I don’t necessarily disagree with any of that, but the fact that you asserted it implicates you think it has some kind of practical relevance which is where I might want to disagree.
I think it’s fundamentally dishonest (a kind of naive instrumentalism in its own right) to try to discourage people from having true beliefs because of faint fears that these beliefs might correlate with bad behavior.
I also think it’s bad for people to engage in “moral profiling” (cf. racial profiling), spreading suspicion about utilitarians in general based on very speculative fears of this sort.
I just think it’s very obvious that if you’re worried about naive instrumentalism, the (morally and intellectually) correct response is to warn against naive instrumentalism, not other (intrinsically innocuous) views that you believe to be correlated with the mistake.
Actually, I have a lot of sympathy with what you are saying here. I am ultimately somewhat inclined to endorse “in principle, the ends justify the means, just not in practice” over at least a fairly wide range of cases. I (probably) think in theory you should usually kill one innocent person to save five, even though in practice anything that looks like doing that is almost certainly a bad idea, outside artificial philosophical thought experiments and maybe some weird but not too implausible scenarios involving war or natural disaster. But at the same time, I do worry a bit about bad effects from utilitarianism because I worry about bad effects from anything. I don’t worry too much, but that’s because I think those effects are small, and anyway there will be good effects of utilitarianism too. But I don’t think utilitarians should be able to react with outrage when people say plausible things about the consequences of utilitarianism. And I think people who worry about this more than I do on this forum are generally acting in good faith. And yeah, I agree utilitarians shouldn’t (in any normal context) lie about their opinions.
I don’t necessarily disagree with any of that, but the fact that you asserted it implicates you think it has some kind of practical relevance which is where I might want to disagree.
I think it’s fundamentally dishonest (a kind of naive instrumentalism in its own right) to try to discourage people from having true beliefs because of faint fears that these beliefs might correlate with bad behavior.
I also think it’s bad for people to engage in “moral profiling” (cf. racial profiling), spreading suspicion about utilitarians in general based on very speculative fears of this sort.
I just think it’s very obvious that if you’re worried about naive instrumentalism, the (morally and intellectually) correct response is to warn against naive instrumentalism, not other (intrinsically innocuous) views that you believe to be correlated with the mistake.
[See also: The Dangers of a Little Knowledge, esp. the “Should we lie?” section.]
Actually, I have a lot of sympathy with what you are saying here. I am ultimately somewhat inclined to endorse “in principle, the ends justify the means, just not in practice” over at least a fairly wide range of cases. I (probably) think in theory you should usually kill one innocent person to save five, even though in practice anything that looks like doing that is almost certainly a bad idea, outside artificial philosophical thought experiments and maybe some weird but not too implausible scenarios involving war or natural disaster. But at the same time, I do worry a bit about bad effects from utilitarianism because I worry about bad effects from anything. I don’t worry too much, but that’s because I think those effects are small, and anyway there will be good effects of utilitarianism too. But I don’t think utilitarians should be able to react with outrage when people say plausible things about the consequences of utilitarianism. And I think people who worry about this more than I do on this forum are generally acting in good faith. And yeah, I agree utilitarians shouldn’t (in any normal context) lie about their opinions.