Utilitarianism is one
of the most important consequentialist approaches to ethics. A
consequentialist approach is one which argues that human beings ought to
act in a way that brings about the best possible results from their
actions. According to this approach, then, it really doesn’t matter what
kind of acts we perform or what our intentions are when performing them,
as long as the effects of our acts are generally positive. If such an
approach makes sense intuitively it is because most of us are taught to be
good consequentialists growing up. When a child’s parents shout at him,
"did you ever stop to think how your actions effected anyone
else?" these parents are in fact adopting a consequentialist approach
to their children’s behavior. Our public policy in the United States
also tends for the most part to be consequentialist. Whether we are
talking about decriminalizing drug use or reducing welfare benefits, the
common question that elected officials will raise is "what will the
effects of this policy be on the average citizen?"
The two major forms
consequentialist theory takes are ethical egoism and utilitarianism.
Although both of these forms look to the positive consequences of an act
to determine whether it is right, they differ with respect to who ought to
benefit from these positive consequences. An ethical egoist would argue
that one ought to work to promote one’s own good, while a utilitarian
would maintain that one ought to work for the good of all who are affected
by an act.
Although there are
many different utilitarian approaches, all of them are based upon the
writings of Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873),
who can properly be called the founding fathers of the utilitarian
movement. What all utilitarians have in common is that they accept one and
only one principle of morality, the principle of utility, which states
that in all our actions we must always strive to produce the greatest
possible balance of good over evil. In other words, a utilitarian would
hold that if have a choice between different courses of action, we should
always aim at choosing the one that has the best overall consequences for
all those who might be affected by our actions.
To determine whether
the outcomes of our actions are indeed going to produce the maximum
balance of good over evil for all who are involved, a utilitarian would
say that we need to engage in what is know as a "utilitarian
calculus." We begin by weighing the positive and negative
consequences of an action. If the act produces a greater amount of good
than evil for all those who are affected by the act, then the act is good;
if not, the act is bad. For example, Mildred Schlossberg, a high school
senior, is trying to decide whether or not she should lie about the fact
that she is currently dating her friend’s former boyfriend. Weighing the
positive and negative consequences of the act, Mildred realizes that, on
the one hand, if she tells her friend the truth it might cause her pain,
since she still has feelings for her former flame; telling the truth might
also cause her friend to feel that Mildred has betrayed her, thus putting
their relationship into jeopardy. On the other hand, Mildred realizes that
if she attempts to deceive her friend about the relationship, she is
almost certain to find out anyway; she also believes that a relationship
starting under such dubious conditions might not last very long; finally,
she thinks that it would be horrible to have to sneak around all the time
in order to prevent her friend from finding out what is going on. Weighing
the consequences of each possible course of action, she decides that the
greatest good will ultimately be achieved by telling her friend the truth
about the relationship. Many people engage in this type of utilitarian
calculus automatically when they are contemplating important decisions in
life. Every time we weigh the pros and cons of a certain action, we are
essentially engaged in a type of utilitarian calculus.
There are two major
forms that utilitarianism usually takes. Act Utilitarianism maintains that
for each individual act we are about to perform, we need to appeal
directly to the principle of utility. In each instance we must ask
ourselves whether this specific act in this circumstance will produce the
greatest amount of good over evil. But what about moral rules that are
commonly accepted, such as "don’t lie." Can’t rules like
these be used as a guide for one’s actions? According to John Stuart
Mill, such rules, while in general appropriate to follow, cannot be used
as an absolute guide in moral decision making. There are many instances
when lying, in fact, may be perfectly acceptable— for example, when
telling the truth will subject an innocent to a greater evil. The
individual who lies to thugs about where their victim is hiding is also
probably behaving properly even though he is forced to resort to a
deception. Mill’s point is that while relying on moral rules may be
helpful at times, when following those rules causes more harm than good,
we should not hesitate to discard them.
One obvious problem
with act utilitarianism is that it seems like an impractical approach for
helping to guide one in moral decision making. In the first place,
although a person may be able to gauge the direct and immediate effects of
his action, it is considerably more difficult to gauge the indirect and
long-term effects. Indeed one might argue that it is in fact impossible to
calculate every possible consequence of an action. An act might very well
produce positive benefits initially, but in the long run might prove
extremely harmful. A second problem with act utilitarianism is that when
an individual is faced with a moral dilemma, he is often required to make
instantaneous decisions. If he has to weigh the positive and negative
effects of each action that he is about to perform, and also consider
long-term effects, he will ultimately be paralyzed. Therefore if we are to
be able to make useful moral decisions, we need to have some clear and
concrete rules that can be appealed to in various circumstances.
It was for this
reason that rule utilitarianism was developed. According to this approach,
certain moral rules, if followed, will always produce the greatest amount
of good over evil. Thus a rule utilitarian would maintain that instead of
each individual acting to bring about the greatest amount of good over
evil, everyone should follow those rules which will tend to bring
about the greatest amount of good. For example, instead of wondering in
each and every moral situation whether one ought to tell the truth or not,
one would establish a rule like the following: "one should always
tell the truth because doing so will produce the greater good."
Certainly it might be the case that in a specific situation telling the
truth will not produce good consequences (for example telling one’s
already depressed grandfather that he has only six months to live), but in
general, the rule utilitarian would argue that it is in the best interest
of society if everyone told the truth.
Having briefly
sketched out the utilitarian approach to moral decision making, it remains
to be seen whether this approach can serve as an acceptable system of
ethics for a Christian. Certainly the utilitarian approach is to be
credited for the attempt it makes to look beyond the individual’s own
interest in determining which actions are right and wrong. Any legitimate
utilitarian must always be concerned with how his actions affect others,
his own well-being weighing no more heavily than any other’s in
determining which actions he should or should not perform. "The
happiness which forms the utilitarian standard of what is right in
conduct, is not the agent’s own happiness," writes Mill, " but
that of all concerned. As between his own happiness and that of others,
utilitarians require him to be as strictly impartial as a disinterested
and benevolent spectator."* Indeed in certain
circumstances a utilitarian may even be obligated to sacrifice his own
happiness and well-being if doing so will help to promote the greater
good. In this sense, utilitarianism represents a marked improvement over
approaches which make self-interest the basis for ethical decision making,
and is certainly preferable to moral subjectivism insofar as it provides
some kind of objective standard of right and wrong.
Despite all this,
utilitarianism must be recognized as a completely unacceptable moral
system from a Christian perspective. In the first place, utilitarianism
could easily be used to violate the rights of an individual or a minority
for the benefit of the majority. For example, suppose a utilitarian has to
decide whether or not painful scientific studies on orphaned mentally
retarded children ought to be performed. He is convinced that these
experiments could realistically lead to a cure that could save thousands
of "normal" children in the future. This kind of experimentation
could easily be justified by engaging in a utilitarian calculus. The
experiments would not cause mental pain to others because the children are
orphaned, and their disability—assuming that it is severe enough—would
prevent them from having the kind of mental anguish that many of us would
have knowing we were about to be experimented on against our wills. If
unfortunate accidents did occur as a result of the experimentation that
cut short the lives of these children, at least the experimenters would
have the satisfaction of knowing that the future prospects of these
children were dim anyway, and, had they lived, they would only have been a
drain on the resources of society. Consequently, our utilitarian
researcher should have no qualms about performing these experiments, even
though such practices would be rejected completely by most civilized
people.**
A utilitarian
approach can also easily be used to violate the principles of justice. The
most basic demands of justice state that we treat people fairly and reward
or punish them based upon their own merits. As the following imaginary
case illustrates, it is all too easy to violate this principle using a
utilitarian approach:
Suppose a utilitarian were
visiting an area in which there was racial strife, and that, during his
visit, a Negro rapes a white woman, and that race riots occur as a
result of the crime, white mobs, with the connivance of the police,
bashing and killing Negroes, etc. Suppose too that our utilitarian is in
the area of the crime when it is committed such that his testimony would
would bring about the conviction of a particular Negro. If he knows that
a quick arrest will stop the riots and linchings, surely, as a
utilitarian, he must conclude that he has a duty to bear false witness
in order to bring about the punishment of an innocent person.**
*