首页
登录
职称英语
In the grand scheme of things Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill are normal
In the grand scheme of things Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill are normal
游客
2023-12-06
52
管理
问题
In the grand scheme of things Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill are normally thought of as good guys. Between them, they came up with the ethical theory known as utilitarianism. The goal of this theory is encapsulated in Bentham’s aphorism that "the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation."
It all sounds fine and dandy until you start applying it to particular cases. A utilitarian, for example, might approve of the occasional torture of suspected terrorists—for the greater happiness of everyone else, you understand. That type of observation has led Daniel Bartels at Columbia University and David Pizarro at Cornell to ask what sort of people actually do have a utilitarian outlook on life. Their answers, just published in Cognition, are not comfortable.
One of the classic techniques used to measure a person’s willingness to behave in a utilitarian way is known as trolleyology.
The subject of the study is challenged with thought experiments involving a runaway railway trolley or train carriage. All involve choices, each of which leads to people’s deaths. For example: there are five railway workmen in the path of a runaway carriage. The men will surely be killed unless the subject of the experiment, a bystander in the story, does something. The subject is told he is on a bridge over the tracks. Next to him is a big, heavy stranger. The subject is informed that his own body would be too light to stop the train, but that if he pushes the stranger onto the tracks, the stranger’s large body will stop the train and save the five lives. That, unfortunately, would kill the stranger.
Dr. Bartels and Dr. Pizarro knew from previous research that around 90% of people refuse the utilitarian act of killing one individual to save five. What no one had previously inquired about, though, was the nature of the remaining 10%.
To find out, the two researchers gave 208 undergraduates a battery of trolleyological tests and measured, on a four-point scale, how utilitarian their responses were. Participants were also asked to respond to a series of statements intended to get a sense of their individual psychologies. These statements included, "I like to see fist fights", "The best way to handle people is to tell them what they want to hear", and "When you really think about it, life is not worth the effort of getting up in the morning". Each was asked to indicate, for each statement, where his views lay on a continuum that had "strongly agree" at one end and "strongly disagree" at the other. These statements, and others like them, were designed to measure, respectively, psychopathy, Machiavellianism and a person’s sense of how meaningful life is.
Dr. Bartels and Dr. Pizarro then correlated the results from the trolleyology with those from the personality tests. They found a strong link between utilitarian answers to moral dilemmas(push the fat guy off the bridge)and personalities that were psychopathic, Machiavellian or tended to view life as meaningless. Utilitarians, this suggests, may add to the sum of human happiness, but they are not very happy people themselves.
That does not make utilitarianism wrong. Crafting legislation—one of the main things that Bentham and Mill wanted to improve—inevitably involves riding roughshod over someone’s interests. Utilitarianism provides a plausible framework for deciding who should get trampled. The results obtained by Dr. Bartels and Dr. Pizarro do, though, raise questions about the type of people who you want making the laws. Psychopathic, Machiavellian misanthropes? Apparently, yes. [br] Psychopathic or Machiavellian people are expected to make the laws probably because
选项
A、common people are tired of the current policy-makers.
B、policy-making will be based on utilitarianism.
C、they are good at making laws and policies.
D、they are likely to bring up brand-new policies.
答案
B
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3248356.html
相关试题推荐
Therearesomanythingsaboutourlivesthatbelongtothecontentofcultur
Therearesomanythingsaboutourlivesthatbelongtothecontentofcultur
Therearesomanythingsaboutourlivesthatbelongtothecontentofcultur
Therearesomanythingsaboutourlivesthatbelongtothecontentofcultur
Therearesomanythingsaboutourlivesthatbelongtothecontentofcultur
"Wordsarenamesorlabelsforthings."Thisviewiscalled______insemanticse
Attimesmyheartcriesoutwithlongingtoseeallthesethings.IfIcange
HowtoReduceStressLifeisfullofthingsthatcauseus
HowtoReduceStressLifeisfullofthingsthatcauseus
HowtoReduceStressLifeisfullofthingsthatcauseus
随机试题
WhenaNewYorkerwashikinginEurope,hisSwissfriendkeptsaying"Listen
对于生殖腺的发生,下列哪项说法不恰当A.睾丸决定因子位于Y染色体短臂性决定区
B企业为禽类加工企业,有员工415人,厂房占地15000m2,有一车间、二车间、
中国成人超重和肥胖症预防与控制指南指出,中国成年人男性腰围(),女性腰围(
(2014年)通过收购股权的方式进行并购时,对目标公司进行估值所使用的折现率应是
天麻苷属于A.硫苷 B.吲哚苷 C.酚苷 D.醇苷 E.碳苷
无粘结预应力筋的张拉应严格按设计要求进行。当设计无要求时,通常,在预应力混凝土楼
过分合理化:指外在动机损害了内在动机。下列属于过分合理化的是()。A.有些孩子
共用题干 某运输企业投资400万元,购买了20辆额定吨位为5吨的货车,预计年固
关于混凝土工程定额的说法,正确的有()。A.预制混凝土定额不包括模板制作与安装
最新回复
(
0
)