Utilitarianism and Intrinsic Moral Values

Chapter 10 of The Fundamentals of Ethics by Shafer Landau discusses various difficulties of consequentialism, particularly utilitarianism. Some problems include the absence of an accurate measurement of well-being, the demanding nature of utilitarianism, the problem of injustice and the rejection of intrinsic values. Among those challenges, utilitarianism’ denial of an action having intrinsic wrongness of rightness has drawn my attention.

The Importance of Luxury Needs

In the book The Ethical Life, Shafer-Landau introduces an essay by Peter Singer (229-236) on a solution to eradicate world poverty. Singer’s main point is that people should stop spending on non-essential needs. Instead, anyone who believes that helping a starving child is morally right is morally obliged to donating his extraneous income to foreign aid organizations. Singer’s argument can be summarized in argument form as follow:

Obligation to Do What's Right?

Link to article: Apathy towards injured kid

This article reports an accident in China, where a 2-year-old girl was hit twice by two vans one after another. The little girl was left bleeding on the road side for over 15 minutes and eventually died in the hospital. During the time she lied bleeding on the road, 18 people walked by, saw her injured body, but chose to do nothing to help the kid. Millions of people around the world have decried this “lack of morals” in the Chinese society.