The utilitarian standard of right action is the happiness of the one performing the action.

3 Utilitarianism: Making the World a Better Place

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Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

• Explain the basic idea of the principle of utility or the greatest happiness principle.

• Explain consequentialist moral theory and what makes utilitarianism a form of consequentialism.

• Identify utilitarian moral arguments.

• Construct a utilitarian moral argument that applies to a concrete moral problem.

• Identify common misconceptions about utilitarianism and explain why they are incorrect.

• Explain the notions of impartiality, objectivity, and adaptability as they relate to utilitarianism.

• Explain the general objections to utilitarianism.

• Describe rule utilitarianism and explain how it differs from act utilitarianism.

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Section 3.1 Introduction to Utilitarianism

Create all the happiness you are able to create; remove all the misery you are able to remove. Every day will allow you,—will invite you to add something to the pleasure of others,—or to diminish something of their pains. And for every grain of enjoyment you sow in the bosom of another, you shall find a harvest in your own bosom,—while every sorrow which you pluck out from the thoughts and feelings of a fellow creature shall be replaced by beautiful flowers of peace and joy in the sanctuary of your soul.

—Jeremy Bentham

3.1 Introduction to Utilitarianism In Chapter 1, we discussed what morality is in a general sense and how to approach moral problems. In Chapter 2, we examined some challenges to the idea that our common moral values and beliefs are objective and unconditional. We considered whether they are simply a reflection of the beliefs of a certain culture or individuals. Or maybe they are mere conven- tions designed to maintain social order and prevent people—especially society’s stronger members—from pursuing their own interests at the expense of others, but which we would be better off defying if possible. Each of these views is quite common, yet we questioned whether they are as plausible as they might appear to be. There are a number of reasons to doubt that they can adequately make sense of the role morality plays in our individual and collective lives or whether they are rationally consistent views.

This does not mean that these views are necessarily wrong, of course. However, it gives us a compelling reason to closely examine the ways that philosophers have tried to provide an objective account of what morality is and how we should distinguish right from wrong . One of the most common and familiar of these theories is utilitarianism. In its most general sense, utilitarianism is the theory that morally right actions, laws, or policies are those whose consequences have the greatest positive value and least negative value compared to available alternatives.

Example Scenarios Before exploring utilitarianism in detail, consider the following moral scenarios:

1. Amber is in a long-term relationship that lately has not been going well. She has struck up a friendship with an attractive, funny, and caring coworker, and one day he tells her that he would like to start seeing her outside of work. She knows that if she starts seeing him she would be cheating on her boyfriend, but she is tempted by the proposition and wonders whether it would be wrong to do so.

2. Charlie and Davy, 8-year-old and 5-year-old brothers, were out shopping with their mother. Shopping trips almost inevitably involve them begging for a toy, but their mother always says no. On this trip, however, they were particularly well behaved and didn’t say a word when they passed the toy aisle. Impressed and pleased, their mother, on a whim, decided to buy them a small toy to share. When they got home,

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Section 3.1 Introduction to Utilitarianism

Charlie didn’t want share the toy with his brother. His mother wonders how she can explain to Charlie that sharing is the right thing to do.

3. Rachel leads the marketing team for a children’s clothing company. Her bosses want to pursue a new, edgier marketing strategy that involves putting their female child models into more sexually suggestive outfits and poses. Rachel worries that this borders on exploitation of the models, promotes an inappropriate sexualization of children, and could be demeaning to women in general. Her bosses dismiss these concerns and make it clear that if she refuses to pursue the strategy, she will be let go and replaced with someone who will. The job market has been unforgiving lately, and Rachel is a single mother raising three kids, so she wonders whether the proposed marketing strategy is wrong after all—and even if it is, whether she has a responsibility to refuse to go along with it.

4. For 3 years Bill and Jodi have been saving up for a vacation to Tahiti. They both work hard, rarely take time off, and desperately need an extended time of rest and relax- ation. They have finally saved enough to take time off work, fly to Tahiti, and spend several weeks relaxing on the beach. However, as they are booking their vacation, they learn that a devastating tornado has swept through Oklahoma, wrecking sev- eral towns and leaving their inhabitants homeless and desperate. They consider the amount of money they have saved up for their vacation and wonder whether they ought to use it to help the tornado victims instead.

In each of these cases, there is the question of which choice would be moral, but there is also the question of why one choice would be morally better than another. In other words, differ- ent people might agree that a certain response is morally right or wrong, but they may have different reasons for coming to that conclusion.

Let’s consider a few possible answers, along with their reasons:

Case 1:

• Amber shouldn’t cheat on her boyfriend because he is bound to find out, and when he does, it will really hurt him.

• Amber shouldn’t cheat on her boyfriend because he is bound to find out, and when he does, he might become angry and physically harm her.

• Amber should start dating this new guy because it will make her much happier than she is now.

Case 2:

• Charlie should share the toy with Davy because it will make Davy happy, and there will be two happy kids rather than just one.

• Charlie should share the toy with Davy so that when Davy has something Charlie wants, he’ll be more likely to share it.

• Charlie should share the toy with Davy because if he does not, he will be punished.

Case 3:

• Rachel should refuse to pursue the marketing strategy because it is harmful to the models, other children, and women.

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Section 3.1 Introduction to Utilitarianism

• Rachel should accept the marketing strategy because it will allow her to continue to provide for her children.

• Rachel should accept the marketing strategy because it will likely lead to increased profits for the company as well as a raise and promotion for herself.

Case 4:

• Bill and Jodi should spend their time and money helping the tornado victims rather than going to Tahiti, because the good they could do for the ravaged communities is much greater than the pleasure they would receive from basking in the sun for a few weeks.

• Bill and Jodi should spend their time and money helping the tornado victims rather than going to Tahiti, because if they don’t, they will be plagued with guilt throughout their vacation.

• Bill and Jodi should spend their time and money going to Tahiti, because in doing so they will be able to work more efficiently when they return, which will result in greater income and thus greater resources to help future victims of natural disasters.

One thing to notice about each of the reasons provided for the best decision is that it appeals to the results of one choice or another. What will be the outcome of pursuing a relationship, sharing a toy, pursuing a certain marketing strategy, or spending one’s time and money in a certain way? In other words, what are the consequences of the different available options?

You might be thinking that there are a number of choices that don’t simply appeal to conse- quences, such as the idea that it is simply wrong to betray someone’s trust, that we should not be selfish or greedy, that we should never sexually objectify children, that we should maintain our integrity, or that we should always strive to be compassionate toward people in need. These reasons appeal to considerations that are independent of the results of different actions—considerations such as our rights and duties or important virtues that we ought to cultivate and exercise.

Utilitarians will usually recognize the importance of most of these other reasons. But for the utilitarian, what is most fundamental and essential to morality are the consequences of our actions and, in particular, whether the overall positive consequences outweigh the negative ones.

Elements of a Utilitarian Theory To flesh out this idea, let’s review an important point from Chapter 1.

If we regard human actions as consisting of three aspects, then the main difference between the major moral theories has to do with which aspect the theory takes to be fundamental when it comes to moral reasoning and moral value. The three aspects of human action are:

1. The nature and character of the person performing the action. 2. The nature of the action itself. 3. The consequences of the action.

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Section 3.1 Introduction to Utilitarianism

The three moral theories can be distinguished in this way:

1. Virtue ethics focuses on the nature and character of the person performing the action.

2. Deontological ethics focuses on the action itself. 3. Consequentialist ethics focuses on the consequences of the action.

When we think about the reasons mentioned above for considering certain actions or policies as right or wrong, we note that they appeal to the positive or negative consequences, outcomes, or results of each case. The form of moral reasoning that appeals to consequences, results, or outcomes in determining whether some- thing is right or wrong is called consequen- tialist ethics (or consequentialism), and utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory.

Naturally, there are many different conse- quences to our actions, and not all of them will be valuable or morally significant. A consequentialist view will specify which of the consequences are most important when it comes to morality. For instance, some- one might be fond of polka dots and favor actions or policies that bring more polka dots into our world, but that would be an absurd basis on which to judge the moral value of someone’s actions. Or more real- istically, someone might favor people with lighter skin tones and hold that actions or policies that favor those with lighter skin over those with darker skin are best, which most people today also regard as an absurd principle even if it once had defenders.

To avoid these kinds of problems, the con- sequentialist must isolate from among the various outcomes those that will serve as the standard for moral evaluation. Polka dots and skin color cannot serve as this kind of standard—but what can? Whatever it is will have to be, like polka dots and skin color, identifiable. That is, we must be able to recognize and indicate it in a way that oth- ers can recognize as well. But unlike polka dots and skin color, it also has to be intrinsi- cally valuable (more on this in a moment).

The Basic Features of Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is a consequentialist ap- proach to moral reasoning. This approach holds that actions are morally right if they result in the best consequences relative to other possible actions. If an action results in worse consequences than another avail- able action, then it is morally wrong.

The utilitarian theory identifies the best consequences as those with the greatest overall utility.

Utility: Happiness or Well-Being When we talk about utility, we mean some measure of well-being. This is usually happiness, which is often also defined in terms of pleasure and the absence of suffering.

Utilitarianism: The Greatest Happiness for the Greatest Number Right actions: actions that result in the greatest overall happiness when compared with the results of alternative actions.

Wrong actions: actions that are performed when another action would have resulted in a greater overall balance of happiness and unhappiness.

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Section 3.1 Introduction to Utilitarianism

Moreover, if we think back to the earlier scenarios and consider the reasons given for the different responses, they all compared results in terms of how much good or bad each action would produce. If we are going to distinguish between more or less of something, whatever we are comparing has to be measurable. So when we are distinguishing between “more of something good” or “less of something good,” we have to be able to quantify and compare dif- ferent amounts of “something good.”

Finally, there are countless things that people find “good” or “bad,” and comparing them might seem like comparing apples to oranges. It’s not enough to quantify the results of our actions; we must be able to reduce good or bad things to a common intrinsic value. Intrinsic value is the value that something has in itself, as opposed to instrumental value, which is value that something has because it brings about something good or prevents something bad. And this intrinsic value must be a common feature of the outcomes we wish to compare so as to pro- vide a standard for the comparison.

Can we identify a standard for comparing consequences that meets these criteria? Utilitar- ians identify this standard to be something called utility (hence the name utilitarianism). On this basis, the utilitarian maintains that we should act in ways that result in the most utility compared to the alternatives. But what, exactly, is utility, and does it satisfy the characteristics just described? To see how utilitarians have tried to answer this question, let’s turn to a bit of history; in particular, Jeremy Bentham’s and John Stuart Mill’s claims that utility—the ulti- mate value by which we compare the outcomes of actions—is happiness or, more specifically, pleasure and the absence of pain.

Bentham’s Utilitarianism Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), a British philoso- pher and the founder of utilitarianism, offered a view of value known as hedonism, which means that we whittle down all value to happiness or unhappiness, all happiness to pleasure (good) and the absence of pain (bad), and unhappiness to pain and the absence of pleasure. Doing so, he main- tained, would give us the needed basis for distin- guishing good from bad consequences. Every action or policy produces a certain amount of pleasure and pain among the various individuals affected by it, so pleasure and pain would serve as the common value. If all values reduce to pleasure and pain, and if there are no more basic goods than pleasure and no more basic bads than pain, then pleasure is intrinsically good and pain is intrinsically bad.

Pleasure and pain, Bentham thought, can be iden- tified and measured (like we measure flour for baking). Thus, if we add up all the pleasure that’s

Photos.com/Thinkstock Jeremy Bentham was the founder of utilitarianism.

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Section 3.1 Introduction to Utilitarianism

Common Standards

We have said that to meaningfully compare the value of different consequences, we have to find some kind of standard or unit of measurement common to all of the outcomes.

There is an old fairy tale that illustrates this principle:

A man and his wife have one possession, an old milking cow. Times are hard, and they decide that they have no choice but to sell the cow so they can have some money for food. As the man is leading the cow toward the market to sell, he passes by a peasant carrying a pair of chickens. “Say, that’s a fine cow you have there,” says the peasant. “I don’t suppose you would like to trade your one cow for two whole chickens.” The man thinks to himself, “Two is more than one, as everyone knows. This is a deal that can’t be passed up!” He quickly agrees and leaves the cow with the peasant, taking the two chickens instead. By and by he meets a woman selling loaves of bread, who offers him three loaves of bread in exchange for the two chickens. Again the man reasons, “Three is more than two, as everyone knows. This woman must not be very clever to be willing to take only two chickens in exchange for three loaves of bread!” So he makes the exchange and continues on his way. A while later, he comes across an old beggar with four beans spread on a blanket. “What say you exchange those three loaves of bread for these four beans?” suggests the beggar. The man thinks to himself, “It’s no wonder that he’s a beggar if he doesn’t even realize that four is more than three! I have never had such luck!” Just before he arrives home with his beans, he passes by a young boy playing with some rocks. The young boy spots the beans and offers the man five pebbles in exchange for the four beans. Quickly agreeing, the man runs home and excitedly proclaims to his wife, “I set off with just a single cow, and instead of selling it in the market, I traded that for two chickens, which then fetched me three loaves of bread, for which I then got four beans, and now I have five pebbles! You have, indeed, the cleverest husband in the world.”

(A particularly amusing version of this tale is the poem “Smart” from Shel Silverstein’s 1974 book, Where the Sidewalk Ends, which can be found here: https://www.marketplace.org /2009/04/27/life/poetry-project/poem-smart-shel-silverstein).

What is wrong with this person’s reasoning? Clearly, he failed to realize that quantity isn’t everything: Just because a decision will result in a larger quantity of things doesn’t make that decision a good one. How should he have compared, say, four beans with three loaves of bread? Some common standard would have to be invoked according to which the four beans would be considered more, less, or equal to the three loaves. Without that common standard, the decision comes down to a matter of sheer numbers, which in this case proved to be ridiculously foolish, no matter how clever the man took himself to be.

Similarly, when people disagree about whether certain actions or policies would have better results than the alternatives, is there a common standard of moral value according to which such disagreements could be resolved? If there are not, what implications might this have for a utilitarian approach to these kinds of decisions?

produced by an action and subtract the pain, we can calculate a certain value for every sit- uation that would result from the available choices. The action that produces the greatest overall value is the morally right action. This form of moral reasoning is called hedonistic utilitarianism.

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https://www.marketplace.org/2009/04/27/life/poetry-project/poem-smart-shel-silverstein
https://www.marketplace.org/2009/04/27/life/poetry-project/poem-smart-shel-silverstein
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Section 3.1 Introduction to Utilitarianism

Many moral disputes involve dilemmas over how we should balance the positive and nega- tive results of actions or policies. The ability to resolve them in an objective way, if we are to follow Bentham’s procedure, depends on how well we’re able to identify and measure the overall pain and pleasure that are produced, assuming that pain and pleasure are to serve as our basic standard, as Bentham proposed. As we will see later, utilitarians following Bentham came to question this assumption about pain and pleasure, but the core idea underlying utili- tarianism remains the same:

Determine how much pleasure (or other positive value) minus pain (or other negative value) will result from the available actions spread across all the people affected by the actions and do that which produces the greatest overall good.

Mill’s Utilitarianism While Bentham was the founder of utilitarianism and set out its basic form, those who followed in his footsteps would modify and refine the theory. Per- haps the most well-known and influential of these was another 19th-century Englishman, John Stuart Mill. In his 1861 text, Utilitarianism, Mill adopted Bentham’s ideas and tried to communicate and defend them in a way that was simple and straight- forward and addressed the most common criticisms made of utilitarianism.

Read the sections “The Definition of Utilitarianism,” “The Greatest Happiness Principle,” and “Summary of the Utilitarian View” and come back to this point.

Mill begins with a definition of morality that clearly sets out the utilitarian account of the dif- ference between right and wrong actions.

The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals “utility” or the “greatest happiness principle” holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasure. (Mill, 1861/2001, p. 7)

The first question we should consider when we read this definition is “Why suppose that hap- piness, defined in terms of pleasure and the absence of pain, should be the standard of value when distinguishing right from wrong?” Mill answers this by offering a general theory of life, which is his primary justification for the utilitarian theory of morality. It reads: “Pleasure and freedom from pain are the only things desirable as ends; and . . . all desirable things . . . are desirable either for pleasure inherent in themselves or as means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain” (Mill, 1861/2001, p. 7).