Business Ethics Chapter 4 Glossary

Rule utilitarianism uses the maximization of utility on the whole as a standard of rightness for which regulations people should follow.

Direct utilitarianism uses maximizing utility as a decision procedure for which decisions people should make.

Indirect utilitarianism treats maximizing utility as a standard of rightness that advocates obedience to principles, respect for rights, inculcation of virtues, and whatever else is necessary to produce maximum aggregate utility.

Act utilitarianism judges each action according to a calculation of the utilities it causes.

Informed preference consequentialism is a type of ethical theory which holds that a state of the world is valuable if it would satisfy the preference that someone would have if she were fully informed and reasoning rationally.

Positive cost-benefit analysis is an economic technique that measures the financial costs and benefits of different decisions according to people’s willingness to pay for them.

Willingness to pay measures utility by maximum amount of money that someone would be willing to exchange for an additional economic good when no market price is established.

A normative cost-benefit analysis is a form of preference-satisfaction utilitarianism where utility is measured by willingness to pay.

According to preference-satisfaction utilitarianism, each agent ought to act to bring about the maximum amount of satisfied desires or preferences for recipients with moral standing.

According to experience-based utilitarianism, each agent ought to cause the maximum balance of pleasure over pain for recipients with moral standing.

Preference satisfaction is the experience of having a chosen desire satisfied.

A mental experience is a sensation or feeling of pleasure or pain.

Saintly altruism requires agents to maximize positive mental states in others only.

Ethical egoism requires agents to maximize positive mental states in themselves only.

Utilitarianism requires agents to make those decisions that maximize positive mental states (subjective states) in themselves and others.

Objective consequentialism requires agents to make those decisions that lead to the best states of the world from a point of view upon which everyone can potentially agree.