Results for ' rank-discounted utilitarianism'

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  1. Additively-separable and rank-discounted variable-population social welfare functions: A characterization.Dean Spears & H. Orri Stefansson - 2021 - Economic Letters 203:1-3.
    Economic policy evaluations require social welfare functions for variable-size populations. Two important candidates are critical-level generalized utilitarianism (CLGU) and rank-discounted critical-level generalized utilitarianism, which was recently characterized by Asheim and Zuber (2014) (AZ). AZ introduce a novel axiom, existence of egalitarian equivalence (EEE). First, we show that, under some uncontroversial criteria for a plausible social welfare relation, EEE suffices to rule out the Repugnant Conclusion of population ethics (without AZ’s other novel axioms). Second, we provide a (...)
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  2. Average Utilitarianism Implies Solipsistic Egoism.Christian J. Tarsney - 2023 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 101 (1):140-151.
    ABSTRACT Average utilitarianism and several related axiologies, when paired with the standard expectational theory of decision-making under risk and with reasonable empirical credences, can find their practical prescriptions overwhelmingly determined by the minuscule probability that the agent assigns to solipsism—that is, to the hypothesis that there is only one welfare subject in the world, namely, herself. This either (i) constitutes a reductio of these axiologies, (ii) suggests that they require bespoke decision theories, or (iii) furnishes an unexpected argument for (...)
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  3. Rank-Weighted Utilitarianism and the Veil of Ignorance.Jacob M. Nebel - 2020 - Ethics 131 (1):87-106.
    Lara Buchak argues for a version of rank-weighted utilitarianism that assigns greater weight to the interests of the worse off. She argues that our distributive principles should be derived from the preferences of rational individuals behind a veil of ignorance, who ought to be risk averse. I argue that Buchak’s appeal to the veil of ignorance leads to a particular way of extending rank-weighted utilitarianism to the evaluation of uncertain prospects. This method recommends choices that violate (...)
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  4. Utilitarianism with and without expected utility.David McCarthy, Kalle Mikkola & Joaquin Teruji Thomas - 2020 - Journal of Mathematical Economics 87:77-113.
    We give two social aggregation theorems under conditions of risk, one for constant population cases, the other an extension to variable populations. Intra and interpersonal welfare comparisons are encoded in a single ‘individual preorder’. The theorems give axioms that uniquely determine a social preorder in terms of this individual preorder. The social preorders described by these theorems have features that may be considered characteristic of Harsanyi-style utilitarianism, such as indifference to ex ante and ex post equality. However, the theorems (...)
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  5. Ranking Multidimensional Alternatives and Uncertain Prospects.Philippe Mongin - 2015 - Journal of Economic Theory 157:146-171.
    We introduce a ranking of multidimensional alternatives, including uncertain prospects as a particular case, when these objects can be given a matrix form. This ranking is separable in terms of rows and columns, and continuous and monotonic in the basic quantities. Owing to the theory of additive separability developed here, we derive very precise numerical representations over a large class of domains (i.e., typically notof the Cartesian product form). We apply these representationsto (1)streams of commodity baskets through time, (2)uncertain social (...)
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  6. Utilitarianism.Nikil Mukerji - 2012 - In Christoph Lütge (ed.), Handbook of the Philosophical Foundations of Business Ethics. Heidelberg: Springer. pp. 297-313.
    This chapter offers a concise discussion of classic utilitarianism which is the prototypical moral doctrine of the utilitarian family. It starts with an analysis of the classic utilitarian criterion of rightness, gives an overview over its virtues and vices, and suggests an overall assessment of its adequacy as a theory of morality. Furthermore, it briefly discusses whether classic utilitarianism holds promise as a philosophy for doing business.
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  7. The Social Cost of Carbon from Theory to Trump.J. Paul Kelleher - 2018 - In Ravi Kanbur & Henry Shue (eds.), Climate Justice: Integrating Economics and Philosophy. Oxford University Press.
    The social cost of carbon (SCC) is a central concept in climate change economics. This chapter explains the SCC and investigates it philosophically. As is widely acknowledged, any SCC calculation requires the analyst to make choices about the infamous topic of discount rates. But to understand the nature and role of discounting, one must understand how that concept—and indeed the SCC concept itself—is yoked to the concept of a value function, whose job is to take ways the world could be (...)
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  8. J. S. Mill on Higher Pleasures and Modes of Existence.Tim Beaumont - 2021 - Croatian Journal of Philosophy 21 (2(62)):251-68.
    The passage of Mill’s Utilitarianism that sets out the condition in which one pleasure has a superior quality than another stokes interpretive controversy. According to the Lexical Interpretation, Mill takes one pleasure, P1, to be of a superior quality than another, P2, if, and only if, the smallest quantity of P1 is more valuable than any finite quantity of P2. This paper argues that, while the Lexical Interpretation may be supported with supplementary evidence, the passage itself does not rule (...)
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  9. Mad Speculation and Absolute Inhumanism: Lovecraft, Ligotti, and the Weirding of Philosophy.Ben Woodard - 2011 - Continent 1 (1):3-13.
    continent. 1.1 : 3-13. / 0/ – Introduction I want to propose, as a trajectory into the philosophically weird, an absurd theoretical claim and pursue it, or perhaps more accurately, construct it as I point to it, collecting the ground work behind me like the Perpetual Train from China Mieville's Iron Council which puts down track as it moves reclaiming it along the way. The strange trajectory is the following: Kant's critical philosophy and much of continental philosophy which has followed, (...)
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  10. Libertarian Philosophy versus Propertarian Dogma: a Further Reply to Block.J. C. Lester - 2021 - MEST Journal 9 (1):106-127.
    This replies to Block 2019 (B19), which responds to Lester 2014 (L14). The main issues in the, varyingly sized, sections are as follows. 1 Further explanations of critical rationalism, the theory of liberty, and problems with the non-aggression principle. 2.1 The relationships among law, morality, and libertarianism. 2.2 The objective invasiveness of low-level radiation and that it is therefore an initiated imposition (albeit trivial) if someone inflicts it on non-consenting people. 2.3 The objective and subjective aspects of initiated impositions; and (...)
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  11. Avoiding Anthropomoralism.Julian Friedland - 2024 - Between the Species 27 (1).
    The Montreal Declaration on Animal Exploitation, which has been endorsed by hundreds of influential academic ethicists, calls for establishing a vegan economy by banning what it refers to as all unnecessary animal suffering, including fishing. It does so by appeal to the moral principle of equal consideration of comparable interests. I argue that this principle is misapplied by discounting morally relevant cognitive capacities of self-conscious and volitional personhood as distinguished from merely sentient non-personhood. I describe it as a kind of (...)
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  12. Moral Saints.Zahra Khazaei - 2005 - Journal of Philosophical Theological Research 6 (24):144-166.
    Moral saints are the most worthy people who are regarded as examples and exemplifications in moral and religious cultures, for they are of special noetic-educational characteristics and extra actions beyond the bound of obligation. The two obligatory and value aspects of morality in the theories of normative ethics as well as the distinct approaches in religious and secular ethics have produced different explications of the actions beyond the limits of moral duty and sanctimonious features. Moreover, various pictures of the saints' (...)
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  13. Utilitarianism, Welfare, Children.Anthony Skelton - 2014 - In Alexander Bagattini & Colin Macleod (eds.), The Nature of Children's Well-Being: Theory and Practice. Springer. pp. 85-103.
    Utilitarianism is the view according to which the only basic requirement of morality is to maximize net aggregate welfare. This position has implications for the ethics of creating and rearing children. Most discussions of these implications focus either on the ethics of procreation and in particular on how many and whom it is right to create, or on whether utilitarianism permits the kind of partiality that child rearing requires. Despite its importance to creating and raising children, there are, (...)
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  14. Probability discounting and money pumps.Petra Kosonen - 2024 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 109 (2):593-611.
    In response to cases that involve tiny probabilities of huge payoffs, some argue that we ought to discount small probabilities down to zero. However, this paper shows that doing so violates Independence and Continuity, and as a result of these violations, those who discount small probabilities can be exploited by money pumps. Various possible ways of avoiding exploitation will be discussed. This paper concludes that the money pump for Independence undermines the plausibility of discounting small probabilities. Much of the discussion (...)
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  15. Temporal Discounting and Climate Change.J. Paul Kelleher - forthcoming - In Nina Emery (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Time. Routledge.
    Temporal discounting is a technical operation in climate change economics. When discount rates are positive, economic evaluation treats future benefits as less important than equivalent present benefits. This chapter explains and critically evaluates four different reasons economists have given for tying discount rates to the interest rates we observe in real-world markets. I suggest that while philosophers have correctly criticized three of these reasons, their criticisms of the fourth miss the mark. This is because philosophers have not taken heed of (...)
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  16. Principled Utility Discounting Under Risk.Kian Mintz-Woo - 2019 - Moral Philosophy and Politics 6 (1):89-112.
    Utility discounting in intertemporal economic modelling has been viewed as problematic, both for descriptive and normative reasons. However, positive utility discount rates can be defended normatively; in particular, it is rational for future utility to be discounted to take into account model-independent outcomes when decision-making under risk. The resultant values will tend to be smaller than descriptive rates under most probability assignments. This also allows us to address some objections that intertemporal considerations will be overdemanding. A principle for utility (...)
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  17. Ranking Theory and Conditional Reasoning.Niels Skovgaard-Olsen - 2016 - Cognitive Science 40 (4):848-880.
    Ranking theory is a formal epistemology that has been developed in over 600 pages in Spohn's recent book The Laws of Belief, which aims to provide a normative account of the dynamics of beliefs that presents an alternative to current probabilistic approaches. It has long been received in the AI community, but it has not yet found application in experimental psychology. The purpose of this paper is to derive clear, quantitative predictions by exploiting a parallel between ranking theory and a (...)
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  18. Ranking Theory.Gabriele Kern-Isberner, Niels Skovgaard-Olsen & Wolfgang Spohn - 2021 - In Markus Knauff & Wolfgang Spohn (eds.), The Handbook of Rationality. London: MIT Press. pp. 337-345.
    Ranking theory is one of the salient formal representations of doxastic states. It differs from others in being able to represent belief in a proposition (= taking it to be true), to also represent degrees of belief (i.e. beliefs as more or less firm), and thus to generally account for the dynamics of these beliefs. It does so on the basis of fundamental and compelling rationality postulates and is hence one way of explicating the rational structure of doxastic states. Thereby (...)
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  19. Utilitarianism and animal cruelty: Further doubts.Ben Davies - 2016 - De Ethica 3 (3):5-19.
    Utilitarianism has an apparent pedigree when it comes to animal welfare. It supports the view that animal welfare matters just as much as human welfare. And many utilitarians support and oppose various practices in line with more mainstream concern over animal welfare, such as that we should not kill animals for food or other uses, and that we ought not to torture animals for fun. This relationship has come under tension from many directions. The aim of this article is (...)
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  20. Discounting for public policy: A survey.Hilary Greaves - 2017 - Economics and Philosophy 33 (3):391-439.
    This article is a critical survey of the debate over the value of the social discount rate, with a particular focus on climate change. The ma- jority of the material surveyed is from the economics rather than from the philosophy literature, but the emphasis of the survey itself is on founda- tions in ethical and other normative theory rather than highly technical details. I begin by locating the standard approach to discounting within the overall landscape of ethical theory, and explaining (...)
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  21. Discounting Desirable Gambles.Gregory Wheeler - 2021 - Proceedings of Machine Learning Research 147:331-341.
    The desirable gambles framework offers the most comprehensive foundations for the theory of lower pre- visions, which in turn affords the most general ac- count of imprecise probabilities. Nevertheless, for all its generality, the theory of lower previsions rests on the notion of linear utility. This commitment to linearity is clearest in the coherence axioms for sets of desirable gambles. This paper considers two routes to relaxing this commitment. The first preserves the additive structure of the desirable gambles framework and (...)
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  22. Making Ranking Theory Useful for Psychology of Reasoning.Niels Skovgaard Olsen - 2014 - Dissertation, University of Konstanz
    An organizing theme of the dissertation is the issue of how to make philosophical theories useful for scientific purposes. An argument for the contention is presented that it doesn’t suffice merely to theoretically motivate one’s theories, and make them compatible with existing data, but that philosophers having this aim should ideally contribute to identifying unique and hard to vary predictions of their theories. This methodological recommendation is applied to the ranking-theoretic approach to conditionals, which emphasizes the epistemic relevance and the (...)
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  23. Act Utilitarianism.Ben Eggleston - 2014 - In Ben Eggleston & Dale E. Miller (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Utilitarianism. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 125-145.
    An overview (about 8,000 words) of act utilitarianism, covering the basic idea of the theory, historical examples, how it differs from rule utilitarianism and motive utilitarianism, supporting arguments, and standard objections. A closing section provides a brief introduction to indirect utilitarianism (i.e., a Hare- or Railton-style view distinguishing between a decision procedure and a criterion of rightness).
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  24. Arbitrariness Arguments against Temporal Discounting.Tim Smartt - 2021 - Australasian Philosophical Review 5 (3):302-308.
    Craig Callender [2022] provides a novel challenge to the non-arbitrariness principle. His challenge plays an important role in his argument for the rational permissibility of a non-exponential temporal discounting rate. But the challenge is also of wider interest: it raises significant questions about whether we ought to accept the non-arbitrariness principle as a constraint on rational preferences. In this paper, I present two reasons to resist Callender’s challenge. First, I present a reason to reject his claim that the non-arbitrariness principle (...)
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  25. Ideal Utilitarianism: Rashdall and Moore.Anthony Skelton - 2011 - In Thomas Hurka (ed.), Underivative Duty: British Moral Philosophers from Sidgwick to Ewing. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 45-65.
    Ideal utilitarianism states that the only fundamental requirement of morality is to promote a plurality of intrinsic goods. This paper critically evaluates Hastings Rashdall’s arguments for ideal utilitarianism, while comparing them with G. E. Moore’s arguments. Section I outlines Rashdall’s ethical outlook. Section II considers two different arguments that he provides for its theory of rightness. Section III discusses his defence of a pluralist theory of value. Section IV argues that Rashdall makes a lasting contribution to the defence (...)
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  26. Time discounting, consistency, and special obligations: a defence of Robust Temporalism.Harry R. Lloyd - 2021 - Global Priorities Institute, Working Papers 2021 (11):1-38.
    This paper defends the claim that mere temporal proximity always and without exception strengthens certain moral duties, including the duty to save – call this view Robust Temporalism. Although almost all other moral philosophers dismiss Robust Temporalism out of hand, I argue that it is prima facie intuitively plausible, and that it is analogous to a view about special obligations that many philosophers already accept. I also defend Robust Temporalism against several common objections, and I highlight its relevance to a (...)
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  27. Utilitarianism and the Moral Status of Animals: A Psychological Perspective.François Jaquet, Manon Delphine Gouiran & Florian Cova - forthcoming - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice:1-19.
    Recent years have seen a growing interest among psychologists for debates in moral philosophy. Moral psychologists have investigated the causal origins of the opposition between utilitarian and deontological judgments and the psychological underpinnings of people’s beliefs about the moral status of animals. One issue that remains underexplored in this research area is the relationship between people’s disposition to engage in utilitarian thinking and their attitudes towards animals. This gap is unfortunate considering the tight philosophical connection between utilitarianism and the (...)
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  28. Descriptive versus Prescriptive Discounting in Climate Change Policy Analysis.Kelleher J. Paul - 2017 - Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy 15:957-977.
    This paper distinguishes between five different approaches to social discount rates in climate change economics, criticizes two of these, and explains how the other three are to some degree mutually compatible. It aims to shed some new light on a longstanding debate in climate change economics between so-called “descriptivists” and “prescriptivists” about social discounting. The ultimate goal is to offer a sketch of the conceptual landscape that makes visible some important facets of the debate that very often go unacknowledged.
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  29. Discounting the Future.John Broome - 1994 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 23 (2):128-156.
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  30. Liberal utilitarianism – yes, but for whom?Joona Räsänen - 2021 - Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 30 (2):368-375.
    The aim of this commentary is to critically examine Matti Häyry’s article ‘Just Better Utilitarianism’, where he argues that liberal utilitarianism can offer a basis for moral and political choices in bioethics and thus could be helpful in decision-making. This commentary, while generally sympathetic to Häyry’s perspective, argues that Häyry should expand on who belongs to our moral community because, to solve practical ethical issues, we need to determine who (and what) deserves our moral consideration. Challenging Häyry’s principle (...)
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  31. Conscientious Utilitarianism; or, the Utilitarians Who Walk Away from Omelas.Andrew Dennis Bassford - 2022 - Journal of Science Fiction and Philosophy 5.
    This essay offers a revisionist defense of classical utilitarianism from an infamous objection to it, which is derived from American science fiction writer, Ursula Le Guin’s, short story, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.” To that effect, the reply takes inspiration from Le Guin and John Stuart Mill in appealing to the natural law theoretical concept of conscience. I argue that a conscientious utilitarian ethic can escape Le Guin’s objection more satisfactorily than other popular utilitarian ethics. Along the (...)
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  32. Rationality and Future Discounting.Arif Ahmed - 2018 - Topoi 39 (2):245-256.
    The best justification of time-discounting is roughly that it is rational to care less about your more distant future because there is less of you around to have it. I argue that the standard version of this argument, which treats both psychological continuity and psychological connectedness as reasons to care about your future, can only rationalize an irrational—because exploitable—form of future discounting.
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  33. Superiority Discounting Implies the Preposterous Conclusion.Mitchell Barrington - 2022 - Utilitas 34 (4):493-501.
    Many population axiologies avoid the Repugnant Conclusion by endorsing Superiority: some number of great lives is better than any number of mediocre lives. But as Nebel shows, RC follows from the Intrapersonal Repugnant Conclusion: a guaranteed mediocre life is better than a sufficiently small probability of a great life. This result is concerning because IRC is plausible. Recently, Kosonen has argued that IRC can be true while RC is false if small probabilities are discounted to zero. This article details (...)
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  34. Utilitarianism, Social Justice, and the Trolley Problem: An Ethical Theory without Egalitarian Morality.Saad Malook - 2024 - Journal of Social and Organizational Matters 3 (2):124-143.
    This article examines the implications of utilitarianism for social justice, considering different cases of the trolley problems. Utilitarianism comprises a cluster of ethical theses, which have political and legal implications. In general, utilitarianism is assumed to augment the common good, such as pleasure, happiness, satisfaction, and utility, or to reduce pain, suffering, dissatisfaction, and disutility. The article investigates a key problem whether utilitarianism brings about social justice as a moral theory. In recent literature, many moral philosophers (...)
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  35. Evolution and Utilitarianism.François Jaquet - 2018 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 21 (5):1151-1161.
    Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer have recently provided an evolutionary argument for utilitarianism. They argue that most of our deontological beliefs were shaped by evolution, from which they conclude that these beliefs are unjustified. By contrast, they maintain that the utilitarian belief that everyone’s well-being matters equally is immune to such debunking arguments because it wasn’t similarly influenced. However, Guy Kahane remarks that this belief lacks substantial content unless it is paired with an account of well-being, and he (...)
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  36. Discounting future health.Hilary Greaves - forthcoming - In Norheim Emanuel Jamison Johansson Millum Otterson Ruger and Verguet (ed.), Global health priority-setting: Cost-effectiveness and beyond. Oxford University Press.
    In carrying out cost-benefit or cost-effective analysis, a discount rate should be applied to some kinds of future benefits and costs. It is controversial, though, whether future health is in this class. I argue that one of the standard arguments for discounting (from diminishing marginal returns) is inapplicable to the case of health, while another (favouring a pure rate of time preference) is unsound in any case. However, there are two other reasons that might support a positive discount rate for (...)
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  37. Ranking Functions and Rankings on Languages.Franz Huber - 2006 - Artificial Intelligence 170 (4-5):462-471.
    The Spohnian paradigm of ranking functions is in many respects like an order-of-magnitude reverse of subjective probability theory. Unlike probabilities, however, ranking functions are only indirectly—via a pointwise ranking function on the underlying set of possibilities W —defined on a field of propositions A over W. This research note shows under which conditions ranking functions on a field of propositions A over W and rankings on a language L are induced by pointwise ranking functions on W and the set of (...)
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  38. Belief Revision II: Ranking Theory.Franz Huber - 2013 - Philosophy Compass 8 (7):613-621.
    Belief revision theory studies how an ideal doxastic agent should revise her beliefs when she receives new information. In part I, I have first presented the AGM theory of belief revision. Then I have focused on the problem of iterated belief revisions. In part II, I will first present ranking theory (Spohn 1988). Then I will show how it solves the problem of iterated belief revisions. I will conclude by sketching two areas of future research.
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  39. Utilitarianism, Altruism, and Consent.Meacham Christopher - 2022 - Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 21 (1).
    A number of criticisms of Utilitarianism – such as “nearest and dearest” objections, “demandingness” objections, and “altruistic” objections – arise because Utilitarianism doesn’t permit partially or wholly disregarding the utility of certain subjects. A number of authors, including Sider, Portmore and Vessel, have responded to these objections by suggesting we adopt “dual-maximizing” theories which provide a way to incorporate disregarding. And in response to “altruistic” objections in particular – objections noting that it seems permissible to make utility-decreasing sacrifices (...)
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  40. (1 other version)The Normative Standard for Future Discounting.Craig Callender - 2021 - Australasian Philosophical Review 5 (3):227-253.
    This paper challenges the conventional wisdom dominating the social sciences and philosophy regarding temporal discounting, the practice of discounting the value of future utility when making decisions. Although there are sharp disagreements about temporal discounting, a kind of standard model has arisen, one that begins with a normative standard about how we should make intertemporal comparisons of utility. This standard demands that in so far as one is rational one discounts utilities at future times with an exponential discount function. Tracing (...)
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  41. Can Utilitarianism Ground Human Rights?Leslie Allan - manuscript
    Leslie Allan demonstrates how human rights are unproblematic for utilitarian moral theory and how, upon consideration, utilitarianism turns out to be the best theory for justifying human rights. Using case studies of historical and contemporary human rights conventions and recent psychological research, he argues how our concept of human rights is founded on the satisfaction of fundamental human needs and the consequences for human happiness.
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  42. Utilitarianism and its British nineteenth-century critics.Sergio Volodia Marcello Cremaschi - 2008 - Notizie di Politeia. Rivista di Etica E Scelte Pubbliche 24 (90):31-49.
    I try to reconstruct the hidden agenda of nineteenth-century British controversy between Utilitarianism and Intuitionism, going beyond the image, successfully created by the two Mills, of a battle between Prejudice and Reason. When examined in depth, competing philosophical outlooks turn out to be more research programs than self-contained doctrinal bodies, and such programs appear to be implemented, and indeed radically transformed while in progress thanks to their enemies no less than to their supporters. Controversies, the propelling devices of research (...)
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  43.  31
    Utilitarianism in Suicide: Insights from Freudian-Durkheimian Theories and the Response of Christian Ethics.Etaoghene Paul Polo - 2025 - Nnadiebube Journal of Social Sciences (Njss) 5 (1):39-50.
    This paper explores the concept of utilitarianism in relation to suicide, drawing insights from Freudian psychoanalytic theory and Durkheimian sociology, while presenting a Christian ethical response. Freud’s theory of the death drive (Thanatos) and Durkheim’s classifications of suicide suggest that individuals may seek relief or perceived pleasure in ending their lives, which could align with a utilitarian calculus of maximising pleasure and minimising pain. However, this paper argues that such a perspective fails to account for the broader pain caused (...)
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  44. Social Discounting and the Tragedy of the Horizon: from the Stern-Nordhaus debate to target-consistent prices.Ramiro Peres - 2024 - Working Paper Series - Banco Central Do Brasil.
    This paper reviews debates related to the social cost of carbon (SCC) and the challenge of pricing uncertain damages that will occur only in the future. They often revolve around the pure time preference rate, which reflects how much one favors present over future well-being. The SCC measures the marginal cost of the impact on economic growth caused by the emission of a quantity of greenhouse gases equivalent to an additional ton of carbon dioxide (tCO2eq). There is significant variance among (...)
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  45. ‘Pure’ Time Preferences Are Irrelevant to the Debate over Time Bias: A Plea for Zero Time Discounting as the Normative Standard.Preston Greene - 2021 - Australasian Philosophical Review 5 (3):254-265.
    I find much to like in Craig Callender's [2022] arguments for the rational permissibility of non-exponential time discounting when these arguments are viewed in a conditional form: viz., if one thinks that time discounting is rationally permissible, as the social scientist does, then one should think that non-exponential time discounting is too. However, time neutralists believe that time discounting is rationally impermissible, and thus they take zero time discounting to be the normative standard. The time neutralist rejects time discounting because (...)
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  46. Utilitarianism and the Social Nature of Persons.Nikhil Venkatesh - 2023 - Dissertation, University College London
    This thesis defends utilitarianism: the view that as far as morality goes, one ought to choose the option which will result in the most overall well-being. Utilitarianism is widely rejected by philosophers today, largely because of a number of influential objections. In this thesis I deal with three of them. Each is found in Bernard Williams’s ‘A Critique of Utilitarianism’ (1973). The first is the Integrity Objection, an intervention that has been influential whilst being subject to a (...)
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  47. Relativized Rankings.Matthew Hammerton - 2020 - In Douglas W. Portmore (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Consequentialism. New York, USA: Oup Usa. pp. 46-66.
    In traditional consequentialism the good is position-neutral. A single evaluative ranking of states of affairs is correct for everyone, everywhere regardless of their positions. Recently, position-relative forms of consequentialism have been developed. These allow for the correct rankings of states to depend on connections that hold between the state being evaluated and the position of the evaluator. For example, perhaps being an agent who acts in a certain state requires me to rank that state differently from someone else who (...)
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  48. Ideal Utilitarianism.Anthony Skelton - 2013 - In J. E. Crimmins & D. C. Long (eds.), Encyclopedia of Utilitarianism. Bloomsbury Academic.
    An opinionated encyclopedia entry on ideal utilitarianism in which various arguments for the view are discussed and evaluated.
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  49. Utilitarianism without Moral Aggregation.Johan E. Gustafsson - 2021 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 51 (4):256-269.
    Is an outcome where many people are saved and one person dies better than an outcome where the one is saved and the many die? According to the standard utilitarian justification, the former is better because it has a greater sum total of well-being. This justification involves a controversial form of moral aggregation, because it is based on a comparison between aggregates of different people's well-being. Still, an alternative justification—the Argument for Best Outcomes—does not involve moral aggregation. I extend the (...)
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  50. Ranking judgments in Arrow’s setting.Daniele Porello - 2010 - Synthese 173 (2):199-210.
    In this paper, I investigate the relationship between preference and judgment aggregation, using the notion of ranking judgment introduced in List and Pettit. Ranking judgments were introduced in order to state the logical connections between the impossibility theorem of aggregating sets of judgments and Arrow’s theorem. I present a proof of the theorem concerning ranking judgments as a corollary of Arrow’s theorem, extending the translation between preferences and judgments defined in List and Pettit to the conditions on the aggregation procedure.
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