The Economist on Moral Philosophy

Economics Political Theory
1

Goodness has nothing to do with it

"…Dr Bartels and Dr Pizarro knew from previous research that around 90% of people refuse the utilitarian act of killing one individual to save five. What no one had previously inquired about, though, was the nature of the remaining 10%…

…They found a strong link between utilitarian answers to moral dilemmas (push the fat guy off the bridge) and personalities that were psychopathic, Machiavellian or tended to view life as meaningless. Utilitarians, this suggests, may add to the sum of human happiness, but they are not very happy people themselves.

That does not make utilitarianism wrong. Crafting legislation—one of the main things that Bentham and Mill wanted to improve—inevitably involves riding roughshod over someone’s interests. Utilitarianism provides a plausible framework for deciding who should get trampled. The results obtained by Dr Bartels and Dr Pizarro do, though, raise questions about the type of people who you want making the laws. Psychopathic, Machiavellian misanthropes? Apparently, yes."

I’m simply dumbfounded by the magazine’s idiotic analysis and conclusion. (Bolded was mine.)

2

Utilitarianism is incomplete. All utilitarianism is concerned with is the attainment of ends, it doesn not say what ends people choose to seek.

3

Article on utilitarianism I don’t necessarily agree with:

https://forum.freecapitalists.org/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Components.PostAttachments/00.00.43.74.11/MoralityandUtility.doc

4

Keep in mind that the utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill is not the same as the utilitarianism of von Mises.

With that out of the way, maybe this article is intended as a defense against people claiming that most politicians and many other government officials are psychopaths. “Yes, they may be psychopaths, but is that such a bad thing?” My gut response is not appropriate for this forum.