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Q&A: Utilitarian Morality

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This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.

Utilitarian Morality

Question

Good evening, Rabbi. Sorry for the clumsy wording.
I was wondering a bit about the very existence of utilitarian morality. It seems that this approach assumes the boundaries of the situation.
Let me explain: take a hypothetical case in which, in order to save two people, I need to sacrifice one person along the way. Utilitarian morality would argue that I should do so, because in the end of the situation we will arrive at the greatest good. But we have to ask whether the situation really ends at that moment. For example, imagine a hypothetical case in which one of the two who were saved decides to murder people by blowing up a bus and causes the deaths of five people. If we had known that at the moment of rescue, utilitarian morality would say that we should save the one and not the two, because saving the two would lead to the deaths of five.
We can never know what the consequences will be, and the consequences of the consequences, and so on, and therefore there can never be absolute utilitarian morality.
So even before redefining utilitarian morality as a morality bounded by the limits of human understanding, I just wanted to point out that the discussion has shifted from utilitarian morality to a morality of the moral act.

Answer

I didn’t understand the claim. We never have certainty in our assessment of reality. So what? Should we therefore not use assessments of reality? The simple assumption is that people do not murder, and it is reasonable to make utility calculations on that assumption.

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