Philpropsophy – Philosophy Articles and Article Summaries

Utilitarianism is a philosophical epidemic in contemporary social and political dialogue. In one form or another, the notion of a “greater good” above the good of individual agents has taken root in group-centric ideologies. Dictators have invoked it on nationalistic or ethnocentric grounds; leftists have promoted it in the name of “mankind”; even the most individualistic of nations, such as the United States, are overrun by policy concerns for the “national interest.” Part of its appeal is intuitive: if happiness is good, and we want more of good things, then the greatest happiness is what we ought to look for. This looks decent enough in words, but it is only a connection of similar sounds that holds it together. What is meant by “happiness,” and what is the sense in which it is “good”? To whom does the “greatest happiness” pertain, and why “ought” we to pursue it? Utilitarianism, even in its most “complete” form, fails to address these questions with valid answers.

Overall, utilitarianism is a philosophical mess. Its moral implications are strange; its practice is filled with difficulties and absurdities; and its justification arises from, principally, nowhere. Mill’s treatment of utilitarianism, in particular, is one with egregious flaws. Its essential characteristics can be listed as follows: pleasure (in the non-degrading sense) is all that is intrinsically valuable; each person’s pleasure is valued equally, with allowance for “kind”; an action’s morality is measured by its positive productive correspondence with pleasure (for all); and agents must be disinterested spectators in order to consider their decisions correctly.[1] Problems with utilitarianism can be generally summarized in three, often inter-related, categories: the alienation of agents from themselves, problems of moral calculation, and lack of justification.

The doctrine of consequentialism[2] is the principal cause of bizarre moral demands expressed by utilitarianism. As Philippa Foot notes, there is a very compelling idea behind suggesting that no one would ever consider it morally acceptable to choose a worse state of affairs over a better one.[3] Using that idea as an argument against non-consequentialist theories, however, either begs the question or causes friction with pre-existing, weak intuition, depending on the senses of the words “better” and “worse.” If they are used normatively, clearly no deontological[4] moral theorist would reject a morally “better” state of affairs (more duties fulfilled) for a “worse” one – to do so would be antithetical to having a moral theory in the first place, and thus this case is trivial.[5] If they are used supposing some usage which is non-normative but somehow value-based, then they essentially ignore the moral theory under criticism, instead imposing a standard from a foreign hierarchy of values, i.e. a floating abstraction. For example, one might criticize Ayn Rand’s Objectivism for providing no political guarantee for the care of physically handicapped (beyond protection from coercion), indicating an alleged problem with the consequences of Objectivism. However, Objectivism establishes a direct relationship between its principles (e.g., non-interventionism) and concretes (e.g., nature of reality, nature of humans, validity of the senses, etc.), so this criticism merely involves some relativistic view of a “good” state of affairs being used as a standard to judge a reasoned moral theory.

Consequentialism affects the role of the agent in moral decision-making quite severely. Under consequentialist utilitarianism, an action’s morality can be defined thusly: that action is moral which brings about the intrinsically desirable state of affairs. An agent is as much morally responsible for those states which arise from his action as those from his inaction. Therefore, at any given point in time, he must decide which action will produce the proper state from that point forward, regardless of the past. An important observation here is that the actions of other agents are no greater factors in the agent’s decision than anything else, i.e. they are simply part of the environment in which he must bring about the best state of affairs.

In other words, all considerations for an agent’s decision are exogenous: his concern ought to be to take what is given, and to produce the best outcome from it. Suppose a man, a proficient utilitarian named John Stuart, is walking down the street of a very happy society. Along comes a man of great evil who is part of an alliance of reputable wrong-doers, who presents the utilitarian with an ultimatum: “kill yourself, or I will kill ten people very much like you in this very happy society.” The evil alliance of wrong-doing does, indeed, have a strict policy of honoring its sinister promises when they are made, and has yet to break it. J.S., as a good utilitarian, knows that if he does not kill himself, he will be morally responsible for the deaths of ten very happy people, since he could have prevented it.[6]

Clearly, there is something amiss in this example. A determined utilitarian could say that the evil man is morally blameworthy for presenting J.S. with such a terrible situation, since either outcome (minus one person or minus ten people) reduces the greatest overall happiness. Nonetheless, this does not change the nature of J.S.’s decision: he must weigh the utilities at hand, which obviously point away from his continued existence, and make the right or wrong choice. The relevant implication is that J.S., as an agent, is alienated from his own person. He is not only responsible for his own actions, but for the actions of others (the evil man and the sinister organization). As Bernard Williams states, consequentialism implies that “from the moral point of view, there is no comprehensible difference which consists just in my bringing about a certain outcome rather than someone else’s producing it.” Because the focus of utilitarian moral action is to produce a specific end-state for everyone, J.S. (or anyone in his position) must put aside all of his projects (being happy, being a philosopher, being alive) when the ultimatum is issued to him and act as the projects of others demand.[7]

The utilitarian calculus is also the source of much trouble. How practical is it to fully integrate all requisite information (the happiness of all others, the results of an action on it, etc.) into a properly weighted scale in order to make the right decision? Mill qualifies this problem by suggesting that it is a problem shared by all moral theories:

There is no ethical creed which does not temper the rigidity of its laws by giving a certain latitude, under the moral responsibility of the agent, for accommodation to peculiarities of circumstances and, under every creed, at the opening thus made, self- deception and dishonest casuistry get in. There exists no moral system under which there do not arise unequivocal cases of conflicting obligation.

This contention does not suffice, however. It is indeed true that all moral theories encounter difficulties, but to invoke that as an absolution of utilitarianism’s difficulties is analogous to telling an upstart typewriter company in the 21^st century, “every business has trouble and needs to invest at a loss when it gets started- don’t worry, go ahead and invest.” Utilitarianism requires a tremendous amount of input in order to properly discover the right decision, across many persons in both the short-run and long-run. The sheer volume of particulars in the world must be considered in every case, as opposed to the fewer particulars that would be necessary in, say, a natural law framework of morality. The conclusion is that the “calculated” utilitarian choice is often wildly divergent from its ideal, morally correct choice. Contrarily, in a natural law theory, someone makes a contract and knows to keep it because, via reason, he has concluded that contracts ought to be kept, and that in this specific situation he knows that it applies (for the obvious reason that he signed his name on a physical contract with another person). In the context of the theory, there is only a miniscule chance that he has made an error in his judgment.

Rule utilitarianism is an attempt at fixing this insurmountable pragmatic challenge, but it only serves to reaffirm, as almost a utilitarian’s admission of guilt, the puzzles encountered in using the greatest happiness principle as a moral guide. Whereas deontological moral theories fix their rules as absolute, rule utilitarianism only provides its laws as “rules of thumb” which supposedly tend to bring about the greatest happiness. For the former, in practice, there is a much higher correspondence between reality and its ideal principles than the latter possesses. Though these tremendous obstacles for the greatest happiness principle do not necessarily refute it, they are evidence for the weakness of utilitarianism as a theory which represents reality.

Supposing that we can accurately calculate the greatest good, what kind of outcomes could we find? Take a society of k agents, whose utility distribution is expressed by (U₁, U₂, … U_k) and whose total utility is, accordingly, U_t = U₁ + U₂ + … U_k. Compare different distributions: A = (10, 10, 10, 10, 10), B = (15, 15, 10, 5, 5), and C = (20, 15, 5, 5, 6). Holding that any synergistic gains in benefits (elimination of class barriers, social stability, etc.) are accounted for, the principle of utility should show moral indifference between A and B (both of sum 50), and ideally choose C (sum 51). Yet C, hypothetically, could possibly be a society of slaves. This does not constitute a logical objection to utilitarianism, and to contend so would be to commit the fallacy of using an external value as a standard of judgment, as I mentioned earlier. However, it is certainly an implication that a utilitarian must acknowledge when advocating this as a moral theory.

In light of this, utilitarian calculus can always be revised appropriately to face any objection or unpleasant reality. Different weights can be placed on certain kinds of suffering or kinds of action to the point that the consequentialist moral structure can be functionally isomorphic with a deontological structure. Though each revision does not make consequentialism void ipso facto, it progressively weakens the significance of using a results-oriented moral theory as an alternative to deontological theories. While Jeremy Bentham accuses moral thinking of being tethered to the notion of usefulness, it is here where the argument can be turned against the utilitarian for attaching itself to some notion of duty.

Rule utilitarianism is one such attempt to correct difficulties by combining consequentialism with a desire to adhere to traditional moral rules (promise-keeping, non-violence, private property, etc.) All the utilitarian must do is hold that the pragmatic result of some rule (formerly conceived as a duty in itself) leads to the greatest happiness, or that violation of it leads to the greatest pain. For example, Mill would argue against a hypothetical slave society as posited earlier by saying that no such society could ever exist. At best, this is a very weak method of refutation and the burden of proof is on Mill to either show that the empirical facts strongly affirm the statement, or to allow that such a society is morally acceptable. The alterability of the standard moral content of utilitarianism subjects it to the dangers of whim and abuse, which frequently undermine its significance as a theory of how we ought to behave. One need only examine each time historically a “greater good” was invoked in order to mobilize people to commit atrocities (the Holocaust, the Soviet purges, Rwandan genocide, etc.)

The entire discussion prior to this sentence, of course, is mostly an exercise of thought and is not essential; simply put, Mill’s Utilitarianism fails to present a valid justification for the principle of utility in the first place. In fact, it is this failure that indirectly causes the aforementioned difficulties. There is no relationship drawn between the moral theory he advocates and any believable story of human nature. The previously expressed concerns are mostly problems encountered with utilitarian principles as a given, but how these principles were derived in the first place must be addressed. Mill’s bogus proof is the first part of this failure:

The only proof capable of being given that an object is visible is that people actually see it. The only proof that a sound is audible is that people hear it; and so of the other sources of our experience. In like manner, I apprehend, the sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable is that people do actually desire it… this, however, being a fact, we have not only all the proof which the case admits of, but all which it is possible to require, that happiness is a good, that each person’s happiness is a good to that person, and the general happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate of all persons.

The equivocation of the word “desirable” in his proof is clear. He intends to argue that people desire happiness, which makes it desirable (i.e. intrinsically good). However, he fails to account for the different senses of the word “desirable.” His proof could correctly assert that if people desire happiness, it is capable of being desired, but his intended demonstration that happiness is intrinsically worthy of being desired because people desire it is fallacy. By Mill’s logic, one could simply substitute any noun- like “cats”- for “happiness,” and there would be a proof for the intrinsic value of cats! The problem with Mill’s proof is that what people contingently happen to desire does not change what is “desirable” (in the intrinsic sense); just because nobody in the 14^th century desired equal recognition of the rights of women does not mean that it is not in fact desirable.[8]

Furthermore, the second part of his proof commits the fallacy of composition. While it is indeed true that the good of one individual contributes to the good of the aggregate of all persons (which is merely a sum total of individual goods), the reverse (that the general happiness is a good to the individual), which is the goal of Mill’s proof, is not true. The aggregate of all persons is not an entity in itself which possesses a good, and any increase in the aggregate of happiness is not necessarily fulfilling the desire for happiness of all its members; it could be fulfilling the desires of one, few, or many. Even supposing the reality of some kind of collective entity, Mill provides no reason why we ought to care for each other’s happiness.

Is there, yet, any defense of utilitarianism which renders it plausible? In the absence of a proof of the principle of utility, Bentham contends that all moral systems reduce to a form of utility, are ambiguous, or cannot be followed consistently. While Bentham’s claims about the utilitarian climate of moral reasoning are true, its implications do not end in utilitarianism. How agents ought to behave must be connected in some way to a view of the physical nature of those agents and the physical reality in which they reside. It would, for example, be nonsensical to argue that an incorporeal being has a right to his own personal space, or a right not to be stabbed- these are all rights that implicitly depend on the agent residing in physical space. Likewise, a reasonable morality which pertains to human beings corresponds to their nature- desiring to live, existing in space and time, mortal, requiring sustenance, etc. There is no justification for a moral theory that does not consider these facts (it is either ambiguous or inconsistent). In this respect, moral theory is concerned with utility. Since rights are derived from man acting in the function of man, so it is no surprise that these rights are concerned with fulfilling man’s functions and purpose (the ultimate end), and are thus utility-related. The fundamental difference between utility in this sense and utility in the utilitarian sense is that the former more generally deals with the pragmatic satisfaction of any given purpose, while the latter is its own moral system which prescribes a specific purpose: the greatest happiness for all. In summary, Bentham’s contention can be satisfied without requiring the adoption of the specific normative guidelines of utilitarianism.

The period extending from the late 19^th century to the present day could be described as “the slow death of deontological morality to consequentialism.” Indeed, changes in the texture of popular philosophical discourse have invariably seeped into the political environment. The Progressive movement of the early 20^th century changed the focus in America from political to “economic” freedoms- no longer the right to property, but the right to a decent standard of living. Social revolutions occurred everywhere in the world, to “make the lot better” of struggling groups: the proletariat in Russia, the Aryans in Germany, and the dissatisfied of Cuba. Each year, the most powerful governments of the world shift policy toward socialism and guarantees of results for the citizen, whether it is healthcare, shelter, employment, or social acceptance. Underlying this great movement is a moral righteousness endorsed by consequentialist philosophies which share the general forms of Mill’s Utilitarianism (not his political theory, however), usually with specific collectivist undertones. In any case, these belief systems have been shown, in argument, to be implausible, and even evil; whether they will work out is a question that has been and will be answered in history.

[2] “Consequentialism” is used to represent the idea that the right act is one that produces the best overall state of affairs.

[3] Philippa Foot, in Pojman, 215.

[4] I will use “deontological” chiefly as a contrast to “consequentialist” for the remainder of the paper; “deontological” is meant to include all non-consequentialist theories.

[5] The objection could present a problem for a moral theory which mixes moral obligation between means and ends, but such a theory is already problematic in itself and does not merit discussion.

[6] This is in accordance with “negative responsibility” entailed by consequentialism.

[7] Bernard Williams, in Pojman, 227.

[8] Hauptli, Lecture Supplement on Mill.