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To: Aquinasfan
Something is useful insasmuch as it serves an end --a good. Utility assumes goodness and end.
Dead wrong. Ability to run fast - [using your reference framework] - could be used to a "good" end [exercise, health] or to not a so good one [running away with the money after holding up a bank]. Utility is the same, the ends are not. That's why the tools are only tools, and are beyond value judgment.
541 posted on 03/09/2007 6:50:20 AM PST by GSlob
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To: GSlob
Something is useful insasmuch as it serves an end --a good. Utility assumes goodness and end. Dead wrong. Ability to run fast - [using your reference framework] - could be used to a "good" end [exercise, health] or to not a so good one [running away with the money after holding up a bank].

True. But that's my point. Logically, utility serves either an objectively good end or an apparently good end. But in either case, utility presupposes some end. Utility simply cannot be an end in itself. It presupposes an object or end. Therefore, "good" cannot be defined as simple utility.

Interestingly, your argument presupposes the fact that health is an objective good (even though you use scare quotes) and that running away from the police is objectively evil, because if these things are not true, your argument has no force.

Utility is the same, the ends are not.

That's true, and that's what distinguishes the morality of the two acts, one being good and one evil. That's what makes utility, considered absolutely, irrelevant to moral reasoning. What makes an act moral is the action itself, the circumstances surrounding the act, and the intention of the act. Again, if you claim that these acts are truly morally equivalent, then you undercut your argument above.

That's why the tools are only tools, and are beyond value judgment.

True. But human acts are not tools, except as they may represent a means to an end. And the acts in your example are not beyond value judgement because of the intention of the acts.

543 posted on 03/09/2007 7:47:42 AM PST by Aquinasfan (When you find "Sola Scriptura" in the Bible, let me know)
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