Prompt: this prompt tasks you with applying Utilitarian moral theory to

either a kind of action (e.g. “having elephants perform in circuses”) or a

specific action (e.g. dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. It thus has two
more specific prompts which appear after my reminder statements of
Utilitarianism.

You can use either hedonistic or desire based versions of act Utilitarianism
for this prompt. I have reproduced both views below. Note that in a lot of
cases the two theories will likely give the same verdicts: bullying is typically
going to produce net negative impacts on well-being whether well-being is
understood hedonistically or as a matter of satisfying intrinsic desires. This is
no surprise, since most of us strongly desire pleasure and strongly want to
avoid pain. However, there are certainly important cases where hedonistic
and desire based versions of Utilitarianism would give different examples.
For example, desire based versions are likely far less likely to counsel
paternalism (restricting people’s freedom for their own good) than are
hedonistic versions of Utilitarianism. This follows because many people
intrinsically desire autonomy, so desire-based theories of well-being are
going to make paternalism simply less effective.
Hedonistic Act Utilitarianism: an act is morally permissible if and only if
and because it does more to improve overall well-being than any other
action that could have been done given the circumstances. For hedonistic
versions of Utilitarianism, well-being is a matter of the balance of pleasure
over pain.
Desire (Preference) Act Utilitarianism: an act is morally permissible if
and only if and because it does more to improve overall well-being than any
other action that could have been done given the circumstances. For Desire
Utilitarianism—which is actually more commonly called Preference
Utilitarianism—well-being is a matter of the satisfaction of intrinsic
preferences, even if these preferences are for things which do not promote
pleasure or happiness.
If you are going to respond to either of these prompts, please try to
do so by the end of Thursday, November 9. I want to discuss your
ideas in class on Friday, November 10.
The five-steps Shafer-Landau identifies on page 122 under
“structure of a consequentialist theory” may help you in answering
these prompts. That said, note that steps 1 and 2 will be answered
by whatever version of Utilitarianism you go with (hedonistic or
desire based). Obviously, you should go with the version of
Utilitarianism which you think has a better theory of well-being. If
you’re a hedonist about well-being, go with hedonistic Ac
Utilitarianism. Though, again, I think the two versions of the theory
will often converge, and so in my examples I simply talk about
“Utilitarianism” and “Utilitarians.”
1.) Generate a Utilitarian rule of thumb: Utilitarians recognize
that it is extremely hard, often impossible, to know all of the
consequences of a given act. In response to this problem, Utilitarians
have often suggested that we should avoid actions which we know
typically lead to net bad outcomes. For example, killing people very
rarely results in net well-being improvements. Granted, a serial killer
may experience some joy from killing their victims. And classic
versions of Utilitarianism are committed to counting the serial killer’s
pleasure in favor of the moral permissibility of killing random people.
However, the victim losses their whole life and so typically loses years
of potential happiness. In addition to the harms to the victim, murder
results in suffering by families, friends and communities of the victim.
So, we should generally not kill random people on Utilitarian grounds.
Indeed, even killing vicious people may often lead to worse outcomes:
if you kill one mob boss, the one who replaces him may be worse, or
seek retribution. This is compatible with there being rare cases where
we know that killing someone will lead to better outcomes, and so on
Utilitarian grounds we should violate the presumption against killing.
The same kind of thinking defends presumptions against arson,
assault, rape and theft.

For this prompt, try to identify some other actions that we typically
should not do on Utilitarian grounds. Your analysis should be done at
the level of types of types of actions. Action types are the things
usually named by action verbs in English (e.g. running, singing, writing,
solving a puzzle, etc.). That said, you can and probably should add
some more specific details. For example, consider the action
“purchasing meat.” Many Utilitarians argue that “purchasing meat in
the modern United States” is impermissible. Roughly, the reason for
thinking this is that purchasing something incentivizes more
production of the thing you purchased. But most meat in the modern
U.S. comes from factory farms. Animals on these farms live miserable
lives in squalid, filthy conditions. Factory farms are also a threat to
human health, at least because they are breeding grounds for
antibiotic resistant bacteria (just look at the Wikipedia article for some
of the problems:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intensive_animal_farming#Human_health_
impact). There are healthy alternatives to purchasing factory farmed
 meat, such as well-planned vegetarian and vegan diets. At least some
of these options do not generate the same problems of animal
suffering and as great a range of environmental and public health
grounds. So, as a Utilitarian rule of thumb we ought to prefer these
alternate diets. This is compatible with there being cases where we
clearly ought to purchase meat even given Utilitarianism, such as if
doing so is the only way to avoid starvation. Utilitarianism may also
license purchasing meat has been produced by farms which genuinely
do treat the animals well and have smaller ecological footprints.

As a final suggestion, try to think of an action type where

Utilitarianism would require us to revise our common sense
moral thinking. For example, bullying is almost certainly
almost not utility maximizing, but opposition to bullying is not
a novel moral proposal. Part of the appeal of Utilitarianism is
that Utilitarians have historically often been at the forefront of
moral revolutions that most modern Westerners now take to
be common sense morality. For example, Utilitarians were
early advocates for: womens’ suffrage and gender equality,
the abolition of slavery, and improving conditions prisoners
face in prison.

2.) Apply Utilitarianism to a specific action: for this version of

the prompt consider a historical action or a specific action a person or
group might perform.

For an example of a Utilitarian evaluation of a historic action, consider

the case of dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. On Utilitarian
grounds, dropping the atomic bomb could only be justified if doing so
would produce a better net improvement in total well-being for
everyone affected by the action than not dropping the bomb.

With this in mind, I actually think Utilitarianism would say the bomb
should not have been dropped. At that point in the war, Japan’s
military was basically defeated. Granted, Japan still held its mainland
and might well have had many tens of thousands of soldiers who would
have been willing to fight until the end to defend the mainland.
However, the Japanese navy was basically annihilated, and its air force
was in little better shape. Consequently, it had basically no ability to
actually attack the United States or our allies. This is important, as
discussions of the dropping of the atomic bomb often treat the only
two options as invasion or dropping the atomic bomb. From here, it is
argued that invasion would have cost at least as many lives as the
 bombs. But that’s a false-dilemma: we could also have simply
blockaded Japan and let its remaining armies sit doing nothing.
Regardless of their fervor for empire, it would have been clear to the
Japanese people and their leadership that there was nothing to be
gained by perpetuating a siege. Indeed, even insofar as the Japanese
armies were fanatical, it is easier to sustain one’s fervor when this
entails actually fighting or preparing to fight for your cause. In
contrast, sitting around staring your own impotency in the face is not
exciting and steadily saps morale. By avoiding invasion and so much
armed conflict, a blockade strategy would have radically cut combat
deaths on both sides. Of course, people die in a siege due to
starvation, and the Japanese populace was already facing starvation.
However, the atomic bombs caused at least 129,000 deaths, and it
would take quite a while before that many die of malnourishment.
Given the deleterious effects of a siege on morale and that we know
there were significant factions in the Japanese leadership that wanted
peace, surrendering before that many die seems likely. Consequently,
I suspect a blockade would have led to fewer total deaths and so would
have been the better option on Utilitarian grounds.

While my example uses a historical case, you are also welcome to

consider possible future actions or social policies. The difference
between this prompt and the general rule one is that you are looking
at highly specific cases. So, this second prompt might be for actions
like “such and so specific form of U.S. military intervention in Syria,”
whereas the first prompt may be about “fighting wars for humanitarian
reasons in general.”

1.) Provide the best objection you can to Tristram McPherson’s modest
ethical veganism. Obviously, you need to understand McPherson’s view
before you can meaningfully criticize it. So, be sure to read his paper before
responding to this prompt. Pages 1-2, and 27-32 are the most important for
understanding the view itself. The bulk of the paper is an argument for the
view, and the second prompt asks you to try to generate objections to
McPherson’s arguments. Note that if your objections succeed, it is also
important for you to think about where McPherson’s argument fails, because
his argument is logically valid and so you are committed to providing a
reason to reject at least one of his premises if you deny his conclusion. That
said, you do not need to criticize the argument for this prompt.

While you really should read the paper before answering this prompt, here is
the quick statement of the view:

Modest Ethical Veganism: It is typically wrong to use animal products.

Animal Products: “only those products made from or by mammals, and
the birds that are familiar sources of meat (chickens, turkeys, ducks, etc.).
Typically wrong: McPherson is using the somewhat more casual “typically
wrong” for the idea philosophers usually label with the words “prima facie
wrong.” This idea is fairly intuitive: many things are only presumptively
wrong, which means they are wrong unless there is a strong countervailing
reason to do them. Most of our moral principles are probably prima facie
principles. For example, it is prima facie wrong to lie. However, most people
think there are white lies: lies which are justified, usually because telling the
truth would produce very bad consequences (e.g. lying to the Gestapo to
save your Jewish neighbor is presumably permissible on the grounds that
telling them where your neighbor is would lead to their being unjustly killed).
2.) Provide a criticism of McPherson’s argument for modest ethical
veganism: in contrast, this prompt asks you to criticize McPherson’s
argument for his view. Because arguments are logically distinct from their
conclusions, you could accept his conclusion while thinking he has given a
bad argument for the view.

As with the first prompt, while I have reproduced the formalized argument
below, you really should read the paper before answering this prompt.
McPherson provides explanation and defense of each premise in his paper.
Notice you actually are also committed to rejecting any defense he
offers in the body of the paper for these premises. So, for example,
an adequate defense of P1 would also require explaining why
McPherson’s argument from life-extending killing cases don’t
provide adequate support for P1.

1. It is wrong to inflict animal suffering and death, unless there are strong
competing ethical considerations (§§1-2)
2. The animal product industry systematically inflicts massive suffering
and death on animals
3. There are no competing ethical considerations that justify the animal
death and suffering inflicted by the animal product industry (§3)
4. The animal product industry systematically engages in massive
wrongdoing: It has a wrongful plan (from 1-3)
5. In the typical case, using animal products involves seeking to benefit
from cooperating with the animal product industry’s plan (§3)
6. It is wrong to seek to benefit by cooperating with others’ wrongful
plans, absent competing ethical considerations (§3)
7. In the typical case, there are no competing ethical considerations that
justify cooperating with these institutions
C. In the typical case, it is wrong to use animal products (from 4-7)