Utilitarianism II

1. Utilitarianism II

2. Over the Weekend Read Ch. 5 of Utilitarianism.

3. Sanctions By sanctions Mill means things that motivate us to act morally. There are two kinds of sanctions: internal and external sanctions.

4. External Sanctions External Sanctions: Motivating factors external to one’s own mind or character • Fear of punishment • Fear of disapproval from others • Desire for praise • Desire to be regarded well by others

5. External Sanctions Since all people desire happiness, the external sanctions will tend to drive us to maximize happiness: • If you prevent the happiness of others or cause them suffering they will tend to dislike you, • If you do things to maximize their happiness, they will tend to like you.

6. Internal Sanctions Internal Sanctions:Internal feelings of duty or obligation. • Remorse from doing wrong. • Pride or satisfaction when one has done right. • In other words: moral conscience.

7. Internal Sanctions Mill argues that insofar as our internal sanctions are acquired, they are fundamentally related to the imposition of the external sanctions

8. Internal Sanctions Intrinsic facts about humans tend to force the adoption of utilitarian standards. In particular, our social nature tends to incline us towards a utilitarian code of ethics.

9. Society and Utility “Now, society between human beings, except in the relation of master and slave, is manifestly impossible on any other footing than that the interests of all are to be consulted…In this way people grow up unable to conceive as possible to them a state of total disregard of other people’s interests.” (3.10)

10. Society and Utility Actions that tend to promote the well-being of and cooperation with a group are praised. Those that work against such cooperation are liable to be punished or blamed.

11. Society and Utility Externally imposed sanctions on our behavior cause and shape our internal feelings eventually resulting in: • Feelings of guilt when happiness is prevented or suffering caused • A strong inclination to take other’s well-being into consideration • Psychological blocks against acting immorally

12. Proof of GHP Mill grants at the outset that GHP cannot be proven to be true. However, he thinks that there are persuasive arguments in favor of it.

13. Proof of GHP Chapter 4 amounts to a defense of Mill’s hedonism. He needs to show that happiness is the only thing desirable.

14. Only Happiness? However it could seem obviously false that happiness is the only thing that is desired: • Virtue • Money • Fame • Power • Beauty Furthermore, all of these seem to sometimes be desired for their own sake.

15. Only Happiness? Mill argues for two claims: • What makes these thingsdesirable originally is that they contribute to happiness. • Things (other than happiness) can become desirable for their own sakes, but once they do possession of them is conducive to happiness.

16. Money One of the seemingly hardest cases for Mill is money. • Money is not the same as happiness • People desire it for its own sake (that is they desire wealth itself, not just the ability to buy things)

18. Mill on Money Mill claims that money starts out as merely desirable for securing happiness. • “Glittering pebbles” and pieces of paper have value only for what they can buy.

19. Mill on Money Gradually, through close association with securing happiness, people can come to desire money for its own sake. • They no longer want it for anything in particular, they just want it.

20. Mill on Money “What was once desired as an instrument for attainment of happiness has come to be desired for its own sake. In being desired for its own sake it is, however, desired as part of happiness. The person is made, or thinks he would be made, happy by its mere possession; and is made unhappy by the failure to obtain it.” (4.6)

21. Mill on Money Once something like money becomes desirable for its own sake, possessing it contributes to happiness:

23. Mill On Money Once something like money becomes desirable for its own sake, possessing it contributes to happiness: • Getting more money makes Scrooge happy • Failing to do so or losing money makes him unhappy.

24. Mill’s Conclusion “…desiring a thing and finding it pleasant, [and] aversion to it and thinking of it as painful, are phenomena entirely inseparable, or rather two parts of the same phenomenon: in strictness of language, two different modes of naming the same psychological fact…” (4.10)

25. Mill’s Conclusion In other words: desiring something is nothing over and above finding it pleasant, and a lack of it being unpleasant.

26. The Experience Machine Suppose I offer you the following proposal: • Tonight, while you sleep, I will hook you up to an experience machine (EM). • You will not remember having made this deal. • If you want to cure cancer, EM will give you the experiences of going to medical school and eventually discovering a cure. • If you want kids, EM will give you experiences of raising a family. • You won’t actually do these things, but you will have convincing experiences of doing them.

27. The Experience Machine If you wouldn’t hook up, then Mill’s hedonism is in trouble. Pleasure is a kind of experience, and in EM we get all the experiences we could ever want.

28. The Experience Machine The problem is, we also value actually accomplishing things, not merely seeming to do so. Therefore, it seems as if pleasure is not the only thing that we desire.

29. For Next Time Read pages 18-29 in the reader (first Walzer chapter)

30. The Problem of Rights Sheriff Case: • After a series of brutal murders the town demands that the sheriff execute a vagrant he has in his cell (whom the town believes to be guilty). • If the sheriff does not do so there will be a riot causing many injuries and deaths. • The sheriff knows the vagrant to be innocent.

31. The Problem of Rights The Problem • A right is something that cannot be violated unless the person in question has, in some way, given it up or done something to lose it. • Utilitarianism must say that in cases where violating a right maximizes happiness, one ought to do so.

32. Rights What is a right? “When we call anything a person’s right, we mean that he has a valid claim on society to protect him in his possession of it.” (5.24)

33. Rights What grounds the possession of these rights is general utility. Rights: • Life • Freedom • Property • Speech

34. Rights The reason that these are special is because maximizing happiness requires that they always be defended.

35. Rights “The interest involved is that of security, to every one’s feelings the most vital of all interests…security no human being can possibly do without; on it we depend for all our immunity from evil, and for the whole value of all and every good…Now this most indispensible of all necessaries cannot be had unless the machinery for providing it is kept unintermittedly in active play.” (5.25)

36. Rights Security is a precondition for all happiness. • In order to be secure one cannot fear loss of: • Life • Liberty • Property • Any failure to protect these negatively impacts security for everyone, and thus severely lowers aggregate happiness.

37. Rights Thus, one cannot maximize happiness without universally protecting the basic rights of everyone.

38. The Problem of Justice It seems to many that utilitarianism cannot account for the moral importance of justice. Hitman Case • A mob hitman has been caught and convicted of killing dozens of people in brutal ways. • He is extradited from another country in Europe. • On the way his plane crashes. • After a long search the plane is never found, and everyone believes that he is dead. • In actuality, he survived the crash and made it safely to an island paradise.

39. The Problem of Justice World #1 • The hitmanlives out his life in comfort and happiness. World #2 • On the first day on the island he chokes on a bit of coconut and dies.

40. The Problem of Justice The utilitarian has to maintain that World #2 in which the hitman avoids all punishment isthe better world morally speaking.

41. Kinds of Justice • Violation of Legal Rights: Deprivation of property or liberty that one has right to by the laws of the land is unjust. • Violations of Contracts: If someone breaks a promise or a contract, or violates the legitimate expectations of others it is unjust.

42. Kinds of Justice • Laws: Laws can be unjust if they violate the rights of people. • Desert: We think it is fitting if: good things happen to good people, and/or bad things happen to bad people. • Partiality: Laws, people in power, etc. should act impartially. They should not deliberately benefit some privileged class. • Equality: A class of people should not possess rights and privileges denied to everyone else

43. Kinds of Justice • Laws: Laws can be unjust if they violate the rights of people. • Desert: We think it is fitting if: good things happen to good people, and/or bad things happen to bad people. • Partiality: Laws, people in power, etc. should act impartially. They should not deliberately benefit some privileged class. • Equality: A class of people should not possess rights and privileges denied to everyone else

44. Kinds of Justice What links all these: • There is a violation of a right (legal or otherwise). • There is a particular person or group of people whose rights have been violated.

45. Violations of Rights Mill thinks that when we judge that something immoral has been done (such as violating a right) we are judging that the action is worthy of punishment.

46. On Punishment This desire to punish wrongdoers arises from two perfectly natural tendencies: • The impulse to self-defense • The feeling of sympathy.

47. Retribution The result is that we tend to think that retribution or revenge can be just. Those who harm us our harm others are deserving of being harmed.

48. For Friday Continue reading the Walzer (reader pages 18-42).

49. Retribution Mill grants the power of these feelings, but thinks that they can give the wrong results in many cases.

50. On Punishment Much of our practices of punishment can be firmly grounded in utilitarian ethics: • Imprisoning violent and dangerous offenders. • Separating violent people from the general populace reduces suffering.