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
2015-06-14
60
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.
The phrase "riding roughshod over" in the last paragraph probably means
选项
A、reflecting upon.
B、resting upon.
C、trampling upon.
D、looking upon.
答案
C
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/kAOO777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
UnderWilliam’srule,the______wereatthebottomofthefeudalsystem.
Note-takingSkillsNote-takingrequiresahighlevelofabilityinmanyskills,particularlyinthefollowingfourmostimport
Onemajorobstacletoeconomicdevelopmentispopulationgrowth.Thepopulationsofmostdevelopingcountriesgrewataratemuc
Onemajorobstacletoeconomicdevelopmentispopulationgrowth.Thepopulationsofmostdevelopingcountriesgrewataratemuc
Cultureshockisapainfulexperiencewegothroughwhenweencountermanynewthingsinanothercountryandwe【1】______insom
TheProblemsofTakingEnglishCoursesThroughEnglishWhenstudentstakecoursesthroughthemediumofEnglish,theyhaveto
______isthenationalsymbolofAustralia.
TheSeattleTimesCompanyisonenewspaperfirmthathasrecognizedtheneedforchangeanddonesomethingaboutit.Inthene
Americaneconomistsoncespoofeduniversityeducationastheonlyindustryinwhichthosewhoconsumeitsproductdonotpurchas
ApollbyDowJonespredictedmatdurablegoodsordersinFebruarywould
随机试题
2010年5月10日,甲因公被派往美国工作一年,遂将自己的住房交给乙暂住并委托其进行正常维护。半年后,乙住进了自己新购的房屋,遂将甲的房屋以甲的名义出租给不知情的丙,租赁期限为一年。甲回国后,得知乙已将房屋出租,很生气,并要求丙搬走。由此引发纠纷。请问:
从组织的最高主管到组织的基层管理者,都要按照组织总目标的要求,计划自己的活动及要达到的目标,这体现了计划的()
某物流公司2005年准备投资购买股票,现有A、B两家公司可供选择。从A公司、B公司2004年12月31日的有关会计报表及补充资料中获知:2004年A公司发放的每股股利为7元,股票每股市价为40元;2004年B公司发放的每股股利为2元,股票每股市价为20元。
因果联系
A.P波增宽,有切迹B.P波高耸C.可见逆行P波D.可见异位P波左房肥大
下列说法错误的是
每一套房屋都具有自己独特的使用价值。这说明房源具有()。
乙单位是实行国库集中支付的事业单位,经批准,乙单位的工资支出和设备购置实行财政直接支付,日常办公及零星支出实行财政授权支付。2012年2月份,审计机构对该单位财政资金使用进行检查,发现:(1)2011年4月,该单位通过零余额账户向上级单位基本户划转资
垂直搜索引擎是针对某一个行业的专业搜索引擎,是对网页资源中的某类专门的信息进行一次整合,定向分字段抽取出需要的数据进行处理后再以某种形式返回给用户。根据上述定义,下列应用与垂直搜索引擎关系最为密切的是()。
A、Theyhaveseentheneedforhiringtrainedinterpreters.B、Theyhaverealizedtheproblemsoflanguagebarriers.C、Theyhaveb
最新回复
(
0
)