Utilitarianism: Moral Standard And/Or “Decision Procedure”?

Abstract

Rad analizira sve raširenija uvjerenja da utilitarizam kao normativno-etička teorija nudi standard moralnosti, ali ne i metodu (»proceduru«) donošenja moralnih odluka. Prema autorovu uvjerenju, ova je ideja nastala kao mogući odgovor na neke od kritika utilitarizma, zasnovanih na pojmu »prezahtjevnosti«. Najprije, iznosi se prvobitni argument Eugenea Balesa o tome da se razdvajanjem standarda moralnosti od metoda donošenja odluka utilitarizam postupaka može »pomiriti« s prihvaćanjem neke indirektne procedure zasnovane na pravilima. Potom, skicirana je Hurleyjeva teorija prema kojoj razdvajanje konzekvencijalističkog (unutar toga i utilitarističkog) moralnog standarda i procedure odlučivanja dopušta izbor procedure koja pred djelovatelja ne stavlja nerazumne zahtjeve. Autor analizira obje ideje i iznosi moguće metaetičke i normativno-etičke prigovore koji se tim povodom mogu konstruirati.The paper analyses a growing belief that utilitarianism as a theory of normative ethics offers a morality standard, but not a method (“procedure”) of making moral choices. According to the author\u27s belief, this idea emerged as a possible response to some of the critiques of utilitarian-ism, based on the notion of “demandingness”. Firstly, I laid out the original argument proposed by Eugene Bales, about how the utilitarianism of procedure and indirect procedures based on rules can be “reconciled” by setting morality standard apart from the methods of making deci-sions. Next, Hurley\u27s theory is outlined, according to which the separation of consequentialist (thus utilitarian) morality standard and decision procedures allows for the choice ofprocedure which does not request unreasonable demands from agents. The author analyses both ideas and lays out a possible meta-ethical and normative-ethical objections that can be constructed