Utilitarianism and Its Critics

Abstract

Abstract Later defences of utilitarianism, by Lewis and Hare, support Sidgwick’s claim that the utilitarian outlook is the outlook of practical reason. They argue that the appropriate extension of sympathy requires imaginative identification with the pleasures and pains of other people, in a way that leads to the utilitarian attitude. Ross, however, argues that utilitarianism gives us neither a correct account of moral concepts nor a correct account of moral properties. When we consider what makes right actions right, we have good reason to agree with Price in rejecting utility as the supreme principle of morality. Rawls defends this argument against utilitarianism. To decide what our considered moral judgments commit us to, we describe fair conditions in which we can choose between different principles of justice. In these fair conditions we accept principles that conflict with utilitarianism, but conform to Kant’s principle of respect for persons as ends.

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