Recommended reading on consequentialism

[Arepo]

I'd like to take suggestions on what essays and books utilitarians and consequentialists might want to read - not necessarily ones about moral philosophy. I'll edit any helpful suggestions into this post (including deletions, if people think I've added stupid entries), and try and divide them by categories.

If possible, please include a link to the text if it's online, a mini-explanation of what the significance of the piece is that makes it worth the time investment (it's not very utilitarian to spend your life repeatedly reading the same arguments, after all).

Keep in mind that Utilitarianism Resources and Utilitarian Philosophers already offer pretty comprehensive lists of online writings and writings by the best-known utilitarians. While some links are bound to overlap, we can fill in the gaps rather than duplicating the pages. Neither page lists its links by topic (except by philosopher), so it might be helpful to do that here. To kickstart:

Very short introductions to different kinds of utilitarianism

Classical utilitarianism (aka hedonistic utilitarianism)
Preference utilitarianism - an alternative to classical util

Act utilitarianism
Rule utilitarianism - an alternative to act util

Indirect utilitarianism - a cross between utilitarianism and 'conscience-based' ethics

Prioritarianism - a consequentialist alternative that stresses egalitarianism more than util does

Glossary of more short descriptions

More detailed introductions

Questions for broadly utilitarian theories - an excellent short summary of the problems different forms of utilitarianism are supposed to address (

Primer on the Elements and Forms of Utilitarianism - a more detailed intro to a smaller selection of rival ideas

Utilitarianism FAQ and Common Criticisms of Utilitarianism - both addressing some of the more common objections

An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, by Jeremy Bentham (available online) - in some sense the book that 'started' utilitarianism (can be quite heavy going, but you only really need to read the first four chapters to see most of Bentham's)

Utilitarian living

Practical Ethics by Peter Singer - a short and widely read book on topics such as abortion, euthanasia, animal welfare

Living High and Letting Die by Peter Unger - arguing that common moral reasoning (including but not exclusive to utilitarianism) requires the biggest sacrifices from us that we can persuade ourselves to make.

A Consequentialist Case for Rejecting the Right by Alastair Norcross and Frances Howard-Snyder - tempering (but not completely escaping) Unger's conclusion by arguing that utilitarianism is scalar; ie. there's no 'right and wrong', per se, only 'better and worse' (some of Norcross's papers are on his website, but not this one unfortunately). Publication details The Journal of Philosophical Research, Vol. 18; 1993, pp. 109-125.

What to maximise?

(PDF) Can there be a preference-based utilitarianism? by John Broome (who has numerous other papers online at his homepage)

[Arepo]

A couple more arguments for specific flavours of utilitarianism I've found, though I've not had a chance to read beyond the abstracts yet:

Extreme and Restricted Utilitarianism by J.J.C. Smart - an argument for act utilitarianism in preference to rule

(PDF) How to be a Consequentialist about Everything by Toby Ord - an argument for global utilitarianism in preference to both act and rule

[Alan Dawrst]

I've put together a collection of links that might be of interest to someone just beginning to learn about utilitarianism. Most of the material is pretty basic -- the kinds of things undergraduates learn in introductory courses in economics, statistics, etc.

[RyanCarey]

There is a profound refutation of any role for intuition in ethics by Peter Singer here

[Jesper Östman]

Hedonistic Utilitarianism
http://www.amazon.com/Hedonistic-Utilit ... 218&sr=8-1
A defence of hedonistic utilitarianism by it's perhaps most well known contemporary champion. Among other things, Tännsjö provides replies to Rawls arguments against utilitarianism and feminist critiques.


Singer's article opens the debate on an important topic, but it is far from a conclusive case. See for instance Tersman, Folke: The reliability of moral intuitions: A challenge from neuroscience
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/ajphil/2008/00000086/00000003/art00004%3Bjsessionid=1pc1q6w1exwlr.alexandra

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: The repugnant conclusion.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/repugnant-conclusion/
The authors provides an overview of the contemporary discussion about one of the most common arguments against hedonistic utilitarianism, the repugnant conclusion. Among other things, it is shown that similar problems generalize to many ethical theories.

[Jesper Östman]

This seems like good advice:

[For] an introduction to QALYS I'd recommend a book called Cost-effectiveness in health and medicine, and for expected utilty theory and practically applying it I'd recommend Jon Baron's Thinking and Deciding.

I'm thinking of following it, especially the latter book:
http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Deciding-Jonathan-Baron/dp/0521680433/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267141677&sr=8-1.

Anyone here knows if it is a good choice?