How's utilitarianism's standing among contemporary proffessional philosophers? Any sort of utilitarianism. Granted, some current philosophers are utilitarians (like Peter Singer and Torbjörn Tännsjö), but how many are they in the big picture?

I don't know if this is entirely correct, but from what I've heard, utilitarianism was the dominant moral view among philosophers from the late 1800s until the 1970, when John Rawls and Robert Nozick paved for a comeback of deontological views. And the Rawlsian ethical paradigm is still dominant; in the words of Nozick, moral philosophers have to work within Rawls' paradigm, or explain why not.

Are there any prospects of utilitarianism becoming prominent again (if it isn't)?

I don't think there's any hard research into the question, but I think received wisdom is that it's probably the biggest single school of thought (far be it from me to suggest that that's because it's the only one coherent enough to be a single school ) but still a relatively small minority.

It suffers from its relatively clear definition too, though - when non-utilitarians want a common enemy to bash, util will often be it.

Rather than rejecting it outright, a lot of philosophers will also claim utilitarianism is 'a useful tool' or the like. If you ever figure out how a definition of your ultimate goal can make sense as a tool used to achieve it, let me know...

According to a recent survey, 23.6% of philosophers (at the departments surveyed) identify as consequentialists. http://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl I don't think they asked about utilitarianism specifically.

I stand corrected on multiple counts... interesting survey that, albeit depressing. Most of the more popular options I recognise by name I consider trivially false - surely the answer to almost all of these should be 'other' for almost any self-respecting philosopher?

For many of the questions, the possible answers provided are jointly exhaustive. At least for these questions, it is not at all clear why "the answer[s] [...] should be 'other' for almost any self-respecting philosopher."

Perhaps there are more among the subjects I know nothing about. But IMO the clear answer to the first four, the first consecutive set with which I'm reasonably familiar, is 'it depends how you define [key term]'. That's true for most of the others I recognise, too.

All those terms, perhaps with the exception of the 'subjective/objective' distinction in aesthetic value, have standard definitions in the philosophical literature. If you asked any two philosophers picked randomly from an Anglo-American university whether they thought a priori knowledge was possible, say, or whether the analytic-synthetic distinction was defensible, they'd probably interpret those questions in a similar way. The same is true about most of the other questions in the survey.

I have seen the standard definitions and find them insufficient. Besides, it's not necessarily the alternating terms I query - in the fourth question, 'distinction' is the bit I find most hazy.

Personally, I'm surprised that 80% of people believe in a priori judgements. Would we get a similar result among utilitarians?

it's not necessarily the alternating terms I query - in the fourth question, 'distinction' is the bit I find most hazy.

I'm perplexed by what you write here. You may accept or (as Quine does) reject the analytic/synthetic distinction, but I don't even know what it would mean to question the use of the term 'distinction'. But perhaps I misunderstood your point.

Personally, I'm surprised that 80% of people believe in a priori judgements. Would we get a similar result among utilitarians?

I don't know. If we had the dataset we could check whether there are any systematic correlations between answers to this question and answers to the consequentialism/deontology question.

Maybe you'll feel better if you reflect on the fact that over 50% of decision theorists surveyed identify as consequentialists. The Bayesians know what's up.

I'm perplexed by what you write here. You may accept or (as Quine does) reject the analytic/synthetic distinction, but I don't even know what it would mean to question the use of the term 'distinction'. But perhaps I misunderstood your point.

I don't think it's a wildly interesting discussion, but if you want to pursue it, give me what you think is a sufficient definition of 'distinction' in this context, and I'll either tell you why I don't think it is, or possibly accept that I didn't understand the term very well until now

utilitymonster wrote:According to a recent survey, 23.6% of philosophers (at the departments surveyed) identify as consequentialists. http://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl I don't think they asked about utilitarianism specifically.

Well, ethical egoism is a very minor point of view, so...

I'm surprised that so many are deontologists, and yet still don't believe in a god.

I agree that ethical egoism is rare, Loki, but there are other consequentialisms. For instance, some incorporate fairness or autonomy...

I lose a util every time a moral philosopher appeals to a vague notion of autonomy.

Anecdotally, I know in person two people who'd describe themselves as utilitarian, and perhaps a dozen who'd call themselves consequentialist but would be unwilling to call themselves utils.

Mostly they wouldn't particularly bother to name their ethical views beyond 'consequentialist', although a couple are prioritarian.

utilitymonster wrote:I lose a util every time a moral philosopher appeals to a vague notion of autonomy.

I feel your pain. 'Dignity' does the same to me.