Utilitarianism: A Very Short Introduction

Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer (2017)

In a paragraph

Utilitarianism as a leading moral theory has a long history and is enjoying a revival.  Arguments for and against utilitarianism are set out and it is concluded that utilitarianism is well supported, notably by recent work from Joshua Greene. Utilitarianism is valuable, and its supporters continue to support reforms to promote happiness and relieve suffering.

Key points

• A key feature of utilitarianism is that its proponents have not limited themselves to developing the theoretical basis of their views but instead have strived to bring about practical changes to promote happiness and relieve suffering. They criticized practices that most people accepted as natural and inevitable conditions of human existence. These challenges met with remarkable success.

• The fundamental question of ethics is: ‘What ought I to do?’ and the fundamental question of political philosophy is: ‘What ought we, as a society, to do?’ To both questions, utilitarianism gives a straightforward answer: that, to put it simply, the right thing to do is to bring about the best consequences, where ‘best consequences’ means, for all of those affected by our choice, the greatest possible net increase in the surplus of happiness over suffering. That answer covers—at least in principle—every possible situation, and it points to something most of us would agree is worth aiming at.

• Greene’s work clears away the obstacles that have hindered acceptance of consequentialism. Rejecting emotionally based automatic responses, and the rationalizations that philosophers use to support them, leaves consequentialism as the best available option.

• It may be an illusion that things other than happiness are valuable.

• There are attitudinal and feeling-tone views of pleasure.

• If we are to maximize good in the world, we need to know both what that good is, and how to bring about more of it.

• We may reduce moral risk by giving some weight to egalitarian and prioritarian concerns.

• ‘What ought we to do?’ and ‘what ought we to praise or blame people for doing?’ are distinct questions.

• Utilitarianism is partly self-effacing. Distinguish specifying the standard or criterion for what makes an act right—namely, that it maximizes utility—and the guide to use when deciding what is the right thing to do.

• Why have policies not already been changed for the low-hanging fruit of removing easily avoidable suffering? Sometimes the answer is that eliminating the suffering requires abandoning a key element of traditional morality; in other situations, the suffering may be experienced by a group whose interests are disregarded.

Comments

The book sets out something of the history of utilitarianism, but more concentrates on presenting the arguments that have been proposed for and against utilitarianism and issues within utilitarianism. It is valuable for its concise yet reasonably deep and comprehensive approach, for covering the important arguments and for showing the technical conclusions that Peter Singer has reached.

This is not an introductory text for the lay reader but should be useful for undergraduate level and onwards. Much of the material is dealt with in more detail in Point of View of the Universe but this Short Introduction is more direct and accessible.

A major theme of the book is the link between utilitarianism and practical reform.   Also notable is enthusiasm for Greene’s work on debunking non-consequentialist intuitions.  The general conclusion is that utilitarianism is valuable and can meet the arguments that have been made against it.

NOTES

Preface

The time will come when humanity will extend its mantle over everything which breathes. Bentham.

A key feature of utilitarianism is that its proponents have not limited themselves to developing the theoretical basis of their views but instead have strived to bring about practical changes to promote happiness and relieve suffering. They criticized practices that most people accepted as natural and inevitable conditions of human existence. These challenges met with remarkable success.

The fundamental question of ethics is: ‘What ought I to do?’ and the fundamental question of political philosophy is: ‘What ought we, as a society, to do?’ To both questions, utilitarianism gives a straightforward answer: that, to put it simply, the right thing to do is to bring about the best consequences, where ‘best consequences’ means, for all of those affected by our choice, the greatest possible net increase in the surplus of happiness over suffering. That answer covers—at least in principle—every possible situation, and it points to something most of us would agree is worth aiming at.

Utilitarianism does have a remarkable habit of haunting even those who do not believe in it.

Utilitarianism is then one theory, or better, one set of theories, within the larger family of consequentialist theories.

1. Origins 

The core precept of utilitarianism is that we should make the world the best place we can. That means that, as far as it is within our power, we should bring about a world in which every individual has the highest possible level of well-being. Although this may seem like mere common sense, it is often in opposition to traditional moralities.

Mozi. Epicurus. Francis Hutcheson. Cesare Beccaria. William Godwin.

Bentham. Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation 1780.

Mill. Harriet and Helen Taylor. On Liberty 1859. Utilitarianism 1861. The Subjection of Women 1869. Autobiography 1873.

Sidgwick. The Methods of Ethics 1874 , 1907.

G E Moore. Principia Ethica

Meta ethics focus until 1970s.

2. Justification 

Bentham. Flow chart to demonstrate all alternatives unsatisfactory.  But justification compressed.

Mills’s proof

Sidgwick. Sidgwick holds that ultimate ethical principles are truths of reason that we can see to be self-evident, a philosophical intuitionist.  The rules of common-sense morality, with all their qualifications and exceptions, are not self-evident, but require a deeper explanation. The utilitarian principle of doing what will bring about the greatest good has explanatory power that no other moral theory possesses. Sidgwick rejects the idea that truth in ethics is constituted by our common moral judgements; instead he seeks truly self-evident moral principles at a higher, more abstract level than the rules of common-sense morality. Four conditions a proposition needs. Justice, Prudence and Benevolence as axioms. But dualism of practical reason

John Harsanyi. Maximise expected utility.  Limited assumptions. Contrast Rawls.

J J C Smart. Sidgwick in a modern dress. When ethics thought as expressing attitudes. Heartless to follow rules against need.  Rules also just sentiment. Sentiment of generalized benevolence.

R M Hare. Universal prescriptivism. The concept of universalizability that is implicit in moral language.  But there is no logical requirement to use moral language or from moral reasoning. Golden rule.

Greene. Debunking opposing principles. Switch, footbridge, loop, remote footbridge. Dual-process theory. Automatic and manual mode. Intuitions react to irrelevant factor of personal force. Kant rationalized intuitions he already had.  Intuition chasing. Reasoning reduces retribution. Rawls reflective equilibrium. If dismiss evolutionarily dubious intuitions get to wide reflective equilibrium and perhaps foundationalism. Greene’s work clears away the obstacles that have hindered acceptance of consequentialism. Rejecting emotionally based automatic responses, and the rationalizations that philosophers use to support them, leaves consequentialism as the best available option.

[My further argument for consequentialism is that rules, commitments and limits on authority exist and can be justified as intermediate principles.  In some ways they are quite obvious.  Happiness is what matter, but our actions are and should be largely governed by intermediate institutions.  This is particularly the case as to directly follow the utilitarian principle is unnatural as 1. Happiness in itself is not precise or cardinal.  2.  Our ability to measure is limited. 3. Our ability to predict is limited. 4.  The general good may not be our aim.  5.  We may rationalise in our favour. 6.  Coordination is required.  7.  Restrictions are required for societal security and our own good.  This leaves a restricted consequentialism with a big place for intermediate institutions but with the general happiness also having its place as being of ultimate value, being a general goal for to conduct (where intermediate institutions do not apply), and being used to challenge institutions and decisions.]

Sidgwick’s principle of universal benevolence isn’t debunked.  Evolution would select against out-of-group concern.  Our reasoning shows that our own interests are no more significant than others.

3. What should we maximise?

How should we understand best consequences? Hedonism out of favour through Christianity. Philosophy of swine objection. Roger Crisp comparison of life of Haydn with an eternal oyster. Nozick’s Experience Machine 1974. Seem to value things other than experience.

Preference utilitarianism. Revealed preferences. Earlier supported by Singer. Survives Nozick and non-cognitivism.

Altruistic Drug Pusher. Stranger on the Train. Fully informed.  Complexity. Underlying desires. Crazy desires. Harsanyi.  We do not have the same moral obligation to help other people in satisfying their utterly unreasonable wants as we have to help them in satisfying their very reasonable desires.

Pluralist consequentalism. Ideal utilitarianism. Other values may be part of our well-being.  If not, may or may not relate to conscious creatures. We find it difficult to understand how something can be part of our well-being if it does not lead to pleasure, or to other states of consciousness that we like to have, or satisfy some of our preferences or desires.

Both pluralists and monists may need to appeal to intuitions to justify intrinsic value. How to weigh values, what when conflict. Intuitions?

An illusion that other values are independent? An explanation of our intuition that such goods are intrinsically valuable at the same time as explaining why we should not trust these intuitions.

Control illusion. Prefer real to fake. Status quo bias.

Pleasure. Attitudinal view. Feeling tone view. The feeling tone view is more in accord with current thinking in neuroscience, which treats wanting something and finding it pleasant as two distinct processes, even when what we want is a sensation or state of consciousness.

It now seems that motivation can be separated from pleasure and if this is right, we should not make the distinctive feature of the state of mind we call pleasure the fact that we desire it to continue. Neuroscientists working on pleasure have described it as ‘an additional niceness gloss painted upon the sensation’.

Happiness is different from pleasure, as it focuses not on a sensation or sequence of experiences but rather on a psychological condition, orientation, or disposition. We might understand it as a positive emotional evaluation. If we understand happiness as a disposition, it is not happiness itself that is of intrinsic value, but rather the positive feelings that it is a disposition to have.

If we are to maximize good in the world, we need to know both what that good is, and how to bring about more of it.

4. Objections

Encouraging immoral action. Brothers Karamazov. Execute an innocent to avoid lynchings. Surgeon creating four transplants.

Measuring utility. Go for a walk with spouse or visit elderly relative? F Y Edgeworth Mathematical Psychics Hedonimeter. Kahneman.  Momentary happiness. Interpersonal comparisons difficult. QALYs can be used as cardinal.

Too demanding. A holiday or give to charity? Arguments for avoiding burn-out, efficiency. Demandingness may not be a reason to reject. Unlike primitive societies, our present obligations are a function of extreme wealth and poverty and opportunities to help.

‘What ought we to do?’ and ‘what ought we to praise or blame people for doing?’ are distinct questions. To praise or blame someone is an act, and so subject to evaluation on the basis of its consequences.

Degrees of good,  ‘scalar utilitarianism’, Alastair Norcross.

Right or wrong fits better with a morality based on obedience to rules than it does with one based on maximizing intrinsic value. [Many confusions caused by seeing morality as rules and right and wrong rather than the broader thinking of practical reason.  Better rather than best.  Good rather than right.]

Ignoring special obligations. Godwin would not have rescued wife before great man. Excessive partiality ‘blameless wrongdoing’ Ignoring the separateness of persons.

The objection might also be understood as directed against the idea that individuals are, to utilitarians, mere receptacles of pleasure and pain, and have no significance beyond the value that they can hold.  But utilitarians do not need to, and should not, think of happiness as if it were something that could exist independently of individuals, or be valuable apart from its value to individuals. Happiness is valuable precisely because it is good for individuals. The ‘separateness of persons’ objection is therefore an objection to one way in which some utilitarians may have thought about value, but this way of thinking about value is misguided, and not an implication of utilitarianism itself. [To consider.  I quite like the vessel view.]

Would break a limb to save someone else from rubble.  We do do trade-offs, we do use as means.

Distribution.  If egalitarianism and prioritarianism reflect the intrinsic value of equality, or of favouring the worst off, then advocates of these positions face the problem of how they are to be traded off against other intrinsic values?  Reduce moral risk by giving some weight to egalitarian and prioritarian concerns.

5. Rules

Rule utilitarianism.  Exceptions. Brad Hooker.  Ideal Code, Real World.  Rules that can reasonably be internalised.  Ticking bomb.  Increase stakes further.

Esoteric morality? Partly self-effacing

Distinguish between utilitarianism as specifying the standard or criterion for what makes an act right—namely, that it maximizes utility—and utilitarianism as the guide that we use when deciding what is the right thing to do. We may believe that utilitarianism is the right moral theory but at the same time hold that ‘Maximize utility’ is not the best guide to reaching the right decisions.

[Practical reasoning is more than rules and actions.  There are a wide range of intermediate institutions.  What is for the best is distinct from what I am expected to do in my position and what I can be blamed for doing.]

6. Utilitarianism in action

Has come back since 1970.

More emphasis on suffering.  Partly as easier to relieve.  Also, may be asymmetry between suffering and happiness. Say if to suffer is 10x as significant as to be happy.

Why low-hanging fruit has not been picked long ago—that is, why policies have not already been changed to prevent such easily avoidable suffering? Sometimes the answer is that eliminating the suffering requires abandoning a key element of traditional morality; in other situations, the suffering may be experienced by a group whose interests are disregarded.

It is a strength of utilitarianism that it focuses on aspects of decisions that are clearly relevant, like pain and pleasure, or what a person most wants, and not on tenuous distinctions between what does, and what does not, amount to a killing.

Animals.  Utilitarian arguments stronger than rights-based.

Effective altruism

Population. [Challenge the assumption that more people means lower average happiness.  Benefit of younger, more dynamic population.]  Average view shown wrong by adding a less happy zone to a country. Total view.  Theory X.

Gross National Happiness

Further reading and notes

Peter Singer The Expanding Circle

‘Doing our Best for Hedonistic Utilitarianism: Reply to Critics’, Etica & Politica/Ethics & Politics, 18 (2016), pp. 187–207.

Roger Crisp defends the ‘feeling tone’ view in ‘Hedonism Reconsidered’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 73 (2006), pp. 619–45, and in Reason and the Good, pp. 103–11.

For the view that pleasure is a ‘niceness gloss’, see Morten Kringelbach and Kent Berridge, eds, Pleasures of the Brain, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2009, p. 9.

For the view that happiness is a disposition to be in a good mood, and so on, see Daniel Haybron, The Pursuit of Unhappiness, 2008. For a different perspective on happiness see Fred Feldman, What is This Thing Called Happiness, 2012.

For an overview of the state of brain science relative to pleasure and happiness, see Moren Kringelbach and Kent Berridge, ‘The Neuroscience of Happiness and Pleasure’, Social Research, 77 (2010), pp. 659–78.

Richard Yetter Chappell, ‘Value Receptacles’, Noûs, 49 (2015), pp. 322–32.

World Happiness Reports are available at <http://worldhappiness.report