CAS PH 150 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Monism, Experience Machine, Utility
4 Oct 2018
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Harwood"s examples to argue that utilitarianism is unjust (#3): Example 1: a scienti c genius murders his wife. But he is on the verge of curing cancer. Utilitarianism entails he should not be punished in any way that would interfere with his research. The sheriff can easily prevent all this violence, which is likely to kill innocent people, by framing the useless town drunk who remembers nothing about the night in question and has no alibi . Harwood"s point: utilitarianism entail that the sheriff should frame the drunk because that would promote the most psychological well being by preventing the mob violence. But this is unjust and should not be concerned by our moral theory. But the example is problematic for lots of reasons. A white woman has been raped and murdered and the mob is executing black people. This choice of example portrays the historical whiteness of philosophy.
