I don’t necessarily disagree with most of that, but I think it is ultimately still plausible that people who endorse a theory that obviously says in principle bad ends can justify the means are somewhat (plausibly not very much though) more likely to actually do bad things with an ends-justifies-the-means vibe. Note that this is an empirical claim about what sort of behaviour is actually more likely to co-occur with endorsing utilitarianism or consequentialism in actual human beings. So it’s not refuted by “the correct understanding of consequentialism mostly bars things with an ends justifies the means vibe in practice” or “actually, any sane view allows that sometimes it’s permissible to do very harmful things to prevent a many orders of magnitude greater harm”. And by “somewhat plausible” I mean just that. I wouldn’t be THAT shocked to discover this was false, my credence is like 95% maybe? (1 in 20 things happen all the time.) And the claim is correlational, not causal (maybe both endorsement of utilitarianism and ends-justifies-the-means type behaviour are both caused partly by prior intuitive endorsement of ends-justifies-the-means type behaviour, and adopting utilitarianism doesn’t actually make any difference, although I doubt that is entirely true.)
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 most of that, but I think it is ultimately still plausible that people who endorse a theory that obviously says in principle bad ends can justify the means are somewhat (plausibly not very much though) more likely to actually do bad things with an ends-justifies-the-means vibe. Note that this is an empirical claim about what sort of behaviour is actually more likely to co-occur with endorsing utilitarianism or consequentialism in actual human beings. So it’s not refuted by “the correct understanding of consequentialism mostly bars things with an ends justifies the means vibe in practice” or “actually, any sane view allows that sometimes it’s permissible to do very harmful things to prevent a many orders of magnitude greater harm”. And by “somewhat plausible” I mean just that. I wouldn’t be THAT shocked to discover this was false, my credence is like 95% maybe? (1 in 20 things happen all the time.) And the claim is correlational, not causal (maybe both endorsement of utilitarianism and ends-justifies-the-means type behaviour are both caused partly by prior intuitive endorsement of ends-justifies-the-means type behaviour, and adopting utilitarianism doesn’t actually make any difference, although I doubt that is entirely true.)
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.