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Utilitarianism.Pdf Utilitarianism This is the first general overview in many years of the history and the present condition of utilitarian ethics. Unlike other introductions to the subject, which narrowly focus on the Enlightenment and Victorian eras, Utilitarianism takes a wider view. Geoffrey Scarre introduces the major utilitarian philosophers from the Chinese sage Mo Tzu in the fifth century BC through to Richard Hare in the twentieth. But Scarre not only surveys the history of the ‘doctrine of utility’; in later chapters he also enters the current debates on the viability of the theory. Utilitarianism today faces challenges on several fronts: its opponents argue that it lacks a credible theory of value, that it fails to protect the essential interests of individuals and that it denies them the space to pursue the personal concerns that give meaning to their lives. Geoffrey Scarre examines and discusses these charges, but he concludes that, despite the flaws of utilitarian theory, its positions are still relevant and significant today. Written especially with undergraduates in mind, this is an ideal course book for those studying and teaching moral philosophy. Geoffrey Scarre is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Durham. He is the author of Logic and Reality in the Philosophy of John Stuart Mill and the editor of Children, Parents and Politics. The Problems of Philosophy Founding editor: Ted Honderich Editors: Tim Crane and Jonathan Wolff, University College London This series addresses the central problems of philosophy. Each book gives a fresh account of a particular philosophical theme by offering two perspectives on the subject: the historical context and the author’s own distinctive and original contribution. The books are written to be accessible to students of philosophy and related disciplines, while taking the debate to a new level. DEMOCRACY* MIND-BODY IDENTITY Ross Harrison THEORIES* Cynthia Macdonald THE EXISTENCE OF THE WORLD* THE NATURE OF ART* Reinhardt Grossman A.L.Cothey NAMING AND REFERENCE PERSONAL IDENTITY* R.J.Nelson Harold W.Noonan EXPLAINING EXPLANATION* POLITICAL FREEDOM David-Hillel Ruben George G.Brenkert IF P, THEN Q* THE RATIONAL FOUNDATIONS David H.Sanford OF ETHICS* T.L.S.Sprigge SCEPTICISM Christopher Hookway PRACTICAL REASONING* Robert Audi HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS Alastair Hannay RATIONALITY* Harold I.Brown THE IMPLICATIONS OF DETERMINISM THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE* Roy Weatherford J.M.Moravcsik THE INFINITE* THE WEAKNESS OF THE WILL A.W.Moore Justine Gosling KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEF VAGUENESS Frederic F.Schmitt Timothy Williamson KNOWLEDGE OF THE PERCEPTION EXTERNAL WORLD Howard Robinson Bruce Aune THE NATURE OF GOD MORAL KNOWLEDGE* Gerard Hughes Alan Goldman * Also available in paperback Utilitarianism Geoffrey Scarre London and New York First published 1996 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002. Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an International Thomson Publishing company. © 1996 Geoffrey Scarre All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Scarre, Geoffrey. Utilitarianism/Geoffrey Scarre. 1. Includes bibliographical references and index. 2. Ethics. 3. Utilitarianism. I. Title. BJ1012.S336 1995 171’.5–dc20 95–38889 CIP ISBN 0-415-09527-1 (hbk) ISBN 0-415-12197-3 (pbk) ISBN 0-203-21376-9 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-21388-2 (Glassbook Format) Contents Preface vii I Introduction: The Character of the Theory 1 II Four Ancient Moralists 27 1 Mo Tzu 27 2 Jesus 33 3 Aristotle 37 4 Epicurus 39 III Utilitarianism and Enlightenment 48 1 Chastellux and Helvétius 50 2 Hutcheson 53 3Hume 57 4 Priestley and Paley 60 5 Godwin 67 6 Bentham 72 IV John Stuart Mill 82 1 Early years 82 2 James Mill 85 3 The importance of character 87 4 Higher and lower pleasures 91 5 The ‘proof of utility’ 96 6 Utility and justice 101 V Some Later Developments 106 1 Intuitional utilitarianism: Sidgwick 106 2 Ideal Utilitarianism: Moore and Rashdall 114 3 Rule-utilitarianism 122 v Contents VI Happiness and Other Ends 133 1 Preference and happiness 133 2 Dominant-and inclusive-end conceptions of happiness 137 3 Problems about multiple ends 141 4 Two contrasting responses 144 VII Maximisation, Fairness and Respect for Persons 152 1 Is utilitarian justice just? 152 2 Panem et circenses 155 3 ‘Whoever debases others is debasing himself’ 158 4 But should the consequences count? 162 5 Limitations of the self-respect argument 166 6 Archangels, proles and the natural man 172 VIII Utilitarianism and Personality 182 1 Does utilitarian morality demand too much? 182 2 The hard line: utilitarians should be saints 186 3 A softer line: utilitarians may be human 187 4 Maximisation and alienation 193 5 Non-alienating direct utilitarianism 199 Notes 205 Bibliography 212 Index 222 vi Preface Utilitarianism is a large subject with a long history. To borrow the words of St John, if all were written down about it, the world itself would not hold all the books that would have to be written. Any attempt to survey the past and present states of the doctrine within a single set of covers must necessarily be highly selective, and no doubt controversial in its selections. The present book is more concerned with utilitarianism as a theory of individual morality than as a theory of collective choice; its province is therefore moral philosophy rather than political science or welfare economics. For some time there has been a need for a new overview to relate the lively contemporary debate about utilitarian ethics to the historical development of the theory, some aspects of which are not well known. How far the present book is from adequately satisfying that need, it is the reader’s prerogative to decide. A few words about structure are in order. Following an introductory chapter setting out the basic features of modern utilitarianism, four historical chapters provide a critical survey of some of the most important utilitarian thinkers from the fifth century BC to the present. There is no sharp transition from the historical to the non-historical parts of the book; the final section of Chapter V, on rule-utilitarianism, appraises a debate within utilitarianism which began over half a century ago and is still going strong. The last three chapters are purely analytical and focus on what I believe to be the three most important areas of concern for contemporary utilitarian moral theorists: the definition of a philosophically viable concept of utility; the justification of utilitarian ideas about justice and fair treatment; and the defence of utilitarianism against the charge that it is too demanding a moral doctrine, requiring of individual agents a readiness for self-sacrifice that is possible only for moral saints. Special emphasis has been laid, in the historical sections, on the contributions made by older writers to clear thinking in these problem areas. vii Preface I am very grateful to Jonathan Wolff and to an anonymous reader for the publisher for extremely helpful comments on an earlier draft of this work. I have learned much also from spirited discussion of many of its themes with colleagues and students in the University of Durham. All have forced me to clarify the exposition and sharpen the argument at many points. It is hoped that the errors it contains will be fewer and less egregious for their assistance. I should also like to express my gratitude to my copy-editor, Marguerite Nesling, for exemplary editing of the text. After some hesitation, I have decided to follow the traditional practice of using masculine word-forms throughout in gender-neutral contexts. It is difficult to incorporate ‘she or he’ and ‘his or her’ into a text while retaining tolerable prose, and the switch to feminine forms constitutes merely a kind of stylistic ‘out of the frying pan into the fire’. The only really satisfactory solution would be to introduce some new gender-neutral terms into the language: a task to be attempted by some bolder writer of the future. Ancestors of two sections of the text have appeared in the pages of Utilitas: ‘Epicurus as a forerunner of utilitarianism’ was a longer version of Chapter II, section (4), while ‘Utilitarianism and self-respect’ corresponds to the first half of Chapter VII; fuller references are given in the Bibliography. Geoffrey Scarre Durham, June 1995 viii CHAPTER I Introduction: The Character of the Theory Utilitarianism is not, strictly speaking, a problem of philosophy, but it is a problematic approach to moral philosophy which has always attracted both ardent defenders and ardent opponents. Seen by its enthusiasts as a down-to-earth and liberating theory which enjoins an empirical attitude to practical decision-making and refuses to accept the tyranny of questionable moral conventions, utilitarianism has been condemned by the more severe of its critics as a pernicious doctrine which treats our most precious values with scorn and prescribes the universal sacrifice of principle to expediency. Between the extremes, of course, there are more muted shades of opinion. Many philosophers have granted the intuitive appeal of core utilitarian ideas while remaining dubious about the theory’s ultimate adequacy. There is something undeniably appealing in the classical utilitarian notion that actions are ethically justified when they lead to happiness, or diminish misery: ‘You count the consequences for human happiness of one or another course, and you go with the one with the highest favourable total’ (Taylor 1982:129).
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