How much more demanding is utilitarianism than common sense morality?

Utilitarianism, it is often said, is excessively demanding. Sidgwick was aware of, and responded to, this objection. We agree with him in general, but also argue that conditions have changed so much since the Victoria era that the gap between utilitarianism and common sense morality in regard to demandingness is now wider than it was in his time. It is, however, common sense morality that needs to change in this respect, not utilitarianism

Doing our best for hedonistic utilitarianism: Reply to critics

In this response to the essays by Crisp, Parfit, Hooker and Nakano-Okuno on our The Point of View of the Universe, we focus on the following topics: whether egoism is more susceptible to an evolutionary debunking argument than universal benevolence; our defence of impartial ra-tionalism; wide and narrow definitions of "ethics"; the role of moral rules; the extension of eth-ics to all sentient beings; how best to define and understand pleasure as an intrinsic value; and whether Ross's ethic of prima facie duties is as defensible as utilitarianism

The objectivity of ethics and the unity of practical reason

Evolutionary accounts of the origins of human morality may lead us to doubt the truth of our moral judgments. Sidgwick tried to vindicate ethics from this kind of external attack. However, he ended The Methods in despair over another problem—an apparent conflict between rational egoism and universal benevolence, which he called the “dualism of practical reason.” Drawing on Sidgwick, we show that one way of defending objectivity in ethics against Sharon Street’s recent evolutionary critique also puts us in a position to support a bold claim: the dualism of practical reason can be resolved in favor of impartiality

SECRECY IN CONSEQUENTIALISM: A DEFENCE OF ESOTERIC MORALITY

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Под знаменем Ленина. 1961. № 034

Most people agree that inflicting unnecessary suffering upon animals is wrong. Many fewer people, including among ethicists, agree that painlessly killing animals is necessarily wrong. The most commonly cited reason is that death (without pain, fear, distress) is not bad for them in a way that matters morally, or not as significantly as it does for persons, who are self-conscious, make long-term plans and have preferences about their own future. Animals, at least those that are not persons, lack a morally significant interest in continuing to live. At the same time, some argue that existence itself can be good, insofar as one’s life is worth living. For animals, a good life can offset a quick, if early, death. So, it seems to follow that breeding happy animals that will be (prematurely) killed can be a good thing overall. Insofar as slaughter and sale makes it economically sustainable to raise new ones, who would otherwise not exist, raising and killing animals for food who will have lives worth living is good overall. It benefits them as well as consumers, and makes the world better by adding to the sum of happiness. The process of raising and killing animals with positive welfare produces a sequence of replacement that maintains or increases overall welfare, all else being equal (assuming in particular no overall negative impact on the welfare of other parties). Call this the Replaceability Argument (RA) and the ensuing controversy the Replaceability Problem (RP). This is a problem at the crossroads of the ethics of killing, agricultural ethics, procreation ethics, and population ethics

Dehorning the Darwinian Dilemma for Normative Realism

Normative realists tend to consider evolutionary debunking arguments as posing epistemological challenges to their view. By understanding Sharon Street's 'Darwinian dilemma' argument in this way, they have overlooked and left unanswered her unique scientific challenge to normative realism. This paper counters Street's scientific challenge and shows that normative realism is compatible with evolutionary views of human evaluative judgment. After presenting several problems that her Adaptive Link Account (ALA) of evaluative judgments faces, I outline and defend an evolutionary byproduct perspective on evaluative judgment. I then argue that a consideration of levels of analysis in biological-behavioral explanation suggests that the realist who adopts the byproduct perspective I outline is not at a prima facie disadvantage to the normative anti-realist on grounds of parsimony. This perspective, I suggest, can enable normative realists to answer evolutionary challenges to their view