A Refutation of the Sheriff Counterexample to Utilitarianism.

The tenth video of the playlist: "In Defense of Utilitarianism". This playlist is meant to be a lighthearted and informal introduction to the Utilitarian theory, with some bad humor, in which we analyze some of the strongest counterarguments and counterexamples that have been made against it.
The novelty and complexity of the playlist will scale up with the video number.

In the video, we analyze the sheriff counterexample to Utilitarianism due to H.J. McCloskey.
It regards a sheriff potentially framing an innocent person with the approval of the Utilitarian theory.
We give two rebuttals: the first is that the example appears to describes an ordinary setting but
in reality, it is describing a sacrificial problem with different wording.
The second is that accepting impossible counterexamples as defeaters of a moral framework precludes most of the richness of normative ethical theories and does not align with what we ordinarily mean when utilizing moral terminology.

The video does NOT represent the personal views of Prof. Jeffrey Kaplan, his explaining the
setting facilitates in showcasing how the counterexample is usually posed. He is just teaching (providing utility) like in his other free videos.

Citations:

1) H.J. McCloskey, An Examination of Restricted Utilitarianism, The Philosophical Review, Vol. 66, No. 4 (Oct. 1957), pp. 466-485

2) Pushing Moral Buttons: The Interaction between Personal Force and Intention in Moral Judgment JOSHUA D. GREENE, FIERY A. CUSHMAN, LEIGH E. NYSTROM, LISAE. STEWART, KELLY LOWENBERG, AND JONAT HAN D. COHEN, Cognition, (2009).

[SarevokRegor]

I don't think that this is addressing the problem as presented. The question is really ;
1 - Do you want to live in a society which is just ? (relating to not framing the guy)
2 - Even if it being just lead to bad things happening ? (people dying in a riot)
3 - Even if no one, not even you, knew it was just? (relating to the sheriff having 0 chance of being found out, and no one believing in the innocent guys innocence)
If you answered yes to all 3, then whilst you could frame your argument as utilitarian, it could not be from the perspective of peoples qualia or internal hedonic functions, but from some weird sense of rightness which wasn't about adding or subtracting things or people being happy. Refusing to engage with an argument is not the same thing as refuting it.

[eggtartica]

Brilliant video. As someone that seeks to apply utilitarian approach to decision making, this video has deepened my own thought processes. Thank you.

[TheShattubatu]

I have a question, I've not watched the whole playlist yet so sorry if you've covered this:
If you're defending utilitarianism by showing how it doesn't conflict with our moral intuitions, what value is there to be gained from thinking in a utilitarian way rather that just using moral intuition as the basis for morality? I thought the value of utilitarian thinking was in removing possible biases from moral intuitions, but in defending it from these counter examples, it seems like it's just "Moral intuitions, but we do maths after the fact to justify the way we feel"

[rickyspanish]

"Artist's rendition of the sheriff" :'D

[ennuiii]

hate convoluted conceptualizations like this that require one to assume that the actor has absolute knowledge of the consequences of their actions, the sheriff could never possibly know there would be a riot with *hundreds* dead from not prosecuting the man

[rickyspanish]

Personally I would say, as the sheriff, framing an innocent person is worse because I would be the one doing it, while the 100 kills are done by the rioters. But I guess I'm not a utilitarian so there's that.

[tjcofer]

It is perfectly fine if you want to say you think utilitarianism captures our moral intuitions within the bounds of regular every day decisions, and if that is all you want to put utilitarianism forward as then you do you, but often when moral philosohers (other than notably aristotle) are doing moral philosophy they are trying to account for the nature of obligation itself and how we ought to act in any scenario whatsoever. This means that if utilitarianism gives us the correct answers to the kinds of choices we make in everyday life, but incorrect answers in constructed scenarios where we have omnicence or utility monsters, then the complete moral theory would converge on the things that utilitarianism gets right and tell us the correct choice in these fantastical scenarios where utilitarianism seems to give the wrong answer.

[DerUnbekannte]

tl;dr it's a nice bait-and-switch :D

[dougshakes]

In arguing against this hypothetical, you're using premises that famously cause problems for utilitarianism. By claiming that the world of reality is too complex to strip down to these types of hypotheticals, you're implying that reality is too complex for utilitarian calculations to be applied at all. Uncontrollable variables are a massive barrier to hard consequentialist models, and one you need to address, because as-is you've painted yourself into a corner. Stating that the sheriff problem would be more complex in reality does not suggest that you're better-equipped to handle it. Counter with your own hypotheticals that you think are fair, and how utilitarianism would address those scenarios.

[johncrondis]

Sheriff example is kinda bad. Child is crying and breaking glasses if I don't give him a cookie. I better give him a cookie for the most momentary pleasure and not consider future conditioning problems....same thing for a society. A society conditioned to get its unjust desires fulfilled by threat of riot is bogus and not something that will lead to happy, healthy, clear-minded, honest people in the future, which will cause all sorts of different suffering experiences for both innocents and the ones conditioned to resist truth/honesty/justice in exchange for temporary desires.