IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/utilit/v12y2000i01p1-24_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the Cross of Mere Utility: Utilitarianism, Sacrifices, and the Value of Persons

Author

Listed:
  • Noggle, Robert

Abstract

Utilitarianism seems to require us to sacrifice a person if doing so will produce a net increase in the amount of utility. This feature of utilitarianism is extremely unattractive. The puzzle is how to reject this requirement without rejecting the plausible claim that we are often wise to trade lesser amounts of utility for greater amounts. I argue that such a position is not as paradoxical as it may appear, so long as we understand the relationship between the value of utility and the value of persons in a certain way. I argue that the traditional utilitarian position assumes an inadequate view of this relationship. I suggest a more plausible view of this relationship, one which implies that we may not sacrifice a person merely in order to produce a net gain in utility, where that utility does not result from the saving of any other persons' lives.

Suggested Citation

  • Noggle, Robert, 2000. "On the Cross of Mere Utility: Utilitarianism, Sacrifices, and the Value of Persons," Utilitas, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(1), pages 1-24, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:utilit:v:12:y:2000:i:01:p:1-24_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0953820800002582/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:utilit:v:12:y:2000:i:01:p:1-24_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/uti .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.