A Critique of Utilitarianism

Williams; A Critique of Utilitarianism I. Williams starts by saying that utilitarianism, since it only cares about consequences of actions, doesn t care abou t how the act was brought about. So there s no distinction between, say 1. Agent X doing an act Y because X freely wanted to do Y 2. Agent Z forcing X to do Y, since X didn t want to do Y 3. Agent X accide ntally d oing Y And there shouldn t be a distinction between them, because all the utilitarian cares about is does Y bring about the greatest happiness overall, or not? So it s not important whether X wanted to do Y, did Y on purpose, did Y because he/she was forced to do so, etc. All that matters are the consequ ences of doing Y. II. Williams states that utilitarianism must contain what he calls a doctrine of negative re sponsibility . What this means is this: let s say that in a specific situation I can do X or Y. X brings about the greatest happiness. Y is basically doing nothing (which is an option). I choose Y. Since Y does not bring about the greatest happiness, I am blamew orthy. So a u tilita rian must say t hat ju st as I a m res pon sible for th e thin gs tha t I do , I must also be responsible for the c onse que nces of th e thin gs I don t do. In this case I should have done X, but I didn t. I did Y, which was to do nothing. So I failed to bring abou t the greatest happiness. Another way to look at negative responsibility: Jim and the Indians situation. A man says to Jim if you shoot one Indian, I will let the other 9 live. If you refuse to shoot the 1 Indian, then I will kill all of them . So here s Jim s options Do X: shoot the one Indian. Seems to bring about the best consequences, since the other 9 live. Do Y: refuse to sh oot the Indian. Seems to bring about the w orst consequence s, since all 10 will die. If Jim chooses Y, then it seems that he is negatively responsib le for the dea ths of the 10 Indians. After all, it is his choice th at results in the ir deaths, no ? So in this case it...