"Normally the utilitarian is able to assume that the remote effects of his actions tend rapidly to zero...It seems plausible that the long-term probable benefits and costs of his alternative actions are likely to be negligible or cancel one another out. An obviously important case in which, if he were a utilitarian, a person would have to consider effects into the far future, perhaps millions of years, would be that of a statesman who was contemplating engaging in nuclear warfare, if there were some probability, even a small one, that this war might end in the destruction of the entire human race. (Even a war less drastic than this might have important consequences into the fairly far future, say hundreds of years.) Similar long term catastrophic consequences must be envisaged in planning flight to other planets, if there is any probability, even quite a small one, that these planets possess viruses or bacteria, to which terrestrial organisms would have no immunity."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Chapter 6. Rightness and wrongness of actions, p. 32
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/J._J._C._Smart
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
J. J. C. Smart
J. J. C. Smart (full name, John Jamieson Carswell "Jack" Smart; 16 September 1920 – 6 October 2012) was a British-Australian philosopher and Emeritus Professor at the Australian National University. He specialized in metaphysics, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion, and political philosophy.
17 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by J. J. C. Smart →
Related Quotes
"The sentiment to which [the utilitarian] appeals is generalized benevolence, that is, the disposition to seek happine…"
"[A] purely hedonistic utilitarian, like Bentham, might agree with Mill in preferring the experiences of discontented …"
"Men were made for higher things, one can’t help wanting to say, even though one knows that men weren’t made for anyth…"
"Another type of ultimate disagreement between utilitarians, whether hedonistic or ideal, can arise over whether we sh…"
"The utilitarian’s ultimate moral principle...expresses the sentiment not of altruism but of benevolence, the agent co…"
"[I]f it is rational for me to choose the pain of a visit to the dentist in order to prevent the pain of a toothache, …"
"Nor is this utilitarian doctrine incompatible...with a recognition of the importance of warm and spontaneous expressi…"
"Certainly there would be no future suffering on earth if all life on earth ceased. But most people seem glad that the…"
"I want to illustrate the relevance of metaphysics to ethics by reference to what is the greatest moral problem that h…"
"The reason why there are hardly ever completely knock-down arguments, except between very like minded philosophers, i…"