Utilitarianism and Liberty

1. Utilitarianism and Liberty

2. Introduction • Kant • Only a will can be absolutely good or bad • The only good is a will shaped by duty

3. Introduction • Kant • Only a will can be absolutely good or bad • OK • The only good is a will shaped by duty

4. Introduction • Kant • Only a will can be absolutely good or bad • OK • The only good is a will shaped by duty • Not OK – don’t results matter at all?

5. Introduction • Kant • Only a will can be absolutely good or bad • OK • The only good is a will shaped by duty • Not OK – don’t results matter at all? • We are all some sort of consequentialist

6. Introduction • Kant • Only a will can be absolutely good or bad • OK • The only good is a will shaped by duty • Not OK – don’t results matter at all? • We are all some sort of consequentialist • Bentham/Mill • Utilitarianism is pure consequentialism

7. Background • Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)

8. Background • Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) • An Enlightenment man • American and French Revolutions • Declarations of Rights

9. Background • Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) • An Enlightenment man • American and French Revolutions • Declarations of Rights • Opposed all talk of rights Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense, -- nonsense upon stilts. … in proportion as it is advantageous a right should be established

10. Background • John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

11. Background • John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) • Bentham’s godson and intellectual successor

12. Background • John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) • Bentham’s godson and intellectual successor • Lived during the later Industrial Revolution • Social dislocation • Urbanisation • Poverty and Proletarianization • Luddites, Revolutionaries, Trades Unions, Cooperatives … • Romanticism

13. Background • John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) • Bentham’s godson and intellectual successor • Lived during the later Industrial Revolution • Social dislocation • Urbanisation • Poverty and Proletarianization • Luddites, Revolutionaries, Trades Unions, Cooperatives … • Romanticism • Laisser faire capitalism • Socialist reactions

14. Essential Utilitarianism • A U. is a moral naturalist • What makes an act a good act is a natural fact about that act • The relevant fact is the consequent happiness of persons • Bentham simply asserts: Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.

15. Essential Utilitarianism • A U. is a moral naturalist • Mill argues: • The only evidence that something is desirable is that it is desired (Compare: The only evidence that something is visble is that it is seen) • Only pleasure is ever desired for itself (Compare with Aristotle’s argument for eudaimonia) • Therefore only pleasure is desirable (Query: Does the argument use ‘desirable’ ambiguously?)

16. Essential Utilitarianism • Thesis: What is good is what conduces to the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people

17. Essential Utilitarianism • Principle: Always act to produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people

18. Essential Utilitarianism • Advantages: • Clarity – it’s absolutely clear what counts in morals • Impartiality – favourites are not played • Results – justifies our desire to see good outcomes

19. Essential Utilitarianism • A disadvantage: • Mundanity – where’s the moral heroism? • Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols) Man does not strive after happiness; only the Englishman does that.

20. Bentham’s Version • Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation By the principle of utility is meant that principle which approves, or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question: or, what is the same thing in other words, to promote or to oppose that happiness

21. Bentham’s Version • Add the values for the following qualities to discover the moral worth of an action • intensity • duration • certainty or uncertainty • propinquity or remoteness (whether the sensation is ready to hand or a long-term effect) • fecundity (how likely it is that the sensation will yield further sensations of the same kind) • purity (how likely it is that the sensation will be followed by sensations of the opposite kind) • extent (how much the sensation is shared)

22. Problems • Knowledge • Can we always know what the outcome of an action will be?

23. Problems • Knowledge • Can we always know what the outcome of an action will be? • Practicality • How many alternative possibilities need to be considered? • How far into the future must we project?

24. Responses • Apply rules of thumb rather than doing complete calculations

25. Responses • Apply rules of thumb rather than doing complete calculations • Treat it as a standard of right action rather than as a decision procedure • Our decision procedure may be an appeal to intuitions or rules of thumb, but if they are shown to fail to meet the standard then they must be adjusted

26. More Problems • Justice • U. seems to violate our notions of justice • A doctor may kill one healthy patient to save 5 terminally ill patients • Can we torture a terrorist to find the ticking timebomb? • Ends justify all means

27. More Problems • The ‘Pig Philosophy’ • Wouldn’t we hook ourselves up to a happiness machine if there was one? • Arnie in Total Recall dreams he’s with a beautiful girl • Are the pleasures of women’s mud wrestling just as valuable as the pleasures of ballet and mathematics?

28. More Problems • Fairness • Does distribution of happiness matter?

29. More Problems • Lifestyle • Must our life be directed entirely to the service of others?

30. Mill’s Version • Utilitarianism The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals Utility or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in the proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to promote the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure.

31. Mill’s Version • Qualities of pleasure • Distinguish higher and lower pleasures • Higher pleasures count for more points Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure

32. Mill’s Version • Qualities of pleasure • Happiness is a matter of having superior pleasures • Pleasures of the mind • Happiness is not correlated with contentment the being whose capacities of enjoyment are low, has the greatest chance of having them fully satisfied; and a highly endowed being will always feel that any happiness which he can look for … is imperfect. … It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied

33. Acts and Rules • Act utilitarianism An act is right if and only if it results in as much good as any available alternative

34. Acts and Rules • Rule utilitarianism An act is right if and only if it is the consequence of following a rule that, with other rules, if followed would lead to as much happiness as any other rules

35. Acts and Rules • Rule utilitarianism • Solves practicality problem directly. • Rules aren’t just ad hoc, they’re essential to utilitarianism.

36. Acts and Rules • Rule utilitarianism • Solves practicality problem directly. • Rules aren’t just ad hoc, they’re essential to utilitarianism. • Solves justice? • Maybe, if the rules are rules that meet standards of justice. Otherwise not.

37. Acts and Rules • Rule utilitarianism • Solves practicality problem directly. • Rules aren’t just ad hoc, they’re essential to utilitarianism. • Solves justice? • Maybe, if the rules are rules that meet standards of justice. Otherwise not. • Knowledge problem solved. • Not every act will be for the best • It’s easier to work out good rules than good acts

38. Liberty • On Liberty • The Harm Principle defends us from the state The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.

39. Liberty • On Liberty • The Harm Principle defends us from the state The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part of which merely governs himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.

40. Liberty • On Liberty • The Harm Principle defends us from the state • The public sphere • Do no harm to others • The private sphere • No business of anyone else • Freedom of speech, association, thought, life-style, … • Justified as a good for society

41. Liberty • Free speech justified …the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

42. Liberty • Harm Principle • Prevents paternalism, which is generally bad • Provides a rule for public policy that is clear, easy to follow, not easy to fudge, not open to abuse • Is the best such rule