PHILOS 2G03 Lecture 10: Alternative to Utilitarian Punishment ; Walker
8 Apr 2015
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Utilitarianism says that there might be times where faking punishment is what is required to maximize punishment. Utilitarianism says that sometimes punishing someone innocent might be the best thing to do to maximize overall happiness. In these 2 ways, utilitarianism is disconnected from guilt. Utilitarianism can play around with the amount of punishment someone gets from a given crime. There is no proportionality with utilitarianism based on guilt, the proportionality is based on how much deterrence is created. If large punishment creates large deterrence, utilitarians would hand out large punishments. If it only takes weak punishment for strong deterrence, then utilitarianism would go with that. Scholars say that if we"re willing to accept a few modifications to this theory, the benefits would be really good. Nigel walker says that utilitarianism convinces us to make human sacrifices out of one another. If we"re good utilitarians, we"re going to do whatever we want for the greater good.
