Utilitarianism in Five Minutes

The classic statement of Utilitarianism is “the greatest good for the greatest number.” Let’s dig a little deeper (but not too much deeper).

Definition

The single goal of Utilitarian morality is to increase happiness and decrease suffering to the greatest extent possible. Any action in this direction is good, and should be encouraged; any action away from this direction is bad, and should be discouraged. All creatures that are sentient—that is, capable of happiness and suffering—are morally relevant, and their interests should be considered.

Utilitarianism does not only concern itself with physical pleasure. Happiness can mean reading a great book, having a long conversation with a good friend, or making a new discovery. It includes the taste of a fatty meal, but it also allows for the pleasure of lasting health. Philosopher John Stuart Mill examines pleasure in depth in his book, Utilitarianism.

You now understand the gist of what I mean when I say “Utilitarianism.”

Common Objections

Below is a list of common objections to Utilitarianism, and essays that address them.

1. If we are obligated to maximize utility, that means we are almost always acting immorally since we are not maximizing utility as much as we should be. See: Why We Identify Good and Evil; The Mistake of Immorality.

2. If we follow Utilitarianism, that will make life worse (e.g. will cause people to lose their sense of right and wrong, will lead to an Orwellian society, etc). See: Using Utilitarianism to Argue Against Utilitarianism.

3. In such-and-such hypothetical moral dilemma, Utilitarianism leads to a conclusion that I don’t like. See: Morality in the Real World.

4. Motives are important. According to Utilitarianism, there is no difference between behaving altruistically because you truly care and behaving altruistically to make yourself look good. See: Sustainable and Unsustainable Good; Why We Identify Good and Evil.

5. It is impossible to accurately measure happiness. Remind me to write an essay on this one. For now, see The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris.

6. Utilitarianism can be used to justify the majority oppressing the minority. See: Tyranny of the Majority.

Free Will and Compatibilism

I have argued that free will does not exist. In short, I argue that any action is either deterministic or random, and neither is free. This is a well-known philosophical position that is similar to determinism. Some posit that determinism is true and free will does exist; this is known as compatibilism. I do not object to this position, so I must explain why I continue to suppose that free will does not exist.

From an incompatibilist perspective, there is no reason to support free will. Evidence (not to mention logic) clearly demonstrates that every event is either deterministic or random. But I can see the merits to compatibilism, which effectively redefines free will so that it exists. Under the definition I gave in the article linked at the beginning of this essay, free will clearly does not exist. But under a different definition, it may exist. I can understand that a different definition may be useful in a different situation. I continue to assume that free will does not exist, because it does not exist under the definition of free will that I like best.

This debate’s significance primarily lies in the question of moral responsibility: If free will does not exist, some argue that we are not responsible for our actions. However, based on what I see as the most sensible definition of moral responsibility, free will is irrelevant. The only reason to define someone as morally responsible is if that definition will influence people to do more good than they would have done otherwise. (I will write about this more in a future essay, which I will (hopefully) publish soon.)

For my purposes, the incompatibilist definition of free will makes more sense. Some prefer the compatibilist definition; as long as we are clear on what our terms mean, I have no problem with using a different definition. I simply see no reason to.

Book Review: The Moral Landscape

I recently finished reading Sam Harris’ latest book, The Moral Landscape. It was a fun book to read and made an interesting case.

Sam Harris rejects the common notion that science has nothing to say about morality, and that the fact/value distinction is a false distinction: values are really just facts about the well-being of conscious creatures. Therefore, according to Harris, it is possible to science to answer questions about morality.

This review is divided into two parts. In the first part, I will address the book itself, how interesting it may have been, and why you should or should not read it. In the second part I will discuss the arguments it puts forward.

Part 1

The Moral Landscape was an engaging and interesting read. Before getting the book I read some of Sam Harris’ essays about the fact/value distinction and watched some interviews. He made essentially the same case each time. The book differs from the other media I absorbed in that it goes into much more detail in support of Harris’ argument and spends a large chunk of time discussing conclusions.

Of the five chapters, the first two are easily the most valuable. They explain Harris’ position and provide supporting evidence. I also found those chapters to be the most enjoyable. The last three chapters did not seem to add much to the core of the argument and could just as easily have been left off; still, they were interesting and added some additional branches to the book’s line of reasoning.

This book was worth reading and I very much enjoyed it. If you’re in a hurry, you can skip the last three chapters without missing much.

Part 2

Most people would agree that if the purpose of morality is to enhance the well-being of conscious creatures then science can say how to do this. The weak point is where Harris claims that that is indeed the purpose of morality. He actually does a remarkably good job of making that claim, but his argument is not watertight.

When Harris makes the case that morality is about the well-being of conscious creatures, some respond by saying that his valuation of well-being is subjective. Harris argues that the well-being of conscious creatures is the only thing that can reasonably be valued. I agree on this point, but I disagree that everyone must value everyone else’s well-being. I suspect Harris would argue that it is morally wrong for me to murder someone, even if it makes me happy. However, if it increases my well-being, who is to say that the victim’s well-being is more important? He may think it is, and some objective measure may say that the total well-being he lost was greater than that which I gained. But I see no objective reason why I should care about that. It happens that I do care, because I see no reason to limit my maximization of well-being to only my own; however, Harris did not convince me that there is some objective reason why I should value others’ happiness.

Harris effectively ties his argument into a number of real-world examples, and I found most of this book convincing. My only objection is that he assumes that everyone’s well-being matters, but never supports this assumption.

Moral Dilemmas with Dogs

You are standing on a bridge overlooking a track where five dogs are sitting. Suddenly, you see a trolley coming down the track. The dogs are not paying attention, and if the trolley hits them, they will surely all die. You start to panic, but then you see that next to you is a very fat dog. You could push the dog off the bridge, killing him and stopping the trolley. Should you do it?

You are a private veterinarian who takes care of stray dogs. You currently have five dogs who all need a different organ to survive, and you have no doggy organ donors. You are about to give up hope when a healthy dog walks in for a doggy check-up. You could kill him, harvest his organs and give them to the other five dogs. Should you do it?

Why Mythology?

One night, a long time ago, three cavemen, Ug, Boggle, and Carl, we`re watching the clear skies. Ug wondered,

“Where do the stars come from?”

“A wise old caveman told me a story one time,” Boggle said. “A thousand years ago, before the sun had been born, the world was dark and the people could not see. So Mother Earth birthed a sun and sent him across the sky to shine bright. The day was bright and the people were happy. But each evening the sun begins to grow tired, and lies down behind the mountains to sleep. One night, the people went to Mother Firefly to ask her for help. So she sent her children to the sky to try to light up the night. Thousands and thousands of children she sent, but they could not bring light to the night. But noble fireflies they were: they stayed in the sky, and each night they try with all their might to shine light onto the world.”

And Ug believed Boggle’s story.

Carl was not satisfied. “But how could the fireflies get into the sky?” he said. “Why do they not flicker as other fireflies do?”

“These fireflies know that it is their duty to brighten the night sky,” Boggle responded. “They do not flicker, but instead they shine their light at all times in order to bring more light to the world.”

“But your story still does not make sense,” objected Carl. “I will tell you what I think happened.”

“Tell me, Carl, what do you think happened?”

“Thousands of thousands of thousands of years ago, a great cosmic explosion scattered matter across the universe. Most of the matter formed into great clumps. At the center of these clumps was an enormous amount of pressure, forcing the matter to become a mighty fire. This happened many times in many places across the universe. All these great fires shine light across vast distances and appear to us, because they are so very far away, as tiny points of light in the sky.”

Ug thought about this for a minute. “What? You’re crazy. You can’t put a bunch of dirt together and start a fire. And besides, the universe isn’t nearly that big. I like Boggle’s story better.”

And that’s why mythology is the way it is.

In my opinion, the idea that the universe is almost fourteen billion years old and forty-six billion light years across, and contains billions of galaxies that each have billions of stars—massive spheres of gas that emit unimaginable quantities of energy—is far more amazing than the conception of stars as fireflies. But if the truth is so much more amazing than the fantasy, why does the fantasy win out?

The fact that the reality is so amazing ends up working against it. People do not want to be amazed. Amazement is on the border of incomprehension, and people have a natural tendency to want to understand things. We would rather something be mundane than incomprehensible.

The cavemen in this story have difficulty conceiving of the vastness of the universe, but they have no problem thinking about fireflies. They know what fireflies are, and they can imagine scattering them across the sky. Fireflies are much easier to understand than giant balls of fire in space that are set off when gravity forces hydrogen nuclei to fuse and convert matter into energy.

Examples of the believable fantasy taking precedence over the extraordinary truth can be seen across cultures and religions. The Greeks had Helios pulling the sun across the sky in a chariot, much more relatable than a spherical planet rotating at a thousand miles per hour while hurtling through space at even greater speeds; modern young-earth creationists explain geographical formations in terms of Noah’s flood, instead of the complicated truth that myriad events (including earthquakes, volcanoes, and even simple water flow) make small changes to the earth’s surface over billions of years.

Of course, I was not there when the Greeks were thinking up their mythology, so I do not know why it is what it is. However, I find this to be a very plausible explanation; and if we do prefer familiarity to profundity, that says something important about how the mind works.

Resolved: Justice requires the recognition of animal rights.

This is the September/October 2011 LD resolution. I can see many arguments to be made for the affirmative and a few arguments for the negative, which I will outline here. Assume that “animal” refers to “non-human animal”, because defining “animal” ambiguously would lead to serious arguments over semantics.

I will begin by talking about my favorite system of ethics, Utilitarianism. Under this system, it is clear that failing to recognize the importance of animals is to miss out on a huge source of happiness and suffering. Any ethical theory that grants rights to beings capable of suffering must acknowledge non-human animals.

Some ethical theories only give moral worth to beings capable of reason. Some animals, such as chimpanzees and dolphins, are capable of self-awareness in the same way that we are and are in some sense capable of reason. But this is not always enough: consider Kant’s formulation of the categorical imperative. He wrote that “every rational being must so act as if he were through his maxim always a legislating member in the universal kingdom of ends.” In effect, for an animal to have moral worth it must be capable of comprehending the maxims of ethics, which I do not think a chimpanzee or dolphin is capable of doing. Therefore, according to Kant, animals do not have rights.

Whether animals deserve rights depends on how rights are derived. If the capacity to suffer is the source of rights, many species of animal would be granted rights. If rights instead stem from self-awareness, only a few animals would have rights.

There are very few properties that humans have that no other animals have, so it would be difficult to make an argument against animal rights without resorting to speciesism. The only way I can see to do it is to argue that rights in some way stem from the capacity for sophisticated abstract thought, e.g. Kant or contractualism. Contractualism, the belief that rights stem from an implicit contract made between the members of society, does not necessarily grant rights to animals since even the smartest animals are probably unable to comprehend the concept of the social contract.

Returning to Utilitarianism, it may be possible for the negative to argue that exploitation of animals increases utility overall. However, making such an argument would require assuming that humans are capable of far more happiness than animals, which is almost certainly not true and should be pretty easy to refute.

For a more thorough review of this resolution, see Decorabilia.

Tyranny of the Majority

Can the idea of “the greatest good for the greatest number” be used to justify tyranny of the majority? Can the majority taking advantage of the minority ever be a good thing?

Yes, but only in rare circumstances. In most real-world cases of many people oppressing a few, the suffering of the minority greatly outweighs the benefits to the majority.

Take slavery in the United States. African Americans were enslaved to make life easier for the European colonists, inflicting significant pain on the African Americans. But the benefits the white Europeans received were marginal: they were not significantly happier for having slaves. Maybe their lives were somewhat easier, but they were not happier. It is hard to conceive of a circumstance in which oppressing the minority could bring about sufficient happiness for the majority so as to outweigh the suffering created. However, such circumstances may exist.

There is one minority that is oppressed in virtually every society, has been oppressed since the dawn of civilization (and maybe even before), and no one seems to care: criminals. Criminals (and felons in particular) are forced to live in captivity and their rights are limited. This is a case where most people actually support tyranny of the majority (I happen to disagree).

An oppressive majority is only a problem where the suffering of the few exceeds the happiness of the many, and such circumstances are rare–if they even exist at all.

Thought Experiment

This is a thought experiment on philosophical Libertarianism: the position that people own themselves and no one has a right to violate anyone else’s self-ownership.

Say there is some action the government can take that will universally reduce everyone’s liberty, but will also universally increase everyone’s happiness. The happiness will not go away over time: the government’s action will continue to make people happy for as long as there are people. In addition, the happiness is not mere short-term pleasure: it is a true sense of enlightenment and connection with the universe.

Should people be willing to give up a little freedom in order to become happier, more enlightened, and more connected to the universe? Or, going the other direction, should people refuse to accept a little more liberty at the cost of becoming unsatisfied with their lives? If you think they should (as I believe any sensible person would think), you are not a philosophical Libertarian.

Some may protest that there is no universal restriction of liberty that could make everyone happier. However, such a thing need not exist for this thought experiment to work. If it did exist, and you would be willing to make the trade-off, it means that you support self-ownership not for its own sake, but because you think it will lead to the greatest possible happiness. Therefore, your ultimate end is not self-ownership but happiness, and Libertarianism is purely your means of maximizing society’s well-being.

It is arguable that the concept of self-ownership does increase people’s happiness and make society work better, but it is important to recognize that self-ownership is not an end in itself. If everyone were free and miserable, that would be a far worse world than if everyone were restricted and happy.

On the Moral Obligation to Prevent Suffering

There is a distinction to be made between an obligation not to cause suffering and an obligation to prevent suffering. The former is almost universally accepted; the latter, to put it simply, is not. People agree that murder is seriously wrong, and insults are at least somewhat wrong. On the other hand, most feel that, while protecting others’ lives and reputations is a nice thing to do, it is not morally obligatory. Is this latter perspective defensible?

Why People Argue About Things That Don’t Matter

People spend a seemingly absurd amount of time arguing about things that don’t matter: PC vs Mac, Edward vs Jacob, Coke vs Pepsi, the list goes on. These subjects are all either pointless or very close to it, and yet people spend inordinate amounts of time on them. Why?

The first reason is that, for many people, arguing is fun. Not everyone likes to argue, and those who do don’t always want to, but there are many occasions in which a good strong debate is a deeply satisfying experience. A lot of the time, the debate topic doesn’t matter so much as the debate itself. Still, it seems that it would be more fulfilling to debate a topic more consequential than which fictional character is cooler or which soft drink is better. However, there is a strong barrier surrounding most really good debate topics that render them off-limits: they are part of people’s identity.

There are many social situations in which it is acceptable to loudly disagree over which operating system is better, but taboo to discuss political issues. The reason for this is that many people have strong opinions about operating systems, but few consider those opinions to be important pieces of their identity. Say that gay marriage is wrong or that marijuana should be legalized, and some people will get offended. Say that a person is wrong for having a certain opinion on gay marriage or drug legalization, and that person will very likely feel personally threatened. But say that someone likes the wrong operating system and few people will mind.

Arguing about pointless topics is pointless, but it still can be fun. Many people enjoy a good debate but don’t want to risk provoking offense; the solution is to avoid serious topics and instead argue about things that don’t matter.