Philosophy and Ideas
While individual practical decisions are made by considering how to achieve proximate ends, philosophers have been more concerned with ‘normative ethics’ – trying to find a systematic view of how to act. Approaches to normative ethics are commonly divided into views that are deontolological (about rules), consequentialist (about consequences) and virtue ethical (about the agents’ character). Utilitarianism can be seen as a family of consequentialist views with three structural features:
I see utilitarianism as being primarily a framework for thinking about what matters and how to act. It is a theory of ultimate ends, a view that states of the world should be rated in terms of the aggregate welfare they contain and that actions should, where appropriate, be directed towards improving aggregate welfare. As a framework for thinking about what matters, utilitarianism may be relevant across all practical decision-making. It is not particularly a ‘moral theory’ in the narrower sense of a societal code, and is sometimes unfairly criticised for not being on its own a workable rules-based moral system.
We are directly aware that our own happiness matters. It is a feature of our consciousness that elements of our experience are valenced with degrees of attractiveness. Value came into the world with creatures with valenced experience. The difference between the extremes of good and bad experience gives a gradient of value. Happiness is a summary evaluation of the balance of valenced experience in a period. But our evaluations of our happiness are commonly vague.
Similar suffering or enjoyment has the same value from the point of view of the universe whether it happens to me now or in the future, whether to a friend or a stranger, perhaps whether to future people and perhaps whether to non-human animals. This expanding of the circle to aggregate impartially is against our instinct but seems to be rationally required.
Act utilitarianism is the view that maximising aggregate welfare should be the sole criteria in deciding how to act, but this is extreme. We cannot look solely to general happiness as a decision procedure as social coordination is needed among individuals with limited sympathies. Also, general happiness is probably indeterminate and commonly hard to estimate and predict. Although it is aggregate happiness that actually matters, decision-making should commonly not be act utilitarian for the individual in society.
But utilitarianism is very relevant in certain domains. Governments at their best can direct their actions to maximise welfare. Similarly, philanthropy can concentrate on doing the most good, as it is less constrained by social obligations and can systematically evaluate outcomes. And for individual decisions making, utilitarian thinking can be an important check on societal expectations.
Within the utilitarian framework, there are different views on the nature of ultimate value, the scope of impartiality and the degree of use of consequentialism as a decision procedure.
I see these questions as particularly important:
I believe a utilitarian approach is central to understanding and improving practical reason. It is particularly valuable for the new issues that arise from our greater modern power, knowledge and interconnectedness. The framework seems right – it is the affective value of experience that matters, this should be aggregated impartially and this should substantially direct our actions.
But there are many challenges in applying this framework – in particular affective value may be only roughly comparable and we have limited understanding of the experiences of non-human animals. Because utilitarianism has its practical limitations, it is reasonable that for individual and social decisions we often use rules and heuristics to decide what to do. But for issues in global priorities and philanthropy it may be that we have no alternative to applying a utilitarian approach, aware of its practical limitations.
Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer. Utilitarianism: A Very Short Introduction. (2017) A good introduction to utilitarian history and theory.
Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer. The Point of View of the Universe: Sidgwick and Contemporary Ethics. (2014) Includes good discussions of issues around utilitarianism.
Joshua Greene. Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason and the Gap Between Us and Them (2013) An excellent book that argues for utilitarian thinking for considered and inter-group decisions.
Richard Layard. Happiness: Lessons From a New Science. (2005, 2011) Argues for utilitarianism and using life satisfaction surveys and happiness science.
Daniel Gilbert. Stumbling on Happiness.(2006) Considers the psychology of happiness forecasts.
Utilitarianism.net. An online utilitarianism textbook.