Liberal Utilitarianism and Applied Ethics
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LIBERAL UTILITARIANISM AND APPLIED ETHICS SOCIAL ETHICS AND POLICY Edited by Anthony Dyson and John Harris Centre for Social Ethics and Policy, University of Manchester EXPERIMENTS ON EMBRYOS Edited by Anthony Dyson and John Harris THE LIMITS OF MEDICAL PATERNALISM Heta Häyry PROTECTING THE VULNERABLE Autonomy and Consent in Health Care Edited by Margaret Brazier and Mary Lobjoit MEDICAL CONFIDENTIALITY AND LEGAL PRIVILEGE Jean V.McHale ETHICS AND BIOTECHNOLOGY Edited by Anthony Dyson and John Harris LIBERAL UTILITARIANISM AND APPLIED ETHICS Matti Häyry London and New York First published 1994 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 © 1994 Matti Häyry 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 herafter 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 Häyry, Matti. Liberal utilitarianism and applied ethics/Matti Häyry. p. cm. —(Social ethics and policy series) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Utilitarianism. I. Title. II. Series. B843.H38 1994 171'.5–dc20 94–345 ISBN 0-415-07785-0 (Print Edition) ISBN 0-203-02589-X Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-21182-0 (Glassbook Format) To all my friends CONTENTS Preface ix INTRODUCTION 1 1 UTILITARIANISM AND THE BRITISH TRADITION 8 The historical forms of utilitarianism 11 Universal altruism 12 Associationism 20 Theological utilitarianism 26 Radical utilitarianism 32 2 THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN UTILITARIANISM 43 The basic questions of modern utilitarianism 46 The greatest happiness principle defended 48 The varieties of utility 55 Acts or rules? 67 Justice, integrity and rights 73 3 FROM CLASSICAL TO LIBERAL UTILITARIANISM 83 The fundamental problems of utilitarianism 84 The derivation of liberal utilitarianism 87 The justification of liberal utilitarianism 96 The axiology of liberal utilitarianism 104 Acts, rules, consequences and responsibilities 112 The principles of liberal utilitarianism 124 4 ETHICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE 128 Duties according to liberal utilitarianism 131 Rights according to liberal utilitarianism 138 The nature and role of applied ethics 147 LIBERAL UTILITARIANISM AND APPLIED ETHICS Equality, liberty and justice 158 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 167 Further reading 171 Notes 173 Bibliography 191 Index 201 PREFACE The idea of writing this book came to me on the 13th of December, 1990, at approximately 10 o’clock in the evening. A few hours earlier I had publicly defended my doctoral dissertation at the University of Helsinki, and I was now having dinner with Timo Airaksinen, who had supervised my work, John Harris, who had examined it, and Heta Häyry, who had defended her own dissertation in November. During the starters, the conversation turned to my thesis, which was on health care ethics, and to the fact that in my defence I had rejected moral absolutism in certain medical matters. Halfway through the main course, Timo and John tried to convince me that my line of argument was skewed, and that it would inevitably lead to full-fledged ethical relativism, anarchy and chaos. I disagreed with them, of course, but did not quite know how to justify my position. It was not until the dessert had been served that the answer, and the idea of preparing this book, hit me. I have been convinced that the main ideas of utilitarianism are sound since I read my very first book on moral philosophy, G.E. Moore’s Ethics, in April 1982. I could not see then, and still cannot see today, how it could be my duty to act in ways which do not produce the maximum of net good. I was forced to defend my view on several occasions during the academic year 1987–8, when Heta, I and a colleague of ours, Heikki Kannisto, frequenty sat up long nights discussing the pros and cons of various ethical theories. To keep the arguments flowing, we often assumed fixed roles. Usually Heta defended a liberal view, Heikki advocated virtue ethics and I upheld the utilitarian theory. In the course of these discussions I gradually learned that there are corollaries to the traditional utilitarian principles which make the doctrine intuitively unacceptable to many people. I did not, however, give up my conviction that there must be a form of utilitarianism which can be defended against the intuitionist critiques. ix LIBERAL UTILITARIANISM AND APPLIED ETHICS Eventually, in 1989, Heta and I put our heads together and came up with the first formulation of liberal utilitarianism. I had, however, started writing my dissertation in 1985, that is, before I had any ideas concerning the liberal version of utilitarianism. Since I mistrusted deontological moral theories even more than the classical utilitarian doctrine, I had to assume a more general theoretical approach. My solution was to rely on the methods of applied ethics as I understood them. The view presented in the thesis was that certain medical decisions and health care policies can be justified only by appeals to the principles of consistency and intuitive acceptability. The problem with this solution is, as pointed out by John and Timo, that it appears to endorse complete ethical relativism, and to undermine the objective basis of morality. But appearances are, I believe, deceptive here. What my critics failed to see, and what I failed to emphasize in my dissertation, is that appeals to logic and emotion in difficult cases like abortion, euthanasia and the allocation of scarce medical resources do not necessarily rule out appeals to more fundamental ethical principles in less controversial situations. The fact that I do not trust traditional ethical theories in contentious issues does not automatically mean that I do not trust them in more clear- cut cases. We finished our dessert, and over coffee I told John that I intended to write a book on utilitarianism and applied ethics. I described my views on both doctrines, and explained to him how I thought I could, by combining them, alleviate the relativism which was so apparent in my dissertation. John wanted to see a written outline of my ideas, and I sent him the sketch of a book a few months later. In July 1991, Routledge commissioned me, on John’s proposal, to write the book for the Social Ethics and Policy Series. I started my work in September 1991, and completed the bulk of the book in May 1993. I have incurred several debts during the preparation of this book. My warm thanks are due to Timo Airaksinen, John Harris and Heikki Kannisto, who have all in their different ways made my present work possible. Mark Shackleton, Lecturer in English, University of Helsinki, has revised the language of the manuscript, for which I am truly grateful. I also extend my thanks to Mikko Salmela, who went well beyond the call of duty in providing me with the essential literature on utilitarianism, and to Martti Kuokkanen, Sirkku Hellsten and Marjaana Kopperi, who offered their comments on the completed x PREFACE manuscript. A generous Research Fellowship granted to me by the University of Helsinki has provided my livelihood since June 1985. I acknowledge this support with gratitude. As always, my greatest debt is to Heta Häyry. Not only did she co- author the first formulation of liberal utilitarianism, she also discussed with me in detail all the arguments presented in the book, and suggested numerous useful corrections and amendments. Even more importantly, she has once again provided me with the emotional support and intellectual responses which alone can turn the strenuous marathon of preparing a philosophical book into the pleasurable country walk we all would like it to be. I dedicate this book, following the example of the cinematic figure of Henry Chinaski, to all my friends. Matti Häyry November 1993 xi INTRODUCTION The social ethics and social policy of modern welfare states are based on principles and ideals introduced and developed by the utilitarian philosophers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. General well-being and equality among individuals have been focal to legal and social reforms since the rise of classical utilitarianism in Britain, and reformist movements ranging from liberalism to socialism have recognized the status of these values as goals of good government. Furthermore, the economic doctrines employed in today’s West mainly descend from the views put forward by the nineteenth- century advocates of the principle of utility. It can, in fact, be reasonably argued that modern societies cannot be fully comprehended without understanding the nature and evolution of the utilitarian theories which constitute their ethical core. Public decision-making has in the majority of twentieth-century Western countries been founded on roughly utilitarian ideals, that is, on the idea that the happiness of society at large outweighs the happiness of a few privileged individuals. This axiom can be supplemented by the concept of a society as an organic whole, in which case those who employ the maxim can end up supporting various versions of collectivism and totalitarianism. But when the utilitarian principles are combined with the credos of individualism, the ensuing theory will most likely be critical towards collectivist and totalitarian pressures. Moral theorists who place their trust in rights and duties rather than in the notion of the good have sometimes believed that utility calculations are automatically hostile towards the interests of individuals, but this belief is mistaken.