Reading Guide 10
1.)Suppose that Grace really loves her daughter Samantha. Now suppose further that Samantha is not doing too well in English and Grace wants to use some of her extra income to hire a tutor. Finally, imagine that this money could also be sent to some very worthy charity which would save the actual lives of some children much poorer than Grace and Sammy. Suppose that Grace gives the money to Samantha's tutor, explain why according to Parfit this act is 1) wrong but 2) blameless. [Hint: Parfit says that actions are blamelessly wrong under very specific circumstances. What are these?]
could have used the money to help save the lives of the the poor children , yet instead used it on her daughter. But, the action is blameless, because her actions were to help another person, Samantha. Grace cannot be blamed because her action, while wrong, was also selfless.
2.) According to Parfit, if we can show that Consequentialism is indirectly self defeating does that mean that Consequentialism is false? Explain why or why not?
-Parfit does agree that Consequentialism is self-defeating, but does not agree that it is false, because he employs a derivative of Consequentialism, known as Collective Consequentialism. CC considers the effects if everyone had the same set of desires and is much less demanding on the individual. But, because Cc is formed from Consequentialism, Parfit does not believe that it is false.
3.) Now explain why Williams thinks that in both of the examples from #ff Utilitarianism conflicts with common sense. [NOTE: the answer is NOT that Utilitarianism says that George should take the job
offer whereas common sense says that he should not. Read the paragraph starting (ff13) "To these dilemmas..." Utilitarianism and common sense disagree not necessarily about what to do (at the end of the article he says that Utilitarianism and common sense actually agree about Jim and Pedro), but they disagree about something else. What is it?]
-Utilitarianism conflicts with common sense on the grounds of integrity. Williams rejects utilitarianism, because utilitarianism often focuses on the idea of negative responsibility, that forces individuals to neglect their own convictions and integrity to follow utilitarianism. While George taking the job allows him to provide for his family, his own happiness is not able to be maximized, as he is sacrificing his own integrity by assisting something he stands against. Jim shooting the Native American allows the others to be saved, but then the responsibility for death is solely on Jim, and he is forced to deal with the damage to his conscience to the rest of his life.