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
外语
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
2015-08-29
74
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 aphorism that "the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation."
It 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". Each was asked to indicate, for each statement, where his views lay on a continuum that had "strongly agree" at one end and "strongly disagree" at the other. These statements, and others like them, were designed to measure, respectively, psychopathy, Machiavellianism 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, Machiavellian 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, Machiavellian misanthropes? Apparently, yes.
What function does the first sentence in the second paragraph serve?
选项
A、It further explains the theory of utilitarianism.
B、It forms a contrast to general cases of utilitarianism.
C、It acts as the connecting link to bring up the theme.
D、It gives an example to explain utilitarianism in particular cases.
答案
C
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/czKO777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
Theoilindustryhasbeenonahotstreakthisyear,thankstoaseriesofmajordiscoveriesthathaverekindledasenseofexci
TheproblemsfacinglearnersofEnglishcanbedividedintothreebroadcategories:a)【1】problems,someofwhichinvolvefear
A、arecruelwiththeiranimalsB、spendmoremoneyonanimalsthanontheirchildrenC、aretreatingtheiranimalstoowellD、are
HowDeerSurviveWinterLikemostofthewildanimals,deersurvivethecoldwinterbyusingenergystoredinthesummerand
SonandLoverswaswrittenby______.
Culturereferstothesocialheritageofapeople--thelearnedpatternforthinking,feelingandactingthatcharacterizeapopu
InformationSuperhighwayatWorkThechangesinhowwecommunicatemakeitnecessarytochangehowwethinkaboutcommunicat
InformationSuperhighwayatWorkThechangesinhowwecommunicatemakeitnecessarytochangehowwethinkaboutcommunicat
Growingconcernsoverthesafetyandefficacyofanti-depressantdrugsprescribedtochildrenhavecaughttheeyeofCongressan
______wontheNobelPrizeforliteraturewithhisnovels,TheGrapesofWrath,InDubiousBattle,OfMiceandMen,forhisreali
随机试题
Alotofpeoplearetheirownenemies.Theyregardthemselvesasunlikelytosucceedincollegeandoftenfeelthattherehaveb
下列除哪项外,均可见于风淫证候
成人排便时肛门滴血,有痔核脱出,便后自行回纳,属哪一种痔()。
甲乙两国是邻国,甲国是沿海国,乙国是内陆国,两国之间有一条界河。依国际法相关规则,下列哪些选项构成现代国际法中合法的领土添附?()
()对全国的建设工程勘察、设计活动实行统一监督、管理。
我国目前的公路交通运输安全生产管理工作是按照()的“三级管理”模式。
关于依法必须招标工程合同签订和合同价款的约定,下列说法中正确的是()。
心理距离是指人与物之间暂建立的一种相对超自然的审美关系。()
植物修复是利用某些可以忍耐和超富集有毒元素的植物及其共存的微生物体系清除污染的一种环境污染治理新技术。植物修复系统可以看成是以太阳能为动力的“水泵”和进行生物处理的“植物反应器”,植物可吸收转移元素和化合物,可以积累、代谢和固定污染物,是一条从根本上解决土
Humanrelationshavecommandedpeople’sattentionfromearlytimes.Thewaysofpeoplehavebeenrecordedininnumerablemyths,
最新回复
(
0
)