Action or perception: which is morally fundamental? Theists (e.g. Christians) typically see perception as a tool to achieve righteous actions, while atheists often believe action is merely a way to create pleasant experiences. Would actions still be valuable if they always led to misery? Would pleasure still be valuable if you never had to work for it? What really matters?
One approach to answering this question is to pick something you care about and recursively ask “Why is this important?” If you always end with “Because it makes somebody happier” then, congrats, you're a utilitarian! That's where I'm at. I can't say what matters to you, but I will talk about some objections to utilitarianism. The existence of God I will leave to future blogs – right now I'll settle for arguing that you can have sturdy moral framework without Him. If you're especially keen on ethics you'll notice that I flip-flop between subjective and objective language – this is intentional, because I hold a combination of both views and I want to leave that debate up in the air. This blog is about the plausibility of happiness as the basic unit of value, regardless of whether value exists in any kind of impersonal sense.
Utilitarian morality is allegedly counterintuitive, impractical, and arbitrary. Arguments of the first sort begin with “What if/about ...?” while the second start like “How can you …?” and the third “Why should you ...?” I will divide the discussion into these three sections, addressing “How” and “Why” in parts II and III. I'm biased towards utilitarianism but I will do my best to avoid flimsy strawman objections. If they seem weak, try to think of stronger ones.
Intuition-based objections to utilitarianism (blockquoted for effect):
What if we could jack into an ideal utility machine? Suppose we could each be extremely happy while sitting motionless in some chemical vat (a Matrix, if you like). A utilitarian should be eager for everybody to hop in, but you might be hesitant. Is this because you value something besides experiences – perhaps action, or truth?
What if total happiness increased by mere addition of people whose lives are barely worth living? Utilitarians (as I've defined them) ought to prefer an sufficiently large population of marginally satisfied clones over a small group where each person is very happy. The heavily populated scenario may seem worse, especially if mediocre lives are lived inside of badly made utility machines!
What if an extremely efficient utility monster wanted all of our resources? Utilitarianism implies that we should make every effort to please such a creature in virtue of its vast potential for happiness. If you knew about a utility monster, would you donate all your stuff and let it enslave you? Maybe justice is important, or maybe unearned happiness is worthless...
What about intentions and rights? If happiness is all that matters, there can be no human rights – any violation is justified by a sufficient amount of happiness. And if all happiness is really the same stuff, then any violation (murder, torture, etc) is justified by a sufficient number of people enjoying a Snickers bar apiece! And worse yet, rights violations could be good even if the happiness was totally unintended – is it really possible to do the right thing with bad intent? Aren't there at least some rights that should never be stomped on?
Response: bite the bullet (accept the counterintuitive statements) and explain why intuition is mistaken.
Cavemen would have perfectly rational fears of cars, and maybe our fear of utility machines is like that. Under realistic circumstances, you'd be skeptical of whether a utility machine works as advertised. You might worry about giving up control of our future to the robot overlords and about human lives being shortened by floating in chemical vats. So throw out all that baggage, and just think of heaven. A place of perfect happiness – that's the definition of an ideal utility machine. Would humanity be better off in heaven? Shouldn't we be trying to make Earth more heavenly? That idea sits quite well with me. It also suggests the problem of evil, but that deserves its own blog.
As for action and truth, it is not obvious that happiness must be earned or that it must correlate with events in the outside world in order to be good. My belief is that all happiness is essentially good, and earned/sensible happiness is extra good. Unearned/imaginary happiness tends to lower total happiness in the long run, doing more bad than good. Viewing truth or action as intrinsically valuable, when they are already accounted for, would needlessly complicate my moral code.
Of course mere addition of valuable lives is a good thing! That's what it means for a life to be worth living. If you're inclined to object, you may be implicitly considering an extraneous factor: as the world gets duller, being different becomes exponentially more valuable. This means that no matter how cheaply we create clones (as long as there is a cost), at some point improving lives will be a more efficient way to generate happiness. Practical considerations like diversity and limited resources can be responsible for faulty intuition in an idealized scenario. I place extrinsic value in diversity for the same reasons as action and truth: considerations of happiness underlie all these values.
A utility monster is not so different from the Christian God. Both characters demand your devotion in virtue of their emotions: the monster craves happiness and God loves to hear that His work is appreciated. In both cases our sacrifices matter extra because the entity is superhuman. The main difference is that you can have a huge impact on a utility monster (but not necessarily vice-versa), while God can have a huge impact on you (but not necessarily vice-versa). In this hypothetical light it seems awfully selfish to prefer God-worship to monster-worship.
Again practicality creeps in to cloud our intuition: a creature capable of infinite happiness seems absurd. Even if it existed, how would we know? And if we knew it was for real, wouldn't we want to learn the mechanism behind its sensitivity and let everyone enjoy it? Toss out the baggage by supposing you had as much faith in the existence, hypersensitivity, and uniqueness of a utility monster as extreme Christians have in the existence, omnipotence, and uniqueness of their God. Would you then make sacrifices to help it experience superhuman pleasure, in proportion to the intensity of its pleasure? I probably would.
Rights have their place in utilitarian ethics, as rules of thumb. They apply in practically every situation you will ever encounter, so it is easy to confuse them for absolute rules. But imagine you see a lever which obviously switches the path of a train, and the train is about to crush ten people tied up on the tracks. Do you divert the train onto a dead-end path, killing the crew of four? It seems that rights aren't inviolable.
Does happiness explain rights? Can any right really be outweighed by a bunch of simple pleasures? It's easy to say that no amount of candy bars is worth torture, because it is practically true – the required amount would typically be astronomical. Suppose you could suffer an hour (or a minute, or a second, ...) of agony to allow everyone on Earth to enjoy a Snickers bar apiece. At some point your extreme suffering becomes less important than everyone's chocolate. And why should your suffering matter less than anyone else's suffering? Or consider death: suppose you could give your life so everyone could have a bag of M&M's. Too much? What if you could live ten more years. Twenty? Fifty? Are strangers' lives more valuable than yours, or do other issues make murder worse than suicide? It seems like rights really are comparable to other goods in terms of happiness.
Intentions also have their place in utilitarian ethics. Good intentions are praiseworthy, even when they lead to bad results. Suppose you hand out poisoned food donations to starving families, without knowing about the poison. In a sense you were doing the right thing, but at the same time your actions were 'the wrong ones'. Utilitarianism focuses only on consequences, but this approach captures both meanings of 'right action': the specific actions you took (handing out poisoned food) were wrong, but the maxim behind them (handing out food) is good. The simple rule 'optimize the consequences of your actions' takes care of intentions.
So ends my first blog. Diversity, action, truth, rights, and intentions seem to be meaningful because they make people more or less happy. Various objections raise difficult but manageable concerns about intuition. If I haven't convinced you that utilitarianism makes sense, I hope to have at least shed light on one possible philosophy and got you thinking about what really matters.
Coming soon to a ProU near you:
Utilitarianism, Part II: Practice
-How can you predict the effects of actions on happiness?
-How can you compare happiness between people?
Utilitarianism, Part III: Reason
-Why should you value everyone's happiness equally?
-Why should you value happiness?
Religion, Part I: The Problem of Evil
Religion, Part II: Empiricism
You outlined my biggest objection to utilitarianism: intent. Some may cringe at this oversimplification, but utilitarianism can be broadly characterized as an "ends justify the means" approach to morality. Now, you say good intentions are praiseworthy, even when they lead to bad results. I will grant you that for now, but what about bad intentions that lead to good results? Are these praiseworthy?
Say I built a homeless shelter, but I only did this because I wanted the praise and recognition (sounds like something Oprah would do). Is that moral? After all, I've increased the utility of all parties involved- the homeless people's and my own. And yet, something may seem amiss and amoral here. Or, a historical example: the country of Liberia was founded by Americans so that African slaves might have a homeland. But many Americans who supported the idea did so because they were racist, and didn’t want blacks in their own country- they wanted them to be an ocean away. Again, we have a perfectly utilitarian moral situation here, since all parties’ utility is increased. Does that mean utilitarianism condones selfishness, greed, hate, or whatever other vice so long as it increases utility?
There is another question that this example brings up. First, it is apparent that utility must go both ways. That is, an action is moral because it is useful to others, but that action is performed because it must also be useful to the actor. So, suppose I'm not a selfish person and I eschew personal fame, but I still build that homeless shelter. How does utilitarianism explain an intent not motivated by personal gain (that is, utility)? Perhaps there is even a loss of utility on my part as a result of building that homeless shelter (perhaps I spent millions of dollars and many physically exhausting weeks building the homeless shelter). What’s more, I knew about these consequences which would decrease my own happiness/utility, but built the shelter anyway. Why?
There seems be some factor behind intentions and actions other than mere personal utility. In my approach to morality, I assume that morality and logic are not always congruent (while utilitarians make the opposite assumption). Theists would point to the existence of some sort of deity that instills in people selflessness and sacrifice for others as a part of morality- virtues that do not make utilitarian or logical sense. Non-theists certainly don't have to accept this viewpoint- but then the burden falls on them to find an alternative explanation for otherwise illogical and “utility-decreasing” actions and intentions.
Even if I accepted your premises- and to a certain point, I do (for some of them)- the application of utilitarianism is problematic, especially when we ask questions like "happiness for who, and at whose expense?" But, I’m guessing that will be addressed in your next blog. I’m also looking forward to the one about the problem of evil- which is what I’m currently studying in my philosophy class (we have not, unfortunately, reached utilitarianism).
Utilitarianism asserts that the expected results justify the actions. Do the ends justify the means? 'Means' refers to instrumental events while 'ends' refers to desired events. In general both ends and means will have moral content, and ends only justify means if the net outcome is positive. "The ends justify the means" is false regardless of whether perception is morally fundamental, so it is a flimsy strawman version of utilitarianism. But I'm glad you brought it up. :)
To be consistent I have to say that good (bad) intentions are praiseworthy (blameworthy), even when they lead to bad (good) results. Intentions and praise deal with desired results. When you selfishly shelter the homeless, your good action deserves no praise. Same for exporting 'undesirables' to Liberia. For any X, utilitarianism condones X to the extent that X increases happiness. Selfishness, greed, hate, and most other vices tend to reduce happiness so they are bad attributes. Bad character can motivate you to do good things on occasion, and in this limited sense can be good. Utilitarianism is elegant because it implicitly expresses all of this subtlety.
an action is moral because it is useful(1) to others, but that action is performed because it must also be useful(2) to the actor. So, suppose I'm not a selfish person and I eschew personal fame, but I still build that homeless shelter. How does utilitarianism explain an intent not motivated by personal gain (that is, utility)?
You're confusing (1): "X makes Y happy" with (2): "Y desires X". Morality describes the structure of desires, how they fit together into a hierarchy, and what (if anything) unifies or justifies them. A utilitarian account of altruism and selfishness, for example, says they're appropriate when you're exceptionally good at making others or yourself happy. Desires are explainable via biology, psychology, and (debatably) theology, but not via morality.
While I agree there's a scarcity of altruism, beyond a certain point it becomes self-defeating. Nobody is better off if I give you $5 and you give me $5. If I really like chocolate, why should I give you my chocolate? What matters is that we efficiently share resources as a group. This kind of altruism makes perfect utilitarian and intuitive sense; you don't need God to justify it, and evolution (biological and social) does an excellent job explaining it.
I'll get around to your question "for who, and at whose expense", but the short answer is it doesn't matter. Chew on that!
First, a request for clarification: you say that "utilitarianism asserts that the expected results justify the actions." How is that different than "the ends (expected results) justify the means (actions)"?
Second, my problem with utilitarianism remains, in your words, that "bad character can motivate you to do good things" and is therefore good. Sometimes, hate is good and greed is good? I would argue that they are never good nor desirable.
You say that I was confusing "X makes Y happy" and "Y desires X." But I wasn't trying to equate the two- I was pointing out that there must be, according to utilitarianism, a secular reason why Y would desire X if X was destructive to Y. As you said, morality describes what justifies our desires- if anything. For example, why would Mother Theresa desire to go to such great lengths to help the poor and ill? It makes no sense for her to do so, because she does not gain from it (even from a Christian perspective, she did not- and knew she did not- have to sacrifice so greatly in order to be a "good Christian"- so I do not find the explanation "Mother Theresa wanted to please what she believed to be God" satisfying).
Such a desire to make a personal sacrifice to help the poor and ill cannot be explained by biology, either. It makes no evolutionary sense for us to help propagate the least fit of the species. And yet, we would never advocate letting the least fit of us die off, as nature would have. We go to great lengths to save them, and the species is probably harmed in the long run (for example, more people are living, thanks to medical treatment, to pass on their genetic diseases like certain cancers to the next generation). Isn’t (long-term) utility being decreased, then, by helping the sick or poor? Or does utilitarianism not advocate helping these people, and rather we should let nature take her course?
The difference between ends and results has to do with desire: ends = goals = desired results. If you open a can with a hand grenade your desired results are ok, and probably will be achieved, but your expected results include spilling the can's contents and possible mutilation. The ends clearly aren't enough to justify the means, but utilitarianism doesn't claim they do. Actions are justified by all their expected results, not just the final, sought-after ones.
Second, my problem with utilitarianism remains, in your words, that "bad character can motivate you to do good things" and is therefore good. Sometimes, hate is good and greed is good? I would argue that they are never good nor desirable.
Hate and greed remain bad while 'person Y is hateful/greedy at time T' can be good.
I was pointing out that there must be, according to utilitarianism, a secular reason why Y would desire X if X was destructive to Y. As you said, morality describes what justifies our desires- if anything. For example, why would Mother Theresa desire to go to such great lengths to help the poor and ill?
(1)You're confusing justification with explanation. Morality doesn't have to explain desires.
(2)Desires to help the poor and ill are easily explained by biology: ancient humans were surrounded by relatives, so empathy helped the genes along.
(3)Desires to help the poor and ill are easily explained by psychology: Mother Theresa believed that helping the poor - beyond the call of duty - is good.
There's way too much uncertainty to justify eugenics. Better to help all sick people unless there's a shortage that demands triage. Plus, the idea of a right to medical care is useful even if rights aren't absolute. Why would helping the poor hurt long-term utility? You think Bill Gates gets the same enjoyment from every dollar that a starving African orphan does?
I'm on the grounds that utilitarianism is good...to a point. Sometimes it seems right to do something for "the greater good", but in other situations it just doesn't work. In my opinion, of course.
I had a whole Law and Ethics course and this was one of the topics we often brought up.
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I need some more input from y'all here in this forum topic: A ProgressiveU Radio Show/Podcast
I think this is an idea that can improve the ProgressiveU community.
When is it ok to go against the greater good?
I'm bringing in a piece of my comment above here, since it's more relevant. When I said utilitarianism might run into some hot water when we ask questions like "utility for who, and at whose expense," I was referring to a situation when it is ok to go against the greater good. The best example I can provide is when the majority disenfranchises or oppresses a minority group. As the majority, their actions constitute a useful action for the larger number of people, therefore, they are serving "the greater good." Are there instances in which utilitarianism says it's ok to oppress a minority group, as long as it's for the greater good (and I use "minority" in the broadest sense of the word)?
An individualistic approach to morality, rather than the collectivist approach of utilitarianism, helps to solve the problem of utility for minorities.
As the majority, their actions constitute a useful action for the larger number of people, therefore, they are serving "the greater good." Are there instances in which utilitarianism says it's ok to oppress a minority group, as long as it's for the greater good (and I use "minority" in the broadest sense of the word)?
Your idea of "greater good" is a bit like Jeremy Bentham's "greatest happiness for the greatest number" principle - a sloppy, primitive version of utilitarianism. The "greater good" I endorse is the sum of happiness. Utilitarianism says it's ok to oppress minority groups only when the oppression is probably going to increase total happiness - for example jailing rapists and murderers. Obviously the less oppression the better, all other things equal. Part II will clear up terms like 'ok', 'justified', 'required', 'forbidden', etc.