Talk:Two-level utilitarianism

message: 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)
replies: text: OK, I have effectively finished with the initial creation of this article. You may now edit away to your heart's content with my blessing. "Be bold". --Stringman5 03:11, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Article created

message: 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
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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)
replies: text: Dammit. I believe the image was relevant, given that Two-Level Utilitarianism was developed by R.M. Hare. However I borrowed it from the page on Hare, and never bothered to have a look at whether it had all the fair-use documentation and fine print as I don't know the first thing about that stuff. Now the picture appears to be permanently gone, and I don't know where to find it again. Thanks a freakin' bunch, Fairusebot. Stringman5 (talk) 04:28, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Image copyright problem with Image:RMHare.jpg

message: 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)
thread_title: Reply to criticism

message: Substituted at 20:18, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

message: 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)
thread_title: Government House Utilitarianism