Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism, an ethical theory that argues that the best course of action or the most moral course of action is the one that maximises utility. First proposed in the late 1700s by Jeremy Bentham, it has long been discussed and debated since it was first proposed. In this article, I want to discuss the original theory proposed by Bentham, apply it to a certain case and explore criticisms through that. From that, I want to discuss the theory proposed by JS Mill that hopes to define the theory in a way that defends it against the criticisms of Bentham's ideas and examine weaknesses that arise.

Bentham's utilitarianism, and utilitarianism as a whole, works on the concept that you should do what achieves the greatest utility - the balance of pleasure of pain. Essentially, you should aim to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number. Let's take a look at an example to both better understand the theory and uncover a weakness.

Damnatio ad bestias was a form of execution used by Romans from around the 2nd century BC onwards; the condemned person would be thrown to wild animals to be killed, often big animals like lions. This form of execution was used for Christians and the worst criminals from the 1st century AD to the 3rd century AD and was considered entertainment for Roman lower classes. Of course, to condemn people to this for their religion is completely unacceptable in the modern world, but it was common practice in the Roman era. But what does utilitarianism say?

First, let us look at the pain caused by this, to the Christian being condemned and their family and friends. The pain would be excruciating for the condemned person and the emotional distress severe for their family and friends. However, would it outweigh the pleasure that the Roman lower class was getting from it? While it is a cruel, sadistic pleasure that they derived from it, that doesn't matter to utilitarianism as long as it's pleasure. Perhaps utilitarianism would then condone the barbaric practice?

Well, a utilitarianist attempting to defend the theory while arguing against the practice may say that we haven't accounted for the fear that Christians would have lived in due to this, and that the pain would be of much greater intensity for the Christians than the pleasure for the Romans. If we are to accept that, then the counterargument would be to consider that the Romans greatly outnumber the Christians, and they too would be looking forward to or rejoicing in memory of the incident, as grim as that sounds.

As we can see, utilitarianism has a key weakness: in caring only about utility it loses the human moral compass, while the theory may be suitable for an animal to make decisions it isn't a reliable theory when attempting to reach a humane and moral decision. JS Mill attempts to rectify this by discussing higher and lower pleasures, arguing that higher pleasures should take precedent over lower pleasures and that justice is one of these higher pleasures. Therefore, the practice of feeding Christians to the lions wasn't acceptable in the utilitarian essence since it was unjust.

There are, however, other situations in which you might need to decide between two pleasures and test which is the higher pleasure, how does JS Mill expect us to know which pleasure is higher? The test is this: if you were to present a group of people with two pleasures, they would choose the higher pleasure.

In theory, this seems like a great test, however in practice, it doesn't yield the results we would have hoped for. Let's try to apply this: if you were to choose between watching a movie and reading a book for pleasure, most people would prefer to watch a movie. However, I'm sure most would argue that the book is a higher form of pleasure. This would suggest that while the book is a higher form of pleasure, people wouldn't pick the higher pleasure necessarily. Furthermore, personally, if I was looking for something to do for a day or two, or even up to a week then I would likely pick the movie, but for longer periods I would opt for a book.

But let's try to apply utilitarianism to another situation and uncover another weakness, the argument of crime. If a murder takes place, then one may argue that by the utilitarian calculus it is better to portray an innocent person as the criminal and solve the case quickly to make people feel safe rather than spending time and resources to find the actual criminal - it achieves a greater good for a greater number to sacrifice one person. However, if this happens again and again then people will be afraid that they're going to be the next innocent person made into a scapegoat and so everybody would live in fear. Furthermore, crime would increase as criminals aren't afraid of being caught. This is the scapegoat argument against utilitarianism.

Both the scapegoat argument and the situation mentioned earlier suggest that utilitarian calculus yields different results when applied to an isolated situation or over the short term in comparison to recurring occurrences or over a longer-term. While it isn't necessarily the hardest decision to choose between the long and short term, what is difficult is knowing the exact result of a decision 10 years from now, or perhaps longer. Therefore, while on paper utilitarianism seems a reliable ethical theory, it is hard to apply in practice due to its ambiguity over short and long term consequences as well as the vagueness associated with the 'greatest good for the greatest number' being the guiding principle.