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-====You should default to util if I win defense on their standard—we naturally want to make the world better==== |
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-Walter **Sinnott-Armstrong** American philosopher. He specializes in ethics, epistemology, and more recently in neuroethics, the philosophy of law, and the philosophy of cognitive science, "Consequentialism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 20**14** Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed) |
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-Even if consequentialists…as consequentialists claim. |
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-====States do and should act in a utilitarian manner==== |
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-**Woller 97** ~Gary, Brigham Young University, "A Forum On The Role of Environmental Ethics in Restructuring Environmental Policy and Law for the Next Century", Policy Currents, 1997, BE~ |
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-Moreover, virtually all public policies entail some redistribution of economic or political resources, such that one group's gains must come at another group's expense. Consequently, public policies in a democracy must be justified to the public, and especially to those who pay the costs of those policies. Such justification cannot simply be assumed by invoking some a priori higher-order moral principle. Appeals to a priori moral principles, such as environmental preservation, also often fail to acknowledge that public policies inevitably entail trade-offs among competing values. Thus since policymakers cannot justify inherent value conflicts to the public in any philosophical sense, and since public policies inherently imply winners and losers, the policymakers' duty to the public interest requires them to demonstrate that the redistributive effects and value trade-offs implied by their polices are somehow to the overall advantage of society. At the same time, deontologically based ~other~ ethical systems have severe practical limitations as a basis for public policy. It therefore follows that in a democracy, policymakers have an ethical duty to establish a plausible link between policy alternatives and the problems they address, and the public must be reasonably assured ~reasonable assurance~ that a policy will actually do something about an existing problem; this requires the means-end language and methodology of utilitarian ethics. Good intentions, lofty rhetoric, and moral piety are an insufficient, though perhaps at times a necessary, basis for public policy in a democracy. |
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-====Moral uncertainty means we should minimize existential risk==== |
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-**Bostrom 12** ~Nick Bostrom. Faculty of Philosophy and Oxford Martin School University of Oxford. "Existential Risk Prevention as Global Priority." Global Policy (2012)~ |
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-These reflections on moral uncertainty suggest an alternative, complementary way of looking at existential risk; they also suggest a new way of thinking about the ideal of sustainability. Let me elaborate.¶ Our present understanding of axiology might well be confused. We may not now know — at least not in concrete detail — what outcomes would count as a big win for humanity; we might not even yet be able to imagine the best ends of our journey. If we are indeed profoundly uncertain about our ultimate aims, then we should recognize that there is a great option value in preserving — and ideally improving — our ability to recognize value and to steer the future accordingly. Ensuring that there will be a future version of humanity with great powers and a propensity to use them wisely is plausibly the best way available to us to increase the probability that the future will contain a lot of value. To do this, we must prevent any existential catastrophe |