UTILITARIANISM the greatest happiness of the greatest number philosophy
This essay is for examining the Utilitarian hypothesis that the right is
whatever makes the most people the most happy. The action does not matter but
only the consequences. The theory is against rigid rules and demands that you do
what seems to advance happiness. Rules when deployed are only valid as
long as they keep most people happiest. In its favour, moral situations
need a decision and the decision is hard to make for there are too many moving
parts and if you keep track of them now you will be in trouble keeping track in
five minutes time!
Any ethic that claims that we must approach right and wrong by weighing up the
consequences instead of just going by rules is called consequentalist. People
fear being controlled by rule makers. Consequentalism, of which Utilitarianism
is an example, therefore automatically produces some happiness at least.
The argument that consequentialism is wrong for the results of every action go
out of control at some stage is incorrect and myopic. The fact of the matter is
some good has come out of the things we do for the sake of consequences. Just
because we may get it wrong does not mean we must stop trying to get it right.
The Utilitarian theory is wildly popular for it is easily confused with systems
of ethics that weigh one action against another and advocate the one that does
the least damage.
An ethic that says morality is about happiness directly or indirectly rings
true. Even moralities that say life is valuable and more important than quality
of life encourage and advocate happiness when possible.
Is Utilitarianism a sensible and acceptable ethic?
USELESS-ITARIANISM
The principle of the Utilitarian theory is that happiness is the most precious
thing. If persons should be happy and happiness comes first then the theory is
incoherent. Why? If persons should be happy then persons must be more important
than happiness. The theory is wrong.
Utilitarianism would command slavery or murder or unjust imprisonment if the
fruit was great happiness. These are things that deny the value of the person.
If persons don't matter then why should their happiness matter?
The fact that Utilitarians may never do that only means
they never had to. It is not grounds for praise. Religion readily
says that and it is right but that means we can say the same thing about it - it
teaches doctrines that would harm and which are to be abhorred even if they
never get into a position where they do a lot of damage.
Utilitarianism enables people to be used to the back teeth by those who pretend
that this evil and that will make them happiest and can only lead to universal
insecurity. Any theory about consequences will do that but the greatest
happiness theory is too flexible and has more hazards than they do have and
could have.
The Utilitarian cannot judge anybody for anybody could state that their
seemingly bad action was done in good faith. And Utilitarianism demands that
this lie be told for the lie makes the person happier and others happier.
Utilitarianism is a recipe for anarchy in the lowest sense of the word. How can
you send a thief or a murderer to jail when you endorse a theory that means they
might have made a mistake rather than have done a wilful evil?
You could commit a crime and then make it look like you did the best thing under
the circumstances later. Utilitarianism forbids you to judge. If you cannot put
people into jail without proving their guilt you cannot advance happiness. You
don’t know if jailing them maximises happiness.
When you give a person money and it makes you happy to do so you may feel that
you have done right because that person is happier than you. But you will never
know if you would have been the happiest if you kept the money. So
Utilitarianism may be true but it cannot be put into practice. We have to find a
theory that is workable. Utilitarianism certainly is not.
When people do wrong and tend to do wrong the Utilitarian cannot do what he or
she regards as a good work because he or she cannot tell how the target will
react or what it will inspire her or him to do. Watching TV is a sin in
Utilitarianism because you could be doing better. So this gives some idea about
how much offending against the philosophy occurs. And it is very demanding too.
A demanding morality is hardly a recipe for happiness.
Nietzsche thought that it is insane to invent a
demanding altruistic morality such as Utilitarianism and then defeat it by
telling people to try and be one of those for whom it is true “that the greatest
happiness for the greatest number”. A morality that calls people to sacrifice
for selfish reasons will backfire and becomes about the pay-off not the people.
If you accept that happiness is what matters then since you can only really know
yourself and are more certain that you exist than you are that others exist, it
follows that you should do whatever you like as long as it gives you pleasure
even if it makes dirt of other people as long as you have some friends. Lots of
happy people are happy because they have some friends and they don't care that
everybody else hates them. The principle Utilitarianism is erected on is not the
right foundation for it at all so the theory is incoherent.
Utilitarianism is a philosophy for those who maintain that what people do not
know will not hurt them and is therefore right. How could it forbid the murder
of an obnoxious person always when there are times you could secretly commit it
and distress nobody?
People will never agree on what will increase happiness in relation to the more
important issues facing society. That will ensure that the theory will lead only
to discord and resentment and arguments. Most people don’t have the time to look
at something from every angle. There will always be the fear that something has
been missed.
The solution that mental or intellectual pleasures like wisdom are more
important than physical ones which are more fleeting and hard to maintain helps
but not completely. Some complain that it is elitist for it implies you have to
be smart to be moral. But the attempted solution would only be saying you should
find your joy in wisdom as far as you see it and can see it. So it is not
elitist. Another complaint is that you still can’t calculate what will bring the
most happiness. But this problem is reduced. It is certain then that the most
real and most practical Utilitarianism will promote mental pleasures
principally. This is the Utilitarianism of John Stuart Mill. But we are back
where we started for the stupid person still does what he or she sees as wisdom
or hopes is wisdom.
Reducing the most suffering would count more than making the most happiest.
All forms of Utilitarianism claim to be based on reason. They say it is
reasonable to abandon reason if that is what makes most people happiest. So it
is not reasonable after all! Happiness is not more important than reason. It is
better to be a rational being with no feelings at all than to be one that is
happy and stupid or mad. Utilitarianism denigrates human dignity. Happiness
implies that we should be rational for only then can we keep it and trust it and
make it grow. It could be replied that realistically most people will not turn
against reason that seriously and Utilitarianism is about what the world is like
not what it could be like.
Happiness is too changeable for it to be the goal of morality and what morality
is about. You can labour hard to make most people happiest and find no
alternative only to discover that in a few weeks they are now tired of the
benefits you got for them. It is too hard to predict.
The Utilitarian will argue that sometimes murder and
rape are necessary but take comfort in the notion that these occasions will be
extremely rare. But you cannot know if they will be. What if some kind of war
breaks out and they become rife? Looting is always sure to happen in
wartime! So why not the other evils?
We have destroyed the credibility of Utilitarianism.
BAD ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE THEORY
Most bad arguments against consequentalism and utilitarianism are based on
forgetting that they are a standard of duty or right action. They are not a
decision procedure for it is very hard to decide correctly.
It is said that Utilitarianism has no concern for
whether your intentions are good or bad. So it is good if you cause great
good when you meant to do harm. And if you mean to do good and disaster
happens you are accountable and should be punished. But obviously there is
more happiness in an action if you do it with the best of intentions.
While it is true in theory it does consider doing bad that results in tremendous
good as a good thing it cannot and does not do that in practice.
Utilitarianism will have as many problems with criminal justice as every other
system of morality has. When we punish we only hope it is fair and what
more can we do?
“The happier you make yourself in all forms of Utilitarianism the less likely
you are to become the sacrificial lamb on the altar of Utilitarian belief. So,
to work, the theory has to forbid individual happiness. Thus it contradicts
itself when everybody has to drag their chins on the ground to make everybody
else happy!”
It allows individuals to be happy when it maximises happiness. Unhappy people
make other people unhappy. Utilitarianism only allows some to be unhappy under
certain circumstances. But these would be expected to pretend to be happy when
necessary. If you take happiness in simplicity, in living the simple life, the
objection won’t be a problem for you.
"Lying and stealing are bad even when they are moral. In that case, they would
be necessary evils. To lie is to oppose what is real and to steal is to oppose
the security of another. In Ethics by A.C. Ewing we read, “It is fitting to
rejoice in what is good in itself, therefore if it is an end-in-itself that the
guilty should suffer, it is fitting to rejoice in their sufferings. But surely
that is not the case: it is not fitting to gloat over the pain of anyone, even
if he is a thoroughly bad man” (page 171). Nobody says we should hurt a bad man
to hurt him and not to punish him. He has to be hurt for a reason or an end.
Utilitarianism would urge us to rejoice in the necessary evils we commit and
there is something vulgar and evil in that.”
But if happiness is the greatest good what can you do? You are not bad for being
happy about the evil if happiness is what is important? You would be allowed to
laugh when an evil man dies if you are strapped up to a bomb that will be
triggered to blow up the world if you do not laugh.
“If all people on earth could be strapped to machines that make them have happy
dreams until their dying day and keep them alive and dead to the world,
Utilitarianism would say that it is right as long as they have robots to make
them reproduce to make babies to enjoy this incredible happiness.”
This would be a good thing and only religion and spoilsports would dare to
disagree. But as usual they can give no sensible reason that they could believe
their position. Anyway, if there is a problem then why not have enough people
connected up to make happiness tip the balance and not all people? That would
still leave people to run the world. And Christianity offers you a Heaven where
you cannot suffer for others and where there is only happiness. So this
wonderful religion of sincerity believes after all that it is right to use the
machine when it has its Heaven which is just the same! And yet it would have you
believe that it doesn’t.
“If people tend to do wrong as religion says then you cannot be a Utilitarian
because your good works will probably be abused and used to harm.”
But if you do bad or nothing they will be able to abuse that better so you when
you cannot win do good. At least the good has shown a caring example if nothing
else.
“Utilitarianism in all its forms leads to no room for acts that are over and
above the call of duty for it makes it a duty to go the extra mile if it will
maximise happiness.”
The doctrine of supererogation, or acts of generosity, is wrong and is really a
declaration that morality is just make-believe. You can do your duty in a
generous spirit so there is no need for it.
“Utilitarianism says we should be happy or free from suffering. But if we should
be happy then we must be more important than happiness and so it would be wrong
to kill a person to promote happiness. Utilitarianism denies the absolute value
of human life so it is not an ethical theory and it is very wrong”.
But that does not refute Utilitarianism but it shows it needs to be modified.
You can say that because human beings are absolute values the greatest happiness
of the greatest number should be served as long as life is preserved and held to
be sacrosanct.
Also, if Utilitarianism is the only ethical theory we can follow then it we
cannot be accused of being unethical if we follow it. Its bad points and
problems then would only show that it was not an ethical theory if there were a
better alternative.
“Utilitarianism says the more happiness the better so it is a duty to have as
many children as possible when you have good reason to believe that they will be
happy”.
Utilitarianism is not just about increasing happiness. It is only about
increasing the happiness of people that exist and that involves concern for
their future. It is a mistake to think you should have as many happy children as
possible for you have no duty to people who do not exist. I mean you are not
doing wrong by refusing to bring a person into existence.
Peter Singer wondered how if we have no duty to make non-existent people happy
by bringing them into existence, then how come we have a duty not to make
non-existent people who will suffer (page 104, Practical Ethics). But the
difference is that in the first case no harm is done to anybody while the harm
of making a person to suffer is done in the second. That is the answer.
Utilitarianism is the greatest secular happiness of the
greatest number. Why? Because spiritual happiness cannot be tested and people
may claim to have such happiness as a boast and to be superior. "Oh I have the
secret of happiness and God favours me to make me happy." Religion says
such happiness comes before all other forms so Utilitarianism if it understands
itself at all will be diligently secular. The alternative is theocracy and
religious war. Each religion will be trying to enforce its understanding
of Utilitarianism.
Conclusion
Utilitarianism has serious problems but it has its merits too. It forces
you to think it is working but you will think that on very subjective and shaky
grounds. You may end up having to lie or do something normally bad to try
and make sure it is maximising benefits for most people. Lies are often
more trouble than they are worth. Also you are lying to yourself on some
level about it. It is certainly true that the rivals of
Utilitarianism are evil for they deny the principle that the greatest happiness
of the greatest number comes first. That principle is correct whether we can put
it into practice or not. Utilitarianism is itself a necessary evil. That is the
general answer to the criticisms. It closes the case.
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1971
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McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., Washington, District of Columbia, 1967
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The WEB
Roman Catholic Ethics: Three Approaches by Brian Berry
www.mcgill.pvt.k12.al.us/jerryd/ligouri/berry.htm
