Module 9: The Pleasure - PDF

1 Module 9: The Pleasure Learning Outcomes At the end of this module, the students should be able to: 1. Define the kinds of Relativism. 2. Determine the differences between Hedonism, and utilitarianism. 3. Apply the existence of subjective morality. This module discusses the search for...

1 Module 9: The Pleasure Learning Outcomes At the end of this module, the students should be able to: 1. Define the kinds of Relativism. 2. Determine the differences between Hedonism, and utilitarianism. 3. Apply the existence of subjective morality. This module discusses the search for something that might make life satisfying, the most obvious candidate is pleasure We can distinguish two descriptive meanings of pleasure: (1) the whole range of sensations or feelings that we get through the stimulation of our bodily organs and nerve endings, its opposite is bodily pain, and (2) the entire class of experiences PROBLEM that any person enjoys, likes, or finds satisfying, its opposite is a painful or unenjoyable experience. Whichever of these two meanings is acquitted makes no difference, for in both cases the pleasure is explicitly or implicitly apprehended by the person as worthy of being desired. PROBLEM The good life might accidentally happen to someone, but the odds are strongly against it. Even if a person were in ideal circumstances, he or she can so misuse the opportunities that failure and frustration are the results. Philosophy, as organized human wisdom, is supposed to show us bow to avoid falling into any such unhappy state and to give us positive help toward making this life as satisfying as it can be. In the search for something that might make life satisfying, the most obvious candidate is plea sure We can distinguish two descriptive meanings of pleasure: (1) the whole range of sensations or feelings that we get through the stimulation of our bodily organs and nerve endings, its opposite is bodily pain, and (2) the entire class of experiences that any person enjoys, likes, or finds satisfying, its opposite is a painful or unenjoyable experience. Whichever of these two meanings is acquitted makes no difference, for in both cases the pleasure is explicitly or implicitly apprehended by the person as worthy of being desired. No one objects to enjoyment though not all will enjoy the same thing. One who enjoys nothing is in a sad condition indeed, except those ab- normal persons who paradoxically enjoy being miserable, and they at least seem to enjoy that. So, there is a place for pleasure in the good life. Many think that it is the only element in the good life, and this view expressed philosophically is called hedonism, from the Greek word for pleasure. Hedonism assumes two chief forms, according to whose pleasure is sought Egoistic hedonism concentrates on the personal pleasure of the in dividual Altruistic hedonism seeks the pleasure of others, if it embraces that of the whole human race, it is 2 often called universalistic hedonism. We shall follow general practice in reserving the word hedonist for the egoistic variety and calling the altruistic and universalistic variety utilitarianism. We consider the following questions: 1. What are the reasons for and against egoistic hedonism? 2. What are the reasons for and against altruistic hedonism or utilitarianism? 3. What is the proper place of pleasure in the good life? HEDONISM Hedonism is one of the oldest, simplest, and most earthy of ethical theories. It has persisted throughout all ages, and many people who have never consciously formulated for themselves any philosophy of life live according to its principles. We find hedonism first proposed by Aristippus, leader of the Cyrenaic school, who identified happiness with pleasure. He held that pleasure results from gentle motion, and pain from rough motion Anything is good that produces pleasure, and that is best that produces the most vivid and intense pleasure. Virtue is useful as restraining us from excessive passion, which is rough motion and unpleasant. Hedonism was refined by Epicurus, who joined it to the physical theories of Democritus. It is the ethics most consistent with mechanistic materialism For Epicurus the end of life is not intense pleasure, but an abiding peace of mind, a state of cheerful tranquility. Above all we must avoid fear of the gods and fear of death. Intellectual pleasures are better because they are more lasting, but we cannot do without sense pleasures. The wise man so regulates his life as to get into it the greatest amount of pleasure and the least amount of pain. Moderation is counseled to enable one to enjoy future pleasures We must learn to restrict our desires within the bounds in which we think we can satisfy then. Whatever will increase our pleasure or our general peace of mind is good, and anything that decreases it is bad. “We call pleasure the beginning and end of the blessed life. For we recognize pleasure as the first good innate in us, and from pleasure we begin every act of choice and avoidance, and to pleasure we return again, using the feeling as the standard by which we judge every good. And since pleasure is the first good and natural to us, for this very reason we do not choose every pleasure, but sometimes we pass over many pleasures, when greater discomfort accrues to us as the result of them.... Every pleasure then because of its natural kinship to us is good, yet not every pleasure is to be chosen even as every pain also is an evil, yet not all are always of a nature to be avoided. Yet by a scale of comparison and by the consideration of advantages and disadvantages 3 we must form our judgment on all of these matters.... When, therefore, we maintain that pleasure is the end, we do not mean the pleasures of profligates and those that consist in sensuality... hut freedom from pain in the body and from trouble in the mind.” Thomas Hobbes would hardly be classed as an Epicurean, but he does subscribe to a hedonistic view with a strong strain of egoism. He thinks that nothing is by itself good or evil, but that these are names we give to what we desire or detest. We desire what will give us pleasure, either of body or mind, and we detest what gives us displeasure. He does not think that the tranquility lauded by the Epicureans is possible in this struggling world, but the formation of the political state is our only means of controlling the struggle and making life bearable. Society is formed not for the benefit of other people or of humankind as such but for the peace and safety of each particular person looking out primarily for himself or herself. Though Jeremy Bentham did not limit his hedonism to the egoistic type and is commonly regarded as the founder of utilitarianism, his statement of the hedonistic principle is classic: “Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do. as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it. In words a man may pretend to abjure their empire: but in reality, he will remain subject to it all the while. The principle of utility recognizes this subjection, and assumes it for the foundation of that system, the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the hands of reason and law.” In Bentham we have hedonism with the egoistic aspect toned down. In our day, several varieties of egoism have appeared with the pleasure aspect deemphasized. Robert Olson argues for a naturalistic pursuit of both personal and social wellbeing, in which rational self-interest is the supreme moral criterion, and health, friendship, contentment, and pleasure are the chief goods. Ayn Rands carries self-interest still further and makes a virtue of selfishness. The ultimate value is a person's survival, without which there would be no people to have other values, and each one is responsible for working out the means to survival. This must be done by reason, not by whim. She is confident that individual codes of values, if rationally constructed, will not conflict, for we deal with one another as traders, giving value for value. No sacrifice for 4 another's sake is ever necessary, for the compromises we must make are in our own self-interest. Thus, an economic system of laissez-faire capitalism and a hands-off policy by government are essential. Working egotistically but rationally for self will automatically bring about the best for all. These samples of the hedonistic view are sufficient for our purpose. We may sum up the case for hedonism as follows: 1. The basic assumption, that everything we do is for pleasure, is an evident fact. Why should person do anything except to fulfill a desire, and what is a desire if not a striving for something I want, and why should I want anything unless it affords me some satisfaction? Some think that we cannot act except for pleasure, or for the avoidance of pain, which is a kind of negative pleasure Others do not insist on the impossibility of acting otherwise but state that we do not act otherwise. Still others will admit that we do often ad otherwise, but we ought not, for to deprive ourselves of pleasure is an unwise wasting of life's opportunities. 2. Few hedonists would limit people to sense pleasures alone. By including pleasures of intellect, imagination, and emotion, hedonists have no difficulty in explaining why people readily forego sense pleasure for the fulfillment of duty. because they acknowledge the satisfaction, we experience in a duty well done. There is something Intellectually satisfying in a harmonious life, even if it costs us something to live it. Self-sacrifice for others, if we want to call it that, stimulates our imagination, especially when we imaginatively put ourselves in another's place. Even heroism under the most tragic circumstances can be so emotionally appealing that we choose it rather than live in ignoble comfort. 3. Willingness to curb our appetites for the common good of society is explained by the fact that we ourselves are members of that society and share in this common good. Thus, there is always a self-regarding interest in what seems to be the most altruistic behavior. Why not frankly admit it, instead of trying to disguise it under a puritanical hypocrisy? Even love has its self-regarding aspect and is unfulfilled unless it is returned. 4. Those who seek a reward in a next life are likewise motivated by hedonism. They are willing to wait longer for the enjoyment they hope for. but it is this expectation of future happiness that motivates them to endure their present sufferings. Christianity has thus been called "egoism with a spyglass.” The bliss of heaven is made appealing by fostering the belief that it will exceed anything we can now imagine, and its secure possession forever is worth a temporary price. Non hedonists do not find these arguments convincing: 5 1. Mere statement of the hedonistic principle does not make it true. That many people pursue pleasure all the time and that all of us pursue it some of the time can be readily granted, but there are too many glaring exceptions for it to be a universal rule. Though I cannot willfully act except for something I want in some sense of the word want, and achieving it will be a satisfaction of that want, yet it does not follow that the want and the satisfaction must be of the type properly called pleasure. That we always act for pleasure can be refuted by deliberately refusing a plea sure; if we are told that we did it for the pleasure of showing our opponent wrong, then pleasure is made to mean any kind of acting; to hold that we always do what we do is hardly distinctive of hedonism. 2. Duty, generosity, self-sacrifice, and heroism have their attendant satisfaction; otherwise, they could not be motives for acting. But to call every such satisfaction by the name of pleasure is a misuse of words. On what is the mind fixed, the duty itself or the pleasure attending it, the person helped, or the glow felt in helping that person, the sacrifice made or the joy in making it, the heroic act or the emotional uplift in dying nobly? It seems here that the accompanying pleasure can be absent and, even when it is present, it is too paltry to be the main motive. Even if it were uppermost, what constitutes the act as a moral act-- the fact that it is an act of duty, generosity, self-sacrifice, or heroism, or the fact that I enjoy it? If only the latter, wisdom dictates that I should pick less painful enjoyments. 3. The good of society does redound to the good of the individual. But what happens when the good of society does not redound to the good of this individual, as when someone is called on to make the supreme sacrifice for the benefit of others? Hedonism requires that the person cooperate with society only so far as he or she can share in its benefits. Enlightened self-interest has its place, but is society possible on these terms? To use society for one's own benefit alone seems to be the source from which most of the ills of society spring. And though there is a self-regarding aspect in all love, hedonists are not logical unless they make it the only aspect. 4. To live the moral life exclusively for the sake of pleasurable rewards, even in the life to come, would be a form of hedonism. There is surely nothing wrong in hoping for the happiness of heaven, just as there is nothing wrong in seeking legitimate pleasure on earth; hedonism occurs only when pleasure is made the exclusive end. The true hedonist would not do good or avoid evil unless there were a reward for it. In the hedonist's mind, there is no good or evil except in the reward. Thus, the one to be rewarded becomes the last end and the highest 6 good. Most believers in a future life also believe that this would be the surest way of losing the reward. UTILITARIANISM The extension of hedonism beyond the pleasure of the individual to the pleasure of the group, and then to the pleasure of all humankind, is called utilitarianism. Jeremy Bentham' starts, as we have seen, with the idea that pleasure and pain are the only motives governing human activity; and goes on to show that personal pleasure and pain depend on the general happiness and prosperity of the whole community. Therefore, in framing a hedonistic calculus, the calculation of pleasures and pains inseparable from any hedonistic system, we must consider, among the other criteria of intensity, duration, certainty, propinquity, fecundity, and purity, also the extent of pleasure and pain, the number of people affected by our policy of conduct. The moral goodness of an act is to be judged by its utility in promoting the common welfare of all as well as the personal advantage of each. The aim of human life is expressed in the Greatest Happiness Principle: "The greatest happiness of the greatest number." How. ever, since Bentham wishes to promote the interests of the community at large chiefly because doing so will redound to oneself as a member of that community, his system is still more egoistic than altruistic. In John Stuart Mill, utilitarianism reached its full development. He recognized its strong roots in hedonism: “The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, utility, or the greatest happiness principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to pre mote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended plea. sure, and the absence of pain, by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure.” Whereas Bentham thought that units of plea sure and pain can be calculated arithmetically, and that ethics can be made Into an exact science, Mill recognized that pleasures differ in quality as well as in quantity, that there are higher and lower pleasures, so that a lesser amount of a higher pleasure is better than a greater amount of a lower pleasure, the determination to be made by a person of culture who can experience both. “It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.” 7 An existence as free from pain and as rich in enjoyments as possible, both in quantity and quality to be secured to all people, is the end of human action and the standard of morality. His proof is often quoted in logic books as an ex: ample of a fallacy, since "desirable" does not mean "able to be desired" but "worthy of being desired:" “The only proof capable of being given that an object is visible, is that people see it. The only proof that a sound is audible, is that people hear It and so of the other sources of our experience. In like manner, I apprehend, the sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable, is that people do actually desire it.... No reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable except that each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness. This, however, being a fact, we have not only all the proof which the case admits of, but all which it is possible to require, that happiness is a good that each person's happiness is a good to that person, and the general happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate of all persons.” He goes on to show that virtue, far from being opposed to happiness, is one of the elements that make up happiness: the feeling of self-satisfaction in contributing to the common welfare even at personal expense. Utilitarianism was given a new turn by Henry Sidgwick, who united it with intuitionism. He has done us the service of putting utilitarianism to a most searching scholarly examination but can find no unassailable proofs for it. The greatest happiness principle is not an empirical induction, as Mill thought. The only way to save it as an ethical principle is to make it a rational intuition, like the axioms of mathematics. Sidgwick was convinced that there is no practical incompatibility between utilitarianism and intuitionism, though he could find no positive theory to explain their union. GE. Moore' combines utilitarianism and Intuitionism in a different way. He calls his theory ideal utilitarianism. All actions are to be judged by their consequences, that is, their usefulness in producing the ideal good for all people, which Includes but is not limited to pleasure, and is an irreducible and indefinable nonnaturalistic property cognizable by us in some intuitive way. Much is made today of a distinction between act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism. The former asks which act has the greatest utility, the latter which rule has. For the act utilitarian "tell- Ing the truth" may be a good general rule, but one should tell a lie if in this particular case the general good would certainly be advanced more thereby. For the rule utilitarian, "telling the truth" may be found to be so necessary a rule for the general good that no exception may be allowed, that one ought to observe it even in cases in which it may be fraught with adverse results; the permission of exceptions would in the long run have more disastrous 8 consequences than all the particular advantages that could be gained from breaking the rule. Both, however, are forms of utilitarianism, for neither the acts nor the rules have any value in themselves apart from the con sequences to which they lead. The same critique can be used, with proper reservations, of both. Since utilitarianism has always had trouble with its own logic, it can perhaps make out the best case for itself by pointing out its own useful con sequences: 1. Utilitarianism seeks a happiness in which all will be happy rather than only the fortunate few. The individual sacrifice required for this contribution to the general good is a small enough price to pay for the happiness of so many. In dividual pleasure tends to restrict itself, for no one should feel happy knowing that his or her happiness is bought by other's misery 2. As a wise combination of egoism and altruism, utilitarianism is an expression of the kind of life most of us lead. It recognizes that humans are social, that we are all in this enterprise of life together, and that like passengers in a boat, the safety of each is tied up with the safety of all. Avoidable pain should be eliminated. Unavoidable pain can be made tolerable by ensuring that no one has to bear more than his or her share. Thus, utilitarianism is a great stimulus to social improvement, for it takes people's egoistic tendencies and harnesses them to social needs, since each sees his or her own happiness integrated in that of the group. 3. Those charged with the public welfare can hardly use any other than utilitarian principles, since they must seek the common good and at the same time protect individual rights. Utilitarianism gives each person the right to seek his or her own pleasure and places limits on this only when the person would encroach on another's equal right. Utilitarianism thus seeks the greatest amount of individual liberty compatible with the greatest amount of public liberty. 4. Utilitarianism eliminates the grossness of egoistic hedonism by a qualitative discrimination of pleasures, and thus makes a place for culture, taste, and beauty in human life. It relies greatly on education as a means of enabling more people to appreciate the higher pleasures, and on eco nomic and social reform as a way of bringing the better life within their grasp. 5. Utilitarianism is contrary neither to virtue nor to religion. It demands the social virtues needed for community living and restrains only those few whose fanatical or distorted interpretation of virtue might issue in antisocial acts. The principle of utility itself 9 encourages the religious believer to store up treasures in heaven, if he or she is convinced of a future life and prohibits only the forceful imposition of such a belief on others, as destructive of freedom and incapable anyway of producing internal conviction. For these and other reasons we see that there is a great deal of truth to utilitarianism, for in any system of ethics, one must consider the consequences of one's actions and social consequences are important. When the question is merely one of public welfare and the means suggested to achieve it are all moral as determined by some other standard, those means should be chosen that will best promote the public welfare, as far as enlightened foresight can determine it. But it will not function as the basic, and certainly not as the only, standard of morality. Among others, there are the following criticisms: 1. Egoistic hedonism is at least logical in pro posing that, if pleasure is the highest good, each person should seek as much of it as possible. But why should anyone forego pleasure for the sake of others? If a person enjoys self-sacrificing tor others, that is still egoistic hedonism and not utilitarianism. If one feels that such sacrifice is some kind of duty, the duty will have to be established by a firmer argument than a mere announcement of the greatest happiness principle. 2. How is the pleasure of the group, and especially of all humanity, to be determined hardly by vote. Thus, the common pleasure will be decided by each person according to what is pleasure each one to think the common pleasure show be. We are back to egoistic hedonism. Also, home far into the future must we look? The greater happiness of the greatest number must include not only the present generation, but all future generations. Any action taken now may have an Indefinitely long train of consequences, and there is nothing in utilitarianism to limit us to immediately foreseeable consequences. 3. One of the simplest ways of eliminating pain from the world is to eliminate the sufferers. In fanticide for defective children, painless execution for hardened criminals, and euthanasia for the incurably sick would surely minimize pain throughout the world and increase the general level of happiness over unhappiness How, apart from some intolerable despotism, could such a program be carried out? Utilitarians in general would 'repudiate any such drastic measures as immoral, but then they are using some other standard of morality than the utilitarian one. 4. The altruistic component in utilitarianism is not justified by the system. Unless there is something in another person that makes that person worthy of the sacrifices, I am 10 called on to make, I am losing my personal pleasure in vain. If we say that it is the dignity of the human person, then that dignity is measured by some standard other than utility, especially if the person contributes nothing to my good or to the common good. The only kind of love utilitarianism can admit is a love based on usefulness, which is so poor a kind of love as hardly to deserve the name. 5. Virtue and religion can have only a peripheral place in utilitarianism. Virtue is recommended, not because it is virtue, but only because it has useful consequences. The possibility of a future life is tolerated as a harmless eccentricity for the only morally good acts acknowledged in the theory are those that maximize the pleasures of this life, and there is no way of knowing an act's worth for a future life without using some other criterion Utilitarianism remains typical of the bourgeois ideal of middle-class comfort and reduces to that level all aspirations toward nobility and heroism. THE PLACE OF PLEASURE IN THE GOOD LIFE The attempt to make pleasure, either of the in dividual or of the group, the main purpose of life and the standard of morality results in failure. That does not mean that pleasure is not important in human experience or that it has no ethical significance. If the extreme of hedonism is to make pleasure everything, the opposite extreme, which we may call the puritanical spirit, is to consider pleasure bad, as if there were something not only frivolous but defiling about it. The proper attitude must be somewhere between these extremes.' There is no sense in trying to define pleasure, but it can be described. We know what it is by experiencing it, and there is no doubt about the experience. Psychologists have written extensively on pleasure, but what they say has little ethical import, except for the hedonistic paradox--the fact that intense mental concentration on the pleasure one is now experiencing rather than on the pleasurable object causes the plea sure to disappear. This confirms the following analysis. We have no special faculty of pleasure. We cannot just simply enjoy. We enjoy this or that, which means that we enjoy doing something or experiencing something. The doing or experiencing must occur by the use of some ability we possess, the main purpose of which is something else besides enjoyment. The fact that we distinguish between sensuous and intellectual plea sure shows that pleasure is an accompaniment. of the use of these powers. 11 Electrical stimulation of an area of the brain can give us pure pleasure without any other ac companying activity. Even so, this could hardly be called normal life, and few people could afford to spend most of their time at it. The only thing that might be immoral about such stimulation would be that people might be tempted to overdo it and substitute it for real living. Since, in the process of normal living, no one of our abilities has as its purpose pleasure and nothing else, pleasure is but the accompaniment of the normal exercise of abilities that ex ist for the accomplishment of some other purpose. We eat primarily to keep ourselves alive, though eating is also pleasant. We have eyers to perceive what we need and to guide our movements, though many sights also give delight. Sex is the biological means for the repro duction of the race, though it also has its pleasure Intellect enables us to live a civilized life, and there is also satisfaction in a problem successfully solved. The same can be said of our other abilities. Pleasure finds its place in the scheme of things by alluring a person to exercise a natural function that is otherwise beneficial to the individual or the race. We might not take the trouble to eat unless we felt hunger and food had a taste. We keep our eyes open because we enjoy looking People would not shoulder the responsibilities of matrimony were it not for the pleasures of married life. We would give up hard thinking if we did not find prob. leis an attractive challenge. It would be a mistake to think of pleasure merely as a means to an end. This is what it is objectively, in the way human nature is structured, and people also use pleasure as a means when they offer it to others as an incentive. But pleasure considered subjectively, as a personal experience of the enjoyer, is sought for its own sake and is its own end. It is foolish to ask someone why he or she wants enjoyment. We want it because we enjoy it. Failure to distinguish these two aspects of plea sure, the subjective and the objective, lies behind the two extreme attitudes we have mentioned. It is not possible to reduce pleasure to a mere means, at least for the person enjoying it, and one cannot help seeking it for its own sake, since that is the kind of thing it is. In this respect one may agree with the view that pleasure taken precisely as pleasure is always good and never bad. If a pleasure can ever be called bad, it is not because the pleasing object is pleasant but because it has other features connected with it that are harmful or unworthy, such as violating others' rights or stunting one's personality. Thus, there is nothing wrong in seeking pleasure for its own sake, since it cannot be sought otherwise, but it must be done in a fitting manner. It is when we so center on the subjective aspect of pleasure to the exclusion of the objective, by making plea sure the only end or the 12 chief end in life, that we thereby exclude the end for which pleasure is adapted by nature as a means. By acting, thus we contradict our own nature and make ourselves incapable of fulfilling the purpose for which we exist. So, pleasure is an end and a good, but it is not the last end and the highest good, though there could hardly be a last end or a highest good unaccompanied by a corresponding degree of pleasure. Also, we must not forget the partial character of pleasure compared with the all- embracing nature of happiness. The pleasures of this life are not attainable by all people at all times. To have some pleasures we must forego others. Pleasure is not lasting, for none of our faculties can stand ceaseless exercise. Too much indulgence makes pleasure cloying and often brings with it its own punishment: Old age diminishes the possibility of pleasure, and death ends it. Hence, though there is nothing wrong with pleasure, it cannot fully satisfy. Altruistic pleasure, though on a higher plane than egoistic, is also unsatisfying. The joy we feel in kindness, in giving gifts, in helping others, in relieving distress, in social uplift, in works of charity and benevolence, is among the purest and best we can experience. The many who devote their lives to these activities are worthy of praise, but again, not all have the time and means for such works, the Joy taken in them is often marred by ingratitude, and many schemes for the betterment of humanity grind to a halt in disillusionment. The philanthropist is by all means to be encouraged, but such a person had better keep in mind those being helped and not expect too much personal satisfaction. Besides, there is something incoherent in the altruistic Ideal un buttressed by other aims. If we exist for the sake of other people what are the other people for If everybody exists for the sake of everybody else, then, when the process is brought round full circle, what is all humanity for? This last is the question that egoism and altruism, hedonism and utilitarianism, indeed all other forms of naturalistic humanism, remain unable to answer. Despite many useful contributions to the study of human life, pleasure ethics has some problems that must be overcome if such an ethics is to be helpful to us in living a meaningful life. Questions for Discussion and Assessment 1. If, according to Ayn Rand, the ultimate value is a person's survival and each person is re sponsible for working out the means to survival, government ought not interfere in any way in people's lives. Nevertheless, we find the federal, state, and local governments fostering welfare programs of various types to help people who seem unable to help themselves. Could Ayn Rand on her own principles justify welfare programs? How? 13 2. Develop a critique of the following criticism of utilitarianism: The trouble with utilitarian ism is that it lays the groundwork for wiping out one group of innocent people after another, for example, the old because they are not producing anything, the young because they are a nuisance, cripples because they are too much trouble, and racial minorities because they are hated. The greatest pleasure for the greatest number really means "the greater pleasure for the greater number." 3. Take either the position of an act utilitarian or a rule utilitarian and show how the principle of utility applies to such questions as homosexual acts between consenting adults, divorce, capital punishment, gambling, the use of alcohol by adults, premarital sex, and the manufacture and sale of pornographic materials to adults. 4. When individual persons tell lies, those acts are called "lies," but when the government tells a lie, that act is called "giving disinformation." The "disinformation" is given in or der to deceive the public about government intentions and actions that are either ongoing or contemplated, for example, covert bombing raids in Cambodia during the Vietnam War or the preparations to rescue the American hostages in Teheran. Imagine that you are a convinced utilitarian and have been called upon by the government to justify to the press corps the use of "disinformation" in both in stances. How would you go about your task without compromising your utilitarianism? 5. Derive the principle "all life must be preserved whenever possible" from the principle of utility and then show how that principle leads to a specific position on abortion, capital punishment, vivisection, meat and fish eating, and the eradication of insects. 5. Derive the principle "all life must be preserved whenever possible" from the principle of utility and then show how that principle leads to a specific position on abortion, capital punishment, vivisection, meat and fish eating, and the eradication of insects.