Kalvan

Alonzo Fyfe:
But the bottom line is that the putative good of the collective supercedes the good of any individual. Whether that putative good is decreed by an autocrat or the tyranny of the majority, the destruction of individuals is a foregone conclusion. From the death of Socrates, to the state-sponsored mass murders of the last century, to drug prohibition today, that’s utilitarianism in action. It dehumanizes and destroys individuals in the quest for a “greater good” selected by either the mob or the elitist philosopher-king.
Most? I do not see how any form of utilitarianism is compatible with individual rights.
A disparaging remark and adducing an example of supreme utilitarianism as an analogy does not seem like much of an answer to me.
What “real-world good” would that be? What people are being sacrificed? Rights stem from property rights, the most basic of which is ownership of self. True rights do not involve a claim on anyone else. How does the collective presume a claim of prior ownership of my body and what it produces while it lives?
This is not a true example of human sacrifice. One of the most basic rights is that of self-defense, and that right can be extended to cover other innocents. Shooting the kid would come under the aegis of the right of self-defense. An actual example of utilitarian human sacrifice would be taking your innocent virgin and throwing her into the volcano to keep the volcano god happy and protect the village. It’s done on the basis of a “cost-benefit” analysis, but the input is faulty. She’s dead regardless.
When police go into a potential lethal-force situation they are trained to protect themselves first, their fellow officers second, innocent citizens third, and perpetrators last. Yes, I would take out the tank pursuant to exercising the right of self-defense. It’ not like I would be taking other less important fellow citizens against their will and casting them in front of the tank in the hope that the excessive lubrication will cause the tank to throw a track before it gets to me, which would be a better example of a utilitarian move.
Yes, we do. But not because we should. Two “wrongs” don’t make a “right”; neither do three, or ten. All too often the goal is wrong.
As always, the rub is who gets to decide that it’s unusual enough to sacrifice you? The individual’s threshold for sacrificing someone they don’t know tends to be pretty low.
Again, I think those examples are flawed. A more utilitarian decision would be to impose the death penalty on someone who may not have committed the crime in order to “send a message” to others who may be contemplating committing a similar crime in order to deter them and protect the community in general.
So now you need a foolproof way to make everyone acquire a “strong psychological aversion” to something? Welcome to the ant hill, where we’re all interchangeable expendable widgits owned by the State.
I don’t think there is anything “metaphysical” about the concept of rights. They exist because I own myself before anyone else does, and as long as I am not harming others (self-defense excluded) or making a claim on the property of others I can do as I like, say what I like, believe in any religion I like, ingest questionable substances if I like, etc. I best secure those rights by according them equally to my fellow citizens because I know that, in the aggregate, they have the physical power to abridge them. Benefits accrue to participating in the social contract, but they’re not worth letting myself be murdered.

Kalvan

DigitalChicken:

So are you saying that utilitarianism does not involve an attempt to assess what is the greatest good for the greatest number and acting accordingly to bring that state about?

Kalvan

wiploc
No, I am against sacrificing someone because it would be a violation of their rights in a manner that I would not want done to me.
I couldn't tell you what his motivation was. It does not change the fact that utilitarianism is antithetical to individual rights. It is a lawyer's approach to life, where nothing can be relied upon because what appear to be rules are mutable at a whim. No protection of the minority by the rule of law. Might makes right. Locke's concept of individual rights is what made the USA so different.
I don't think so. If I were a utilitarian at all, I would not believe in individual rights.

Alonzo Fyfe

This is no more 'utilitarianism im action' than the Stalin purges and the Tienneman Square massacre are examples of 'atheism in action.'

Indeed, even less so, because you are talking about such obvious items of DIS-utility that there is no way a utilitan ethics could have endorsed these things.


Two ways.

(1) Utilitarianism is concerned with bringing about the greatest good to the greatest number. But it leaves open what 'good' is. (Note: In academic circles, the term 'consequentialism' is used more often than 'utilitarianism' in this case.) 'Good' could consist, for example, of secured rights. In which case, utilitarianism would call for the securing of the greatest number of rights for the greatest number of people.

(2) There are many conceptions of what 'rights' are. One possibility, consistent with rule and desire utilitarianism theories, is to call a 'right' an object that a utilitarian rule or a good desire (on utilitarian grounds) would say should be protected. We defend a 'right to life' because society is generally better off if we all live by a rule not to take an innocent person's life except under extraordinary circumstances.


The answer is this:

First: No value claim is true except that which relates a state of affairs being evaluated to some set of desires.

Anybody talking about any other type of value is making things up. A person who refers to made-up things in real-world decision making is sacrificing real-world value for the sake of nothing.


All intentional action aims at the fulfillment of desires. That is the only 'good' that exists, that is the only 'end' that people seek to obtain. The only 'bad' that exists is the thwarting of desires -- it is the only thing that people actually try to avoid.

To thwart desires for the sake of a 'right' that does not exist is to sacrifice real-world value for the sake of a fictitious entity.

My guess is that you read this and imagine a world to which you have a strong aversion -- you would not like to live in the world that you imagine. But all of the imagined things to which you have an aversion are also reasons to believe that you are imagining a world that would not be recommended on utilitarian grounds.

You are constructing in your mind a hell that no utilitarian could possibly recommend, and falsely claiming, "This is how the utilitarians are saying we should live."

And utilitarian does not assume any 'claim of prior ownership' to your body. Rather, it denies the existence of a natural law of ownership. The rules of ownership are to be worked out within a society. What ought those rules to be? Well, those rules ought to be whatever rules provide the greatest good for the greatest number. The alternative is to argue for a set of rules that promote a greater misery and suffering for the greater number.



As with all things in a utilitarian system, the rules for 'who gets to decide' such things are determined by looking for the decision-making procedure that brings about the greatest good for the greatest number.

On this ground, rights theory (at least in its hard form) faces a more serious obstical. Because rights are make-believe entities, who gets to make up our rights-myth? And what makes one person's rights-myth better than somebody elses?

As a desire-utilitarian, I can defend everything that is worthwhile in a rights theory without the metaphysical garbage.

A universal aversion to killing innocent people is a good thing, because to the degree that we make and strengthen an aversion to killing innocent people, to that degree we all live happier and more secure lives.

A universal aversion to interfering with the liberty of others is a good thing, because each person -- because decisions are best made by the least corruptible agent with the strongest incentive for getting the right answer.

All I do in making these types of claims is to relate states of affairs (the universal acquisition of strong and stable aversions to killing innocent people or interfering with liberty) to other desires (all desires, regardless of who has them). There is nothing metaphysically mysterious about any of this -- just states of affairs, desires, and the relationships between them.


Why must it be foolproof?

I am talking about a method that we already use. 'Moral education' -- the way we raise our children -- is a social institution designed to cause children to acquire good desires and aversions. It causes them to develop, for example, an aversion to taking things that are not theirs, an aversion to killing innocent people, a preference for turth over lies, and the like.

It is not foolproof. Sometimes it fails. Where it fails, we institute a backup plan. The backup plan says, "You may not have acquired good desires (where good desires are those compatible with the greatest fulfillment of other desires for the greatest number), but you certainly do not desire what we will do to you if we catch you doing what a good person would not do." Things like stealing, killing innocent people, fraud, and the like.

Thus, we invent the criminal law.


Prove it.

The fact is, there is no real-world set of observations to be explained by such a hypothesis. 'Ownership' is not a natural property. It is a concept that human beings invented to serve human needs. And since all action aims at the fulfillment of desires, ownership is a concept that humans made up because it fulfills human desires.

A bunch of prehistoric people were sitting around the fire one day and one of them said, "Hey, look, just so that we can end this pointless fighting and all get along, let's invent this thing called 'ownership'. If is say you 'own' something this means that you get to make all of the decisions regarding the use of that thing. Except, you can't use it to hurt anybody else. That would be bad. Now, Uggh, you 'own' that spear. You can decorate it any way you choose, and nobody else here can ues it without asking your permission. So, unless somebody breaks the rules, you will always have the security of knowing where your spear is at. Of course, if anybody breaks these rules, you can use your spear and stab him, and none of us will turn against you."

To take this concept of ownership and to treat is as a 'natural kind' is ontologically (metaphysically) unjustifiable.


Overall:

Many of the objections that you seem to be raising against utilitarian theories seem to be of the form 'utilitarianism supports tyranny.' Yet, your objections against tyranny seem to be of the form 'tyranny creates DIS-utility.' Yet, if tyranny creates dis-utility, then it is false to claim that utilitarianism supports tyranny.

Rusting Car Bumper

Utilitarianism doesn't attempt anything. People do.

Phrases like "Greatest good for greatest number" are slogans and should be understood in a certain context.

In my opinion these phrases are not meant to be literal and legalistic. This is because I think that utilitarianism takes a premise that moral decision making is uncertain.

Thus the phrase acts as a "rule of thumb" to help people behave in a moral way. This may not satisfy moral theorists who want a strict system or set of statements that can be said to be true and always logically coherent. However, that position is not a self-evident one. It requires argument to show that it is possible to create such a system, it requires argument to show that such a system is exclusive if need be, and it requires argument to show that such a system is indded moral. None of these requirements has ever been met.

So your question is a bit off. It might be better said that people are more easily going to act in a way that is traditionally called moral if they attempt to act towards "what is the greatest good for the greatest number".

DC

Wiploc

That would make you unhappy, right? And we can generalize from your specific case: People generally would not be happy living without rights. Therefore, a utilitarian, with the goal of maximizing human happiness, should want people to have rights.

You could want rights for you, just because you wanted them, without being a utilitarian. But when you argue for everyone having rights so that everyone will benefit, because a society with rights is best for everyone, you are being utilitarian.

If you think that's not utilitarian, what other motive can you possibly offer for wanting people to have rights?

Quote:

I couldn't tell you what his motivation was. It does not change the fact that utilitarianism is antithetical to individual rights.

Simply not so. You are getting that line from anti-utilitarians. If you want people you be happy, you want them to have rights.

Quote:

It is a lawyer's approach to life, where nothing can be relied upon because what appear to be rules are mutable at a whim.

This is pointless insult. I'm a lawyer who believes in rights; and I don't think you'll find one who doesn't.

Quote:

No protection of the minority by the rule of law. Might makes right. Locke's concept of individual rights is what made the USA so different.

It may be a great concept --- but the only way it can be great is if it is great for increasing human happiness. You can't name any other great thing about it.

crc

excreationist

Seeker196:
Though I like utilitarianism, I'm not completely utilitarian. Being utilitarian involves treating everyone as equals. In reality I treat some people a lot better than others and perhaps value my own pleasure the most of all. If I was a true utilitarian I might get a job instead of living off of welfare and maybe share my money with other people - maybe even starving people from overseas (if it was global utilitarianism).

Kalvan:
That human sacrifice would only happen if the pleasure or happiness gained from it (or pain avoided by it) outweighs the negative factors (the trauma during the death of the innocent and of those who loved it). According to utilitarians it would be moral.... though it wouldn't be legal unless the government supports it. (Perhaps it made the human sacrifice...)
BTW, what if the goal is to save lives. e.g. what if there was a hijacked plane headed for the WTC that only had a few innocent passengers in it... Shooting it down would mean the deaths of a few dozen innocent people, but not killing them could mean that thousands would die?
BTW, at the moment, much of the world is starving to death due to the more developed countries not caring and often making it worse by getting them further into debt. So we are sacrificing innocent people.... to get more wealth for ourselves, which supposedly means more happiness for us.

Alonzo Fyfe

Multi-level utilitarian theories only treat everybody as equals on one level, but on another level have no problems with the type of favoritism you provide.

If we obtain pleasure, or are happier, or have strong natural desires to favor members of our own family, for instance, then a utilitarian would argue that maximizing pleasure, happiness, or desire fulfillment would require institutions allowing people to favor members of their own family.

At the level of justifying rules and institutions, everybody is treated as equals. But at the level of the rules and institutions being justified, the best rules and institutions may be those that allow individuals to show favoritism to members of their family, friends, neighbors, and the like.