UUA01 4/26/07 11:25 AM Page i understanding utilitarianism UUA01 4/26/07 11:25 AM Page ii Understanding Movements in Modern Thought Series Editor: Jack Reynolds This series provides short, accessible and lively introductions to the major schools, movements and traditions in philosophy and the his- tory of ideas since the beginning of the Enlightenment. All books in the series are written for undergraduates meeting the subject for the first time. Published Understanding Empiricism Understanding Phenomenology Robert G. Meyers David R. Cerbone Understanding Existentialism Understanding Poststructuralism Jack Reynolds James Williams Understanding Hegelianism Understanding Utilitarianism Robert Sinnerbrink Tim Mulgan Understanding Hermeneutics Understanding Virtue Ethics Lawrence K. Schmidt Stan van Hooft Forthcoming titles include Understanding Ethics Understanding Pragmatism Tim Chappell Axel Mueller Understanding Feminism Understanding Psychoanalysis Peta Bowden and Jane Mummery Joanne Faulkner and Matthew Sharpe Understanding German Idealism Will Dudley Understanding Rationalism Charlie Heunemann Understanding Naturalism Jack Ritchie UUA01 4/26/07 11:25 AM Page iii understanding utilitarianism Tim Mulgan ACUMEN UUA01 4/26/07 11:25 AM Page iv © Tim Mulgan, 2007 This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. No reproduction without permission. All rights reserved. First published in 2007 by Acumen Acumen Publishing Limited Stocksfield Hall Stocksfield NE43 7TN www.acumenpublishing.co.uk ISBN: 978-1-84465-089-7 (hardcover) ISBN: 978-1-84465-090-3 (paperback) British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Typeset by Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong. Printed and bound by Cromwell Press, Trowbridge. UUA01 4/26/07 11:25 AM Page v Contents 1 Introduction 1 2 Classical utilitarianism 7 3 Proofs of utilitarianism 45 4 Well-being 61 5 Injustice and demands 93 6 Acts, rules and institutions 115 7 Consequentialism 131 8 Practicality 149 9 The future of utilitarianism 167 Questions for discussion and revision 179 Further reading 187 Index 193 contents v UUA01 4/26/07 11:25 AM Page vi UUC01 4/26/07 10:44 AM Page 1 one Introduction What is utilitarianism? In his brief essay Utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill provides a very succinct account of the Utility Principle. Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote hap- piness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure. (Mill, Utilitarianism, 55) However, this deceptively simple principle is not the whole story. Utilitarianism is a broad tradition of philosophical and social thought, not a single principle. The central utilitarian idea is that morality and politics are (and should be) centrally concerned with the promotion of happiness. While Mill’s principle is one expression of this basic idea, there are many others. In particular, Mill’s principle focuses our atten- tion on particular actions. As we shall see, utilitarians have often been more interested in evaluating codes of moral rules or systems of polit- ical institutions. Why study utilitarianism? If you are taking an introductory ethics course, then you will probably be asked questions about utilitarianism. If you want to pass the course, introduction 1 UUC01 4/26/07 10:44 AM Page 2 this gives you a reason to study utilitarianism. Fortunately, there are other – nobler – reasons to study utilitarianism. Throughout the past two centuries, the utilitarian tradition has been very influential – not just within philosophy, but in the more obviously practical disciplines of politics and economics. As a result of this influence, utilitarian assumptions and arguments abound in modern economic and polit- ical life, especially in public policy. If we want to understand the social world we inhabit, an understanding of the utilitarian tradition is essential. In introductory ethics courses, utilitarianism is often presented as a deeply counter-intuitive theory – one which some philosophers accept despite its lack of intuitive appeal. As we shall see in Chapter 5, there are good reasons for this. Utilitarianism can face very severe intuitive problems. However, the central utilitarian idea also has considerable intuitive appeal. What could be more obvious than the thought that, in both our daily lives and our political deliberations, we should strive to make people’s lives go better? What else should we want – to make people miserable? Negative reactions to utilitarianism are often based on misunder- standings. Jeremy Bentham gave utilitarianism a bad name. And he knew it. Although Bentham sometimes used the name “principle of utility”, he preferred the longer but more accurate “greatest happiness principle”. The focus on “utility” suggests a dour, serious view, opposed to frivolity or fun. In everyday English, to describe a building as “util- itarian” is to say that it is merely functional. It gets the job done, but gives no one any pleasure or enjoyment. Sometimes utilitarians have encouraged this misunderstanding. But, properly understood, the utilitarian tradition points in the opposite direction. Pleasure, enjoy- ment and fun are all components of happiness. So they are all things that utilitarians want to promote. (Indeed, as we shall see in Chapter 4, utilitarian philosophers are often accused of being too interested in pleasure.) Plan of the book Introductions to utilitarianism typically take one of two forms. Some discuss the classical utilitarians from a purely historical perspective, without attempting to connect their work with subsequent develop- ments in moral philosophy. At the other extreme, problem-based ethics courses are often entirely ahistorical, so that utilitarianism is 2 understanding utilitarianism UUC01 4/26/07 10:44 AM Page 3 presented as an abstract moral principle that miraculously emerged from the philosophical ether. My approach lies between these two extremes. I aim to present utilitarianism as a living tradition, as opposed to either an outdated view of merely historical interest or an ahistorical set of abstract principles. Chapter 2 offers a brief history of the utilitarian tradition, show- ing how shifts in historical context have changed the priorities of util- itarian thinkers. We begin with a brief account of the precursors of classical utilitarianism, contrasting the conservative theological utilitarianism of William Paley with the radical atheism of William Godwin. The bulk of the chapter explores the evolution of classical util- itarianism from Bentham through J. S. Mill to Henry Sidgwick. The aim of the chapter is to illustrate both the current relevance of the classical utilitarians, and the extent to which their concerns differ from our own. Over the past two hundred years, utilitarian thinkers have offered many justifications for their views. These are explored in Chapter 3. One central theme is that the style of these “proofs” has often been driven more by the prevailing philosophical orthodoxy of the time than by any internal debate within the utilitarian tradition. As a result, the chapter proceeds chronologically. It also includes potted summaries of broader developments in English language philosophy over the past two hundred years, from the early work of Bentham, through Mill’s empiricism, the philosophical intuitionism of Sidgwick, and the mid- twentieth-century obsession with the analysis of moral language; to recent attempts to vindicate utilitarianism using the various methods of contemporary philosophy. (The broader philosophical history here deserves several books of its own. So my aim is merely to give a taste of the relationship between moral philosophy and broader philosoph- ical trends. Other books in the Acumen Understanding Movements in Modern Thought series provide more detail on specific movements in modern philosophy.) We close by asking how these changes in underly- ing philosophical emphasis have affected the content of utilitarian morality. I argue that the shift away from attempts to construct deduc- tive proofs of the utilitarian principle has increased the importance of the alleged counterintuitive consequences of the utilitarian principle. This paves the way for subsequent chapters. Perhaps the most important question dividing utilitarians is the definition of happiness or “well-being” or “utility” or “whatever makes life worth living”. (The fact the utilitarians use all these different terms – and more besides – is an indication of the complexities involved.) introduction 3 UUC01 4/26/07 10:44 AM Page 4 Chapter 4 follows the debate from the classical utilitarians through to contemporary thinkers. We focus on three main alternatives: hedonism (a good life consists of pleasure), preference theory (a good life consists of getting what you want), and objective list theory (a good life consists of various things that are valuable in their own right, such as know- ledge or achievement). Although historical material is introduced where relevant, our main interest is in the positions themselves, not on the thinkers who first propounded them. Chapter 4 also introduces us to the methods of modern moral philosophy, especially the use of “thought experiments” to test a moral theory. The chapter ends with a discussion of the moral significance of the welfare of animals, and its connection to the well-being of humans. This issue is interesting in its own right, but it is also an excellent