Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism

The central thesis of untilitarianism, in its most general form, is that actions are to be judged solely by their consequences and are not right or wrong in themselves. The term is most commonly used, however, to refer to the more specific view put forward in the eighteenth century by Helvetius in France and Jeremy Bentham and his followers, the Philosophical Radicals, in England, that the rightness of any action is determined by a single criterion, its contributions to the greater happiness of the greater number. Utilitarians have often been moral reformers, but some have claimed to be merely stating what is implicit in the generally accepted moral rules. Most have combined these positions. They have said that the utilitarian principle underlies ordinary moral reasoning, but that, because this has not been realized, individuals and communities have often held moral beliefs what are inconsistent with Utilitarianism and which a more careful analysis of their own views would lead them to renounce.

Utilitarianism needs to be distinguished from natural law theory, which in some ways it resembles. Many of the Greeks, including Aristotle, had said that the ultimate good is eudaimonia, but they seem ot have meant, not happiness in Bentham’s sense, but something like happy (or blessed) condition of the soul. The crucial distinction is between the gratification of the desires a man actually has and the gratification of the desires a fully rational, or perfect, man would have. Most of Bentham’s precursors are at least partly influenced by natural law theory. Thus Richard Cumberland, Bishop of Peterborough, sometimes considered the first English Utilitarian, includes moral perfection as well as happiness in his common good.

Many members of the “moral sense” school came close to Utilitarianism but in them, too, the theory is modified, though in varying degrees. Bishop Butler in a note to one of his sermons makes the tentative suggestion (which he may not mean to endorse) that God is probably a Utilitarian, but that man had better not be. It is reasonable, he concedes, to suppose that God approves of those actions which lead to general happiness in the long run. Men, however, are likely to make mistakes in trying to decide which action will in fact have this result. Consequently it is safer for them to trust to the immediate judgments of conscience, by which they may know immediately what actions are right, as distinct from what ultimately makes them right. Francis Hutcheson went much further than Butler by insisting that the righteous of an action simply consisted in its rousing feeling of approval in all normal men. Those actions which did rouse such approval, however, had another characteristic in common: they all showed evidence of benevolent intention. And benevolence was, for Hutcheson, a natural propensity to seek “the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers” (a phrase which he may have been the first in England to use). In saying this Hutcheson gave the moral sense theory a more difinite Utilitarian twist than either Butler of Shaftesbury. Shaftesbuy thought that what those actions approved by the moral sense had in common was a tendency to promote the harmony of the universe. Consequently he is probably closer to natural law theory than to Utilitarianism. His account of benevolence is closer to Butler’s than to Hutcheson’s: man’s natural generosity is limited, and does not, as a rule, extend beyond his immediate acquaintances to mankind in general. On the other hand, the combination of self-interest, limited generosity, and the requirements of social living result in a moral sense which approves of those qualities that are useful to te possessor or to other people affected by them.

John Stuart Mill, in his essay on Bentham, says that he was anticipated by John Brown and Soames Jenyns; but, at least in part, their view was that, since the pains and pleasures of eternity far outweighed those of this life, and since God happened to reward those who considered others as well as themselves, the far-seeing egoist would adopt a Utilitarian policy. This view attained great popularity, especially through the writings of William Paley; but it is a form of the self-interest theory rather than of Utilitarianism proper.

Perhaps the most wholehearted English endorsement of Utilitarianism apart from Bentham’s was William Godwin’s. Godwin summarizes his moral theory in just two sentences: “The end of virtue is to add to the sum of pleasurable sensation. The beacon and regulator of virtue is impartiality, that we shall not give that exertions to procure the pleasure of an individual, which might have been employed in procuring the pleasure of many individuals.” He did not hesitate to accept those consequences of Utilitarianism that had made Butler shy away from it. He repudiated the virtue of promise-keeping, for example: if the promised act promoted the general happines, one ought to do it, whether one had promised to or not, if it detracted from the general happiness, one ought not to do it, even if one had promised to. Promises, then, were either irrelevant to morality or hostile to it. He did not hesitate to say that, if one could save only one person from a burning building, and had to choose between one’s own mother and some great man more like to contribute to human happiness, one should save the latter.

It is hardly surprising that Godwin was the target of a pamphlet published in 1798 attacking "the leading principle of the new system of morals." The "leading principle" is utilitarianism, from which, according to the anonymous author (actually Thomas Green of Ipswich) Godwin's scandalous conclusion follows logically: that we are entitled, in the interests of the general happiness, to ignore all general rules, and hence law and convention, and also all emotions, such as friendship or filial affection.

The early utilitarians were fighting on two fronts: against the self-interest school and against the belief that moral rules are binding quite apart from their consequences. Inevitably both controversies became entangled in a different one, between naturalism on the one hand and, on the other, non-natural ism and its concomitant, intuitionism. The "principle of utility" merely states that an action is right only if it contributes more to the general happiness than any alternative action open to the agent. That principle itself might result from the psychological fact that men (either instinctively or as a result of social conditioning) tend to subordinate all other considerations to the general happiness. But equally it might just be an irreducible fact that men ought to do this, whether they actually do or not. That they ought to do this, it might be said, is known by intuition. There is no reason, then, why utilitarianism should not be combined with intuitionism and non-naturalism; and Henry Sidgwick did so combine it.

Bentham and his followers, however, derided intuitionism ("ipse-dixitism," Bentham called it) be- cause, they said, it amounted to exalting one's own prejudices into eternal and immutable principles. Utilitarianism, they claimed, provided an objective criterion which its rivals lacked. In one way, this claim was justified. If happiness is simply the fulfillment of individual desires, whatever they may be, then utilitarianism can be said to aim at the gratification of everyone's desires (or as many as possible) instead of foisting on the individual what others happen to desire for him. Bentham, who was primarily a legal reformer, was anxious that criminals should be judged by the harm they actually did, not by the feelings of revulsion individual judges might have for their actions.

But the desire that everyone's desires should be gratified is itself the desire, not of everyone, but of the utilitarian-who may therefore be accused, at least at this higher level, of foisting his own prejudice on others. To escape this charge by saying that the greatest happiness principle itself is an objective moral principle known by intuition is to weaken the force of Bentham's diatribe against intuition as another name for prejudice.

Consequently Bentham and Mill tried to base utilitarianism upon psychological hedonism. On this view the desire to escape pain and obtain pleasure is simply a psychological (ultimately a biological) fact about men, and, since morality can be derived from it, there is no need for intuitions about special moral facts. But psychological hedonism leads to egoistic hedonism, not to utilitarianism. It is our own pleasure that nature bids us seek, not that of others. There is indeed one obvious way in which utilitarianism can be based on egoism. The relation between them can be said to be that of means to end. Though not a utilitarian, Hobbes had argued that men could satisfy their individual desires only by cooperating with other men, and that cooperation was only possible if men agreed to aim at a compromise between their various desires rather than insisting on those desires as such. The half-loaf offered by society was better than the no-bread of the state of nature. Brown, Jenyns, and Paley also regarded utilitarianism as a means to attaining happiness for oneself, through the mediation of God. Neither of these views was acceptable to Bentham and Mill. If the greatest happiness is good only as a means to one's own happiness, it will follow that self-interest should take precedence whenever the two conflict. Hobbes and Paley, for different reasons, maintained that they never could conflict in the long run, but this seems doubtful.

The usual view is that Bentham and Mill failed dismally in their attempts to base utilitarianism on egoism. Bentham seems simply to make the transition without arguing for it. Mill, in the notorious fourth chapter of Utilitarianism (1863), is said to have been betrayed into gross logical howlers by attempting to argue for it. Mill's argument may, however, be more subtle than is generally realized. The happiness of the individual consists simply in the realization of whatever desires he may happen to have. Some of these, of course, are biological in origin; but others (and even the biological ones to a limited extent) will depend on social conditioning, on what David Hartley called "associations." Now, if Hobbes is right, men in society will be conditioned to associate their own happiness with that of others. The ultimate justification of society is self-interest; but society will not work smoothly if men think of "the laws of nature" (the rules of behavior necessary to keep society together) as mere means to an end, to be broken whenever there is no chance of detection. Society will see to it that the individual will come to think of himself, in Mill's words, as "a being who of course pays regard to others" (Utilitarianism, Everyman ,.de p. 30).

The happiness of others, that is to say, is not thought of as a means, but as an end in itself. We have been conditioned to desire it. Conditioning is not possible unless there is some inherent desire with which the conditioned desire can be associated; but the conditioned desire is quite as genuine a desire as (and may even, on occasion, be stronger than) the original desire which engendered it. Man's two masters, pain and pleasure, drive him into society, in the way outlined by Hobbes; but Hobbes failed to notice that, as a result, society will see to it that he forms the associations between his own pleasures and the pleasures of others which make him aim at the greatest happiness rather than simply at his own happiness. But this is an inaccurate way of putting it; for, since his happiness is whatever he desires, and he has been conditioned to desire the happiness of others as well as his own, the sharp distinction between his own happiness and that of others breaks down. We should distinguish rather between what he desires for himself and what he desires for others. Both are desires that he has; and, since his happiness consists in the gratification of his desires, we may say, paradoxically, that the happiness of others is part of his happiness. This is no contradiction. All that is meant is that one of the things the individual desires is that the desires of others shall be gratified so far as is possible. Whether or not this view is a sound one, to interpret Mill as putting it forward at least leaves him guiltless of the grosser confusions attributed to him. Moreover, this interpretation takes account of the influence on Mill of his father, James Mill, and of Hartley, who was of course one of the major influences on James Mill.

Utilitarianism, as formulated by Bentham, gives rise to some obvious objections. According to Bentham, the way to determine the rightness or wrongness of a given action is to ask oneself the question: liW this action cause more pleasure, on balance, to all those affected by it, than any alternative action open to the agent? But how can this be answered unless one can measure pleasures? Bentham seemed to think that it made sense to talk about the units of pleasure (or of pain) caused to a given person by a given action. In fact, however, there are no such units. Pleasures, the critics of utilitarianism insisted, are incommensurable. It is important, however, to distinguish between two different things that may be meant by this. If you say that you get more pleasure from music, say, than from reading detective stories, you do not mean that it is a matter of indifference whether you read two detective novels or attend one symphony concert. This is a valid criticism of the hedonic calculus if it is meant to be very precise. There is, however, a sense in which we can and do weigh one pleasure or pain against another. A judge, for example, may offer a convicted person a choice between a term of imprisonment or a fine of a given amount. The job of finding equivalent sentences can be well or badly done. "One day in prison or a fine of $10,000" would be an absurd sentence. The two kinds of pain, then, are not wholly incommensurable. In ordinary life, we do constantly have to choose between alternative courses of action. Often the questions we ask ourselves are: Which will I enjoy more? Is it worth giving up this for the sake of that? These questions admit of no precise answer, but they can be answered. It is not absurd then, to suggest that the question: Ought I to do this or that? amounts to: Will this or that cause more pleasure in the long run to all concerned?

There is, however, something quite different that is often meant when it is said that pleasures are incommensurable. Most of us do not believe that, to use C. E. Moore's example, "the state of mind of a drunkard, when he is intensely pleased with breaking crockery, is just as valuable in itself-just as well worth having, as that of a man who is fully realizing all that is exquisite in the tragedy of King Lear, provided only the mere quantity of pleasure in both cases is the same" (Ethics, p. 238). Some kinds of pleasure, we think, are more valuable than other kinds; and this is not the same as saying that they yield greater pleasure.

In answering this objection Bentham and Mill part company. Bentham argues that, when the dimensions of pleasure are taken into account, the difference between higher and lower pleasures is, after all, a quantitative one. Mill does not, however, take this line. "It is quite compatible with the principle of utility," he says, "to recognize the fact, that some kinds of pleas- ure are more desirable and more valuable than others" (po cit., p. 7). His critics have not thought so: in conceding that the distinction between higher and lower pleasures is qualitative and not quantitative Mill has, it is said, tacitly admitted that there is something else, apart from pleasure, that is intrinsically good.

This criticism has given rise to a modified version of utilitarianism, called Ideal Utilitarianism by Hastings Rashdall, and put forward by him and by C. E. Moore in the first years of this century. They differed from the older, or hedonistic, utilitarians in maintaining that other things (notably truth, beauty, and love) were good in themselves as well as pleasure or happiness. Consequently they altered the utilitarian formula to "the greatest good of the greatest number." They agreed with the hedonistic utilitarians, however, in judging actions solely by their consequences, their efficacy in producing good states of affairs. (Some philosophers, indeed, added moral perfection to the list of goods; but to say this is to abandon what is distinctive about utilitarianism.)

In one respect Sidgwick had already made a step in the direction of ideal utilitarianism. It would seem to follow from the hedonic calculus that there is no moral difference between a situation in which A benefits (obtains 50 units of pleasure, say) at the expense of B (say 40 units of pain) and one in which A and B both obtain moderate benefits (say 5 units each). The total increase in human happiness (10 units) is the same whichever we choose. To meet this objection Sidgwick modified the greatest happiness formula by making the equal distribution of happiness a requirement as well as its maximization. It would seem to follow that equality, as well as happiness, is good in itself. Ideal utilitarianism does not escape this objection, since we need to amend the "greatest good" formula in the same way. It is, however, easier for the ideal utilitarian to accommodate the change: since he has already admitted a multiplicity of goods, he need not shrink from regarding the equalization of good as itself a good.

Most of the criticisms leveled at utilitarianism, however, apply with equal force to both kinds. This is true even of the objection that utilitarians put the promotion of happiness on a level with the relief of misery, which has seemed to many a more stringent obligation. The ideal utilitarian will be faced with the same prob- lem, both because happiness is one of his goods, and because similar questions arise about truth and beauty, as contrasted with the removal of ugliness or error. Utilitarians have sometimes tried to meet both these objections and the one about equal distribution by invoking the economist's principle of marginal utility. This would not, however, explain why the obligation to relieve misery is felt to be of a different kind from the obligation to increase happiness; nor would it pre- vent equality of distribution from ever conflicting with maximization.

A more important objection is that we often judge an action right or wrong because of the motive or intention and not because of the actual consequences. (For this reason Hutcheson's utilitarianism went no further than making evidence of benevolent intention the feature which all actions approved by the moral sense have in common.) The utilitarian replies that this is merely because, in ordinary speech, we fail to distinguish between a right action and a praiseworthy one. If a man asks himself which of two alternative actions is right, he is not, as a rule, questioning his own motives. His only motive may be to do whatever is best in the circumstances; but he will not be satisfied if we say to him: "In that case, anything you do will be right, so you can stop worrying about which to do." "If you do what you Sincerely think to be right, you will do what is right" does not mean that you can never make mistakes about what is right. What is meant is: "If you do what you sincerely think to be right, you deserve praise, even if what you do is not actually right." Once the confusion between "right" and "praiseworthy" is cleared up, there is no further difficulty about motives for the utilitarian. He can, quite consistently, praise the man who acts from a benevolent motive even if the results are unfortunate in a particular case, since actions done from good motives generally have good results. It is indeed a corollary of utilitarianism that an action is to be praised if the consequences of praising it are good, not if the consequences of doing it are good.

The other objections are essentially those which Green brought against Godwin, and which made Butler decide that utilitarianism was better left to God. Utilitarianism, it is said, cannot account for contractual obligations: as Godwin realized, it makes the act of promising irrelevant to morality. Nor can it account for private and domestic obligations: to one's friends, one's wife or husband or children, or to the mother whom Godwin would leave to perish in the flames. The utilitarian, it is argued, denies all obligations except the single one of indiscriminate benevolence. To this most utilitarians have replied that promoting happiness (or good) requires a certain amount of organization. Division of labor may be necessary here as elsewhere: we are more likely to get results if everyone has a special responsibility for the welfare of a few individuals. This is the rationale of family obligations. A somewhat similar account may be given of promises. It would be impossible to cope with the world unless inanimate objects behaved predictably-according to fixed laws which can be discovered. In the same way society functions much more smoothly if human behavior is predictable. Even predictably hostile behavior may be easier to cope with than random behavior. The making and keeping of explicit undertakings is then a useful social device which, in spite of Godwin, may easily be justified on utilitarian grounds.

This may explain why we believe that private or contractual obligations have a special force. It would follow, however, that, if ever these obligations conflicted with the general obligation to promote happiness (or good) they should be subordinated to it. And it is just this that the opponents of utilitarianism deny. No one disputes that we are justified in breaking a promise in order to save a life, or gain some other end which far outweighs anything achieved by keeping the promise. But when there is only a slight advantage to be gained by breaking the promise, it would generally be said that the obligation to keep it comes first. Bentham accounted for this by distinguishing between first and second order evil. First order evil is the pain caused to particular individuals; second order evil is the harm done to the community in general by the shattering of public confidence in, for example, the institution of promise-making.

Second order evil, however, would seem to require publicity; and it is objected that we do not think it right to break a promise, for the sake of a slight in- crease in good, even if no one would know of the breach. A promise made to a dying man, for example, is usually held to be binding even after the man has died, whether others know about it or not.

Exactly the same sort of point can be made about justice. The utilitarian, it is said, is committed to the view that the end justifies the means, with all its totalitarian implications. One can imagine circumstances in which good consequences might result from punishing an innocent man (if he is generally believed to be guilty, say, and riots would result from acquitting him). Of course, if it were known that he were innocent, there might be general insecurity and loss of confidence in the law-the very great second order evil we associate with a police state. But most of us think it wrong to punish the innocent, even if the second order evil can be avoided.

Like the objection about higher and lower pleasures, this one has given rise to an amended utilitarian theory, sometimes called Rule Utilitarianism (in which case the more traditional theory is called Act Utilitarianism) and sometimes Restricted Utilitarianism (in which case the traditional theory is called Extreme Utilitarianism). According to this amended theory, the test of rightness is not whether an individual action will have better consequences than any alternative but whether it would have such consequences if it formed part of a general practice. Some statements of rule utilitarianism give it a slight flavor of conformism by suggesting that the test is whether the proposed action is or is not in conformity with an existing social norm: the test of such norms is whether their general adoption makes for the general good.

At least at first sight this revision of utilitarianism seems to meet the objections just discussed. Whatever may be said about individual acts of promise-breaking or injustice, a general practice of disregarding under- takings or punishing the innocent whenever it seemed expedient could hardly have good consequences.

It does not seem to have been noticed that rule utilitarianism was propounded by Bishop Berkeley in Passive Obedience. "In framing the general laws of nature," Berkeley says, "it is granted we must be entirely guided by the public good of mankind, but not in the ordinary moral actions of our lives. Such a rule, if universally observed hath, from the nature of things, a necessary fitness to promote the general well-being of mankind: therefore it is a law of nature. This is good reasoning. But if we should say, such an action doth in this instance produce much good and no harm to mankind; therefore it is lawful: this were wrong. The rule is framed with respect to the good of mankind, but our practice must be always shaped immediately by the rule" (Works, ed. Luce and Jessup, 6,34).

This quite explicit statement of rule utilitarianism does not seem to have attracted much attention, and modern interest in the theory apparently stems from an article by R. F. Harrod in Mind for 1936. Even then, it was not till the nineteen-fifties that general interest was roused. Some of the modern exponents of rule utilitarianism have, however, suggested that the traditional utilitarians have been misinterpreted, and that they were, at least implicitly, rule rather than act utilitarians. This claim has been made by mid-twen- tieth-century philosophers: for Mill by J. O. Urmson, for Hume and Austin by J. Rawls, and for Hutcheson by J. D. Mabbott.

If rule utilitarianism is to be genuinely distinct from act utilitarianism, it will presumably assert that con- forming to a rule is good in itself, and not merely good as a means. For if it is good as a means, and the end is the general welfare, what is in dispute is simply the factual question whether one ever can increase the general good by contravening a rule which could not advantageously be broken by everyone. The rule utilitarian says that even if the general good could be increased by such an action, it would still not be right. Why not, unless something else, namely the following of general rules, is good in itself as well as happiness (and, for the ideal utilitarian, truth, beauty, etc.)? It has seemed to some critics that this assertion is patently absurd, and they have called it derisively "rule- worship."

One way of defending the assertion is to invoke the universalization principle. This is often held to be a principle of reason, quite independent of utilitarianism. If so, it seems reasonable to suppose that a sound moral theory will comply with it as well as with the utilitarian formula. But a utilitarian who reaches the conclusion that he ought to break a promise made in secret to a dying man, or that he ought to punish an innocent man whom everyone else believes to be guilty, is not departing from the principle of universalization. Not only does he think it right to act as he is acting, in the peculiar circumstances in which he finds himself: he also thinks it right that everyone else in those circumstances should act in that way. One relevant circumstance is that no one else knows the truth about what he is doing. This can hardly be ignored: for it is only because of it that second order evil may be presumed not to occur, and the absence of second order evil is clearly a relevant circumstance. It would seem, then, that merely appealing to the universalization principle will not enable us to avoid the objections made to act utilitarianism.

What makes the difference is not the presence of universalizability, but the absence of secrecy. What the rule utilitarian needs to say is that one should always act according to principles one is prepared to acknowledge publicly. Is it clear, however, that this is an independent principle, and not one that can be derived from utilitarianism itself? Predictability would seem to demand that men should not profess one set of principles and act on another. Consider the consequences if a utilitarian does decide that the general welfare demands that on occasion he depart from certain "secondary principles" in secret. If he is asked whether utilitarianism ever does lead to this departure, he has to say that it never does. He cannot say that it follows from utilitarianism that it is permissible to break promises made to dying men; for then it would become impossible for a known utilitarian to comfort dying men by making promises to them. To avoid this second order evil he must practice deception, not only about his own actions, but about the true nature of utilitarianism itself. But it is presumably in the general interest that utilitarianism should be practiced with understanding. This deception, then, will in itself lead to second order evil.

It is at least arguable that, when Mill and other traditional utilitarians lay the stress they do on "secondary principles" and say things like "it would be unworthy of an intelligent agent not to be consciously "ware that the action is of a class which, if practiced generally, would be generally injurious and that this is the ground of the obligation to abstain from it" (po cit., p. 18), they are merely spelling out Bentham's contention about second order evil and are not departing from act utilitarianism. The case may have been different with Berkeley, since he did think that some- thing else was good in itself besides attaining the general good, namely, loyal obedience to the commands of God. Even Berkeley, however, gives utilitarian reasons for God's willing us to conform to general rules. The reasons are that predictability is important, and that men are fallible in judging the consequences of their actions.

We would seem, then, to have this position: If the rule utilitarian is merely saying that it is not possible to promote the general interest by breaking general rules in secret, he does not differ from the act utilitarian, who has always maintained that, when second order evil is taken account of, his theory does not commit him to this kind of deception. To differ significantly from the act utilitarian, the rule utilitarian must maintain that it is sometimes possible to attain the general good in this way, and that, even then, the action is not right. This amounts to saying that something else is right, besides the maximization and equal distribution of welfare. But what? It is hardly plausible to say that conforming to rules is right in itself, apart from its consequences. Universalizability, as we have seen, will not do; and modem rule utilitarians are unlikely to follow Berkeley and invoke the will of God. One suspects that they have in mind something which is often confused with universalization: fairness or justice. Whether utilitarianism can account for justice is one of the crucial questions. If the principles of justice cannot be derived, as Mill thought, from the maximization of happiness principle, there remain two possibilities. It may be that justice is concerned with the equal distribution, rather than the maximization of happiness (or good), in which case we are faced with a conflict between two utilitarian principles, and obviously need to find some way of reconciling them. Or it may be that justice is right quite apart from its consequences, which is what the critics of utilitarianism have always said. In either case, the problem does not seem to be solved by making conformity to rules an independent good.