Notes for Class Seven:
Objectivist Ethical Theories (especially Utilitarianism)

Some absolutists claim that the unchanging laws of God or laws of eternal reason define what we are morally obliged to do. According to natural law theory, every thing has a nature that determines the kinds of things are appropriate for it to do. To the extent that it does those things, it acts in a morally good way. The nature of a thing is knowable by reason, without having to appeal to any special revelation.

Objections to using divine authority, reason, or nature as the basis for moral judgments: figuring out how to interpret God is always a problem. Societies are notorious for claiming that their own values are exactly the ones that God prefers. Reason is just as undependable as a source for universal values: what is rational for one person or society is irrational for another, and the same goes for what is "natural."

We will focus on two ways of approaching moral decision-making that do not rely on divine or natural law: teleological thinking and deontological thinking. Teleological (or consequentialist) theories of ethics (like hedonism or utilitarianism) assume that the aim of ethics is to identify what ought to be done in terms of what produces good consequences. The "good" is determined before and apart from what is moral. Deontological (duty-oriented, act-oriented) theories of ethics assume that the aim of ethics is to identify the good in terms of what is moral. Deontological theories identify the morality of an action in terms of whether it ought to be done, apart from whether the action has good consequences.

Teleological theories

I. According to egoistic hedonism, every human action ought to be motivated by the pursuit of pleasure. Moral hedonism allows for the possibility that an individual can be motivated to act for reasons other than the pursuit of pleasure, but that it is unwise (indeed, immoral) to do so.

Epicurus (341-271 BC) is an example of a hedonist. According to Epicurus, one always ought to do the good, and the good is that which is pleasurable. Some pleasures result from satisfying natural desires--some of which are necessary (like the desires for food and sleep), some of which are unnecessary and often have pains associated with them (like the desire for sex). Other pleasures result from satisfying vain desires, desires not easy to satisfy and often lead to pain. Real pleasure is the absence of pain.

According to Epicurus, we should pursue those things that are pleasurable and that also have no pain associated with them. Thus we should try to develop an appreciation for beauty, prudence, honor, justice, courage, and honesty rather than so-called "epicurean" sensualism because such sensualism is always mixed with pains. One's pleasures always should be moderated and should also take into account other people, because their dissatisfaction could have a negative impact on us.

Objections:

• (1) Just because people can pursue self-interested pleasure (and often do), that does not mean that they should. [This is called the "naturalistic fallacy": just because something is "naturally" one way does not mean that it should be that way.]
• (2) If people cannot act in any way other than to promote their own self-interest, then there is no point in proposing an ethical theory to tell them how they should act.
• (3) Just because I am interested in my pleasure, that does not mean that I should not be interested in the pleasures of others; why can't the focus of hedonism be universal?

(A) Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832): people should do what produces pleasure, considering the intensity, duration, certainty, quickness, how many other pleasures are produced, freedom from pains, and the number of people affected. According to the "hedonistic calculus," pleasure and pain dictate all human behavior. Every person's happiness, no matter how mundane or qualitatively inferior, is given equal weight: by being democratic in our ethics, we allow standards to fall to the lowest common denominator.

Objections:

• (1) how does one make calculations? Is there a standard that all can agree on?
• (2) What about the fact that some pleasures are qualitatively better than others? Some pleasures should not be encouraged, so not all pleasures are good (good is thus not the same as pleasureable or happiness-producing).

(B) J. S. Mill (1806-73): the quality of pleasures needs to be considered in addition to the quantity of pleasure. Some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable for social, cultural reasons (i.e., in terms of human fulfillment and well-being) than others. Pleasures are deemed more valuable by those who are familiar with both and who prefer one to the other irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation. That is, what makes one pleasure more desirable is that it is in fact more desired: "the uncultivated cannot be competent judges of cultivation."

Objections:

• (1) Injustice: if the total amount of happiness is increased by violating the rights of a few, then utilitarianism seems to condone unjust acts. But if such acts were to become the rule, there would be less happiness. So utilitarianism must be modified to say that we should do only what produces the greatest amount of happiness if it is done generally or as a rule. This modification is sometimes called "rule utilitarianism."
• (2) And what if always following the rule (say, not killing) would yield worse consequences in a certain situation than violating the rule? That is, isn't there a need to fall back into "act utilitarianism"--thinking that we should decide what to do in virtue of the consequences of this or that particular act, not in virtue of doing things like this as a rule?
• (3) Furthermore, according to utilitarianism, no act is morally good or bad in itself. So an act of rape could be morally good if it yielded more beneficial consequences to the greatest number of people than not raping. But that can't be right, can it?

Such a question raises the issue of whether depending on consequences is the way to go in making moral judgments. Consequentialist thought does not treat acts as either good or bad, only their consequences.