Morality and Consequences
Agenda
• Our Question
• Different Kinds of Answer
• Consequentialism: The Contingency of
Right and Wrong
• Varieties of Consequentialism
• Attractions of Utilitarianism
Some Familiar Moral Facts
• Some acts are wrong, others right.
• Some acts are morally permissible, others
morally impermissible.
• Examples:
It is morally impermissible for you to lie to your parents
about how you spend your book money.
It is morally permissible for you to lie to the Nazi who
asks you if there are Jews in the house.
Our Question
• In virtue of what is a given act right or wrong,
permissible or impermissible?
• For instance, lying to your parents has a
different moral status than lying to the Nazi.
• That difference justifies taking a different
attitude toward them.
• What underlies this difference?
Agenda
• Our Question
• Different Kinds of Answer
• Consequentialism: The Contingency of
Right and Wrong
• Varieties of Consequentialism
• Attractions of Utilitarianism
Different Kinds of Answer I:
Actions and Related Matters
I want to…,
I choose to…,
I plan to...
Causes
Psychological Sources
The action itself
The consequences of
the action
The agent
• An action is related to many other things.
• Different kinds of answers to our question locate the
source of right/wrong in different parts of this picture.
Different Kinds of Answer II:
Consequentialism and Its Rivals
• The rightness/wrongness of an act is
determined by the nature of…
Consequentialism: “its consequences.”
Kantianism: “the intentions with which it was
done.”
Virtue Theory: “what it reveals about the
character of the agent.”
Different Kinds of Answer III:
What’s Distinctive about Consequentialism
I want to…,
I choose to…,
I plan to...
Causes
Psychological Sources
The action itself
Consequentialism
The agent
Kantianism
Virtue Theory
The consequences of
the action
Agenda
• Our Question
• Different Kinds of Answer
• Consequentialism: The Contingency of
Right and Wrong
• Varieties of Consequentialism
• Attractions of Utilitarianism
Explaining right and wrong
• Lying to your parents is impermissible; lying to
the Nazi is permissible.
• Consequentialist: “What makes the
difference is what consequences the lies
would have.”
• An upshot: Consequentialism implies that the
moral status of any action is contingent.
Consequentialism:
The Contingency of Right and Wrong
Causes
Causes
Pol Pot
prevents
Actual killing
Possible killing
• In the actual situation, the action has horrible
consequences;
• But it’s possible that the horror of those consequences
is outweighed.
Agenda
• Our Question
• Different Kinds of Answer
• Consequentialism: The Contingency of
Right and Wrong
• Varieties of Consequentialism
• Attractions of Utilitarianism
Varieties of Consequentialism I
The morally right act is that act (among those
available to you) that
• Utiliarianism: … maximizes everyone’s utility.
• Egoism: … maximizes your own utility.
• Satisficing Consequentialism: … meets some
threshold for promoting utility.
• Rights Consequentialism: … minimizes
violations of rights.
Varieties of Consequentialism II:
What’s Distinctive about Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism: The morally right act is that act
(among those available to you) that maximizes
everyone’s utility.
• Everyone’s utility counts. (vs. Egoism)
• Maximization required (vs. Satisficing)
• Utility is the goal (vs. Rights Conseq’ism)
Agenda
• Our Question
• Different Kinds of Answer
• Consequentialism: The Contingency of
Right and Wrong
• Varieties of Consequentialism
• Attractions of Utilitarianism
Attractions of Utilitarianism
• Consequences are morally relevant.
• Examples:
 How should I break some bad news?
 Medical triage.
• Others’ pleasure/pain is morally relevant.
• Examples:
 Sadistic actions are morally reprehensible.
 Moral heroes.
• Consequences can outweigh other morally relevant factors.
• Examples:
 Breaking a promise to save a life
 Just wars
• Utilitarianism would explain these facts.
Mill’s Utilitarianism
• John Stuart Mill (1806 1873)
• Philosopher, Political
Theorist, Reformer.
• Mill is one of the most
able defenders of
Utilitarianism.
Agenda
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Mill’s Thesis
Mill’s Conception of Happiness
Objection: The Pig’s Life
Bentham’s Defense
Mill’s Defense
What’s Good?
Objections and Replies
Mill’s Thesis
The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals,
Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds
that actions are right in proportion as they tend to
promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce
the reverse of happiness. (p. 487, col. 2)
English Translation: “The only fundamental moral
requirement is to promote happiness to the best of
your ability.”
[All other moral requirements follow from that
one.]
Agenda
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Mill’s Thesis
Mill’s Conception of Happiness
Objection: The Pig’s Life
Bentham’s Defense
Mill’s Defense
What’s Good?
Objections and Replies
Mill’s Conception of Happiness
By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence
of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of
pleasure. (p. 487, col. 2)
Mill’s conception of happiness: A is happier than
B if and only if A enjoys a higher balance of
pleasure over pain.
• Note: Pleasure is a mental state.
• So, e.g. bodily health is not a direct part of
happiness.
Agenda
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Mill’s Thesis
Mill’s Conception of Happiness
Objection: The Pig’s Life
Bentham’s Defense
Mill’s Defense
What’s Good?
Objections and Replies
The Pig’s Life:
Who’s Happier?
Now, such a theory of life excites in many minds …
inveterate dislike. To suppose that life has (as
[critics] express it) no higher end than pleasure – no
better and nobler object of desire and pursuit – they
designate as utterly mean and groveling; as a
doctrine worthy only of swine …. (p. 487, col. 2)
The Pig’s Life:
Who’s Happier?
Ouch!
Joe:
(healthy, except for a backache)
Schmoe:
(enjoys nothing but heroin)
Objection:
(1) According to Mill’s conception of happiness, Schmoe
is happier than Joe.
(2) Schmoe is not happier than Joe.
(C) So, Mill’s conception of happiness is false.
Agenda
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Mill’s Thesis
Mill’s Conception of Happiness
Objection: The Pig’s Life
Bentham’s Defense
Mill’s Defense
What’s Good?
Objections and Replies
Bentham’s Defense
• One could deny that Joe is happier
than Schmoe.
• Jeremy Bentham: “Pushpin is as
good as poetry.”
• Bentham updated: “Heroin is as
good as health.”
• Perry Farrell seems to be a
contemporary adherent.
(google“Pigs in Zen lyrics”.)
• Call this Bentham’s Defense.
Bentham’s Defense
• Bentham: Premise (2) is false.
False!
Objection:
(1) According to Mill’s conception of happiness, Schmoe
is happier than Joe.
(2) Schmoe is not happier than Joe.
(C) So, Mill’s conception of happiness is false.
Mill Rejects Bentham’s Defense
The comparison of the Epicurean life to that of beasts is
felt as degrading, precisely because a beast’s pleasures do
not satisfy a human being’s conceptions of happiness.
Human beings have faculties more elevated that the
animal appetites, and when once made conscious of
them, do not regard anything as happiness which does not
include their gratification. (p. 488, col. 1)
Mill Rejects Bentham’s Defense
Ouch!
Joe
Schmoe
• Mill: There are more pleasures than food,
drink, sex, heroin, etc.
• Mill: Joe is happier than Schmoe because he
enjoys some of those pleasures.
• Mill calls these “higher pleasures”.
Agenda
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Mill’s Thesis
Mill’s Conception of Happiness
Objection: The Pig’s Life
Bentham’s Defense
Mill’s Defense
What’s Good?
Objections and Replies
Mill’s Defense
Objection:
(1) According to Mill’s conception of happiness, Schmoe
is happier than Joe.
(2) Schmoe is not happier than Joe.
(C) So, Mill’s conception of happiness is false.
• Mill: Premise (1) is false.
False!
• On Mill’s conception of happiness, Schmoe enjoys a full
measure of lower pleasures.
• But Joe’s existence is overall more pleasant, because Joe
enjoys “higher pleasures”.
Mill’s Defense:
Higher vs. Lower Pleasures
Two kinds of pleasures:
Higher Pleasures
What is it?
Examples
Pleasures peculiarly suited to
our most sophisticated
capacities and sensitivities.
 Poetry, art, music
 Sociability
 Positional goods
 Crosswords, limericks
 Dice, pushpin, tiddly winks
Lower Pleasures
Pleasures we share with other
sentient animals
 Food
 drink and other intoxicants
 sex
 exercise
warmth
Quality vs. Quantity
• Bentham: Pleasures differ only in: (i) intensity, (ii)
duration, (iii) “propinquity” (proximity in time),
and (iv) likelihood.
• Mill: They also differ in quality:
[U]tilitarian writers in general have placed the superiority of mental
over bodily pleasures chiefly in the greater permanence, safety,
uncostliness, etc., of the former […] It is quite compatible with the
principle of utility to recognise the fact, that some kinds of pleasure
are more desirable and valuable than others. It would be absurd that
while, in estimating all other things, quality is considered as well as
quantity, the estimation of pleasures should be supposed to depend
on quantity alone. (p. 488, col. 1)
Mill: Quality Trumps Quantity
[W]e are justified in ascribing to [some] enjoyment a superiority in
quality, so far outweighing quantity as to render it, in comparison, of
small account. (p. 488, col. 2)
• Problem: quality of pleasure is extremely
important; but how is it to be determined?
Agenda
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Mill’s Thesis
Mill’s Conception of Happiness
Objection: The Pig’s Life
Bentham’s Defense
Mill’s Defense
What’s Good?
Objections and Replies
Mill’s Epistemology of Value
• How do you determine whether one pleasure
outweighs another?
• Mill’s epistemology of value: Ask the experts:
Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have
experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any
feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable
pleasure. (p. 488, col. 1-2)
• [Mill notes that the same can be said of whether
one “lower” pleasure is more intense than
another (p. 489, col. 2)]
What the Experts Say
10 out of 10
experts
agree!
[T]hose who are equally acquainted with,
and equally capable of appreciating and
enjoying, both, do give a most marked
preference to the manner of existence
which employs their higher faculties. Few
human creatures would consent to be
changed into any of the lower animals, for
a promise of the fullest allowance of a
beast’s pleasures … (p. 488, col. 2)
Mill’s Empirical Claim: People who have
experienced both higher and lower
pleasures much prefer the higher.
Is this true?
I Couldn’t Resist Quoting This
It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a
pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a
fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a
different opinion, it is because they only know their
own side of the question. (p. 489, col. 1)
Agenda
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Mill’s Thesis
Mill’s Conception of Happiness
Objection: The Pig’s Life
Bentham’s Defense
Mill’s Defense
What’s Good?
Objections and Replies
Objections and Replies: Agenda
• “Utilitarianism is Ethics for Angels”
• “Utilitarianism is Ethics for
Supercomputers”
Charge: “Utilitarianism is Ethics for
Angels”
• The idea: no one could possibly be motivated to
act as Utilitarianism enjoins.
• You love yourself, your parents, your friends, etc.
• You do not love me, my parents, my friends, etc.
• Utilitarianism requires that you act in a way that
equally serves the interests of all:
• Bentham: “Everyone is to count for one, and no
one for more than one.”
Charge: “Utilitarianism is Ethics for
Angels”
The Objection:
(1) Utilitarianism requires impartiality: According to
Utilitarianism, we ought to act in a way that promotes
everyone’s happiness, regardless of how we feel about
them.
(2) We can’t be impartial: We cannot act in a way that
promotes everyone’s happiness, regardless of how we feel
about them.
(3) Ought implies can: If we ought to act in a certain way,
then we can act in that way
(C) So, Utilitarianism is false.
Mill’s Response:
Actions and Motives
• Utilitarianism prescribes actions of a certain
sort: utility-maximizing for all humanity.
• Utilitarianism does not prescribe a motive for
those actions.
[The objection] mistake[s] a rule of action with
the motive of it. It is the business of ethics to tell
us what are our duties […] He who saves a fellow
creature from drowning does what is morally
right, whether his motive be duty, or the hope of
being paid for his trouble. (p. 491, col. 1)
Mill’s Response:
Actions and Motives
dist:
Rule of Action
What is it?
Examples
A rule which tells us to act in a
certain way.
 Don’t kill
Drive on the right
Used for
Assessment of the action:
“Was it wrong?”
Motive of Action
The psychological factor which
induces us to act in a certain way.
 The psychological trauma
associated with killing
Fear of death
Assessment of the agent:
“Is s/he a bad person?”
Mill’s Response:
Actions and Motives
The Objection:
(1) Utilitarianism requires impartiality: According to Utilitarianism, we ought to act
in a way that promotes everyone’s happiness, regardless of how we feel about
them.
(2) We can’t be impartial: We cannot act in a way that promotes everyone’s
happiness, regardless of how we feel about them.
(3) Ought implies can: If we ought to act in a certain way, then we can act in that
way
(C) So, Utilitarianism is false.
• Premise (2) is false:
False!
We can perform the right actions;
Our motive needn’t be angelic, impartial love of all
human beings.
Objections and Replies: Agenda
• “Utilitarianism is Ethics for Angels”
• “Utilitarianism is Ethics for
Supercomputers”
Charge: “Utilitarianism is Ethics for
Supercomputers”
• The idea: Utilitarian calculations are
extremely difficult.
• People don’t have the opportunity to do such
calculations when deciding what to do.
• So people can’t act as Utilitarianism requires.
Charge: “Utilitarianism is Ethics for
Supercomputers”
The Objection:
(1) Utilitarianism requires complex calculations:
Determining which action maximizes utility requires
calculations of a certain complexity.
(2) We can’t do complex calculations: We cannot do
calculations of that complexity when deciding what to
do.
(C) Utilitarianism is impractical: So, we cannot determine
which action maximizes utility when deciding what to
do.
Mill’s Response:
Utility and Derivative Principles
• Utilitarianism is the fundamental principle of morality:
maximize utility.
• In daily life, we can apply derivative principles:
 “Don’t murder”
 “Don’t steal”
…
There is no difficulty in proving any ethical standard whatever to work
ill, if we suppose universal idiocy to be conjoined with it; but on any
hypothesis short of that, mankind must by this time have acquired
positive beliefs as to the effects of some actions on their happiness;
and the beliefs which have thus come down are the rules of morality
for the multitude. (p. 493, col. 2)
Mill’s Response:
Utility and Derivative Principles
The Objection:
(1) Utilitarianism requires complex calculations: Determining which
action maximizes utility requires calculations of a certain
complexity.
(2) We can’t do complex calculations: We cannot do very calculations
of that complexity when deciding what to do.
(C) Utilitarianism is impractical: So, we cannot determine which action
maximizes utility when deciding what to do.
• The conclusion is true,
(but harmless):
Harmless
We can calculate ahead of time to formulate derivative
rules;
the rules get applied “in the heat of the moment”.
The Place of
Common Sense Morality
User
friendly!
Common
Sense
Morality *
Don’t
murder!
Don’t
steal!
Be
honest!
Care for
your
kids!
No
Exceptions!
Foundation **
* has exceptions
** hard to use
Maximize utility!
Mill’s Proof
On the present occasion, I shall … attempt to contribute something towards
the understanding and appreciation of the Utilitarian … theory. It is evident
that this cannot be proof in the ordinary and popular meaning of the term.
Questions of ultimate ends are not amenable to direct proof. Whatever can
be proved to be good must be so by being shown to be a means to something
admitted to be good without proof. The medical art is proved to be good by
its conducing to health; but how is it possible to prove that health is good.
[…] Considerations may [nevertheless] be presented capable of determining
the intellect either to give or withhold its assent to the doctrine; and this is
equivalent to proof. (p. 487, col. 1)
• Mill: One can give an argument for the
principle of utility, but not a proof.
Mill’s Proof: Two Tasks
Mill aims to show that maximizing everyone’s
happiness is the only good.
To show:
I. Maximizing everyone’s happiness is good; and
II. Nothing else is good.
Mill’s Proof: Agenda
• Clarifications
• “Everyone desires happiness.”
• “No one desires anything else.”
First Clarification:
“Good” ≈ “Desirable”
Questions about ends are, in other words, questions about what
things are desirable. (p. 499, col. 1)
• To show that something is good, it suffices to
show that it is desirable.
• To show that something is not good, it suffices
to show that it is not desirable.
Second Clarification:
Desirable Means vs. Desirable Ends
• Desirable means: things desirable because they
are means for acquiring something desirable.
• Mill’s example is …
… money:
There is nothing originally more desirable about money than about
any heap of glittering pebbles. Its worth is solely that of the things
which it bill buy; the desires for other things than itself, which it is a
means of gratifying. (p. 500, col. 2)
• Desirable ends: Things desirable for themselves.
Mill’s Proof: Two Tasks (Again)
I. Maximizing everyone’s happiness is a
desirable end.
II. Everything else that is desirable is either
desirable as a means to that end, or
desirable as a part of that end.
Mill’s Proof: Agenda
• Clarifications
• “Everyone desires happiness.”
• “No one desires anything else.”
Mill’s Argument for I:
Everyone desires Happiness
I. Maximizing everyone’s happiness is a desirable end.
[T]he sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable, is that
people do actually desire it. […] No reason can be given why the general
happiness is desirable, except that each person … desires his own happiness.
[…] We have … all the proof … it is possible to require, that happiness is a
good: that each person’s happiness is a good to that person, and the general
happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate of all persons. (p. 499, col. 2)
Argument:
(1) Empirical Claim: Each person desires her own happiness.
(2) ‘Desired’ implies ‘Desirable’: If something is desired, it is
desirable.
(C1) Each person’s happiness is desirable.
(C) The happiness of the aggregate of people is desirable.
Objection:
Does ‘Desired’ Imply ‘Desirable’?
‘Desired’ implies ‘Desirable’: If
something is desired, it is desirable.
• There seem to be desires without desirability.
• Examples (?):
Jocko desires to be the 17th person to reach the
South Pole.
In a fit of pique, Van Gogh desires to destroy his
paintings.
Objection:
Does ‘Desired’ Imply ‘Desirable’?
Argument:
(1) Empirical Claim: Each person desires her own happiness.
(2) ‘Desired’ implies ‘Desirable’: If something is desired, it is
desirable.
(C1) Each person’s happiness is desirable.
(C) The happiness of the aggregate of people is desirable.
• Premise (2) is false:
False!
People sometimes desire things that are not desirable.
Objection:
The Fallacy of Composition
(C1) Each person’s happiness is desirable.
(C) The happiness of the aggregate of people is desirable.
• Mill infers a feature of the aggregate whole
from that feature’s being universally
exemplified by its parts.
• This is not generally a valid inference:
(TRUE) Each person’s weight < 1000 lbs.
(FALSE) The weight of of the aggregate of people is < 1000 lbs.
• This mistake is called the fallacy of
composition.
Objection:
The Fallacy of Composition
Argument:
(1) Empirical Claim: Each person desires her own happiness.
(2) ‘Desired’ implies ‘Desirable’: If something is desired, it is desirable.
(C1) Each person’s happiness is desirable.
• The reasoning from (C1) to (C) is bad.
It commits the fallacy of composition
• Jargon: the inference is “invalid.”
Invalid!
(C) The happiness of the aggregate of
people is desirable.
Mill’s Proof: Agenda
• Clarifications
• “Everyone desires happiness.”
• “No one desires anything else.”
Mill’s assertion:
No One Desires Anything Else
II. Everything else that is desirable is either desirable as a means to happiness,
or desirable as a part of happiness.
And now to decide whether this is really so; whether mankind do desire
nothing for itself, but that which is a pleasure to them or of which the
absence is pain; we have evidently arrived at a question of fact and
experience …. It can only be determined by practised self-consciousness and
self-observation, assisted by the observations of others. I believe that these
sources of evidence, impartially consulted, will declare that desiring a thing
and finding it pleasant, aversion to it and thinking of it as painful, are
phenomena entirely inseparable; or rather two parts of the same
phenomenon. [T]o desire anything, except in proportion as the idea of it is
pleasant, is a physical and metaphysical impossibility. (p. 501, col. 2)
• Ask yourself: “Are desirability and pleasantness are the
same thing?”
• Mill: “Yes!”
Apparent Counter-Examples to
Mill’s Assertion
Mill’s Assertion: Everything else that is desirable is either desirable as a
means to happiness, or desirable as a part of happiness.
• Apparent Counter-examples:
 money
 virtue
 art
 etc.
Mill’s Defense: Each of these is desirable originally as a
means to happiness
Later, it may become desirable as a part of happiness.
Desired as means to vs.
Desired as part of happiness
• Something is desired as a means to happiness
if and only if it is desired because its
possession will cause happiness (i.e. pleasure).
• Something is desired as a part of happiness if
and only if its possession will itself be
pleasurable.
Mill’s Defense in Action
• Consider money.
• Desired as a means: money is originally desired for
what it can buy.
• Desire as a part of happiness: we come to desire it for
its own sake.
[T]he love of money is not only one of the strongest moving forces of human
life, but money is, in many cases, desired in and for itself; the desire to
possess it is often stronger than the desire to use it, and goes on increasing
when all the desires which point to ends beyond it, to be compassed by it, are
falling off. It may, then, be said truly, that money is desired not for the sake of
an end, but as part of the end. (p. 500, col. 2)
• [Marx: We fetishize it.]
Mill’s Defense in Action
Basic Desires
Knowledge:
Originally:
buys
And so …
Desired as Means:
Basic Desires
Knowledge
Later:
buys
And so …
Desired as Means
“It may, then, be said truly, that money is desired not for the sake of
an end, but as part of the end.” (p. 500, col. 2)
Mill’s View of Virtue I
• Virtues include:
courage, wisdom, generosity, honesty, etc.
• Why do we originally desire virtue?
[Utilitarians] believe … that actions and dispositions are only virtuous because
they promote another end than virtue. (p. 500, col. 1)
• Mill: Because it leads to (general) happiness.
Mill’s View of Virtue II
• We (also) fetishize virtue:
There was no original desire of [virtue] … save its conduciveness to pleasure,
and especially to protection from pain. But through the association thus
formed, it may be felt a good in itself, and desired as such with as great
intensity as any other good; and with this difference between it and love of
money, of power, or of fame, that all of these may, and often do, render the
individual noxious to the other members of society to which he belongs,
whereas there is nothing which makes him so much a blessing to them as the
cultivation of the disinterested love of virtue. (p. 501, col. 1)
• In fact, we have a moral duty to fetishize virtue.
• [This involves getting yourself to desire
something which you do not now desire.]
Objection:
A Tension in Mill’s Discussion
•
•
•
•
Claim 1: Happiness is a mental state.
Claim 2: We can fetishize.
[In so doing we create value.]
Given the range of human desires, these two claims
seem hard to maintain at the same time.
• We desire things (for themselves) that are not mental
states.
• Examples:
 Jocko desires to be the 17th person to reach the South
Pole.
 Julius desires posthumous fame.
Objection:
A Tension in Mill’s Discussion
Joe wants his child to be happy and successful.
Two cases:
Joe gets what he wants
Joe
Junior
Joe mistakenly believes
he gets what he wants
Joe
Junior
Objection:
A Tension in Mill’s Discussion
Joe gets what
he wants
Joe
Joe mistakenly
believes he gets
what he wants
Joe
Junior
Junior
Joe is in the same mental states in both cases.
If Joe can fetishize Junior’s success, then Junior’s success
is part of Joe’s happiness.
If Junior’s success is part of Joe’s happiness, then Joe is
less happy in the second case.
Objection:
A Tension in Mill’s Discussion
Claim 1: Happiness is a mental state: Happiness consists in
pleasure and the avoidance of pain
Claim 2: We can fetishize: by desiring something for itself
we can make it a part of our happiness.
Argument:
(1) If Claim 2 is true, then whatever we desire for its own sake is a
part of happiness.
(2) We desire things other than pleasure and the absence of pain.
(C1) If Claim 2 is true, then happiness includes things other than
pleasure and the absence of pain.
(C) If Claim 2 is true, then Claim 1 is false.
Summary
Mill’s argument for the principle of Utility faces
serious challenges:
i. It appears to commit the fallacy of composition.
ii. It relies on the idea that desiring something for
itself makes it desirable, which leads two
problems:
a. Counter-examples (i.e. desires without desirability);
and
b. Apparent conflict with Mill’s conception of
happiness as a mental state.
Carritt’s Objections
• E.F. Carritt (1876 - 1964)
• Moral philosopher at Oxford.
• Carritt is a minor figure at
best, but …
• .. this is the earliest version I
can find of the objection that
Utilitarianism (properly
understood) requires
wickedness.
The
internet
has given
me
no picture.
Carritt’s Objections: Agenda
•
•
•
•
Carritt’s Thesis
The Standard Utilitarian Response
The Arctic Explorer’s Promise
The Utilitarian Sherriff
Carritt’s Thesis
[U]tilitarianism has forgotten rights; it allows no right to a [hu]man [being]
because he is innocent or because he has worked hard or has been promised
or injured, or because he stands in any other special relation to us. It thinks
only of duties or rather of a single duty, to dump happiness wherever we
most conveniently can. (p. 505, col. 1)
Carritt’s Thesis: Utilitarianism requires
wickedness, in the form of violations of rights.
Carritt’s Objection:
The General Idea
• There are situations in which wickedness
maximizes Utility.
• Carritt’s example:
paying what you’ve promised to someone richer.
• Utilitarianism says, “Your promise is irrelevant
to the rightness/wrongness of the act.”
Carritt’s Objection:
The General Idea
You’ve promised to pay Scrooge …
Gimme my
money!
But spending the money on a night at the opera has
better consequences.
Kill the
Wabbit!
Carritt’s Objections: Agenda
•
•
•
•
Carritt’s Thesis
The Standard Utilitarian Response
The Arctic Explorer’s Promise
The Utilitarian Sherriff
Carritt’s Objection:
The Standard Utilitarian Response
• Effects on the institution:
The argument of the utilitarians to explain this has usually been as follows: It
is true that a particular instance of justice may not directly increase the sum
of human happiness but quite the contrary, and yet we often approve such an
instance. This is because the general practice of such good faith, with the
consequent possibility of credit and contract, is supremely conducive to
happiness, and therefore so far as any violation of a bargain impairs this
confidence, it is, indirectly and in the long run, pernicious. (p. 505, col. 1)
• Counting only direct, immediate consequences,
repaying the rich does not maximize utility.
• But violating a promise undermines the institution of
promising.
• This counts in favor of keeping the promise.
Doubts about the Standard Utilitarian
Response
• Does a a single instance of promise-breaking
threaten the institution of promising?
• Suppose you marry. Does the fact that
someone you know cheats on his/her spouse
make you more likely to cheat?
• [In my own case: no.]
Carritt Rejects the
Standard Utilitarian Response
• Carritt’s response: add secrecy
[The standard Utilitarian response] breaks down because it only applies
where the promise and its performance or neglect would be public and
therefore serve as an example to others. (p. 504, col. 2)
• Two cases:
Arctic explorer’s promise
Utilitarian Sherriff
Carritt’s Objections: Agenda
•
•
•
•
Carritt’s Thesis
The Standard Utilitarian Response
The Arctic Explorer’s Promise
The Utilitarian Sherriff
The Arctic Explorer’s Promise
Suppose the two explorers in the Arctic have only enough food to keep on
alive till he can reach the base, and one offers to die if the other will promise
to educate his children. No other person can know that such a promise was
made, and the breaking or keeping of it cannot influence the future keeping
of promises. On the utilitarian theory, then, it’s the duty of the returned
traveller to act precisely as he ought to have acted if no bargain had been
made: to consider how he can spend his money most expediently for the
happiness of mankind, and , if he thinks his own child is a genius, to spend it
on him. (p. 504, col. 2)
• Carritt’s complaint:
according to Utilitarianism, the fact that I have
promised does not bear on the
rightness/wrongness of breaking that promise.
The Arctic Explorer’s Promise
Last year
A: I promise!
<wink, wink>
A: Sorry, kid.
Now
The
tuition money B
left me is better
spent on my little
genius.
B: Use my
money to take
care of my kids!
B’s child: I
think I might
like to go to
college.
The Arctic Explorer’s Promise
B’s child: I
A: Sorry, kid.
think I might
like to go to
college.
Argument:
(1) If Utilitarianism is true, then A’s promise does not
bear on the rightness or wrongness of acting as he’s
promised.
(2) A’s promise does bear on the rightness or wrongness
of acting as he’s promised.
(C) Utilitarianism is false.
Carritt’s Objections: Agenda
•
•
•
•
Carritt’s Thesis
The Standard Utilitarian Response
The Arctic Explorer’s Promise
The Utilitarian Sherriff
Carritt’s Utilitarian Sherriff
[T]he utilitarian must hold that we are justified in inflicting pain always and only in
order to prevent worse pain or bring about greater happiness. This, then, is all we
need consider in so-called punishment, which must be purely preventive. But if some
kind of very cruel crime becomes common, and none of the criminals can be caught, it
might be highly expedient, as an example, to hang an innocent man, if a charge
against him could be so framed that he were universally thought guilty; indeed this
would only fail to be an ideal instance of utilitarian “punishment” because the victim
himself would not have been so likely as a real felon to commit such a crime in the
future, in all other respects it would be perfectly deterrent and therefore felicific. (pp.
504-5)
• Carritt’s complaint:
according to Utilitarianism, the fact that someone is
innocent does not bear on the rightness/wrongness
of punishing him.
Carritt’s Utilitarian Sherriff
B: I’m innocent!
A: Sure, but your
suffering is generally
useful to humanity.
Sherrif
Punishment Requires Guilt:
It is morally legitimate to punish B for a crime
only if B = the person who committed that
crime.
Carritt’s Utilitarian Sherriff
Sherrif
Argument:
(1) If Utilitarianism is true, then B’s innocence does not
bear on the rightness or wrongness of punishing her.
(2) B’s innocence does bear on the rightness or
wrongness of punishing her.
(C) Utilitarianism is false.
Utilitarianism vs.
Common Sense Morality
• Common sense morality is (partly) backward-looking.
• According to common sense morality:
 The moral status of an act depends in part on what you
have promised.
 The moral status of punishment depends in part on what
the punishee has done.
• Utilitarianism is exclusively forward-looking.
• According to Utilitarianism: the moral status of an act
depends only on what will (or would) result from it.
• Utilitarianism and common sense are at odds.