PHIL 164 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Consequentialism, Egalitarianism

• School: UMASS-Amherst
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHIL 164
• Professor: Rancourt Benjamin

Document Summary

Utilitarianism an action is right if and only if it leads to the most overall net pleasure (throughout the universe for all time) out of all available actions. Utilitarianism combines: hedonism value is determined by pleasure, consequentialism moral worth of an action is determined by the value of its consequences, egalitarianism everyone counts equally. The utilitarian method: identify all available alternatives, find net pleasure for each alternatives, pick the one with the highest net pleasure, utilitarianism says this is the right action, net pleasure = pleasure pain. Objection to hedonism: example: the truman show - you think you have good friends, but actually it"s a lie and no one likes you. Possible responses: change hedonism, preferences rather than pleasure: you do not prefer illusion, reject premise 1: lies/allusion really is just as valuable as the real thing. Kill 20 to save 200, and feel guilty.