Russ Shafer-Landau Is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

question 7

True/False

Russ Shafer-Landau is professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author, editor, or coeditor of several books including The Fundamentals of Ethics, fourth edition (2017) and The Ethical Life, fourth edition (2017). He is also the editor of Oxford Studies in Metaethics. In this reading he reviews some common criticisms of utilitarianism and argues that although some of them are less than decisive, others pose serious problems for the theory. Utilitarianism's most crippling shortcomings are its insistence that there is no intrinsic wrongness (or rightness) and its requirement that we must maximize well-being even if justice is thwarted.
-Principles and not virtues are a necessary part of the moral life.

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Definitions:

Locus Of Causality

The position or place within an individual that determines where the cause of behavior is perceived to originate, whether internally (within oneself) or externally (outside factors).

Internal

Pertaining to or situated within something; intrinsic.

External

Originating from outside, not inherent or internal to an entity or individual.

Availability Heuristic

A mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to a person’s mind when evaluating a specific topic, concept, method, or decision.