Utilitarianism notes – Heidi Phelps' Classes

Utilitarianism: The greatest happiness for the greatest number[1]
1. Background
  - Utilitarian is a teleologic normative system of ethics Modernized by Jeremy Bentham and John Stewart Mill in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s respectively.
  - Utilitarianism has its roots in eighteenth and nineteenth century democracy.
  - Like democracy, Utilitarianism is a revolt against the authoritarian, top-down government structures of the past. These governments were based on rules so that good actions were those that complied with the rules and bad actions were those that did not comply with the rules.
  - However, Bentham and Mill believed that truth comes to us by observation and can be verified through our senese and we need not rely on another person coercing us with rules about our behavior or a institution wherein rules are accepted on irrational blind faith.
  - It is also a form of hedonism, or the view that the good people should seek is happiness, or pleasure.
  - Therefore, in utilitarianism the ultimate good is happiness, or pleasure.
  - Our American constitution is founded on some utilitarianism principles, “…the pursuit of happiness.”
  - Why is it called utilitarianism? The name utilitarianism comes from the concept of utility. Therefore, utilitarianism is a system of ethics that is based on the usefulness of an action in obtaining the goal of happiness.
2. What is happiness/pleasure in utilitarianism?
  - Hedonistic pleasure: Hedonism usually has a bad connotation and usually the pleasure referred to is immediate, hormonal, emotional, or animalistic pleasure of some sort.
  - Utilitarian pleasure: When we deal with pleasure in utilitarianism, we are referring to it in a much broader sense. Utilirarian happiness is a state of overall well-being that includes, and usually emphasizes, the intellectual, spiritual, and social aspects of happiness.

Utilitarianism is a teleologic normative system of ethics.
- Remember that any system that has an end at which we ought to aim is called a teleologic system. What makes this a teleologic system is that the goal, or aim, is happiness. So happiness is a means unto itself.
- For Example: If we ask ourselves why we want to make money or have good relationships or be healthy, we usually will say that we want these things so that we can be happy. But if we ask ourselves why we want to be happy, we usually answer, so that I can be happy! Therefore, while we want other things because they will make us happy, happiness is usually considered as something that we want for the sake of happiness itself, not for the sake of something else. This differs from ethical egoism, though, in the way we get to happiness.

How do we get to happiness? An analysis of the theory
- Utilitarian ethics are based on two main principles:
  - The Principle of Utility:
    - “By that principle of utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question.”[2]
    - So actions are good when the result is happiness, and they are evil when they promote
  - The greatest number principle
    - Who is “the party…in question”? When Bentham and Mill talk about “the party whose interest is in question,” he is referring not only to oneself, but to everyone affected by a particular decision.
    - When we make decisions, other people are involved. This means that the interests of all affected by a decision must be considered in utilitarianism.
  - Two secondary principles
    - The value of person:
      - Each person is extremely valuable. Therefore no one person’s happiness is valued above another person’s happiness. When we consider our actions, we must consider others be just as valuable as ourselves and we ought to care about how they are affected just as we are concerned about the effect on ourselves.
      - Altruism: In this sense, utilitarianism is an altruistic theory to the extent that if you are choosing between alternative actions, the one that will cause the greatest happiness for the most people is the one that you are obligated to choose, even if you do not end up happy.
    - Happiness for everyone:
      - Not all will be happy: Utilitarianism recognized that all people will not end up happy in every situation. This is because people’s interests conflict, and because of that, some people will have to sacrifice their happiness for the sake of the majority.
      - The sacrifice of happiness: However, it is important to note that self-sacrifice is not a good in and of itself. It is only good if it done for the sake of overall happiness for the most people. Therefore, before we sacrifice our own happiness, we are obligated to figure out if that sacrifice will actually result in the most happiness for the most people.
    - Knowing what is good:
      - Utilitarianism does not judge the good or bad of actions according to conformity to rules like “do not murder.” Instead, we judge actions according to the results we get.
      - Therefore, ethical truth is found in the consequences of our actions. It is subject to testing.
      - Consequentialism: Ethical theories that focus on the consequences of our actions are called consequentialist theories. Therefore, Ethical utilitarianism is a consequentialist teleological normative system of ethics.

utilitarianism and religion: Some have proposed that Utilitarianism is the ethical theory most compatible with religion. However, I would disagree with this because as we will see later, virtue ethics is extremely compatible with religion, and perhaps more than utilitarianism.
Two different types of utilitarianism:
- Bentham’s Quantitative utilitarianism
  - Bentham was the first major advocate of utilitarianism in the late 1700’s.
  - Bentham’s goal was to make ethics quantifiable because if we are going to base as system of ethics on optimal happiness, we need a way to figure out how to calculate how much happiness each decision would produce.
  - The hedonistic calculus: He therefore came up with the hedonistic calculus. He divides happiness into seven categories
    - Intensity (how intense is the happiness)
    - Duration (how long will it last)
    - Certainty (what is the probability of obtaining the desired results)
    - Propinquity (How soon will the result occur)
    - Fecundity (will this decision result in other, similar pleasure)
    - Purity (how much pain comes with this pleasure)
    - Extent (how many are affected)
  - How ethical decisions are made: Once the calculus is in place, we do two things
    - Step 1: calculate how much pleasure we expect to gain in each of the seven categories for each of the alternative options.
    - Step 2: we compare the scores of all options and choose the option which gives us the highest score.
  - Bentham did not think there was anything outrageous in his proposal. After all, we weigh the results of decisions every day and choose the one we think is best. All Bentham was adding was a “scientific” method for determining which decision is actually best and to make sure that we have considered all of the important aspects of happiness in our decision.
- Mill’s qualitative utilitarianism
  - Mill was concerned that the quantitative approach to utilitarianism left much to be desired because while the happiness gained from a decision may have a higher hedonic value than the alternatives, but the quality of happiness that resulted may not be optimized.
  - Mill’s formulation of utilitarianism therefore emphasized the quality of the happiness rather than the quantity.
  - Mill had two main critiques of Bentham’s utilitarianism:
    - Humans have both “higher” and “lower” desires
      1. Higher desires: desires of reason and intellect which cannot be quantified.
      2. Lower desires: desires based on our biological needs and wants which can be quantified.
      3. How do we calculate desire? Mill says that we cannot, and therefore the hedonistic calculus leaves out qualitative considerations.
    - Not everyone has experienced higher pleasures.
      1. Therefore, a choice between two pleasures, one that appeals to higher and one that appeals to lower, would give a skewed hedonic calculus in favor of the lower desires.
      2. To make this point, Mill said: The “capacity for the nobler feeling is in most natures a very tender plant, easily killed.”
      3. How do we know which pleasures are higher? If a person has experienced two pleasures and is under no pressure to choose one over the other, the pleasure he or she freely chooses is the higher one.
      4. Mill was certain that the pleasure chosen would be the higher one. What he meant by this is that those who had experienced intellectual pleasures, which are higher in Mill’s estimation, would use his intellectual faculties to ensure that the highest, more intellectual pleasure every time.
      5. Therefore, Mill says, “It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides.”[3]
      6. So we test which pleasure is higher by experiencing them both. Again, Mill claims that this is something that is empirically testable.
      7. Mill’s utilitarianism is generally considered to be elitist in this sense. Not everyone has sufficient experience with intellectual happiness to be able to make informed decisions when it comes to morality.
    - Summary of utilitarian ethics
      - Happiness is the only thing that is intrinsically good. Only pain, or unhappiness, is evil in itself
      - No one person’s (including one’s own) happiness is more valuable than that of any other. Because of this, we need to seek the happiness of the greatest number of people
      - The only ethically significant consideration in judging an action is the result, or the consequences of the action. In other words, the ends justify the means.
    - Benefits of utilitarianism
      - Utilitarianism links doing good and happiness.
        
        It recognizes our natural desire for happiness and embraces the good in that happiness.
        
        It accepts our natural aversion to pain and says that we have an obligation not to cause pain.
        
        This seems to coincide with common sense. It makes sense that those things that are pleasurable are good and those things that are painful are not good.
      - Teleologic ethical theory
        
        Utilitarianism is oriented toward a goal.
        
        Because the results are required to be empirically testable, people can keep subjective elements from creeping into their ethical decisions.
        
        It relies on concrete results.
      - The versatility of utilitarianism
        
        The principle of utility can be applied both to personal and to public decisions.
        
        It is a theory that can help us avoid using one ethical approach for our personal lives and another ethical approach for our public lives.
      - Utilitarianism offers a way of balancing individual freedoms with social obligations.
        
        It allows for equality; all people are equally valuable
        
        It also recognizes that a society cannot survive without concessions by one person or another.
        
        Each person must accept the decision of the majority.

Problems with utilitarianism
- Can we know the results of a decision before the results come about?
  - The goodness of an action is judged by the results of our aciotns
  - Therefore, the goodness of an action depends on something that is in the future. It is an unknown.
  - We are often mistaken about how something will turn out, or how others will be affected by our decisions.
  - Example: Suppose a region of the country was faced with an energy crisis you are helping out with a solution. Some of the issues involve taxation, possible relocation of people from homes of jobs, subjecting those nearby to potential health hazards, and other ethical concerns. According to utilitarianism, the moral solution would be the one that involved the least amount of main and maximized happiness. Every form of power facility considered has its good and its bad points. You could build a nuclear power plant that is cheaper to run, accumulates less waste overall, and the waste produced is well-contained. However, the risk of malfunction and the problems that could arise with waste disposal lead you to choose a more expensive plant that while it produces vast amounts of waste and consumes more resources, it does not involve radioactive waste and the possibility of acute catastrophic disasters. However, just as you finish building the plant, a new breakthrough in technology solves the problems of waste disposal in nuclear energy. Utilitarianism indicates that you have therefore made the wrong decision.
  - Because the results of a decision will come about in the future, we have to make our best guess and hope that it will turn out that we have done good in the end.
- How do we compare the results?
  - Because the results of a decision are in the future and therefore unknown, we do not know with certainty the results of the various options we are faced with.
  - The goal is the greatest good, not just a good thing. Therefore, the only good thing is the greatest thing. But how can we know in every situation which choice will result in the greatest good, especially when the results are in the future?
  - Furthermore, how do we compare the results of all of the options when only one option is actualized?
- Can we know the extent of the consequences of our decisions?
  - This objection deals with the question, “how do we know what the “greatest number” is?
  - If we are to answer this question, we must know two things:
    - Who will be affected?
      1. We don’t always know this before we make the decision.
      2. Even if there is a majority vote, we still don’t know if the majority will be affected.
    - What will result in the greatest happiness?
      1. This was already dealt with in the first objections.
      2. Even if we took a majority vote, it is very possible that those who were in the majority will not be happy with the result.
    - While happiness may be the virtue for the sake of which we do all other things, it is a virtue that may not be attainable without the practice of other virtues, namely justice.
      - In utilitarianism, rules are not important in our decisions about what is right and what is wrong.
      - Also, other virutes such as fairness, honesty, friendship, justice, love, are not considered important in our decisions. The only consideration is whether the end result will be the greatest happiness for the most people.
      - However, we have seen great misery of a few for the sake of great happiness for the majority. We call this “unjust” in other ethical systems. In utilitarianism, this is considered to be goodness.
    - Motive does not count
      - For example, let’s take two people: One is a man of moderate means who gives his life savings of one million dollars to the Hurricane Katrina victims. His motivation was kindness and sympathy for those less fortunate than himself. The other man is a billionaire and he grudgingly gives one million to the Hurricane Katrina victims because he needs just one million more in donations to get that immense tax write-off. Each action equally resulted in the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. However, we would surely not say that the billionaire’s action was just as good as the man of modest means.
      - To consider both men’s actions as equal runs counter to our intuitions.
      - In utilitarianism, why people do what they do has not significance in our evaluation of their actions.
    - Is morality dependent on the success of an action?
      - Let’s change the above example a bit. This time, both men are motivated by kindness and sympathy and a genuine desire for the benefit of the Hurricane victims. However, while the money given by the billionaire goes directly to the Red Cross and helps thousands of families lead better lives, the money given by the man of modest means is stolen by a computer hacker who then uses it to fund his Columbian drug smuggling scheme.
      - Whose action is good in this situation? Utilitarianism deems the billionaire’s action as good and the man of modest means acted in an evil manner.
      - Therefore, our actions can be good or evil due to circumstances beyond our knowledge or control regardless of our intentions. This runs counter to our ethical intuitions.
    - Who is ethically responsible?
      - Ethical responsibility is placed on the factor causing the unhappiness, whether the factor was intentional or not, and whether the factor was an action or not.
      - For example: Suppose the Smith family with five children live in a rural town in Pennsylvania. This town values family and children, and it is joyful whenever a new child arrives. The Smiths have fallen on hard times, and they need to move to another small town in order to make ends meet. They make the move, and after a few months, they discover that what makes people happy in this town is 1.5 children per couple. In fact, couples are morally obligated not to upset that average because it will make the majority very unhappy. With the arrival of the Smiths, all previous residents of this town will have to significantly alter their reproductive practices, leaving 28 couples childless and the rest of the residents disgruntled at the inconvenience. The factor creating this unhappiness, the Smiths, is an evil factor according to utilitarian ethical principles, and the Smiths ought to go elsewhere.
      - What we find, then, is that the ethical responsibility falls on unsuspecting parties who often can do nothing to alter their actions or situation.

[1] Wilkens, Chapter 5

[2] Bentham, Jeremy, An introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (New York: Hafner, 1948), Chap. 1, par.. 2.

[3] Mill, John Stuart, Utilitarianism, ed. George Sher (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1979) pg. 16.