Just so everyone is on the same page as far as definitions go:
Utilitarianism: The doctrine that an action is right insofar as it promotes happiness, and that the greatest happiness of the greatest number should be the guiding principle of conduct
mob = majority?
Yes. Utilitarianism sounds nice, seeing that most happiness for most people is a noble goal, but would that lead to an exploitation of minorities and an allowance of harmful practices to continue as long as they had majority support?
There’s the paradox of the organ donor.
Suppose five people are critically ill due to organ failure (assume each needs a different organ). They’re all going to die in a matter of weeks if they don’t get an organ transplant. But with the transplant, they could all recover fully and live normal lives for decades. The problem is all five have a really rare genetic type and no donors can be found that match them.
Except for one guy. He happens to be a perfect match for all five of the people who need transplants. If his organs were used, all five of the other people would live. If they don’t get his organs, all five will die because no other donor will be found in time.
The problem is that if this guy donates all five of the needed organs, he’ll die himself. Pretty much immediately.
Now from a utilitarian standpoint, the moral course of action is clear. Saving the lives of five people is better than saving the life of one person. (Let’s assume everyone involved is a good productive member of society of equal individual worth. And assume everyone wants to live.) So the answer is obvious - you kill the one person to save the five people.
But most people confronted with this logic will instinctively find it wrong. They feel that it is obviously immoral to intentionally kill somebody for their organs even if those organs can save the lives of several other people. However, it’s surprisingly difficult to articulate why it’s immoral. Why is it wrong to sacrifice one life to save five when the alternative is allowing five people to die so that one can live?
Because using an example of organ harvesting is grotesque and could make any philosophy sound horrible. Change it to a farmer not sharing his bounties with starving people and then you’re talking. It’s all about the hypothetical.
Why does it have to be either one or the other? It’s one way to analyze things and maybe it’s right or maybe it’s wrong, depending on the situation. And, if it doesn’t do any good for me, why should I support it?
I think I see it being used in government in a different way. It’s the same way we operate in our family. And that is to make decisions in such a way that the minority’s needs are satisfied. At least that is what I hear from politicians. The “floating all boats” principal.
You know that t-shirt that says, “Momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” So it’s based on the fact that if any one of us is miserable it contributes to the unhappiness of the group. (Not necessarily Momma. Heh.)
That’s how I would look at Utilitarianism as it is used at present.
I reject the idea that the morality of an action is measured by the pleasure or happiness that it brings the actor. And it’s been a while since I flipped through my Philosophy 101 book but I think Utilitarianism is a bit more complicated than the definition given in the opening post.
I forget the source, but I think it was a psychologist: “A family is an autocracy ruled by its weakest member.”
Consequentialism (of which utilitarianism is only one of several forms) is one of the three basic theories of normative ethics.
Note that utilitarianism does not dictate the choice that maximizes pleasure/happiness to the actor (that would the Marquis de Sade’s ethical theory), but to the greatest number.
The community is only as strong as the individual members who comprise it.
The potentiality of individuals is weakened when individuals are not valued.
Thus, the community is weakened when individuals are not valued.
I don’t know if the above is true or not. But I know that if I lived in constant fear of being turned over to the communal butcher, I’d likely never leave my bed or be a fully participating member of society. A policy of sacrificial organ “donation” would work against the greater good if there are enough people in society like me.
This hypothetical is specious in at least two ways:
• If one person can provide the organs needed to keep five people alive and healthy, that would indicate that each of those five people have good organs that the others could make use of. You could keep as many as three of them alive by harvesting good organs from the others, there would be no need to kill a healthy person.
• The one person is healthier because of more favorable genetics, better behavior patterns, or both. Society is better served by preserving these things.
If the one person is willing to give up his life or health to save five others, that would be his choice.
The more appropriate hypothetical would be state-sponsored-and-subsidized prostitution. A single carefully selected woman could handle the basic sexual needs of scores or hundreds of men, leading to a somewhat more stable society. She would sacrifice a measure of her comfort and dignity, but the state could see to it that she is treated well in her free time.
In the end, n-ism will not work. Fascism, Communism, Capitalism, Monarchism, all these and others fail even in fairly loose application. A functional system must be a flexible balance of ideologies that leaves everyone reasonably dissatisfied with things (happiness should not be a goal, because too much of that makes people lethargic).
He is not at fault for their sickness, but they would absolutely be at fault for his death.
That is a moral argument, but not a utilitarian argument. Unless you can make it so, which so far you haven’t.
The first method of fixing utilitarianism is to move from “Act-utilitarianism” to “Rule-utilitarianism”. The idea is that you move back to judging ethical guidelines on utilitarian grounds. I don’t think this method would work here.
The classic thought experiment that Little Nemo is getting at is the Trolly problem.
I don’t think the OP attacks utilitarianism too well though, as the framework allows small harms to majorities to justify large benefits to minorities. What utilitarianism does allow however is income distribution, to the extent that high income people have lower marginal utility for their last dollar than starving children do. But that is not wholly unintuitive. If you want to attack utilitarianism, Little Nemo’s approach is better. Also Bernard Williams criticized utilitarianism for not saying anything helpful about certain morally relevant topics such as personal integrity, getting one’s hands dirty, etc.
Sounds like a crazy way to run a madhouse, doesn’t it?
The desired outcome is that at some point satisfaction/maturity/health is achieved and the minority can reciprocate to balance things out. In a family that could mean taking care of elders. In society it could mean becoming productive members.
That may work better in families than in societies.
Fair point. I shall revise my statement to the following: I reject the idea that the morality of an action is determined by the pleasure, happiness or benefit that it brings to any individual or group.
Any extreme example to defeat utilitarianism ends up defeating itself. No one would want to live in a society where these things were happening, and therefore overall happiness would decrease. On the other hand, this makes utilitarianism either a tautology or a True Scotsman. Utilitarianism isn’t the same thing as social Darwinism.
Not a particularly sophisticated view point but I’ll throw it out.
Utilitarianism is what you use when nothing else seems to give an acceptable solution for that particular problem.
So what if it makes utilitarianism sound horrible? If utilitarianism can’t handle this problem then it’s evidence we need to find a different moral philosophy. That was the whole point of the exercise. You don’t test a philosophy by giving it easy questions.
So what? Utilitarianism has nothing to say about whose at fault. Its basis is the greatest good for the greatest number, not the greatest good for the most deserving.