Editing Utilitarianism (section)

==== "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?}}