It is possible I am quoting out of context here but there was this sentence in your piece:
The solution of these dilemmas are a matter of practical wisdom, and require deeper considerations of individual aspects of each context for each person.
At least on the face of it, it seems like you are suggesting recourse to practical wisdom to solve some of these problems. In your comment, however, you are indicating that alternative ethical theories are possible but on re-reading your post, I was unable to come across an example of such a theory being applied to resolve one of these incommensurability dilemmas.
As you have noted yourself, with regard to the question of eating some meat in a scenario where doing so makes an individual a lot more productive (and given that there are no simple plant based substitutes that seem to do the trick so far) and donate more, I am in agreement here that it makes sense to do so.
But anyway I get the point here: there are surely other scenarios where I would be unwilling to accept the conclusions of raw utilitarian calculus. And I am perfectly fine with that but more importantly such exceptional situations would not be a reason for me to abandon utilitarianism completely.
I agree with your largely that we cannot take decisions based purely on a one-dimensional utility function. Often that utility function itself isn’t well-defined, doesn’t take into account second order effects, has only expected value and not the probability distribution of the outcomes, ignores deep uncertainty, etc. I also sure that we should apply common-sense considerations have a part but I wouldn’t rely too heavily on that either.
It is possible I am quoting out of context here but there was this sentence in your piece:
At least on the face of it, it seems like you are suggesting recourse to practical wisdom to solve some of these problems. In your comment, however, you are indicating that alternative ethical theories are possible but on re-reading your post, I was unable to come across an example of such a theory being applied to resolve one of these incommensurability dilemmas.
As you have noted yourself, with regard to the question of eating some meat in a scenario where doing so makes an individual a lot more productive (and given that there are no simple plant based substitutes that seem to do the trick so far) and donate more, I am in agreement here that it makes sense to do so.
But anyway I get the point here: there are surely other scenarios where I would be unwilling to accept the conclusions of raw utilitarian calculus. And I am perfectly fine with that but more importantly such exceptional situations would not be a reason for me to abandon utilitarianism completely.
I agree with your largely that we cannot take decisions based purely on a one-dimensional utility function. Often that utility function itself isn’t well-defined, doesn’t take into account second order effects, has only expected value and not the probability distribution of the outcomes, ignores deep uncertainty, etc. I also sure that we should apply common-sense considerations have a part but I wouldn’t rely too heavily on that either.