Utilitarianism condones killing of innocent human beings, even murder, if it makes the world a better place.
These theories, deontology, the moral rights theory, and utilitarianism, contradict one another. Moreover, they give conflicting (inconsistent) recommendations. It is hence not possible to hold them together, in a pursuit of moral truth.
Once we realise that utilitarianism comes with the idea of blameworthy rightdoing (such as when you push a big man onto the tracks in order to save five lives) and blameless wrongdoing (such as when you don't push a big man onto the tracks in order to save five lives), then utilitarianism all of a sudden appears to give the right answers.
When I was in my late teens I was already interested in philosophy.
I have now come to the conclusion (roughly) that capital punishment is defensible, if it can be shown to have a deterrent effect on murder. In that case, a few executions save not only some people from being murdered but also some people from becoming murders.
The perspective that many today are beginning to see as fully realistic is that democracy in our country, and in our part of the world, will suffer the same fate as the Swedish monarchy did before. The democracy is beeing emptied of all power political content at the same time as the forms remain, treated with reverence and preservasion.
It is obvious that humanity faces existential threats of a global nature. They are global in the sense that is not possible to deal with them unless we resort to global governance.
I look at the most promising putative moral theories. I construct crucial thought experiments in areas where they give conflicting advice. I confront their conflicting advice with my own moral sensitivity, my moral intuition. I take the theory that can best explain the content of my intuitions as gaining inductive support through an inference to the best explanation.
It is quite possible that we will soon come to live under some sort of global despotism, enlightened or not. This is not a nice prospect. And there is only one way of avoiding that this happens: to establish a global democracy. And it is not too late to strive for such a democracy, of a straightforward populist nature, where people on the globe elect a world parliament, which in turn elects a world government.
There are some particular moral truths that I believe we have access to (such as the one not to inflict pain on a sentient being for no reason).
What we need is legislation, not negotiation, for the entire globe.
In many European countries we have populist indirect democratic systems. The people elect, in a proportionate manner, a parliament. The parliament with all its parties is representative of the political opinions among the citizens. It is reasonable to claim that the people rule itself through the political institutions.
To kill or not to kill, that was the question that haunted me.
It is hard to tell if capital punishment has such an effect. And even if, in some contexts it has (such as in the American South with a very high incidence of murder), this effect may very well go away if a decent welfare state was replaced for the existing social order.
I have been brought up in a culture where capital punishment is indeed anathema. I have always thought of myself as a principled opponent to capital punishment. However, when thinking about how the topic is handled in other cultures, in particular the American, Russian and Chinese ones, I have realised that my own tack on the issue was utterly superficial.
I do believe that what I have called populist democracy is to be preferred to what I have called elitist democracy.
One way of submitting your moral intuitions in relation to some issue to cognitive therapy is to learn more about how people in other cultures think about it.
It is true that it feels very differently to enjoy a good meal, taking part in an interesting conversation, or to think of how successful your children are. Suppose we do all these things at a particular time. How happy are we at the time? We do not need to calculate the value of each such feelings on any singular scale to answer this question. We need not see our happiness at the time as a mathematical function of these items. It is rather that all these experiences, together with many other factors, causally puts us at the time at a certain level of happiness, i.e. in a certain mood.
The Chinese are generally speaking much more reluctant than Westerners to killing as a means to the rescue of lives.
I am a left winger, thought.
Normative ethics, pursued as a free, systematic, and critical attempt to find moral truth, regardless of religious and other authorities, is a rather new adventure. Let's wait and see what will happen!
I am indeed a hedonistic utilitarian. I have defended hedonistic utilitarianism for quite a while.
The democratic thought is based on that 'ordinary people' are suitable to rule themselves.
If two norms conflict, if they are mutually inconsistent, then at least one of them must be false.
You should not take the content of your intuitive response as evidence until you have submitted your psychological reaction to what I call cognitive psychotherapy. You should do what you can to learn as much as possible about the origin of your reaction.
