Robert Nozick om utilitarisme

Nozick angriber i en lang passage utilitarismen

Ikke angivet Ikke angivet,

16/12/2017

Nozick angriber i en lang passage utilitarismen. Enhver liberal bør modsætte sig nyttelærens maksime om maksimering. Vi bør, i den Kantianske tradition, fastholde, at ethvert individ er et imperativ i sig selv. 


Since it counts only the happiness and suffering of animals, would the utilitarian view hold it all right to kill animals painlessly? Would it be all right, on the utilitarian view, to kill people painlessly, in the night, provided one didn't first announce it? Utilitarianism is notoriously inept with decisions where the number of persons is at issue. (..) Maximizing the total happiness requires continuing to add persons so long as their net utility is positive and is sufficient to counterbalance the loss in utility their presence in the world causes others. Maximizing the average utility allows a person to kill everyone else if that would make him ecstatic, and so happier than the average. (..) Is it all right to kill someone provided you immediately substitute another (by having a child or, in science-fiction fashion, by creating a full-grown person) who will be as happy as the rest of the life of the person you killed? After all, there would be no net diminution in total utility, or even any change in its profile of distribution. Do we forbid murder only to prevent the feelings of worry on the part of potential victims? 

Annarchy, State and Utopia, s. 41-42

Kilde: