2. A quick synthesis of utilitarianism and other things
1. Other centered ethics?
To set the stage, I think utilitarianism is the best candidate for an other-centered ethics, i.e., an ethics that’s based as much as possible on the needs and wants of others, rather than on my personal preferences and personal goals. If you start with some simple assumptions that seem implied by the idea of “other-centered ethics,” then you can derive utilitarianism.
It also seems ethically concerned with you as well.
The benefit of having such a division, is that it seems like if you spend effort/time/resources/thought/other things on others, having stuff that you can direct resources to, and ways of operating that can take into account what other people in order to help them...well, you may already know what you want. To some extent, when people talk about utilitarianism they identify areas/projects that, in principle, derive a lot from general knowledge (about people). For example, ‘malaria is bad’ → ‘look for ways to help with that’. In other words, it largely uses abstraction, and broadly beneficial criteria for improving the world.
Stuff more derived from say, your interests, can also be applicable to people who share those interests. An obvious example is, lots of people want to read Harry Potter 7, so when it comes out, the public library has a lot of copies. More generally, public goods* have a lot to offer—both one their own, and where they interface with other types.
*From Wikipedia:
In economics, a public good (also referred to as a social good or collective good)[1] is a good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous. For such goods, users cannot be barred from accessing or using them for failing to pay for them. Also, use by one person neither prevents access of other people nor does it reduce availability to others.[1] Therefore, the good can be used simultaneously by more than one person.[2] This is in contrast to a common good,
2. A quick synthesis of utilitarianism and other things
Ethics is a complex suite of intuitions, many of them incompatible. There’s no master system for it. So a statement as broad as “Providing a modest benefit to a large enough number of persons can swamp all other ethical considerations” sounds like an overreach.
However “Providing a modest benefit to a large enough number of persons may do well on many ethical scales”.
Contents:
1. Other centered ethics?
2. A quick synthesis of utilitarianism and other things
1. Other centered ethics?
It also seems ethically concerned with you as well.
The benefit of having such a division, is that it seems like if you spend effort/time/resources/thought/other things on others, having stuff that you can direct resources to, and ways of operating that can take into account what other people in order to help them...well, you may already know what you want. To some extent, when people talk about utilitarianism they identify areas/projects that, in principle, derive a lot from general knowledge (about people). For example, ‘malaria is bad’ → ‘look for ways to help with that’. In other words, it largely uses abstraction, and broadly beneficial criteria for improving the world.
Stuff more derived from say, your interests, can also be applicable to people who share those interests. An obvious example is, lots of people want to read Harry Potter 7, so when it comes out, the public library has a lot of copies. More generally, public goods* have a lot to offer—both one their own, and where they interface with other types.
*From Wikipedia:
2. A quick synthesis of utilitarianism and other things
However “Providing a modest benefit to a large enough number of persons may do well on many ethical scales”.