SOC SCI H1E Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Utility, Tyrant, Stonemasonry
10 Apr 2019
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Document Summary
Utility theory tries to answer this question. What do we want (i. e. , what are our preferences, our utility curves, etc. )? this is descriptive. What should we want? this is normative. Question about what preferences ought to be or what should do irrespective of preferences. Involves a dictum that the right thing to do is whatever maximizes utility across a community. What maximizes utility reflects preferences of the community. If i like pain, then hurting me may increase my utility. Bentham uses utility to develop a story about what we should do (but not necessarily what we should want) Utilitarianism is an ethics based on what we do want. Plato (socrates) will offer us an ethics of what we should want. Maybe preferences involves these sorts of things as well. Just have to balance all the preferences with each other. May be ignorant of something that would make you happy. Should want something because better in the long run.
