首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
考研
In the grand scheme of things Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill are normally thought of as good guys. Between them, they came
In the grand scheme of things Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill are normally thought of as good guys. Between them, they came
admin
2013-06-26
44
问题
In the grand scheme of things Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill are normally thought of as good guys. Between them, they came up with the ethical theory known as utilitarianism . The goal of this theory is encapsulated in Bentham’s famous saying that "the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation. "
Which all sounds fine and dandy until you start applying it to particular cases. A utilitarian, for example, might approve of the occasional torture of suspected terrorists—for the greater happiness of everyone else, you understand. That type of observation has led Daniel Bartels at Columbia University and David Pizarro at Cornell to ask what sort of people actually do have a utilitarian outlook on life. Their answers, just published in Cognition, are not comfortable.
One of the classic techniques used to measure a person’s willingness to behave in a utilitarian way is known as trolleyology. The subject of the study is challenged with thought experiments involving a runaway railway trolley or train carriage. All involve choices, each of which leads to people’ s deaths. For example: there are five railway workmen in the path of a runaway carriage. The men will surely be killed unless the subject of the experiment, a bystander in the story, does something. The subject is told he is on a bridge over the tracks. Next to him is a big, heavy stranger. The subject is informed that his own body would be too light to stop the train, but that if he pushes the stranger onto the tracks, the stranger’s large body will stop the train and save the five lives. That, unfortunately, would kill the stranger.
Dr Bartels and Dr Pizarro knew from previous research that around 90% of people refuse the utilitarian act of killing one individual to save five. What no one had previously inquired about, though, was the nature of the remaining 10%.
To find out, the two researchers gave 208 undergraduates a battery of trolleyological tests and measured, on a four-point scale, how utilitarian their responses were. Participants were also asked to respond to a series of statements intended to get a sense of their individual psychologies. These statements included, "I like to see fist fights" , "The best way to handle people is to tell them what they want to hear", and "When you really think about it, life is not worth the effort of getting up in the morning". These statements, and others like them, were designed to measure, respectively, psychopathy , and a person’ s sense of how meaningful life is.
Dr Bartels and Dr Pizarro then correlated the results from the trolleyology with those from the personality tests. They found a strong link between utilitarian answers to moral dilemmas (push the fat guy off the bridge) and personalities that were psychopathic, or tended to view life as meaningless. Utilitarians, this suggests, may add to the sum of human happiness, but they are not very happy people themselves.
That does not make utilitarianism wrong. Crafting legislation—one of the main things that Bentham and Mill wanted to improve—inevitably involves riding roughshod over someone ’ s interests. Utilitarianism provides a plausible framework for deciding who should get trampled. The results obtained by Dr Bartels and Dr Pizarro do, though, raise questions about the type of people who you want making the laws. Psychopathic misanthropes ? Apparently, yes.
Daniel Bartels and David Pizarro aim at analyzing______.
选项
A、the logical foundation of utilitarianism
B、the application of utilitarianism in legislation
C、the link between personality and utilitarian tendency
D、the moral flaw in the case of trolleyology
答案
C
解析
本题考查的是文章的核心内容。两位科学家丹尼尔.巴特尔和大卫.皮萨罗为什么要进行他们的实验?目的在第二段陈述得很清楚:“to ask what sort of people actually do have a utilitarian outlook on life”。是为了弄清楚究竟什么样的人会形成功利主义的人生观。下文具体的实验过程也告诉我们,这两位科学家是想在人的性格和功利主义人生观之间建立联系。因此[C]正确。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/bdd4777K
0
考研英语一
相关试题推荐
GregFocker,playedbyBenStiller,representsagenerationofAmericankids(1)_____inthe1980sonthephilosophythatanyac
GregFocker,playedbyBenStiller,representsagenerationofAmericankids(1)_____inthe1980sonthephilosophythatanyac
Inanidealworld,thenation’seliteschoolswouldenrollthemostqualifiedstudents.Butthat’snothowit(1)_____.Applicant
Inanidealworld,thenation’seliteschoolswouldenrollthemostqualifiedstudents.Butthat’snothowit(1)_____.Applicant
ArecentstudyshowsthatWecanlearnfromthelasttwoparagraphsthat
AlanthoughtitisdifficulttoexplainthescenetohisfellowMarinesbecauseTriegerseemstobelievethat
Accordingtothepassage,CraigConway______.Oracle’scurrentdifficultytotakeoverPeopleSoftisthat
Ifopen-sourcesoftwareissupposedtobefree,howdoesanyonesellingitmakeanymoney?It’snotthatdifferentfromhowothe
Lookingathowfarwe’llbeabletofundtheHealthServiceinthe21stcenturyraisesanynumberofthornyissues.(46)Manyof
bottlesthup
随机试题
在应用血管扩张剂前最需要注意
A.头痛、腰痛、眼眶痛B.高热、惊厥、休克、呼吸衰竭C.心悸、气促、相对缓脉D.高热、瘀斑、休克、呼吸衰竭E.发热、皮疹、脾大伤寒的临床特点
330~500kV配电装置采用的接线方式有哪些?
打桩时,发现桩、锤、桩架有异常,应()。
进出口许可制度的基本内容包括()。
当团体开始发挥作用、成员们开始把注意力转向任务时,团体即进入团体发展阶段的()。
从英语语言知识方面来看,大部分城市教师认为他们的英语词汇能力需要进一步提高;大部分乡村教师认为他们对语言的功能了解甚少。
()对于游戏相当于祝福对于()
设x3一3xy+y3=3确定y为x的函数,求函数y=y(x)的极值点.
A、Theylivedinlargegroups.B、Theyusedsandasinsulation.C、Theykeptfiresburningconstantly.D、Theyfacedtheirhomestow
最新回复
(
0
)