Utilitarianism
David Lyons
A moral theory that regards welfare, or the good of individuals, as the ultimate value, and evaluates other things, such as acts, solely by their promotion of that value (see values). Utilitarianism gives content to the idea that doing the right thing means doing good – making the world better than it otherwise would be. The theory has proved to be perennially attractive and resilient in the face of challenging objections.
Utilitarianism is a normative, not a descriptive theory (see normative/descriptive). It does not assume that our actions or value judgments reflect an unqualified commitment to promoting welfare. Utilitarians assume a critical attitude toward conventional morality and existing institutions. The founders of modern utilitarianism, Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806–73), were effective advocates of social reform.
Utilitarianism is regarded by many theorists as a species of consequentialism, which asserts that ‘‘intrinsic’’ value (the most basic kind of value) should be brought into existence, and that acts, motives, and institutions should accordingly be judged by their ‘‘instrumental value’’ (their capacity to realize basic value). As a species of consequentialism, utilitarianism holds that the good of individuals is the only basic value and should accordingly be maximized. Non utilitarian varieties of consequentialism regard some other things, such as beauty, knowledge, or justice, as intrinsically valuable.
Utilitarian theories incorporate various conceptions of welfare. Bentham embraced a ‘‘he donistic’’ conception, in terms of ‘‘pleasure’’ and the absence of ‘‘pain.’’ Mill believed that the pleasures which differentiate human beings from other animals are ‘‘higher’’ and more valuable than physical pleasures. He advanced a complex conception of human welfare, which emphasizes the exercise of distinctive human faculties.
Some objections to utilitarianism concern a particular conception of welfare, such as hedonism, and do not challenge the utilitarian idea that right conduct depends on the promotion of welfare. Other criticisms concern the theory’s focus on welfare to the exclusion of other goods, and do not challenge the consequentialist idea that right conduct depends on the promotion of intrinsic value.
Utilitarianism (and more generally consequentialism) may be contrasted with theories claiming that some set of rights or duties (rather than a value such as welfare) is morally basic. John Locke (1632–1704) held, for example, that certain ‘‘natural’’ rights are morally basic. Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) developed a theory within which duties are morally basic (see rights; kantian ethics).
More recently, W. D. Ross argued that morality imposes a diverse set of obligations, or ‘‘prima facie duties,’’ including some that are essentially ‘‘backward looking,’’ such as honoring one’s moral commitments and compensating others for wrongful injuries one has done them. Utilitarianism, by contrast, is essentially ‘‘forward looking’’: moral requirements are held by it to be grounded on the difference conduct can make to the future history of the world. Commitments one has made, wrongs one has done to others, indeed past events generally, are morally relevant, according to utilitarianism, only insofar as they affect the future consequences of conduct. Utilitarians accordingly recognize particular moral rights or duties when, but only when, they believe the recognition of those rights or duties would promote welfare. Critics see this facet of utilitarianism as evidence of a fundamentally misguided approach to moral responsibility.
Some utilitarians have argued that utilitarian ism satisfactorily accommodates moral rights and obligations. To succeed, their arguments must overcome what may be called the trumping problem. It means little to embrace moral rights and obligations if they are not accorded special weight in practice. If I have promised to help you with a particular task, I am not morally free to decide what to do when the time comes by determining whether my helping you would maximize welfare. My obligation can be outweighed by important conflicting considerations, but it outweighs the utilitarian consideration that I might do a trifle more good by breaking my promise. Precisely because of his commitment to maximizing welfare, it would seem that a utilitarian should be guided by that utilitarian consideration. If so, the obligation is accorded no weight at all in practice, and the utilitarian’s recognition of it would seem empty. Similar difficulties attach to the utilitarian recognition of moral rights. It is unclear whether utilitarian ism (or any form of consequentialism) can solve this problem.
Utilitarianism differs from ethical egoism, a normative theory which holds that an individual may properly serve her own interests, however her self serving conduct might affect others (see egoism, psychological egoism, and ethical egoism). Ethical egoism says that one should take others’ welfare into account only insofar as helping, hurting, or ignoring others would have an impact on one’s own welfare.
Utilitarianism regards the welfare of any single individual as no more or less important than the welfare of any other individual. At the level of principle, therefore, it rejects the conventional assumption that a political community may properly serve its own interests first and that its public officials are morally bound to give priority to those interests. Utilitarianism holds that a policy reflecting that conventional assumption might be justified, but only if and when such a division of labor would maximize welfare throughout the world. Utilitarianism re quires that laws and public policy serve as far as possible the interests of all who may be affected. No individual’s interests may be discounted or double counted because of her location, citizen ship, nationality, class, race, creed, or gender – indeed, for any reason whatsoever.
Although utilitarianism may be considered egalitarian because it requires that equal consideration be given to all, it does not assume that all individuals should be treated the same. It would endorse unequal treatment whenever the general welfare would be maximized by unequal treatment. Because different individuals have different needs, differential treatment is in some respects unproblematic. Medicine, for example, should be allocated only to those who require it.
But utilitarianism also implies that one may properly favor one’s family or friends only if and when such a policy would best serve the general welfare. Critics have regarded this as an implausible consequence of the theory. They believe that a conscious commitment to utilitarianism would undermine meaningful relationships with other persons, because close relations with others involve according their interests special weight.
Critics argue further that a distinctively human life involves commitment not only to some other persons but also to some personal projects. Given the vast array of unmet needs around the world – indeed, within our own communities – it would seem that a conscientious commitment to promoting welfare would place unrelenting demands on one’s time, re sources, and efforts. Critics believe that utilitarianism demands more sacrifice than it is reasonable for a morality to require. We draw a distinction between acting as morality requires and acting above and beyond the call of duty. Critics believe that utilitarianism’s demands on the individual obliterates this distinction.
Some utilitarians believe that welfare is best served when economic resources are distributed equally. This notion is based on the phenomenon of ‘‘diminishing marginal utilities.’’ A hundred dollars is more useful to an impoverished person than to someone who is affluent. The quality of life for a poor man can be improved more than the quality of life for a rich man would be decreased if a hundred dollars were transferred from the rich man to the poor man. In practice, however, such transfers have consider able costs, which constitute utilitarian obstacles to economic equalization. If justice requires equal distribution of resources, then utilitarian ism will have difficulty accommodating its dictates.
Bentham came to believe that the interests of those who occupy high public office tend to conflict with the interests of their subjects. Be cause those who are ruled far outnumber those who rule, he held that welfare is best served when public policies are dedicated to promoting the ‘‘greatest happiness of the greater number.’’ That famous slogan thus reflects an application of the utilitarian principle, not the principle itself.
As the foregoing suggests, it often seems that the interests of different individuals can come into conflict in the real world. Whenever that happens, utilitarianism does not care whose interests are served, so long as welfare in the aggregate is promoted as much as it is possible to do. Critics of utilitarianism charge that, as a consequence, utilitarianism can have morally objectionable implications. It is imaginable, for example, that the aggregate welfare would best be served by exploiting some individuals for the benefit of others. Systems like that have existed in our world – serfdom and slavery are uncontroversial examples – which some have defended as beneficial on the whole. For such a system to be condoned by utilitarianism, however, the total benefits generated must not merely exceed the total costs; the system must promote welfare to a greater degree than any alternative system that is available. Critics hold that, even if utilitarian support for such a system is in fact unlikely, utilitarians wrongly reject such systems by calculating benefits and costs rather than recognizing that exploitative social systems violate inviolable rights.
In practice, exploitative systems attack not only the living standard of those who are exploited but also their dignity and self respect. It is unclear whether utilitarianism can fully account for those terrible costs. The possibility that it can is suggested by the fact that one’s quality of life is devastated by conditions that undermine dignity and self respect.
As many of these examples imply, utilitarian ism assumes that ‘‘interpersonal comparisons of utility’’ are possible. Consider first common place estimates of self interest. These require rankings of alternatives involving benefits and costs; they do not strictly require that we sum and therefore measure benefits and costs. Utilitarianism assumes that welfare gains and losses to a given person are measurable, and that the units of measurement for gains are equivalent to those for losses. It then adds a significant com plication: it assumes, further, that units of measurement for gains and losses have interpersonal validity. It presupposes that there is some way of rigorously comparing the gains and losses of one person with the gains and losses for any other person. Utilitarianism makes no sense otherwise. But no one has ever adequately explained how such measurements can be made.
One should reject utilitarianism if one has good reason to believe that interpersonal com parisons of utility are not merely difficult but impossible. Believing this, some theorists have developed evaluative principles that do not re quire interpersonal comparisons, such as certain conceptions of economic efficiency. Consider the concepts of ‘‘Pareto superiority’’ and ‘‘Pareto optimality’’: allocation of resources B is Pareto superior to allocation of resources A if, and only if, the move from A to B would result in someone gaining without anyone losing. And A is a Pareto optimal allocation of resources if, and only if, it is impossible to reallocate resources from A so that some person gains without anyone losing. These concepts require that we determine whether anyone gains or loses, but they do not require that we compare one per son’s gain or loss with anyone else’s gain or loss.
Although no one has yet proved that interpersonal comparisons of utility are in principle possible, commonplace reasoning frequently involves such comparisons. And the reasoning which has led theorists to reject interpersonal comparisons of utility may be questioned. It is based on the assumptions that welfare must be understood in terms of ‘‘pleasures’’ and ‘‘pains,’’ and that these are ‘‘private,’’ inaccessible to others, so that it makes no sense to think we might objectively measure the intensity of a pleasure or pain. But pleasure without pain is just one particular conception of welfare. It seems plausible to suppose that it is in a person’s interest to have good health, ample resources, interesting opportunities, good companionship, and self respect. In supposing this, one need not assume that such advantages can be analyzed exhaustively in terms of pleasure and the absence of pain. Whether welfare, properly under stood, is susceptible to the necessary measurements remains to be seen.
Some utilitarians believe that right conduct is determined by actual consequences. Others believe it depends on the consequences that one can reasonably predict. Each alternative offers difficulties. On the first view, if all the available evidence is misleading, utilitarianism can condemn one’s conduct even if one has acted most conscientiously. On the second view, utilitarian ism can imply that it is wrong to do what actually has the best consequences. Utilitarians address these difficulties in part by distinguishing be tween judgments of acts and judgments of per sons.
As a moral theory, utilitarianism applies the welfare criterion in order to determine which acts are morally right and which are morally wrong. The simplest and most important form of the theory applies the welfare criterion directly to conduct. The result is ‘‘act utilitarian ism,’’ which holds that each and every act should promote welfare as much as possible. Utilitarianism has recently been given different forms. One is ‘‘rule utilitarianism,’’ which applies the welfare criterion indirectly to acts and directly to social rules. Rule utilitarianism says that conduct should conform to social rules which promote welfare as much as possible. Rule utilitarianism can itself be developed in various ways.
Critics have advanced many objections to utilitarianism beyond those already mentioned. For example, we usually assume that competent adults should be left free to find their own ways, which includes making their own mistakes (so long as they exercise due care for others’ welfare). Invasions of that freedom are condemned as paternalistic. It would seem that utilitarianism must sometimes approve or even require such interventions. Utilitarians have, however, dis agreed. Because his conception of welfare places a premium on the individual’s free exercise of her own judgment, developing her own goals, and working toward them, Mill (for example) believed that utilitarianism, properly under stood, would not condone objectionable paternalism.
See also altruism and benevolence; privacy; welfare economics
Bibliography
Bentham, J. (1789). An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. (Many editions are currently available.)
Glover, J. (1990). Utilitarianism and Its Critics. New York: Macmillan. (A useful collection of studies, with an extensive bibliography.)
Mill, J. S. (1863). Utilitarianism. (Many editions are currently available.)
Moore, G. E. (1912). Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (A twentieth-century classic.)
Scheffler, S. (1988). Consequentialism and Its Critics. New York: Oxford University Press. (A useful collection, with an extensive bibliography.)
Sidgwick, H. (1874). The Methods of Ethics. London: Macmillan. (A highly esteemed classic of utilitarianism. A seventh edition was published in 1907.)
Smart, J. J. C. and Williams, B. (1973). Utilitarianism: For and Against. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.