Comment author:UmamiSalami
11 October 2016 06:33:50PM
0 points
[-]
Among hedonistic utilitarians it's quite normal to demand both completeness
Utilitarianism provides no guidance on many decisions: any decision where both actions produce the same utility.
Even if it is a complete theory, I don't think that completeness is demanded of the theory; rather it's merely a tenet of it. I can't think of any good a priori reasons to expect a theory to be complete in the first place.
Two different actions don’t produce exactly the same utility, but even if they did it wouldn’t be any problem. To say that you may chose any one of two actions when it doesn’t matter which one you chose since they have the same value, isn’t to give “no guidance”. Consequentialists want to maximize the intrinsic value, and both these actions do just that.
Of course hedonistic utilitarianism doesn’t require completeness, which, by the way, isn’t one of its tenets either. But since it is complete, which of course is better than being incomplete, it’s normal for hedonistic utilitarianists to hold the metaethical view that a proper moral theory should answer all of the question: “Which actions ought to be performed?” What could be so good with answering it incompletely?
= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
Comments (8)
Utilitarianism provides no guidance on many decisions: any decision where both actions produce the same utility.
Even if it is a complete theory, I don't think that completeness is demanded of the theory; rather it's merely a tenet of it. I can't think of any good a priori reasons to expect a theory to be complete in the first place.
Two different actions don’t produce exactly the same utility, but even if they did it wouldn’t be any problem. To say that you may chose any one of two actions when it doesn’t matter which one you chose since they have the same value, isn’t to give “no guidance”. Consequentialists want to maximize the intrinsic value, and both these actions do just that.
Of course hedonistic utilitarianism doesn’t require completeness, which, by the way, isn’t one of its tenets either. But since it is complete, which of course is better than being incomplete, it’s normal for hedonistic utilitarianists to hold the metaethical view that a proper moral theory should answer all of the question: “Which actions ought to be performed?” What could be so good with answering it incompletely?