Am I actually an utilitarian?

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Sicnoo0
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Joined: Sun Jun 25, 2023 2:34 pm
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Am I actually an utilitarian?

Post by Sicnoo0 »

I tend to believe I would be accurately described as a negative utilitarian, but when it comes to utilitarianism in general there's something that troubles me.
Some people argue that the distinction between rule utilitarianism and act utilitarianism is actually a misconception and there really is only one kind of utilitarianism. In other words, they argue that rule utilitarianism actually collapses down into act utilitarianism.

I somewhat agree with this position, but for the sake of the argument let's say rule utilitarianism and act utilitarianism are two different things.

In that case, one reason you should not be an act utilitarian is that the position asserts that it's okay to harvest living people for organs in order to save other peoples' lives.

I hesitate to accept that I should be a rule utilitarian, though. I feel like it's okay to make exceptions in situations where you have to in order to do the right thing. I find it a little ridiculous to say that an action was wrong simply because it would be a bad thing if everybody as a society considered it okay to do that in general.

I don't know what to make of the fact that I seem to be neither a rule utilitarian nor an act utilitarian.

In my day-to-day life I definitely feel like I'm some sort of act utilitarian, yet I'm not really sure if that's true.

If it's of any relevance, I also think I would be described as a moral anti-realist. I don't think any statement about what's moral can ever be truth apt. Nonetheless, the reason I consider myself a negative utilitarian is that I operate under the assumption that what we should ultimately value as a society is the prevention and minimization of harm.
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