2.2 Utilitarianism: Classical and Modern Approaches

Utilitarianism is a moral theory that judges actions based on their consequences. It aims to maximize overall well-being for all affected individuals, including humans, animals, and future generations. This approach focuses on outcomes rather than the intrinsic nature of actions.

Classical utilitarianism, developed by Bentham and Mill, emphasized quantifying happiness. Modern approaches recognize challenges in precise measurement and address issues like animal welfare and future generations. These developments have expanded and refined utilitarian thinking.

Utilitarianism: Core Tenets and Development

Central Principles of Utilitarianism

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• Utilitarianism holds that the most ethical action is the one that maximizes overall "utility" or well-being for all affected individuals (humans, animals, future generations)
• As a consequentialist theory, utilitarianism focuses on outcomes of actions rather than the intrinsic nature of the acts themselves
• Utilitarians argue we have an impartial obligation to consider the interests of all sentient beings and weigh them equally when making moral decisions
• Utilitarianism is a welfarist theory concerned with improving the welfare or well-being of individuals and society as a whole

Historical Evolution of Utilitarian Thought

• Classical utilitarianism was developed by 18th and 19th century philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill
• Bentham proposed the "greatest happiness principle" stating that actions are right insofar as they promote overall happiness (pleasure) and minimize overall pain
• Bentham believed happiness could be quantified and compared across individuals using the "felicific calculus"
• Mill distinguished between "higher" intellectual pleasures and "lower" sensual pleasures, considering the former more valuable
• Modern utilitarian thinkers like Peter Singer have expanded utilitarian consideration to include animal welfare and the interests of future generations

Classical vs Modern Utilitarianism

Comparing Classical and Modern Approaches

• Classical utilitarianism emphasized quantifying and maximizing overall utility, while modern approaches recognize the difficulty of precise quantification and interpersonal comparisons
• Classical utilitarians treated increasing happiness and reducing suffering as symmetrical, while some modern utilitarians prioritize reducing suffering due to an alleged asymmetry between the two
• Modern two-level utilitarianism (R.M. Hare) uses rule utilitarianism for everyday choices but act utilitarianism for novel moral dilemmas, addressing some limitations of pure act utilitarianism
• Modern population ethics and theories of personal identity (Derek Parfit) complicate classical utilitarian notions of utility tied to distinct, continuous individuals

Challenges Facing Modern Utilitarianism

• Infinitarian paralysis: If there are infinite potential individuals, it becomes unclear how to make principled comparisons between outcomes
• Hard-to-quantify values: Modern utilitarians recognize that some important values (beauty, autonomy, fairness) are difficult to precisely measure and factor into calculations
• Demandingness objection: Utilitarianism may require extremely demanding sacrifices from individuals for the greater good, conflicting with common-sense morality
• Future generations: Accounting for the interests of vast numbers of potential future people is a major challenge for modern utilitarianism
• Repugnant conclusion: Utilitarian reasoning can lead to the counterintuitive conclusion that a vast population with lives barely worth living is better than a smaller, thriving population

Implications of Utilitarianism for Decision-Making

Utilitarianism and Individual Ethics

• Utilitarianism provides guidance for individual ethical decisions by considering the outcomes for all affected parties, not just the individual
• It requires impartially weighing the costs and benefits of our actions on overall well-being, even if that means personal sacrifices
• In situations with competing individual interests, utilitarianism instructs us to choose the action that results in the greatest aggregate positive outcome
• However, utilitarianism may sometimes endorse violating individual rights if doing so leads to much better consequences overall

Utilitarianism and Social Policy

• For broader social and political decisions, utilitarianism implies policies should be chosen to maximize overall societal welfare
• This could justify measures like progressive taxation, wealth redistribution, and limits on property rights for the greater good
• Utilitarian thinking is often applied to assess the ethics of new technologies (AI, genetic engineering), research, and public health initiatives in terms of their aggregate costs and benefits
• Utilitarianism struggles with whether to weigh everyone's welfare equally or prioritize improving the lot of the worse off
• Critics argue utilitarianism fails to respect individual rights, fairness, and justice by focusing only on overall welfare

Measuring and Comparing Utility

Challenges in Quantifying Well-Being

• Interpersonal comparisons of utility are not objectively measurable the way physical properties like mass are
• Individuals' self-reports of their mental states and preferences can be unreliable and biased
• People often lack stable, consistent, and well-defined utility functions, making their welfare hard to pin down
• Qualitative differences in happiness (simple contentment vs complex fulfillment) complicate comparisons
• Utility monsters and zombies: hypothetical entities with such extreme utility functions that utilitarian calculus leads to counterintuitive conclusions (enslaving everyone to benefit the monster)

Aggregating Utility and Distributional Concerns

• Utilitarianism requires aggregating utility across individuals to compare outcomes, but how exactly to do this is contentious
• Assuming everyone's utility is weighted equally can lead to unfair or inequitable results (benefiting larger groups at the expense of smaller ones)
• Prioritarianism argues we should give more weight to improving the welfare of worse-off individuals
• Egalitarian views propose ensuring a fair distribution of welfare, not just maximizing the sum total
• Utilitarians argue for simply weighing costs and benefits as best we can rather than imposing extraneous distributional constraints
• Dealing with uncertainty: utilitarians must rely on expected value and our best efforts to accurately predict consequences