Utilitarianism Chapter 2

http://www.msu.org/ethics/content_ethics/texts/mill/mill_utilitarianism.html

Chapter II: What Utilitarianism IsIntroductionIn Chapter Two, Mill carefully presents a definition of utilitarianismas an answer to the question of what constitutes the criterion of right andwrong. He also defends the doctrine against a series of nine objections.Definition Of UtilitarianismUtilitarianism may be defined as "the creed which accepts as thefoundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle," and which"holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happinesswrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness."Happiness is defined as "pleasure, and the absence of pain." Unhappinessis defined as "pain, and the privation of pleasure." The theory of lifeimplied by the definition of utilitarianism is that "pleasure, and freedomfrom pain, are the only things desirable as ends; and that all desirablethings (which are as numerous in the utilitarian as in any other scheme) aredesirable either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as means to thepromotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain."Comment: The reader should note Mill's description of what things aredesirable. It will be important to our discussion of Chapter Four.First ObjectionIt is frequently objected that a life of pleasure is a life for swine.Since men have faculties other than animal appetites, human happiness mustinclude reference to these higher faculties.Mill's answer to this objection is that it is quite compatible with theutilitarian doctrine to recognize differences in kind among pleasures. Infact, differences in the quality of a pleasure must be considered as well asdifferences in quantity. He claims that differences in quality of pleasureare to be judged not in terms of quantity but in terms of preference. "Of twopleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience ofboth give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moralobligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure." In fact, inthe measurement of pleasure, quantity is reduced to quality. The judgment ofpreference is ultimate so that there is "no other tribunal to be referred toeven on the question of quantity."Comment: Mill's distinction between the quality and quantity of apleasure is not new. He himself asserts that utilitarians have alwaysrecognized the difference, and they have always valued mental pleasures forthe sake of permanency, safety, and uncostliness. In our discussion ofBentham, we saw that he recognizes the difference. What is new in Mill'stheory is the rejection of any attempt to measure pleasures and pains interms of some numerical scale. He seems very sensitive to the charge, whichhe admits, that "neither pains nor pleasures are homogeneous, and pain isalways heterogeneous with pleasure." There is no common element on the basisof which pleasures and pains may be compared. The claim that pains aredifferent in nature from pleasures was discussed as the second objection toBentham's theory of morals.The notion that pleasures can be judged in terms of a preference scaledeserves some comment. Bentham had suggested the possibility of measuringpleasures in terms of a linear scale. That is, we can imagine a scale,somewhat like a thermometer, in which numbers are ordered from the lowest,perhaps zero, to the highest. Every pleasure is assigned a number on thisscale. Thus we can determine which is the greater pleasure by noting whichpleasure has the higher number. What Mill is suggesting is an ordinal scale,that is, a scale in which pleasures are ordered in terms of preference. Forexample, pleasure A is greater than pleasure B, and pleasure B is greater thanpleasure C, etc. This scale is to be established from a statistical study ofexperts or judges who are competent to judge the pleasures involved. Inpursuing this notion, Mill is following a course which Bentham himselfsuggested in one of his later works.The closest analogy to Mill's preference scale is the scale of hardness.On the scale of hardness, minerals are ordered in such a way that the highernumber scratches the lower number. For example, fluorite (number four)scratches calcite (number three), and calcite scratches gypsum (number two),etc. Moreover, fluorite scratches gypsum. Mill envisaged that a preferencescale of pleasures could be set up along the same lines. There is one majordifficulty which vitiates any preference scale, however. Preferences are nottransitive. In other words, if I prefer pleasure A to pleasure B, and if Iprefer pleasure B to pleasure C, it does not follow that I prefer A to C. Forexample, I may prefer vanilla ice cream to chocolate ice cream, and I mayprefer chocolate ice cream to strawberry ice cream, but I may also preferstrawberry ice cream to vanilla ice cream. It does not follow that I mustprefer vanilla to strawberry. Mill might defend himself by claiming that theexample given is trivial and that on important moral matters preferences willbe transitive. This would have to be proven by further study.Although there is a difference between the quantitative method of Benthamand the qualitative method of Mill, there is also a basic similarity. Bothmethods of measuring or judging pleasures are intended to provide an objectivescale in terms of which all moral and political questions can be answered.Second ObjectionIt is sometimes ojected that happiness cannot be the ultimate end becausehappiness is unattainable and because men can live without happiness. Thisobjection, in fact, was first articulated by Carlyle.Mill's answer to the objection is that utilitarianism attempts not onlyto increase happiness but also to mitigate or alleviate pain. Even if we couldnot attain happiness, it would still be necessary to prevent pain. Moreover,utilitarianism recognizes the value of self-sacrifice, but only if thesacrifice prevents greater pain or brings happiness to others.Third ObjectionThe utilitarian position has sometimes been represented as encouragingpeople to pursue their self-interest to the exclusion of the interests ofothers. Mill replies that "the happiness which forms the utilitarian standardof what is right in conduct, is not the agent's own happiness, but that of allconcerned."Fourth ObjectionThe objectors to utilitarianism reply that the concept of promoting thegeneral interest of society cannot serve as an adequate motive. We cannotexpect people to be influenced by such a distant motive.Mill's first answer to the above reply is that it confuses rules ofaction with motives. A standard of morals only supplies us with a test of whatis to count as a moral action or it tells us how to identify right actions.The motive has absolutely nothing to do with the morality of an actionaccording to the utilitarian standard. The motive is only of value in judgingthe moral worth of the agent. In short, we judge actions in terms of thestandard, and we judge agents in terms of motives.Mill's second answer is found in a footnote which he added to the secondedition of Utilitarianism (1864) but dropped thereafter. Here he distinguishesbetween intention and motive. The intention is "what the agent wills to do,"that is, the consequences which he expects to have occur. The morality of anaction depends upon the intention, not upon the actual consequences. This isso because unforeseen and unknown circumstances may prevent the intendedconsequences from occurring. In short, we judge the tendencies which actionshave and not their actual consequences.The motive is the "feeling" which accounts for the intention. In judgingthe agent the motive is relevant, but in judging the action the motive is notrelevant. It makes perfectly good sense to approve of the action but todisapprove of the motive, and vice versa.Comment: It should be noted that the same distinction between intentionand motive appears in Bentham's writings.Fifth ObjectionThe utilitarians are charged with causing men to disregard their moralfeelings by emphasizing the utility of actions as the standard of morality.Mill repeats that the motive is important for judging the agent but not themorality of an action. The best proof of a moral character is that it resultsin good actions.Sixth ObjectionUtilitarianism is accused of being a godless doctrine. Mill gives two answersto this objection. First, if God desires the happiness of his creatures, thenutilitarianism is a profoundly religious moral theory. Second, the will of Godmust be interpreted in terms of some other moral theory. The utilitarian isthus at liberty to interpret God's will according to his theory.Comment: Mill's answers are very similar to Bentham's objections to thetheological theory of morals which appear in Chapter Two of the Introductionto the Principles of Morals and Legislation.Seventh ObjectionUtility is sometimes interpreted as meaning expediency in the sense ofbeing opposed to a principle. Expediency is opposed to principles in only twosenses: when we consider what is expedient only for the particular interestof the agent; when the expediency of an immediate interest overrules orviolates "a rule whose observance is expedient in a much higher degree."When expediency means the interest of the agent, then the doctrine ofutilitarianism is not the doctrine of expediency. Utilitarianism considersonly the happiness of all and not the happiness of the agent. When expediencymeans violating a principle of higher expediency, then utilitarianism is stillnot the doctrine of expediency. Utilitarianism recognizes the value ofprinciples precisely because they are the most expedient rules in the longrun. However, it should be noted that every moral principle has exceptions,and it is the principle of utility which helps us to decide when an exceptionis justified or which principle takes precedence in cases of conflict.For example, one of the primary principles of morality is that we shouldnot lie. This principle is the main support of "social well-being." Yet thereare cases where lies are justified, as when telling the truth would hurt orgive pain to another, such as a person dangerously ill. This case is justifiedbecause greater pain comes from telling the truth. The principle of utilitymakes this exception intelligible.Comment: Later ethical theorists have introduced a distinction betweenact utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism. In act utilitarianism, theprinciple of utility is applied to each proposed act. That is, with each actthe agent must calculate which alternative will produce the greatesthappiness. In rule utilitarianism, the agent applies the principle of utilityto rules such as "never tell a lie" and "never inflict unnecessary pain." Theagent must decide which principle will produce the greatest happiness.We can raise the question of which kind of utilitarian, act or rule, Millis. Mill is an act utilitarian in that he applies the principle of utility toindividual acts. On the other hand, Mill also recognizes that rules are highlyexpedient and should not be broken unless we can achieve greater happiness.Thus, on determining the morality of a particular act, we must take rules intoaccount. Even so, Mill is not a rule utilitarian because he recognizes that wecannot always determine in advance if one rule rather than another will takeprecedence.Mill's application of utilitarianism to particular acts rather than torules is best seen when he deals with specific issues in his essay On Liberty.One of the most frequent objections made against act utilitarianism isthat in the case where two alternative acts, x and y, produce the same amountof pleasure, and case x involves breaking a promise or telling a lie whereascase y does not involve the foregoing (and those who raise the objection neverspecify what constitutes y), it seems that y is right and x is wrongregardless of score. The utilitarian answer to this objection is that if theexample used makes no hidden assumptions, then it does not matter whichalternative we choose, since both have the same score. To claim that lying orbreaking a promise is immoral is to beg the question of how to judge themorality or immorality of actions. Since the utilitarian standard is basedupon pleasure and pain, and since both alternatives produce the same amount ofpleasure over pain, there is no difference. Of course, the objection soundsconvincing because it surreptitiously implies that lying or breaking promiseshas consequences which detract from the score of alternative x. When thisimplication is made explicit, the objection loses its air of plausibility. Inshort, if lying or breaking promises does not essentially change the amountof pleasure and pain, then they are not important morally. To insist thatthese principles are beyond considerations of utility is not an objection toutilitarianism but a dogmatic assertion.Those who argue that the standard of morality should lie in principles,that is, moral axioms arrived at intuitively and not through the calculationof consequences, claim that principles can only be violated for the sake ofhigher principles. However, they fail to specify an order of priority amongprinciples. Moreover, we can always think of cases where every principle canbe violated justifiably. This seems to imply some other standard, such asutility.Another important objection to Mill's utilitarianism is derived from theconcept of justice or the distribution of happiness. We shall consider thisobjection when we discuss Mill's conception of justice as he presents it inChapter Five.Eighth ObjectionThe principle of utility is sometimes stigmatized as being impracticalbecause there is no time before performing an action to calculate theeffects of an action in terms of general happiness.Mill has two answers to the foregoing objection. First, the objection,if it were valid, would invalidate every system of morality. It is similar tosaying that it is impossible to guide our conduct by Christianity "becausethere is not time, on every occasion on which anything is to be done, to readthrough the Old and New Testaments." Second, utilitarianism, like all othersystems of morality, develops rules over a period of time. That is, we do notcalculate the consequences of every action, but rely on what we consider to bethe tendencies of actions. There is no inconsistency in having a firstprinciple, such as the principle of utility, supplemented by secondary ones."To inform the traveller respecting the place of his ultimate destination, isnot to forbid the use of landmarks and direction-posts on the way."Comment: Mill's answer exemplifies the extent to which he employsgeneral rules based upon utility. Some theorists have concluded from areading of this passage that Mill is a rule utilitarian. However, it shouldbe noted that rules are supplementary guideposts and that the primaryprinciple is still calculation of the consequences of individual actions.Ninth ObjectionThe final objection to utilitarianism is that its practitioners arelikely to make exceptions of themselves, due to the infirmities of humannature. Mill points out that every moral theory which recognizes the existenceof conflicting considerations is subject to this objection. It is preciselybecause life is so complicated that no rules can be framed which admit of noexceptions. Consequently, every moral theory provides an opportunity formisuse and cheating. Moreover, it is generally recognized that some standardis better than no standard at all. Finally, and most important, the system ofutilitarianism is the only one which allows for an umpire, namely theprinciple of utility, in cases of conflict among rules. In other systems,every axiom or rule is intuited independently so that there is no way ofdeciding in cases of conflict.Comment: Two things should be noted about Mill's answers in general tothese objections. First, the major criticism which Mill makes of alternativetheories, and therefore the major advantage which is claimed forutilitarianism, is that other theories do not provide a decision procedure incases of conflict. Only utilitarianism provides such a procedure. This isprecisely the way in which Bentham defended utility as a moral principle.Second, Mill does not believe that an order of precedence may be establishedamong secondary principles without appeal to some form of utility.An example of how one might use an intuitive rule system for "personaldesires and partialities" is the following: Suppose you notice that a personalenemy is being chased by a madman who is intent upon killing the pursued man.Further, suppose that the personal enemy protects himself by hiding, and thatthe madman asks you where the pursued man is hiding. What should you answer?It would be very easy to justify yourself and to bring about the death of yourenemy by claiming that it is always right to tell the truth and always wrongto lie. One might answer that, in the present case, the moral rule ofpreserving life takes precedence over the rule of never lying. However, wecould change the example so that the pursued man is a criminal and the pursuera policeman. In this case we are perfectly justified in telling the truth tothe policeman even if we suspect that the criminal will be killed. The answerto this example is that it is in the public interest to inform the policeman.At this point, the argument has obviously reverted to a form ofutilitarianism.

Supplemental Notes on Utilitarianism

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/ebarnes/334/334-sup-util.htm
(Copyright 1996, 2000) R. Eric Barnes
A) Introduction
1) History: Utilitarianism has ancient roots in the writings of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicuras, but its modern originator was Jeremy Bentham (18th century British philosopher). Bentham then taught John Stuart Mill, who became the most famous proponent of the theory.
2) Definitions
a) "Utilitarianism": A moral theory which claims that the morally right action is the action which will maximize utility.
b) "Utility": According to John Stuart Mill (author of Utilitarianism), utility is happiness, and happiness is pleasure minus pain. The theory of utilitarianism is actually neutral about what utility means, except to the extent that utility is the measure of goodness of a situation (the units of measure are called "utiles"). Most people take utility to be something like happiness - not crudely understood as pleasure minus pain - but rather understood as either the well-being of sentient (or conscious) beings or as the satisfaction of people's preferences. There are some utilitarians, called "ideal utilitarians" who claim that maximizing utility includes maximizing certain intangibles such as knowledge or beauty. An ideal utilitarian would be likely to claim that we have a moral obligation to create as much knowledge and beauty as possible. Utility must always be the kind of thing that can be quantified (measured) and counted - the importance of this will be made clear shortly.
3) Main reason to believe in Utilitarianism: It seems obvious that given a choice between performing an action (or adopting a policy) that will lead to a better situation, and doing something that will lead to a worse situation, it always is right to do what will lead to the better situation. Furthermore, it would seem that the best situation is the one that has the most goodness in it (no matter what goodness turns out to be).
B) Specifics of the theory: What makes something the right action is that it leads to the best possible situation. Different situations are compared by determining the total amount of utility that they contain. This is done by assigning a (numeric) value to each thing that has intrinsic value and adding up all of the values in that situation. The situation with the highest total amount of value is the best possible situation. The theory is explicitly mathematical in its evaluation of goodness, each thing that is intrinsically good is good to a certain degree, and is assigned a number corresponding to the degree of its goodness. So, for J.S. Mill, each person (in any given situation) has a certain number of utiles which represents the degree to which they are happy. Remember, for Mill, happiness is pleasure minus pain - so each person has a number for the amount of pleasure they are feeling and a number for the amount of pain, and their utiles (happiness number) are determined by subtracting the pain number from the pleasure number. This is fairly straight forward, but there is one distinction I will make right now to avoid some possible misunderstandings. There is a difference according to utilitarians between doing the right thing and doing the rational thing. Both concepts are morally significant.
Note: The Definition of "intrinsic value": Everything that has value, has either intrinsic value or instrumental value. Things with instrumental value have the value that they do because they cause something else which has value. For example, penicillin has value because it causes us to be healthy (which is itself valuable) - if penicillin did not cause something else with value, it would not be valuable - therefore, the value of penicillin is instrumental and not intrinsic. If something has intrinsic value, then its value is independent of any of the things it might cause - it is valuable in and of itself. It is hard to think of something that has intrinsic value. J.S. Mill claimed that only happiness had intrinsic value. Note that in order for anything to have instrumental value, there must be something in the world that has intrinsic value. This is because if there is something X with instrumental value, then there must be something else Y with value. If Y has intrinsic value then there is something with intrinsic value. If Y has instrumental value, then there must be something else Z with value. This process will go on until something is found with intrinsic value.
Note: Not a Decision Procedure: It is stressed by Mill, and almost all modern utilitarians, that the theory of utilitarianism is not intended to be a decision procedure. In other words, utilitarians do not suggest that whenever one needs to make a moral decision that one should try to make a utilitarian calculation. That would be silly for several reasons: Primarily, people are very bad at estimating all of the factors that would need to be taken into account (e.g., what all of the potential consequences are, who will be affected by these consequences, what each of those people's utility will be in each of the possible outcomes); Also, because even if one could make such a calculation, it would often take longer to make the calculation than one has time for. What this shows is that it is often unwise to employ utilitarianism in making actual moral decisions, but it does not show that one ought never to use it. It is appropriate to use when the consequences of actions are reasonably clear and it is obvious that people in general will be either positively or negatively affected by an action (e.g., we can be sure that the utility produced by launching a nuclear weapon at Russia is lower than the utility produced by not doing so).
1) Right action: An action is right if the actual consequences of that action turn out to be better than the consequences of any other action possible action. So, the intended consequences, or even the very likely consequences, of the action are not important to whether the action was right - only how things actually did turn out is important, no matter how unlikely that was.
2) Rational action: An action is rational if the probable outcome (i.e., expected utility) of that action is better than the probable out come of any other possible action at that time. So, the actual consequences of the action do not affect whether the action was rational - only the probability that the action would produce the best consequences. In other words, an action is rational if it was your best bet to maximize utility.
Note on Expected Utilitiy: For those of you with a technical or mathematical interest, I will provide a concise, but precise definition of expected utility and rationality. Otherwise, this can be ignored. Every possible action has an expected utility. In order to understand the concept of expected utility, assume that we are discussing one possible action. If there are x number of possible outcomes to that action, then let O1, O2, O3,..., Ox represent all of the possible outcomes of that action. Also, each of those outcomes has a certain probability of coming about from the action, so let P1, P2, P3, ..., Px represent the probability that each of those outcomes will come about. Also, each of those outcomes has a certain utility number associated with it, so let U1, U2, U3, ..., Ux represent the amount of utility in each possible outcome. Given all of that, one can calculate the expected utility of any action as: (P1 × U1) + (P2 × U2) + (P3 × U3) +...+ (Px × Ux). The intuitive appeal of this is tremendous, and it is how good gamblers decide what is the best bet. In all likelihood, it is also how you reason, although you didn't realize it. For example, if I tell you that I will flip a coin and give you $10 if it comes up heads but that you will have to give me $5 if it comes up tails, then the expected payoff for you is $2.50. In other words, on average you will win $2.50 per flip. Of course, utility is not the same as money, but the idea of how to calculate it is the same. Now that I have formalized the idea of expected utility, it is easy to describe what is rational. It is always rational to do the action which has the highest expected utility.
3) Comparing right and rational: A couple of examples will help clarify this distinction. Imagine a hospital ward with a patient that has gone into shock and needs an immediate shot of insulin to live. Unfortunately, the syringes in this ward have been mislabeled, although no one knows this. An orderly is alone in the ward, and instead of going to get a doctor, she grabs a syringe labeled "Adrenalin" and administers it to the patient. By a great stroke of luck, the syringe actually contained insulin, and the patient was saved. If the orderly had gone to get the doctor on duty, he would have administered a shot with the syringe labeled "Insulin" and the patient would have died because it actually contained adrenalin. So, the orderly's action had the best consequences, and so it was the right action, but it was not the rational thing to do. If the example were different and she did get the doctor, then the doctor's action would have been rational, but it would have been wrong. In common speech we often use the word "right" to mean "rational" in this sense, but this is an imprecise use of the term. This distinction is closely related to another distinction between praiseworthy and blameworthy actions, which also is rarely used precisely.
a) Praiseworthy actions: An action X is praiseworthy not because X is morally right or rational, but rather because the new action Y of others praising action X is itself morally right (i.e., maximizes utility). In other words, an action is praiseworthy if the action of praising it has good consequences. Praising an action generally has the effect of encouraging others to do similar actions to the one being praised. So, the kinds of actions which are generally praiseworthy are those that it is good to encourage people to do (i.e., ones that tend to have good consequences). Thus, rational actions tend to be praiseworthy. Right actions are often praiseworthy, but not as often as rational actions.
b) Blameworthy actions: An action X is blameworthy not because X is morally wrong or irrational, but rather because the new action Y of others condemning action X is itself morally right. The explanation of this is just like the one above, so I won't repeat it.
c) Note: It is worth noting that people's intuitions about what should be called "right" and "wrong" may go along best with what are actually praiseworthy and blameworthy actions, respectively. C) Common objections to the theory: The primary kind of objection to utilitarianism is that it gives the wrong answer in some cases (i.e., it either say that something is right when it is actually wrong, or it says that something is wrong when it is actually right), so therefore the theory must be wrong. In order to show that the theory gets the wrong answer some times people have constructed hypothetical situations where it is clear what the utilitarian would say, and it is also clear that that is the wrong answer (these are called counter-examples). I will give three such counter-examples. These counter-examples do not conclusively show that utilitarianism is wrong, but they are common reasons that people give for rejecting it. Utilitarians have responses to these objections, which are given below.
1) Town Sheriff
a) Situation: Imagine that there is a town which has been the victim of a series of grizzly murders apparently by the same person. The townspeople are hysterical with fear, and someone has been accused by a number of influential townsfolk. The sheriff knows that the killer has left town and has died, but she cannot convince anyone that this is the case. Everyone is convinced that the accused person is guilty, and there will certainly be riots if the accused is not hanged. The riots in this town invariably result in several deaths of people who are totally innocent of rioting or anything else. The only way to avoid the riots is for the sheriff to hang the innocent accused person. What should the sheriff do?
b) Analysis: Utilitarianism seems to claim that it is obvious that the right thing to do is for the sheriff to hang the accused person, because although it is terrible for an innocent person to be executed it is much worse for several innocent people to die in riots as well as destroying much of the town and ruining many people's lives. However, the objector claims that it is just obvious that this is the wrong thing to do. A sheriff should never hang a man that she knows to be innocent, regardless of what others will do because of this.
2) Inhospitable Hospital
a) Situation: Imagine a doctor in a very remote town who has six patients in his care one day. Five of these people are about to die (within a few hours), and one of them is perfectly healthy. The only way that the doctor can save any of these sick patients is to take organs from the healthy patient and perform a transplant. In fact, the doctor can save all five sick patients by using organs from the one healthy patient, who would unfortunately die because of the missing organs. Furthermore, if the doctor does perform the transplants, he is positive that no one will ever find out that it has been done. What should the doctor do?
b) Analysis: Utilitarianism seems to claim that the right thing to do is to kill the one healthy patient in order to allow the other five to live, because although it is terrible for one person to die, it is much worse for five to die. The objector claims that this is obviously the wrong answer. It is never right for a doctor to kill an innocent person, even if it will save others' lives.
3) Torture Show
a) Situation: Imagine a television show of the future (not unlike the one in the movie "Running Man"), a show where a person is taken and subjected to tortures on the show. This is a pay-per-view show that costs a good amount of money to get. Only people who want to see the show will ever see it, but there are a large number of people who get a great amount of pleasure from seeing this - plus all the profits go to charity. This isn't a regular program, it may only happen once. Should this show be made?
b) Analysis: Utilitarianism is likely to say that it is right to make this show, because although it is really bad for one person it brings a lot of pleasure to thousands, not only those who watch the show but those benefited by the charity, the benefits clearly outweigh the harms. The objector claims that it is obviously wrong to have such a show, because regardless of the benefits, it is wrong to torture people and it may even be wrong to enjoy watching it.
D) How to reply to these objections, and to other similar objections
1) Note the general form of the objection: All of these objections have one thing in common. They all describe a situation where our moral intuitions (i.e., pre-theoretic or common sense moral beliefs) tell us one thing and utilitarianism tells us the opposite. So therefore, utilitarianism must be wrong.
2) First type of reply: There are two quick responses to these objections. The first is easier to explain, but is less powerful. The second is subtle, and must be well understood to be effectively argued.
a) The counter-example ignores important factors: One can fairly easily argue that there are consequences that these counter-examples do not mention, and that if you consider these consequences then utilitarianism does not tell you to do what is immoral or unjust. For example, if you take into account the fact that there will be a widespread distrust of the medical profession, then it clearly does not increase utility to sacrifice innocent patients in hospitals. Similarly, the disutility of most people fearing being randomly selected for sacrifice outweighs the utility gained by such sacrifices. The main point to remember is that utilitarianism counts all people's utility in both the short term and the long term.
b) We cannot trust our moral intuitions: These are conclusive objections only if our moral intuitions are correct. However, the reason that we appeal to moral theories in the first place is that we are not sure that our moral intuitions are correct. Because it is not clear to us, before we theorize, what is morally right - therefore we cannot use our moral intuitions as the sole ground for dismissing a moral theory. Some of our intuitions are surely right, but others are just as surely wrong. The problem is that we don't know which are right and which are wrong. Most, if not all, people have inconsistent moral beliefs. No set of inconsistent beliefs can all be right. Therefore, most people have some false moral beliefs. We cannot know that our common sense moral intuitions about the Town Sheriff or The Doctor or The Torture Show are right because we don't know which of our moral beliefs to trust.
Further explanation: These objections are based on first presenting difficult, unusual, and complicated moral situations; and second, presenting a biased perspective on these situations to make the morally right answer seem obvious. In any such situation, the second tactic can be countered by redescribing the situation to highlight the utilitarian benefits. For instance, in the case of the Town Sheriff one can point out that it is easy to overlook how terrible a riot is. One must keep in mind that although it is easy to sympathize with the one innocent person, one must also sympathize with the many innocent people, each of whom will suffer greatly due to the riots. This shows, at the very least, that the morally right action is not obvious. Given that the answer isn't obvious, one can attack the first part of the objection (that our moral intuitions are correct). The situations presented are almost always unusual and extraordinary - they are situations that one is unlikely to come across, much less to be prepared for when one does come across it. This is important because our moral intuitions are based on our moral education. Our moral education was meant to prepare us for situations that we were likely to encounter, and it was not possible to prepare us for every possible situation. Because the situations cited in the objections are so extraordinary, we are not prepared for them in our moral education and thus our moral intuitions are not reliable in such situations; therefore any objections based on them are flawed and can be disregarded.
More detail on this argument: What many people do in such a situation is attempt to apply a common moral principle to these uncommon situations. In the cases given, that principle might be "Don't harm the innocent." In most situations, following this principle will be best for utility, so even the utilitarian chooses to keep the principle and use it in moral education. However, there are rare situations where this principle yields the wrong answer - more good is done by harming an innocent person. It is merely a feature of our moral education that we believe the utilitarian answer to be wrong. One can even argue that moral education cannot avoid this problem because: 1) people cannot calculate utilities effectively, which prevents us from using the principle of utility in our moral education, and; 2) teaching any moral principles other than the utility principle will sometimes result in intuitions which do not match the recommendations of the utility principle, and will therefore invariably provide opponents of utilitarianism with objections like the ones given above.
3) Second type of reply: Utilitarianism can be refined so as to avoid those objections. There is one primary way to refine utilitarianism, and one less common way.
a) Rule utilitarianism vs. Act utilitarianism
The Basic Distinction: Until now we have understood utilitarianism to be act utilitarianism, which claims, The right action is the action that will maximize utility. The new alternative, rule utilitarianism, claims that The right action is the action which follows the rule, the following of which, maximizes utility. This differs considerably from act utilitarianism because it does not evaluate each act on an individual basis, but rather groups of acts under rules. Rule utilitarianism claims that in any given situation, one should follow the best moral rule. The best moral rule is determined by which rule, if followed in all situations of that type, would maximize utility. Rule utilitarianism avoids the above objections because following the rule of never prosecuting the innocent, will maximize utility better than a rule which allows a sheriff to prosecute an innocent person. This is the same in the other situations as well. The rules of never killing a healthy patient and of never torturing for amusement, both maximize utility better than rules which allow for such behavior.
Objection: One might object to this change in the theory that it makes no difference at all, act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism are effectively the same. There are two ways of making this argument. First, one can claim that for any type of situation X, the rule that will maximize utility will be, When in situation X, do the act that will maximize utility. This rule will maximize utility better than any other rule, but then rule utilitarianism will always recommend the same action as act utilitarianism. The second way of presenting the argument that act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism are the same, is as follows. According to rule utilitarianism the specification of the type of situation can be as precise as is necessary, in order to distinguish relevantly different cases. If the situation-type can be very specific, then in the cases like the Town Sheriff, the situation-type will be include the fact that this is a case where prosecuting an innocent person will maximize utility. It is clear that in types of situations where prosecuting the innocent will maximize utility, the best rule to follow will be to prosecute the innocent. Thus, rule utilitarianism gives the same answer as act utilitarianism.
Response: Because people are very bad at calculating utilities of everyone affected by a decision, utility is not maximized by rules which are difficult to follow. People are unable to determine what the resulting utilities will be given different possible actions they might perform. Because of this, people cannot follow a rule that says In situation X, do the act that will maximize utility. They can't follow that rule because they don't know (and can't find out) which act will maximize utility. According to rule utilitarianism, the rule from which one chooses must all be rules that one is able to follow. Because of this the way of putting the objection fails. The second way also fails because the specification of the situation-type must be such that the person acting can identify situations of that type. For example, if I suggested the following two rules, a problem would arise: 1) In situations where killing a healthy person maximizes utility, kill the healthy person 2) In situations where killing a healthy person fails to maximize utility, don't kill the healthy person. The problem is that the rules cannot be followed because people cannot recognize when they are in one situation or the other. Once again, this is because people cannot effectively calculate the utilities of everyone involved. Because people cannot calculate utilities well, the rules considered by rule utilitarianism will be such that the theory does not give the same answer as act utilitarianism.
b) Ideal Utilitarianism vs. Hedonistic Utilitarianism
The Basic Distinction: Until now we have been discussing hedonistic utilitarianism or something relevantly similar to it. Technically, "hedonistic utilitarianism" refers to any theory which claims that the rightness of an act depends on whether it maximizes the amount of pleasure in the world. In other words, it is a utilitarian theory which claims that the only thing that is intrinsically good is pleasure. However, we can consider the relevantly similar, and more general, theory which claims that the only thing that is intrinsically good is the well-being of individuals. In other words, what should be maximized is how well off people are (whatever it is that makes people better and worse off). Ideal utilitarianism differs from this because it claims that other things are intrinsically good, besides the well being of persons. For instance, an ideal utilitarian might claim that beauty or knowledge are also intrinsically good, even if they do not make anyone happy or improve anyone's life. An ideal utilitarian is anyone who thinks that the rightness of an action depends on maximizing the amount of intrinsic goodness, and also believes that things other than the welfare of persons have intrinsic value. Ideal utilitarians differ in what things they ascribe intrinsic value to. Some common examples are: knowledge, beauty, equality, justice, faith. Though those are the usual examples, an ideal utilitarian could just as easily ascribe intrinsic value to things like these: red objects, wire hangers, nuclear waste, lying, or anything else. The problem with these things is that it is implausible that they are of intrinsic value.
Note on Another Distinction: There is a distinction that I did not make earlier for heuristic reasons. The theory of utilitarianism (as well as other moral theories) can be broken down into two other theories, a theory of value and a theory of right, which can be independently accepted or rejected. A theory of right is a theory about which actions ought to be done in any given situation. The utilitarian theory of right claims that one ought always to perform the action (or follow the rule) that maximizes the amount of value (i.e., utility). Act and rule utilitarians differ concerning their theory of right. A theory of value is a theory about what has intrinsic (moral) value in the world. The utilitarian theory of value typically claims that happiness, flourishing, well-being of individuals, or satisfaction of interests are the only things with intrinsic value - such theories are called hedonistic (even though they involve more than pleasure, crudely understood). Ideal utilitarians differ in their theory of value, they claim that things like beauty and knowledge, as well as other things, have intrinsic value.
The Power of Ideal Utilitarianism: It allows one to avoid many objections, but there is a cost. An ideal utilitarian can claim that it is indeed wrong to torture an innocent person for amusement because torture is intrinsically bad and has a high negative utility attached to it, so in fact torturing an innocent person never maximizes utility (because the positive utility of the enjoyment of people watching never outweighs the huge negative utility associated with the torture itself). The same thing can be done in the other objections, by attaching a very large negative utility to prosecuting the innocent and to killing the healthy, one can remain a utilitarian (of sorts) and deny that there are counter-examples.
Objection: The major problem with ideal utilitarianism is that it is unclear what could possibly justify giving these things intrinsic value. Why is knowledge valuable if it does not help us live better lives? What is the value of something beautiful if it is never perceived? It is mysterious how we could be justified in attributing intrinsic value to any of these things, much less giving them a certain quantity of value to be compared with other things like human suffering (which is undeniably bad).
Response: Remember that it is unclear how we can show that anything has intrinsic value, so it would seem to be a poor argument (against the claim that things like beauty and knowledge have intrinsic value) to say that it can't be shown why or how they have that value. After all, no one can explain why or how anything has intrinsic value.
E) General reasons to think that Utilitarianism is true
1) The Common Feature: Think about a bunch of things that it would be morally wrong for me to do (e.g., punching you, stealing your money, making a promise and not keeping it, etc.); what do all of these things have in common that makes them all wrong? The one obvious thing that they all have in common is that they all harm people (i.e., make them unhappy). Also think of a bunch of good things that I could do (e.g., giving to charity, saving someone's life, helping an elderly person across the street, etc.); what do all of these things have in common that makes them right? Again, one obvious thing is that they all contribute to the welfare of people (i.e., make them happier). It doesn't seem like an accident that wrong actions harm people and right action help people. Well...utilitarianism says that it isn't an accident, the reason that right actions are right is that they help people, and the reason that wrong actions are wrong is because they harm people. Obviously, it is helping and harming people (i.e., making people happy and unhappy) that is the basis of morality, as utilitarianism says. As long as one accepts that it is best to help people as much as possible and hurt them as little as possible, one must accept that utilitarianism is right.
2) Everyday Decisions: A more concrete way of thinking about this issue is to consider an example. Imagine that you have several tickets to a concert. You have to decide who it would be best to take with you to the concert, but how do you decide? There would be some obviously wrong choices. You don't want to invite someone who will hate the music at the concert. You also don't want to invite two people who can't stand to be around each other. Why are these such bad choices? Obviously because they will make people unhappy. That tells you who not to invite, but who should you invite? Well, you should invite the people who will both enjoy the music and get along with each other. Why is it the right action to invite those people? Obviously because that is the action that will produce the most happiness.
F) Less common ways to attack Utilitarianism
1) Utilitarianism is too demanding:
a) Objection: If the morally right thing to do is whatever will maximize utility, then it would seem that we are morally obligated to do whatever will bring about the most utility. However, the action which will maximize utility is often quite damaging to oneself. There are obvious dramatic cases of this. For example, a citizen at a presidential parade who notices that a terrorist is about to shoot the president and realizes that the only way to prevent the president's death is to jump in front of the terrorist and be killed himself. There is obviously more utility in the president surviving than in an ordinary citizen surviving. So, since more utility is created by taking a bullet for the president, it is one's moral obligation to do so. But, this seems wrong, it may be a good thing to do to sacrifice one's life for the greater good, but it is not one's obligation to do so (i.e., one has no duty to do this). It would seem that such actions are supererogatory, and that utilitarianism is wrong to consider them to be obligatory. [Supererogatory action is discussed elsewhere in these Briefs]. Utilitarianism is too demanding on the individual. The point is made in less dramatic cases as well. Peter Singer (contemporary British philosopher) has convincingly argued that utility would be much increased if those who are needy and starving in underdeveloped nations had money that is currently in the possession of people in developed nations. Specifically, you would increase utility if you were to donate money to charities that relieve those suffering people. In fact, you ought to (according to utilitarianism) give most of your money to these charities. You should give money until you have so little money that you need the money more than those who are starving do, in other words, until you are in a condition of poverty similar to their own. This is called giving to the point of marginal utility. Of course, it is clear that this demand made by the theory of utilitarianism is unlikely to be heeded by almost anyone. In short, the theory of utilitarianism is too demanding upon individuals. The theory must be flawed, because we can be sure that morality does not require so much of us. [Kant's theory, specifically his distinction between perfect and imperfect duties, seems much more reasonable on this account.]
b) Response: One might respond by claiming that the theory is not too demanding, all that the objector has shown is that people don't want to fulfill their moral obligations, and that we just don't like being told to do what we don't want to do. Even so, it is obvious that morality demands that we do as much as we possibly can for other people even if we don't enjoy it. A moral theory that wouldn't ask us to do what we don't want to do would be useless. Essentially what you are doing in this response is agreeing that it is very demanding, but disagreeing that this proves that it is a bad theory.
3) Undeserved happiness is not good: This is a rather different and interesting objection to utilitarianism, but it is not an objection to all forms of consequentialism (for reasons I will make clear in a footnote).
a) Objection: The objection begins with the assumption that some people are morally good, and others are morally bad. Utilitarianism claims that we should maximize the total amount of happiness in the world. However, the theory has no reason for preferring good people being happy to bad people being happy. In other words, utilitarianism claims that if there are 100 people in the world, then it is better to have 90 happy but evil criminals and 10 miserable saints, than it is to have 80 happy saints and 20 miserable criminals. Utilitarianism does not take into account who deserves to be happy, and this seems to be a major problem. To put this problem in easier terms, consider just one person, the objection claims that when an immoral scoundrel is happy, the world is worse than it would be if he were happy - even if there are no other differences. This seems to accord with our intuitions, we think that a story ends better when the bad guy suffers than when he is happy.
b) Response: Other than appealing to the fairly complicated theory of ideal utilitarianism, there are two ways to respond to this objection. First, one can claim that the objection is simply short sighted, which is not an adequate response. Or, in a second more philosophically credible maneuver, one can try to explain why we have the intuition that it is bad to have happy evil people, and then explain why it is a mistaken intuition.
Simple: The first response simply claims that the objection fails because the long term effects of having happy evil people are very bad, and so the long term utilitarian recommendation will always avoid such situations. There will be bad long term consequences because seeing evil people as happy encourages others to do evil things. This is clearly seen in poor inner city youths desiring to be drug dealers because they perceive them as wealthy and happy. These consequences are why it is bad to have happy bad people. So the proposed 'objection' is no objection at all, because utilitarianism agrees that it is bad to have happy bad people. Similar reasoning shows why it is good to have morally good people be happy; it will make other more likely to try to be good.
Subtle: The subtle argument relies on similar insights, but it uses different logic. You can begin by arguing that we dislike seeing happy evil people because we have unconsciously think that others will be convinced to be evil by seeing these people as happy. If we are right in thinking that, then the simple response shows why this is not an objection to utilitarianism. However, if your opponent can come up with an example of where others will not be influenced by seeing happy bad people, then she might argue that even in such cases, it is worse to have those bad people be happy; and this is a case that utilitarianism cannot accommodate. This is a good point, and it is the real force behind the original objection. The best response is to claim that our intuitions are in error. Although, we our intuitions may tell us that it is bad for bad people to be happy even when there are no bad consequences, this is just the result of our simplistic moral education, which has failed to make a subtle distinction. When we learned right and wrong (and thereby formed our moral intuitions), we were not taught about unusual or unlikely examples, such as cases where bad people being happy will not have any future negative effects. This type of education results in our being unable to recognize that, as long as there are no bad consequences, it is just as well that bad people are happy.