History of PhilosophyLecture 18

John Stuart Mill: Utilitarianism

By David Kelsey

Mill

• John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)• He was the greatest 19th century defender of Utilitarianism.• He was a child prodigy.• Defended women’s suffrage.• His text Utilitarianism was published in 1861.

Utilitarianism

• The greatest happiness principle:– Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness,

– wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.

• Or:– Always do whatever will produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number.

Utilitarianism:it’s two parts

• Any version of Utilitarianism (including Mill’s version) is composed of two other views:

– Consequentialism:• We determine whether an act is right or wrong by looking at it’s consequences.

– Hedonism:• This tells us what makes for a better or worse consequence.

• Good: what promotes pleasure

• Bad: what promotes pain.

Consequentialism

• Consequentialism: To determine whether or not an action is right:

– weigh the good consequences of doing the action against the bad consequences of doing it.

– And weigh the good consequences of not doing the action against the bad consequences of not doing it.

– Do whatever will have the best overall consequences.

• Sorting good from bad: Thus, to determine whether or not an action is right:

– One must be able to sort the good consequences from the bad consequences.

– The meaning of ‘good’ and ‘bad’…

• Defining the good then the Right: Thus, Consequentialist moral theories, like Utilitarianism,

– define the good, I.e. what they want to promote, then define what is right by simply calculating what will best promote that good.

Consequentialism

• Other ways to define Consequentialism:– Between two actions, perform the one that has better consequences.

– One determines whether an act is right or wrong by looking solely at it’s consequences.

– The end justifies the means.• The consequences of an action can justify the action itself.

• Thus, if harming someone will somehow cause more good overall than bad, one ought to harm that person.

Hedonism

• Hedonism says that a good thing is one that adds to the sum total of human happiness.

– Happiness: pleasure and the absence of pain.

– Unhappiness: pain and the absence of pleasure.

• Hedonism & Happiness: – What makes something, anything and not just life, good is the amount of happiness it

produces.

• Happiness is the only non-derivative good:– It is the only thing that is good as an end in itself.

• Derivative goods: money, knowledge, fulfilling personal relationships, etc.

Calculating Pleasures

• Jeremy Bentham, who with Mill created the Utilitarian theory, took it upon himself to provide a way to calculate pleasures and pains

– A calculus of pleasures and pains…

– He first lists the various pleasures and pains:• Those of sense, of wealth, of skill, of a good name, of piety, power, happy memories, etc.

– He then highlights the ways in which pleasures and pains can differ:• Intensity: • Duration:• Certainty or uncertainty:• Propinquity or remoteness:• Fecundity:• Purity: • Extent:

– So Pleasures and Pains can be quantified.• We have a mathematical formula for determining what actions we ought to perform. This is a

science of pleasures and pains.

Mill’s argument for Hedonism

• The non-derivative good is what people want non-derivatively:– Mill thinks that a non-derivatively good thing must be what all people want non-

derivatively: what people want for itself, as an end, not as a means to something else.

– So Mill thinks we should define ‘good’ as whatever ‘people’ desire in itself.

• But, Mill says, the production of pleasure and the absence of pain is what everyone desires.

– And not only this, pleasure is the only thing people desire in itself.

• His evidence for this: look around!!!– What people do desire is just the production of pleasure and the absence of pain.

– Mill says: just look around; think about yourself…

The form of Mill’s argument

• The form of Mill’s argument:– 1. A non-derivatively good thing is one that people want for itself.

– 2. Happiness is the only thing that people want for itself.

– 3. Thus, happiness is the only non-derivative good.

• Is this argument sound?– Premise 1:

– Premise 2?

– What about the move to the conclusion?

Objection to Hedonism:the life of the beasts

• Some people object that hedonism is degrading.– It makes the best life the ‘life of the beasts’.– If a pig can live a life completely satisfied, while a morally concerned and

thoughtful man like Socrates cannot ever be so satisfied, isn’t the life of the pig preferable?

• Mills reply:– It is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied– Human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal appetites, and

when once made conscious of them, do not regard anything as happiness which does not include their gratification.

Mill’s reply

• The form of Mill’s reply:– 1-There are higher and lower pleasures.– 2-Any amount of higher pleasure is preferable to any amount of lower

pleasure.• His evidence: anyone who has experienced higher pleasures would prefer them,

on reflection, to lower pleasures.

• Higher pleasures:

– any use of the mind including reflection or thought,

• Lower pleasures:

– All pleasures not as a result of using the mind.

– 3-Since the life of the beast produces only lower pleasures, the life of the beast isn’t the best life at all.

The life of virtue

• Objection: wouldn’t you rather be virtuous than happy.– Selling out:

• Often we have the opportunity to ‘sell out’, to get something that will make us happy at the cost of doing bad.

• Many people would rather not do that.

• Mill’s reply:– The life of virtue is an important part of being happy.

• You wouldn’t really be happy if you sold out.

• ‘Selling out’ is usually a matter of trading virtue for something that is only derivatively good, like money.

Who counts?

• Objection: it is difficult to determine just who we include in our calculation of utility?– Do we include all person’s whose interest may be affected?– Only those in our own state? Our own community? Our own family?

• What about non-human sentient beings? Should their pleasure or pain count?– Singer:

• argues that since animals can feel pleasure and pain just like humans, their interests must be taken into account when calculating the overall good an action produces.

• So it is morally wrong to eat animals, to experiment on them, or to imprison them in zoos. • Can you think of Mill’s reply to Singer’s argument?

• What about future generations?– Should we consider the interests of future persons?

– Should we consider the environment?

Quantifying happiness?

• To determine how much pleasure vs. pain an act produces:

– one must consider whether an act will lead to greater pleasure than pain

– one must also consider the intensity of that pleasure (and the intensity of that pain).

– Is an action Morally right if it: • Brings a good number of people a small amount of pain• But also brings a small number of people a great amount of pleasure.

• But it is extremely difficult to calculate the intensity of pleasure and pain.

– Could you assign numeric values to your pleasures and pains?

– And how do we assign numeric values to your pleasures and pains in comparison to my pleasures and pains or between higher and lower pleasures?

• Mill’s reply:

– Estimation is sufficient…

Calculation is based onmere prediction

• Isn’t it just impossible to weigh out the pleasure and pain that result from an action.

– Consider:

• How can we even predict all of the consequences of our actions?

• And how do we predict the pleasure and pain that will result from the consequences of our actions?

• A plausible response:– We are only trying to maximize probable utility.

Demanding-ness

• Utilitarianism really asks us to leave our lives to go cure world hunger:– If everyone’s happiness is of equal value to our own, then it will be hard to justify doing

anything other than working to alleviate world hunger.

• Justifying School or a steak dinner?

• The response:– We know what will produce our own happiness better than what will produce

happiness in other people.

• Counter-response:– Basic necessities…

Utilitarianism ignoresthe distinctness of person’s

• Utilitarianism could justify inflicting pain in some if others are afforded pleasure:

– Slavery example:

• a utilitarian would have to weigh the suffering of those who would be slaves against the benefits accruing to those who would be slave owners.

• Making the trade off:– It may be possible for a single individual to make this trade-off

• One could weigh the pain of having a tooth pulled against the benefit of getting rid of the toothache,

– But is it really possible to make this trade-off between people?• Can you really justify inflicting pain on one person by pointing to the increased

pleasure this will bring to others?

What about promises?

• Utilitarianism does not give sufficient weight to past acts:– Utilitarianism is forward looking

• it gives no weight to past acts.

• Past events have relevance only to the extent that they affect future consequences.

– For the Utilitarian, the fact that I have promised to do something is not in itself a reason for doing it.

• As a Utilitarian, I will keep my promise only if keeping it will have the best consequences…

Promises once again

• The Utilitarian will often talk of justifying keeping a promise because of the negative consequences brought if it is broken:

– I make it less likely that people will rely on my promises in the future

– Undermining the institution of promise keeping

• But don’t we keep our promises for reasons other than that doing so produces pleasure?

– Don’t we have a hard time breaking promises just because of what a promise is?

• Isn’t there something valuable about keeping a promise in and of itself?

What about Rights?

• For a Utilitarian there aren’t any absolute prohibitions

– For anything can be justified if it produces the best consequences.

– Thus, there are no absolute rights either.

• But aren’t there absolute rights?

– These are rights that cannot be violated under any circumstances.

– Consider the rights not to be tortured or murdered or…

• The reply:

– while murder or torture, etc. might maximize happiness in extreme circumstances,

– such circumstances are very unlikely &– it would almost always maximize happiness to respect rights against such conduct .

• The counter:

– But this still allows for individual violations of such rights…

The fatal flaw of Utilitarianism

• The problem with Utilitarianism: – a Utilitarian would tell you to kill an innocent if it meant the production of more

pleasure than pain.

• The real problem: the Utilitarian puts the good before the right– Utilitarians first decide what is good and then decide what is right by looking at what

will produce the greatest amount of good.

– As long as you do this, critics argue, no act is always morally wrong…

• Put the right before the good: – Some critics argue this is the only way to solve this problem…

Williams

• Bernard Williams (1929-2003) was a British philosopher.• Taught at Cal Berkeley• Was a great admirer of Mill, but not himself a Utilitarian.• Like Mill he wanted to apply his philosophical views to form public policy.

Applying our moral theories:Moral Dilemmas

• So far we have looked at a few Ethical Theories, including both Utilitarianism and Deontology.

– Ethical theories give general answers to the question ‘What ought I do?”

– But sometimes more specific answers are interesting.

• Moral dilemmas: – are specific cases in which it is hard to tell what one ought to do.

– We can use our reactions, our gut feeling or intuitions, to moral dilemmas to find out which of our ethical theories we think is the correct one.

• The Williams Dilemma:– Compare the answer of the Utilitarian to that of the Deontologist…

George the Chemist

• George the Chemist:– “George, who has taken his Ph.D in chemistry, finds it extremely difficult to get a job.

He is not very robust in health, which cuts down the number of jobs he might be able to do satisfactorily. His wife has to go out to work to keep them, which itself causes a great deal of strain, since they have small children and there are severe problems about looking after them. The results of all this, especially on the children, are damaging. An older chemist, who knows about this situation, says that he can get George a decently paid job in a certain laboratory, which pursues research into chemical and biological warfare. George says that he cannot accept this, since he is opposed to chemical and biological warfare. The older man replies that he is not too keen on it himself, come to that, but after all George’s refusal is not going to make the job or the laboratory go away; what is more, he happens to know that if George refuses the job, it will certainly go to a contemporary of George’s who is not inhibited by any such scruples and is likely if appointed to push along the research with greater zeal than George would. Indeed, it is not merely concern for George and his family, but (to speak frankly and in confidence) some alarm abut this other man’s excess of zeal, which had le the older man to offer to use his influence to get George the job…George’s wife, to whom he is deeply attached, has views…from which it follows that at least there is nothing particularly wrong with research into CBW. What should he do?” (From the first page of Williams’ Utilitarianism and Integrity)

George’s options

• George gets to choose between these actions:– A. working to make chemical weapons.

– B. Being unemployed.

• Their consequences:– A. George makes small amounts of chemical weapons.

– B. Someone else who doesn’t see anything wrong with making chemical weapons makes large amounts.

• What should George do? What would you do?

Some things to notice

• George is in a tough position.– That’s why it is a moral dilemma.

• Changing the case to make things easier doesn’t help– That’s just changing the topic.

• Changing the case to make things harder is ok.– …because we’re interested in the hard cases.

– The hard cases are where ethical theories help us out.

Jim and Pedro

• Jim and Pedro:– “Jim finds himself in the central square of a small South American town. Tied up

against the wall are a row of twenty Indians, most terrified, a few defiant, in front of them several armed men in uniform. A heavy man in a sweat-stained khaki shirt turns out to be the captain in charge and, after a good deal of questioning of Jim which establishes that he got there by accident while on a botanical expedition, explains that the Indians are a random group of the inhabitants who, after recent acts of protest against the government, are just about to be killed to remind other possible protestors of the advantages of not protesting. However, since Jim is an honoured visitor from another land, the captain is happy to offer him a guest’s privilege of killing one of the Indians himself. If Jim accepts, then as a special mark of the occasion, the other Indians will be let off. Of course, if Jim refuses, then there is no special occasion, and Pedro here will do what he was about to do when Jim arrived, and kill them all. Jim, with some desperate recollection of schoolboy fiction, wonders whether if he got hold of a gun, he could hold the captain, Pedro and the rest of the soldiers to threat, but it is quite clear from the set-up that nothing of that kind is going to work: any attempt at that sort of thing will mean that all the Indians will be killed, and himself. The men against the wall, and the other villagers, understand the situation, and are obviously begging him to accept. What should he do?” (From the first page of Williams’ Utilitarianism and Integrity)

Jim’s options

• Jim gets to choose between these actions:– A. Killing one of the villagers himself.

– B. Not killing anyone.

• Their consequences:– A. One villager gets killed (by Jim) and the rest of the villagers go free.

– B. Twenty villagers get killed (by Pedro).

• What should Jim do? What would you do?

Utilitarianismand the dilemmas

• In both of our dilemmas:– Option (a) (making weapons/killing the villager):

• leads to the best consequences available, but involves doing something morally repugnant.

– Option (b):• leads to less good consequences, but you get to have a clean conscience.

• Utilitarians seem to have to choose (a).

• Deontologists would choose (b).

Utilitarianism andNegative Responsibility

• Utilitarianism and Negative responsibility:– According to Williams, Utilitarianism entails the notion of negative

responsibility:• “If I am ever responsible for anything, then I must be just as much responsible for

things that I allow or fail to prevent, as I am for things that I myself…bring about.” (492, I.e. the 6th page of the article)

– Thus, for a Utilitarian, should Jim refrain from killing the 1 Indian, he is morally responsible and so blameworthy for the deaths of the Indians Pedro kills.

– And should George not take the job, he is responsible for the increased weapons production of the new hire.

Williams on Moral Responsibility

• Williams on Moral Responsibility:– For Williams, Jim is only morally responsible for his own actions, not for Pedro’s. So

Jim can’t be blamed for what Pedro does.

– And George is only morally responsible for his actions, not for those of whoever will take the chemical weapons job if he doesn’t take it.

• Williams supports for this view (492, 6th page of the article): – “While the deaths, and the killing, may be the outcome of Jim’s refusal, it is misleading

to think, in such a case, of Jim having an effect on the world through the medium (as it happens) of Pedro’s acts; for this is to leave Pedro out of the picture in his essential role of one who has intentions and projects, projects for realizing which Jim’s refusal would leave an opportunity. Instead of thinking in terms of supposed effects of Jim’s projects on Pedro, it is more revealing to think of the effects of Pedro’s projects on Jim’s decision…”

The dilemmas are Counterexamples to Utilitarianism

• So Williams thinks the dilemma’s are counterexamples to Utilitarianism:– The dilemma’s show that sometimes the right thing to do isn’t to bring about the best

consequences.

– Sometimes it is more important to stick by what we believe.

–

• The Utilitarian reply: It’s selfish! – Isn’t it really just selfish to try to keep your own conscience clean by allowing someone

else to do something wrong?

– What would the villagers ask of Jim?

Williams reply: a loss of personal integrity

• Williams response: A loss of personal Integrity!– Utilitarianism entails that the projects and commitments with which a person is most

deeply identified, those which make up who a person is, can be swept aside for the sake of the greater good.

• “The decision so determined is, for utilitarianism, the right decision. But what if it conflicts with some project of mine? This, the utilitarian will say, has already been dealt with: the satisfaction to you of fulfilling your project, and any satisfaction to others of your so doing, have already been through the calculating device and have been found inadequate. Now in the case of many sorts of projects, that is a perfectly reasonable sort of answer. But in the case of projects of the sort I have called ‘commitments,’ those with which one is more deeply and extensively involved and identified, this cannot just by itself be an adequate answer, and there may be no adequate answer at all. For, to take the extreme sort of case, how can a man, as a utilitarian agent, come to regard as one satisfaction among others, and a dispensable one, a project or attitude round which he has built his life, just because someone else’s projects have so structured the causal scene that that is how the utilitarian sum comes out?” (494, I.e. the final page of the Williams article)

– Note that Williams is most worried about Utilitarianism’s attack on what he calls ‘commitments’

• Examples of commitments…

Personal Integrity

• A loss of personal integrity again:

– It is the Utilitarians commitment to the sacrifice of one’s own projects, commitments, goals and principles for the sake of the greater good, which lies at the heart of it’s attack on one’s own personal integrity:

• “It is absurd to demand of such a man…that he should just step aside from his own project and decision and acknowledge the decision which the utilitarian calculation requires. It is to alienate him in a real sense from his actions and the source of his action in his own convictions. It is to make him into a channel between the input of everyone’s projects, including his own, and an output of optimific decision; but this is to neglect the extent to which his actions and his decisions have to be seen as the actions and decisions which flow from the projects and attitudes with which he is most closely identified. It is thus, in the most literal sense, an attack on his integrity.” (Williams, pg 494, I.e. the final page of the article)

• The Utilitarian response:

– why can’t your integrity be built upon the Utilitarian principle?