CRITICISMS OF UTILITARIANISM

I. Quantifying Happiness or Pleasure

Problem: Variability of Human Experience - Differences between people. Number of Variables in Any Situation Consequences - ability to discern what they are, what counts and the limit to causality (How far into the future does one look?). No Time to Calculate Response: These problems (1-4) are the same for any ethical theory. The situation must always be analyzed. (However, not all systems are teleological, based on consequences.) Only rough estimation limited to direct situation at hand necessary. We actually do calculate in a rough way the desirability of ends. For example, a person does measure freedom versus security in deciding whether or not to marry. Concerning time to calculate. In ordinary situations not necessary to calculate. Assume traditional moral principles such as do not lie, do not murder satisfy utility unless you have reason to suspect the situation is unusual or problematic.

II. Quantity Versus Quality:

Is a dissatisfied Socrates better off than a satisfied fool? Problem: Bentham's insistence that the quality of pleasure in reading poetry is the same as the quality of pleasure in playing pushpin ignores the difference between higher and lower pleasures which wise people do identify and which is based on human nature. Mill's insistence that pleasures do differ in quality gives rise to difficulty in calculating. Even with his panel of experts are we comparing apples and oranges? Mill's view complicates Bentham's simple calculus of summing up quantity of pleasure. By emphasizing the "higher" pleasures of the intellect. Response:

 Bentham's notion allows you to distinguish between pleasures in terms of quantity even though you do not admit differences in quality. Poetry reading provides a greater quantity of pleasure due to fecundity. You will recall the subsequent occasions. It allows simple straightforward calculation. It keeps pleasure as the sole standard of morality. Mill would argue that with proper opportunity and training, people, do, in fact, easily distinguish between and assign differing values to mental and physical pleasures. A Beethoven symphony is evaluated as providing a higher quality pleasure than a belch by people experienced in both. Such judgments are made all the time. People are not animals. Their unique function of reason leads them to value the higher pleasures.

III. Problem of Distributive Justice or Unjust Consequences Problem: In utilitarianism one considers only the sum total of pains and pleasures, not their distribution. Even though the sum total of units of happiness might be the same, it might be distributed "unfairly" in various societies. A slave society might produce the greatest amount of pleasure for the greatest number. Responses: Death of one for pleasure of others problem may be solved by use of rule rather than act utilitarianism. However, act utilitarians have arguments against rule utilitarians. These include an abandonment of maximizing happiness if following a generally beneficial rule does not maximize happiness in a given case. Mill and others basically argue that a slave society would never in actual practice produce more utility than a society where goods are fairly distributed. Whatever distribution of the benefits and burdens of society produces overall utility is just. Justice is defined in terms of utility.

IV. Motives Problem Consider the following two cases: Elderly Aunt Molly is ill. Nephew Tom visits her and helps her because he loves her. Nephew Bob visits her and helps her because he hopes to be rewarded in her will. Nephew Dave visits her and helps her not because he desires to help but because he believes it is his duty. A two-year-old is drowning. Ruth flings caution aside because she desires to save the child and jumps in, but she cannot swim. Thus, she fails to save the child. Sue can swim, but is afraid that the child will pull her under. She does not save the child.

The consequences were the same in each case, but the motives of the agents were different. According to utilitarianism, each person's action was of the same value. Shouldn't other features such as an act being motivated by obedience to a law of the state, a religious obligation of loving the neighbor, or a natural love of and concern for others count? Response: Often when motives are used as a standard, what is really involved are emotional reactions of approval of disapproval that vary from person to person or obedience to different understandings of what God or conscience requires. Thus, the same action, when motives are considered, might be judged to be right and wrong at the same place and time as with helping Aunt Molly. Another problem exists when we transfer our approval of consequences to motives. The same motive in another case, however, might lead to negative consequences.

V. Definition of Happiness and Other People's Happiness as the Supreme End and Standard of Morality Problem: Happiness is unobtainable. One cannot exist constantly in rapture. Besides poverty, disease, death and other evils prevent total happiness. People can do without happiness. Why should other people's happiness be the standard of morality? What about other values such as freedom, love? Are they not at least as important as happiness? Response: Mill: People do without happiness involuntarily or sometimes to bring about the happiness of others or occasionally due to selfishness or lack of mental cultivation. Bentham: Asceticism is not a real alternative to utilitarianism. Asceticism is sometimes practiced when done for good of whole as in Sparta or because people have forgotten an original program of foregoing immediate pleasures for long-term greater pleasures. Religious asceticism and philosophical asceticism actually seek rewards which are but different forms of seeking utility. Other values such as freedom and love are means to the end of happiness.

VI. Utilitarianisms universalism does not account for particular moral obligations to family, friends, employers/employees, etc. Problem: Examples: Mother at one end of the island about to blow up with ten average people on the other. Spending more of ones income on family than on strangers. Donating a kidney to a family member. Saving ones child over others from a burning building. A lawyers obligations to a client.

Response: A rule utilitarian might reply that a rule that requires family members to take special responsibility for one another, or lawyers for clients, etc. actually produces more overall utility for society. However, this result is not necessary to utilitarianism as a theory. The universalism of utilitarianism helps us to treat each human as counting for one and only one. It eliminates problems of special favoritism, such as nepotism. It ends the negative results of an "us" versus "them" mentality. It extends the rejection of consequentialist approaches that focus on simply oneself to consequentialist approaches which extend to those who are bound to oneselfmerely an extended circle around oneself.

CONCLUSION The biggest objection to Utilitarianism is on the grounds that it just gives a set of rules that we should follow in order to achieve the maximum happiness out of any given situation. It fails to see that human beings are primarily concerned with their own self interest and their own happiness in life, and less for the happiness around them. This does not mean to say that we do not care about others, its just that when it comes down to it, as a rule, we tend to value our own happiness over the happiness of those who we barely know, if at all. This argument could be claimed to be weak because human beings should care about others and Utilitarianism provides a way for us to make an unbiased decision. However, it could be argued that the criticism is a strong because we are never going to live in a world where we are all impartial and it would be impossible to always make decisions that disregard our feelings. So, in reality, Utilitarianism could never work.