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Hedonistic Act Utilitarianism Action Guidance and Moral Intuitions

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Hedonistic Act Utilitarianism Action Guidance and Moral Intuitions Simon Rosenqvist Dissertation presented at Uppsala University to be publicly examined in University Main Building, Room IV, Biskopsgatan 3, Uppsala, Friday, 3 April 2020 at 13:15 for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The examination will be conducted in English. Faculty examiner: Professor Ben Eggleston (University of Kansas). Abstract Rosenqvist, S. 2020. Hedonistic Act Utilitarianism. Action Guidance and Moral Intuitions. 137 pp. Uppsala: Department of Philosophy, Uppsala University. ISBN 978-91-506-2808-1. According to hedonistic act utilitarianism, an act is morally right if and only if, and because, it produces at least as much pleasure minus pain as any alternative act available to the agent. This dissertation gives a partial defense of utilitarianism against two types of objections: action guidance objections and intuitive objections. In Chapter 1, the main themes of the dissertation are introduced. The chapter also examines questions of how to understand utilitarianism, including (a) how to best formulate the moral explanatory claim of the theory, (b) how to best interpret the phrase "pleasure minus pain," and (c) how the theory is related to act consequentialism. The first part (Chapters 2 and 3) deals with action guidance objections to utilitarianism. Chapter 2 defines two kinds of action guidance: doxastic and evidential guidance. It is argued that utilitarianism is evidentially but not doxastically guiding for us. Chapter 3 evaluates various action guidance objections to utilitarianism. These are the objections that utilitarianism, because it is not doxastically guiding, is a bad moral theory, fails to be a moral theory, is an uninteresting and unimportant moral theory, and is a false moral theory. The second part (Chapters 4, 5 and 6) deals with intuitive objections to utilitarianism. Chapter 4 presents three intuitive objections: Experience Machine, Transplant, and Utility Monster. Three defenses of utilitarianism are subsequently evaluated. Chapter 5 and 6 introduces two alternative defenses of utilitarianism against intuitive objections, both of which concern the role that imagination plays in thought experimentation. In Chapter 5, it is argued that we sometimes unknowingly carry out the wrong thought experiment when we direct intuitive objections against utilitarianism. In many such cases, we elicit moral intuitions that we believe give us reason to reject utilitarianism, but that in fact do not. In Chapter 6, it is argued that using the right kind of sensory imagination when we perform thought experiments will positively affect the epistemic trustworthiness of our moral intuitions. Moreover, it is suggested that doing so renders utilitarianism more plausible. In Chapter 7, the contents of the dissertation are summarized. Keywords: hedonistic act utilitarianism, consequentialism, action guidance, moral intuitions, hedonism, thought experiments, ignorance, imagination, morality, normativity, ethics, moral theory, normative ethics Simon Rosenqvist, Department of Philosophy, Ethics and Social Philosophy, Box 627, Uppsala University, SE-75126 Uppsala, Sweden. © Simon Rosenqvist 2020 ISBN 978-91-506-2808-1 urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-404266 (http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-404266) Acknowledgments I must first thank the person who, far beyond any call to duty, commented on more drafts, excerpts, and chapters of this book than did everyone else com- bined: my supervisor Jens Johansson. His detailed and insightful comments on everything in this book has shaped my discussion and philosophical beliefs in many ways. I could not have finished this project without his help. I am also very grateful to my supervisor Folke Tersman. Over the years, Folke has read and commented on all aspects of the chapters in this book, and has provided numerous helpful comments on the project as a whole. His calm demeanor, persistent encouragement, and constructive suggestions helped me stay on track towards finishing my studies. Other people were also crucial in bringing this project to a close. Special thanks go to David Alm, who acted as my final seminar opponent, as well as Per Algander, Eric Carlson, Sebastian Lutz, and Andrew Reisner for their de- tailed comments on an early draft of the whole book. Moreover, Elinor Mason, Michael Ridge, Jakob Green Werkmäster, Henrik Andersson, Karl Bergman, Rebecca Wallbank, Olle Risberg, Victor Moberger, Caleb Perl, Andrew Moore, and Dorothee Bleisch kindly read and commented on individual chap- ters, helping me improve them in numerous ways. Finally, while writing I have often ventured beyond my limited area of expertise – many thanks to Andreas Stokke, Nils Franzén, Henrik Rhydén, and Nicholas Wiltsher for an- swering naïve questions about philosophical topics I knew nothing (and still know very little) about. Finally, my thanks to Anna Gustafsson for her help in administrative matters. Many other people also deserve thanks for making the Department of Phi- losophy at Uppsala University such a wonderful place, and for the inspiring discussions that we have had over the years. Thank you, Emil Andersson, Jo- han Boberg, Tommaso Braida, Ekrem Çetinkaya, Tomas Ekenberg, Karl Ekendahl, Matti Eklund, Anna Folland, Susanne Gauffin, Elinor Hållén, Mag- nus Jedenheim-Edling, Kasper Kristensen, Guilherme Marques Pedro, Irene Martinez Marin, Patricia Mindus, Carl Montan, Jeremy Page, Jessica Pepp, Elena Prats, Sebastian Andres Reyes Molina, Pauliina Remes, Elisabeth Schellekens Dammann, Rysiek Sliwinski, Maarten Steenhagen, Hallvard Stette, Alexander Stöpfgeshoff, Maria Svedberg, Oda Tvedt, Ulrika Valdeson, and Annika Wennersten. Some people were crucial to enabling my Ph.D. studies in the first place. Special mention goes to Jonas Bååth, with whom I spent many hours in librar- ies, dreaming about future doctoral studies, and to Maria Hansson, with whom I have read and discussed so much philosophy over the years. I am also grate- ful to the Department of Philosophy at Lund University for the years I spent there during my undergraduate and master’s studies – to Wlodek Rabinowicz and Dan Egonsson for their kind tutelage, and to Frits Gåvertsson, Jakob Green Werkmäster, Henrik Andersson, Andrés Garcia, Eric Brandstedt, and Fritz-Anton Fritzon for our highly enjoyable postgraduate seminars and read- ing groups. I have presented drafts of the chapters in this book at several places: at nearly a dozen meetings of the Higher Seminar of Practical Philosophy in Uppsala, at the Swedish Conference of Philosophy in 2015 and 2017, at the Higher Seminar in Practical Philosophy at Lund University in 2017, at the PG- WIP Seminar at Edinburgh University in 2016, at the Cambridge-Uppsala Graduate Workshop in 2017, at the Conference of the International Society for Utilitarian Studies in 2016 and 2018, at the Conference of the British Post- graduate Philosophical Association in 2016, at the Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress in 2017, and at the European Congress for Analytic Philosophy in 2017. My thanks for the helpful comments offered by the audiences at those occasions, which helped me improve this manuscript in various ways. I am honored to have received a number of grants over the years, which helped me fund travels to conferences as well as costs of living. My thanks to Erik and Gurli Hultengren’s Foundation, Anna Maria Lundin’s Scholarship Fund, Ekmans V’s Scholarship Fund, Håkansson’s Travel Stipend, Helge Ax:son Johnsson’s Foundation, Anders Karitz’s Foundation, and Svanberg’s Scholarship Fund. I am also very grateful to Edinburgh’s Department of Phi- losophy for letting me visit them for four months in 2016. Most of all, I owe my family for their enduring support over the past few years. Special thanks to my mother, Jane Asplund Rosenqvist, for unwavering encouragement and support, and for helping me take care of my little son Cas- pian during the final and most intense period of writing. And most im- portantly, thanks to Milena Siegrist, my partner and love, for careful and in- sightful comments on the final manuscript of this book, for crucial emotional support, and for our many intellectually stimulating discussions. For Milena. Contents Acknowledgments......................................................................................... iii 1. Introduction ................................................................................................. 9 1.1 About the Book .................................................................................... 9 1.2 Formulating Utilitarianism ................................................................. 14 1.3 Moral Explanation .............................................................................. 18 1.4 Pleasure minus Pain ........................................................................... 24 1.5 Act Consequentialism ........................................................................ 29 1.6 The Plan of the Book .......................................................................... 31 2. Action Guidance ....................................................................................... 33 2.1 Action Guidance: A First Take .......................................................... 33 2.2 Action Guiding for Us ........................................................................ 35 2.3 Explicit Cognitive Action Guidance .................................................. 37 2.4 Doxastic and Evidential Guidance ....................................................
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