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Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism Utilitarianism The concept of sustainable development is an attempt to balance two moral demands placed on the environment. The first demand is for development, including economic development or growth. It arises mainly from the interests of people who live in developing countries. Their present poverty gives them a low quality of life and calls urgently for steps to improve their quality of life. The second demand is for sustainability, for ensuring that we do not risk the future in the sake of gains in the present. This arises from the interests of people in the future who will need access to a reasonable quality of life, non-renewable resources, unspoiled wilderness, and a healthy biosphere. These two moral demands do conflict. In fact, economic growth is the prime source of threats to the natural environment. We have a rough sense of what a good quality of life for humans consists of. Also, we can make some rough judgments about when a person's quality of life has increased or decreased. Utilitarianism about future generations says that people should weigh these increases impartially with respect to times. And, in particular, should not prefer a smaller increase in the present well-being to larger increases in the future. We should try to maximize the sum of increases in well-being across times counting future lives equally against those in the present. Our moral goal should always be to produce the greatest total of such gains, no matter by whom they are enjoyed. Utilitarianism has been extensively discussed by philosophers, and many objections have been raised against it. Two objections are especially relevant here. First, utilitarianism is an extremely, even excessively demanding moral view for most humans. If we have a duty always to bring about the best outcome, than any time we can increase the well-being of others (which is just about at any time), we have a moral duty to do so. There is no moral time off, no moral relaxation, nor is there a moral holiday. Humans are always duty bound to sacrificing something for the benefit of others at a given time. Second, utilitarianism can favor unequal distributions of well-being. In particular, it can impose severe deprivations on the few for the sake of gains for the many. Given its interpretations of impartiality, utilitarianism will count the deprivations of the few as a moral cost. But, if they produce benefits for enough people, this cost will be outweighed. Even a severe inequality can be balanced out and approved of by a utilitarian. Some philosophers, feeling the force of these objections, have proposed replacing utilitarianism about future generations with an egalitarian view. This view cares not just about the sum of benefits across generations, but also about their equitable distribution. We do not sacrifice the worst-off generation for better-off generations, but aim at equality of conditions among them. This egalitarian view can take many forms, but a good version has been proposed by Brian Barry. He says that each generation has a duty to pass on to its successors a total range of resources and opportunities that is at least as good as its own.[1] Those generations that enjoy favorable conditions of life must pass on similar circumstances of life to their future. However, generations that are les...This is ONLY a preview of the article. If you would like to view the entire document, you must subscribe to Electronic References. Please register below now! Get This Full Article After Registration
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