Utilitarianism Shot Down by Its Own Men?

2003 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 447-454
Author(s):  
TUIJA TAKALA
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theory ◽  
Value Of Life ◽  
Material World ◽  
The Sacrifice ◽  
Better Than

I think that utilitarianism is a good moral theory, and definitely better than its rivals, deontology and teleology. For practical purposes in multicultural contexts, at least, I think that no one should overlook a theory that is able to take into account a variety of ethical views and accommodate the ever-changing facts of the material world. But utilitarianism has a bad reputation in bioethics. It is often seen as the inhumane theory that allows the sacrifice of minorities, the killing of the innocent, and simplistic calculations on the value of life. Hardly anyone cares to remember that most formulations of the theory do not allow these actions. The economic doctrine sometimes labeled as utilitarianism could be guilty as charged, but ethics and economy are not interchangeable words. Also as a theory that can actually propose answers to no-win situations, utilitarianism has been an easy target for criticism.

Contextualism

2020 ◽  
pp. 108-127
Author(s):  
Alastair Norcross
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theory ◽  
Moral Discourse ◽  
Practical Significance ◽  
Contextualist Approach ◽  
Better Than ◽  
Context Of Utterance

Although consequentialism is not fundamentally concerned with such staples of moral theory as rightness, duty, obligation, goodness of actions, and harm, such notions may nonetheless be of practical significance. A contextualist approach to all these notions makes room for them in ordinary moral discourse, but also illustrates why there is no room for them at the level of fundamental moral theory. Roughly, to say that an act is right is to say that it is at least as good as the appropriate alternative, to say an act is good is to say that it is better than the appropriate alternative, to say an act harms someone is to say that it makes them worse off than they would have been on the appropriate alternative. In each case, “appropriate” is an indexical, whose referent is fixed by the context of utterance. This approach also makes room for an account of supererogation.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Thaddeus Metz
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Issue ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Common Part ◽  
Communal Relationship ◽  
Respect For Autonomy ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Better Than

Chapter 1 explains and motivates the project of advancing an African moral theory, after which it provides an overview of the book. An African moral theory is a basic, comprehensive principle distinguishing right from wrong actions that is informed by mores salient particularly in the sub-Saharan region. It is advanced as a rival to the principles of utility and of respect for autonomy, the primary Western answers to the important question of what all right actions have in common. Part I of the book discusses the meta-ethical issue of how to justify an African moral theory. Part II identifies three major candidates for a moral theory in the African tradition, and argues that one, grounded on communal relationship, is most promising. Part III argues that the relational moral theory does better than the principles of utility and of respect for autonomy at accounting for a wide array of applied controversies.

Can Virtue Ethics Account for Supererogation?

2015 ◽  
Vol 77 ◽  
pp. 25-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Heyd
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Categorical Imperative ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Classical Utilitarianism ◽  
Vast Literature ◽  
The Face ◽  
The One ◽  
Better Than ◽  
Supererogatory Action

In his classical article, ‘Saints and Heroes’, James Urmson single-handedly revived the idea of supererogation from it astonishingly long post-Reformation slumber. During the first two decades after its publication, Urmson's challenge was taken up almost exclusively by either utilitarians or deontologists of some sort. On the face of it, neither classical utilitarianism nor Kant's categorical imperative makes room for action which is better than the maximizing requirement, on the one hand, or beyond the requirement of duty, on the other. Nevertheless, both utilitarians and Kantians, as well as deontic logicians, offered more flexible and sophisticated versions of their respective theories which could accommodate supererogatory action. In my 1982 book on supererogation I tried to address the question whether virtue ethics could capture that new category of actions which are praiseworthy though not strictly required. But the focus of my discussion was mostly Aristotle (and Seneca) and accordingly more interpretive in nature. However, that was just before the tremendous surge of interest in virtue ethics and the vast literature debating the merits of agent-based vs. action-based approaches in moral theory. It turned out that fitting supererogation into virtue-based moral theory proved to be a more difficult task than doing so in consequentialist and deontological theories. Some argued that supererogation could nevertheless be accounted for in aretaic terms; others held that it could not and that this fact attested to either a theoretical weakness – even if not a refutation – of virtue-based ethics, or to the incoherence of the concept of supererogation.

Moral Law and the Structure of Personal Reality

2020 ◽  
pp. 61-76
Author(s):  
Michael L. Peterson
Keyword(s):  
Moral Values ◽  
Value Of Life ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Human Race ◽  
Truth Telling ◽  
Moral Consciousness ◽  
Important Evidence ◽  
Universal Morality ◽  
Better Than

Completing Lewis’s famous triad of arguments for theism (along with the argument from joy and the argument from reason) is the “argument from morality,” which begins Mere Christianity and appears elsewhere in Lewis’s writings. Lewis takes the important evidence of moral consciousness and moral judgments that pervade the human race as evidence for a moral theistic being, God. That is, theism philosophically explains the existence of morality better than competing worldviews explain it. Furthermore, Lewis (in implicit Aristotelian fashion) links being moral to the meaning and telos of our humanity. He also shows that the fundamental principles of morality—the “Tao,” as he calls it for his purposes—are universal and objective, while their expression varies across cultures and traditions. This entails that there is essential agreement on values across cultures—say, on the value of life, truth-telling and lying, and so forth. These moral values are not created subjectively or culturally; instead they are reflections of a perfect universal morality to which we simply feel ourselves to be related.

Time and Latitude in South Africa

1972 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 27-38
Author(s):  
J. Hers
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Astronomical Observations ◽  
Royal Observatory ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Astronomical Determination ◽  
Limited Accuracy ◽  
Better Than

In South Africa the modern outlook towards time may be said to have started in 1948. Both the two major observatories, The Royal Observatory in Cape Town and the Union Observatory (now known as the Republic Observatory) in Johannesburg had, of course, been involved in the astronomical determination of time almost from their inception, and the Johannesburg Observatory has been responsible for the official time of South Africa since 1908. However the pendulum clocks then in use could not be relied on to provide an accuracy better than about 1/10 second, which was of the same order as that of the astronomical observations. It is doubtful if much use was made of even this limited accuracy outside the two observatories, and although there may – occasionally have been a demand for more accurate time, it was certainly not voiced.

Localization of immunolabels by electron microscopy and image averaging

1983 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 282-283
Author(s):  
J. Frank ◽  
P.-Y. Sizaret ◽  
A. Verschoor ◽  
J. Lamy
Keyword(s):  
Electron Microscopy ◽  
Single Particle ◽  
Attachment Site ◽  
Uranyl Acetate ◽  
Limulus Polyphemus ◽  
Resolution Limit ◽  
Electron Microscopic ◽  
Image Averaging ◽  
Top View ◽  
Better Than

The accuracy with which the attachment site of immunolabels bound to macromolecules may be localized in electron microscopic images can be considerably improved by using single particle averaging. The example studied in this work showed that the accuracy may be better than the resolution limit imposed by negative staining (∽2nm).The structure used for this demonstration was a halfmolecule of Limulus polyphemus (LP) hemocyanin, consisting of 24 subunits grouped into four hexamers. The top view of this structure was previously studied by image averaging and correspondence analysis. It was found to vary according to the flip or flop position of the molecule, and to the stain imbalance between diagonally opposed hexamers (“rocking effect”). These findings have recently been incorporated into a model of the full 8 × 6 molecule.LP hemocyanin contains eight different polypeptides, and antibodies specific for one, LP II, were used. Uranyl acetate was used as stain. A total of 58 molecule images (29 unlabelled, 29 labelled with antl-LPII Fab) showing the top view were digitized in the microdensitometer with a sampling distance of 50μ corresponding to 6.25nm.

Closing the GAP—A 5Å Scanning Microscope

1969 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 6-7
Author(s):  
A. V. Crewe
Keyword(s):  
Normal Form ◽  
The Other ◽  
Resolving Power ◽  
Scanning Microscope ◽  
Conventional Microscope ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Closing The Gap ◽  
Thermal Sources ◽  
Better Than ◽  
Transmission Microscope

We have become accustomed to differentiating between the scanning microscope and the conventional transmission microscope according to the resolving power which the two instruments offer. The conventional microscope is capable of a point resolution of a few angstroms and line resolutions of periodic objects of about 1Å. On the other hand, the scanning microscope, in its normal form, is not ordinarily capable of a point resolution better than 100Å. Upon examining reasons for the 100Å limitation, it becomes clear that this is based more on tradition than reason, and in particular, it is a condition imposed upon the microscope by adherence to thermal sources of electrons.

Electron Microscopic Observation of the Longitudinal Organization of Poly (p-Phenylene Terephthalamide) Fibers

1982 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 680-681
Author(s):  
Li Li-Sheng ◽  
L.F. Allard ◽  
W.C. Bigelow
Keyword(s):  
Electron Microscopy ◽  
Mechanical Properties ◽  
Scanning Electron Microscopy ◽  
Microscopic Observation ◽  
Electron Microscopic Observation ◽  
Electron Microscopic ◽  
Aromatic Polyamides ◽  
Radial Arrangement ◽  
Scanning Electron ◽  
Better Than

The aromatic polyamides form a class of fibers having mechanical properties which are much better than those of aliphatic polyamides. Currently, the accepted morphology of these fibers as proposed by M.G. Dobb, et al. is a radial arrangement of pleated sheets, with the plane of the pleats parallel to the axis of the fiber. We have recently obtained evidence which supports a different morphology of this type of fiber, using ultramicrotomy and ion-thinning techniques to prepare specimens for transmission and scanning electron microscopy.

A High Angle, Double Tilting Cold Stage for the AEI EM7

1974 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 450-451
Author(s):  
P.R. Swann ◽  
A.E. Lloyd
Keyword(s):  
Habit Plane ◽  
Temperature Control ◽  
Tilt Angle ◽  
Cooling System ◽  
Thermal Drift ◽  
High Angle ◽  
Cold Stage ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Better Than

Figure 1 shows the design of a specimen stage used for the in situ observation of phase transformations in the temperature range between ambient and −160°C. The design has the following features a high degree of specimen stability during tilting linear tilt actuation about two orthogonal axes for accurate control of tilt angle read-out high angle tilt range for stereo work and habit plane determination simple, robust construction temperature control of better than ±0.5°C minimum thermal drift and transmission of vibration from the cooling system.

Thermal Considerations in Lens Regulator Systems

1970 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 358-359
Author(s):  
K.C. Newton
Keyword(s):  
Electron Microscope ◽  
Thermal Effects ◽  
Environmental Control ◽  
Reference Networks ◽  
Better Than

Thermal effects in lens regulator systems have become a major problem with the extension of electron microscope resolution capabilities below 5 Angstrom units. Larger columns with immersion lenses and increased accelerating potentials have made solutions more difficult by increasing the power being handled. Environmental control, component choice, and wiring design provide answers, however. Figure 1 indicates with broken lines where thermal problems develop in regulator systemsExtensive environmental control is required in the sampling and reference networks. In each case, stability better than I ppm/min. is required. Components with thermal coefficients satisfactory for these applications without environmental control are either not available or priced prohibitively.

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