Consequentialism

What are some difficulties with utilitarianism?

1. Demandingness (3)

2. Impartiality

3. No Intrinsic Wrongness/Problem of Injustice Utilitarianism

What are some difficulties with demandingness on utilitarianism?

• Deliberation

• Motivation

• Action

What is demandingness on deliberation in utilitarianism?

To know whether an action is morally right, we need to do four things:

1. Add up all the benefits (well-being) it produces.

2. Add up all the harm (ill-being) it produces.

3. Determine the balance of benefit to harm.

4. See whether the balance is greater than that of any other available action.

Difficulty: To decide how to act, we need to know a huge amount of information: We need to know

• All the options we face and their results

  • Impossible

  • Butterfly effect

• The overall value that each of our options would yield

  • Predictions could be wrong

and then we need to compare these values to see which option would yield the best outcome.

Some Utilitarian Replies:

1. With respect to the worry that we can’t know all of the results of the options open to us: Every moral theory needs a story about why we’re sometimes morally in the dark; we just have less moral knowledge than we thought.

2. With respect to the worry that we’re not supercomputers: In most cases, we can rely on conventional wisdom.

• Mill’s reply: some actions we know from history can produce certain kinds of consequences

  • Eg. killing does not often lead to good results

Also: Overthinking it is often at odds with doing the most good.

• In most cases, overthinking is not recommended, you may do less good than you could’ve done without overthinking

What is demandingness on motivation in utilitarianism?

Difficulty: Must we always strategically aim to bring about the absolute best consequences? A plausible moral theory is one that most of us can live by. But asking us to be constantly benevolent, never taking more than a moment or two for ourselves—how many of us can be so altruistic?

• Can we always have purely good motivations? Why should we always have good motivations?

Some Utilitarian Replies:

1. We shouldn’t always be strategizing about how to improve the world. Why? Because people motivated in this way usually fail to achieve their goal.

Also: Utilitarianism offers, above all, a standard of rightness (a theory of right action), and not a decision procedure.

• This distinction comes from Mill

  • Standard of rightness: tells us the conditions in which acts are right (objective facts)

  • Decision procedure: guides us to know how to think about what to do

  • The standard of rightness is not a guide (not a decision procedure)

What is demandingness on action in utilitarianism?

Difficulty: Even if we don’t always have to deliberate with an eye to doing what’s absolutely best, and even if we don’t always have to have saintly, benevolent motivations, utilitarianism still says that we always have to act so as to maximize goodness/well-being in the world. And whenever we don’t do this, we do something morally wrong. Isn’t that excessive?

A Utilitarian Reply:

1. Tough cookies. Morality is hard. The fact that the implications of a moral theory are burdensome isn’t a decisive strike against it. That consequentialism/utilitarianism threaten the status quo may be a mark of their truth, rather than falsity.

What is the difficulty of impartiality in utilitarianism?

Virtue (?): The well-being of a celebrity or a billionaire is no more important than that of a severely impoverished person. From the moral point of view, everyone counts equally; no one’s interests are more important than anyone else’s.

Difficulty: Morality sometimes seems to recommend partiality. Shouldn’t you care about your own children more than other people’s children? Shouldn’t you care about your friends more than strangers? Shouldn’t you privilege their interests?

• Utilitarianism does not recommend partiality

• You have to take everyone’s interest into account, even if they are “terrible” people

Relatedly: Ignorant or wise, just or unjust, kind or malicious—everyone’s interests count equally. So, if enough people are terrible, utilitarianism can require that we allow the suffering they cause, insofar as it benefits the bad people sufficiently.

A Utilitarian Reply:

1. Sometimes we should give preference to our near and dear, because that’s what’s most beneficial (may maximize well being)… And most often allowing terrible people to cause suffering won’t maximize well-being in the long term…. That’s all we got.

3. No Intrinsic Wrongness/Problem of Injustice

Difficulty: An action’s rightness or wrongness depends always and only on its consequences. So no actions are right or wrong irrespective of their consequences. If an action maximizes goodness, then it’s right—nothing is off the table.