![]() | Two-level utilitarianism was one of the Philosophy and religion good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake. | |||||||||||||||||||||
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Hi there. If you have just stumbled across this article, you may have noticed that it is in a very poor state. I have just created it, and will be working on it for the next few days, adding bits here and there. If I may, I would like to ask if you could please refrain from adding or changing things (other than correcting typos and spelling) for the next week or so, as I have not yet finished with it. If you have any change proposals or advice, could you instead please post them here. When I am done with getting the article into a passable state (which shouldn't be longer than a couple of weeks), I will add a new note here, and you may then feel free to modify my work to your heart's content. Thanks! -- Stringman5 06:14, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
This article is stable, neutral, and quite well written. But it is not sufficiently broad in its coverage of the topic and more content is needed.
I think the first section (after the lead) should be "Utilitarianism" which should explain some basic ideas such as maximising utility. This section could have two sub-sections: "Rule utilitarianism" and "Act ultilitarianism" where, again, some of the basic ideas are explained. Then the article could move on to the "General idea" of combining the two types of utilitarianism. All of this would provide context for the general reader.
The other thing that is needed is a substantive example of how Two-level utilitarianism works in practice. This would probably be best placed before the "Criticism" section, and would illustrate in concrete terms how someone would use the Two-level approach on an everyday basis.
The other suggestion I would make is that more in-text citations are needed to support what is being said, especially in the lead section, and a consistent referencing style should be used throughout. At present there are several lapses into the Harvard system (eg., Hare 1981:26).
I've decided to put this article on hold as the article has the potential for GA status, however the issues noted above must be dealt with before GA status can be awarded. I hope that this can be addressed within the seven days allowed by on hold, and wish you all the best with your editing... -- Johnfos 05:47, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
Hi Stringman, I'm pleased that progress is being made with this article, but it is still not worthy of GA status at this time. More references are needed to support what is being said and I've added a couple of {fact} tags. If you do happen to find some material dealing with practical application, it would make the article less academic. Please consider re-submitting the article after improvements are made. -- Johnfos 01:21, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I would include this quote from Hare in the article.
You just need to re-submit the article when you are ready. All the best. -- Johnfos 04:15, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
The image Image:RMHare.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check
This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --02:59, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
I have never come across the reply that a two-way utilitarian should hide and deny her utiltarianism when questioned by others. Though I consider myself far from an expert on the subject and have not read the cited source text this reply sounds especially weak, and perhaps borderline straw-man of the two-way utilitarian's reply to any criticism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.164.79.122 ( talk) 10:08, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
I am doing the GA Reassessment of this article as part of the GA Sweeps project.
The article is fine, writing is good, links are still solid. There are no images, I see in the talk page that there was an image but it was deleted for copyright issues. Are there any images that could be added to the article. It is necessary for GA but strongly recommended. Also the lead does not encompass the criticism of this philosophy, which it should. Please address these issues when possible. In the meantime I will keep the article at GA. H1nkles ( talk) 22:42, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Two-level utilitarianism/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.
I have given the entry for Two-level utilitarianism a B rating.
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Last edited at 04:29, 1 May 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 20:18, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
Hi, I'm not a frequent wikipedia editor so I am not really sure how to use the talk pages, but there is something incorrect in this article. It states that utilitarianism is an inherently hedonistic theory, caring only about pleasure. However, this is not true of all utilitarianism, just "hedonistic utilitarianism". Ideal utilitarianism, on the other hand, does not state that pleasure must be the definition of utility. Instead utility could be whatever is objectively good in the world, whether that is pleasure, knowledge, some kind of spiritual experience, etc. [1] 107.15.49.122 ( talk) 02:40, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
As far as I am aware, the term "Government house utilitarianism" was coined by Bernard Williams as a criticism of Henry Sidgwick's utilitarianism and has little to do directly with what Hare means by two-level moral thought (or two-level utilitarianism). I discovered that Government House utilitarianism leads to this article in the course of my present efforts to improve the Sidgwick article. Skimming Hare's Moral Thinking, he alludes very rarely to Sidgwick, and in the book by David McNoughton from which this article's use of the term seemed to originate (which use I have deleted, because it took the wording so closely from the source that it would constitute plagiarism), it is not entirely clear which view he is referring to in using the phrase.
It seems to me that some ambiguities in McNoughton's book can draw the reader to believe he's talking about Hare's two-level utilitarianism when he uses the phrase "Government House utilitarianism" due to resemblances between the views discussed and Hare's views, but I'd hypothesize this is because Sidgwick's views really do happen to resemble Hare's in important respects. But I think ultimately the reason the phrase "Government house utilitarianism" is used at all is fundamentally due to Sidgwick's suggestion it could be, on utiltiarian grounds, morally wrong for anyone but a governing elite to actually be utilitarians. This view clearly has some interesting relation to the levels of utilitarianism discussed in this article, but I do not believe that it's plausible to treat it as an identical view, nor do I think the sources cited support treating the phrases "two-level utilitarnaism" and "Government House utilitarianism" as synonyms.
Anyways, to make a long story short: It is not at all clear to me that "Government house utilitarianism" is at all a synonym for "two-level utilitarianism", and unless I hear a good reason not to, I'm going to do something about that claim in the article and about the redirect - But: I am open to being challenged on this, because I do not know some of the sources involved here that well (I'm not particularly confident about my familiarity with Hare in particular). Keegan.Landrigan ( talk) 07:58, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
Rather poorly sourced, doesn't seem to be comprehensive. A google search returns many papers and analysis that aren't incorporated into this article and should be. I'm willing to conduct a more full review if a user indicates a willingness to respond to them. Otherwise, as it stands this article should be de-listed. Best wishes, Eddie891 Talk Work 00:01, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
![]() | Two-level utilitarianism was one of the Philosophy and religion good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake. | |||||||||||||||||||||
|
![]() | This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Hi there. If you have just stumbled across this article, you may have noticed that it is in a very poor state. I have just created it, and will be working on it for the next few days, adding bits here and there. If I may, I would like to ask if you could please refrain from adding or changing things (other than correcting typos and spelling) for the next week or so, as I have not yet finished with it. If you have any change proposals or advice, could you instead please post them here. When I am done with getting the article into a passable state (which shouldn't be longer than a couple of weeks), I will add a new note here, and you may then feel free to modify my work to your heart's content. Thanks! -- Stringman5 06:14, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
This article is stable, neutral, and quite well written. But it is not sufficiently broad in its coverage of the topic and more content is needed.
I think the first section (after the lead) should be "Utilitarianism" which should explain some basic ideas such as maximising utility. This section could have two sub-sections: "Rule utilitarianism" and "Act ultilitarianism" where, again, some of the basic ideas are explained. Then the article could move on to the "General idea" of combining the two types of utilitarianism. All of this would provide context for the general reader.
The other thing that is needed is a substantive example of how Two-level utilitarianism works in practice. This would probably be best placed before the "Criticism" section, and would illustrate in concrete terms how someone would use the Two-level approach on an everyday basis.
The other suggestion I would make is that more in-text citations are needed to support what is being said, especially in the lead section, and a consistent referencing style should be used throughout. At present there are several lapses into the Harvard system (eg., Hare 1981:26).
I've decided to put this article on hold as the article has the potential for GA status, however the issues noted above must be dealt with before GA status can be awarded. I hope that this can be addressed within the seven days allowed by on hold, and wish you all the best with your editing... -- Johnfos 05:47, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
Hi Stringman, I'm pleased that progress is being made with this article, but it is still not worthy of GA status at this time. More references are needed to support what is being said and I've added a couple of {fact} tags. If you do happen to find some material dealing with practical application, it would make the article less academic. Please consider re-submitting the article after improvements are made. -- Johnfos 01:21, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I would include this quote from Hare in the article.
You just need to re-submit the article when you are ready. All the best. -- Johnfos 04:15, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
The image Image:RMHare.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check
This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --02:59, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
I have never come across the reply that a two-way utilitarian should hide and deny her utiltarianism when questioned by others. Though I consider myself far from an expert on the subject and have not read the cited source text this reply sounds especially weak, and perhaps borderline straw-man of the two-way utilitarian's reply to any criticism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.164.79.122 ( talk) 10:08, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
I am doing the GA Reassessment of this article as part of the GA Sweeps project.
The article is fine, writing is good, links are still solid. There are no images, I see in the talk page that there was an image but it was deleted for copyright issues. Are there any images that could be added to the article. It is necessary for GA but strongly recommended. Also the lead does not encompass the criticism of this philosophy, which it should. Please address these issues when possible. In the meantime I will keep the article at GA. H1nkles ( talk) 22:42, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Two-level utilitarianism/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.
I have given the entry for Two-level utilitarianism a B rating.
|
Last edited at 04:29, 1 May 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 20:18, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
Hi, I'm not a frequent wikipedia editor so I am not really sure how to use the talk pages, but there is something incorrect in this article. It states that utilitarianism is an inherently hedonistic theory, caring only about pleasure. However, this is not true of all utilitarianism, just "hedonistic utilitarianism". Ideal utilitarianism, on the other hand, does not state that pleasure must be the definition of utility. Instead utility could be whatever is objectively good in the world, whether that is pleasure, knowledge, some kind of spiritual experience, etc. [1] 107.15.49.122 ( talk) 02:40, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
As far as I am aware, the term "Government house utilitarianism" was coined by Bernard Williams as a criticism of Henry Sidgwick's utilitarianism and has little to do directly with what Hare means by two-level moral thought (or two-level utilitarianism). I discovered that Government House utilitarianism leads to this article in the course of my present efforts to improve the Sidgwick article. Skimming Hare's Moral Thinking, he alludes very rarely to Sidgwick, and in the book by David McNoughton from which this article's use of the term seemed to originate (which use I have deleted, because it took the wording so closely from the source that it would constitute plagiarism), it is not entirely clear which view he is referring to in using the phrase.
It seems to me that some ambiguities in McNoughton's book can draw the reader to believe he's talking about Hare's two-level utilitarianism when he uses the phrase "Government House utilitarianism" due to resemblances between the views discussed and Hare's views, but I'd hypothesize this is because Sidgwick's views really do happen to resemble Hare's in important respects. But I think ultimately the reason the phrase "Government house utilitarianism" is used at all is fundamentally due to Sidgwick's suggestion it could be, on utiltiarian grounds, morally wrong for anyone but a governing elite to actually be utilitarians. This view clearly has some interesting relation to the levels of utilitarianism discussed in this article, but I do not believe that it's plausible to treat it as an identical view, nor do I think the sources cited support treating the phrases "two-level utilitarnaism" and "Government House utilitarianism" as synonyms.
Anyways, to make a long story short: It is not at all clear to me that "Government house utilitarianism" is at all a synonym for "two-level utilitarianism", and unless I hear a good reason not to, I'm going to do something about that claim in the article and about the redirect - But: I am open to being challenged on this, because I do not know some of the sources involved here that well (I'm not particularly confident about my familiarity with Hare in particular). Keegan.Landrigan ( talk) 07:58, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
Rather poorly sourced, doesn't seem to be comprehensive. A google search returns many papers and analysis that aren't incorporated into this article and should be. I'm willing to conduct a more full review if a user indicates a willingness to respond to them. Otherwise, as it stands this article should be de-listed. Best wishes, Eddie891 Talk Work 00:01, 14 July 2020 (UTC)