Lecture 32: Utilitarian Theory, Pt. III
Lecture objectives:
 To develop greater familiarity with utilitarian
analysis by assessing a case
 To identify the strengths and weaknesses of the
utilitarian approach to morality
 To explore Singer’s weak utilitarian response to
Rachels’ challenge re. a duty of famine relief
 To distinguish between duty and charity
Strengths of the utilitarian approach:
1. It captures our common sense intuition that
consequences matter.
2. It identifies improving the human condition as a
worthy moral goal.
3. It offers a rational basis for evaluating what is
morally right.
3. It has a broad scope.
4. It is impartial and egalitarian
5. It gives an account of our obligations to others.
Weaknesses of the utilitarian approach:
1. It makes illegitimate interpersonal comparisons: a)
the relative importance of needs of different people
and b) the magnitude of each individual’s satisfaction
cannot be reliably measured.
But is this a fair critique of utilitarianism?
“We have a well-founded belief that starvation hurts most people
more than a shortage of grape-fruit, and no knowledge how
much more it will hurt even ourselves tomorrow; and it is on
such beliefs that we have to act; we can never know either our
objective duty or our objective long-run interest” (Carritt)
2. It does not seem to allow any room for justice.
3. It is not impartial about the value of particular
pleasures and pains.
4. It cannot accommodate promise-keeping.
5. It is too simplistic.
6. It conceives of moral agents in a distorted way.
7. It conflates obligation and inclination. (Kant)
Singer, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”
Recall where we left off with Rachels:
 the ethical egoist position fails: there is no basis
upon which my needs are any more relevant to me than
those of any other person are to him or her
“We should care about the interests of other people for the very
same reason we care about our own interests; for their
needs and desires are comparable to our own.”
Singer’s argument:
1. Suffering and death from lack of food, shelter and
medical care are bad.
2. If it is within our power to prevent something bad
from happening, without thereby sacrificing
anything of comparable moral importance, we
ought morally to do it.
3. Therefore, we should contribute to famine relief as
a matter of duty.
Duty vs. Charity
Common ‘Yes, but’ replies to the argument:
1. proximity or distance makes a moral difference
2. number of relevantly situated moral agents
makes a moral difference
If these are morally relevant, then either:
a) there is an even weaker duty to give for famine relief
than Singer supposes, or
b) to give for famine relief is an act of charity.
But Singer argues:
 if the primary moral fact is the fact of suffering, it
should make little difference how many people are in a
position to contribute or how far away the sufferers
are.
 an evaluation of “comparable moral importance”
must be done with reference to this primary moral fact.
Would we be sacrificing anything of comparable moral
value (relative to the suffering of the starving) if we
gave up on our luxuries for famine relief?
Singer argues:
 we should give at levels of our own marginal utility
 our resistance to this duty reflects a distortion of our
moral conceptual scheme
 How we tend to see famine relief:
Charity = doing what is good or beneficent
From carus (L.), dear
 “generosity”, mercy, kindness, compassion
 remedying misfortune
 not required
 admirable but not morally praise/blameworthy
 motivated by emotional or psychological
identification with the other
 How we should see famine relief:
Duty = doing what is right
From debere (L.), to owe (as in a debt), e.g., Fr. DÛ
 “morality”, the moral point of view, justice
 remedying unfairness, maintaining fairness
 required
 morally praise/blameworthy
 justified in relation to morally relevant criteria
 it’s not just unfortunate that these people are
suffering, it’s unfair given that we have resources
available to alleviate their suffering and to not
jeopardize our own well-being.