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Demo Classroom Debate: Medical Ethics
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Selected claim, supporting its parent
Utilitarianism fails to take seriously the separateness of persons.
Pros
Cons
Pro claim 1
Robert Nozick claims that the utilitarian position is grounded in ‘‘the Kantian principle that individuals are ends and not merely means’’. Theories such as utilitarianism, which reject side constraints, inevitably countenance using some people for the sake of others, and this ‘‘does not sufficiently respect and take account of the fact that [each of us] is a separate person’’ (
p.8
).
Pro claim 2
According to John Rawls, utilitarianism regards separate individuals as ‘‘so many different lines along which rights and duties are to be assigned and scarce means of satisfaction allocated in accordance with rules so as to give the greatest fulfillment of wants.’’ The problem with this is that individuals are not merely means to overall want satisfaction, and to treat them as such is to fail to ‘‘take seriously the distinction between persons’’ (
p.6
).