I just wanted to share this excellent guest essay, by Stefan Schubert & Lucius Caviola, we’ve just published on utilitarianism.net. As the authors argue: “in order to be effective in the real world, utilitarians should stake out a middle way [between common sense morality and naive utilitarianism]. They should by and large adopt the standard common sense virtues. But in addition to them, they should also adopt six virtues that go beyond the common sense virtues. While a utilitarian life is pretty normal in some ways, it is very different in others.”
I’m afraid that despite professing to be a utilitarian, I’m far from an expert. If you’ve got a moment, could you help me poke a little more into a niche section of this?
Is there some overlap between Hare’s two-level utilitarian framework and what is being proposed in this article? It doesn’t seem like they’re arguing directly for a framework, more explaining why and how they chose their virtues.
I’ve always found virtue ethics interesting, my first foray into reading philosophy on my own was focused on it, and I wouldn’t have really described myself as a utilitarian until my later teens.
When I stumbled across Hare’s arguments, I began to think about ways to reconcile his “archangel and prole” analogy with the way we tend to primarily communicate (at least in my view) via intuitions and stories regarding character virtues.
I’ve done some basic searching, nothing too in-depth. I haven’t really found much engagement. Do you have any ideas for further reading? I’d be interested in reading other examples of what people think of for utilitarian virtues!
Hi! Sure, their proposed utilitarian virtues could fit neatly into Hare’s “intuitive level” of morality, i.e. for guiding everyday behavior.
I don’t know of much other work that really develops such concrete proposals for utilitarian virtues, though you may wish to check out the “Further Reading” suggestions at the end of the article. Most of the related work that I’m familiar with instead addresses the question of how to think about the relationship between utilitarianism and virtue/character in the abstract. On that topic, see:
Adams, Motive Utilitarianism
Pettit & Brennan, Restrictive Consequentialism
Hurka, Virtue, Vice, and Value
Driver, Uneasy Virtue
Or, for more of an overview, you could try the second half of my (in progress) Oxford Handbook piece, Consequentialism: Core and Expansion.
I appreciate the links, these are exactly what I was looking for! I’ll be browsing through them as I get some time!
It seems like you’re on the “expert-master scale” to my “novice—apprentice” level. Philosophy ultimately won’t ever be much more than a fun hobby of mine, but I’ve always loved diving into some of the deeper stuff. Would you be open to me reaching out and talking with you as I comb through this and come up with questions?
I understand you’re probably busy, so if you have recommendations for some other resources or places to engage people with ideas like this (even if just to read what they write), I would appreciate those too!
For readings on utilitarianism, I’d encourage you to check out the whole website at utilitarianism.net. If you read our entire online textbook, you’ll know more about the topic than basically anyone who doesn’t already have a Ph.D. in the area. For philosophy more broadly, you probably already know about the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy—it’s a fantastic resource, though the entries vary a fair deal in how accessible they are to non-experts.
For chatting about the topic, you’re welcome to reach out but I can’t promise that I’d respond. Your best bet is probably to follow some philosophy blogs (and participate in the comments sections), such as PEA Soup, Fake Nous, Hands and Cities, or my own Good Thoughts. You might also try a smart philosophy student, like Matthew Adelstein of Bentham’s Bulldog, who is likely to have more time and so may be more open to discussing topics that you propose, or doing some kind of online reading group together.
Good luck!