Morality and Consequences

1. Morality and Consequences

2. Agenda • Our Question • Different Kinds of Answer • Consequentialism: The Contingency of Right and Wrong • Varieties of Consequentialism • Attractions of Utilitarianism

3. Some Familiar Moral Facts • Some acts are wrong, others right. • Some acts are morally permissible, others morally impermissible. • Examples: • It is morally impermissible for you to lie to your parents about how you spend your book money. • It is morally permissible for you to lie to the Nazi who asks you if there are Jews in the house.

4. Our Question • In virtue of what is a given act right or wrong, permissible or impermissible? • For instance, lying to your parents has a different moral status than lying to the Nazi. • That difference justifies taking a different attitude toward them. • What underlies this difference?

5. Agenda • Our Question • Different Kinds of Answer • Consequentialism: The Contingency of Right and Wrong • Varieties of Consequentialism • Attractions of Utilitarianism

6. Different Kinds of Answer I:Actions and Related Matters • An action is related to many other things. • Different kinds of answers to our question locate the source of right/wrong in different parts of this picture. I want to…, I choose to…, I plan to... Caused by Causes performed by Psychological Sources The action itself The consequences of the action The agent

7. Different Kinds of Answer II:Consequentialism and Its Rivals • The rightness/wrongness of an act is determined by the nature of… • Consequentialism: “its consequences.” • Kantianism: “the intentions with which it was done.” • Virtue Theory: “what it reveals about the character of the agent.”

8. Different Kinds of Answer III:What’s Distinctive about Consequentialism I want to…, I choose to…, I plan to... Caused by Causes performed by Psychological Sources The action itself The consequences of the action Consequentialism The agent Kantianism Virtue Theory

9. Agenda • Our Question • Different Kinds of Answer • Consequentialism: The Contingency of Right and Wrong • Varieties of Consequentialism • Attractions of Utilitarianism

10. Explaining right and wrong • Lying to your parents is impermissible; lying to the Nazi is permissible. • Consequentialist: “What makes the difference is what consequences the lies would have.” • An upshot: Consequentialism implies that the moral status of any action is contingent.

11. Consequentialism:The Contingency of Right and Wrong • In the actual situation, the action has horrible consequences; • But it’s possible that the horror of those consequences is outweighed. Causes Causes Pol Pot prevents Actual killing Possible killing

12. Agenda • Our Question • Different Kinds of Answer • Consequentialism: The Contingency of Right and Wrong • Varieties of Consequentialism • Attractions of Utilitarianism

13. Varieties of Consequentialism I The morally right act is that act (among those available to you) that • Utiliarianism: … maximizes everyone’s utility. • Egoism: … maximizes your own utility. • SatisficingConsequentialism: … meets some threshold for promoting utility. • Rights Consequentialism: … minimizes violations of rights.

14. Varieties of Consequentialism II:What’s Distinctive about Utilitarianism • Everyone’s utility counts. (vs. Egoism) • Maximization required (vs. Satisficing) • Utility is the goal (vs. Rights Conseq’ism) Utilitarianism: The morally right act is that act (among those available to you) that maximizes everyone’s utility.

15. Agenda • Our Question • Different Kinds of Answer • Consequentialism: The Contingency of Right and Wrong • Varieties of Consequentialism • Attractions of Utilitarianism

16. Attractions of Utilitarianism • Consequences are morally relevant. • Examples: • How should I break some bad news? • Medical triage. • Others’ pleasure/pain is morally relevant. • Examples: • Sadistic actions are morally reprehensible. • Moral heroes. • Consequences can outweigh other morally relevant factors. • Examples: • Breaking a promise to save a life • Just wars • Utilitarianism would explain these facts.

17. Mill’s Utilitarianism • John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873) • Philosopher, Political Theorist, Reformer. • Mill is one of the most able defenders of Utilitarianism.

18. Agenda • Mill’s Thesis • Mill’s Conception of Happiness • Objection: The Pig’s Life • Bentham’s Defense • Mill’s Defense • What’s Good? • Objections and Replies

19. Mill’s Thesis The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. (p. 487, col. 2) English Translation: “The only fundamental moral requirement is to promote happiness to the best of your ability.” [All other moral requirements follow from that one.]

20. Agenda • Mill’s Thesis • Mill’s Conception of Happiness • Objection: The Pig’s Life • Bentham’s Defense • Mill’s Defense • What’s Good? • Objections and Replies

21. Mill’s Conception of Happiness By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure. (p. 487, col. 2) • Note: Pleasure is a mental state. • So, e.g. bodily health is not a direct part of happiness. Mill’s conception of happiness: A is happier than B if and only if A enjoys a higher balance of pleasure over pain.

22. Agenda • Mill’s Thesis • Mill’s Conception of Happiness • Objection: The Pig’s Life • Bentham’s Defense • Mill’s Defense • What’s Good? • Objections and Replies

23. The Pig’s Life:Who’s Happier? Now, such a theory of life excites in many minds … inveterate dislike. To suppose that life has (as [critics] express it) no higher end than pleasure – no better and nobler object of desire and pursuit – they designate as utterly mean and groveling; as a doctrine worthy only of swine …. (p. 487, col. 2)

24. The Pig’s Life:Who’s Happier? Objection: • According to Mill’s conception of happiness, Schmoe is happier than Joe. • Schmoe is not happier than Joe. (C) So, Mill’s conception of happiness is false. Ouch! Joe: (healthy, except for a backache) Schmoe: (enjoys nothing but heroin)

25. Agenda • Mill’s Thesis • Mill’s Conception of Happiness • Objection: The Pig’s Life • Bentham’s Defense • Mill’s Defense • What’s Good? • Objections and Replies

26. Bentham’s Defense • One could deny that Joe is happier than Schmoe. • Jeremy Bentham: “Pushpin is as good as poetry.” • Bentham updated: “Heroin is as good as health.” • Perry Farrell seems to be a contemporary adherent. (google“Pigs in Zen lyrics”.) • Call this Bentham’s Defense.

27. Bentham’s Defense • Bentham: Premise (2) is false. Objection: • According to Mill’s conception of happiness, Schmoe is happier than Joe. • Schmoe is not happier than Joe. (C) So, Mill’s conception of happiness is false. False!

28. Mill Rejects Bentham’s Defense The comparison of the Epicurean life to that of beasts is felt as degrading, precisely because a beast’s pleasures do not satisfy a human being’s conceptions of happiness. Human beings have faculties more elevated that the animal appetites, and when once made conscious of them, do not regard anything as happiness which does not include their gratification. (p. 488, col. 1)

29. Mill Rejects Bentham’s Defense • Mill: There are more pleasures than food, drink, sex, heroin, etc. • Mill: Joe is happier than Schmoe because he enjoys some of those pleasures. • Mill calls these “higher pleasures”. Ouch! Joe Schmoe

30. Agenda • Mill’s Thesis • Mill’s Conception of Happiness • Objection: The Pig’s Life • Bentham’s Defense • Mill’s Defense • What’s Good? • Objections and Replies

31. Mill’s Defense • Mill: Premise (1) is false. • On Mill’s conception of happiness, Schmoe enjoys a full measure of lower pleasures. • But Joe’s existence is overall more pleasant, because Joe enjoys “higher pleasures”. Objection: • According to Mill’s conception of happiness, Schmoe is happier than Joe. • Schmoe is not happier than Joe. (C) So, Mill’s conception of happiness is false. False!

32. Mill’s Defense:Higher vs. Lower Pleasures Two kinds of pleasures: Higher Pleasures Lower Pleasures Pleasures we share with other sentient animals What is it? Pleasures peculiarly suited to our most sophisticated capacities and sensitivities. • Poetry, art, music • Sociability • Positional goods • Crosswords, limericks • Dice, pushpin, tiddly winks • Food • drink and other intoxicants • sex • exercise • warmth Examples

33. Quality vs. Quantity • Bentham: Pleasures differ only in: (i) intensity, (ii) duration, (iii) “propinquity” (proximity in time), and (iv) likelihood. • Mill: They also differ in quality: [U]tilitarian writers in general have placed the superiority of mental over bodily pleasures chiefly in the greater permanence, safety, uncostliness, etc., of the former […] It is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognise the fact, that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and valuable than others. It would be absurd that while, in estimating all other things, quality is considered as well as quantity, the estimation of pleasures should be supposed to depend on quantity alone. (p. 488, col. 1)

34. Mill: Quality Trumps Quantity [W]e are justified in ascribing to [some] enjoyment a superiority in quality, so far outweighing quantity as to render it, in comparison, of small account. (p. 488, col. 2) • Problem: quality of pleasure is extremely important; but how is it to be determined? >

35. Agenda • Mill’s Thesis • Mill’s Conception of Happiness • Objection: The Pig’s Life • Bentham’s Defense • Mill’s Defense • What’s Good? • Objections and Replies

36. Mill’s Epistemology of Value • How do you determine whether one pleasure outweighs another? • Mill’s epistemology of value: Ask the experts: • [Mill notes that the same can be said of whether one “lower” pleasure is more intense than another (p. 489, col. 2)] Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure. (p. 488, col. 1-2)

37. What the Experts Say 10 out of 10 experts agree! [T]hose who are equally acquainted with, and equally capable of appreciating and enjoying, both, do give a most marked preference to the manner of existence which employs their higher faculties. Few human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals, for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast’s pleasures … (p. 488, col. 2) Mill’s Empirical Claim: People who have experienced both higher and lower pleasures much prefer the higher. Is this true?

38. I Couldn’t Resist Quoting This It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. (p. 489, col. 1)

39. Agenda • Mill’s Thesis • Mill’s Conception of Happiness • Objection: The Pig’s Life • Bentham’s Defense • Mill’s Defense • What’s Good? • Objections and Replies

40. Objections and Replies: Agenda • “Utilitarianism is Ethics for Angels” • “Utilitarianism is Ethics for Supercomputers”

41. Charge: “Utilitarianism is Ethics for Angels” • The idea: no one could possibly be motivated to act as Utilitarianism enjoins. • You love yourself, your parents, your friends, etc. • You do not love me, my parents, my friends, etc. • Utilitarianism requires that you act in a way that equally serves the interests of all: • Bentham: “Everyone is to count for one, and no one for more than one.”

42. Charge: “Utilitarianism is Ethics for Angels” The Objection: • Utilitarianism requires impartiality: According to Utilitarianism, we ought to act in a way that promotes everyone’s happiness, regardless of how we feel about them. • We can’t be impartial: We cannot act in a way that promotes everyone’s happiness, regardless of how we feel about them. • Ought implies can: If we ought to act in a certain way, then we can act in that way (C) So, Utilitarianism is false.

43. Mill’s Response:Actions and Motives • Utilitarianism prescribes actions of a certain sort: utility-maximizing for all humanity. • Utilitarianism does not prescribe a motive for those actions. [The objection] mistake[s] a rule of action with the motive of it. It is the business of ethics to tell us what are our duties […] He who saves a fellow creature from drowning does what is morally right, whether his motive be duty, or the hope of being paid for his trouble. (p. 491, col. 1)

44. Mill’s Response:Actions and Motives dist: Rule of Action Motive of Action The psychological factor which induces us to act in a certain way. What is it? A rule which tells us to act in a certain way. Examples • Don’t kill • Drive on the right • The psychological trauma associated with killing • Fear of death Used for Assessment of the action: “Was it wrong?” Assessment of the agent: “Is s/he a bad person?”

45. Mill’s Response:Actions and Motives • Premise (2) is false: • We can perform the right actions; • Our motive needn’t be angelic, impartial love of all human beings. The Objection: • Utilitarianism requires impartiality: According to Utilitarianism, we ought to act in a way that promotes everyone’s happiness, regardless of how we feel about them. • We can’t be impartial: We cannot act in a way that promotes everyone’s happiness, regardless of how we feel about them. • Ought implies can: If we ought to act in a certain way, then we can act in that way (C) So, Utilitarianism is false. False!

46. Objections and Replies: Agenda • “Utilitarianism is Ethics for Angels” • “Utilitarianism is Ethics for Supercomputers”

47. Charge: “Utilitarianism is Ethics for Supercomputers” • The idea: Utilitarian calculations are extremely difficult. • People don’t have the opportunity to do such calculations when deciding what to do. • So people can’t act as Utilitarianism requires.

48. Charge: “Utilitarianism is Ethics for Supercomputers” The Objection: • Utilitarianism requires complex calculations: Determining which action maximizes utility requires calculations of a certain complexity. • We can’t do complex calculations: We cannot do calculations of that complexity when deciding what to do. (C) Utilitarianism is impractical: So, we cannot determine which action maximizes utility when deciding what to do.

49. Mill’s Response:Utility and Derivative Principles • Utilitarianism is the fundamental principle of morality: maximize utility. • In daily life, we can apply derivative principles: • “Don’t murder” • “Don’t steal” • … There is no difficulty in proving any ethical standard whatever to work ill, if we suppose universal idiocy to be conjoined with it; but on any hypothesis short of that, mankind must by this time have acquired positive beliefs as to the effects of some actions on their happiness; and the beliefs which have thus come down are the rules of morality for the multitude. (p. 493, col. 2)

50. Mill’s Response:Utility and Derivative Principles • The conclusion is true, (but harmless): • We can calculate ahead of time to formulate derivative rules; • the rules get applied “in the heat of the moment”. • The Objection: • Utilitarianism requires complex calculations: Determining which action maximizes utility requires calculations of a certain complexity. • We can’t do complex calculations: We cannot do very calculations of that complexity when deciding what to do. • (C) Utilitarianism is impractical: So, we cannot determine which action maximizes utility when deciding what to do. Harmless