defend the indefensible: utilitarianism

Its counterintuitive conclusions are counterintuitive because they are stupid.

christianity for managers

yeah i got nothing, pretty much the worst school of philosophy honestly

did you ever meet a utilitarian who actually seemed to believe in experiments in living rather than exercises in optimization

or who believed more in the value of self-culture than in the value of trying to manipulate the behavior of others

anything to do with utility data can't be all bad.

seems like the reductio ad absurdem of the idea that life can be ordered entirely according to simple, logical, universal principles that are determinable by reason.

one day you will be piloting a speeding train and you will have to decide whether to run over a bum on the tracks or derail the entire train, and that day you will love utilitarianism

what kind of a cretin needs a moral theory to tell them not to derail the entire train

as a general principle, perfectly sensible. as a rule-bound system of mechanical arbitration, absurd.

i too went to college

Every normative theory that I'm aware of has some counter-intuitive implications. I think utilitarianism, or some version of it, is the most defensible among them.

so defend it

and no wack bullshit about 'spooky metaphysics'

Off the top of my head, I can't think of a reason for "spooky metaphysics" to enter into it.

To be as concise as possible: I think utilitarianism captures something substantial about common-sense morality, which is an important thing for a normative theory to do; I think it's plausible that the factors given priority by other normative theories are best thought of as drawing their value from being conducive to utility; and I think that a lot of the main proposed counter-examples to utilitarianism involve implausible scenarios that elicit intuitions I don't think we can trust.

That's not likely to satisfy anyone in this thread, but I think it's the best I can do without a specific objection to work with, and without writing a long post no one will want to read.

I have a lot of specific objections to utilitarianism, and consequentialist theories in general (and even normative ethics in general) but I don't actually know much about (meta-)ethics so I worry that outlining them makes me seem stupid.

Not knowing much didn't stop me from chiming in, so I say go for it.

hoping some of the philosophers will jump into this thread and set me straight at some point but here are some issues I have

- the nerdy objection: it is pretty much impossible to act in the way that will provide the most overall utility, just computationally. A perfectly utilitarian computer would take [expected lifetime of the universe] to make a decision in a trolley problem.
- bizarro results like the repugnant conclusion (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/repugnant-conclusion/) lead supposedly-pure utilitarians to look for lame outs from the purity of their theories, making the whole project seem misguided
- Peter Singer is a prick

Utilitarianism only demands that people do the best that they can. If the best you can do in a given situation falls short of providing the most overall utility, then you're not obligated to provide the most overall utility.

The repugnant conclusion is definitely a tough one, but it's also one of the cases I was referring to when I mentioned implausible scenarios that deliver suspect intuitions. The SEP article goes into this some. It also mentions that the repgunant conclusion isn't just a problem for utilitarians. It's a problem for anyone who thinks that well-being is morally significant and something you can aggregate. Denying these things invites other counter-intuitive conclusions.

It's the backbone of every "this doesn't harm anyone, especially you, so why dont you leave them alone" and "more people would benefit under this policy, even if the means are a bit problematic, so lets do it" principle we encounter in the modern world. We use it all the time.

There's a couple of examples from Bernard Williams that suggest anyone who truly and fully subscribed to utilitarianism would be a moral monster. Firstly the idea of one thought too many:

If an agent is in a situation where he has to choose which of two people to rescue from some catastrophe, and chooses the one of the two people who is his wife, then “it might have been hoped by some people (for instance, by his wife) that his motivating thought, fully spelled out, would be the thought that it was his wife, not that it was his wife and that in situations of this kind it is permissible to save one's wife.”

Secondly the idea of agent regret:

Suppose for example that I, an officer of a wrecked ship, take the hard decision to actively prevent further castaways from climbing onto my already dangerously overcrowded lifeboat. Afterwards, I am tormented when I remember how I smashed the spare oar repeatedly over the heads and hands of desperate, drowning people. Yet what I did certainly brought it about that as many people as possible were saved from the shipwreck, so that a utilitarian would say that I brought about the best consequences, and anyone might agree that I found the only practicable way of avoiding a dramatically worse outcome. Moreover, as a Kantian might point out, there was nothing unfair or malicious about what I did in using the minimum force necessary to repel further boarders: my aim, since I could not save every life, was to save those who by no choice of mine just happened to be in the lifeboat already; this was an aim that I properly had, given my role as a ship's officer; and it was absolutely not my intention to kill or (perhaps) even to injure anyone.

So what will typical advocates of the morality system have to say to me afterwards about my dreadful sense of regret? If they are—as perhaps they had better not be—totally consistent and totally honest with me, what they will have to say is simply “Don't give it a second thought; you did what morality required, so your deep anguish about it is irrational.” And that, surely, cannot be the right thing for anyone to say. My anguish is not irrational but entirely justified.

(http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/williams-bernard/ )

These objections aren't really unique to utilitarianism, they apply to any system that tries to systematise ethical thinking. But they do have a particular force against it, as it's a theory that perhaps more than any other emphasises the general and impersonal approach.

There's a couple of examples from Bernard Williams that suggest anyone who truly and fully subscribed to utilitarianism would be a moral monster.

sure, but that's true of any ethical system built around a single way of framing problems. utilitarianism, however, needn't be so thoroughly systematic, or even consistent, to qualify for the name. like i said earlier, it can be a general rule of thumb, a guiding principle applied judiciously, with the understanding that not every situation can be sensibly framed in terms of greatest good for greatest number (or net happiness increase or whatever). such a "utilitarian" approach seems perfectly sensible to me. this is perhaps just to say that reasonable ethics are reasonable.

jrn otm

"...seems perfectly sensible reasonable to me."

That all sounds perfectly reasonable, yet I have my doubts. Firstly it's not clear that utilitarianism is coherent enough even to work as a rule of thumb - what kind of utility are we aiming for? Greatest good for greatest number (or net happiness increase or whatever) - the first is circular and the second leads to obvious and fundamental objections. Secondly I'm not sure anyone who claims to follow it as a general rule of thumb actually does any such thing. I think it's easy to assume, in discussions like this, that you follow it as a general principle, while ignoring all the other non-utilitarian considerations that actually (and legitimately) go into your normal ethical deliberations.

(I'm thinking here of morality as an personal matter; perhaps there are situations, e.g. provision of medical services in a national health care system, where a colder and more purely utilitarian approach is both possible and desirable.)

it certainly exists - possibility or desirability i don't know about. consider cost benefit analyses for putting up pelican crossings etc. maybe utilitarianism is the most functional form of ethical reasoning for large organizations?

Possible because the utility is clearly defined (e.g. 'quality-adjusted life years' for NICE), desirable because yes it's certainly functional, also impartial.

i've pondered this a bit when people get all campaign-y about local hospital cuts/closures. okay, there is a political element which we can put to one side, but in the end people as individuals tend to think in deontological terms whereas the only plausible way of running an NHS is in broadly utilitarian terms?

This is interesting, all the reading I've done in moral philosophy tends to approach it from the personal side of things, I can't immediately recall anything dealing with institionalised ethics. I'm not sure how to deal with the disjunction between criticising utilitarianism at the personal level but accepting it at the institutional.

Firstly it's not clear that utilitarianism is coherent enough even to work as a rule of thumb - what kind of utility are we aiming for? Greatest good for greatest number (or net happiness increase or whatever) - the first is circular and the second leads to obvious and fundamental objections. Secondly I'm not sure anyone who claims to follow it as a general rule of thumb actually does any such thing. I think it's easy to assume, in discussions like this, that you follow it as a general principle, while ignoring all the other non-utilitarian considerations that actually (and legitimately) go into your normal ethical deliberations.

― click here to start exploding (ledge), Friday, August 2, 2013 5:13 AM (14 minutes ago)

a few things. first utility is best defined individually and situationally, imo. it need not be rigorous to be valid. second, utilitarianism needn't preclude other considerations. you seem to criticize a pure utilitarianism that exists in isolation, which seems a bit absurd to me. most people don't operate on a single, pure principle. they consider many different factors and principles. tbh, this is the only context in which i think you can reasonably critique any ethical method, even if its proponents present it as The Answer.

i'm careful about my consumption (space, power, food, packaging, water, etc.) because i think it's unethical to ignore the implications of human and especially western overconsumption. by consuming less and more responsibly, i hope to do a tiny bit less damage in the long run. my motivation there is about as close to purely utilitarian as i think you can get. similarly, i think a lot about the likely effect of my actions, even when prodded by moral outrage. it's not enough to simply satisfy the moral urge. it's important to me that my actions actually accomplish what i think of as good ends, often considered in terms of most for most.

I'm not sure how to deal with the disjunction between criticising utilitarianism at the personal level but accepting it at the institutional.

― click here to start exploding (ledge), Friday, August 2, 2013 5:44 AM (3 minutes ago)

i think it's similar to the way we approach "fairness" where institutions are concerned. i don't insist that individuals be fair and equitable in all their actions (it'd be nice), but i am willing to demand that of institutions, especially public institutions.

I'm careful about my consumption too, but I also think that the actual difference to the world that my choices make is entirely negligible. So if I'm being honest with myself my motivation is probably more deontological than consequential. That aside, I don't really disagree with your position - I mean I certainly don't disagree with your actions, but I'm not sure that what you're doing can usefully be described as utilitarian. You're essentially saying "I consider the impact of my actions on the world and on other people", which is well and good, but the point about utilitarianism is that it is a rigid systematisation of that principle.

I think the large organizations angke is key. More so than individuals, governments and other large scale entities are in positions where their decisions affect many people, and might harm some at the same time they are helping others. In these situations deontological notions about what is simply " right" no longer make a whole lot of sense, as you really need to be looking at what decision will be the best "overall."

lol, every drop is negligible, but then, the sea

as i see it, a specific critique of pure utilitarianism is unnecessary because the claim that any single approach can satisfactorily solve all ethical problems is intrinsically false, even foolish. therefore, i'm only concerned with whether or not "utilitarian" thinking has value in day-to-day ethical considerations.

i guess i'm pushing relativism more than honestly engaging with utilitarianism, so i'll bow out.

xp

Although, we definitely don't want our government to use utilitarianism to justify horrifying actions, which happens so often both in scifi and irl. Utilitarianism is one factor to consider, i guess, and an indispensible one in a large, complex world where actions have mixed consequences.

Sorry my last post was xpost to myself. I agree with contenderizer basically.

vulgar utilitarianism at work

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/02/us/theory-on-pain-is-driving-rules-for-abortions.html?hp&_r=0

Ms. Balch, the Right to Life official, who is also a lawyer, said she had been considering fetal pain as a way to draw attention to “the humanity of the unborn child” since she heard President Ronald Reagan speak about it stirringly in 1984. In a speech to religious broadcasters that year, he said, “Medical science doctors confirm that when the lives of the unborn are snuffed out, they often feel pain — pain that is long and agonizing.”

Medical science doctors!

utilitarian diet

http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2013/08/press-release-ethical-meat/

The development of artificial meat is a triumph for both science and ethics. Current meat production involves inflicting significant suffering on animals. It also causes environmental damage (see the FAO report, Livestock’s Long Shadow) and is hugely inefficient because limited food resources have used to keep a large animal alive. Intensive farming of chickens and pigs is also a breeding ground for the emergence of new strains of flu, causing pandemics that could kill tens of millions. Artificial meat production will almost entirely avoid these issues.

Ethical veganism will become a much more palatable option, as one could avoid eating real meat without sacrificing an integral part of many people’s diet. Indeed, this may be a watershed moment for animal welfare – if artificial meat manages to catch on and take over a large portion of the market, many fewer animals will be cruelly raised and slaughtered through factory farming, a key goal of movements like PETA (who have, incidentally, wholly endorsed and promoted the development of artificial meat).

...

Perhaps the future of the fast food industry is ethical meat, instead of the unethical meat. Consumers would be hard pressed to tell the difference between an artificial Big Mac and the current one.

i wonder if it wouldnt be worth making a distinction between the actions of an individual and those of an aggregate of individuals (ie, the actions of communities or their government). i think utilitarianism can possibly be said to observe the ethical calculations that go into making up groups of diverse needs and desires, etc. just thinking out loud here.

of course the flip side of it is that it can be used to implicitly justify oppression and the like--what's the bit in the Brothers Karamazov? if the whole world could live in peace and happiness based on the unending torture of one small child...

sorry i am repeating things from upthread.

"greatest happiness for the greatest number" though strikes me as a more subtle formula that it is often given credit for--there's a way of interpreting it in which those two considerations are in mutual tension.

i think it's similar to the way we approach "fairness" where institutions are concerned. i don't insist that individuals be fair and equitable in all their actions (it'd be nice), but i am willing to demand that of institutions, especially public institutions.

Yeah, on reflection there's obviously no problem with holding people and institutions to different standards. Just like we might expect and understand strong negative feelings to the perpetrator from the victim of a crime, but demand completely unemotional and impartial judgement from our justice system.

I also often find that utilitarianism is used to justify the most "fair" outcomes that don't affect me, e.g. benevolent Davos types who pronounce that it's ok to increase poverty in the US if you're reducing it by more net in India, and meanwhile they will keep their luxurious lifestyles either way.

maybe we can boost their altruism with a mind virus?

Bernard Williams was weirdly hung up on this idea that utilitarians are committed to the view that certain kinds of emotional suffering are "irrational" and so, I guess, illegitimate. This has always seemed exactly wrong to me. Utilitarianism would condemn telling someone who is suffering deep post-traumatic regret over having made a horrible but ethically optimal decision to just "not give it a second thought", since that would probably just make them feel worse. Maybe that regret is irrational in some sense, but so what? Lots of emotions have little or nothing to do with rationality, but they exist, and they affect our lives, so from a utilitarian point of view, they count. They have to.

I think this gets at part of what attracts me to utilitarianism: it's a compassionate theory. It says that everyone's pleasure and everyone's pain counts, no matter who the person is or where their feelings come from. No other consideration, be it justice or fairness or rationality, matters more than the lived experiences of sentient beings. Granted, this cuts both way. It means that a serial killers' feelings have as much intrinsic significance as mine or yours. But it also means that any poor, marginalized person's suffering has as much intrinsic significance as that of the most powerful, influential person in the world. I think the implications of this are progressive.

I also think utilitarianism handles Williams's concerns about giving priority to close relationships pretty easily. I'll explain if someone is interested.

It's true that the rhetoric of the theory can be put to awful use, but that's true of every kind of moral justification. Consider again appeals to justice, fairness, and rationality.

It's also true that utilitarianism is tough to apply in practice. I think this is the most pressing type of objection to it. I have some thoughts about this, too.

First, it may be that the purpose of normative theory is more descriptive than pragmatically prescriptive. So utilitarianism would tell you what it is that makes actions right and wrong--and there is a prescriptive element to that--but not how to adjust your behavior to match. And faulting utilitarianism for this would be like faulting a physicists' explanation of a boxer's left hook for not teaching you how to throw one. That's a different task.

Second, this is a problem all normative theories face.

Third, by utilitarianism's own lights, any strategy that is most conducive to utility is the right one, even if it's is a mixed strategy that doesn't always involve consciously concerning yourself with utility. The best utilitarian agent may be one who, for example, prioritizes close relations without a second thought. In which case the best utilitarian approach to life would be to try to develop this quality, so that it becomes habitual. I don't think this is very far off from common-sense ideas about building character.

That all sounds perfectly reasonable, yet I have my doubts. Firstly it's not clear that utilitarianism is coherent enough even to work as a rule of thumb - what kind of utility are we aiming for? Greatest good for greatest number (or net happiness increase or whatever) - the first is circular and the second leads to obvious and fundamental objections.

Like what?

speaking to the radical compassion angle, I think bentham's famous quote about animals demonstrates that quite nicely: "The question is not, "Can they reason?" nor, "Can they talk?" but "Can they suffer"

I think this is important because its reverses talk about rights based on the ability to reason with a more radical form of compassion based on shared vulnerability.

and, further, it implies that a shared *vulnerability* grants access a community rather than some presumed positive characteristic (race or class or even species, say)

Yes! I think Bentham was right on about that.

Bernard Williams was weirdly hung up on this idea that utilitarians are committed to the view that certain kinds of emotional suffering are "irrational" and so, I guess, illegitimate. This has always seemed exactly wrong to me. Utilitarianism would condemn telling someone who is suffering deep post-traumatic regret over having made a horrible but ethically optimal decision to just "not give it a second thought", since that would probably just make them feel worse. Maybe that regret is irrational in some sense, but so what? Lots of emotions have little or nothing to do with rationality, but they exist, and they affect our lives, so from a utilitarian point of view, they count. They have to.

i think the idea is not that they're committed to a view that certain kinds of emotional suffering are irrational, but that the combination of (a) the principle of utility, (b) some degree of uncertainty/ignorance about what exactly it is human nature / in an individual's nature to feel given such-and-such circumstances, actions, histories, etc., and (c) a project of radically revising behaviors and institutions in order to mitigate suffering and promote the realization of the principle of utility in life, leaves room for certain questionable attitudes about the legitimacy (not immediately, but in the longer view) of a whole range of feelings as they currently happen to be experienced.

i feel like the people who come up with such analogies are people who have run over bums and want to convince themselves it was ok

I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die, does that count?

that depends...if you didn't shoot him, would the sheriff then shoot 5 boys named sue?

he proposed a thought experiment in which he cooked and ate her horse

Dying at this.

to be clear, in this thought experiment, YOU are not dying; the horse is

It would be darkly hilarious if the horse were infected with CJD and the eater died.

Just sayin.

i have not heard of this basilisk, will investigate

we do have another thread for this; but the fact that a bunch of self-proclaimed rationalists were literally terrified that they might be tortured by an AI from the future is one of the internet's greatest achievements in lulz.

please tell me the instrument of torture was the internet itself

It was ilx

I for one welcome System as our new AI overlord in the coming singularity.

i feel like the people who come up with such analogies are people who have run over bums and want to convince themselves it was ok

― Arch Bacon (rushomancy)

yes!

off topic but also...i will never understand schools in progressive-leaning parts of the country. bc how is this

― 21st savagery fox (m bison)

did this sentence get finished?

how is this (implied)...a thing

not used to ppl from that line of subculture being in positions of authority in schools.

oh i thought you meant nepotism maybe

it's funny, they wore three piece suits at work because they had to cover their tattoos.

not sure why that required a vest but

lmao OF COURSE THEY DID

throughout my years of teaching i have only become more sloppy. untucked plaid shirts and slacks and sneakers is my current look at year 9; by year 20 itll be tshirts, cargo shorts, and chanclas and daring someone to say something.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/26/Higher_Learning_%28movie%29.jpg

i do wear a shirt and tie guy to keep up w my colleagues but since i am a lab teacher i get to wear carhartt shop pants and chore or coach jackets instead of a suit ... you know uh utilitarian clothing

we should probably take it to the teacher thread though

wasting time on moral philosophy is immoral

moral philosophy has great value until it attempts to establish absolutes. at that point it becomes a runaway trolley and something of intrinsic value is about to get smashed.

Rationalism/Real England crossover - effective altruists buying a Blackpool hotel and opening a sort of research centre/commune/monastery.
http://effective-altruism.com/ea/1pc/ea_hotel_with_free_accommodation_and_board_for/

terrifying thought that ILX might be shaping the world outside it like the faux conspiracists of Foucault's Pendulum

B&B altruists finding themselves inexplicably drawn to start a band with the swagger of Oasis.

The cellars could serve as a nuclear bunker of moderate protection. It will be relatively low cost to keep a stockpile of long lasting food down there, which could be slowly used and replenished by the kitchen over a 2-5 year cycle.

Also, growing the EA community in Northern England in general could be seen as a hedge against x-risk, i.e lessen the number of eggs (EAs) in the same, higher risk baskets (London and the South East). Blackpool might be hard to get to in the event of a catastrophe, but the flip side of this is that there would be a lower risk from hostile actors (mercenaries, milita), as well as lower direct damage from nukes and fallout.

Post-apocalyptic effective altruists! That is a cause I would donate to.

most EAs i know irl are really decent and kind people

the PDF j. posted back in March has some good stuff in it about how effective altruism is BS

As I discuss below, EA’s hidden curriculum includes at least four lessons: (1) Effective Altruists are heroic rescuers; (2) doing good is largely an individualistic project; (3) doing the most good does not require listening to those affected by the issues one is trying to address; and (4) anger is not an appropriate response to severe poverty. I am not suggesting that Effective Altruists consciously believe these lessons or teach them explicitly; nor can I offer here evidence about the extent to which they have been taken up. But I do think that EA conveys them. Moreover, these lessons are not mere window-dressing; they serve important functions in helping EA attract and retain members.

but it also contains stuff I vehemently disagree with like

Critics of charity will object that in a just world private individuals would not be able to accumulate enough money to make voluntary donating a significant driver of social change, and in the current (unjust) world the wealthy are unlikely to support reforms that would limit their ability to accumulate. I think this objection is overstated, both because an effective social practice of donating does not require the excessive accumulation that we associate with such megadonors as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, and because individuals often donate to support political reforms that will reduce their own ability to accumulate.

Anyone still a consequentialist? If so, why?

everyone?

Clearly false.

every couple of years I google Peter Singer to see if he's still alive (currently: yes)

U think people voting for joe biden on deolontological principles?

no I think people vote for joe biden for no reason

I do not think people by and large engage in moral reasoning when they decide to vote or in advance of most other choices they make

silby i love u welcome back but that doesnt make sense at all

nor does utilitarianism

i don’t know what your definition of moral reasoning is and i am aware your very cool posting style is just to angrily say stuff without deigning to ever give reasons, but it seems to me that the consequences of donald trump being president for another four years were weighing on many people’s minds

I’ve lost track of my reasons if you want me tbrrwu

I don’t even know what a reason is anymore flopson

silbipsism

That’s where I believe everyone exists except me

Anyway first response hall of fame itt

I am still a utilitarian

Philpapers (though that was 2009) has

Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics?
Other 301 / 931 (32.3%)
Accept or lean toward: deontology 241 / 931 (25.9%)
Accept or lean toward: consequentialism 220 / 931 (23.6%)
Accept or lean toward: virtue ethics 169 / 931 (18.2%)

https://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl

I'm a consequentialist but not a utilitarian.

well I'm a moral sceptic really but inasmuch as we still can should be excellent to each other, consequentialism is the only game in town.

I reject ethical rationalism after Hume