If our moral choices must take into account considerations of justice, then apparent utilitarianism cannot be the only principle that guides our decisions. However, it can play a role in these decisions. The principle of utilitarianism invites us to take into account the immediate and less immediate consequences of our actions. Faced with its insistence on summarizing the advantages and demagoguers of all human beings, utilitarianism invites us to look beyond self-interest to take into account impartially the interests of all those concerned by our actions. As John Stuart Mill once wrote: Harsanyi adds two reservations. First, people sometimes have irrational preferences. To address this, Harsanyi distinguishes between "manifest" and "true" preferences. The first are those "which manifest themselves in his observed behaviour, including preferences that may be based on false factual convictions, [necessary clarifications] or on a negligent logical analysis or on strong emotions which, at present, strongly impede rational choice;" while the latter are the preferences he would have, if he had all the relevant factual information , always founded with the utmost care and be in a state of mind that would be best placed for rational choice. [57]:55 It is the latter who tries to satisfy the preferred utilitarianism. The paradigm of coherence is utilitarianism, whose classical supporters were Jeremy Bentham (1789), John Stuart Mill (1861) and Henry Sidgwick (1907). (For previous ones, see The Snow Wind 1997, 2002.) Classical utilitarians have held the hedonistic act consistently. The consensus is the assertion that an action is morally correct if and only if that action maximizes the good, i.e.

if and only if the total amount of good for all minus the total of the bad for all is greater than that net amount for each irreconcilable act that the agent disposes of on that occasion. (cf. Moore 1912, 1-2.) Hedonism then affirms that pleasure is the only intrinsic good and that pain is the only intrinsic evil. William Shaw suggests that the problem can be avoided by distinguishing between potential people who do not have to deal with us and future people who should be of concern to us. He says: "Utilitarianism appreciates people`s happiness, not the production of units of happiness. As a result, there is no positive obligation to have children. But if you have chosen a child, you have a duty to give birth to the happiest child you can make. [127] A second set of problems for classical utilitarianism is epistemmatic. Classical utilitarianism seems to require agents to calculate all the consequences of each action for each person for all periods. That`s impossible. The indirect nature of such a dominant utilitarianism offers an opportunity to remain consistent and nevertheless capture the general moral intuition that it is immoral to perform the transplant in the above situation. Suppose people generally accept a rule that allows a doctor to transplant organs from a healthy person without consent if the doctor thinks the transplant will maximize the benefits.

The widespread adoption of this rule would lead to many transplants that will not maximize the benefits, since physicians (like most people) are prone to errors in predicting consequences and balancing care. Also, if the rule is known publicly, then patients fear that it could be used as an organ source, so they are less likely to go to a doctor if they need it.

If our moral choices must take into account considerations of justice, then apparent utilitarianism cannot be the only principle that guides our decisions. However, it can play a role in these decisions. The principle of utilitarianism invites us to take into account the immediate and less immediate consequences of our actions. Faced with its insistence on summarizing the advantages and demagoguers of all human beings, utilitarianism invites us to look beyond self-interest to take into account impartially the interests of all those concerned by our actions. As John Stuart Mill once wrote: Harsanyi adds two reservations. First, people sometimes have irrational preferences. To address this, Harsanyi distinguishes between "manifest" and "true" preferences. The first are those "which manifest themselves in his observed behaviour, including preferences that may be based on false factual convictions, [necessary clarifications] or on a negligent logical analysis or on strong emotions which, at present, strongly impede rational choice;" while the latter are the preferences he would have, if he had all the relevant factual information , always founded with the utmost care and be in a state of mind that would be best placed for rational choice. [57]:55 It is the latter who tries to satisfy the preferred utilitarianism. The paradigm of coherence is utilitarianism, whose classical supporters were Jeremy Bentham (1789), John Stuart Mill (1861) and Henry Sidgwick (1907). (For previous ones, see The Snow Wind 1997, 2002.) Classical utilitarians have held the hedonistic act consistently. The consensus is the assertion that an action is morally correct if and only if that action maximizes the good, i.e.

if and only if the total amount of good for all minus the total of the bad for all is greater than that net amount for each irreconcilable act that the agent disposes of on that occasion. (cf. Moore 1912, 1-2.) Hedonism then affirms that pleasure is the only intrinsic good and that pain is the only intrinsic evil. William Shaw suggests that the problem can be avoided by distinguishing between potential people who do not have to deal with us and future people who should be of concern to us. He says: "Utilitarianism appreciates people`s happiness, not the production of units of happiness. As a result, there is no positive obligation to have children. But if you have chosen a child, you have a duty to give birth to the happiest child you can make. [127] A second set of problems for classical utilitarianism is epistemmatic. Classical utilitarianism seems to require agents to calculate all the consequences of each action for each person for all periods. That`s impossible. The indirect nature of such a dominant utilitarianism offers an opportunity to remain consistent and nevertheless capture the general moral intuition that it is immoral to perform the transplant in the above situation. Suppose people generally accept a rule that allows a doctor to transplant organs from a healthy person without consent if the doctor thinks the transplant will maximize the benefits.

The widespread adoption of this rule would lead to many transplants that will not maximize the benefits, since physicians (like most people) are prone to errors in predicting consequences and balancing care. Also, if the rule is known publicly, then patients fear that it could be used as an organ source, so they are less likely to go to a doctor if they need it.

If our moral choices must take into account considerations of justice, then apparent utilitarianism cannot be the only principle that guides our decisions. However, it can play a role in these decisions. The principle of utilitarianism invites us to take into account the immediate and less immediate consequences of our actions. Faced with its insistence on summarizing the advantages and demagoguers of all human beings, utilitarianism invites us to look beyond self-interest to take into account impartially the interests of all those concerned by our actions. As John Stuart Mill once wrote: Harsanyi adds two reservations. First, people sometimes have irrational preferences. To address this, Harsanyi distinguishes between "manifest" and "true" preferences. The first are those "which manifest themselves in his observed behaviour, including preferences that may be based on false factual convictions, [necessary clarifications] or on a negligent logical analysis or on strong emotions which, at present, strongly impede rational choice;" while the latter are the preferences he would have, if he had all the relevant factual information , always founded with the utmost care and be in a state of mind that would be best placed for rational choice. [57]:55 It is the latter who tries to satisfy the preferred utilitarianism. The paradigm of coherence is utilitarianism, whose classical supporters were Jeremy Bentham (1789), John Stuart Mill (1861) and Henry Sidgwick (1907). (For previous ones, see The Snow Wind 1997, 2002.) Classical utilitarians have held the hedonistic act consistently. The consensus is the assertion that an action is morally correct if and only if that action maximizes the good, i.e.

if and only if the total amount of good for all minus the total of the bad for all is greater than that net amount for each irreconcilable act that the agent disposes of on that occasion. (cf. Moore 1912, 1-2.) Hedonism then affirms that pleasure is the only intrinsic good and that pain is the only intrinsic evil. William Shaw suggests that the problem can be avoided by distinguishing between potential people who do not have to deal with us and future people who should be of concern to us. He says: "Utilitarianism appreciates people`s happiness, not the production of units of happiness. As a result, there is no positive obligation to have children. But if you have chosen a child, you have a duty to give birth to the happiest child you can make. [127] A second set of problems for classical utilitarianism is epistemmatic. Classical utilitarianism seems to require agents to calculate all the consequences of each action for each person for all periods. That`s impossible. The indirect nature of such a dominant utilitarianism offers an opportunity to remain consistent and nevertheless capture the general moral intuition that it is immoral to perform the transplant in the above situation. Suppose people generally accept a rule that allows a doctor to transplant organs from a healthy person without consent if the doctor thinks the transplant will maximize the benefits.

The widespread adoption of this rule would lead to many transplants that will not maximize the benefits, since physicians (like most people) are prone to errors in predicting consequences and balancing care. Also, if the rule is known publicly, then patients fear that it could be used as an organ source, so they are less likely to go to a doctor if they need it.