PHLC05H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Trolley Problem, Hypothetical Imperative, Categorical Imperative

Lecture

Utilitarianism

• The principle of utility says that what produces the greatest amount of happiness for the most people

should be done

• What causes pain should not be done

• Economists use this principle when they conduct cost-benefit analysis—is it going to produce benefit for

more people to build a dam in a village, even if some people lose their homes? It will help the

• One problem with utilitarianism is the reduction of happiness in the merely measurable (??)

• The argument is that what counts in determining the morality of an action are the consequences

• It is oriented toward the direction of means to an end

• Note that Kant would deny that consequences should be the primary consideration

• The famous example here is the well-known trolley thought experiment

• The trolley problem has a Version I and Version II in the powerpoint slides

• Version I: utilitarians would say you should pull the switch to kill 1 person instead of 5

• Kant would say that you should not do it, because you would be doing something that involves the

intention of killing someone

• Kant’s view is that happiness can’t even be the end of a hypothetical imperative, much less the

and whatever the consequences are, if we fail to get the money to the developing country, our will... (?)

• You had a good will for Kant

• There are two reasons for Kant’s view:

• I don’t know in advance what is going to make me happy; what I think will make me happy might

not make me happy

• The relationship between means and ends is contingent, so I might not be able to bring about the

end, such as actually getting the aid to the developing country

• Conversely, you can have certainty about the categorical imperative

• If I know that the reason that I performed action X was its consistency with the categorical

imperative, then there is certainty that the action was right; there is no such certainty if the action

compare forms of pleasure?

• Mill’s response: The cultivated (educated) person knows both sides: in the case of reading, if

you don’t know how to read, you don’t know if you like reading. But someone who does know

how to read, can decide not to read

• Happiness is unattainable

• It is only contingent social and political arrangements that make happiness unattainable for all

• Happiness is only contingent when given certain social and political arrangements that make

happiness unattainable for some individuals; but the goal should be for everyone to be happy

• Even if it seems unattainable, it seems so because of historical and social arrangements

• There isn’t time usually in the decision procedure to weigh all the consequences