Whatever their other differences, the two dominant camps in academic moral philosophy over the past forty years — libertarianism and left-liberal Kantianism — are united in their opposition to utilitarianism, and in particular to its methodological commitment to allow harm to one person to be offset by greater aggregate benefits to others. That opposition is grounded, in Rawls’s words, in the belief that “[e]ach person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override.”The appeal of that moral view is undeniable. But in a world of uncertainty about the consequences of our actions — which is to say, the world in which we live — it cannot tell us how to act. Inevitably, in making the ubiquitous tradeoffs we face, we will be driven to some form of aggregation in which the numbers of affected persons on each side will count, with the result that the grave interests of the few will routinely be sacrificed to the good of the many. This article is about why that is so, why many contemporary moral philosophers continue to believe otherwise, and the social costs to all of us when the same mistaken belief asserts itself in politics and policy-making.

中文翻译：

---

面对风险

无论他们之间有什么其他差异，过去四十年来在学术道德哲学上的两个主要阵营-自由主义和左翼康德主义-团结一致反对功利主义，特别是反对其方法上的承诺，即可以抵消对一个人的伤害通过为他人带来更大的综合收益。用罗尔斯的话说，这种反对是基于这样的信念，即“每个人都具有建立在正义基础上的不可侵犯性，甚至整个社会的福利也无法超越。”这一道德观的吸引力是不可否认的。但是，在一个不确定我们行动后果的世界（也就是说，我们生活的世界）中，它无法告诉我们如何行动。不可避免地，在进行我们无处不在的权衡时，我们将被驱使到某种形式的聚集，在这一聚集中，每一方受影响的人数都将计算在内，结果，通常会牺牲少数人的重大利益，从而损害许多人的利益。本文讨论了为什么会这样，为什么许多当代道德哲学家继续相信其他原因，以及当同一错误的信念在政治和政策制定中立于不败之时对我们所有人的社会代价。