LGST 210 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: John Stuart Mill, Act Utilitarianism, Twenty Hours
30 Sep 2015
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Blackboard notes on peter singer, famine, affluence, and morality . This says: one morally ought always to do an act, of those available for choice, that would bring about no less total utility than would any other act one might have done instead. I could vote, or spend the time doing other things. I could become well informed on the issues and think hard about which candidates to support. Doing these things is part of the conventional idea of a good citizen. It is far from obvious that according to act utilitarianism, i morally ought to spend time and energy becoming well informed and deliberating hard and then go to the polls and vote according to my hard-won judgments. I am one voter in elections in which many people vote. The chances my vote could be decisive make the difference between a candidate"s winning or losing-- are so miniscule as to be virtually nil.
