*long entry alert*
The doctrine of utilitarianism is based upon the principle that what does the most good for the most people is the right thing to do. We've been discussing this principle in my Freedom and Justice class and it's one that has always intrigued me.
In the Pagan faith, or to be specific, in the Wiccan tradition, it's believed that things should be done for the greater good. I'm not a spell caster (which is an entirely different subject for an entire different day) but there is a belief that one should always end such a spell with something along the lines of "for the greater good for all and with harm toward none."
Harm toward none is a very important philosophy in my life but again, different subject, different day. The greater good concept, or utilitarianism, however, is one that I rarely ever agree with for the reason mentioned above, included in my own religion. It's based upon the principle that what is good for the greatest number is the right thing to do. That's not necessarily true.
While the Wiccan tradition attempts to see to the inequality that utilitarian concept allows with the inclusion of the 'harm none' philosophy... that greater good concept is still one that bugs me. One can do something for the greater good with harm toward none and still do the wrong thing.
I bring this up now because when I was sick I started watching Charmed (yeah... Wiccan and Charmed are rarely ever two words a Pagan wants to hear in the same sentence). I'd never really watched it before for much the same reason most don't want to hear it in the same sentence. Charmed gives this romanticized view of Wicca that is quite far from the reality of the thing. In the show, the good witches vanquish evil and live to fight another day, having protected innocents from the death, destruction and mayhem the demons, warlocks, and other assholeishness bad guys brought along for the ride.
Over the years, I've been approached by far too many people who have watched Charmed and wanted to know how they could become witches. They assumed, perhaps, that the reality was kind of like the show. It got old and made me rather biased towards the show. Watching it when sick, however, I came to the conclusion that the show actually isn't terrible. It's entertaining and you can actually learn a few things from the show... though very little about Paganism.
What I've learned is something altogether different and is tied to the entire utilitarianism discussion my class has been having. And perhaps learned isn't quite the right word since I already kind of knew it... but whatever. What I've realized is that people have this romanticized view of Paganism from the show because of that greater good concept. The girls vanquish evil for the greater good. What everyone fails to realize however (and while we don't deal with the evil demons, etc the concept still applies to real life) is that without evil there is also no good.
Without dark, no light. Without wrong, no right. Even if you strike a balance between the two, you still have to have both extremes of the good/evil spectrum in order for true good to exist. If there was no true evil there would be no true good. We would dwell somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. And, while we would have gotten rid of the evil in the world, we would also have taken with it the good. You can't have one without the other or the balance that exists between the two, and thus in life, shifts and such a balance no longer really exists at all. If everything tilts too far toward good, progress is stalled because there are no trials to overcome, no lessons to be learned. And the same goes (albeit with slightly different consequences at times) if the scale tips the other way.
People do their greatest good when faced with their greatest evils. When we fear we have something to lose... that's when we fight the hardest. If we were to eliminate those things that make us fight the hardest... we've also eliminated the good that comes from the fights that resulted.
So... what does this have to do with utilitarianism? That's quite simple really. As stated, the concept operates on the premise that if it does the most good, it's right. That's not really accurate, however, as what does the most good for the greatest number can be the absolute worst thing to do for those people. It can shift the balance to far in one direction not only at the expense of the people that happen to fall on the other side, but at the expense of that other side itself.
Take the death penalty for instance. Taking one life in order to protect society doesn't seem like a bad idea. After all, it ensures that we protect our own innocents. However, everything in life has consequences. When we use the death penalty, we operate on the "by any means necessary" mentality. We gain what we seek (be it justice, revenge, safety, security, or something else altogether) for the greater good... but we fail to even realize that we have employed that by any means necessary mentality. We've done good... so why should we be worried, right?
Wrong. We may have done good... but we've done so at the risk of losing the ability to understand where the line is drawn or even when we've crossed that line. That probably sounds rather dramatic, but in reality it isn't.
We kill the bad guys so the bad guys don't kill us and maybe we even feel better because we did it. But... did we really accomplish our ultimate goal? Despite the number of times we've used the death penalty, the fact that we still have to use it should tell us something. We haven't really gained security or safety and maybe not even justice. We've simply continued to move in the same cycle that led us to employing that ultimate penalty in the first place. We killed the bad guy... but there is always another bad guy to take his place. We’ve crossed that line, making it so much easier to cross again later, and we haven’t really gained anything from it. A new bad guy has moved in to take the dead bad guy’s place.
So, we continue to kill the bad guys. And other bad guys continue to take their places. And we continue to cross that line. And then perhaps, we reach a place where we realize that ours is a violent world and that nothing we’ve done has worked to change that. We’ve tried to kill the evil, but it continues to return. And then we lose faith that we can overcome that violence and so simply stop trying. In a way, we’re almost there today.
We pretend we don’t see what’s happening around us because we don’t feel we can really make a difference. We walk past the homeless on the street and avert our eyes so we don’t have to see. We shake our heads and wonder about the little 8 year old boy sitting in jail. But… we don’t get involved. We don’t try to fix it. We simply… give it up as impossible because we don’t feel we can make a difference and because we don’t understand it. And if we can’t make a difference or even understand how we came to be here… why even try? Maybe we aren’t there yet… but I kind of think we’re heading there and none to slowly either.
How many really believe that we're truly winning the fight? Violent crime may have gone down for a while... but it's going back up. And so are various other crimes. And every time we hear the statistics or the see the results of that reality… we lose a little more faith that we’re doing the right thing. But, we’ve done it for so long; we don’t see what other choice we have. And that’s the problem. We don’t see those choices because we never explored those choices.
We've operated on the belief that it's for the greater good, but did we truly investigate the far reaching consequences of our actions? Did we consider that perhaps, the action we thought was for the greater good was simply taking us down a different path that would, ultimately, lead to a place far different than the one we intended?
Probably not. I imagine we never intended to be led where we are today… and yet we’re here. And most of us can’t really figure out how we got here, why we’re here or even how to move on from here. We don't know what the greater good is. We guess and then we hope we're right. But, we never really take the time when we're operating under that utilitarian doctrine to truly consider all of the possibilities. We never wonder how we're shifting the balance later... so long as it gets us what we want now. So long as we can vanquish the evil of today, we don’t worry about the evils that vanquishing might free tomorrow.
And that's my problem with the greater good philosophy, be it in a utilitarian society, in Paganism or simply on a television show that has little in common with the reality of either. We don’t know… and because it sounds good, we don’t bother to take the time to truly think it through.
I’m not at all advocating that we shouldn’t seek to do the most good. We should. But, we also have to remember that in order to truly do good, we have to be willing to live with the evil as well because without one, there is no other. And that doesn’t mean we should give up even trying to fight that evil. It simply means that we have to remember that, if we’re going to be effective in that fight, we have to consider all possibilities and deal with the realization that there is a balance between the two and that how that balance shifts depends upon the actions we make as individuals and as a society.
And, we have to remember that no matter how good it sounds now, there are always consequences later. To do the greatest good, we must consider the most unpleasant of consequences. That’s what I’m truly advocating for. That we remember that there are consequences; that we consider those consequences; and that we not simply give up when the consequences of those actions rear their ugly heads.
After all; if we give up, the balance shifts in that other, darker, direction… and then what happens?
