Find counter arguments by entering NameVs… or …VsName.
The author or concept searched is found in the following 27 entries.
| Disputed term/author/ism | Author |
Entry |
Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contract Theory | Rawls | I 167 Contract Theory/Rawls: Rawls distinguishes the approach of utilitarianism from that of contract theory. For example, if one takes the view of contracts as a basis, the argument of the slave keeper is correct: it would be a mistake if the slaves wanted to answer (...) that there is no actual choice and no equal distribution of opportunities. >Slavery/Rawls. The treaty doctrine is purely hypothetical: if a version of justice were chosen in the initial situation of a society to be built, its principles would be those that were applied. It is not an argument that such an understanding was not intended or would ever be. We cannot have both: a hypothetical interpretation without concrete information about the result... I 168 ...and later by reassessing the risk, rejecting principles we no longer want to have. (Contractual doctrine/Rawls/(s): what Rawls calls the treaty doctrine is therefore a more rigid commitment to structures that will be maintained in the future than its own approach would imply. Nevertheless, RawlsVsUtilitarianism.) >Utilitarianism, >VsUtilitarianism. |
Rawl I J. Rawls A Theory of Justice: Original Edition Oxford 2005 |
| Desert Theories | Lamont | Gaus I 227 Desert Theories/Lamont: Desert theories differ about what should be the basis for desert claims. The three main categories are: Gaus I 228 1) Productivity: people should be rewarded for their work activity with the product of their labour or value thereof (Gaus, 1990(1): 410—16, 485-9; Miller(2), 1976; 1989(3); 1999(4); Riley, 1989(5)). 2) Effort: people should be rewarded according to the effort they expend in contributing to the social product (Sadurski, 1985)(6). 3) Compensation: People should be rewarded according to the costs they voluntarily incur in contributing to the social product (Carens, 1981(7); Dick, 1975(8); Feinberg, 1970(9); Lamont, 1997(10)). Desert theorists in each category also differ about the relationship between luck and desert. All desert theorists hold that there are reasons to design institutions so that many of the gross vagaries of luck are reduced, but theorists diverge with respect to luck in the genetic lottery. >Desert/Political philosophy, cf. >Inequlities/Resource-based view (RBV), >Distributive Justice/Resource-based view (RBV). Desert theorists, because of their emphasis on outcomes being tied to people's responsibility rather than their luck, view with concern how much people's level of economic benefits still depends significantly on factors beyond their control. UtilitarianismVsDesert theories: By contrast, utilitarians consider this of no moral consequence since, for them, the only morally relevant characteristic of any distribution is the utility resulting from it. This gap between the desert and utilitarian theorists, and hence between the general public and utilitarian theorists, is partly attributable to differences in empirical views. Desert theoriesVsUtilitarianism:. Desert theorists are much more likely to view people as signifi- cantly responsible for their actions and want to give effect to that responsibility by reducing the degree to which people's life prospects are influenced by factors beyond their control. Utilitarianism: Utilitarians are more likely to see people as largely the products of their natural and social environment, and so not responsible for many of their actions in the first place. On the latter view, the point of reducing the effect of luck is less attractive. Scheffler: But, as Scheffler (1992)(11) points out, the general population has a noticeably more robust view of the responsibility of people than many academic theorists. >Distributive Justice/Libertarianism. 1. Gaus, Gerald F. (1990) Value and Identification. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2. Miller, David (1976) Social Justice. Oxford: Clarendon. 3. Miller, David (1989) Market, State, and Community. Oxford: Clarendon. 4. Miller, David (1999) Principles of Social Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 5. Riley, Jonathan (1989) 'Justice under capitalism'. In John H. Chapman, ed., NOMOS xrxl: Markets and Justice. New York: New York University Press, 122—62. 6. Sadurski, Wojciech (1985) Giving Desert Its Due. Dordrecht: Reidel. 7. Carens, Joseph (1981) Equality, Moral Incentives and the Market. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 8. Dick, James C. (1975) 'How to justify a distribution of earnings'. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 4: 248—72. 9. Feinberg, Joel (1970) Doing and Deserving. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 10. Lamont, Julian (1997) 'Incentive income, deserved income, and economic rents'. Journal of Political Philosophy, 5 (1): 26-46. 11. Schemer, Samuel (1992) 'Responsibility, reactive attitudes, and liberalism in philosophy and politics'. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 21 (4): 299-323. Lamont, Julian, „Distributive Justice“. In: Gaus, Gerald F. & Kukathas, Chandran 2004. Handbook of Political Theory. SAGE Publications |
Gaus I Gerald F. Gaus Chandran Kukathas Handbook of Political Theory London 2004 |
| Difference Principle | Rawls | I 75 Difference principle/theory of justice as fairness/Rawls: the difference principle eliminates the uncertainty of the efficiency principle (>Efficiency/Rawls, Pareto-Optimum/Rawls) by defining a position from which the social and economic inequalities of the basic structure ((s) of a society to be built) can be assessed. Assuming the institutional framework of Liberal equality (see Equality/Rawls) and fairness of opportunity, the expectations of the better-offs are fair if and only if they are part of a scheme that improves the expectations of the most disadvantaged members. I 76 The difference principle states that equal distribution of goods is preferable, as long as a different distribution does not favour both sides (better and worse) at the same time. I 77 RawlsVsUtilitarianism: Classical utilitarianism is indifferent to how a constant sum of benefits is distributed. It only calls for equality up to a certain threshold. >Utilitarianism. I 78 Difference Principle/Special Cases/Rawls: 1. Special Case: If the expectation of the worst-off person cannot be improved, no change in the income situation of a better-off person can bring about an improvement in the situation of the worse-off person. 2. Special case: occurs when the expectations of all those who are better off at least contribute to the prosperity of those who are worse off. This means that when their expectations fall, those of the less well-off fall as well. However, the maximum has not yet been reached. I 79 Inequality/Rawls: how unfair a (distribution) scheme is depends on how excessive the expectations of the better-offs are and to what extent they depend on violations of the other principles of justice and fair equal opportunities. >Injustice, >Inequalities. Difference principle/Rawls: is a maximization principle. We must make a strict distinction between cases where it works and cases where it does not (see Special Cases 1 and 2 above). The difference principle is compatible with the principle of efficiency. Democracy/Rawls: a democratic constitution is not consistent with the efficiency principle alone, if it is understood in such a way that only changes that improve the situation of all people are allowed. Reason: Justice... I 80 ...requires some changes that are not efficient in this sense. Difference principle/justice: since the distribution in an initial state can never be exactly determined, it does not play a decisive role if the difference principle is applied. >Justice, >Principles/Rawls. Chain connection/prosperity/company/Rawls: we assume a chain connection, i. e. if the expectation of the worst-offs is raised by a measure, then this will also apply to all positions between these and the best placed persons. However, if there are breakages, those who are in such a position have no right of veto against the improvements for those who are worse off. I 82 Difference principle/Rawls: does not depend on contingent actual deviations from the chain connection, which rarely works perfectly anyway. Problem: we assume close-kitness of the chain connection, but in many cases an improvement of the better-offs may have no effect at all on the situation of the worse-off. More entries on >Difference principle. |
Rawl I J. Rawls A Theory of Justice: Original Edition Oxford 2005 |
| Distributive Justice | Utilitarianism | Gaus I 223 Distributive Justice/Utilitarianism/Lamont: Over the last couple of centuries, one traditional answer to the question of how the goods and services of a society should be distributed has been that they should be distributed in a way that increases the welfare ofthe poor. Gaus I 224 Under utilitarianism, the right distribution is that which maximizes overall welfare, or 'utility', variously interpreted as net positive happiness, preference satisfaction, pleasure, or well-being (Bayles, 1978(1); Kelly, 1990(2); Smart and Williams, 1973(3)). VsUtilitarianism: problems: Unfortunately, through such extension, the theory makes the requirement to benefit the poor a contingent matter, according to the degree such help will maximize overall welfare. Utilitarians, who tend to accept the diminishing marginal utility of resources, believe resources will tend to produce more good when redistributed to the poor than to the rich. Nevertheless, there are easily describable conditions, such as in the case ofa poor but satisfied person and a non-satiated rich person, under which utilitarianism would prescribe forcibly transferring goods from the poor to the rich person. Because of prescriptions such as this, and others, which systematically violate common sense morality (Scheffler, 1988(4); 1994(5)), the ongoing movement in utilitarian theory, in the last two decades, has been towards variations of 'indirect' and 'institutional' utilitarianism (Bailey, 1997(6); Goodin, 1988(7); 1995(8); Pettit, 1997(9)). The most forceful idea of these theories is to restrict the application of utilitarianism to guide the choice of practices, institutions or public policies rather than to guide individual actions. >About utilitariansism. 1. Bayles, Michael D., ed. (1978) Contemporary Utilitarianism. Gloucester, MA: Smith. 2. Kelly, P. J. (1990) Utilitarianism and Distributive Justice. Oxford: Clarendon. 3. Smart, J. J. C. and Bernard Williams (1973) Utilitarianism For and Against. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 4. Scheffler, Samuel, ed. (1988) Consequentialism and its Critics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 5. Scheffler, Samuel (1994) The Rejection of Consequentialism, rev. edn. Oxford: Clarendon. 6. Bailey, James Wood (1997) Utilitarianism, Institutions, and Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 7. Goodin, Robert E. (1988) Reasons for Welfare: The Political Theory of the Welfare State. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 8. Goodin, Robert E. (1995) Utilitarianism as a Public Philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press. 9. Pettit, Philip (1997) Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lamont, Julian, „Distributive Justice“. In: Gaus, Gerald F. & Kukathas, Chandran 2004. Handbook of Political Theory. SAGE Publications |
Gaus I Gerald F. Gaus Chandran Kukathas Handbook of Political Theory London 2004 |
| Generational Justice | Rawls | I 128 Generational Justice/Rawls: it is a question of whether the persons in an assumed initial state of a society to be established have duties and obligations towards third parties, in particular their direct descendants. >Fairness/Rawls, >Society/Rawls, >Fairness/Rawls. However, the principle of justice as fairness does not want to derive its principles from such considerations. Nevertheless, I assume that although the individuals do not consider their own life span in continuity, their goodwill will extend over at least two generations. I 208 Generational Justice/Rawls: since the members of society have an interest in securing equal rights of freedom for their descendants, there is no conflict over the choice of the principle of equal freedoms. For example, a son could not argue that the father neglected his interests if he accepted the principle of equal freedoms. The father would have to argue to the detriment of others if they departed from it that these other benefits would arise when they grow up. I 284 Generational Justice/Rawls: this question challenges every ethical theory. It depends on how the minimum social standards are defined. I 286 Social minimum standards/Rawls: there are two problems here: a) there is not enough to save or b) taxation gets too strong when the minimum is raised. Then the situation of the worst-off starts to deteriorate. The question of the savings rate has often been discussed(1)(2)(3)(4)(5). I 287 Generational Justice/Rawls: The conclusion is that the greater benefits of future generations will be sufficiently great to compensate for the present victims. This can be true simply because future generations have better technology at their disposal. RawlsVsUtilitarianism: this forces us to impose greater sacrifices on the poorer people for the later ones, who may be better off as a result of other circumstances. However, this counting up between generations does not make as much sense as between contemporaries. >Utilitarianism, >VsUtilitarianism. Contract theory/contract doctrine/Rawls: it considers the problem from the perspective of the initial situation of a society to be established. Here, the participants do not know to which generation they belong if they are to decide on the form of the company and its structure. Now they should ask themselves how much they are prepared to save if everyone else does the same. In doing so, they should establish a principle of fair saving that applies to all. >Contract Theory. I 288 Only the relatives of the very first generation do not benefit from this, but no one knows to which generation they belong. I 289 However, the principle of fair saving does not force us to continue saving forever. Details have to be clarified at a later point of time. Each generation has its own appropriate goals. Generations are no more subject to each other than individuals. No generation has special demands. I 290 Savings/Savings Rate/Prosperity/Rawls: the last stage does not have to be one of abundance. The principle of justice does not require previous generations to save money so that later generations will have more. Rather, saving is about enabling a fair society and equal freedoms to become more effective. If more is saved, it is for other purposes. It would be a misunderstanding to think that the realisation of a good and fair society must wait until a high standard of living has been achieved. I 291 Generational Justice/Alexander Herzen/Rawls: Herzen thesis: human development is a kind of chronological unfairness, because the later ones benefit from the work of the former without paying the same price(6). >A. Herzen. Generational fairness/Kant: he saw it as strange that earlier generations would bear their burden only for the benefit of later generations and that they would be the only ones who would be lucky enough to be allowed to live in a finished building(7). >Generational Justice/Kant. 1. See A. K. Sen „On Optimizing the Rate of Saving“, Economic Journal, Vol. 71, 1961. 2. J. Tobin, National Economic Policiy, New Haven, 1966, ch. IX. 3. R.M. Solow, Growth Theory, New York, 1970, ch. V. 4. Frank P. Ramsey, „A Mathematical Theory of Saving“, Economic Journal, Vol. 38, 1928, reprinted in Arrow and Scitovsky, Readings in Welfare Economics. 5. T.C. Koomans, „On the Concept of Optimal Economic Growth“ (1965), In: Scientific Papers of T. C. Kopmans, Berlin, 1970. 6. Quote from Isaiah Berlin’s Einführung zu Franco Venturi, Roots of Revolution, New York, 1960 p. xx. 7. Kant: „Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose“, quoted from Hans Reiss (ed.) Kant, Political Writings, Cambridge, 1970, p. 44. |
Rawl I J. Rawls A Theory of Justice: Original Edition Oxford 2005 |
| Individuals | Bradley | Rawls I 110 Individuum/Bradley: Bradley's thesis: The individual is a pure abstraction. (1) Rawls: here, Bradley can be interpreted without major distortions in such a way that the duties and tasks presuppose a moral conception of institutions, and therefore the content of equitable institutions must be determined before demands can be made on individuals. >Institutions, >Abstraction, >Society, >Duty. 1.F. H. Bradley, Ethical Studies, 2nd Edition, Oxford, 1927, pp. 163-189. Gaus I 415 Individuals/Bradley/Weinstein: (...) English idealists like F. H. Bradley and Bernard Bosanquet were as much indebted to Hegel for their social ontology and moral and political theory as for their conception of history (...). >G.W.F. Hegel. Bradley argues that individuals are socially constituted, making morality fundamentally social in the sense that acting morally requires acting for others rather than simply leaving them alone. Hence, in so far as good is self-realization, acting morally means promoting everyone's self-realization, not merely one's own. >Socialization, >Morality, >Actions. Being so interdependently constituted, we best promote our own self-realization by simultaneously promoting our fellow citizens' and they best promote theirs by promoting ours (Bradley, 1988(1): 116). BradleyVsUtilitarianism/BradleyVsKantianism: Moreover, because our identities are socially encumbered, rationalistic moral theories like utilitarianism and Kantianism are misconceived and self-defeating. >Utilitarism. Socialization/Bradley: Both theories share the misguided pre-Hegelian delusion that we can somehow detach ourselves from our social milieu when determining how to act. Acting morally primarily entails embracing one's socially constituted identity and fulfilling 'one's station and its duties'. Nonetheless, fulfilling the duties of one's station isn't the whole of morality since the kind of society in which one lives also matters. Conventional morality must not be taken uncritically. >Liberty/Bosanquet. 1. Bradley, F. H. (1988 [1927]) Ethical Studies (1876). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Weinstein, David 2004. „English Political Theory in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century“. In: Gaus, Gerald F. & Kukathas, Chandran 2004. Handbook of Political Theory. SAGE Publications |
Brad I F. H. Bradley Essays on Truth and Reality (1914) Ithaca 2009 Rawl I J. Rawls A Theory of Justice: Original Edition Oxford 2005 Gaus I Gerald F. Gaus Chandran Kukathas Handbook of Political Theory London 2004 |
| Interest | Habermas | III 244 Interest/Habermas: Only values that are abstract and generalized to principles and values that can be internalized as formal principles and applied procedurally can cross situations and in extreme cases systematically penetrate all areas of life. >Values, >Generalization. In this context, the distinction between interests and values is relevant. Interest situations change, while generalized values always apply to more than one situation type. >Situations. HabermasVsUtilitarianism: This difference between values and interests was worked out in Neo-Kantianism. Utilitarianism does not take it into account. It makes the futile attempt to reinterpret interest orientations into ethical principles, to hypostasize procedural rationality itself into a value. >Utilitarianism, >Procedural rationality. See also >Max WeberVsUtilitarianism. |
Ha I J. Habermas Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne Frankfurt 1988 Ha III Jürgen Habermas Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns Bd. I Frankfurt/M. 1981 Ha IV Jürgen Habermas Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns Bd. II Frankfurt/M. 1981 |
| Justice | Rawls | I 3 Justice/Rawls: justice is the first virtue of social institutions, just like truth is for thought systems. Justice as an untrue theory must be rejected or revised, laws and institutions must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust. >Injustice, >Laws. Each person has an inviolability based on justice that cannot be overridden even by the welfare of a society as a whole. Therefore, a loss of the freedom of some cannot be offset by a greater good, which is given to several. (RawlsVsUtilitarianism, RawlsVsSinger, Peter) >Utilitarianism, >P. Singer. I 4 The rights guaranteed by justice are not the subject of political negotiation or social interests. Cf. >Human Rights, >Fundamental Rights. Just as the acceptance of a faulty theory is only justified by the absence of a better theory, injustice is only tolerable if necessary to avoid greater injustice. To investigate whether these too strong claims are justified, we must develop a theory of justice. >Society/Rawls. I 5 Justice/Society/Rawls: although people are at odds about which principles to accept, we still assume that they all have an idea of justice. That is, they understand that such principles are necessary to determine basic rights and obligations and to monitor their distribution. Therefore, it seems reasonable to contrast a concept of justice with different notions of justice. I 6 Justice/Rawls: justice cannot stop at distribution justice. It must become a feature of social institutions. I 54/55 Justice/Principles/Rawls: the principles of justice are very different depending on whether they apply to individuals or institutions. >Principles/Rawls. I 237 Natural justice/Rawls: the principles of natural justice are intended to ensure the integrity of the legal process.(1) >Natural justice. I 310 Justice/Idealization/RawlsVsLeibniz/RalwsVsRoss, W. D. /Rawls: one should not equate or try to define justice with an "ideal happiness"(2)(3). >G.W. Leibniz. I 311 What people are entitled to is not measured by intrinsic value. The moral value does not depend on supply and demand. When certain services are no longer in demand, moral merit does not decrease equally. I 312 The concept of moral value does not provide a first principle of distributive justice. The moral value can be defined as a sense of justice when the principles of justice are available. 1. Cf. W. D. Ross, The Right and the Good (Oxford, 1930), pp. 21,26-28,57f. 2. Leibniz, „On the Ultimate Origin of Things“ (1697) ed. P.P. Wiener (New York, 1951), p. 353. 3. Leibniz, „On the Ultimate Origin of Things“ (1697) Hrsg. P.P. Wiener (New York, 1951), S. 353. Gaus I 94 Justice/Rawls/Waldron: Diversity/inhomogeneity/society/Rawls: ‘[H]ow is it possible,’ Rawls asked, ‘for there to exist over time a just and stable society of free and equal citizens who remain profoundly divided by reasonable religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines?’ (1993(2): 4). Gaus I 95 Waldron: The key (...) is to insist that an acceptable theory of justice, T, must be such that, among whatever reasons there are for rejecting T or disagreeing with T, none turn on T’s commitment to a particular conception of value or other comprehensive philosophical conception. >Individualism/Rawls, >Rawls/Waldron. Problems: (...) there are further questions about how [a] threshold test should be understood. One possibility is that T represents an acceptable modus vivendi for the adherents of the various comprehensive conceptions {C1, C2, …, Cn }. Like a treaty that puts an end to conflict between previously hostile powers, T may be presented as the best that C1 can hope for in the way of a theory of justice given that it has to coexist with C2, …, Cn , and the best that C2 can hope for given that it has to coexist with C1, C3 ,…, Cn , and so on. Rawls, however, regards this as unsatisfactory as a basis for a conception of justice. It leaves T vulnerable to demographic changes or other changes in the balance of power between rival comprehensive conceptions, a vulnerability that is quite at odds with the steadfast moral force that we usually associate with justice (1993(1): 148). Solution/Rawls: Instead Rawls develops the idea that T should represent an overlapping moral consensus among {C1 , C2, … , Cn }. By this he means that T could be made acceptable on moral grounds to the adherents of C1, and acceptable on moral grounds to the adherents of C2, and so on. Diversity/Toleration//Locke/Kant/Rawls/Waldron: Thus, for example, the proposition that religious toleration is required as a matter of justice may be affirmed by Christians on Lockean grounds having to do with each person’s individualized responsibility to God for his own religious beliefs, by secular Lockeans on the grounds of unamenability of belief to coercion, by Kantians on the grounds of the high ethical Gaus I 96 importance accorded to autonomy, by followers of John Stuart Mill on the basis of the importance of individuality and the free interplay of ideas, and so on. >Toleration/Locke. Waldron: Whether this actually works is an issue we considered when we discussed Ackerman’s approach to neutrality. >Neutrality/Waldron, >Overlapping consensus/Rawls. 1. Rawls, John (1993) Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press. Waldron, Jeremy 2004. „Liberalism, Political and Comprehensive“. In: Gaus, Gerald F. & Kukathas, Chandran 2004. Handbook of Political Theory. SAGE Publications. |
Rawl I J. Rawls A Theory of Justice: Original Edition Oxford 2005 Gaus I Gerald F. Gaus Chandran Kukathas Handbook of Political Theory London 2004 |
| Kant | Höffe | Höffe I 302 Kant/Höffe:. Critics of [Kant] (...) like to focus on some rightly objectionable views such as discrimination against both women and people without any property. Last but not least, Kant is criticized for his defence of the death penalty. Höffe: But the objectionable views do not arise easily from the main concern of legal and state theory, a justification of law and state that dispenses with all theological and empirical elements and operates solely on the basis of principles of a purely (legal) practical reason. Prehistory: Methodologically, Kant's legal and constitutional thinking belongs to modern natural law as critical rational law, i.e. to the tradition that leads from Hobbes via Spinoza, Pufendorf and Locke to Thomasius, Wolff and Achenwall. >Th. Hobbes, >B. Spinoza, >J. Locke. Höffe: The incriminated views do not even hit the core of Kant's political conviction, a living together in freedom determined by the a priori idea of law. Even less can they be justified by rational law. Höffe I 103 Political order: [Kant] (...) was the first of the Western philosophers to draft detailed principles of a globally valid legal and peace order consisting of the three dimensions of state law, international law, and world civil law. >International law, >Cosmopolitanism. KantVsUtilitarianism: In contrast to the empirical-social pragmatic theories of the later powerful utilitarianism, Kant represents a normative concept of law and state that gets by without empirical elements and is not oriented toward well-being. Rather, he will commit the coexistence of people to the claim of pure practical reason. This strict concept of reason includes an unrestricted "shall", a categorical legal imperative (...). >Utilitarianism, >Categorical imperative, >Principles, >Norms. |
Höffe I Otfried Höffe Geschichte des politischen Denkens München 2016 |
| Legal Positivism | Dworkin | Brocker I 594 Legal Positivism/DworkinVsLegal Positivism/DworkinVsUtilitarianism/Dworkin:[Legal] positivists and utilitarians are united by their opposition to the idea of natural, morally predetermined rights for the state. Positivists reject them because they attribute all normative facts of the law to social facts such as legislation and judicial further training in law. Utilitarians deny them because their last criterion is the social (overall) benefit. Against both perspectives, Dworkin wants to defend a law-based theory to which his book title refers. Brocker I 596 Legal Positivism/DworkinVsPositivism/DworkinVsHart, L. H. A.: Dworkin rejects a system of rules like Hart's: see Rules/Hart, Law/Hart: instead, one must distinguish between law and principles. ((s) Thus Dworkin is influenced by Kant). Rules are either valid or not - however, principles can collide without at least one of them having to be invalid. Principles/Dworkin: have a certain weight and indicate in which direction arguments point. (1) Brocker I 599 DworkinVsPositivism: no description of law is possible that does not include judgmental judgements. For illustration, Dworkin introduces the character of the talented judge Hercules, who knows all the important institutional facts of law and its history, as well as all principles and goals. This allows him to make an accurate assessment of the law in an overall context. Justification/Dworkin: thesis: the justification of law in a matter of best available arguments is substantial in nature. Dworkin therefore sees no problem in the fact that his ideal judge is an isolated hero who apparently interprets the law monologically. VsDworkin: siehe Michelman 1986 (2), 76; Habermas 1994 (3). Jurisdiction/Dworkin: Responsible judges, according to Dworkin, do not succumb to the temptation to seek reasons and points of view outside the law just because so far no article of the constitution, no legal text and no explicit judgment provide authoritative information on a difficult case. Brocker I 600 Legal PositivismVsDworkin: a positivist could argue that Dworkin only wants the American legal system to appear in the most positive light possible, but his approach is unsuitable for giving general assessments of legal systems, such as today's Iranian legal system. Dworkin's approach is unsuitable because it already presupposes that a legal system must embody rational contents such as the idea of individual rights Brocker I 601 against the state. However, this is not a conceptual characteristic of law, but a fragile and in fact not generally recognised achievement of legal history. 1. Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously, Cambridge, Mass. 1977 (erw. Ausgabe 1978). Dt.: Ronald Dworkin, Bürgerrechte ernstgenommen, Frankfurt/M. 1990, S. 58-64 2. Michelman, Frank I., »The Supreme Court 1985 Term – Foreword. Traces of Self-Government«, in: Harvard Law Review 100/1, 1986, 4-77. 3. Habermas, Jürgen, Faktizität und Geltung. Beiträge zur Diskurstheorie des Rechts und des demokratischen Rechtsstaats, Frankfurt/M. 1994, S. 272-276. Bernd Ladwig, „Ronald Dworkin, Bürgerrechte ernstgenommen“ in: Manfred Brocker (Hg.) Geschichte des politischen Denkens. Das 20. Jahrhundert. Frankfurt/M. 2018 |
Dworkin I Ronald Dworkin Taking Rights Seriously Cambridge, MA 1978 Brocker I Manfred Brocker Geschichte des politischen Denkens. Das 20. Jahrhundert Frankfurt/M. 2018 |
| Life | Dworkin | Gaus I 417 Life/Dworkin/Weinstein: In his recent Sovereign Virtue, Dworkin presses hard his familiar defence of equality of resources, appealing to what he calls the 'challenge model' of ethical value, which he insists is non-consequentialist. For Dworkin, lives go better when they are lived from the inside with 'ethical integrity', meaning when they are not lived mechanically from the outside in accordance with rote habit. Ethically honest lives are skilful performances exhibiting ongoing, critical self-reflection. For such lives, choice is constitutive of living well. DworkinVsUtilitarianism: Welfarism and utilitarianism are immoral since they instrumentalize choice in the name of promoting states of affairs.* Equality: For Dworkin, equality of basic resources 'flows from' the challenge view. If living well means meeting the challenges we assign ourselves, then having sufficient basic resources is ethically imperative. And if it is 'equally important how each person lives', then everyone ought to have equal basic resources. Hence, 'ethical liberals begin with a strong ethical reason for insisting on an egalitarian distribution of resources' (Dworkin, 2000a(1): 279). In other words, equal concern and respect somehow entail resource egalitarianism since equality 'must be measured in resources and opportunities' (2000a(1): 237; also see Dworkin, 1985(2): 192-3). Notwithstanding the circularity of arguing that equal concern and respect entail treating people equally along some separately identified domain, Dworkin never stipulates precisely what he means by equality of resources also 'flow[ing] from' the challenge model.** But if the latter is meant to be a source of justification, then Dworkin's egalitarian liberalism begins to look like Sen's more than Dworkin realizes. >Egalitarianosm/Sen. * Following Sen, Dworkin (2000a(1): ch. l) considers utilitarianism a form of welfarism. For Sen's rejection of utilitarianism though not consequentialism, see Sen (1979)(2). Also see Dworkin (2000a(1): ch. 7) for his criticisms of Sen 's and Cohen's conceptions of equality. ** In Dworkin's recent response to Miller's review of Sovereign Virtue, he says that by equal resources 'flow[ing] from' equal concern and respect, he means 'consistent with'. He also says that his book aims to 'find attractive conceptions of democracy, liberty, community and individual responsibility that are consistent with or flow from' equal resources in order to 'protect' these values 'from subordination' to equality (Dworkin, 2000b(3): 15). Now this meaning of 'flowlingl from' merely requires that distributive justice be compatible with equal concern and respect and not that it is entailed by it. 1. Dworkin, Ronald (2000a) Sovereign Virtue. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2. Sen, Amartya (1979) 'Utilitarianism and welfarism'. The Journal of Philosophy, LXXVI: 463-89. 3. Dworkin, Ronald (2000b) 'Equality - an exchange'. Times Literary Supplement (London), I December: 15-16. Weinstein, David 2004. „English Political Theory in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century“. In: Gaus, Gerald F. & Kukathas, Chandran 2004. Handbook of Political Theory. SAGE Publications |
Dworkin I Ronald Dworkin Taking Rights Seriously Cambridge, MA 1978 Gaus I Gerald F. Gaus Chandran Kukathas Handbook of Political Theory London 2004 |
| Maximin Rule | Rawls | I 152 Def Maximin Rule/Rawls: this rule allows us to classify alternatives according to the worst possible result.(1)(2) I 153 The better possible results are then determined. The starting position of a society to be established: here, however, the participants do not assume that their future place will be determined by a malevolent opponent. The lack of information (by the lurker of ignorance) is not misinformation. >Veil of ignorance, >Society/Rawls. Maximin rule/Rawls: is not generally recommended for decisions under uncertainty, but rather when certain characteristics of a situation are given. In our case, this is the case when it comes to assessing the two principles of justice: I 61 Principles/Rawls: 1. every person must have the same right to the widest possible fundamental freedom, insofar as it is compatible with the same freedom for others. 2. social and economic inequalities shall be arranged in such a way that they (a) are reasonably expectable for everyone's benefit; and (b) are linked to positions and administrative procedures that can be held by anyone. I 156 If freedom (liberty) has priority, this implies that people in the initial situation have no desire for greater income at the expense of freedom. They will not jeopardize the minimum guaranteed by the two principles in lexical order ((s), i. e. that the first principle is ranked before the second principle in time). >Counterarguments. For a counterposition to Rawls see >Utilitarianism - Conterarguments: >VsUtilitarianism. 1. See W. J. Baumol, Economic Theory and Operations Analysis, 2nd. Ed. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1965, ch. 24. 2. R. D. Luce and Howard Raiffa, Games and Decision New York, 1957. |
Rawl I J. Rawls A Theory of Justice: Original Edition Oxford 2005 |
| Morals | Rawls | I 190 Moral/judgement/justice/society/Rawls: moral judgments need impartiality. However, this can also be achieved by other means than accepting mutual disinterest in each other's goals. Solution: Justice as fairness assumes that an impartial person is one who judges in accordance with the principles of justice. >Justice/Rawls, >Society/Rawls, >Fairness/Rawls. See Principles: I 61 Principles/Rawls: 1. every person must have the same right to the widest possible fundamental freedom, insofar as it is compatible with the same freedom for others. 2. social and economic inequalities shall be arranged in such a way that they (a) are reasonably expectable for everyone's benefit; and (b) are linked to positions and administrative procedures that can be held by anyone.) I 190 Solution: we do not have to define impartiality from the perspective of an ideal observer, but rather from the perspective of the participants. It is they who have to give themselves these principles in the initial situation of a society to be established. RawlsVsUtilitarianism: he confuses impartiality with impersonality. >Utilitarianism. I 311 Moral/Rawls: What people are entitled to is not measured by intrinsic value. The moral value does not depend on supply and demand. When certain services are no longer in demand, moral merit does not decrease equally. I 312 The concept of moral value does not provide a first principle of distributive justice. The moral value can be defined as a sense of justice when the principles of justice are available. >Distributive Justice. |
Rawl I J. Rawls A Theory of Justice: Original Edition Oxford 2005 |
| Natural State | Dworkin | Brocker I 602 Natural State/Dworkin: the funny thing about choosing a contractual model is that it gives every possible party involved a veto right (1): Each individual must be able to agree to the proposed principles of justice so that they apply to all together. The original state is thus tailored from the outset to the distributive idea of individual rights. It should exclude a purely aggregative concept of justice. ((s) Aggregative: "accumulating": corresponds to the utilitarian view that a maximum overall benefit must result - in contrast: distributive: in relation to individuals and starting from individuals: nothing is "summed up" here. See DworkinVsUtilitarianism, See Law/Dworkin, Civil Rights/Dworkin. 1. Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously, Cambridge, Mass. 1977 (erw. Ausgabe 1978). Dt.: Ronald Dworkin, Bürgerrechte ernstgenommen, Frankfurt/M. 1990, S. 288. Bernd Ladwig, „Ronald Dworkin, Bürgerrechte ernstgenommen“ in: Manfred Brocker (Hg.) Geschichte des politischen Denkens. Das 20. Jahrhundert. Frankfurt/M. 2018 |
Dworkin I Ronald Dworkin Taking Rights Seriously Cambridge, MA 1978 Brocker I Manfred Brocker Geschichte des politischen Denkens. Das 20. Jahrhundert Frankfurt/M. 2018 |
| Political Economy | Rawls | I 259 Political economy/Rawls: by this I mean economic arrangements and political arrangements as well as the background institutions that are related to them. Welfare economics/K. J. Arrow/Rawls: Defines welfare economics in a similar way(1)(2)(3). Welfare/Rawls: I do not use this expression because it is reminiscent of utilitarianism. (RawlsVsUtilitarianism). >Utilitarianism, >Welfare economics, >Welfare state. The theory of justice as fairness treats social forms as closed systems. An economic system is also shaped by existing needs and necessities. The current cooperation between people in meeting these needs affects the way in which the needs of the future will look. These things are known and shared by such diverse authors as Marx and Marshall(4) >Fairness/Rawls, >Society/Rawls. I 260 Social order/Rawls: Problem: how does this reciprocal influence of needs, satisfaction and new needs in the initial situation of a society to be established, where people stand behind a veil of ignorance in relation to their future position, affect the possible shaping? Solution: only the most general assumptions about primary public goods (e. g. freedoms) are made. >Veil of ignorance. I 263 Economy/disagreement/RawlsVsArrow, K. J/Rawls: different from what K. J. Arrow(5) assumes, disagreement between parties is not a particular feature of idealism. In contract theory, it is part of the initial situation of a society to be established. It forms the content of the theory of justice as fairness. It tries to combine Kant's concept of the realm of purposes with that of autonomy and the categorical imperative. In this way, we can avoid metaphysical assumptions. >Contract Theory, >Purposes/Kant, >J.K. Arrow. 1. See K. J. Arrow and Tibor Scitovsky, Readings in Welfare, Homewood, 1969, p. 1. 2. A. Bergson, essays in Normative Economics, Cambridge, MA, 1966, pp 35-39,60-63,68f. 3. Amartya Sen, Collective Choice and Social Welfare, San Francisco, 1970, pp. 56-59. 4. See Brian Barry, Political Argument, London, 1965. 5. K. J. Arrow, Social Choice and Individual Values 2nd. Ed. New York, 1963, pp. 74f, 81-86. |
Rawl I J. Rawls A Theory of Justice: Original Edition Oxford 2005 |
| Principles | Dworkin | Brocker I 596 Principles/Dworkin: Rules are either valid or not valid - however, principles can collide without at least one of them having to be invalid. Principles/Dworkin: have a certain weight and indicate in which direction arguments point.(1) Moral content comes into law in the form of principles. (2) Morally meaningful constitutional concepts such as "equality" or "human dignity", however, are general and substantially controversial. We do not have unanimously accepted criteria for their correct or incorrect use. Brocker I 599/600 DworkinVsHart: while Hart insists on the conventional nature of law (see Law/Hart), Dworkin refers to principles. See Legal Positivism/Dworkin. HartVsDworkin see Law/Hart. Brocker I 601 Principles/Dworkin: For Dworkin there is a close connection between principles and rights: The valid claims of individuals emerge from principles (3). They limit the possibility for the state to violate individual interests in the name of collective objectives. While collective objectives are aggregative, rights are distributive: They protect individuals with regard to fundamental and central interests. Brocker I 595 Utilitarianism/Principles/DworkinVsUtilitarianism/Dworkin: Arguments of principles express the moral claims to validity that play a role in law. From them Brocker I 596 individual rights emerge that outdo collective goals in conflict situations; this thesis points to Dworkin's normative confrontation with utilitarianism. (4) 1. Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously, Cambridge, Mass. 1977 (erw. Ausgabe 1978). Dt.: Ronald Dworkin, Bürgerrechte ernstgenommen, Frankfurt/M. 1990, S. 58-64 2. Ibid. p. 304 3. Ibid. p. 146 4. Ibid. p. 56f. Bernd Ladwig, „Ronald Dworkin, Bürgerrechte ernstgenommen“ in: Manfred Brocker (Hg.) Geschichte des politischen Denkens. Das 20. Jahrhundert. Frankfurt/M. 2018 |
Dworkin I Ronald Dworkin Taking Rights Seriously Cambridge, MA 1978 Brocker I Manfred Brocker Geschichte des politischen Denkens. Das 20. Jahrhundert Frankfurt/M. 2018 |
| Principles | Rawls | I 4 Principles/Society/Rawls: 1. Everyone accepts and knows that the other members of society accept the same principles of justice. 2. The basic social institutions fulfill these principles in general and are known for doing so. I 7 Principles/Rawls: we are only interested in general principles of the justice of society as a whole, not in such special or private communities or for cross-national institutions. I 10/11 Principles/Justice/Rawls: Principles must be defined at the beginning. Our point of departure, the situation of equality, which should follow an election, corresponds to the natural state of the traditional theories of the social contract, but it is neither a concrete historical situation nor a primitive culture. >Social contract, >Natural state, >Equality. It is a purely hypothetical situation which should lead to a certain realization of justice. >Justice/Rawls. I 41 Principles/MillVsIntuitionism/Mill/Rawls: Mill argued that the principle of usefulness could be the only supreme principle, since otherwise there could be no arbitrator between competing criteria(1). >J.St. Mill, >Competition, >Interests, >Utility principle, >Utilitarianism. Principles/Sidgwick: the principle of usefulness is the only one that can play this role(2). >H. Sidgwick. Rawls: that is what made the classical doctrine so attractive: that it tries to solve the problem of priorities and avoids intuitionism. >Intuitionism/Economics, >Priorities, >Preferences. RawlsVsMill/RawlsVsSidgwick/RawlsVsUtilitarism: we need to realize that there may be no way to dissolve the plurality of the different principles. >VsUtilitarianism. I 43 Principles/Rawls: I suggest that even in the "lexical order" (the piecemeal processing of principles according to an external order) the principle of equal distribution of rights should be treated as a priority rather than the regulation of economic or social inequalities. I 61 Principles/justice/Rawls: provisional wording: 1. every person must have the same right to the widest possible fundamental freedom, insofar as it is compatible with the same freedom for others. 2. social and economic inequalities shall be arranged in such a way that they (a) are reasonably expectable for everyone's benefit; and (b) are linked to positions and administrative procedures that can be held by anyone. The two principles are applied in chronological order. This means that abandoning the first principle cannot be offset by greater social or economic benefits. I 62 Deviations from equal distribution of social rights or economic benefits can only be justified by the fact that this is to everyone's advantage. ((s) This is a reference to utilitarianism. I 63 The chronological order of compliance also excludes that fundamental freedoms can be exchanged for economic benefits. I 64 Similarly, the chronological order of the principles means that people can only ever be talked about in the form of social role holders. I 83 Principles/Rawls: Redrafting of the Second Principle: Social and economic inequality must be arranged in such a way that (a) it provides the greatest benefit for the worst-off people and (b) it is linked to administrative bodies and positions which are open to all under conditions of fair equal opportunities. I 89 I assume that the two parts of the principle are arranged lexically. I 116 Principles/Rawls: there is nothing inconsistent about the fact that fairness makes unconditional principles possible. It is sufficient to show that, in the initial situation (of a society to be established), the parties agree to principles that define the natural obligations that then apply without fail. ((s)VsRawls: Contradiction: Rawls himself says that the natural duties, for example not to be cruel, are not subject to agreements. (See Rawls I 114). I 250 Principles/Rawls: reformulation in the light of the consideration of contingent individual and historical inequalities: First principle: Every person must have an equal right to the most comprehensive system of equal fundamental rights that is compatible with an equal system of freedom for all. Priority rule: the principles of justice are built in lexical order and therefore freedom can only be restricted for the benefit of freedom. There are two cases here: a) a less comprehensive freedom must increase the freedom of the total system of freedom shared by all, b) a restricted freedom must be acceptable to those affected by it. I 253 Principles/Categorical imperative/Kant/Rawls: in the sense of Kant, these principles are also categorical imperatives. They do not require any particular social conditions or individual goals. Only an interest in primary public goods (e. g. freedom) is assumed. The preference for these in turn is derived from the most general assumptions about rationality and the conditions of human life. I 302 Principles/Rawls: final version for Institutions/Rawls: the two principles of justice (see above) plus priority rules: 1. Priority rule: the principles of justice must be dealt with in lexical order, so that freedom may only be restricted in favour of greater freedom. Two cases are possible: a) Restricted freedom must strengthen the overall system of freedoms that benefit all. b) Freedom that is not equal must be accepted by those who enjoy fewer freedoms. 2. Priority rule: (Justice precedes efficiency and prosperity): The second principle of justice is lexical superior to the principle of efficiency and the one of maximizing benefits,... I 303 .... fair equal opportunities are superior to the difference principle. Two cases are possible: a) Opportunity inequality must increase the chances of the disadvantaged. b) An extreme savings rate must reduce the burdens on those affected. >Equal opportunities. General conception: all primary social goods (freedoms, rights, income, prosperity, conditions for self-esteem, etc.) shall be distributed equally, except where an unequal distribution of some or all of these goods is to the benefit of the least favoured. I 446 Principles/Rawls: while the principles of justice are those chosen in the initial position, the principles of rational decision or rationality are not chosen at all. This leads to the distinction between right and good. >Society/Rawls. 1. Mill, A System of Logic, bk. VI, ch. XII, sec. 7 and Utilitarianism, ch. V, paers. 26-31. 2. Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, bk. IV ch. II and III. |
Rawl I J. Rawls A Theory of Justice: Original Edition Oxford 2005 |
| Rights | Utilitarianism | Gaus I 106 Rights/Utilitarianism/Gaus: Utilitarians, or more broadly, consequentialists, have spent a good deal of effort investigating in what ways personal rights might enter into a utilitarian system. Sen (1990)(1) offers a version of consequentialism that takes rights satisfaction as part of the utility of a state of affairs (cf. Scanlon, 1977(2); Nozick, 1974(3): 166). Mill’s complicated utilitarianism – which seems to integrate rules into the concept of a morality – has often been used as a model for utilitarian rights (Lyons, 1978(4); Frey, 1984(5)) (...). Russell Hardin (1988(6); 1993) has advocated an ‘institutional utilitarianism’ that takes account of knowledge problems in designing utilitarian institutions, which he offers as an alternative to both act and rule utilitarianism. According to Hardin, ‘[w]e need an institutional structure of rights or protections because not everyone is utilitarian or otherwise moral and because there are severe limits to our knowledge of others, whose interests are therefore likely to be best fulfilled in many ways if they have substantial control over the fulfillment.’ Gaus I 107 That, he adds, ‘is how traditional rights should be understood’ (1988(6): 78). >Rights/Consequentialism. 1. Sen, Amartya K. (1990) ‘Rights consequentialism’. In Jonathan Glover, ed., Utilitarianism and its Critics. London: Macmillan, 111–18. 2. Scanlon, Thomas (1977) ‘Rights, goals and fairness’. Erkenntnis, 11 (May): 81–95. 3. Nozick, Robert (1974) Anarchy, State and Utopia. New York: Basic. 4. Lyons, David (1978) ‘Mill’s theory of justice’. In A. I. Goldman and J. Kim, eds, Values and Morals. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1–20. 5. Frey, R. G. (1984) ‘Act-utilitarianism, consequentialism and moral rights’. In R. G. Frey, ed., Utility and Rights. Oxford: Blackwell, 61–95. 6. Hardin, Russell (1988) Morality within the Limits of Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gaus, Gerald F. 2004. „The Diversity of Comprehensive Liberalisms.“ In: Gaus, Gerald F. & Kukathas, Chandran 2004. Handbook of Political Theory. SAGE Publications. Brocker I 601 Rights/Utilitarianism: for utilitarianism, maximising the overall well-being is the central objective. Rights, for example in the form of ownership guarantees, can also benefit the overall welfare. It can never be excluded that sacrificing fundamental individual interests of individuals or groups could increase the overall benefit. DworkinVsUtilitarianism: Rights always protect the individual with reference to fundamental and central interests.(1) >Utilitarianism/Dworkin, >Utilitarianism. 1.cf. Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously, Cambridge, Mass. 1977 (erw. Ausgabe 1978). Dt.: Ronald Dworkin, Bürgerrechte ernstgenommen, Frankfurt/M. 1990, Bernd Ladwig, „Ronald Dworkin, Bürgerrechte ernstgenommen“ in: Manfred Brocker (Hg.) Geschichte des politischen Denkens. Das 20. Jahrhundert. Frankfurt/M. 2018 |
Gaus I Gerald F. Gaus Chandran Kukathas Handbook of Political Theory London 2004 Brocker I Manfred Brocker Geschichte des politischen Denkens. Das 20. Jahrhundert Frankfurt/M. 2018 |
| Sense | Spengler | Brocker I 126 Sense/History/Spengler: Spengler's "Philosophy of Politics" is characterized by the consistent denial of a last real meaning of historical - and thus also political - events: "Life has no 'goal'. Humanity has no 'goal'. The existence of the world, in which we spin a small episode on our little star, is something much too sublime for wretchedness like 'the happiness of the most' to be the goal and purpose. In futility lies the greatness of the spectacle"(1). (SpenglerVsUtilitarianism). >Utilitarianism, >Purposes, >The Good, >Politics/Spengler. 1. Oswald Spengler, Oswald, Preußentum und Sozialismus, München 1920 S. 80 Hans-Christof Klaus, Oswald Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes (1918/1922) in: Manfred Brocker (Hg.) Geschichte des politischen Denkens. Das 20. Jahrhundert. Frankfurt/M. 2018. |
Spengler I Oswald Spengler Politische Schriften München 1932 Brocker I Manfred Brocker Geschichte des politischen Denkens. Das 20. Jahrhundert Frankfurt/M. 2018 |
| Teleology | Dworkin | Brocker I 603 Objectives/Teleology/Jurisprudence/Legislation/Dworkin: Dworkin Thesis: In jurisprudence, objectives may play a role, e.g. affirmative action (quota regulations in the USA for disadvantaged people, especially African Americans): Such measures, which are still controversial today, should be distinguished from substantially discriminatory, such as racist regulations. After all, they are not based on prejudices against white applicants and no preferences for their disadvantage. Nor do they violate any constitutional rights: No one has a valid right to legislation that guarantees access to higher education for the more intelligent or the more successful in examinations, for example (1). Arguments of the objective were therefore always allowed to play a role when it came to the selection criteria for training courses or professional positions. The justification for such measures would not even have to be utilitarian (DworkinVsUtilitarianism). Instead, one could ((s) refer to the ideal of a fairer society that gives everyone a fair chance and slowly but surely makes the importance of skin colour fade away. 1. Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously, Cambridge, Mass. 1977 (erw. Ausgabe 1978). Dt.: Ronald Dworkin, Bürgerrechte ernstgenommen, Frankfurt/M. 1990, S. 370f Bernd Ladwig, „Ronald Dworkin, Bürgerrechte ernstgenommen“ in: Manfred Brocker (Hg.) Geschichte des politischen Denkens. Das 20. Jahrhundert. Frankfurt/M. 2018 |
Dworkin I Ronald Dworkin Taking Rights Seriously Cambridge, MA 1978 Brocker I Manfred Brocker Geschichte des politischen Denkens. Das 20. Jahrhundert Frankfurt/M. 2018 |
| Utilitarianism | Carlyle | Höffe I 348 Utilitarianism/CarlyleVsBentham/Carlyle/Höffe: [against Bentham's utilitarianism there was the accusation] that utilitarianism was an ethics for pleasure-seekers. The British writer and historian Thomas Carlyle had sharpened it to the objection that utilitarianism was a philosophy for pigs (pig philosophy). Bentham: According to Bentham's provocative aphorism that, with the same quality of pleasure, an undemanding child's play is as good as poetry, the qualitative differences between the various occasions and types of pleasure expressly do not count. >Utilitarianism/Mill, >VsUtilitarianism. |
Höffe I Otfried Höffe Geschichte des politischen Denkens München 2016 |
| Utilitarianism | Dworkin | Brocker I 601 Utilitarianism/Rights/Dworkin: for utilitarianism, maximizing the overall well-being is the central objective. Rights, for example in the form of ownership guarantees, can also benefit the overall welfare. It can never be ruled out that sacrificing fundamental individual interests of individuals or groups could increase the overall benefit. >Rights. DworkinVsUtilitarianism: Rights always protect the individual with reference to fundamental and central interests. Dworkin does not mean to say that all rights absolutely apply as well as the prohibition of torture. The fundamental point is again a logical one: rights only play their own normative role if they outdo collective goals in cases of conflict. Otherwise, any justification could be directly related to the objective (1). DworkinVsUtilitarianism: central objection: Utilitarianism can also take external preferences "impartially" into account such as discrimination against dark-skinned. (2) Problem: The purely aggregative ((s) summing up) thought of the best possible satisfaction of all possible preferences of all possible people knows no distinction between relevant and irrelevant, acceptable and unacceptable preferences. >Relevance, >Acceptability. PerfectionismVsDworkin: there are many kinds of external preferences that should be exempted from Dworkin's criticism: For example, external preferences such as taking sides with members of disadvantaged groups to which you yourself do not belong.(3) >Perfectionism. Brocker I 605 LadwigVsDworkin: Dworkin, when he wrote the essays gathered in Civil Rights taken seriously, still believed he could draft an ethically completely neutral theory of rights and justice (so also Dworkin 1985 (4)). >Civil rights. This may explain his strange assumption that the logical distinction between personal and external preferences is sufficient for criticism of utilitarianism, regardless of their content. DworkinVsDworkin: In later writings (Dworkin 1990b (5); 2011 (6)), however, Dworkin professes an ethical basis of his liberalism. The organizing idea behind his ever-increasing attempts to recognize unity in the world of values is now dignity. >Liberalism. 1. Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously, Cambridge, Mass. 1977 (erw. Ausgabe 1978). Dt.: Ronald Dworkin, Bürgerrechte ernstgenommen, Frankfurt/M. 1990, p. 161f. 2. Ibid. p. 382-385 3. Cf. Coleman, Jules L., »The Rights and Wrongs of Taking Rights Seriously«, in: Faculty Scholarship Series, Paper 4204, 1978, p. 916f. 4. Ronald Dworkin, , A Matter of Principle, Oxford 1985. 5. Ronald Dworkin. »Foundations of Liberal Equality«, in: The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, XI, Salt Lake City 1990 (b), 1-191. 6. Ronald Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue. The Theory and Practice of Equality, Cambridge, Mass./London 2002. Bernd Ladwig, „Ronald Dworkin, Bürgerrechte ernstgenommen“ in: Manfred Brocker (Hg.) Geschichte des politischen Denkens. Das 20. Jahrhundert. Frankfurt/M. 2018 |
Dworkin I Ronald Dworkin Taking Rights Seriously Cambridge, MA 1978 Brocker I Manfred Brocker Geschichte des politischen Denkens. Das 20. Jahrhundert Frankfurt/M. 2018 |
| Utilitarianism | Habermas | III 244 Utilitarianism/HabermasVsUtilitarianism/Habermas: The difference between values and interests was worked out in Neo-Kantianism. >Values, >Interest, >Neo-Kantianism. Utilitarianism does not take it into account. It makes the futile attempt to reinterpret interest orientations into ethical principles and to hypostasize procedural rationality itself into a value. >Procedural rationality. Also Max WeberVsUtilitarianism. >M. Weber. Explanation: Only values that are abstracted and generalized into principles as formal principles and values that can be applied procedurally can cross situations and in extreme cases systematically penetrate all areas of life. >Principles. |
Ha I J. Habermas Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne Frankfurt 1988 Ha III Jürgen Habermas Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns Bd. I Frankfurt/M. 1981 Ha IV Jürgen Habermas Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns Bd. II Frankfurt/M. 1981 |
| Utilitarianism | Kant | Moral/Kant/KantVsUtilitarianism: Kant considers it futile to base our moral judgments on speculation about the possible benefits - anyone who is seriously acting wants success - so he can not refuse responsibility for failure - which is why there is, for Kant, no contradiction between that of his newly established ethics of conviction and the later ethics of responsibility claimed by the utilitarianism.(1) >Morals/Kant, >Ethics/Kant. 1. Volker Gerhard. Die ZEIT 27.11.03 |
I. Kant I Günter Schulte Kant Einführung (Campus) Frankfurt 1994 Externe Quellen. ZEIT-Artikel 11/02 (Ludger Heidbrink über Rawls) Volker Gerhard "Die Frucht der Freiheit" Plädoyer für die Stammzellforschung ZEIT 27.11.03 |
| Utilitarianism | Parsons | Habermas IV 305 Utilitarianism/Parsons/ParsonsVsUtilitarism/Habermas: in "The Structure of Social Action" Parsons shows by the concept of purpose-rational action that utilitarianism cannot justify the subject's freedom of decision. >Procedural rationality, >Actions/Parsons. Habermas IV 311 The utilitarian dilemma: 1. The acotr faces exactly one objective world of existing facts and has a more or less exact empirical knowledge of this situation. Habermas IV 312 2. Success/Parsons: in this case is measured exclusively by whether the goal has been achieved. >Double Contingency/Parsons. Norms: are limited here to regulating the relationship between purposes, means and conditions. The choice of purposes is therefore left undetermined. "("randomness of ends").(1) 3. Purposive Rationality: does not provide for a mechanism through which the actions of different actors can be coordinated. This is what Parsons calls the "atomistic" concept of action. Stability can only result from coincidentally intertwined interests. Dilemma: how can freedom of decision as the core of freedom of action be developed from the utilitarian concept of action? Habermas IV 313 a) Purposes may vary regardless of means and conditions, this condition is necessary but not sufficient. As long as no values other than decision maxims are permitted, there is room for two opposing interpretations, both of which are incompatible with freedom of choice, both in a positivist and rationalist sense. b) the determination of purposes as a function of knowledge: Here the action is a process of rational adaptation to the conditions. The active role of the actor is reduced to understanding the situation. >Purposes. Problem: neither the rationalist nor the positivist interpretation of the utilitarian model of action Habermas IV 314 can explain why the actor can make mistakes in a not only cognitive sense. >Autonomy/Parsons. Habermas IV 321 Utilitarianism/Parsons/Habermas: Parsons sticks to the core of the utilitarian concept of action. Perhaps he believes he can only save voluntarism by conceiving freedom of choice as contingent freedom of choice, in the language of German idealism: as arbitrariness. >Voluntarism. Habermas IV 371 Utilitarianism/Parsons/ParsonsVsUtilitarianism/Habermas: from the criticism of utilitarianism, Parsons initially gained the idea of a selection of purposes regulated by values and maxims. Solution: cultural values should be related to action situations by means of institutionalisation and internalisation and be linked to sanctions; in this way they should gain the stability of substantial morality in the reality of life forms and life stories. >Cultural values, >Institutionalization, >Internalization, >Lifeworld. 1.Talcott Parsons, The Structure of Social Action, NY, 1949, S. 49. |
ParCh I Ch. Parsons Philosophy of Mathematics in the Twentieth Century: Selected Essays Cambridge 2014 ParTa I T. Parsons The Structure of Social Action, Vol. 1 1967 ParTe I Ter. Parsons Indeterminate Identity: Metaphysics and Semantics 2000 Ha I J. Habermas Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne Frankfurt 1988 Ha III Jürgen Habermas Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns Bd. I Frankfurt/M. 1981 Ha IV Jürgen Habermas Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns Bd. II Frankfurt/M. 1981 |
| Utilitarianism | Rawls | I 20 Utilitarianism/Sidgwick/Rawls: I take here the strictly classical doctrine of utilitarianism as best illustrated by Henry Sidgwick(1) to use this utilitarianism as a counterpoint to my contract theory. RawlsVsUtilitarianism. > I 24 Utilitarianism/Rawls: Utilitarianism assumes that the principle of inviolability, which is based on justice for us,... I 25 ... is only a Common Sense command, and has only subordinate importance as a secondary rule, as has the concept of natural law, as far as it benefits the majority of society. >Common sense. Principles of Social Election and Justice/Rawls: we assume the principles of social election and justice in our contract theory as an object of an initial agreement, while utilitarianism simply expands it to the idealization of society as an ideal total person. I 26 RawlsVsUtilitarianism: that is to take the plurality and particularity of individuals not seriously. RawlsVsUtilitarianism: our contract theory is also not teleological, as utilitarianism is. However, we also consider - like any serious ethical theory - the consequences. I 27 But the theory of justice as fairness never considers the maximization of utility. RawlsVsUtilitarianism: Justice as fairness accepts from the outset the principle of equal freedom, without knowledge of its purposes, while utilitarianism wants to take into account whether the discrimination of individuals may increase the overall benefit. Justice as fairness: does not accept inclinations as given in order to then fulfil them, but these are limited from the beginning by the principles of justice. >Justice/Rawls, >Fairness/Rawls. I 28 That the right takes precedence over the good is a central principle. It should ensure that institutions remain stable. >Good/Rawls. Utilitarianism/Rawls: is strongly based on natural properties and coincidences of human life, while the theory of justice as fairness is based on the first principles of ethical theory. I 184 Utilitarianism/Rawls: his most important principle is the average principle. However, this is rejected by Sidgwick(2). I 187 Utilitarianism/Individuals/Rawls: the classical Utilitarianism ignores in a certain sense the distinction of individual persons. The principle of rational choice of a human being is at the same time the principle of rational choice for everyone. N.B.: this makes this ideal person identical to the ideal sympathetic observer! >Ideal observer, >Observation. I 188 Classical utilitarianism then culminates in the - impersonal - merging of all desires into a single system of desires(3)(4). 1. Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, London, 1907. 2. Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, London, 1907, pp. 415f. 3. See C. I. Lewis, The Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation, 1946. 4. J. C. SmartVsLewis, An Outline of a System of Utilitarian Ethics, p. 26. |
Rawl I J. Rawls A Theory of Justice: Original Edition Oxford 2005 |
| Utilitarianism | Sen | Brocker I 885 Utilitarianism/SenVsUtilitarianism/Sen: Against utilitarian theories of freedom, which determine the value of freedom entirely over its benefit, he points out: "Although freedom is not enough for itself, it pleases by itself. Freedom is on the one hand related to goals and the benefits to be achieved through their realization - but on the other hand it is not part of it. Respect for freedom as an end in itself must be distinguished from its value as a means to certain goods which can only be attained through it. The intrinsic and the instrumental appreciation of freedom are two different things. >Freedom/Sen. Claus Dierksmeier, „Amartya Sen, Ökonomie für den Menschen (1999)“ in: Manfred Brocker (Hg.) Geschichte des politischen Denkens. Das 20. Jahrhundert. Frankfurt/M. 2018 |
EconSen I Amartya Sen Collective Choice and Social Welfare: Expanded Edition London 2017 Brocker I Manfred Brocker Geschichte des politischen Denkens. Das 20. Jahrhundert Frankfurt/M. 2018 |
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| Disputed term/author/ism | Author Vs Author |
Entry |
Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intuitionism | Mackie Vs Intuitionism | Intuitionism Stegmüller IV 175 MackieVsIntuitionism ethics: is not based on incorrect analysis but is a false (not some pointless) theory. (as objectivism). IV 176 3. The mystery of accruing (Zukommen): what is the kind of relation between the natural fact that murder is a cruel act and the moral fact that it is morally wrong? Objectivism/ethics/Stegmüller: moral falsity "accrues" or was supervenient. Sometimes called "non-causal because": the action would be morally wrong because it would be an infliction of pain. VsObjektivism: the meaning of this relation would have to be explained. IV 177 Subjectivism/ethics/Stegmüller: for him there is no such problem. He invokes the fact that such acts are condemned socially. IV 213 Ethics/morality/Mackie/Stegmüller: five theses: 1. Anti-objectivism: there are no objective values and no metaphysical substantiation. No moral law, no good in itself for mankind, no categorical imperative. (MackieVsKant). Mackie: "Argument of peculiarity": "Shall Be Done", etc. (as an entity), "Mystery of accruing". (see above). 2. VsIntuitionism: if objectivism is false, intuitionism is also based on a falsity: (special ability to recognize, moral "knowledge") . IV 214 3. VsUtilitarianism: cannot answer important questions of moral philosophy and demands a change of mankind. 4. VsUniversalization: all descriptive interpretations are only of metaethical interest. In normative interpretations the issue of justification is unresolved. The third stage U3 is congruent with illusionary utilitarianism. IV 215 5. confusion of ethics and metaethics: in normative interpretation we have 2nd order moral statements, which require moral justification themselves. "Metaethical fallacy": transition from opinions to the determination of truth. |
Macki I J. L. Mackie Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong 1977 Carnap V W. Stegmüller Rudolf Carnap und der Wiener Kreis In Hauptströmungen der Gegenwartsphilosophie Bd I, München 1987 St I W. Stegmüller Hauptströmungen der Gegenwartsphilosophie Bd I Stuttgart 1989 St II W. Stegmüller Hauptströmungen der Gegenwartsphilosophie Bd 2 Stuttgart 1987 St III W. Stegmüller Hauptströmungen der Gegenwartsphilosophie Bd 3 Stuttgart 1987 St IV W. Stegmüller Hauptströmungen der Gegenwartsphilosophie Bd 4 Stuttgart 1989 |
| Mill, J. St. | Mackie Vs Mill, J. St. | Stegmüller IV 209 VsUtilitarianism/Mill: (even U.) concedes that utilitarian theories often fail due to the vagueness and diversity of conceptions of justice. Mill: still, the utility principle has the same sanctions available as all other moral norms. MackieVsMIll: that is empirically false: violationy of the common good upset us far more than violations of special rules of justice. Rule-Utilitarianism: more indirect than U.: two stages: (Austin): IV 210 1. The benchmark of our rules should be usefulness 2. The benchmark of our actions should be the rules. Puts the rules far more to the fore and draws on utility only to justify the rules. These rules do not need to be explicit. VsRule-Utilitarianism: all problems of utilitarianism return on a higher level of abstraction. IV 211 Utilitarianism/Mill: transition from individualistic to universalistic hedonism. If happiness is a good for each individual, then general happiness is a good for the totality of all people. Utilitarianism/MackieVsMill: the alleged proof sneaks in ineligible premises. The entirety of human kind is falsely treated as a psychological subject. Humanity never has a choice. (IV 225) IV 212 Fallacy: from "everyone" to "all". In addition, in the transition from the individual to society, instead of subjectivism an objectivism of values (Wertobjektivismus) is introduced. IV 263 Morality/ethics/Mill: Thesis: believed in a gradual change of human nature toward "universal human kindness". J. F. StephenVsMill: that's "transcendental Utilitarianism": a person animated by "impartial charity" might behave in a Stalinist way. Anything can be used to justify violence. Mackie dito. IV 264 Morality/ethics/Mackie: must refer to anthropological conditions: different ideals require general (common) principles. IV 265 The rejection of objective values includes rejection of objective rights. Consequence: special rights cannot be deduced a priori from general reasons. IV 269 MackieVsMill: his utilitarian concept of justification is shaky: the "principle of non-intervention" would be better justified differently: IV 270 via the conception of the good for human kind. Good/MackieVsMill: 1. not everyone is able to always correctly assess their own good. 2. Mill's principle is too weak. Ex. freedom of thought, freedom of speech. Both cannot be justified by Mills principle alone! Mackie: instead, we need a "principle of legitimate intervention." |
Macki I J. L. Mackie Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong 1977 Carnap V W. Stegmüller Rudolf Carnap und der Wiener Kreis In Hauptströmungen der Gegenwartsphilosophie Bd I, München 1987 St IV W. Stegmüller Hauptströmungen der Gegenwartsphilosophie Bd 4 Stuttgart 1989 |
| Rawls, J. | Mackie Vs Rawls, J. | Stegmüller IV 206 Altruism/Rawls: ( "justice as fairness"): Rawls feins that creatures are not guided by sympathy, but only by self-love, "rational egoist". IV 207 Rawls/Stegmüller: the "veil of ignorance" goes back to J. Harsanyi. VsUtilitarianism: initially, subjective preferences are unknown. MackieVsRawls: nevertheless, the result is something similar to utilitarianism: each rational egoist presumes, probably rightly so, that he is more likely to belong to the broader group of luckies than to the smaller group of unfortunates and accordingly schemes disadvantages for "the others." Instead: search for a compromise that is acceptable to everyone involved. Society/MackieVsRawls: but now this compromise is identical to U3, the third stage of universalization. IV 208 RawlsVsMackie/Stegmüller: Rawls would not accept that, since his model is not an immediate guide to action. Def morality in the narrower sense/Mackie/Stegmüller: restriction of the self-interests of the agents. |
Macki I J. L. Mackie Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong 1977 Carnap V W. Stegmüller Rudolf Carnap und der Wiener Kreis In Hauptströmungen der Gegenwartsphilosophie Bd I, München 1987 St IV W. Stegmüller Hauptströmungen der Gegenwartsphilosophie Bd 4 Stuttgart 1989 |
| Utilitarianism | Lewis Vs Utilitarianism | Schwarz I 187 LewisVsUtilitarianism/Schwarz: Main error: neglect of perspective. If only the total amount of suffering could be reduced, we should do everything to get as much money as possible - be it by stealing from our friends - to give it to the poorest people in the world. However, this does not correspond to our value judgements. (1984a(1),206, 1978(2),34, 1986e(3), 125 128, 1996c(4)). Ethics/Lewis/Schwarz: Lewis seems to believe that the complexity of our values cannot be captured by a unified theory. (1984a(1), 206). Cf. >perspective. 1. David Lewis [1984a]: “Devil’s Bargains and the Real World”. In The Security Gamble: Detterence in the Nuclear Age, Totowa (NJ): Rowman and Allanheld. Und in [Lewis 2000b] 2. David Lewis [1978]: “Reply to McMichael”. Analysis, 38: 85–86. In [Lewis 2000b] 3. David Lewis [1986e]: On the Plurality of Worlds. Malden (Mass.): Blackwell 4. David Lewis [1996c]: “Illusory Innocence?” Eureka Street , 5: 35–36. In [Lewis 2000b] |
Lewis I David K. Lewis Die Identität von Körper und Geist Frankfurt 1989 Lewis I (a) David K. Lewis An Argument for the Identity Theory, in: Journal of Philosophy 63 (1966) In Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989 Lewis I (b) David K. Lewis Psychophysical and Theoretical Identifications, in: Australasian Journal of Philosophy 50 (1972) In Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989 Lewis I (c) David K. Lewis Mad Pain and Martian Pain, Readings in Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 1, Ned Block (ed.) Harvard University Press, 1980 In Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989 Lewis II David K. Lewis "Languages and Language", in: K. Gunderson (Ed.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. VII, Language, Mind, and Knowledge, Minneapolis 1975, pp. 3-35 In Handlung, Kommunikation, Bedeutung, Georg Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1979 Lewis IV David K. Lewis Philosophical Papers Bd I New York Oxford 1983 Lewis V David K. Lewis Philosophical Papers Bd II New York Oxford 1986 Lewis VI David K. Lewis Convention. A Philosophical Study, Cambridge/MA 1969 German Edition: Konventionen Berlin 1975 LewisCl Clarence Irving Lewis Collected Papers of Clarence Irving Lewis Stanford 1970 LewisCl I Clarence Irving Lewis Mind and the World Order: Outline of a Theory of Knowledge (Dover Books on Western Philosophy) 1991 Schw I W. Schwarz David Lewis Bielefeld 2005 |
| Utilitarianism | Nagel Vs Utilitarianism | III 109 Ethics/Nagel: dispute between consequentialist conceptions (among others, utilitarianism: thesis: the consequences an action ultimately has in the world are important, not what it is like for the actor) and on the other hand the question of: "what to do". VsUtilitarianism/Nagel: criticism of the external standpoint (what is best for the state of the world) wants to give the individual a certain margin, to lead their own life (Nagel's internal position from which alone we can lead our lives). Common good as only justification for action does not leave any own desires unaccounted for. III 110 ((s) consequentialism/(s): ethical position which takes into account only the consequences (for the "world state", not for the actor)). NagelVs: it is about the permission to lead our own lives! III 110 /! 11 NagelVsUtilitarianism/Objectivity: we are not only dealing with a conflict between inter-personal and individual values, but: Someone who does not accept the consequentialist commandments, because they claim dominance over his own internal standpoint, will naturally transfer this objection to others as well. So this takes you more to an alternative ethics than to the rejection of ethics in general! |
NagE I E. Nagel The Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation Cambridge, MA 1979 Nagel I Th. Nagel The Last Word, New York/Oxford 1997 German Edition: Das letzte Wort Stuttgart 1999 Nagel II Thomas Nagel What Does It All Mean? Oxford 1987 German Edition: Was bedeutet das alles? Stuttgart 1990 Nagel III Thomas Nagel The Limits of Objectivity. The Tanner Lecture on Human Values, in: The Tanner Lectures on Human Values 1980 Vol. I (ed) St. M. McMurrin, Salt Lake City 1980 German Edition: Die Grenzen der Objektivität Stuttgart 1991 NagelEr I Ernest Nagel Teleology Revisited and Other Essays in the Philosophy and History of Science New York 1982 |
| Utilitarianism | Verschiedene Vs Utilitarianism | Stegmüller IV 200 Utilitarianism/Stegmüller: only considers the consequences of the actions. (>Nagel: "Consequentialism") - "This is good for me" is already assumed - the consequences are judged - only basic moral norm: principle of utility. IV 202/203 MackieVsUtilitarianism: 1. Conceptual bases: demarcation to animals, future generations, etc. Problem of quantitative measurement of pain, etc. IV 204 2. Distribution Problem: also RawlsVsUtilitarianism: wrong summation. Wrong analogy of society with a "great human". This ultimately leads to disregard for the individual. IV 207 Rawls/Stegmüller: the "veil of ignorance" goes back to J. Harsanyi. VsUtilitarianism: the subjective preferences are not known at first. IV 209 VsUtilitarianism/Mill: (himself a utilitarianist) admits that utilitarian theories often fail because of the vagueness and diversity of views on justice. Mill: nevertheless, the same sanctions are available to the principle of utility as to all other moral norms. |
Carnap V W. Stegmüller Rudolf Carnap und der Wiener Kreis In Hauptströmungen der Gegenwartsphilosophie Bd I, München 1987 St IV W. Stegmüller Hauptströmungen der Gegenwartsphilosophie Bd 4 Stuttgart 1989 |
| Utilitarianism | Mackie Vs Utilitarianism | Stegmüller IV 311 Intention/Mackie: "straight rule": acoording to that one is responsible for all of one's own deliberate acts. IV 312 Ex. I continue despite lack of experience - one can taunt me of having taken the consequences into account. Punishment/praise/criticism/VsUtilitarianism/Mackie: Vs utilitarian justification: here, the only justification of punishment is deterrence. Since one can only be deterred of deliberate acts, only those should be linked to sanctions. This is a mistake: IV 313 Ex. it's quite possible that a potential murderer is deterred more effectively if everyone who kills someone (even unintentionally) is punished in the same manner as if only those are punished who did it on purpose. Intention/morality/Mackie/Stegmüller: one can say that a moral system certainly has an influence on the intentions of an actor! The awareness of one's own moral duplicity is somewhat like a punishment in itself. "Straight rule:" according to that one is responsible for all one's own deliberate acts. Thereby it becomes comprehensible that we want to apply this moral principle also to our legal penalties. IV 314 Punishment/Mackie: is appropriate if it appears to be justified in moral categories. Ex. negligence: moral and legal considerations do not need to coincide. Ex. the same action may have less harmful effects occur in a specific case. From a moral perspective, it seems unfair that then punishment were less severe. Ex. sale of contaminated food due to contingency (despite due diligence) is just as severely punished as in case of intent: here the utility argument of the welfare of the community has to be taken into account. IV 315 Deviations can be explained by three schemes: a) spontaneous, impulsive actions, rage b) Temporary confusion, disorders of personal identity. c) "Irresistible psychological coercion." |
Macki I J. L. Mackie Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong 1977 Carnap V W. Stegmüller Rudolf Carnap und der Wiener Kreis In Hauptströmungen der Gegenwartsphilosophie Bd I, München 1987 St IV W. Stegmüller Hauptströmungen der Gegenwartsphilosophie Bd 4 Stuttgart 1989 |
| Utilitarianism | Newen Vs Utilitarianism | New I 144 Def Classic Utilitarianism/Newen: Thesis: it is about the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Logical form: the main institutions of society should be such that they produce the greatest amount of happiness for all the members. Two conditions: 1) Substitution Principle: the satisfaction of the interests of one individual can be replaced by those of another individual. 2) Principle of Equivalence: dispenses with the difference between action and omission. I 145 Utilitarianism is a rational theory. Benefit/Calculation/Newen: Suppose the benefit for each person could be quantified. Then a benefit value: Ni can be specified for each individual i = 1,2, ... n ( "luck factor"). General Benefit/Common Good: W: sum of the benefit of all individuals: W = N1 + N2 + ... + Nn. VsUtilitarianism: it is not possible to specify what constitutes the happiness of a person. UtilitarianismVsVs: Modification: preference utilitarianism. Def Preference Utilitarianism/Newen: the "happiness" of the individual is no longer assessed, but their preferences are taken into account. I 146 VsUtilitarianism/VsPreference Utilitarianism/Newen: both ignore the intuition that a society in which all are doing approximately equally well is more just than one in which some are doing much worse. E.g. a society is be considered as fairer if a person is put 5 points up while at the same time two people are put 2 points down. E.g. W1 (29) = N1 (7) + N2 (7) + N3 (15) mean benefit 29: 3 = 9.66 W2 (30) = N1 (5) + N2 (5) + N3 (20) mean benefit 30: 3 = 10 W3 (31) = N1 (4) + N2 (4) + N3 (19) + N4(4) mean benefit 31: 3 = 7.75 population growth Utilitarianism: for him, the overall benefit would be increased, i.e. W2 more just than W1. Vs: intuitively, this world is not more just for us, because more people are worse off. (Rawls ditto). UtilitarismVsVs: further modification: instead of overall benefit: mean benefit. I 147 RawlsVsUtilitarianism: makes an unrestricted population growth desirable, because this would achieve an increase of overall benefit without anyone having to be better off. Even new people at the lowest level increase the overall benefit (see above, W4). Mean Benefit/VsMean Benefit/Newen: does not help to explain why W1 is more just than W2, because the mean benefit is increased in W2. Problem: also the mean benefit is ultimately independent of the individual distribution of benefit to the people. I 148 VsUtilitarianism/Newen: E.g. according to utilitarianism, it would be necessary for a healthy person to donate their heart and liver in order to save the lives of two patients and thus to shift the benefit from one person to two. UtilitarianismVsVs: Solution: rule utilitarianism (see below) Def Action Utilitarianism/Newen: every single action must be assessed according to its consequences. Def Rule Utilitarianism/Newen: this is about types of actions, the rule utilitarianism may judge a rule morally superior, because it usually has positive consequences, although there are exceptions. I 149 RawlsVsUtilitarianism/Utilitarianism/Newen: utilitarianism binds morality to a moral-independent criterion. Happiness/Rawls: it is completely open what someone defines as happiness. I.e. it is also counted if it makes somebody happy e.g. to discriminate against others. Rawls: but discrimination is wrong in itself. It violates a principle, to which we ourselves would agree in its original state. (Theorie der Gerechtigkeit, ThdG, p. 49). |
New II Albert Newen Analytische Philosophie zur Einführung Hamburg 2005 Newen I Albert Newen Markus Schrenk Einführung in die Sprachphilosophie Darmstadt 2008 |
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| Disputed term/author/ism | Pro/Versus |
Entry |
Reference |
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| Utilitarism | Versus | Dennett I 700 Utilitarianism: Founder: Bentham. DennettVsBentham "greedy reductionist". A Skinner of his time. DennettVsutilitarianism. |
Dennett I D. Dennett Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, New York 1995 German Edition: Darwins gefährliches Erbe Hamburg 1997 Dennett II D. Dennett Kinds of Minds, New York 1996 German Edition: Spielarten des Geistes Gütersloh 1999 Dennett III Daniel Dennett "COG: Steps towards consciousness in robots" In Bewusstein, Thomas Metzinger Paderborn/München/Wien/Zürich 1996 Dennett IV Daniel Dennett "Animal Consciousness. What Matters and Why?", in: D. C. Dennett, Brainchildren. Essays on Designing Minds, Cambridge/MA 1998, pp. 337-350 In Der Geist der Tiere, D Perler/M. Wild Frankfurt/M. 2005 |
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