How does Utilitarianism Apply to economic Policies and..

Boyish-Tigerlilly · Post by **Boyish-Tigerlilly** » 2005-05-08 11:27pm

How does Utilitarianism, in your opinion, apply to modern economic structures and justice systems? What type of society do you believe is "Utilitarian", not counting the social factors.

To me, a Utilitarian society would allow for Social Liberatarianism or Social Liberalism, while mixing the libera/communitarian economic conerns. But how does justice factor into this, because Rawls seems to have an opposing viewpoint when it and Utility are juxtaposed.

The Guid · Post by **The Guid** » 2005-05-09 07:22am

Yes, with the Utilitarianism of Benthem Justice, the dignity of human life, human rights are all unimportant if you take it to its olgical conclusion. All that matters is that the most amount of people get pleasure compared to pain from it. Therefore, one can extrapolate that if killing, torturing or maiming one man means that the rest of the people lead better lives it is done. So I would agree with the notion that Justice is neccessarily a part of a Utilitarian moral structure.

Economically I am not so sure. I suppose in some ways it is what government try to do, run the economy in such a way as to have the right balance between a competitve market which benefits people and good social welfare which benefits people.

tharkûn · Post by **tharkûn** » 2005-05-09 11:57am

Which brand of utilitarianism do you subscribe to?

The quick answer is that utilitarians tend to weigh options on a case by case basis and make general assumptions about what is most likely to cause benificial outcomes.

For instance the killing people for amusement idea tends to get tossed because long term there is aggregious potential for abuse and the law of unintended consequences most likely will come back and bite you in the ass.

Boyish-Tigerlilly · Post by **Boyish-Tigerlilly** » 2005-05-09 04:00pm

Typically, I try to be a broad-Utilitarian. They are the type that realize rules for society promote general happiness, but if it's not a case that will lead to social paranoia or degredation, it's ok to bend to rule to increase objective happiness/limit suffering. This is because sometimes being a Rule Utiltiarian isn't like even being Utilitarian, rather neo-kantian (at least that's what the dictionary of ethics and politology said at borders).

For example, a more fair justice system suggested by Rawls and a court justice system based on our basic tenets seems to provide a lot of Utility, but it's not intrinsically Utilitarian.

st. mark · Post by **st. mark** » 2005-05-12 07:06am

There is a illustrating story of a village that had two bakers but only one smith. When the smith did a crime, the villagers would not send their only smith awayl, so they sent a baker to jail for the smiths crime.

I doubt that any working legal system is based on a utilitarian ethics, but I guess many systems have been affected by it. If you steal 1million through an armed robbery, selling a forged painting, or cheating it on taxes - the punishment on the three will be different. The smarter criminal is likely to get out of jail first - and where I live that would actually be the forger. Anyone can use a gun, or cheat the IRS, while someone with actual skills is welcome back to society as soon as possible.

If looking only at echonomy, I believe stockmarkets to be an area where ethics is heavily influenced by utilitarism -at least I do not care not for anything except profit. Utilitaristic governments however, I believe would prefer a planned echonomy to a capitalistic system, if a planned system that actually works could be made. So to social-something sounds plausible, while liberalims or libertarianism I believe mainly to be a product of a culture and not of a system.