Utilitarianism

ReviewThe study of ethics concerns the nature of good and bad, right and wrong, justice and injustice. Ethics focuses on the question of action—what actions should a person undertake to perform? Ethics deals with what may be the most fundamental personal question of all—how should you lead your life?

Metaethics – in metaethics, we consider general questions about he nature of morality and about the meaning of moral concepts. We ask whether there is a difference between right and wrong and what the difference amounts to.

Normative Ethics – normative ethics assumes that there is a difference between right and wrong actions and asks which actions fall into which category. Theorists in this domain develop criteria by which to evaluate an action as right or wrong.

Applied Ethics – applied ethics focuses on particular ethical topics such as abortion, capital punishment, free speech, and pornography.

ReviewIn most areas of philosophy, a domain can be broken down into two different areas: normative and descriptive.

Normative – the normative domain attempts to develop an answer to the question about what should be done.

-Normative ethics attempts to answer questions about how we ought to act; normative epistemology attempts to answer questions about how we ought to reason.

Descriptive – the descriptive domain simply reports how it is things are done; what it is we actually do.

-Descriptive ethics reports how we do act; descriptive epistemology reports how we actually do reason.

ReviewDivine Command Theory – this is a theistic theory which says that some action is wrong if and only if God forbids it; and some action is obligatory if and only if God commands it.

-According to this view, what makes actions right or wrong is God.

-Also, according to this view, if God commanded that murder was obligatory, his command would make murdering morally right.

ReviewThe Euthyphro Question: is action x right because God commands it OR does God command it because it is right.

-Divine command theorists must accept the first part of the Euthyphro question. According to them, there is no right or wrong independent of God; his command makes actions right.

-If the second part of this question were correct, then an action must be right prior to God’s command.

ReviewThe Arbitrariness Objection to the Divine Command Theory

-This objection to the divine command theory claims that God’s commands must be arbitrary since there

are no moral reasons independent of God.-For example, if God commands that murder is wrong

we might ask what reasons God had for making this command rather than some other. Take any reason God might have, for example, that causing harm is bad. If God acted on this reason, then he would have also had to command that harming someone is bad. We can again ask what God’s reason for command this was. If another moral reason is given, then that too must have been a command of God’s. We don’t seem to have an explanation for why God chose certain commands rather than others because this process can go on forever.

Background-John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher and contributed greatly to social theory, political theory, and political economy.

-He is best known for defended utilitarianism which was originally developed earlier by Jeremy Bentham.

John Stuart Mill1806 - 1873

Jeremy Bentham1748 - 1832

Utilitarianism-Utilitarianism is an ethical theory whose central idea is the following:

‘THE GREATEST HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE – THE ACTION WE OUGHT TO PERFORM IN A GIVEN SITUATION IS THE ONE THAT PROMOTES THE GREATEST HAPPINESS FOR THE GREATEST NUMBER OF PEOPLE’

-The idea is that the ethically correct actions are ones that promote the greatest happiness of the individuals affected by it.

Utilitarianism-The greatest happiness principle is the logical conclusion of three other principles which Mill argued for.

-Consequentialism

-Welfarism

Aggregationism

-We’ll discuss each one of these and how they support the greatest happiness principle.

ConsequentialismConsequentialism – an action is right insofar as it produces consequences which are intrinsically good.

-Intrinsic goods are opposed to instrumental goods. Intrinsic good are things that are good in and of themselves (e.g., happiness). Instrumental goods are things that are good only insofar as they produce something else that is good (e.g., exercise).

Consequentialism-According to Mill, the consequences of our actions are really what matter in deliberating about what we ought to do.

-Consider what you would do if you were on an airplane that was about to crash with four other people: an elderly lady, the elderly lady’s grandson, the pilot who is married and has two children, and a scientist who has the cure for cancer. However, there are only four parachutes. Who among the passengers ought to receive a parachute?

-In short, consequences matter.

Welfarism-Welfarism says that the only intrinsic good is happiness.

-For Mill, happiness is pleasure and the absence of pain. Mill notes that the only proof that something is visible is the fact that someone sees it. Analogously, the only proof that something is desirable is that someone desires it. Mill then claims that what people ultimately desire is their own happiness.

-The principle of welfarism would be false if we could show there are other intrinsic goods. Are there any candidates? Power? Wealth? Fame?

AggregationismAggregationism is the thesis that the consequence that is intrinsically best is the one that has the greatest aggregate (sum of) intrinsic good.

-According to this principle, when we are deliberating about what we ought to do we should add up the amount of happiness an action we produce and compare the sum happiness to the sum happiness of other options we are contemplating.

-On this view, all individuals are given an equal amount of weight and priority. No one person gets more priority any other.

UtilitarianismAgain, these three principles (consequentialism, welfarism, and aggregationism) appear to entail the principle of utility.

-Mill’s strategy was to defend each of these three theses in order to show that the principle of utility must be right. In other words, it could be rationally deduced.

UtilitarianismAn example of Utilitarianism at work:

Say you have the option of buying your significant other a brand new car. On the other hand, your moral conscience kicks in and reminds you that you could donate the money you would spend on the car in order to provide food for 200 starving children. The principle of utility dictates that we ought to add up the happiness produced by each action in order to determine which

action is the right one.

UtilitarianismAnother example:

You work at a tobacco company and learn that the CEO has asked a scientist to develop a cigarette that is significantly more addictive. In fact, one puff from this new cigarette would be enough to ‘hook’ over 90% of people who try it. You think that you should report this incident to the media buy you have signed a confidentiality waiver which legally prevents you from doing so. According to utilitarianism, what ought you to do?

UtilitarianismAnother:

You take your mother to the hospital because she has had a mildly bad cold lately. As it turns out, there are four other patients at the hospital who will die if they do not receive certain transplants: one needs a lung, one needs a liver, one needs a heart, and one needs a pancreas. You mother happens to be the only person which is a match for all four patients. The doctors approach you and ask if you would lie to your mother

and tell her than she is terminally ill so they can put her under and harvest her organs. What, according to utilitarianism, ought you to do?

Utilitarianism