Peter Singer on egoism.
...or virtually everything we do, including even our ongoing capacity to be responsible. How far do you think our responsibility extends? 2. Harman defines utilitarianism as "the theory that you ought always to act so as to maximize social utility, where "social utility" is simply another name for the general welfare" (coursepack). But he recognizes that our moral intuitions disagree with utilitarianism in many cases. Intuition says we ought to keep our promises as far as possible, but utilitarians think we ought to ignore them when this leads to the overall best consequences. Intuition calls it wrong to sacrifice an innocent person so their organs can be transplanted into five unrelated people who would otherwise die; utilitarianism calls it right. How does the utilitarian reply to these objections, according to Harman? Are you persuaded? Why or why not? 3. Peter Singer maintains that "if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacr...