J' S' Mill

1
J. S. Mill

• Utilitarianism 2

2

• In the film Saving Private Ryan (1998), a platoon
  is sent to the front (after the invasion of
  France) to rescue Private Ryan.
• Three of Ryans brothers have already died in the
  war, and the Army wants to spare his mother from
  losing her last son.
• The rescue platoon, led by Tom Hanks puts
  itself in enormous danger in order to save this
  one man. Why?

3

• Why should they risk their lives for him?
• One of the characters says, Hed better go home
  and cure some disease or invent a longer lasting
  light bulb.

4

• The idea is that it may be justifiable for
  several men to die in order to save one man but
  only if he is going to make an important
  contribution.
• And, crucially, that contribution must, in some
  sense, out weigh the lives of those who are
  sacrificing themselves.

5

• This is a classic utilitarian calculation.
• Another classic situation is Lifeboat Ethics.
  For example in the movie Titanic.

6

• These calculations, as with all utilitarian
  calculations are based on a basic formula
• Always act so that you maximise the happiness of
  all those affected by your actions.
• So, in the Saving Private Ryan example, the
  commander is justified in risking his mens lives
  only if Ryan is worth more than their lives. And
  this would be clearly true if Ryan went on to
  make some really useful invention.

7

• What if we apply the formula to our old example
  of lying about the broken vase?

8

• But the basic formula be modified in various
  ways
• Always act so that you maximise the happiness of
  all those affected
• follow a rule interests
• policy preferences

9

• The first version is act utilitarianism the
  problem with it is that each act must be decided
  individually perhaps too demanding and also
  may allow (too many) exceptions which are bad
  overall.

10

• The alternative is rule utilitarianism.
• A good rule might be never tell lies, never
  kill human beings, etc. this is rule
  utilitarianism.

11

• On the other side of the formula, the ideas of
  happiness/interests/preferences can also be
  changed independently.
• As Mill saw, many people find the
  happiness/pleasure condition as limited in its
  conception of human beings.
• The difference between the interests or
  preferences versions is that interests implies
  that someone else (eg. an expert) might know
  your interests (very dangerous) whereas
  preferences depends on what YOU want

12

• One important point to remember about
  Utilitarianism
• Its very flexible almost anything can be
  justified using its principles.

13
Lets take an example

• Is meat-eating morally justified?
• The utilitarian as Mill suggests may be
  obliged to take into consideration the suffering
  of all sentient creatures. So, the suffering of
  the animal weighed against the pleasure of the
  meat-eater. And, not only the suffering in death,
  but also in life raising questions about
  modern, industrialised farming practices.

14

• One might argue that this still comes out in
  favour of meat-eating (raises important question
  of who weighs the pros and cons) at least if we
  were to use humane farming practices.

15

• But, one might also raise yet another set of
  consequences consequences for the environment.
  Meat-eating, one can argue, (esp. in the
  developed world) is an inefficient and
  environmentally destructive practice.

16

• But, the utilitarian must also recognise
  cultural exceptions eg. Eskimos (Inuit) may
  be justified in meat-eating because of their
  geographical limitations and their culture. Or,
  eg. traditional fishing village...

17

• Then, there is also the question of the extent of
  any individuals involvement is the individual
  act of eating a hamburger morally wrong for (any
  of) these reasons?
• Is it wrong because it is based on a
  non-justified practice?

18

• One point should be clear by now even though
  various forms of utilitarianism promise to give
  us a clear method for evaluating calculating
  the morality of our actions they dont end the
  debate. Even utilitarians will disagree over
  relative values and disvalues of expected
  consequences.

19

• Next time, Peter Singers consequentialist
  approach to the morality of killing.