Examples Of Restricted Utilitarianism

Because of their desire to know truth, philosophers rightly scrutinize the ideas they come across. However, the conclusions that philosophers arrive upon after dissecting a theory tends to be a bit extreme. They tend to discount entire theories if it has poor support of if it cannot hold its ground during edge cases. If a theory isn’t 100% sound, the atmosphere around the conversation makes the theory seem 100% wrong. Although Dworkin is correct that unrestricted utilitarianism cannot account for equality, his argument that neutral utilitarianism on its own is self-contradictory is wrong due to his misunderstanding of his own definition of utilitarianism. Once we address this major shortcoming and make sure that the project itself is valid,

A thought experiment creates a world centered around Sarah. An example of a world with corrupted utilitarianism is if Sarah’s preferences are twice as important as anyone else’s. Now let’s imagine a world where preferences are satisfied in accordance with neutral utilitarianism, and this world is also filled with Sarah-lovers. The main preference of Sarah-lovers is that Sarah’s preferences count for double in the overall utility equation, and if Sarah’s preferences aren’t fulfilled, these people will be unsatisfied because their Sarah-loving preferences are unsatisfied. Dworkin says that this case is the same as the corrupted utilitarianism case. Without check, neutral utilitarianism shifted into corrupt utilitarianism because Sarah will receive a disproportionate amount of goods and services which in itself disregards the egalitarian project of neutral

He asserts that no one will be favored during preference fulfillment under neutral utilitarianism. He also states that “utilitarianism must claim truth for itself” and be against any theory that logically opposes it (Dworkin 155). Dworkin thinks unrestricted neutral utilitarianism is self-contradictory because impartial preference fulfillment leads to an unequal distribution of resources which is inherently partial – in Dworkin’s words: “neutral provision is then self-undermining (Dworkin 155).” This is where I disagree with Dworkin’s