Final Paper Topic

Utilitarianism will usually explain our decisions about right and wrong quite well. For instance a utilitarian could easily show how his theory demonstrates the immoral nature of an action like child molestation. Although the pedophile does gain some pleasure, his victim suffers a life time of tragic consequences, which massively outweigh the gain to the molester. So total aggregate happiness is not increased and the action is therefore immoral according to their theory. However, imagine that you see a dangerously overweight child eating a triple-decker ice cream cone. Only a few feet away are three very poor, underfed and envious children.

You decide to take the ice cream from the overweight child and give it to the three starving waifs. This seems like a win-win. The overweight child is momentarily unhappy but it is better for his health, and ultimately overall, for him not to eat that ice cream. The three poor children get a welcome treat that they would otherwise rarely get. and because of its rarity it will have no negative health effects for them. If, as it seems, everyone wins then utility would seem to say this is the morally right thing to do. However that choice doesn't seem right. There are lots of reasons why, but none of those reasons seem to be utility.

Can a utilitarian answer this and show that utility does give us the answer which we know to be correct, and that those 'other reasons', which seemed to be something other than utility, really amount to utility?

General comments: This paper topic is somewhat more involved than the previous three. It requires you to run through several steps in the argument and could require a somewhat longer paper to adequately discuss it You can either defend utilitarianism or criticise it. (In this case it is almost certainly much easier to defend it.)

If you want to e-mail your paper you are welcome to do so, but do not wait until Monday morning of finals week. I will turn grades in as early as I can, perhaps that morning, and if I don't have your paper by that time, you cannot pass the class. If you do it this way the burden is on you to make sure 1 get it. If the email gets lost; too bad.