Preference utilitarianism argues that an action is good in so far as it maximises the first preferences of all sentient beings affected by the decision.

A particular view of “morally significant beings”.

Consequentialist.

Universal and impartial (objective) in viewpoint.

Includes all sentient beings (eg higher order primates), but not all humans (eg children under four weeks and the disabled are excluded).

1. People over four weeks are rational and able to state preferences/have interests. Four weeks is for Singer the key point – but why four weeks? Why not birth? Or ten weeks?

2. People are replaceable.

3. Higher order primates (eg great apes) have interests and these need to be taken into account in moral decision-making.

A being has full moral status when they have a sense of self, biography, and identity in history.

“Beings who cannot see themselves as entities with a future cannot have any preferences about their own future existence", (Practical Ethics p. 94-5).

Preference utilitarianism can only apply to humans over the age of "about four weeks", and higher order primates like orangutans, gorillas and chimps.

“By 'best consequences', I understand that which satisfies the most preferences, weighted un accordance with the strength of the preferences.”

“The good to be maximized by our actions is not a net gain in pleasure or happiness, but instead a net gain in preferences fulfilled” (60).

Peter Singer

Singer has recently claimed to accept the existence of an objective morality, in line with the idea of equal consideration of interests. (see next slide)

Ethics assumes that we should make decisions not from a self-serving point of view, but from a universal, non-personal, objective view point. Singer believes that preference utilitarianism and his Principle of Equal Consideration of Interests is the bestway to facilitate such a principle.

The Principle of Equal Consideration of Interests states that we should regard everyone’s interests equally when making decisions.

“Species is, in itself, as irrelevant to moral status as race or sex. Hence all beings with interests are entitled to equal consideration: that is, we should not give their interests any less consideration that we give to the similar interests of members of our own species.”

Peter Singer

Humans are replaceable

Two tiers of human being

Animals have rights

Wealth should be redistributed

Future generations have interests which need to be calculated

No-one should deliberately cause pain to another human being or animal. That is intrinsically evil. So as long as, say a chicken is killed painlessly it can be replaced by a happier chicken, this is a moral good.

Replacing a sick child by a healthy child is a moral good, as long as it is under four weeks. Over four weeks and it should have its interests and when able to, its preferences taken into account in the empirical calculation.

Act utilitarianism applies to those who cannot choose for themselves.

Higher order humans may decide on AU grounds to kill

- A baby under four weeks

- A disabled person unable to state preferences

- A foetus or infant who can be replaced by a happier one.

Singer argues for a new first commandment “recognise the value of human life varies”.

“If the foetus does not have the same claim to life as a person, it appears that the newborn baby does not either, and the life of a newborn baby is of less value to it than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee is to the nonhuman animal.”

Peter Singer

Singer argues that all sentient creatures have the right to be protected from pain.

As they cannot express preferences their interests are limited. So Singer does not wholly oppose the killing of animals for meat, only that it be done painlessly.

He deplores the methods used in modern farming, so he argues that we should all be vegetarians in order to reduce animal suffering.

Singer argues that all wealth and income over a certain level should be redistributed to maximise the pleasure and the ability to choose of the maximum number of people.

Singer himself gives away all his income over a certain level.

Preference utilitarianism is often criticized on the grounds that some preferences are misinformed, crazy, horrendous, or trivial. I might prefer to drink the liquid in a glass because I think that it is beer, though it really is strong acid. Or I might prefer to die merely because I am clinically depressed. Or I might prefer to torture children. Or I might prefer to spend my life learning to write as small as possible. In all such cases, opponents of preference utilitarianism can deny that what I prefer is really good. Preference utilitarians can respond by limiting the preferences that make something good, such as referring to informed desires that do not disappear after therapy (Brandt 1979). (Source Stanford Encyclopaedia)

The consequence of utilitarianism is that we are unable to morally justify personal relationships. Singer weakly attempts to defend the compatibility of utilitarianism and personal relationships, which are “of their nature, partial” (Singer 1993:244). However, it seems that the two are not possible to reconcile. Preference utilitarianism replaces the value of partial relationships with a cold, moral bureaucracy, in which everyone is treated equally.

"…Singer's focus on sentient animals condemns the vast majority of the planet's inhabitants to 'a state of thinghood, having no intrinsic worth, acquiring instrumental value only as resources for the well-being of an elite of sentient beings.” (Fellenz, 2007:71).

He seems to value animals above babies under four weeks – this seems inconsistent. Why should higher primates have interests and babies not?

“If we were to follow Singer's argument, it would require an almost "…total ban on agriculture, scientific, and commercial uses of animals" (2007:63). This, it is argued, is not practical on many grounds. First, who is to say that the human good derived from exploiting animals is not greater than the harm caused to them? Additionally, "the domestication of animals for food is such a central institution in the history of human civilization that the practice is readily declared 'natural' and 'necessary,' with the implication that it is thereby exempt from moral evaluation" (2007:64).” Marc Fellenz

“If curing cancer requires doing research that requires the death of ten infants, then the infants should be sacrificed for the cause.”

Mark Oppenheimer

Religious or natural law views of sanctity of human life are restrictive and outdated.

If we have rights only insofar as we can state preferences, then what about those humans, like the severely retarded, who lack preferences? What about newborn infants, who prefer to eat, excrete, and avoid pain, but prefer little else?

"If we regard time as a fourth dimension, then we can think of the universe, throughout all the times at which it contains sentient life, as a four-dimensional entity. We can then make that four-dimensional world a better place by causing there to be less pointless suffering in one particular place, at one particular time, than there otherwise would have been. . . . Sisyphus might find meaning in his life, if, instead of rolling the same stone endlessly up the hill, he could roll many stones to the top and build a beautiful temple with them.“

Peter Singer How are we to live?

http://alcor.concordia.ca/~gnosis/vol_x_1/Jordan%20Glass.pdf

Fellenz, Marc R. "Utilitarian Arguments: The Value of Animal Experience." The Moral Menagerie: Philosophy and Animal Rights. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2007.

Objective and impartial “equal consideration of interests”

Fair – every preference counts (and it’s easier to measure preferences than hedons)

Considers animal rights as relevant (environment and species matter)

But.... Discriminates against the weak (eg disabled) Has arbitrary definition of personhood at four

weeks old Assumes higher primates can have interests