Privatization cp ddi 2012 1 Privatization + Coercion 1
Utilitarian paradigm is bad- justifies genocide and war to achieve desired ends
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- 2. Util fails
1. Utilitarian paradigm is bad- justifies genocide and war to achieve desired endsCleveland (Professor of Business Administration and Economics at Birmingham-Southern College. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Texas A & M University and began his career teaching at SUNY-Geneseo. He is the author of the book, Understanding the Modern Culture Wars: The Essentials of Western Civilization, and his articles have appeared in The Journal of Private Enterprise, The Independent Review, Idaho's Economy, Religion and Liberty, and The Freeman) 9/1/02 (Paul, “The Failure of Utilitarian Ethics in Political Economy, http://www.independent.org/publications/article.asp?id=1602) chip Indeed, the widespread confusion over this point is one of the primary reasons why western market economies have continued to drift towards the ready acceptance of socialist policies. Edmund Opitz has rightly observed that utilitarianism with its “greatest happiness principle” completely neglects the spiritual dimension of human life. Rather, it simply “asserts that men are bound together in societies solely on the basis of a rational calculation of the private advantage to be gained by social cooperation under the division of labor.”[2] But, as Opitz shows, this perspective gives rise to a serious problem. Since theft is the first labor saving device, the utilitarian principle will tend to lead to the collective use of government power so as to redistribute income in order to gain the “greatest happiness” in society. Regrettably, the rent seeking behavior that is spawned as a result of this mind set will prove detrimental to the economy. Nevertheless, this kind of action will be justified as that which is most socially expedient in order to reach the assumed ethical end. “Utilitarianism, in short, has no logical stopping place short of collectivism.”[3] If morality is ultimately had by making the individual’s happiness subservient to the organic whole of society, which is what Bentham’s utilitarianism asserts, then the human rights of the individual may be violated. That means property rights may be violated if it is assumed to promote the utilitarian end. However, property rights are essential in securing a free market order. As a result, utilitarianism can then be used to justify some heinous government actions. For instance, the murder of millions of human beings can be justified in the minds of reformers if it is thought to move us closer to paradise on earth. This is precisely the view that was taken by communist revolutionaries as they implemented their grand schemes of remaking society. All of this is not to say that matters of utility are unimportant in policy decisions, but merely to assert that utilitarian ethics will have the tendency of promoting collectivist policies. This will tend to hold true in most cases except when such collectivism has so thoroughly destroyed the economic enterprise as in the case of the former Soviet Union. In those cases, the very real need of material advancement will lead to reform in the other direction. Therein lies the problem. Is the end that utilitarianism aims for truly ethical? It certainly contradicts the traditional moral philosophies. Both the older natural law philosophies as well as those founded upon religious traditions take issue with the use of force so as to gain one’s material wherewithal. If it can be shown that utilitarianism suffers logically from several fatal flaws, then the rational thing that one ought to do is to reject it as a basis for making ethical judgments in policy debates in favor of a more substantive moral philosophy of life. This is the purpose of this paper. Namely, to point out the numerous shortcomings of utilitarianism. In addition, it will be worthwhile to examine a common policy issue in order to demonstrate the difference that it makes when traditional moral philosophies are employed as the foundation upon which one either approves of or disapproves of a particular government action. In this case, an examination of the debate over the delivery of public goods will prove useful. A2 Utilitarianism – 2 2. Util failsA. Can’t measure utility across different peopleCleveland (Professor of Business Administration and Economics at Birmingham-Southern College. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Texas A & M University and began his career teaching at SUNY-Geneseo. He is the author of the book, Understanding the Modern Culture Wars: The Essentials of Western Civilization, and his articles have appeared in The Journal of Private Enterprise, The Independent Review, Idaho's Economy, Religion and Liberty, and The Freeman) 9/1/02 (Paul, “The Failure of Utilitarian Ethics in Political Economy, http://www.independent.org/publications/article.asp?id=1602) chip Among the many difficulties encountered in Bentham?s approach, the first is that it is impossible to make interpersonal comparisons. It is a well-known fact that different people have different tastes. In addition, there are differences in personalities and talents that different people possess and these differences give rise to differences in their goals and ambitions. All these variations in turn give rise to a fundamental fact of human existence. Namely, that it is impossible for us to know or measure the extent of either pleasure or pain for any specific person in any particular situation. Such measures are beyond the capacity of our ability to know. While human beings can most certainly empathize with someone who is experiencing extreme hardship or enjoying great success, such efforts are only accomplished by projecting one’s own inward feelings to someone else’s circumstance. One person simply cannot accurately know the depth of another person’s pain nor the height of his joy. While Bentham at least recognized this problem, it did not discourage him from his ultimate pursuit. Instead, he continued to promote his new ethical philosophy and argued that it was the only way that we could go. Therefore, he pressed for a way to measure happiness. While he was never able to arrive at such a measure, he remained confident that one would soon be developed and even used the term utils as the units in which it would be measured. Economists have long since given up on the search for a cardinal measure of utility. Strangely enough however, welfare economists continue to act as if we can actually accomplish the impossible task by attempting to measure deadweight losses within the context of modern price theory. It is the rise in the prominence of welfare analysis that has given utilitarianism a standing in modern policy debates. However, such efforts cannot escape the reality that such measures cannot be made. With no adequate way to measure utility in order to make the necessary interpersonal comparisons, all such policy arguments are reduced to contests where each side claims that the rewards to be received by them would greatly outweigh whatever pain might be incurred by those who are forced to bear the costs.
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