Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-42gr6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T16:13:16.720Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Utilitarianism and Preference Change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2009

Brian Barry
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Discussion
Information
Utilitas , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , October 1989 , pp. 278 - 282
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Rawls, John, ‘Social Unity and Primary Goods’, in Utilitarianism and Beyond, eds. Sen, Amartya and Williams, Bernard, Cambridge, 1982, pp. 159–85; quotation from p. 181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 In the film ‘O God, You Devil’, an unsuccessful songwriter makes a pact with the Devil (George Burns) to make him a success. What actually happens is that he is put into the body of a very successful rock star whose soul has just been repossessed, and he then takes up this rock star's career. Meanwhile somebody else (so, at any rate, we are urged to conceptualize the situation) takes over his own life where he left it off, living in his house with his wife and so on. The songwriter complains that he has not got what he bargained for, and in my view he is absolutely right. What he wanted was for everything to be the same except that his songs would be hits. What he got was something entirely different from this.

3 I am indebted to G. A. Cohen for this formulation of the point at issue.