Thank you for this post. I agree that utilitarians and EAs in general should keep common-sense morality in mind, on consequentialist grounds.
One difficulty with this is that it’s not always clear what common-sense morality prescribes. It’s likely but not at all certain that public opinion would endorse the mission in Saving Private Ryan in the real world, for instance.
You also mention the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as an example of wartime consequentialism (which you’re contrasting with common-sense morality), but a majority of Americans endorse the bombings, and a lot of the people who oppose the bombings do so not because they think the ends never justify the means but because they disagree on whether Japan would have surrendered in the counterfactual.
Finally, to draw on another wartime Spielberg film, it’s interesting that common-sense morality considers Oskar Schindler a hero. He worked in a role that many would consider ethically dubious and accumulated enough wealth (“I could have got more out… If I’d made more money”) and influence to save more than 1,000 lives.
All of this is to say that we shouldn’t caricature common-sense morality and overstate its differences with utilitarianism. As Sidgwick recognised more than a century ago, they are more similar than some utilitarians and common-sense proponents think.
Thanks for your comment! This helped me to think about my argument further.
I agree that the conception of common sense morality is quite underdeveloped here and can be interpreted in different ways. It acts somewhat as a placeholder and I would like to explore this a bit further with more time. Public opinion might not even be a reliable proxy for what I mean here. Maybe virtue ethics would have been a better choice than common sense morality. For instance, I think Oskar Schindler exhibited many important virtues (though my knowledge about the historical facts is limited), while at the same time thinking quite utilitarian.
I agree that in practice there are not as many differences between utilitrianism and common-sense morality (or virtue ethics) as one might initially anticipate. I think that most people in the EA movement already accept this, but I do think there are parts of the movement that neglect “basic virtues”. See my disclaimer about the essay being more of a reminder than a critique.
Thanks for your reference to Schindler’s List. That film is one of my all-time favorites and also highly interesting from an EA perspective. It might be nice to have a series of posts or something like that on exploring EA themes in popular movies, series, books, etc. (if this doesn’t exist already).
Thank you for this post. I agree that utilitarians and EAs in general should keep common-sense morality in mind, on consequentialist grounds.
One difficulty with this is that it’s not always clear what common-sense morality prescribes. It’s likely but not at all certain that public opinion would endorse the mission in Saving Private Ryan in the real world, for instance.
You also mention the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as an example of wartime consequentialism (which you’re contrasting with common-sense morality), but a majority of Americans endorse the bombings, and a lot of the people who oppose the bombings do so not because they think the ends never justify the means but because they disagree on whether Japan would have surrendered in the counterfactual.
Finally, to draw on another wartime Spielberg film, it’s interesting that common-sense morality considers Oskar Schindler a hero. He worked in a role that many would consider ethically dubious and accumulated enough wealth (“I could have got more out… If I’d made more money”) and influence to save more than 1,000 lives.
All of this is to say that we shouldn’t caricature common-sense morality and overstate its differences with utilitarianism. As Sidgwick recognised more than a century ago, they are more similar than some utilitarians and common-sense proponents think.
Thanks for your comment! This helped me to think about my argument further.
I agree that the conception of common sense morality is quite underdeveloped here and can be interpreted in different ways. It acts somewhat as a placeholder and I would like to explore this a bit further with more time. Public opinion might not even be a reliable proxy for what I mean here. Maybe virtue ethics would have been a better choice than common sense morality. For instance, I think Oskar Schindler exhibited many important virtues (though my knowledge about the historical facts is limited), while at the same time thinking quite utilitarian.
I agree that in practice there are not as many differences between utilitrianism and common-sense morality (or virtue ethics) as one might initially anticipate. I think that most people in the EA movement already accept this, but I do think there are parts of the movement that neglect “basic virtues”. See my disclaimer about the essay being more of a reminder than a critique.
Thanks for your reference to Schindler’s List. That film is one of my all-time favorites and also highly interesting from an EA perspective. It might be nice to have a series of posts or something like that on exploring EA themes in popular movies, series, books, etc. (if this doesn’t exist already).