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Consequentialism vs. Deontology

• Consequentialism: – the view that an act is right if and only if it will maximize (or is

likely to maximize) good consequences.

• Deontological theories:– The view that there are some features of acts beyond their

consequences that make them right or wrong. Ergo certain acts must be done (or not done) regardless of the consequences. (Sometimes it is called “absolutism”):

• Judeo-Christian Ethics• Moral Theory of Immanuel Kant

• Rawls: Two major moral theories in US

– Utilitarianism (Consequentialism)– Rights/Duties (Deontological)

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Utilitarianism

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Basic Arguments of Utilitarianism

• The purpose of morality is to make the world a better place.

• Morality is about producing good consequences, not having good intentions

• We should do whatever will bring the most benefit (i.e., intrinsic value) to all of humanity.

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Fundamental Imperative

• The fundamental imperative of utilitarianism is:

– Always act in the way that will produce the greatest overall amount of good in the world.

– The emphasis is clearly on consequences, not intentions.

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The Emphasis on the Overall Good

• We often speak of “utilitarian” solutions in a disparaging tone, but in fact utilitarianism is a demanding moral position that often asks us to put aside self-interest for the sake of the whole.

• Utilitarianism is a morally demanding position for two reasons:– It always asks us to do the most, to maximize

utility, not to do the minimum.– It asks us to set aside personal interest.

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The Dream of Utilitarianism:Bringing Scientific Certainty to

Ethical Choices• Utilitarianism offers us a powerful vision of the

moral life, one that promises to reduce or eliminate moral disagreement.– If we can agree that the purpose of morality is to

make the world a better place; and– If we can scientifically assess various possible

courses of action to determine which will have the greatest positive effect on the world; then

– We can provide a scientific answer to the question of what we ought to do.

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Yardsticks of Utility: A Brief History of Utilitarianism

• Many things have instrumental value, that is, they have value as means to an end.

• However, there must be some things which are not merely instrumental, but have value in themselves. This is what we call intrinsic value.

• What has intrinsic value? Three principal candidates:– Pleasure

• Jeremy Bentham

– Happiness• John Stuart Mill

– Preferences• Kenneth Arrow

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Jeremy Bentham1748-1832

• Bentham believed that we should try to increase the overall amount of pleasure in the world.

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Pleasure

• Definition: The enjoyable feeling we experience when a state of deprivation is replaced by fulfillment.

• Advantages– Easy to quantify– Short duration– Bodily

• Criticisms– Came to be known

as “the pig’s philosophy”

– Ignores higher values

– Could justify living on a pleasure machine

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John Stuart Mill1806-1873

• Bentham’s godson• Believed that

happiness, not pleasure, should be the standard of utility.

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Happiness

• Advantages– A higher standard,

more specific to humans

– About realization of goals

• Disadvantages– More difficult to

measure– Competing

conceptions of happiness

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Preferences

• Kenneth Arrow, a Nobel Prize winning Stanford economist, argued that what has intrinsic value is preference satisfaction.

• The advantage of Arrow’s approach:

– it lets people choose for themselves what has intrinsic value.

– It simply defines intrinsic value as whatever satisfies an agent’s preferences.

– It is elegant and pluralistic.

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The Utilitarian Calculus • All consequences must be measured and

weighed• Units of measurement may be defined in terms of

– Pleasure– Happiness– Preferences

• For any given action, we must calculate:– How many people will be affected, negatively as well

as positively – How intensely they will be affected– Similar calculations for all available alternatives– Choose the action that produces the greatest overall

amount of utility (positive measures minus negative measures)

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How Much Can We Quantify?

• Pleasure and preference satisfaction are easier to quantify than happiness or ideals

• Two distinct issues:– Can everything be quantified?– Are quantified goods necessarily

commensurable?

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Problems with Utilitarianism:Jim and the Indians

Jim finds himself in the central square of a small South American town. Tied up against the wall are a row of twenty Indians, most terrified, a few defiant, in front of them several armed men in uniform. A heavy man in a sweat-stained khaki shirt turns out to be the captain in charge and, after a good deal of questioning of Jim which establishes that he got there by accident while on a botanical expedition, explains that the Indians are a random group of the inhabitants who, after recent acts of protest against the government, are just about to be killed to remind other possible protestors of the advantages of not protesting. However, since Jim is an honoured visitor from another land, the captain is happy to offer him a guest’s privilege of killing one of the Indians himself. If Jim accepts, then as a special mark of the occasion, the other Indians will be let off. Of course, if Jim refuses, then there is no special occasion, and Pedro here will do what he was about to do when Jim arrived, and kill them all. Jim, with some desperate recollection of schoolboy fiction, wonders whether if he got hold of a gun, he could hold the captain, Pedro and the rest of the soldiers to threat, but it is quite clear from the set-up that nothing of the sort is going to work: any attempt at that sort of thing will mean that all the Indians will be killed, and himself. The men against the wall, and the other villagers understand the situation, and are obviously begging him to accept. What should he do?

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Responsibility

• Utilitarianism suggests that we are responsible for all the consequences of our choices.

• The problem is that sometimes we can foresee consequences of other people’s actions that are taken in response to our own acts. Are we responsible for those actions, even though we don’t choose them or approve of them?

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Integrity

• Utilitarianism often demands that we put aside self-interest. Sometimes this means putting aside our own moral convictions.

• Integrity may involve certain identity-conferring commitments, such that the violation of those commitments entails a violation of who we are at our core.

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Who is Included?

• When we consider the issue of consequences, we must ask who is included within that circle.– Those in our own group (ethnocentrism)– Those in our own country (nationalism)– All human beings (humanism)– All sentient beings

• Classical utilitarianism has often claimed that we should acknowledge the pain and suffering of animals and not restrict the calculus just to human beings.

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A Summing Up

• Alluring attempt to employ human reason for ethical choice, but problems:

– Predicting consequences– Measuring good vs. bad consequences– Who is included– Lack of attention to responsibility/integrity– Need to define moral minimum

2020

Utilitarianism doesn’t always have a cold and calculating face—we perform utilitarian

calculations in everyday life.

• “…the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.”