Why does utilitarianism give you a special incentive to want to run away from being in positions where you are faced with controversial decisions or dilemmas?
Insofar as it does, one reason is moral parliament. Utilitarianism “plays nice” with other moralities: if we are unsure of the correct moral theory, utilitarianism advocates we hedge our risk of a fundamental moral wrong by giving some credence to other value systems.
Let’s say we’re faced with a choice of situations, A and B. They are of exactly equal utility from a “simple utilitarian” standpoint of weighing up the materialistic utilons. However, A is morally fraught from a deontological standpoint, while B is not. Utilitarianism would not say that these two situations are of equal moral weight. It would say that, since we can’t be sure utilitarianism is right, we ought to strongly prefer situation B, which is compatible with deontological ethics as well.
But I’d also say that my point wasn’t that utilitarianism wants us to run from controversy. It motivates us to avoid strictly worse situations to strictly better ones. A situation in which reward X can only be obtained by committing a (lesser) cost C is strictly worse than a situation in which we can obtain X without C. Utilitarianism motivates such a search.
I find ordinary morality as practiced by many people currently better than taking any formalisms (atleast the ones I’ve seen) to their extreme ends. This doesn’t ofcourse solve much, you still really want formalised ways of taking moral decisions because there are advantages of formalization. But it is the reason I also don’t buy “utilitarianism is the least worst theory” yet, better seems possible.
Honestly, sounds like you are taking a utilitarian approach to evaluating other people’s ethical schemes. If it seems “better,” you think it is better. Quite logical, and quite properly utilitarian. If it would produce more utils for us to all forget utilitarianism even existed and take up virtue ethics, that is what utilitarianism would advocate we do.
Insofar as it does, one reason is moral parliament. Utilitarianism “plays nice” with other moralities: if we are unsure of the correct moral theory, utilitarianism advocates we hedge our risk of a fundamental moral wrong by giving some credence to other value systems.
Let’s say we’re faced with a choice of situations, A and B. They are of exactly equal utility from a “simple utilitarian” standpoint of weighing up the materialistic utilons. However, A is morally fraught from a deontological standpoint, while B is not. Utilitarianism would not say that these two situations are of equal moral weight. It would say that, since we can’t be sure utilitarianism is right, we ought to strongly prefer situation B, which is compatible with deontological ethics as well.
But I’d also say that my point wasn’t that utilitarianism wants us to run from controversy. It motivates us to avoid strictly worse situations to strictly better ones. A situation in which reward X can only be obtained by committing a (lesser) cost C is strictly worse than a situation in which we can obtain X without C. Utilitarianism motivates such a search.
Honestly, sounds like you are taking a utilitarian approach to evaluating other people’s ethical schemes. If it seems “better,” you think it is better. Quite logical, and quite properly utilitarian. If it would produce more utils for us to all forget utilitarianism even existed and take up virtue ethics, that is what utilitarianism would advocate we do.