The Good: Utilitarianism

March 17, 2008

The utilitarians believe that what is good is something that advances the maximum number of people’s happiness. Rule-utilitarians hold that an action is good if it is executed according to a society’s given conventions, or rules. Act-utilitarians, on the other hand, say that a good action is something that produced a positive consequence, that is, to advance happiness and to diminish misery. However, according to De Castro, these two views on how to know the good is fundamentally the same.

Consider: a pregnant seventeen-year old Filipina wants to know if aborting her baby is the right (or good) thing to do. Rule-utilitarians would tell her not to abort the baby, because it is illegal and socially unacceptable in the Philippines. If she follows this maxim, the baby will live—and being alive is generally considered to be a good thing in most philosophies as well as most societies. Therefore, if the girl follows the conventions, the consequences will be good, i.e., she does not become a murderess and one person is given life. In this case, rule-and act-utilitarianism are mutually inclusive.

Rules are made to be broken, true, and there have been some adventurous people in the past, present and the future who would not think twice to carve their own path. However, this path usually leads to a hellish, or at least a less comfortable life for these people and the people who are affected compared to a path where rules have been followed. Rules are made to promote the well-being and orderliness of society, which is a good thing if we ascribe to utilitarianism. Rules are good in the sense that the end they seek to achieve is a good thing, that is, the advancement of human happiness and the lessening of misery. In this sense, rule-utilitarianism and act-utilitarianism are the same thing.

Utilitarians presuppose that human beings are free, since in order to choose to do what is good, man must first be free to do so. From another point of view though, we can view the utilitarian as not free since he or she is a mere slave to duty. The utilitarian usually does not think for him or herself since the good is already defined by a higher authority.

Consequently, the philosophy of utilitarianism is very compatible with the belief in God. God dispenses the laws that is our duty to live by, infinitely knowing what is good for His creations. But the connection is not explicit. One can put it like this: if a society believes in a God, then it is only natural that they follow his commandments for the love of Him and/or fear of His wrath. It doesn’t matter if God exists or not so long as people believe in His word. By virtue alone of believing, people make His Word true as they pattern their lives after it.

Thou shall not kill—If one woman kills five hundred people with a bomb (not good), God may or may not strike her down. However, the people who catch her definitely will (good). We cannot just let anyone kill five hundred people and get away with it, God or not. We fear His anger, but I think that we are more afraid for ourselves if we let a crazy woman blow people up and not do anything about it.

Thus, the question should not be if good is based on God’s will or not, but whether the people who believe in God’s will think it is good. Since utilitarianism is based on the tacit agreement among the members of the community to follow this or that rule in order to promote the happiness of the community, the good becomes relative from one community to another. Utilitarians tell us that the absolute good is to promote happiness and diminish misery BUT it does not tell us how to do this specifically. These specific actions are left to the agent to figure out according to the society he or she belongs to, among other factors.

And there lies one of the major weaknesses of the theory: it gives us a definition of the good and how to achieve it (by following the rules) but in the end the good depends on how we interpret it, as individuals living in a large society with sub-cultures and counter-cultures having different versions of the good. The process of interpretation involves our emotions, our principles and our personal beliefs. Utilitarianism simply does not take these things into account.

Let us go back to my previous example of the pregnant teenager. It is good that she does not abort her baby according to the utilitarian theory, but what about the social stigma that she is to face because of her unwanted pregnancy? People will jeer at her and talk behind her back. This will cause her misery and trauma. Her parents and friends may also pressure her to lose the baby because of the shame that it will bring their family—that’s, say, a half-dozen people who will definitely be happy if she aborts one baby. That’s maximizing utility, so utilitarians should tell the girl to go on with the abortion. Thus we have here a dilemma which the theory seems to be unable to solve (proposing two probable solutions consistent with its ideas) on the grounds that it doesn’t take into account the fact that rules are not necessarily what people will follow when faced with a situation where these rules conflict with their interests.

Let us also note that the baby could possibly be the next Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of its time. Should the teenager then let the baby live? We couldn’t know, of course, but there is that possibility among other possibilities. Another problem with utilitarianism is that the consequences of our actions cannot be predicted. We might accord our decisions to existing rules but these rules sometimes fail us in achieving maximum happiness, for example, in letting a harmless baby live. Some babies have grown up to be Hitler, Mussolini, Pol Pot, Attila the Hun, Gloria Arroyo and George Bush.

 

The Categorical Imperative next week! Stay tuned!