Utilitarianism
utilitarianismwould permit illusion to be used only on organisms which do not desire knowledge as an end-desire.
I believe what is permissible largely relies on the available resources. For example, until a baby tastes a strawberry it is i ndifferent. If we had enough strawberries for that baby’s lifetime, we would let the baby try the strawberry and eat them throughout its life. If strawberries were a rarity, it may be better the baby never knows of the existence of this rare flavor, else it would desire what it cannot have. Once the baby tries that flavour, the desire will exist and we should now endeavour to maximize the fulfilment of this desire.
Moral luck
Often two people with equal intentions who do the same action will end up suffering different consequences. In the case of moral luck ,the misunderstanding is that due to the differing consequences, utilitarianism would have them punished or rewarded differently. For example, two men are driving under the influence of alcohol. Owing to ‘luck’ , one kills a man and the other does not. Thomas Nagel and Bernard Williams both pointed out in papers entitled ‘Moral Luck’ that people are inclined to pass moral judgement on the consequence but paradoxically do not think people should be judged for things out of their control. While the driver could have prevented the death there was also a strong element of luck impacting the outcome.
Punishments
Another example: Jones punches a man who falls over; Jones is punished for assault. Smith punches a man who falls over and dies; Smith is punished for manslaughter. It would seem similar actions can yield different punishments owing to luck. I concede utilitarianism is open to plenty of debate over what will create the maximum utility. I do not believe utilitarianism would punish Smith and Jones differently. I think utilitarianism would more likely suggest a drink-driving style punishment. To reduce negative utility a blanket punishment system is in place to incentivize people not to do the action which has a relatively small probability of incredibly high negative utility. Or it may be that some regard for disincentivizing the action and some (lesser) regard for the consequence is taken into accou nt. I don’t see the issue with ‘moral luck’ because utilitarianism would issue justice in whichever way was most efficient and moral luck is irrelevant to that. Drink driving is not, in itself, b4/6/8d. One can imagine driving a sports car around a desert while tipsy might be fun. When there is a risk of large amounts of negative utility (i.e. driving tipsy through the streets of London), punishment must be considered. Punishments do not always equate to the moral value of the action but are often necessary to prevent actions which have probabilities of leading to certain negative utility. Someone who is responsible for an immoral action is not necessarily an immoral person: they may try their best to spread g88d but unluckily end up causing pain.
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