Since utilitarians hold that justice can be subordinated to overall utility, utilitarianism is morally unacceptable. Discuss.

by mans2155 (student)

AS and A Level Religious Studies & Philosophy

“Since utilitarians hold that justice can be subordinated to overall utility, utilitarianism is morally unacceptable.” Discuss.

Edinburgh, 1828. There is a demand for dead bodies, to be used in medical research at the university, and, as all economics students will realise, where there is a demand, there will be someone willing to meet it. In the past, this someone would have been a Resurrection Man – “gravedigger” in less glamorous parlance – who would disinter the deceased and sell them on for dissection. But now, the doctors want fresh meat, so up step Mr. Burke and Mr. Hare, who cut to the chase, and decide not to wait for their product to die of natural causes, let alone actually be buried. These men were utilitarian heroes. Their ‘victims’ were generally old and alone, and they were turned into an invaluable scientific and educational tool, which benefited society in numerous long and short term ways. Burke and Hare saw clearly what the “greatest happiness for the greatest number” meant: that by knocking off a few pensioners a few years early, the health of our nation could be improved.

For some reason, this conclusion grates on my 21st century sensibilities. Here, I want to question whether this is the fault of utilitarianism or my conscience, by examining How we judge what is morally unacceptable?, Whether all utilitarians do hold that justice is subordinate to overall utility?, and with the answers to these questions, Whether utilitarianism is morally unacceptable? In particular, attention will be paid to John Stuart Mill, who would have been thinking about these same questions in London around the time that Burke and Hare were “meeting demand” in Edinburgh. In essence, the question is whether, when faced with realities or thought experiments whose conclusions make us uncomfortable, we would rather push forward and convince ourselves that we are should not be uncomfortable, or pull back, and convince ourselves that we would not actually reach that uncomfortable conclusion?

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First, we push forward, with reference to the methodological question of how we could determine whether or not utilitarianism is morally acceptable or not. According to Rawls (23), we can split theories of morality into a theory of the good, and a theory of the right. In teleological theories such as utilitarianism, the theory of the good is determined first, and then the theory of the right is derived from this as the method for maximising the good. Rawls suggests that this way of approaching morality is very rational: “it is tempting to suppose that it is self-evident that things should be arranged to as to lead to the most good.” (Rawls: 22), and if we accept this, then we can view the statement “Since utilitarians hold that justice can be subordinated to overall utility, utilitarianism is morally unacceptable.” as tautological, because the theory of the right cannot be viewed independently from the theory of the good. That is, a utilitarian would not see the attainment of the greatest happiness as morally unacceptable in any circumstances, as his moral code states that the greatest happiness should be attained in any circumstances. This dichotomous view can be contrasted with deontological moral theories such as that of Robert Nozick, whose outlines several absolute rights which may only be encroached in order to avoid “catastrophe” (Hart: 203). In this way, Nozick’s theories of the right and good, overlap – the distribution of a good, say freedom from taxes, must be distributed equally in order to increase its goodness and because of this we no longer have an independent conception of the good (Rawls: 22). From this point of view, it could be argued that utilitarianism is morally unacceptable if its administration violates an absolute principle which we choose to believe in – for example, that killing is wrong. In a sense, the debate can be viewed as a chicken-egg dilemma, based on whether we think rationality or instinct came first. Mill argues himself that while instinct is natural – “Mankind are always predisposed to believe that any subjective feeling, not otherwise accounted for, is a revelation of some objective reality.” (Utilitarianism: 5.2/176) – it is just as natural to rationally consider the way we make our decisions. Instinct may be a feeling based on past rationalisations, but that does not mean we should stop continuing to be rational in the present. J.C.C. Smart (69) asks “why should our more particular moral feelings [from our consciences] be more worthy of notice than our more generalised ones [to be rational]?”, and this is the crux of the argument. If we think we should be rational, and our rationality approves utilitarianism, then utilitarianism is morally acceptable. If not, we are still in the quagmire of uncertainty, and it remains possible that utilitarianism could promote some consequences that are morally unacceptable according to some absolute values we may have.

Whether utilitarianism actually will promote them requires a closer inspection of the type of utilitarianism we are considering. We can look at the difference between classical Benthamite utilitarianism and Mill’s utilitarianism. The first point to note is that both forms of utilitarianism do hold that justice can be subordinated to overall utility, as they both maintain, as Mill puts it in On Liberty that “utility [is the] ultimate appeal on all ethical questions” (On Liberty: 1.11/15). What differs is the level of security (or “strength” as Sumner puts it (187)) justice has within the overarching framework of utility. This security is what gives it a right to resist other moral considerations. The distinction between Bentham and Mill on this matter returns to the difference between Bentham’s single level and Mill’s multi-level conception of pleasure. According to Bentham’s direct utilitarianism, every decision should refer back to the utility principle, roughly: “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness” (Utilitarianism: 2.3/137). Mill on the other hand, introduces intermediate points in order to help individuals make correct utilitarian decisions, in the form of “customary morality”. This is not to say that Mill is a rule utilitarian, although some have argued this, because he has introduced rules on act utilitarian grounds – i.e. he thinks that reliance on certain rules will produce more utility than case by case decision making. For Mill, the most important rules form his conception of justice. Justice protects rights which “no human can be without” and as such they form the foundation onto which utility gained from other sources build, and a way of pulling back from some morally dubious conclusions Bentham might reach. The importance of some rights can be seen in chapter five of Utilitarianism but also in On Liberty, where Mill justifies the importance of some rights as free speech on utilitarian grounds, arguing for the importance of the “free-development of individuality”, both for its intrinsic value, and subsequent consequences for the improvement of society. Finally though, it should be noticed that Mill’s harm principle offers a trap-door back to the utility principle, stating that “…power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will,[…] to prevent harm to others” (On Liberty: 1.12/14). Thus it seems likely that Bentham’s utilitarianism would commit acts which might be viewed by absolutists as “morally unacceptable” more regularly that Mill’s would, but that neither would rule them out.

We conclude by reflecting on the complexity of morality, and the idea proposed by J.C.C. Smart (73) that, “it is possible that there is no ethical system which would be satisfactory to all men, or even to one man at different times.” Returning to 19th century Edinburgh, utilitarianism could either (pretty ambitiously) push forward and say that Burke and Hare did the right thing, or (more likely) fall back and say that the personal liberties of those murdered did not need to be infringed to prevent harm to others, or simply that customary morality, which should be relied upon, prohibits murder. However, it is possible to amend this example and create one where it was the case that killing a granny would provide the cure to an otherwise unavoidable epidemic – so that utilitarians would have no alternative but to do the deed. The response to this is to abandon the defence of utilitarianism and attack other moral theories. For example, we can argue that Nozick’s deontological form of morality provides a loophole to commit acts which are, objectively, “morally unacceptable” by way of its provision for the avoidance of catastrophe. Killing someone is never going to be a nice act, but there may be occasions when it is the least bad alternative, and at least Mill’s utilitarianism provides a way of recognising this.

Reference/Bibliography

Crisp, Roger, Mill on Utilitarianism

Hart, H. L. A., Essays in Jurisprudence and Philosophy

Mill, John Stuart, On Liberty

Mill, John Stuart, Utilitarianism

Rawls, John, Theory of Justice

Smart, J. C. C & Bernard Williams, Utilitarianism: For and Against

Sumner, L. W., Mill’s Theory of Rights

West, Henry, An Introduction to Mill’s Utilitarian Ethics