Ideas like “being willing to cause harm to one person to benefit others” sound bad and weird until you consider that people do this all the time. We have fire departments even though we know some fire fighters will die in the line of duty. Emergency room staff triage patients, leaving some to die in order to save others. I wash my toddler’s hair even though she dislikes it, because the smell will bother people if I don’t.
None of these seem to get at the core part of Lila’s objection. The firemen volunteered to do the job, understanding the risks. The emergency room might not treat everyone, but that’s an omission rather than an act—they don’t inflict additional harm on people. People generally think that parents have a wide degree of freedom to judge what is best for their kids, even if the kids disagree, because the parents know more.
However, what Lila is talking about (or at least a Steelman version, I don’t want to put words into her mouth) is actively inflicting harm, which would not have occurred otherwise, on someone who has the capacity to rationally consent, but has chosen not to. Utilitarians have a prima facie problem with cases like secretly killing people for their organs. Just because utilitarianism gives the same answer as conventional ethics in other cases doesn’t mean there aren’t cases where it widely diverges.
Ok, a government drafts some of its residents, against their will, to fight and die in a war that it thinks will benefit its population overall. This seems to be acceptable to typical people if the war is popular enough (look at the vitriol against conscientious objectors during the World Wars).
Many governments abolish conscription over time because citizens precisely don’t agree with that (as of 2011, countries with active military forces were roughly split in half between those with some form of conscription or emergency conscription, and those with no conscription even in emergency cases—http://chartsbin.com/view/1887)
None of these seem to get at the core part of Lila’s objection. The firemen volunteered to do the job, understanding the risks. The emergency room might not treat everyone, but that’s an omission rather than an act—they don’t inflict additional harm on people. People generally think that parents have a wide degree of freedom to judge what is best for their kids, even if the kids disagree, because the parents know more.
However, what Lila is talking about (or at least a Steelman version, I don’t want to put words into her mouth) is actively inflicting harm, which would not have occurred otherwise, on someone who has the capacity to rationally consent, but has chosen not to. Utilitarians have a prima facie problem with cases like secretly killing people for their organs. Just because utilitarianism gives the same answer as conventional ethics in other cases doesn’t mean there aren’t cases where it widely diverges.
Ok, a government drafts some of its residents, against their will, to fight and die in a war that it thinks will benefit its population overall. This seems to be acceptable to typical people if the war is popular enough (look at the vitriol against conscientious objectors during the World Wars).
Many governments abolish conscription over time because citizens precisely don’t agree with that (as of 2011, countries with active military forces were roughly split in half between those with some form of conscription or emergency conscription, and those with no conscription even in emergency cases—http://chartsbin.com/view/1887)