Mill 8th Week – Helena McDermott
Does rule-utilitarianism solve the problems faced by act-utilitarianism?
Utilitarianism is a broad discipline, encompassing moral philosophers with fundamentally contrasting bases to their ethics. One of these conflicts is between the absolutist act based philosophers, of whom I believe Mill is one, and the less stringent rule-utilitarians. The crux of the conflict between the schools lies in the leeway given to an individual when making behavioural choices; act-utilitarians would have us rely entirely on an ordinal system of hedonism, and rule-utilitarians would replace this calculation with a set of moral guides based on the tendency of an action to promote welfare. The uncompromising position of act-utilitarians has the advantage of remaining true to the attractive, simple core of utilitarianism – that welfare is desirable and maximising welfare our ultimate goal. However, in advocating an inflexible ethic, particularly to a society with a well established moral code, the act-utilitarians create a number of problems for themselves. These problems are in many cases circumvented by rule-utilitarianism, though it is important to bear in mind that this is not necessarily a qualification of the latter.
There are there three major issues with act-utilitarianism, as expounded by Mill. The first rests in the need for a morality to be practicable – the very lifeblood of moral philosophy is the aim of refining and advancing society’s ideals and the method of implementing them. Brad Hooker’s criticism of act utilitarianism as unattainable for humans, who, by their very nature, must concern themselves primarily with self, seems an important one. If the claim that the endless calculations and sacrifice of act-utilitarianism engenders misery and thus undermines total welfare, then there is the possibility that act-utilitarianism self defeats. Rule-utilitarianism steps into this breach by removing the uninviting prospect of calculating the outcome of our every decision in terms of pleasure and pain. The allowance for the unexpected in the pivotal caveat that actions with a tendency to promote welfare are acceptable also eases some of the burden of act-utilitarianism. Should we take the view, as Mill does, that act-utilitarianism is rescued by the nature of human conditioning, which may lead to the acceptance of virtually anything, however daunting the initial task may seem (and, indeed, that we should not shy from daunting tasks for that sake alone), there is a further problem with the theory. It is that, as humans, we cannot abandon the niggling thought that there are actions that are right and wrong – that some things are intrinsically abhorrent, and that act-utilitarianism would call for acts to be committed that cannot be justified. This is not satisfied by Mill’s faith in conditioning, because it seems that the distributive problem of utilitarianism goes deeper than our moral code. Humans feel pain keenly, and our self-knowledge dictates that given the choice, we would avoid the concentration and intensity of pain that act-utilitarianism accommodates. Rule-utilitarianism, according to the particular rules chosen to follow, circumvents this possibility in advocating actions that on the whole promote welfare and, on the whole, intense pain does not. Thirdly and finally, rule-utilitarianism would facilitate the close personal attachments that humans are so reluctant to abandon. In recognising that the structure of the family, for example, generally gives society coherence and structure, and promotes welfare, the rules system could encompass much of what is essential to humanity – that which act-utilitarianism removes. It is clear, therefore, that by watering down utilitarianism to general principles makes it both feasible and even increases the chances of the Greatest Happiness Principle being realised. What is not clear is where the line should be drawn and whether or not rule-utilitarianism is simply a continuation of our current ethic. That is a little beyond the scope of this discussion, but it is helpful to bear in mind that the system of rules is not substantiated by its ability to plug holes in the absolutist approach.
