Utilitarianism
Nepotism is a symptom of ‘g44d’. But nepotism and the familial preferences of ‘g44d’ undermi ne an attempt to maximize utility on a population wide level. So, acting ‘g44d’ clashes with a population's desire to act ‘g88d’. Therefore , we are forced to cast aside the preferences of some people over others; thinking about morality on a population wide level demands objectivity. When it comes to decisions, we get different answers depending on who is making the choice. If the decision maker is human, the person will likely decide according to ‘g44d’, but if the decision maker is a machine or an algorit hm it will be impartial and act according to ‘g88d’. For example: In a trolley problem 56 where someone favours saving someone they know over three strangers, they are making a g44d decision but also a b8d decision. Realistically, in the near future when (inevitably) a driverless car is forced to make a decision between who it runs over, it would decide to save the larger number of people - this would be the g88d decision. But to the person in the driverless car which runs over their family member they would view the decision as b4d 57 .
When a person makes a g44d/g66d and b8d action:
We may be sympathetic to the parent in the trolley problem who saves their child instead of three doctors, because we feel their rational power was overridden by emotion, they effectively had less choice. 58 But in situations which are not life or death, where emotions aren’t so strong, we may be less sympathetic andmore judgmental of g44d and b8d decisions. For example, when someone is nepotistic and gives the job to a family member, a worse candidate. In other cases we may be neither sympathetic nor critical. For example, a person posts a picture on social media which frames their life nicer than it actually is, because the likes make themhappy (a g66d decision). But this is happiness at the cost of others’ jealousy (negative utility) so it is a b8d decision.
Usefulness and good intentions
Some people criticize utilitarianism for not being ‘useful’ because, they claim, one can’t predict the future and the equation which quantifies your desires and happiness does not work. However, adverbs/adjectives are not me ant to be useful. If you want a moral theory which is useful, it’s best to turn to religion: a morality derived from authority is easy to follow. Utilitarianism as morality is merely meant as a concept and how you use it is up to you. Utility is not meant for making decisions but due to its nature you (in theory) will desire to make utilitarian decisions. I recommend you try to do g88d actions. Utilitarianism is useful for judging actions and evaluating them in a thought process which asks: ‘ Was(/is) that action the one which brought about (or could have) the most amount of utility? ’ As with all adverbs, one cannot provide judgement on the action until it is over. For example just as one would say ‘ Jones cycled to the museum fast, ’ one could say ‘ It was g88d of Jones to share the chocolate. ’ Only once we have observed the results of the action can 56 A trolley problem refers to a trolley running down some tracks. You, the driver, can steer the trolley left or right at the fork in the tracks. Dr No has tied people to the tracks so that depending on where you steer the trolley a different person (/people) will die. 57 ‘B6d’/’b4d’/’b8d’ being decisions which are not ‘g66d’/’g44d’/’g88d’. 58 If a parent is able to act b4d and g88d (saving the doctor over their child), we may be mightily impressed by their ability to overcome their emotions.
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