There’s a common criticism made of utilitarianism: Utilitarianism requires that you calculate the probabilities of every outcome for every action, which is impossible to do.
And the standard response to this is that, no, spending your entire life calculating probabilities is unlikely to lead to the greatest happiness, so it’s fine to follow some other procedure for making decisions. I think a similar sort of response applies to some of the points in your post.
For example, are you really going to do the most good if you completely “set aside your emotional preferences for friends and family”? Probably not. You might get a reputation as someone who’s callous, manipulative, or traitorous. Without emotional attachments to friends and family, your mental health might suffer. You might not have people to support you when you’re at your low points. You might not have people willing to cooperate with you to achieve ambitious projects. Etc. In other words, there are many reasons why our emotional attachments make sense even under a utilitarian perspective.
And what if we’re forced to make a decision between the life of our own child and those of many others’? Does utilitarianism say that our own child’s death is “morally agreeable”? No! The death of our child will be a tragedy, since presumably they could have otherwise lived a long and happy life if not for our decision. The point of utilitarianism is not to minimize this tragedy. Rather, a utilitarian will point out that the death of someone else’s child is just as much a tragedy. And 10 deaths will be 10 times as much a tragedy, even if those people’s lives aren’t personally related to you. This seems correct to me.
There’s a common criticism made of utilitarianism: Utilitarianism requires that you calculate the probabilities of every outcome for every action, which is impossible to do.
And the standard response to this is that, no, spending your entire life calculating probabilities is unlikely to lead to the greatest happiness, so it’s fine to follow some other procedure for making decisions. I think a similar sort of response applies to some of the points in your post.
For example, are you really going to do the most good if you completely “set aside your emotional preferences for friends and family”? Probably not. You might get a reputation as someone who’s callous, manipulative, or traitorous. Without emotional attachments to friends and family, your mental health might suffer. You might not have people to support you when you’re at your low points. You might not have people willing to cooperate with you to achieve ambitious projects. Etc. In other words, there are many reasons why our emotional attachments make sense even under a utilitarian perspective.
And what if we’re forced to make a decision between the life of our own child and those of many others’? Does utilitarianism say that our own child’s death is “morally agreeable”? No! The death of our child will be a tragedy, since presumably they could have otherwise lived a long and happy life if not for our decision. The point of utilitarianism is not to minimize this tragedy. Rather, a utilitarian will point out that the death of someone else’s child is just as much a tragedy. And 10 deaths will be 10 times as much a tragedy, even if those people’s lives aren’t personally related to you. This seems correct to me.