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- The example of animal welfare
The problem of measuringAnother problem with utilitarianism’s ability to assess consequences is that utilitarianism assumes those consequences can be measured “good” or “bad” according to some kind of constant scale. In other words, the statement “the greatest good for the greatest number of people” assumes a uniform standard for what is “good.” Even philosophers in favor of utilitarianism admit this difficulty is hard to negotiate. As J. J. C. Smart writes: “To sum up so far, happiness is partly an evaluative concept, and so the utilitarian maxim ‘You ought to maximize happiness’ is doubly evaluative. There is the possibility of an ultimate disagreement between two utilitarians who differ over the questions of pushpin versus poetry, or Socrates dissatisfied versus the fool satisfied. The case of the electrode operator shows that two utilitarians might come to advocate very different courses of action if they differed about what constituted happiness, and this difference between them would be simply an ultimate difference in attitude” (J. J. C. Smart, UTILITARIANISM FOR AND AGAINST, 1973, p. 24). The troubling thing about Smart’s admission is that he then goes on to dismiss this objection as being rare and irrelevant, encouraging his readers to leave “these more remote possibilities our of account” (p. 24). In fact, these possibilities are far from remote, as any reading of a daily newspaper would demonstrate. One might, of course, argue that subjective interpretations of “good” are possible within a utilitarian framework. But in order to prove that, one must also show that it is possible to mandate acts that have effects on other people that will somehow accommodate those differing conceptions of “good.” I believe this is difficult, if not impossible; not simply because so many differing conceptions of goodness exist, but because inevitably such thinking encourages a world where elites determine what is good for everyone else. As Bernard Williams argues in the evidence section below: “It is worth noticing that the idea of a utilitarian elite involves to a special degree the elements of manipulation. It is possible in general for there to be unequal or hierarchical societies which nevertheless allow for respect and decent human relations, so long as people are unconscious that things could be otherwise; but which, once such consciousness has arisen, must inevitably become a different and more oppressive thing” (Bernard Williams, UTILITARIANISM FOR AND AGAINST, 1973, p. 139). Williams’ argument is not hypothetical. Several instances exist where elites have defined the “best interests” of the people, and implemented very specific policies, even though the people would not have perceived these as their best interests. Here is one particularly troubling example: “Thousands of American Indian women lost their reproductive rights during the 1970s after being sterilized in government-run hospitals, either without their consent or after being pushed into the procedure, according to a University of Nebraska at Omaha graduate who has studied the issue…”Immediately after childbirth, Torpy said, tired and dazed mothers were asked to sign forms authorizing a sterilization procedure. In other cases, she said, mothers were told that they risked losing their children to foster care, or risked losing federal financial assistance, if they had additional children. ”The GAO report said that sterilizations occurred at Indian Health Service centers in New Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma and South Dakota” (Omaha World-Herald September 23, 1998, p. 20). Now, suppose that the utilitarian replies: “Well, this example is not utilitarian at all! These women would not have chosen sterilization as being in their best interest. They would have rejected the ‘utility’ of sterilization. Hence, no utilitarian would support this.” To this response I would reply that, if indeed, the utilitarian must ultimately defer to the will of individuals in order to determine what is in their best “utility,” then we are left with the original epistemological impossibility of determining any generalized “greatest good for the greatest number.” In any event, it seems far more likely that a society which based its decisions on collective utility would inevitably promote some policies as being in others’ best interests regardless of what those others thought of those policies. The example of animal welfareThe inability to measure non-human animals’ desires and needs means that they cannot be considered when assigning satisfaction-value to the various beings in the utilitarian calculus. Apart from obvious pain and discomfort (which would at best make a utilitarian case against painful animal experimentation) we are left with no way to know whether animals are satisfied with certain choices made by humans. Although this example seems extreme because animals are not normally part of our moral consideration, it illustrates a larger problem with value incommensurability. It is not simply the problem of one person’s pain being another person’s pleasure. It means that if we cannot always communicate our values, desires, or needs (and human experience tells us we cannot), then we cannot assign utility values that apply universally. The animal welfare example also demonstrates another important objection to utilitarianism: the problem of “adoptive preferences.” The argument goes something like this: Utilitarianism argues that we should promote the best possible consequences for the greatest number of people. However, those beings who have experienced a great deal of destitution and suffering—the chronically poor, the disabled, the mentally ill, and as outlined above, animals who experience nothing but human exploitation—tend to internalize sets of expectations much lower than those who have not been so unfortunate. If the purpose of utilitarianism is to compare competing options of desirability and undesirability, it seems that these characteristically deprived groups will be unable to make such comparisons. This is also true because many groups of people (and certainly animals) possess incomplete information about their surroundings and the options available to them. In the example given by Martha Nussbaum in the evidence section below, we see that women in oppressive or culturally patriarchal societies are often simply unaware that their lives could be better. Utilitarianism does not know what to do with this ignorance. Utilitarians, therefore, are caught in a dilemma. Either: Utilitarianism defers to the individual preferences of each affected person, or Utilitarianism has a basically uniform standard of happiness. Huge problems exist with each possibility. If the first possibility is true, then utilitarianism can never be a philosophy of the greatest good for the greatest number, since there are a plethora of value differences, each incommensurate with the other, which no rule or act can encompass. If, on the other hand, the second possibility is true, then we are again left with the necessity of deferring judgment to elites, whose job it is to define happiness for the rest of us. Poor women will be forced to be sterilized, and other injustices will take place, all in the guise of “the greatest good for the greatest number.” To summarize this last objection, then: Utilitarianism purports to require that each ethical act be done with the design of promoting the greatest good for the greatest number. However, people have differing conceptions of “good.” Either those differences are merely based on preference-variance, or they are based on ignorance and oppression. In either case, it is impossible to achieve any consensus. And if consensus cannot be achieved, but the utilitarian still insists on promoting “the greatest good,” then this good can only be the idea of goodness imposed by the utilitarian herself, often forced upon the recipients, and frequently to their detriment. One wonders why anyone would subscribe to a philosophy that either collapses into subjectivism, or superimposes into totalitarianism. I have argued here that utilitarianism must do one or the other. Conclusion In this essay, I have demonstrated that it is not easy—in fact, it is sometimes impossible—to do the kind of epistemological work required to ethically uphold utilitarianism. Consequences are unpredictable by their very nature, not just because we “don’t know enough.” Even if we could predict consequences, we could not call them “desirable” or “undesirable” for other people. Happiness is too vague a term, and welfare is sometimes not the same as happiness. Moreover, different classes of people have different ideas of happiness, and some of those classes, particularly powerful classes, cannot be happy on their own terms without exploiting other people. These facts combine to suggest that it would be less than desirable for a moral agent to walk around looking at every option and asking herself what the “consequences” would be, whether they would be “desirable,” and whether they would be desirable for “a whole lot of people.” That isn’t the way ethics work, and that’s probably a good thing. Ultimately, however, there are appropriate times to be a utilitarian. Sometimes we do have a good idea of the consequences, and we know that we are choosing on behalf of many others who may not share our same subjective value preferences. Sometimes we are elected by others to represent them. Sometimes, knowing it is impossible to please everyone, we simply must seek to do the least harm possible. In those cases, some measure of utility might be helpful, even if it doesn’t govern our entire range of ethical choices. For this reason, I am comfortable saying that, in our pluralist and pragmatic age, utilitarianism must be “assimilated” into the plurality of ways we sometimes try to do what is right. But in so being assimilated, it must admit of its fallibility and limits.
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