Ethics: A Contemporary Introduction PDF

Part Four Normative Ethics Copyright © 2017. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. Gensler, Harry J.. Ethics : A Contemporary Introduction, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017. ProQuest...

Part Four Normative Ethics Copyright © 2017. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. Gensler, Harry J.. Ethics : A Contemporary Introduction, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ualberta/detail.action?docID=5178444. Created from ualberta on 2024-09-06 13:56:04.  10 Consequentialism Consequentialism says that we have only one basic duty: to maximize long-term good consequences. This chapter considers several forms of consequentialism – including classical utilitarianism, egoism, and pluralistic rule utilitarianism. 10.1 Normative ethics So far, we’ve focused on the nature and methodology of moral judgments (metaethics). We’ve considered, for example, whether morality is based on social conventions, personal feelings, God’s will, or self-evident truths. I’ve argued that, however we view these issues, we should pick our moral principles in a way that’s grounded in knowledge, imagination, and consistency (including GR). This gives a method for selecting and arguing about moral principles. Now we’ll use this method to arrive at principles about how we ought to live (normative ethics). Normative ethics has two broad approaches, which we’ll discuss in this chap- ter and the next: Consequentialism (teleology) says that we ought to do whatever maximizes long-term good consequences. It doesn’t in itself matter what kind of thing we do. Nonconsequentialism (deontology) says that some kinds of Copyright © 2017. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. action (such as breaking promises or killing the innocent) are wrong in themselves, and not just wrong because of their consequences. Suppose you’re diagnosed to have terminal cancer. Your wife asks about the diagnosis; should you lie or tell her the truth? If you’re a consequentialist, you’ll think that you should lie if this has better consequences; so you might first con- sider whether your wife would be happier not knowing about your diagnosis. If you’re a nonconsequentialist, you’ll likely think that it’s wrong in itself to lie; your wife has a right to know, and you treat her wrongly if you lie to her. So should you lie, or not? More generally, do consequences alone determine right and wrong? Or are some kinds of action wrong in themselves, and not just wrong because of their consequences? This is a central question of normative ethics, and it makes a big difference to how we face moral issues. Gensler, Harry J.. Ethics : A Contemporary Introduction, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ualberta/detail.action?docID=5178444. Created from ualberta on 2024-09-06 13:56:04.  Consequentialism 175 Suppose you’re running for president, your being elected would greatly bene- fit the world, and you’ll be elected only if you lie about your opponent (which will maximize good consequences). Should you lie? Consequentialists would say yes, nonconsequentialists would likely say no. We’ll begin by listening to Ima Utilitarian explain her belief in classical utili- tarianism – which is a popular kind of consequentialism. 10.2 Ima Utilitarian Classical Utilitarianism: We ought always to do whatever maximizes the long-term balance of pleasure over pain for everyone affected by our action. My name is Ima Utilitarian. I’ve embraced classical utilitarianism as I’ve come to see morality’s goal as promoting happiness and diminishing misery. I was brought up to believe in strict rules. I was taught, for example, that it’s always wrong to steal, lie, break promises, or disobey your parents. For a long time I never questioned these things. Cultural relativism shook up my thinking. The world has many cultures with diverse norms. CR says we can’t objectively evaluate the norms of another culture – since, if we try, then we just evaluate their norms using ours. My first impression was that CR was wrong; we can evaluate norms by their conse- quences. Suppose that society A’s norms lead to happiness, while society B’s norms lead to misery; then society A clearly has better norms. Further study confirmed that happiness was crucial. I learned that enlightened moral thinking is grounded in knowledge, imagination, and consistency (includ- ing GR). GR focuses on consequences. We try to make others happier and pre- vent their misery; and we regard everyone’s pleasure and pain as important. So GR leads to utilitarianism, where we try to maximize the balance of pleasure over pain for everyone. The utilitarian John Stuart Mill (1861: 22) put it this way: Copyright © 2017. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. In the golden rule of Jesus, we read the complete spirit of the ethics of utility. To do as you would be done by, and to love your neighbor as yourself, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality. So enlightened moral thinking leads first to GR, and then to utilitarianism. GR isn’t the only path to utilitarianism. A friend of mine bases utilitarianism on God’s will, since she thinks God desires our greatest happiness. Others accept it as a self-evident truth, or as reflecting their personal feelings. Classical utilitarianism says we ought always to do whatever maximizes the long- term balance of pleasure over pain for everyone affected by our action. What’s to be maxim- ized, pleasure minus pain, is sometimes called “utility”; so our rule equivalently says that we ought always to maximize the long-term utility of all affected parties. We can Gensler, Harry J.. Ethics : A Contemporary Introduction, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ualberta/detail.action?docID=5178444. Created from ualberta on 2024-09-06 13:56:04.  176 Part 4: Normative Ethics apply utilitarianism two ways: directly or indirectly. (1) Applying utilitarianism directly uses an alternatives-consequences analysis. Imag- ine that I have two alternatives, act A and act B, and the affected parties are Tom, Dick, and Harry. I estimate the pleasure-pain consequences of each alternative on each party. Suppose act A would make Tom slightly happy (+1 pleasure units), Dick moderately unhappy ( 3 pain units, using negative numbers for pain), and Harry very happy (+4 pleasure units). And suppose act B would make Tom moderately unhappy ( 3), Dick slightly happy (+1), and Harry extremely happy (+5). We’d add up the numbers to decide what to do: Act A Act B Tom +1 3 Dick 3 +1 Harry +4 +5 Total +2 +3 Here act B brings about the higher total (+3 units, instead of +2 units for act A), and so utilitarianism would say to do act B. We don’t yet know how to put such numbers on pleasure and pain, so we can’t actually use numbers. In practice, we do the analysis more intuitively – estimating as best we can the pleasure-pain consequences of each proposed action on each affected party and then judging intuitively which action maximizes good consequences. Often this process yields a clear “best action,” even though we can’t really assign numbers and then just add them up. (2) Applying utilitarianism indirectly uses a “rule of thumb” about what kinds of action tend to have good or bad results. “Don’t steal” is a useful rule of thumb, since stealing tends to have bad results; so, unless circumstances are peculiar, I’ll just assume that I ought not to steal. I suggest using rules of thumb (which are mostly just built into our habits) on routine moral decisions; we’d go crazy if we had to do a full alternatives-consequences analysis on all our minor choices. Copyright © 2017. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. Here are some cases that merit a direct analysis: Making big decisions. When I chose a college, I listed various schools with pros and cons; I then picked the place with the biggest balance of pros over cons. I’ll do the same thing when I decide on a job. Resolving a conflict between moral rules. My mother recently ordered me to reveal what my brother told me in confidence, even though I promised him that I wouldn’t tell anyone. Here “Obey your parents” and “Don’t break promises” told me to do opposite things. So I used an alternatives-consequences analysis to decide what to do. Justifying your decision to someone else. I’d do an alternatives-consequences analysis here, to find reasons for preferring a certain action. Picking moral rules. If we examine particular cases of stealing, we find Gensler, Harry J.. Ethics : A Contemporary Introduction, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ualberta/detail.action?docID=5178444. Created from ualberta on 2024-09-06 13:56:04.  Consequentialism 177 that stealing usually has bad consequences. So “Don’t steal” is a use- ful rule of thumb. Unless we know that a particular act of stealing will maximize good consequences, it’s best not to steal. So yes, I believe in moral rules, like the standard ones against stealing, lying, adultery, and killing. But I don’t worship rules. I take moral rules to be “rules of thumb” – and definitely not exceptionless – and I’m prepared to break them if doing so has better consequences. I reject exceptionless rules, for three reasons. (1) As a matter of logic, a consistent moral system can’t have more than one exceptionless norm; otherwise, the norms will sometimes conflict, leading to contradictions. As a child, I was taught “Always obey your parents” and “Never break promises.” But these prescribed conflicting actions when my mother ordered me to break a promise. So consistency elimi- nates the exceptionless-duties approach that I was taught as a child. (2) Exceptionless rules can lead to inhumane results in unusual cases. I was taught “Stealing is always wrong.” But suppose your family will starve unless your father steals bread from someone who won’t miss it. Is stealing then wrong? Do you desire that your father not steal in this case? If you say “yes,” then you care more about rules than about human beings. (3) There are Dr Evil objections to exceptionless norms. Suppose that, unless you break an allegedly exceptionless norm, Dr Evil will torture everyone and then destroy the world. Surely we should break the rule in this case. As you apply utilitarianism, keep in mind three things: Different people may take pleasure in different things; so you may need to serve vanilla ice cream to Paula but chocolate to Maria. Painful things done now (like exercise or going to the dentist) may be justified by good consequences later (like being healthy). While we should be concerned with long-term consequences, we shouldn’t entirely neglect the pleasures of the moment. Since I think duty depends on the situation, some accuse me of being a cultural Copyright © 2017. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. relativist. But this is confused. Duty depends on what has better long-term con- sequences – not on what our culture tells us. So smoking is wrong if it has bad consequences, regardless of whether society approves of it. Utilitarianism also applies to virtues and vices. Virtues (like kindness and patience) are character traits that tend to have good consequences, while vices (like envy and laziness) are character traits that tend to have bad consequences. Encouraging virtues and discouraging vices is a big part of moral education. The central virtue is benevolence: habitually acting to maximize the balance of pleasure over pain for all affected parties; we’re good people if we’re benevolent. Also important is moral flexibility: to be prepared to break moral rules when this has better conse- quences; the corresponding vice is moral inflexibility. In teaching morality to young children, it’s best to keep things simple and teach exceptionless rules; only later should the virtue of moral flexibility be introduced. Gensler, Harry J.. Ethics : A Contemporary Introduction, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ualberta/detail.action?docID=5178444. Created from ualberta on 2024-09-06 13:56:04.  178 Part 4: Normative Ethics Utilitarianism also applies to moral rights and justice. Our basic moral right is to have our happiness and misery count equally with that of everyone else; social arrangements (like slavery or racial discrimination) that violate this are unjust. A just society is one that’s structured to maximize the total balance of pleasure over pain, counting everyone’s pleasure and pain on an equal basis. Utilitarianism tends to favor a more equal distribution of wealth, other things being equal. Consider a simple island society with two families. The rich family earns $999,000 a year and has abundant goods; the poor family earns $1000 a year and is close to starvation. Suppose that $1000 from the rich family went to the poor family. The poor family would benefit greatly, and the rich family would hardly notice the loss. This is so because money has a diminishing marginal utility: as we get richer, each extra dollar makes less difference to how well we live. Going from $999,000 to $998,000 matters little, while going from $1000 to $2000 makes a big difference. So a given amount of wealth tends to produce more total happiness if it’s spread out more evenly. On the other hand, forcing complete equality of wealth for everyone, regardless of how much work they do, would bring harmful laziness and stagnation; so utilitarianism would be against that. But, in general, utilitarianism favors a more equal distribution of wealth. 10.3 Consequentialisms This is still Ima. I need to explain why I picked classical (hedonistic) utilitarianism over other forms of consequentialism. Consequentialism (“We ought to do whatever maximizes long-term good consequences”) comes in various flavors. These differ on whose good to max- imize (egoism says “for ourselves” while utilitarianism says “for everyone”) and how to evaluate consequences (hedonism says “by pleasure-pain” while pluralism says “by various factors”). First, whose good should we maximize? Should we maximize good for: ourselves as individuals (egoism), our group (family or city or nation or race or …), Copyright © 2017. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. all humans, or all sentient beings (utilitarianism)? Since I base my view on the golden rule, which applies to our treatment of every sentient being [§8.7], I pick the last option, utilitarianism. Egoism says that each person ought to do whatever maximizes good conse- quences for that person – regardless of how this affects others.1 I see two big 1 This is “ethical egoism,” as distinct from “psychological egoism” (the view that humans are motivated only by self-interest). While psychological egoism was popular in the past (§9.7), it’s hard to square with modern evolutionary theory and our survival as social animals (§9.5). Humans seem to have a mix of motivations, like self-interest, concern for others (especially family and friends), and particular impulses (like revenge or lust, which may go against both self-interest and concern for others). Gensler, Harry J.. Ethics : A Contemporary Introduction, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ualberta/detail.action?docID=5178444. Created from ualberta on 2024-09-06 13:56:04.  Consequentialism 179 problems with egoism. (1) Egoism is difficult to hold consistently. To hold egoism consistently, we’d have to want others to follow egoism toward us – we’d have to desire that X harm us greatly (and even paralyze us for life) if this would maximize X’s self- interest. Given that we can’t hold egoism consistently, it can’t be a rational view for us to hold (although it may still remain as a temptation). (2) Egoism is self-defeating. While egoists care much about their own happi- ness, the egoistic approach will likely make them miserable. If we follow egoism, being prepared to bring any harm to others for the sake of the slightest gain for ourselves, others will despise us and we’ll probably end up despising ourselves. We’ll be happier if we act with the intention of promoting everyone’s good. While I reject egoism, I contend that our individual good and the general good clash less than many people think. Normally, doing good for others makes us happy, and harming others makes us miserable; evolution built us this way, and society reinforces it (since people tend to treat us better if we treat them better). And utilitarianism says that I ought to promote my own good when this doesn’t clash with another’s greater good (since this maximizes the total good); but util- itarianism condemns selfish actions that promote our individual good while causing greater harm to others (and this is where it sharply differs from egoism). Groupism says that each person ought to do whatever maximizes good con- sequences for their group – regardless of how this affects other groups. This also violates consistency (since we don’t want other groups to follow this toward us and our group) and is self-defeating (since it leads to a war between groups where all groups suffer [§9.7]). The “all humans” option holds that we ought to do whatever maximizes good consequences for all humans – regardless of how this affects other sentient beings (like animals). This also violates GR consistency, which applies to our treatment of animals [§8.7]. So we ought, instead, to do whatever maximizes good consequences for all sentient beings; this is utilitarianism. A second issue is how to evaluate consequences. I accept hedonism, which holds that only pleasure is intrinsically good (good in itself, abstracting from Copyright © 2017. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. further consequences) and only pain is intrinsically bad. On hedonism, an action is good to the extent that it’s pleasurable, brings future pleasure, or prevents future pain. Painful actions, like going to the dentist, can be good if they bring future pleasure or prevent future pain. And pleasurable actions, like tickling the driver, can be bad if they have bad consequences. Of course, we must consider the long-range consequences of our actions, insofar as we can predict them. Some people find hedonism shocking. But please understand that we hedon- ists use “pleasure” in a wide sense, to include not just physical pleasures but any kind of contentment or happiness. Higher pleasures (from friendship, knowl- edge, and virtue) are more satisfying and enduring than physical pleasures (like eating). It might be less scandalous if we spoke of “promoting happiness”; but the idea would be the same, since happiness = pleasure. Some utilitarians, rejecting hedonism, say that we should maximize: Gensler, Harry J.. Ethics : A Contemporary Introduction, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ualberta/detail.action?docID=5178444. Created from ualberta on 2024-09-06 13:56:04.  180 Part 4: Normative Ethics many things, like knowledge, virtue, and pleasure (pluralism), or whatever people desire for its own sake (preference view). I reject pluralism, because I doubt that mere knowledge or virtue in itself, apart from the enjoyment of it, has intrinsic value. And I reject the preference view, because people can have bad or foolish desires (like desires for revenge). Let me end with two utilitarian applications, both adapted from Peter Singer (1972 and 1993: 121–34). First, suppose you want to buy a large-screen television and are deciding between two options. Option A is to buy the 60-inch TV and give nothing to help famine relief (for a country that suffered a crop failure); this slightly adds to your enjoyment but does nothing to help the starving people. Option B is to buy the less expensive 50-inch TV and give the $300 difference to help famine relief; this would be a slight negative for your enjoyment but a big positive for the starving people. Judging by the total consequences, utilitarianism would prefer option B over option A. So utilitarianism can make strong demands on us to help others; it may even favor donating much to help others, if this helps them more than it hurts you. Second, suppose you give birth and find that your baby is blind. Should you (option A) keep the baby, or (option B) kill it and have another baby later (who will likely be born normal). Option B seems better in terms of the pleasure-pain of the two babies, of the family, and of the larger society; recall that utilitarianism looks only at consequences. So utilitarianism would seem to favor B, killing the baby but having another one later.1 Utilitarianism is a great normative theory. It gives a simple but flexible way to determine all our duties. It accords with GR and enlightened moral thinking. And it expresses a positive concern for the happiness of all sentient beings. Reflect on how you react to this view. Do you have objections? Copyright © 2017. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. 10.4 Bizarre implications I have mixed feelings about utilitarianism. It does give useful tools for moral thinking; an alternatives-consequences analysis often gives valuable insight into a problem. But utilitarianism is too crude, leaves out things like human rights, and can lead to really bad decisions if we don’t take other factors into account. Suppose we’re trying to figure out how to deal with a water-shortage problem in California. From a utilitarian perspective, we might begin by listing how much water our typical daily activities require and seeing how cutting back on these would affect the problem. We’d find that a shower takes about 20 gallons of water, while producing a pound of beef takes about 2,000 gallons; so cutting 1 Non-utilitarian societies may punish baby-killers; but let’s ignore this and suppose that society adapts laws that permit such killing when it maximizes good consequences. I’ll give my view on infanticide in the final chapter; Gensler (2009b) has a more detailed response. Gensler, Harry J.. Ethics : A Contemporary Introduction, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ualberta/detail.action?docID=5178444. Created from ualberta on 2024-09-06 13:56:04.  Consequentialism 181 down on beef saves much more water than cutting down on showers. Such an analysis would help us to come up with an effective way to deal with the problem. Here we’re looking at gallons of water, not pleasure-pain units; so the analysis is the spirit of utilitarianism rather than strictly following utilitarianism. Someone might propose a simpler solution, that we just kill half the people in California, which would double the amount of water available for each person. Here the numbers work out well, but numbers don’t tell the whole story, since this “solution” radically violates people’s rights. So a utilitarian numbers-analysis, while often useful, sometimes doesn’t tell the whole story. I have two main objections to utilitarianism: (1) it has bizarre implications that violate GR consistency and (2) it’s self-defeating. (1) My “lynching is fun” case brings out utilitarianism’s bizarre implications. Imagine that you’re a Chicago Cubs baseball fan and you just saw your team win the World Series by beating the Evil City Demons. Because you celebrated loudly, the Demon fans are very angry and decide to lynch you. They get huge pleasure from this, much greater than the pain it causes you (who are an unloved orphan). Suppose that the lynching maximizes the total balance of pleasure over pain. Utilitarianism then would approve of the lynching. If you were a consistent utilitarian, you’d have to desire that if you were in this situation then you be hanged. Since almost no one could desire this, almost no one could be a con- sistent utilitarian. So enlightened moral thinking would reject utilitarianism. My objection appeals not to moral intuitions (which utilitarians might not care about) but to consistency. If utilitarians are to hold their view rationally, they must hold it consistently. Utilitarians could respond to such objections by rejecting their view and moving to another approach – perhaps to one where consequences are important but limited by other duties. Or they could: (a) bite the bullet (accept the implausible result), (b) deny that such cases are possible, or (c) modify utilitarianism. Copyright © 2017. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. We’ll consider each option. (a) Utilitarians might say, “I do desire that I be hanged in this case to promote the lynch mob’s pleasure.” But then we can find further bizarre objections. Utilitarians will find it difficult to keep biting bullets. (b) Utilitarians might say, “This lynching would have bad long-range conse- quences, and so it wouldn’t maximize the balance of pleasure over pain.” But we can adjust the imagined situation to take account of such alleged consequences. We could specify, for example, that the lynching is done privately, the police don’t find out, and it doesn’t hit the news. So the example is possible. Hypothet- ical cases give the best way to evaluate utilitarianism, since they let us stipulate that an action maximizes the total pleasure. With actual cases, utilitarianism rarely leads to clear results, since long-range consequences are so unclear. Gensler, Harry J.. Ethics : A Contemporary Introduction, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ualberta/detail.action?docID=5178444. Created from ualberta on 2024-09-06 13:56:04.  182 Part 4: Normative Ethics (c) Utilitarians might say, “I want to modify my view. I now say that sadistic pleasures are intrinsically bad. Thus I can hold that the lynching is wrong – since it brings sadistic pleasures to the lynch mob.” Our fictional Ima Rule Utilitarian takes this approach in the next section; he suggests an improved version of util- itarianism that tries to avoid the bizarre implications. (2) Utilitarianism is self-defeating. Since utilitarianism is loose on moral rules, difficult to apply, and easy to rationalize, it would have bad consequences if people used it to guide their choices. My “lying politicians” case, inspired by recent American politics, brings this out. Two candidates are running for office. Both think, as nearly all candidates do, that their own victory would maximize good consequences. And both think that lying about their opponent promotes their own victory, and thus maximizes good consequences; so both lie. And many other politicians reason the same way. So politics turns dirty; this greatly harms democracy, since it prevents honest debates about issues. The best liars are elected and control the country. So it can have very bad consequences if people use utilitarianism to guide their choices. Again, there’s a utilitarian fix. Utilitarians might modify their view: “I now say that moral rules, not individual actions, should be evaluated by their consequences. Since the moral rule of not lying about your political opponents has such good conse- quences and prevents grave harm, we should follow it strictly.” Our fictional Ima Rule Utilitarian takes this approach in the next section. I’ll now give six more cases where classical utilitarianism has bizarre implications. (3) You’re a utilitarian philosopher hired to give a moral justification of slavery. You say, “My job is easy; I just have to make sure that the benefits to the slave owners outweigh the harm to the slaves.” So you encourage the slave owners to derive greater enjoyment from having slaves. And you use drugs or brain surgery on the slaves to keep them docile and have them enjoy being slaves. If slavery maximizes the total pleasure, then utilitarianism approves of it. (4) You maximize pleasure by secretly killing your miserable rich father and donating his money to buy a park for poor children. Utilitarianism approves. Copyright © 2017. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. (5) You’re a judge who sentences an innocent man to death for a crime he didn’t commit. By discouraging terrorism, your act maximizes the total pleasure. Utilitarianism permits any harm to individuals for the sake of the general good. (6) You could bring about the same pleasure-pain results by either honest or dishonest means. Utilitarianism says that it doesn’t matter morally which you use. (7) You hurt someone, because this brings you more pleasure than the pain it causes the other person. Your act has no further pleasure or pain consequences. Utilitarianism approves. (8) After graduation, you’re deciding between a job with a normal company and a job with the Mafia. The Mafia job would seem to have slightly better total consequences (especially since it’s in a great hiking area and you and your family love hiking). The Mafia, of course, conducts criminal activities that harm other people; but you consider that this harm shouldn’t count against your taking the Gensler, Harry J.. Ethics : A Contemporary Introduction, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ualberta/detail.action?docID=5178444. Created from ualberta on 2024-09-06 13:56:04.  Consequentialism 183 Mafia job, since the harm will happen the same way regardless of which job you take (if you take the other job, the Mafia will just hire someone else to harm these people). So, as a good utilitarian, you decide on the Mafia job. Now the fictional Ima Rule Utilitarian will present his improved form of util- itarianism that tries to avoid problems like 1 to 8. 10.5 Ima Rule Utilitarian Pluralistic Rule Utilitarianism: Evaluating consequences in terms of a pluralism of goods (like virtue, knowledge, pleasure, life, and freedom), we ought always to follow the rules whose following would maximize long-term good consequences. My name is Ima Rule Utilitarian. I believe that the goal of morality is to maximize long-term good consequences for everyone. However, I see “good conse- quences” in broader terms than just pleasure and pain – and I recognize the use- fulness of sometimes following strict rules (not just “rules of thumb”). My girlfriend, Ima Utilitarian, says that morality is about promoting happiness. So we ought always to do whatever action maximizes the balance of pleasure over pain for everyone affected by our action. While this sounds good, it has some bizarre implications and is self-defeating; but we can avoid these problems by changing the view in two ways. I suggest that we move (1) from hedonism to pluralism, and (2) from act to rule utilitarianism. (1) What things are intrinsically good? What things are good in themselves, abstracting from further consequences? It might seem that pleasure is intrinsi- cally good, and pain intrinsically bad. But this has exceptions, since pleasure over another’s misfortune is intrinsically bad. Suppose your wife is upset over losing her job. It would be intrinsically bad if you felt pleasure over her distress, and intrinsically good if you felt distress over her distress. If so, then we can say only Copyright © 2017. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. that normally pleasure is intrinsically good and pain intrinsically bad. How should we pick our beliefs about what’s intrinsically good? Should we follow our intuitions, our feelings, or what is socially approved? I suggest rather that we try to be as rational as possible (informed, imaginative, consistent, and so forth) and then see what we desire for its own sake. This gives a rational way to pick beliefs about intrinsic worth. This leads me to accept pluralism, which says that many things are intrinsically good. These include virtue, knowledge, pleasure, life, freedom, and maybe a few more items. Their opposites (vice, ignorance, and so forth) are intrinsically bad. Ima Utilitarian rejects pluralism because she doubts that mere knowledge or virtue in itself, apart from the enjoyment of it, has intrinsic value. But we often desire knowledge or virtue for its own sake, regardless of whether these include pleasure. And we’d continue to do so if we came to be more rational (informed, Gensler, Harry J.. Ethics : A Contemporary Introduction, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ualberta/detail.action?docID=5178444. Created from ualberta on 2024-09-06 13:56:04.  184 Part 4: Normative Ethics imaginative, consistent, and so forth). Imagine two lives equal in pleasure. In the first life, your pleasure is mindless and comes from a “pleasure machine” that stimulates your brain. The second life gives you the same amount of pleasure, but it comes from normal living. Almost everyone would prefer the second life, even though both have the same amount of pleasure. So our preferences are pluralistic, not hedonistic. And becoming more rational wouldn’t change these preferences. So our rational preferences support the pluralistic view. Hedonism is wrong to identify happiness with pleasure; these aren’t the same thing. Pleasure is an enjoyable feeling; happiness is an overall contentment with our life based on understanding how our life connects with wider purposes. We might have many pleasures but be unhappy, seeing our life of pleasures as mean- ingless. Or we might have few pleasures but be happy, seeing our life as deeply meaningful, as making a difference to people’s lives. The key to being happy is to live right, in a meaningful way; contentment is a byproduct of right living. Pluralism about value fixes some problems. On classical utilitarianism, these actions would be right if they maximized the balance of pleasure over pain: 1. A lynch mob hangs you because it gets great pleasure from this. 2. You keep slaves (whom you drug so that they enjoy being slaves) – since this brings your family great pleasure. 3. You secretly kill your miserable rich father and donate his money to buy a park for poor children. I see all three actions as wrong. In case 1, the lynch mob’s sadistic pleasures are intrinsically bad and your life (which is taken away) is intrinsically good; so the lynching has bad consequences. In case 2, freedom is intrinsically good; so you harm the slaves greatly if you take away their freedom. In case 3, the life of your father is intrinsically good; so you harm him if you take his life. So we can avoid many problems by switching from hedonism to pluralism. But there are still a few problems – like this example: Copyright © 2017. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. 3a. You secretly kill your miserable rich father and donate part of his money to buy a park for poor children and part to fund medical research (which will save lives). Since your action maximizes pleasure and saves lives, it maximizes good consequences. I can’t accept that this killing would be right. Fortunately, the “rule utilitarian” part of my view gets me out of the problem. (2) Let me distinguish my rule utilitarianism from the usual act utilitarianism: Rule utilitarianism (RU): Do what would be prescribed by the rules with the best consequences for people to try to follow. Act utilitarianism (AU): Do the act with the best consequences. Gensler, Harry J.. Ethics : A Contemporary Introduction, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ualberta/detail.action?docID=5178444. Created from ualberta on 2024-09-06 13:56:04.  Consequentialism 185 RU takes a two-step approach to determining duty. First, we ask what rules would have the best consequences for people in society to try to follow (considering human imperfections and limitations). Second, we apply these rules to our action. I’ll argue that RU’s two-step approach avoids AU’s bizarre implications and has better consequences for society. Classical utilitarians have little respect for rules. They scorn strict norms. They see moral rules as loose “rules of thumb” that should be violated whenever doing so seems to have better results. They see humans as rationalistic calculators, who can clearly think out alternative actions, accurately predict long-range conse- quences, put numbers on these, add up the numbers, and decide what to do. This idea has four main problems: Quantity of pleasure is vague. Try setting your watch to play a chime every hour; when you hear it, ask, “How much pleasure or pain am I feeling right now?” You usually won’t know how to answer. Adding up pleasure and pain units doesn’t work. Suppose you’re deciding whether to have a painful root-canal operation to prevent a constant slight pain whenever you eat. There’s no way to add up “pain units” to see which choice minimizes your “sum total of pain.” Long-term consequences are seldom clear. When we apply utilitarianism, we do lots of guessing. Humans aren’t rationalistic calculators. We humans, being weak and easily tempted, will often twist this confusing utilitarian standard to talk ourselves into doing very foolish things. So we rule utilitarians have little respect for speculation about consequences. In some areas of life, following strict rules has far better long-term results. Consider the “lying politicians” case: Two candidates are running for office. Both think, as nearly all candidates do, that their own victory would maximize good conse- Copyright © 2017. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. quences. And both think that lying about their opponent promotes their own victory, and thus maximizes good consequences; so both lie. And many other politicians reason the same way. So politics turns dirty; this greatly harms democracy, since it prevents honest debates about issues. The best liars are elected and control the country. So it can have very bad consequences if people use utilitarianism to guide their choices. We rule utilitarians propose that politicians should follow a strict rule of not lying about their political opponents. It would have far better consequences if politicians follow this strict rule instead of following the act-utilitarian idea that it’s permis- sible to lie about your opponents if this is thought to have better consequences – which would lead to lots of lying and would ruin democracy. Here are some further cases where strict rules have far better consequences: Gensler, Harry J.. Ethics : A Contemporary Introduction, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ualberta/detail.action?docID=5178444. Created from ualberta on 2024-09-06 13:56:04.  186 Part 4: Normative Ethics Killing: It has better results if we follow a strict rule not to kill (with a few carefully defined exceptions, like self-defense). It would be scary to live in a world where people think it’s permissible to kill their roommate or sentence an innocent person to death, if this is thought to have slightly better consequences. The Mafia. It has better consequences if we follow a rule not to cause harm to others and not to support organizations that do this. Act utilitarianism denies personal responsibility here (“If I don’t work for the Mafia then someone else will, and so the harm to others will happen in the same way”) – which harms society. Recreational drugs. It has better consequences if we follow a strict rule not to take heroin for recreational purposes – and teach this to our children. People tempted to take drugs tend to make poor decisions. If they calculate consequences, they’ll more likely give in to peer pressure and yield to temptation, and so ruin their lives through drug addic- tions. Following a simple rule has better results: “Just say no.” Adultery. Suppose that you’re a happily married man who dearly loves his family. You’re away on a trip and are tempted to infidelity. It would have better results to follow “Don’t commit adultery” instead of “Commit adultery if and only if this has the best consequences.” Men tempted to infidelity are notoriously bad decision-makers. They too easily convince themselves that infidelity will have the best con- sequences, saying, “A one-night stand will be pleasant and have no future bad results.” But adultery is apt to have very bad results; it’s apt to destroy your marriage and hurt you and the people you love. Following a simple rule has better results: “Just say no.” So it can be useful in some areas (but surely not in all areas) to have strict rules. Ima Utilitarian had three arguments against exceptionless duties. But these argu- ments fall apart if we examine them carefully. (a) “As a matter of logic, a consistent moral system can’t have more than one exceptionless Copyright © 2017. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. norm; otherwise, the norms will sometimes conflict, leading to contradictions.” Sorry Ima, not all groups of exceptionless norms would conflict. Consider these three negative norms: Never kill innocent people for their race or political/religious beliefs. Never take heroin for recreational purposes. Never commit rape. These won’t conflict. So it may be consistent to accept a few exceptionless norms, especially negative ones, so long as they’re formulated carefully. (b) “There can’t be exceptionless duties, because these would lead to inhu- mane results in unusual cases.” But the most plausible exceptionless norms, such as the three mentioned just above, forbid seriously inhumane actions. Gensler, Harry J.. Ethics : A Contemporary Introduction, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ualberta/detail.action?docID=5178444. Created from ualberta on 2024-09-06 13:56:04.  Consequentialism 187 (c) “There can’t be exceptionless duties, because any rule should be violated if this is needed to keep Dr Evil from torturing everyone and then destroying the world.” Hey, can you trust Dr Evil to actually do what he says he’s going to do? And perhaps exceptionless duties are intended to apply just to real cases, not imaginary “Dr Evil” cases. When should we take a norm as very strict, or even exceptionless? I suggest that we take a norm more strictly if doing so tends to prevent great evils or foolish choices. “Great evils” covers things like destroying democracy, killing an innocent per- son, causing a drug addiction, or ruining a happy marriage. “Prevent foolish choices” reminds us that we’re less rational in some situations; in our rational moments we need to pick rules to use in our less rational moments. So when great evils are at stake and following looser rules will likely lead to bad choices, we need to follow strict or even exceptionless rules. It’s important to insist that some (but not all) moral rules should be taken very strictly. Many problems come from people who take moral rules very loosely and thus can talk themselves into doing almost anything. Let me sum up. My improved version of utilitarianism claims that we should evaluate consequences in terms of a pluralism of goods, including virtue, knowl- edge, pleasure, life, and freedom; and we ought to follow the rules with the best consequences for society to follow. My version of utilitarianism is better because it avoids the bizarre implications of classical utilitarianism and because its stress on having some strict rules would have better results for society. Reflect on how you react to this view. Do you have objections? 10.6 RU problems Is pluralistic rule utilitarianism acceptable? It surely seems better than classical utilitarianism. Its pluralistic approach to intrinsic value makes sense. And it has a deeper understanding of human psychology; it sees that humans, without strict rules, will often talk themselves into doing foolish things. Copyright © 2017. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. RU seems to avoid the bizarre implications. It’s difficult to be sure about this, because it’s difficult to know what RU would lead to. Applying the “maximize good consequences” test to rules isn’t much easier than applying it to individual actions. In many cases, we can only guess at the long-range results of following one rule instead of another. And so one problem with RU is that it’s difficult to determine what rules we ought to follow. Another problem is that rule utilitarianism, even if it would generally lead to the right answers, would seem to do so for the wrong reasons. Why is it wrong to kill your father in order to donate his inheritance to fund a park and medical research? Is this action wrong just because it’s socially useful to have a strict rule against killing? What if the rules that were most socially useful would permit kill- ing your father? Then would killing your father be right? It’s hard to believe that it would be. Nonconsequentialists think it’s wrong to kill your father because it’s Gensler, Harry J.. Ethics : A Contemporary Introduction, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ualberta/detail.action?docID=5178444. Created from ualberta on 2024-09-06 13:56:04.  190 Part 4: Normative Ethics just hire someone else; so whether you take the job makes no differ- ence to the harm done to others. Should you take the Mafia job? Again, the act-utilitarian answer is “clearly yes.” But most of us think it would be wrong for you to work for the Mafia, since you personally would be causing harm to others, even though the same harm would happen if you rejected the Mafia job. This answer depends on a rule-utilitarian or nonconsequentialist principle like “You ought not to personally cause harm to others” (§11.1, B2). Here are two more cases of the same sort: CASE 4. You’re a doctor at a hospital, and you have five patients who’ll die unless they get specific body parts right away. Assuming that you have no other way to save these five patients, should you secretly kill one healthy patient with good body parts and give these to the five patients, in order to save their lives? CASE 5. You and your two children are prisoners in a Nazi concen- tration camp. The Nazi guard tells you, “If you kill one of your chil- dren, I’ll spare the other; otherwise, I’ll kill both.” Should you kill one of your children? Again, the act-utilitarian answer is “clearly yes” in both cases – without hesitancy – since the result is better (one patient dead instead of five, or one child dead instead of two). If you answer “no,” or if you hesitate, then you likely hold a principle against personally causing harm to others.1 In the main text, I try to give clear-cut examples against act utilitarianism. So I avoid trolley cases, where we may really struggle about how to answer. 10.9 Chapter summary Consequentialism says that we ought to do whatever maximizes good conse- quences. It doesn’t in itself matter what kind of thing we do. What matters is that Copyright © 2017. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. we maximize good results. Types of consequentialism include classical utilitari- anism, egoism, and pluralistic rule utilitarianism. Classical utilitarianism says that we ought always to do whatever maximizes the long-term balance of pleasure over pain for everyone affected by our action. This could be based on GR, which leads us to be concerned about other people’s happiness. Or it could be based on God’s will, self-evident truths, or feelings. We can apply utilitarianism directly (by listing alternatives, estimating their consequences, and then picking the alternative with the best consequences) or indirectly (by applying a “rule of thumb” about what kinds of action tend to have good or bad results). Many utilitarians reject exceptionless rules; they think any rule should be broken when it has better consequences to do so. So they see 1 A complication in the Nazi case is that we perhaps can’t assume that the Nazi guard will do as he says; someone that evil may, after you kill one child, just kill the other one too. Gensler, Harry J.. Ethics : A Contemporary Introduction, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ualberta/detail.action?docID=5178444. Created from ualberta on 2024-09-06 13:56:04.  Consequentialism 191 moral rules only as loose “rules of thumb.” Opponents object that utilitarianism can have bizarre implications that violate GR (as in the “lunching is fun” case) and is self-defeating because following it often brings bad consequences (as in the “lying politicians” case). Pluralistic rule utilitarianism is a modified form of utilitarianism. It accepts a pluralistic view of value (that many things are intrinsically good, including virtue, knowledge, pleasure, life, and freedom). It also says that we ought to do what would be prescribed by the rules with the best consequences for people to try to follow (since without strict rules we’ll too often talk ourselves into doing foolish things). Rule utilitarians claim that their approach avoids the bizarre implications and produces better consequences. One may object that rule utilitarianism is difficult to apply and that, even if it leads to the right answers, it does so for the wrong reasons. Perhaps we should oppose killing the innocent on the basis of this act being wrong in itself. Optional sections discuss Bentham and Mill (important utilitarians) and the trolley problem (a thought experiment that tests our utilitarian tendencies). 10.10 Study questions 1. How do consequentialism and nonconsequentialism differ? (10.1) 2. What is (classical) utilitarianism? (10.2) 3. How did studying cultural relativism first lead Ima Utilitarian toward utili- tarianism? 4. How did GR confirm Ima’s belief in utilitarianism? What other paths could bring one to utilitarianism? 5. Explain the direct and indirect ways to apply utilitarianism. When should we use the direct method? 6. Why did Ima reject exceptionless norms? 7. What is utilitarianism’s approach to virtue and justice? Explain how dimin- ishing marginal utility tends to favor equality of wealth. 8. How do egoistic and utilitarian forms of consequentialism differ? Why did Ima reject egoism? (10.3) Copyright © 2017. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. 9. What was Ima’s view about what is intrinsically good? What is pluralism and why did she reject it? 10. Sketch your initial reaction to utilitarianism. Does it seem plausible to you? What do you like and dislike about it? Can you think of any way to show that it’s false? 11. Explain the “lynching is fun” and “lying politicians” objections to utilitar- ianism. How could utilitarians respond to such objections? (10.4) 12. Among the other objections, which two do you take to be the strongest? 13. What does pluralism hold? Why might one prefer this to hedonism? (10.5) 14. What is happiness and how does it seem to differ from pleasure? 15. How does pluralism helps us avoid objections to classical utilitarianism? 16. What is rule utilitarianism? Apply it to the “lying politicians” example.