

[sdf26 at xxx.edu]

Peter wrote:
   
    "Ah, but surely a utilitarian could still say that their intentions were
    evil, because they intended to decrease the sum of human happiness. The fact
    that they didn't is irrelivent to them as human beings, because they did not
    believe they were acting in a positive manner according to the utilitarian
    ideal."

Well, it doesn't seem safe to assume that they intended to decrease the sum of 
human happiness.  Certainly they intended to kill millions and millions of 
people, but their perverse rationale (we can imagine) was that this was the only 
solution to the world's problems and that it would ultimately lead to a much 
better world.  It's also clear that such a rationale is IRrational (but note that 
it is irrational only because there is no known way to predict the effects 
present actions, especially the big ones, will have), but sometimes we choose a 
course of action irrationally and later find that (by chance) it is the "right" 
course of action.  For instance, we sometimes buy a CD because we like the name 
of one of the songs (I bought Sinister because I used to fancy myself a bit of a 
track star...I'd never heard B&S beforehand), and in doing so discover great 
music, song titles notwithstanding.  The problem that my thought experiment 
raises for Utilitarianism is that such a theory seems to establish moral criteria 
on which we are forced to say that actions which lead to human happiness are 
good, even if they at some point involve the death of many humans.  But, there 
are certainly many ways for Utilitarians to avoid this problem...I'm attacking a 
very crude form of Utilitarianism, I think.

--Sam  

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