I just wanted to share this excellent guest essay, by Stefan Schubert & Lucius Caviola, weāve just published on utilitarianism.net. As the authors argue: āin 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.ā
Iām afraid that despite professing to be a utilitarian, Iām far from an expert. If youāve got a moment, could you help me poke a little more into a niche section of this?
Is there some overlap between Hareās two-level utilitarian framework and what is being proposed in this article? It doesnāt seem like theyāre arguing directly for a framework, more explaining why and how they chose their virtues.
Iāve always found virtue ethics interesting, my first foray into reading philosophy on my own was focused on it, and I wouldnāt have really described myself as a utilitarian until my later teens.
When I stumbled across Hareās arguments, I began to think about ways to reconcile his āarchangel and proleā analogy with the way we tend to primarily communicate (at least in my view) via intuitions and stories regarding character virtues.
Iāve done some basic searching, nothing too in-depth. I havenāt really found much engagement. Do you have any ideas for further reading? Iād be interested in reading other examples of what people think of for utilitarian virtues!
Hi! Sure, their proposed utilitarian virtues could fit neatly into Hareās āintuitive levelā of morality, i.e. for guiding everyday behavior.
I donāt know of much other work that really develops such concrete proposals for utilitarian virtues, though you may wish to check out the āFurther Readingā suggestions at the end of the article. Most of the related work that Iām familiar with instead addresses the question of how to think about the relationship between utilitarianism and virtue/ācharacter 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! Iāll be browsing through them as I get some time!
It seems like youāre on the āexpert-master scaleā to my ānoviceāapprenticeā level. Philosophy ultimately wonāt ever be much more than a fun hobby of mine, but Iāve 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 youāre 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, Iād encourage you to check out the whole website at utilitarianism.net. If you read our entire online textbook, youāll know more about the topic than basically anyone who doesnāt already have a Ph.D. in the area. For philosophy more broadly, you probably already know about the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophyāitās a fantastic resource, though the entries vary a fair deal in how accessible they are to non-experts.
For chatting about the topic, youāre welcome to reach out but I canāt promise that Iād 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 Benthamās 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!