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Conservatism and Conservation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Peter S. Wenz
Peter S. Wenz
Affiliation:
Sangamon State University
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Extract

Utilitarians believe that personal decisions and public policies should be made so as to maximize the public good, or, as Jeremy Bentham put it, to produce the greatest good of the greatest number. Bentham identified the public good with the maximization of happiness, and believed that many traditional practices were inimical to the production of happiness. So in the name of maximizing the public good, Bentham advocated, for example, extending the franchise, reforming the criminal code and re-designing prisons. People's prejudices and traditional habits of thought must yield in the face of utilitarian-inspired reforms.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 61 , Issue 238 , October 1986 , pp. 503 - 512
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1986

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References

1 The Principles of Morals and Legislation (New York: Hafner Press, 1948).

2 (New York: Library of Liberal Arts, 1955). Page reference in the text.

3 See ‘Morality and the Theory of Rational Behavior’ by Harsanyi, John C. in Utilitarianism and Beyond, Amartya Sen and Bernard Williams (eds) (Cambridge University Press, 1982).Google Scholar

4 Three articles are particularly noteworthy in this connection. Mark Sagoff, ‘On Preserving the Natural Environment’, Yale Law Journal 84 (1974); Tribe, Lawrence H., ‘Ways Not to Think about Plastic Trees’, in When Values Conflict, Lawrence H. Tribe, Corinne S. Schelling and John Voss (eds) (Cambridge, Mass: Ballinger, 1976), and Eric Katz, ‘Utilitarianism and Preservation’, Environmental Ethics 1, No. 4.Google Scholar

5 Krieger, Martin H., ‘What's Wrong with Plastic Trees?’, Science 179 (1973), 451.Google Scholar

6 See Peter, Singer, Animal Liberation (New York: Avon Books, 1975), Chapters 2 and 3.Google Scholar

7 See Stromberg, David B., ‘The Endangered Species Acts of 1973: Is the Statute Itself Endangered?’, Environmental Affairs 6, 511–533,Google Scholar and Gunn, Alastair S., ‘Preserving Rare Species’, in Earthbound, Tom Regan (ed.) (New York: Random House, 1984), 289–335.Google Scholar

8 Small is Beautiful (New York: Perennial Library, 1975).Google Scholar

9 ‘Ethics and Energy’, in Earthbound, Tom Regan (ed.) (New York: Random House, 1984).Google Scholar

10 Schrader-Frechette, K.S., Nuclear Power and Public Policy (Boston: Reidel, 1980), 90–91.Google Scholar

10 A proposal similar to this one was actually made by an environmentalist, though not a conservative environmentalist. See Shepard, Paul, The Tender Carnivore and the Sacred Game (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973).Google Scholar