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Utilitarianism Shot Down by Its Own Men?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2003

TUIJA TAKALA
Affiliation:
Tuija Takala, Ph.D., is Docent of Practical Philosophy in the Department of Moral and Social Philosophy, University of Helsinki, Finland She is currently Visiting Academic at the Centre for Social Ethics and Policy, University of Manchester, England. Her main research interest lies in the philosophical analysis of bioethical concepts.

Extract

I think that utilitarianism is a good moral theory, and definitely better than its rivals, deontology and teleology. For practical purposes in multicultural contexts, at least, I think that no one should overlook a theory that is able to take into account a variety of ethical views and accommodate the ever-changing facts of the material world. But utilitarianism has a bad reputation in bioethics. It is often seen as the inhumane theory that allows the sacrifice of minorities, the killing of the innocent, and simplistic calculations on the value of life. Hardly anyone cares to remember that most formulations of the theory do not allow these actions. The economic doctrine sometimes labeled as utilitarianism could be guilty as charged, but ethics and economy are not interchangeable words. Also as a theory that can actually propose answers to no-win situations, utilitarianism has been an easy target for criticism.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2003 Cambridge University Press

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