Why the Utilitarians Shot President KennedyAuthor(s): Don LockeReviewed work(s):Source: Analysis, Vol. 36, No. 3 (Mar., 1976), pp. 153-155Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Analysis CommitteeStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3327840 .Accessed: 17/10/2012 06:28

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WHY THE UTILITARIANS SHOT PRESIDENT KENNEDY*

By DON LOCKE

T now appears that sometime in the early i96os, when other moral philosophers were agonizing over the logic of moral judgements and

the meaning of 'good', a group of Utilitarians was meeting in the United States to discuss the practical applications of their theories and the good they might do in the world. Among their principal concerns was the evident increase in inner-city violent crime, which seemed to them to threaten the very roots of civilized life, and they placed the cause fairly and squarely in the traditional American policy of ease of access to fire- arms. Yet they knew that public pronouncements and political pressures from a handful of academic moralists would count for nothing against the powerful gun-lobby in Congress and the ingrained attitudes of millions of their countrymen. The only hope of change lay in shocking a nation to its senses by demonstrating how easy it was to purchase a gun on any American main street, or through the mails, and shoot anyone that might take your fancy.

Accordingly they decided on the course of action which seemed most likely to produce the desired benefit at least cost, one which might appear bad on the surface, but which would ultimately prove more pro- ductive of good than evil. They decided to shoot just one individual, so as to minimize the inevitable suffering and misery, but the one individual whose prominence and popularity-personal if not political-would be most likely to horrify the country and lead in a mood of national mourn- ing and self-criticism to the imposition of stringent gun controls.

Even so the conspirators had their qualms. It was not simply that their Utilitarianism was permitting, indeed requiring, an action which on any non-Utilitarian ethic must seem horribly and unquestionably wrong: as Utilitarians they had long been inured to that familiar possi- bility. But Utilitarianism was requiring an action because it was wrong, inasmuch as its eventual rightness depended precisely on its being uni- versally condemned, even among Utilitarians. But they comforted them- selves with the thought that what was necessary was not that their action be wrong, but only that it seem wrong. Evidently a Utilitarian must be prepared to make the right seem wrong, and also, presumably, to make the wrong seem right: unlike Justice, Utility need not be seen to be done.

And so the deed was done, for the best of Utilitarian reasons and for the best of Utilitarian results. But unhappily things went spectacularly wrong. Not only did the desired results fail to accrue, but it is quite

* I uncovered this plot while reading Utilitarianism: For and Against by J. J. C. Smart and Bernard Williams (Cambridge, 1973), and especially Section 6 of Williams' paper. Further evidence may be found in 'It Makes no Difference Whether or Not I do it' by Jonathan Glover, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume XLIX, I975.

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154 ANALYSIS

possible that this incident was largely responsible for the subsequent cult of political assassination. Certainly the outcome was that violent death became even more an accepted part of the American city scene. But although the conspirators' action proved disastrously wrong in objective terms, it is difficult for a Utilitarian to deny its subjective rightness. The plotters may regret the way things worked out, but it would be irrational of them to feel any remorse or guilt-or whatever the Utilitarian equivalents may be. They miscalculated the strength of the gun-lobby, the depth of the average American's resistance to any in- terference with his right to carry firearms; but if any event chosen so as to involve least harm in itself seemed likely to achieve the desired result then that was it, and we are able to question it only with benefit of hind- sight. They took a calculated risk, such as any agent must do when estimating the consequences of his actions, and if they failed it was not through any fault of their own: the probable good from their action far outweighed the probable harm. Whether other Utilitarians should praise or blame them must depend, of course, on the utility of such praise or blame, and no doubt they were worthy of blame, pour dicourager les autres, even if they had been successful. But no Utilitarian will find moral fault in their acting as they did in the circumstances, and with the wholly reasonable expectations, that they did. They were eminently blameworthy, but by no means bad.

In another respect, moreover, the Utilitarians have been much less in the wrong. It was, of course, morally crucial to their plan that no one discover why or by whom the deed was done. The latter would only in- crease the resulting harm, when the conspirators paid the appropriate Utilitarian penalty for their good deed; and the former might bring Utilitarianism itself into such public disrepute as to hinder future Utilitarian policies and practices. For a moment, indeed, it seemed as if the plot might fail here too, and be uncovered, with its Utilitarian motives and justification laid bare for all to see and reflect upon. But

happily for the prevention of evil, it proved possible to divert attention to a solitary individual, again minimizing the inevitable harm, and to avoid the risks of exposure inherent in a public trial by due legal process. In fact it proved easy enough to convince the authorities appointed to enquire into these incidents, and to set public doubts at rest, of the Utilitarian importance, which is to say the moral value, of protecting the Utilitarian secret; and though suspicions have remained rampant, no one has so far come near to tracing the plot back to its real source. The original action may have proved an unqualified failure, but all men of good will would be able to rejoice that to date the cover-up has been an unmitigated moral success.

But now the jig is up, the word is out, and the plot has failed here too. Indeed if people are led to question an ethic which, but for a bit of bad

WHY THE UTILITARIANS SHOT PRESIDENT KENNEDY 155

luck, would have justified the murders of two innocent men and all the subsequent political intrigue and public deception, then I fear this note is guilty, not only of bad taste, but of moral subversion. But I have two defences.

One is that the fault cannot wholly be mine, if the same evil would have followed without my intervention. In fact the Utilitarians them- selves are equally to blame. For generations they have been publicizing a morality which insists that the value of a deed depends not on its reasons but on its results. So even if the assassination had been the work of the unfortunate who, for good Utilitarian reasons, was made to take the blame, his action could still have been justified, would still have been right in Utilitarian terms, if only it had had the desirable result of a drop in violent crime via firearm controls. His acting thus, supposing he had acted thus, would then have been more productive of good than his not acting thus, and worthy of honourable mention in the annals of great twentieth-century moral achievements (not that such annals should ever be made available to public inspection). This conclusion was there to be drawn, even by those with no inkling of the Utilitarian plot; sooner or later the truth-about Utilitarianism, if not about Dallas- would have emerged. There are, then, good Utilitarian reasons why a Utilitarian should not preach his Utilitarianism, except to those so secure in their Utilitarianism that no consequence thereof will lead them to question it. But driven by a natural human desire to make converts, rather than doing good in the world, the Utilitarians have not been con- tent to follow this precept, and they must bear some of the responsibility.

Of course it is possible that the conspirators were mistaken in think- ing that the likelihood of people's performing good Utilitarian acts would be affected by their acceptance or rejection of Utilitarian prin- ciples; and equally it is possible that no Utilitarian harm will be done by publishing the consequences of Utilitarianism. In that case the preaching of Utilitarianism will not be harmful, merely idle, though there will still be no good Utilitarian reason for publicizing Utilitarianism. That at any rate is my hope and my second defence: that however much the morally unsophisticated might be appalled by the deeds that Utilitarian- ism can be used to justify, and the deeds that might be done in its name, a modicum of ignorance, deception or human perversity may yet suffice to ensure that everybody acts for the Utilitarian best in the best of Utilitarian worlds.

University of Warwick 0 DON LOCKE 1976