Consequences for whom? If I violate your rights, that’s not a consequence for me. That’s one of the ways in which ethical utilitarianism separates from personal decision theory.
I don’t understand the question. “For whom” doesn’t matter. If I take an action, the world that results as a consequence has an entity who feels their rights are violated. When I sum over the utility of that world, that rights violation is a negative term, if I’m the kind of person cares about people’s rights (which I am, but is a *separate* issue).
For “the ends don’t justify the means” to mean something, it implies that there is something of intrinsic negative morality in the actions I take, even if the results are identical. I argue that this is nonsense—if there was any real, non-deontological difference you could point to, then that would be part of the utility calculation.
It matters because your ethical/decision theory will give different results depending on whose utilities you are taking into account.
If I take an action, the world that results as a consequence has an entity who feels their rights are violated. When I sum over the utility of that world, that rights violation is a negative term, if I’m the kind of person cares about people’s rights (which I am, but is a separate issue).
It’s the heart of the issue. If you don’t care about their rights, but they do, then you will violate their rights.
If there is some objective notion of the negative utility that comes from a rights violation, you will violate their
their rights unless your personal UF happens to be exactly aligned with the objective value.
For “the ends don’t justify the means” to mean something, it implies that there is something of intrinsic negative morality in the actions I take, even if the results are identical
You can’t calculate what the ultimate results are.
You have to use heuristics. That’s why there is a real paradox about the trolley problem. The local (necessarily) calculation says, that killing the fat man saves lives, the heuristic says “dont kill people”
Consequences for whom? If I violate your rights, that’s not a consequence for me. That’s one of the ways in which ethical utilitarianism separates from personal decision theory.
I don’t understand the question. “For whom” doesn’t matter. If I take an action, the world that results as a consequence has an entity who feels their rights are violated. When I sum over the utility of that world, that rights violation is a negative term, if I’m the kind of person cares about people’s rights (which I am, but is a *separate* issue).
For “the ends don’t justify the means” to mean something, it implies that there is something of intrinsic negative morality in the actions I take, even if the results are identical. I argue that this is nonsense—if there was any real, non-deontological difference you could point to, then that would be part of the utility calculation.
If I feel that I have a right to a swimming pool, does your failure to buy me a swimming pool mean that a right has been violated?
It matters because your ethical/decision theory will give different results depending on whose utilities you are taking into account.
It’s the heart of the issue. If you don’t care about their rights, but they do, then you will violate their rights.
If there is some objective notion of the negative utility that comes from a rights violation, you will violate their their rights unless your personal UF happens to be exactly aligned with the objective value.
You can’t calculate what the ultimate results are. You have to use heuristics. That’s why there is a real paradox about the trolley problem. The local (necessarily) calculation says, that killing the fat man saves lives, the heuristic says “dont kill people”