Utilitarianism is too high for humanity

Utilitarianism is starting to become a bit more difficult to swallow the more our class delves into it. The latest objection was that Utilitarianism is too high for humanity. The objector goes on to say that it would just be too lofty for people to always make a decision based on how it will effect ALL the people in the world. This does seem a bit daunting after all.

To combat this Mill says that it doesn’t really matter what the motive behind doing an action is, so long as it increases overall happiness. In fact he goes further to say that NO system of ethics worth considering takes this into account. He makes an analogy of a man saving another creature from drowning. To Mill it doesn’t matter if the man saved the creature because he thought he would get a reward or that it was done in goodwill, the man’s action increased overall happiness. Therefore, this person performed a morally good action.

Although Mill does a decent job in defending himself, I believe he is wrong. If a person walked out of his or her house with the intention of murdering another person, but for one reason or another failed to do so, the intent still seems morally wrong. Mill would say, no harm, no foul, but in our society we would probably tell this person that he or she would need counselling at the very least. The same argument would hold true for somebody who was forced to do a moral action such as community service due as a punishment for a crime. Although this person is doing a moral act, it seems that it would not be the same as a person who volunteered through their own free will. To Mill this wouldn’t make a difference.

It seems very Macchiavellian of Mill that he does not seem to care about how overall happiness was obtained, but merely if it is obtained. Without delving too deeply into Macchiavelli’s theories, a person who believes that “the ends always justify the means”, does not seem to promote a good sense of morals.

Based on these reasons I firmly believe that Mill is wrong in this case. I believe that people do different things for different reasons (or motives) and not all of these reasons are particularly moral. I’m not saying that motive is just as important as the action itself, however it certainly does seem that motive should be taken into account in regards of morality.

Mill The Rule Bender?

As the objections to utilitarianism are mounting, Mill keeps trying to fend them off. One of the objections to utilitarianism is that it basically allows for people to bend the rules so long as it is not hurting anyone, such as telling “little white lies”

Mill’s defense of this is that although initially there may be no consequences, there is an importance in the “moral fabric” of society. This makes sense because if people continually told lies, they would begin to question nearly everything anybody said to them. Therefore the long term effect would be a decrease in happiness.

In addition Mill also gives a little wiggle room for being dishonest in special circumstances. An example discussed in calls would be telling a lie to thwart a potential murder from finding his or her victim or not telling a terminally ill person that they are about to die. There are certain cases where lying does seem to be a moral thing.

I would have to disagree with Mill on this occassion. It does seem that lies are generally a bad thing, however some special circumstances warrant deception. It would be one thing to keep telling lies to people, it is another to tell a lie to protect somebody from danger or extreme unhappiness.

Make up: Mills to Pay the Bills

According John Stuart Mill, utilitarianism is the ultimate theory in not only ethics, but for life in general. However, being that the utilitarian theory is extreme, there are many critics of it. One of the arguments that Mill comes under fire for is that utilitarianism is a cold and unsympathizing theory that does not take into account past actions, or the character of the person.

To this Mill responds that one could make this argument against any theory of morality. In other words, no theory judges an action to be good or bad based on the person doing them. He then goes on to say that just because somebody does do a good action still does not make them a good person and vice versa.

I feel that this argument is a poor one. Suppose a child, or a handicapped person, or even somebody that was simply incapable of knowing what right from wrong performs an action that decreases overall happiness. It would make no difference who it was: whether it was the 3 year old or the 30 year old, both actions would be just as wrong, and this just doesn’t seem right. If a person does something wrong and KNOWS that it is wrong, it seems that it is worse than someone who did the same action NOT KNOWING that it was wrong. To make a claim that there isn’t a single moral theory in the entire world that is capable of making this distinction is just as extreme as the theory of utilitarianism itself.

Make up: Power of Evil

When it comes to the Divine Command Theory very religious people shout for joy. That is before you begin to discuss the power of evil. The arguments made is that:

 1) If God were all powerful, he could prevent evil

2) If God were all loving, he would prevent evil

3) Evil exists

Therefore, there is no God that is all-powerful or all loving.

 The religious person would probably try to refute this with a three pronged attack. The first is that God may be all powerful, but he once he created the Earth, animals, and humans, he decided to sit back and watch us live without interference. Simply because bad things do happen to people doesn’t mean that God cannot act. Simply because evil does exist does not mean that he cannot interfere.

Which then brings us to the next point, that questions if God is all-loving. A religious person would probably explain that although bad things do happen to good people 1) God simply is trying to test us, or that 2) God could help, but as earlier stated, he does not want to interefere in our lives, and that just because he might not prevent bad things from happening does not mean that he doesn’t love us. I’m not suggesting that I agree with this argument, or that I believe it is sound, however based on the christian beliefs passed down over years of religious education, this is the basic argument somebody would present.

Finally, the last point. The fact that evil exists. The argument against this would be that because evil is an intangible thing, and is also subjective, the religious person would try to say that people who commit immoral acts simply are not following God’s way but are still his children, and as such although the act was wrong, it was not evil. Once again this is a poor argument. If one man murders another, the murderer knows that it is wrong and therefore malice is involved. A religious person would probably refuse to acknowledge the existence of evil or try to manipulate the definition of evil being that it is subjective.

All in all the power of evil argument is one of the more sound arguments to stand up against DCT however a religious person would fight to the death.

Utilitarianism- Just too hard?

In our group we were asked to decipher about a page and a half of John Stuart Mill beginnig on page  “The objectors to utilitarianism… - manifestly pernicious to society” (326-327) What we’ve been able to come up with so far is that in the opening paragraph, the argument that the objector to Utilitarianism makes is that it is a standard that is”too high” for a human being to be able to uphold. The idea that a person must try to take into account everybody else’s feelings and overall pleasure in a split second before they do something would be too much to take. Better put, it’s inconceivable that a person would be able to analyze a situation instantly before they make any actions that could affect others (be it in a pleasurable or painful way). So far Mill has not responded to this claim, so stay tuned for some updates.