Utilitarianism Essay, Research Paper

Utilitarianism

By: Anonymous

When faced with a moral dilemma, utilitarianism identifies the appropriate

considerations, but offers no realistic way to gather the necessary information

to make the required calculations. This lack of information is a problem both in

evaluating the welfare issues and inevaluating the consequentialist issues which

utilitarianism requires be weighed when making moral decisions. Utilitarianism

attempts to solve both of these difficulties by appealing to experience; however,

no method of reconciling an individual decision with the rules of experience is

suggested, and no relative weights are assigned to the various considerations.

In deciding whether or not to torture a terrorist who has planted a bomb in

New York City, a utilitarian must evaluate both the overall welfare of the

people involved or effected by the action taken, and the consequences of the

action taken. To calculate the welfare of the people involved in or effected by

an action, utilitarianism requires that all individuals be considered equally.

Quantitative utilitarians would weigh the pleasure and pain which would be

caused by the bomb exploding against the pleasure and pain that would be

caused by torturing the terrorist. Then, the amounts would be summed and

compared. The problem with this method is that it is impossible to know

beforehand how much pain the bomb exploding or how much pain would be

caused by the torture would cause. Utilitarianism offers no practical way to

make the interpersonal comparison of utility necessary to compare the pains. In

the case of the bomb exploding, it at least seems highly probable that the bomb

exploding would cause a greater amount of pain, at least in the present. This

probability suffices for a quantitative utilitarian, but it does not account for the

consequences, which create an entirely different problem, which will be

discussed below. The probability also does not hold for Mill’s utilitarianism.

Mill’s Utilitarianism insists on qualitative utilitarianism, which requires that one

consider not only the amount of pain or pleasure, but also the quality of such

pain and pleasure. Mill suggests that to distinguish between different pains and

pleasures we should ask people who have experienced both types which is

more pleasurable or more painful. This solution does not work for the question

of torture compared to death in an explosion. There is no one who has

experienced both, therefore, there is no one who can be consulted. Even if we

agree that the pain caused by the number of deaths in the explosion is greater

than the pain of the terrorist being tortured, this assessment only accounts for

the welfare half of the utilitarian’s considerations. Furthermore, one has no way

to measure how much more pain is caused by allowing the bomb to explode

than by torturing the terrorist. After settling the issues surrounding the welfare,

a utilitarian must also consider the consequences of an action. In weighing the

consequences, there are two important considerations. The first, which is

especially important to objectivist Utilitarianism, is which people will be killed.

The second is the precedent that will be set by the action. Unfortunately for the

decision-maker, the information necessary to make either of these calculations

is unavailable. There is no way to determine which people will be killed and

weigh whether their deaths would be good for society. Utilitarianism requires

that one compare the good that the people would do for society with the harm

they would do society if they were not killed. For example, if a young Adolf

Hitler were in the building, it might do more good for society to allow the

building to explode. Unfortunately for an individual attempting to use

Utilitarianism to make for decisions, there is no way to know beforehand what

a person will do. Furthermore, without even knowing which building the bomb

is in, there is no way to predict which people will surely be in the building. A

subjectivist utilitarian would dismiss this consideration and would examine only

what a rational person would consider to be the consequence; however, even

the subjectivist utilitarian must face the question of precedent setting.

Utilitarianism considers justice and humane treatment to be good for society as

a whole and therefore instrumentally good as a means to promoting happiness.

Utilitarianism considers precedent to be important, but does not offer any

method of determining exceptions. It is impossible to determine how much

effect on precedent any given isolated action will have. In the case of

determining whether or not to torture the terrorist, one must consider whether it

is good for society to allow torture to be used as a method of gaining

information. If it is bad, one must determine whether this action will create a

precedent. If it will create or contribute to the creation of a precedent, one

must compare the detrimental effects of this precedent with the other

consequences and welfare caused by the action. Utilitarianism offers no

method for comparison. The problem is that a person faced with making the

decision cannot get the information. Even through experience, it is hard to judge

how much effect each action has on precedent. More specifically, it is hard to

determine whether an action is worthy of being an exception to a rule.

Utilitarianism offers no resolution to this problem. Utilitarianism also considers

the Theory of Desert to be instrumentally valuable to the promotion of

happiness. It is generally good for society to reward people for doing right and

to punish them for doing wrong. Using this belief in the value of justice, a

utilitarian would have more trouble torturing the child of the terrorist than with

torturing the terrorist. The dilemma would be similar to that of precedent. A

utilitarian would ask how much it would harm society’s faith in the punishment

of evildoers and the protection of the innocent to torture the child. The sum of

the consequences would then be compared to the sum of the welfare

considerations to decide whether or not to torture the terrorist and whether or

not to torture the child of the terrorist. In some way, these things must

therefore all be comparable and assigned weights; however, Utilitarianism

offers no method of comparison. There must be some percentage of

consideration given to the harmful precedent set compared to the amount of

pain caused by the deaths, compared to the pain the terrorist or the child being

tortured feels, compared to the harm society will be saved from by the deaths

of people in the explosion, compared to the good that society will be deprived of

by the deaths in the explosion. The overarching problem with utilitarianism as a

method for decision making is that not enough of the necessary information is

available and there is no scale on which to weigh the various considerations.

Basically, the subjective utilitarian would probably consider that the death of

many is worse than the torture of one. Depending on how much weight is given

to the detrimental effects of the precedent which would be set by torturing the

terrorist, the utilitarian could consider this to outweigh the greater pain caused

by the explosion or not. Different people have different moral consciences,

which dictate different actions. These differences will dictate where the person

puts the most weight in the utilitarian considerations, since utilitarianism does

not specify. Similarly, depending on how much weight is given to the

detrimental precedent of torturing innocent children, the utilitarian could

consider it to outweigh the pain caused by the explosion or not. In the end,

utilitarianism does not help in making the moral decision. The information

necessary to calculate all of the considerations identified by utilitarianism is not

available. Furthermore, what is required is a method of comparing and

weighing the considerations, and this method is not defined by utilitarianism. In

the end, the decision maker is still left to make the decision based on internal

moral feelings of what is right and what is wrong which do not come from

Utilitarianism.