Ninja Cat

Utilitarianism IV: Rule Utilitarian Case Analysis

Readings

Texts

J.S. Mill, "Utilitarianism", chapter 1 (from last time)
J.S. Mill, "Utilitarianism", chapter 2 (from last time)

Notes

Classical Utilitarianism (from last time)
Is Happiness All that Matters? (from last time)
Are Consequences All that Matter? (from last time)
A (Partial) Map of UET (from last time)
Utilitarianism (from last time)

Cases

Synopsis

We began today by examining the rule-utilitarian response as a strategy for responding to the powerful Justice, Rights, and Backward-Looking Reasons arguments. Specifically, we examined a possible-worlds strategy for justifying rules like promise-keeping (or what have you) that may in short-term consideration lead to disutility but overall (globally) promote utiltity. As I suggested in class, it's precisely the sort of reasoning a diligent legislator (is there such a creature?) might engage in to carefully craft laws so as to maximize global utility while minimizing the chances of local disutility.

To illustrate how our thinking about moral dilemmas can be informed by utilitarianism, we reached back a few days to analyze the case, Obesity as Child-Abuse, and the case Smokin Ride from various rule-utilitarian standpoints. The point I hoped our discussion would--and, helpfully, did--illuminate is the notion that how we measure utility, whether it be in terms of happiness (Eudaimonic Act Utilitarianism), pleasure (Hedonic Act Utilitarianism), kinds of pleasure (Qualified Hedonic Act Utilitarianism), best interests (Ideal Act Utilitarianism), or preferences (Preferential Act Utilitarianism) matters, and it matters a great deal. At the same time, whether we are considering laws or rules versus actions likewise seems to make a difference in the conclusions we draw about such cases.

To consider some examples, note that applying a Utilitarian Ethical Theory like Ideal Act Utilitarianism or Ideal Rule Utilitarianism (for example) to determine the morality of an action is non-trivial, as the following two admittedly brief applications I wrote should make clear.

What one discovers in considering these and other applications of utilitarian theories is that:

It is generally much harder to apply a theory than one might imagine; theories are not 'moral calculators' or 'black boxes' that spit out a judgment about an action given sufficient input;
Rule-utilitarian theories diverge significantly from act-utilitarian theories in terms of how they are applied. In applying act-utilitarian theories, we compare the utility of an action with the utility of each of its alternatives. In applying rule-utilitarian theories, we compare the total utility of a world as much like this world as possible, except that the rule in question is operative in the world, with the total utility of this, the actual world; and,
Different measures of utility--e.g., happiness, pleasure, best interests, or preferences--often result in very different implications for action.

Although it may be challenging to apply these various theories without straying from their basic assumptions, it helps considerably that utilitarian analysis is not alien to us: We do it all the time, we just haven't (until now) thought about it in these terms, or made the sorts of distinctions we clearly must on careful investigation.

All of the arguments we raised against Classical Utilitarianism--the Honor Argument, the Friendship Argument, and the Justice, Rights, and Backward-Looking Reasons Arguments--are Reflective Equilibrium Arguments. In each case, we see the utilitarian responding by either biting the bullet, as it were, in effect rejecting the intuition that conflicts with the utilitarian implication, or by responding with a new utilitarian theory to block the offending implication. What about the Standards of Clarity and Coherence?

Now that we are in the process of developing non-relative, non-theological alternatives, we can safely set those standards aside, since the theories we're considering are ready-built to meet them. So most of our work going forward will be in considering arguments for and Reflective Equilibrium arguments against these alternative theories.

We will continue seeing how utilitarianism, understood as a cluster of closely related but nevertheless distinct theories, helps to illuminate and resolve moral dilemmas as we move forward. Our next effort will be to understand a challenging yet extremely important alternative to utilitarianism which takes as its starting point an especially penetrating criticism of utilitarian theories.

For as it happens and as we will consider when we return from the next examination, we have a long history of engaging in precisely the sort of utilitarian "good of the many outweighs the good of the few", where 'few' here ought to be replaced with some variation of 'marginalized and vulnerable'. The Tuskegee syphilis experiments are one example, the Willowbrook hepatitis experiments another.

This matters. Here is why. As we learned with the Justice and Rights arguments against utilitarianism, under many (perhaps all) utilitarian theories, sacrificing one individual's (insert one: happiness; pleasure; best interests; or preferences--and I must add the number of people who seem to have no clue on the differences between these is distressing given all the time we've spent on them!) should it be thusly outweighed by many others is morally permitted. That is, we do the right thing throwing the Christian to the lions for the entertainment doing so provides tens of thousands of Romans. Alternatively, we do the right thing harvesting an otherwise healthy person's organs if doing so permits us to save the lives of, say, five others.

Of course these are fanciful, fabricated objections to utilitarianism. We no longer throw Christians to hungry lions, or even well-fed lions. Throwing Christians anywhere is simply out. Likewise, we don't harvest otherwise healthy people for their organs, setting aside deeply troubling allegations of a Chinese market in the organs from executed prisoners.

Discovering real-world examples of our willingness to sacrifice quite vulnerable populations for the good of the many is thus sobering. It makes us stop in our tracks and wonder, were the fanciful, fabricated objections we saw against utilitarianism all that fanciful?

In light of these (and many other) real-world examples, we must ask, is there an alternative to utilitarianism which lacks these morally problematic implications? We take up this alternative after the second examination next time.