Notes to Utilitarianism

                                                               John Stuart Mill (father of Utilitarianism)

Traditional utilitarianism: Action is right if it maximizes happiness everyone considered (the greatest majority of people) in construction....

Keep in mind that utilitarians are all consequentialists: An action is right because of the consequences of the actions.

Utilitarianism is a 100% British moral theory. A side note: Karl Marx loved England's political climate because of utilitarianism. A famous utilitarian in the 19th Century was J. Stuart Mill. In the 20th century, we have Richard M. Hare, and a great advocate for animal rights, Professor Peter Singer. 

Note: Utilitarianism wins over egoism as a social theory. Here we have to go to the explicit terms of the theory. One favors the individual, and the other favors the group. If you vote for politicians A & B and you know A is an egoist and B a utilitarian, you'd be smart enough to vote for B.

Utilitarianism seems logical in the case of the trolley mind experiment.

As before, a trolley is hurtling down a track towards five people. You are on a bridge under which it will pass, and you can stop it by putting something very heavy in front of it. As it happens, there is a very fat man next to you – your only way to stop the trolley is to push him over the bridge and onto the track, killing him to save five. Should you proceed? 

This is more difficult:

A brilliant transplant surgeon has five patients, each in need of a different organ, each of whom will die without that organ. Unfortunately, there are no organs available to perform any of these five transplant operations. A healthy young traveler, just passing through the city the doctor works in, comes in for a routine checkup. In the course of doing the checkup, the doctor discovers that his organs are compatible with all five of his dying patients. Suppose further that if the young man were to disappear, no one would suspect the doctor. Should he let the five patients die or save their lives? 

Problems with the calculation of happiness

* HAPPINESS IS DEFINED NOT ONLY IN TERMS OF QUANTITY BUT ALSO OF QUALITY. Example: what gives more happiness, to watch a bad series on TV or a good film? To spend two hours watching porno or to have a nice conversation with your girlfriend? 

* HOW CAN HAPPINESS BE DISTRIBUTED? Suppose that what makes John happy is not what makes Peter happy. Take it to the social level: What makes Group A happy doesn't make Group B happy. Suppose furthermore that group A is a majority and group B is a minority. A seems to win more happiness because there are many more members of A than members of B.

  Three counterarguments against Traditional Utilitarianism (you need to know them).

* McCloskey Utilitarian Informant: In a mixed town there's racial strife brought about as a result of a black man raping a white woman. A chief of police decides that a quick arrest of a black person (who is innocent) will stop the riots. He concludes that he's doing the right thing by following the traditional utilitarian calculus. However, the action is wrong since it violates an innocent person's rights.

* Brandt Utilitarian Heir: A family of two brothers their wives and kids and an elderly, rich father, who is paying for a very expensive treatment which would only prolong his life a bit more at the expense of ruining his savings. The older brother decides to kill the father thus increasing the happiness everyone considered. And yet, is this his duty? It doesn't seem so.

* Godwin's Fire Rescue: A very religious man faces a dilemma of whom to save from a certain death in a fire. His best friend is in the opposite room where the Archbishop of Cambray is staying. It seems the right thing to do for a pious man to save the Archbishop, his life would be more valuable than that of his best friend.    

Rule utilitarianism: An action is right if it falls under a rule, which if followed would maximize happiness everyone considered. This is the same as above, but checked by local rules first.

We know there are rules. For instance "do not kill" is a rule. So now, the utilitarian is saying that in the examples above the utilitarian informant is wrong in arresting the black person (the  

Counterargument:  A rule that would allow you to kill somebody whenever doing so would produce more happiness than unhappiness is not permitted. But a rule that allowed you to kill somebody whenever it would produce a great deal more happiness would be morally correct.