University:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Course:
24.04J | Justice
Academic year:

2023
Views:

285

Pages:

1
Author:

glih8c4

Justice 3/8/2012 TA: Sophie Horowitz I. Nozick’s objection to Utilitarianism Setup: Consider a case where we chop up Ryan to give his organs to ﬁve people. (We can imagine that this is part of an eﬃciently-run Survival Lottery, to make it cleaner.) Utilitarianism says we should chop him up. But intuitively, this seems bad; it seems like Ryan’s rights are being violated. Nozick considers two objections to Utilitarianism: Objection 1: Keep consequentialism, reject hedonism. Be a “Utilitarian of rights”. New proposal: “Act so as to minimize rights violations”. What’s wrong with this new proposal? Objection 2: Get rid of consequentialism, view rights as side-constraints. According to Nozick, why does consequentialism gets the wrong answer about chopping up Ryan? II. Nozick’s positive view Nozick’s view is that rights are side-constraints. What does that mean? In particular, Nozick thinks there is a fundamental side-constraint against aggression. What does he mean? To help think about this, compare the following two cases: 1. Chopping Up Ryan (again) Ryan has healthy organs; ﬁve other people need transplants. You’re the surgeon. Your options: 1. Chop up Ryan. Ryan dies; the ﬁve live. 2. Don’t chop up Ryan. Ryan lives; the ﬁve die. 2. Volcanic Islands All of the TAs and Prof. Stancyzk are shipwrecked and wash up on two separate islands.  ere are active volcanoes on both islands, about to erupt. You are in a plane. You have enough gas to ﬂy to just one island and save whoever’s washed up there; whoever’s on the other island will suﬀer a painful, ﬁery death. Your options: 1. Fly to the big island. Prof. Stanczyk dies; TAs live. 1 2: Fly to the small island. Prof. Stanczyk lives; TAs die. What does Utilitarianism say about these two cases? Nozick will make a distinction between the two. How could we spell out that distinction? 1 Choose wisely