0

I know that we can divide utilitarians into two groups, those that focus on what was expected to happen and those that focus on what actually happened, and that most fall into the latter group. However, I don't seem to understand why.

For example, let's say there's a person with a serious, but not deadly, illness, and a doctor has a treatment for the illness, but with only a 5 % chance of survival. Now, let's also assume they go through with the treatment, and the patient survives. Then, a utilitarian who focuses on what actually happened will say that the doctor acted morally rightly, while a person who focuses on what was expected to happen would say he acted wrongly. In this example, I find it morally problematic to focus on what actually happened, but I can't make up an opposite example where it would be morally problematic to focus on what was expected. Therefore I don't seem to understand what is attractive about only focusing on what actually happened.

Improve this question
4
  • 1
    Where do you "know" this from? The usual division is into act and rule utilitarianism, which is not this, and most fall into the second category. If anything, they are closer to counting the "expected" rather than the "actual" happening.
    – Conifold
    Commented Dec 12, 2020 at 22:23
  • I think I'm mixing utilitarianism with consequentialism, would it make more sense to divide consequentialists into the two groups that I mentioned? @Conifold
    – ravi
    Commented Dec 12, 2020 at 23:06
  • 1
    Even then, your "actual consequentialism" does not maker much sense as ethics since nobody knows actual consequences at the time of acting. It is mostly used as a didactic foil, and is certainly not the majority view. There is objectively probable/subjectively forseeable consequentialism division, but it is somewhat different, see SEP.
    – Conifold
    Commented Dec 12, 2020 at 23:38
  • Focusing on what actually happens seems to fall out of the scope of moral. Morals is about establishing what we should do. Being able to judge a decision only after the fact is kind of pointless. In your exemple the doctor is not fixed about what they should do next time. The exact same decision could turn put to be immoral. What is more, it leads to very strange conclusions like "I tried to push an old lady under a bus, but the driver stopped fast enough and she avoided a flower pot that fell right where she stood. Since my attempt at murder saved her life it makes me a paragon of virtue?"
    – armand
    Commented Oct 6, 2022 at 5:20

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
1

You are better dividing utilitarians into 5 groups; actual, likely, foreseeable, foreseen, and intended consequences.

Actual - What happens is important
Likely - What is most likely to happen is important.
Foreseeable - What a person could of predicted if they thought about the matter is important.
Foreseen - What a person did predict is important.
Intended - What a person wanted to happen is important.

In the situation you provided, I believe each position would say:
Actual (patient lived) - Moral because the treatment had positive results.
Actual (patient died) - Immoral because the treatment had negative results.
Likely - Immoral because the most likely outcome was a negative result.*
Foreseenable (information on the deadly side effects of the treatment was available to the doctor) - Immoral because if the doctor did his research, he would have known that the most likely outcome was a negative result.*
Foreseen (information on the deadly side effects of the treatment was available to the doctor, but he did not look it up) - Moral because the doctor believed the treatment could only have positive results.
Foreseen (information on the deadly side effects of the treatment was available to the doctor, and he did look it up) - Immoral because the doctor believed that the treatment would have a negative result.*
Intended - Moral because the doctor wanted to positive result to happen.

*Assuming that the expected outcome of the treatment was a loss of utility i.e.
(Utility lost by patient living with disease) + 0.95 (Utility lost by patient dying) + 0.5 (Utility gained by patient being cured) < 0

Improve this answer
1

According to utilitarianism, it is your duty to try to predict the future the best you can. If a doctor got lucky despite the odds, that doesn't make it utilitarian. With utilitarianism , you really have to think global. The doctor will tend to retry giving the medicine with likely worse outcomes..... The interns will see the doctor making irrational choices ...and so on...

Improve this answer
5
  • But can you actually know the odds? Like it's not actually unreasonable to assume that something works if it works. Sure you could have been lucky but apart from toy examples how can you easily know that?
    – haxor789
    Commented Oct 6, 2022 at 11:08
  • yes , finding the odds is the purpose of science
    – Manu de Hanoi
    Commented Oct 7, 2022 at 12:15
  • Sure but the process by which science determines them is the experiment. Meaning it's applied to see if the application works. So this would just pass the bucket to the question of the ethics of experimenting.
    – haxor789
    Commented Oct 7, 2022 at 12:16
  • experimenting is done on a sample basis , not on a widescale, and the ethics of experimenting are not the same as the utilitarian problem above.
    – Manu de Hanoi
    Commented Oct 7, 2022 at 12:36
  • My life is one big experiment.
    – Scott Rowe
    Commented Jun 4, 2023 at 1:38

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .