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Nice faux outrage. Perhaps he is saying that utilitarianism is a race to the bottom and that our actions shouldn't be based on an evaluation of an actions consequences but rather on the universality of it, such that we act only according to that maxim by which we can also will it to become universal law?

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This sounds like “the ends justify the means” dressed up in pseudo-intellectual verbiage.

Whether I made it too `pseudo-intellectual' I don't know, or perhaps rather, I must have because the point went over your head. My point was exactly the opposite, there are no desirable ends: either Apple should be allowed to assist law enforcement or they shouldn't, regardless of what ends this might bring.

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