Editing Utilitarianism (section)

===Utility ignores justice===
As Rosen (2003) has pointed out, claiming that act utilitarians are not concerned about having rules is to set up a "[[straw man]]".<ref name="Rosen, Frederick 2003, p. 132" /> Similarly, [[R. M. Hare|R.M. Hare]] refers to "the crude caricature of act utilitarianism which is the only version of it that many philosophers seem to be acquainted with."<ref>Hare, R. M. (1981) Moral Thinking. Oxford Univ. Press, p. 36</ref> Given what Bentham says about second order evils,<ref>Bentham, Jeremy (2009) Theory of Legislation. General Books LLC, p. 58</ref> it would be a serious misrepresentation to say that he and similar act utilitarians would be prepared to punish an innocent person for the greater good. Nevertheless, whether they would agree or not, this is what critics of utilitarianism claim is entailed by the theory.

==== "Sheriff scenario" ====

A classic version of this criticism was given by [[Henry John McCloskey|H. J. McCloskey]] in his 1957 "sheriff scenario":<ref name=McCloskey1957/>
{{blockquote|Suppose that a sheriff were faced with the choice either of framing a Negro for a rape that had aroused hostility to the Negroes (a particular Negro generally being believed to be guilty but whom the sheriff knows not to be guilty)—and thus preventing serious anti-Negro riots which would probably lead to some loss of life and increased hatred of each other by whites and Negroes—or of hunting for the guilty person and thereby allowing the anti-Negro riots to occur, while doing the best he can to combat them. In such a case the sheriff, if he were an extreme utilitarian, would appear to be committed to framing the Negro.}}

By "extreme" utilitarian, McCloskey is referring to what later came to be called [[act utilitarianism]]. He suggests one response might be that the sheriff would not frame the innocent [[negro]] because of another rule: "do not punish an innocent person". Another response might be that the riots the sheriff is trying to avoid might have positive utility in the long run by drawing attention to questions of race and resources to help address tensions between the communities. In a later article, McCloskey says:<ref>McCloskey, H.J. (1963) A Note on Utilitarian Punishment, in Mind, 72, 1963, p. 599</ref>
{{blockquote|Surely the utilitarian must admit that whatever the facts of the matter may be, it is logically possible that an 'unjust' system of punishment—e.g. a system involving collective punishments, retroactive laws and punishments, or punishments of parents and relations of the offender—may be more useful than a 'just' system of punishment?}}

==== ''The Brothers Karamazov'' ====

An older form of this argument was presented by [[Fyodor Dostoyevsky]] in his book ''[[The Brothers Karamazov]]'', in which Ivan challenges his brother Alyosha to answer his question:<ref>{{cite web|date=2011-02-15|title=The Dostoevsky Dilemma for Religious Ethics &#124; Center for Inquiry|url=https://centerforinquiry.org/blog/the_dostoevsky_dilemma_for_religious_ethics/}}</ref> <blockquote>Tell me straight out, I call on you—answer me: imagine that you yourself are building the edifice of human [[destiny]] with the object of making people happy in the finale, of giving them peace and rest at last, but for that you must inevitably and unavoidably torture just one tiny creature, [one child], and raise your edifice on the foundation of her unrequited tears—would you agree to be the architect on such conditions?&nbsp;... And can you admit the idea that the people for whom you are building would agree to accept their happiness on the unjustified blood of a tortured child, and having accepted it, to remain forever happy?</blockquote>This scenario was illustrated in more depth in 1973 by [[Ursula K. Le Guin]] in the celebrated short story ''[[The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas]].''<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Senior |first=W.A. |date=2004 |title=Le Guin's "Omelas": Issues of Genre |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43310242 |journal=Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts |volume=15 |issue=3 (59) |pages=186–188 |jstor=43310242 |issn=0897-0521}}</ref>