John Stuart Mill

On Liberty

Utilitarianism

Overview

Problem of Rights Utilitarianism

The Problem of Rights

Agent Preference

Patient Preference

Wants to do somethingPreferences of those affected by the act

The Problem of Rights

The difficulty with rights talk is that we have no real way of distinguishing the merit of separate and conflicting rights claim

For example, let’s look at religious right – freedom of conscience

Suppose my religious practice disgusts everyone else in the surrounding community. Should I continue to practice?

The Problem of Rights

Isn’t that making me – in effect – a dictator in that the social decision is what I say it should be, no matter how many votes to the contrary

We need to develop a higher order principle/theory to decide the tough questions

Utilitarianism is that theory

Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism has 2 basic premises: “Actions are right in

proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend produce the reverse of happiness”

Greatest Happiness Principle

As Mill notes, it is an idea deeply rooted in the Western tradition, going back at least to Epicurus (341 – 270 B.C.E.)

Utilitarianism

More immediately, in the 18th century David Hume argued that pleasure/pain is the basis of all our actions

Jeremy Bentham (coined the term, developed systematic theory)

James Mill (J.S. Mill’s father) John Stuart Mill was

Bertrand Russell’s godfather

Utilitarianism

As an ethical theory, it attempts to provide a rational rather than a religious basis for morality

Which means we will be able to sanction and judge acts as good or bad on something other than religious grounds.

This is crucial since “common sense” morality requires a religious premise

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But note that once we reject that religious premise, the morality no longer has any hold over us

That is, if we’re not worried about getting nailed in the afterlife, why bother being moral?

Why should I care about how my actions affect other people?

Utilitarianism

Bentham’s original version rested on notion of psychological hedonism: An act is good which sets off all the pleasure

pods in my head As a social theory, then, Utilitarianism

distinguishes the morality between alternative states of affairs by examining the amount of pleasure and pain it produces

That act which produces the most pleasure is the one to be preferred

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Dialysis machine example Contingent relation does not entitle someone

to special treatment Wrong to have decision based on who I or

you happen to be Wrong because we are not being impartial

Child in Outer Mongolia example Sacrifice child for cat? Wrong as better for girl than the cat

Utilitarianism

We shouldn’t count our own preferences for more than we count others (since if we did so we’d be dictating the social outcome)

Question that arises, then, is how do we achieve utilitarian objectivity?

In rights based accounts, it is the notion of moral sympathy – I wouldn’t want my rights violated so I shouldn’t violate others’ rights

Utilitarianism

If we are going to have to decide between different social states, how can we make sure the decision on which state to adopt is an impartial (objective) one?

How do we become impartial? Bentham formula:

Everyone to count for one, no one to count for more than one

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Two points to note1. Democracy is integral to utilitarianism

The way we determine what to do is to take a vote, and whatever the majority wants wins

2. It doesn’t matter where goods/bads happen to fall, so long as en toto more pleasure is produced than pain.

Utilitarianism

In other words, utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory

What makes a given action just is the consequences, the action produces, where the merits of the consequences are assessed by how much pleasure is produced

Rights theory, on the other hand, is a deontological theory, one where the correctness of the action is defined independently of its consequences

Suppose you are a District Attorney in a community that is composed of easily recognizable majority/minority communities.

A member of the majority community has been killed and witnesses have reliably identified a member of the minority community as the perpetrator, but the police have been unable to find the exact person

The majority community is screaming for vengeance and on the verge of rioting.

We know that in the course of the riot, at least 10 people from the minority population will be killed in mob violence.

As the DA you suggest the following course of action to the mayor:

In order to avert the riot and save lives, you take a member of the minority community at random, accuse that person of the crime, and stage a very public arrest/execution

As the mayor, what do you do? As the D.A. what should you do?

Volunteer for execution?

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A bit more generally, then, suppose you are faced with the following decision:

Choosing “B” would be a moral catastrophe as it would incredibly limit the amount of happiness that could be produced, insofar as only one person could now experience the pleasure where before billions could experience it

AYou dead, everyone else alive

BYou alive, everyone else dead

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Doesn’t matter, morally speaking, who is having wants, just as long as we satisfy as many wants as possible

The idea is to act so as to produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number

For our moral calculations, we need to view people as vessels of utility satisfaction

Utilitarianism

What we most want is to experience things in a certain way (i.e., pleasure over pain)

Here we reach one of Mill’s major revisions to Bentham’s theory

For Bentham, a want is a want is a want No difference between

wanting to stay home and watch Smackdown and reading War and Peace

Utilitarianism

For Bentham, as long as a given set of choices produces equal amounts of pleasure, then we can be indifferent in our choices between them

So to decide on what social state of affairs we want, simply take a vote, everyone votes on own preference

And when “X” wins over “Y”, we know that “X” would produce more happiness and so should be adopted as a social policy

Utilitarianism

We “vote” in lots of different ways Can vote with our money for instance (in the economic

sphere)

Britney

VS.

Beethoven

The fact that people buy more Britney than Beethoven shows that theyprefer that type of music and so stores should stock more of that type

Utilitarianism

TV Watching

vs

Neilson ratings shows that people would rather watch O’Reilly’s spinon politics, rather than watch actual politics means we should broadcastmuch more of the former rather than the latter.

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Mill argues that that view is silly He makes a rather significant change in

utilitarian theory by introducing qualitative differences among wants

For Mill, utilitarians should aim not at simply satisfying wants, but satisfying “better” wants.

How do we distinguish between wants?

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“Of two pleasure, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure” (p. 531).

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In other words, to compare wants, find someone who has, for instance, read Tolstoy and watched professional wrestling and see which is preferred

On the whole, people who have done both will prefer Tolstoy

Maybe not a perfect example, but how about if instead we compare

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“Now it is an unquestionable fact that those who are equally acquainted with, and equally capable of appreciating and enjoying, both, do give a most marked preference to the manner of existence which employs their higher faculties. Few human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals, for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast’s pleasures; no intelligent human being would consent to be a fool; no instructed person would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling and conscience would be selfish and base, even though they should be persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they are with theirs.”

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This implies that we only count wants given perfect information

Need to look at authentic wants, not whims Some wants should count for more than others:

“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.”

Utilitarianism

Mill, unlike Bentham, argues that we need to devise a social decision process by which we not only satisfy wants at time t, but also one that changes or develops our wants so that at t2 we have more utility.

We get more utility by creating more satisfaction

We create more satisfaction by creating and satisfying better wants

Utilitarianism

How do we do that? Through democracy! Mill sees democracy as the means to satisfy

wants and shape future wants Democracy is a way of making us more

efficient pleasure machines.