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What Are The Arguments Against Nozick's Utilitarianism

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Throughout life, situations arise that require human beings to make decisions. The question of how one might decide upon such a decision is a difficult one. It is even more strenuous to make a morally right decision. Such an issue is not only seen in the personal lives of individuals, but in society as a whole. Distributive justice concerning access to basic healthcare has been a primary topic of discussion. The attempt to formulate moral principles in response to who obtains medical resources and why does not seem simple. However, some theories have aimed at answering these questions. Stein’s Utilitarianism alongside Nozick’s Libertarianism, for example, set out different plausible perspectives. Although some objections… Utilitarianism …show more content…
Some of these objections are reasonable, but once examined closely they do not tend to proceed. Critics believe that Utilitarianisms lack of concern for distribution of welfare is implausible. The theory holds that any “increase in the sum of welfare can justify a widely uneven distribution of welfare.” This means that the purpose would no longer be to maximize welfare or equalize it. Also welfare is not distributed, but resources are. To say “distribution of welfare” changes the meaning of welfare to resources. Another critique states that utilitarianism produces counterintuitive results in cases that involve aggregation. This is not the case. SUPPOSE many individuals are provided small benefits and few individuals are provided large benefits. The utilitarian will aggregate the benefits of each group and whichever sum is greater should be helped. The term aggregation “describes the process of summing up benefits, not the decision to help the many or the few.” The greatest happiness is not of the greatest number. Another objection to Utilitarianism that is quite common is represented by deontological constraints. There is much criticism towards the Utilitarian example of murdering one person in order to have their organs transplanted to others. This tends to offend moral intuition and produces a counterintuitive result. This is true, but the intuitive response can change if the case is reframed. The reframed case will be named the Interstellar Transplant Machine. In this example, a spaceship containing a transplant machine enters Earth’s Solar System, orbiting around the planet Neptune. It soon detects life on Earth. Months later it teleports five people who are dying of organ failure and one healthy individual into their medical facility. The healthy person is killed and the organs are transplanted into the other individuals. These people are now healthy and teleported back

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