On the Formulation and Application of Utilitarianism

Abstract

In recent years some philosophers have argued that usual straightforward versions of act-utilitarianism can be expected to yield results which are somehow contrary to very spirit of utilitarianism or which are incompatible with certain standard principles of deontic logic. It has also been argued that usual utilitarian principles must therefore be rejected or modified or that their range of application must be restricted in some way or other (see REFERENCES below). The problems involved here are intimately connected with rather unclear notion of alternative actions. This notion is also essential in many non-utilitarian systems, and it has indeed been pointed out that analogous problems arise within such systems as well (see [1] and [2] ). The discussion has both a theoretical and a practical aspect. Theoretically, main problem could perhaps be regarded as that of giving a coherent formulation of act-utilitarianism (compare, e.g., [12] ). In practice, a fundamental difficulty would appear to be that of determining which actions or courses of action should be recognized as the alternatives in given situations of deliberation or planning. It should be noticed, moreover, that a satisfactory solution of one of these problems is not necessarily a satisfactory solution of other. There is still a great deal of disagreement in this area, and many questions remain unsettled. In this paper I shall review and discuss some of suggestions which have been made or

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