3 Utilitarianism

3.1 Consequentialism

The moral status of an action depends entirely on their producing the best consequence. The implication is that actions themselves are not inherently "good" or "evil"; their moral worth is judged purely by the results they produce in the real world.

Difference between consequentialism and utilitarianism Utilitarianism is just one specific type of consequentialism. Consequentialism just says ’maximize the good consequences’. It doesn’t define what ’good’ is. A consequentialist could believe the ultimate ’good’ is Knowledge, Beauty, or Equality. Utilitarianism specifically defines the ’good’ as Well-being/Utility. Therefore, all utilitarians are consequentialists, but not all consequentialists are utilitarians.

3.2 Utility Principle

Always act to maximise "the greatest good for the greatest number". An action is morally right if it produces the greatest net balance of well-being over suffering for everyone affected.

Impartiality - Everyone’s well-being counts exactly the same.

Note: The Utility Principle does not necessarily mean we must always choose the action that benefits the greatest number of people. It requires us to maximize the total net utility. For example, an action that gives a massive amount of happiness to 2 people might be morally superior to an action that gives a tiny, barely noticeable amount of happiness to 100 people. We calculate total overall well-being, not just a head-count.

3.3 Hedonistic Utilitarianism

A specific form of utilitarianism. Hedonism (Bentham and Mill) says that pleasure is the only intrinsic good and pain is the only intrinsic evil. Hence, hedonistic utilitarianism says that the morally right action is one that maximises the total net amount of pleasure and minimises the total net amount of pain.

Similarly, it is impartial - taking equal consideration of pleasure/pain of all affected beings.

Recall that Hedonistic Utilitarianism is an example of Ethical Naturalism.

3.4 Actual vs Foreseeable Consequence

Actual consequence utilitarianism evaluates an action’s morality based on its actual, final outcomes. Foreseeable consequence (or expected) utilitarianism judges actions based on predicted, reasonable expectations at the time of the decision.

Scenario: Imagine a person in 1938 saves someone from drowning, however the person they saved turned out to be Adolf Hitler. Actual consequence utilitarianism says saving the drowning man was a morally wrong action. The actual consequence of the action was a massive net negative for global well-being. However, this makes moral decision-making nearly impossible. Because you cannot see the future, you can never be 100% certain you are doing the right thing at the time you act. You can only evaluate if an action was right or wrong retrospectively, sometimes years later.

Forseeable consequence utilitarianism says saving the drowning man was the morally right action. Based on the information available to a reasonable person at the time, saving a life has a massively high expected utility. The fact that he later became a dictator was an unforeseeable statistical anomaly. This version uses foresight instead of hindsight. It allows human beings to make moral decisions using probability and reasonable expectations, meaning you can be confident you are doing the right thing at the moment you act, even if terrible luck ruins the actual outcome later.

3.5 Benthamic Principle: “Can they suffer?” & Moral Community

Moral community is a group of beings that are recognized as having moral status and worth, and whose interests we are morally required to consider when we make decisions. Before Bentham, the boundaries of the moral community was drawn around Rationality, Language or Species Membership (being human). Bentham said that under hedonistic utilitarianism (only pain and pleasure matter), reason and language are completely irrelavant.

He famously wrote: "The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?" If the capacity to suffer (sentience) is the only requirement for moral standing, the boundary of the moral community explodes outward. Under this principle, a unit of pain felt by a dog, a pig, or a cow counts exactly the same in the utilitarian cost-benefit calculation as a unit of pain felt by a human being. To a utilitarian, if an action causes massive suffering to animals for only a minor amount of human pleasure (like eating a specific type of meat), that action is mathematically and morally wrong.

Problem with Bentham If suffering is the only metric, how do we accurately compare human suffering to animal suffering? Does a pig’s physical pain count exactly the same as a human’s complex psychological grief? It makes the utilitarian calculation incredibly difficult.

3.6 Argument from Marginal Cases

Marginal human beings refer to humans whose cognitive abilities are at the margins of typical human capacity, like infants, or individuals with severe cognitive disabilities.

1. Premise: If it is immoral to kill and eat "marginal" human beings, and to painfully experiment on them, then it is also immoral to treat non-human animals this way. (Because an adult chimpanzee or a pig often has the exact same, or even higher, cognitive capacity and ability to feel pain as a human infant).

2. Premise: It is (almost) always immoral to kill and eat "marginal" human beings and to painfully experiment on them. (This is a basic moral intuition almost everyone shares).

3. Conclusion: It is (almost) always immoral to kill and eat animals, and to painfully experiment on them.

Speciesism Counterargument: The AMC asserts that species membership is not a morally relevant characteristic; treating humans with lower capabilities differently than animals with similar capabilities is a form of prejudice similar to racism or sexism.

Problem with Marginal Cases Critics argue that moral status isn’t based on an individual’s specific cognitive capacity at a given moment, but on what is normal for their species. Because higher-level rationality is normal for the human species, all humans get moral rights, even if a specific infant or disabled individual currently lacks it.

3.7 Obligatory vs Supererogatory Actions

Obligatory actions - Something that you are morally required to do. It would be morally wrong not to do it. (For example, feeding your own children is obligatory). Note: If an action is obligatory, it is automatically permissible, but not vice versa.

Supererogatory actions - Something that is morally positive and good, but not obligatory. This is an action that goes "above and beyond the call of duty." If you do it, you are a hero, but if you don’t do it, you haven’t done anything wrong. (For example, running into a burning building to save a stranger, or donating 70% of your income to charity).

This distinction collapses under utilitarianism because any action that maximizes overall utility is a strict moral obligation, not optional. An action is either the single best possible choice (making it obligatory), or it isn’t (making it wrong). Supererogatory actions that maximise utility are thus obligatory.

3.8 3 Objections Against Utilitarianism

3.8.1 Measurement

If we want to maximise the net balance of well-being over suffering, how to actually measure, compare and sum up this "utility"?

1. Premise 1: If utilitarianism is true, then there must be a precise unit of measurement that determines the amount of well-being that results from an action.

2. Premise 2: There is no such precise unit of measurement.

3. Conclusion: Therefore, utilitarianism is false (or at least practically useless for moral problem-solving).

Utilitarians reject Premise 1, arguing that we do not need a perfectly precise, mathematical unit of measurement to make valid moral choices.

1. Psychological Similarity: Because human beings share very similar biology and psychology, we can safely estimate others’ wants, needs, and what makes them happy.

2. Accumulated Wisdom: Over thousands of years of human history, we have gathered enough general knowledge to know what outcomes generally promote well-being and what outcomes destroy it.

3.8.2 Deliberation

Utilitarianism is impractical as a decision-making guide because calculating the total utility of every possible action is impossible, time-consuming, and often counterintuitive. Humans are not "moral calculators" capable of crunching infinite data points in real-time. We do not have perfect knowledge of the future, so we simply don’t know how things will actually turn out.

Utilitarians split moral action into two distinct concepts

1. Standard of Rightness The utilitarian formula itself that defines what makes an action morally correct.

2. Decision Procedure The practical method used to make choices. Relying on rules of thumb (like "don’t lie", "keep your promises", or "don’t steal") is the best decision procedure.

Basketball analogy Basketball player does not need to pause to calculate the precise physics equations of velocity, gravity, and wind resistance. They just use their practiced habits and intuition to catch the ball. Similarly, you don’t need to calculate the equations of morality every time you act; you just follow the rules of thumb that have been proven to maximize well-being.

3.8.3 Undermining Trust

Under utilitarianism, no action is intrinsically wrong. Stealing, lying, breaking promises, killing etc are evaluated strictly by their consequences. Since trust requires that people consistently follow rules (e.g., honesty, fairness), then utilitarianism’s focus on the "best outcome" in each situation makes behavior unpredictable, undermining trust.

Transplant Example If doctors might kill one healthy patient to save five with their organs, people would fear visiting hospitals, destroying trust in the medical system.

Justice Example If a judge frames an innocent person to stop a riot, the long-term trust in the law as a fair institution is destroyed.

Utilitarians might respond by arguing that social trust has massive utility. In the transplant example, if public trust is eroded, people stop going to hospitals, and thousands of people die of preventable diseases. The collapse of trust creates a massive amount of long-term suffering, so the utilitarian calculation actually forbids the doctor from killing you.

3.9 Agent-Relative vs Agent-Neutral Reasons

Agent-neutral reasons are universal, holding the same value for everyone regardless of who acts (e.g., "maximize overall happiness"). Utilitarianim is agent-neutral.

Agent-relative reasons depend on the individual’s specific circumstances or relationships. Agent-relative reasons are not just subjective, personal feelings (e.g., ’I only help people I think are attractive’). They are still universal moral rules, but they are applied to specific relationships. For example, ’Every parent has a duty to save their own child first.’ This is a universal rule (it applies to all parents everywhere), but it is agent-relative because the specific child you are obligated to save depends on who you are.

Transplant Example Under this framework, the doctor can say, "I have a specific, agent-relative constraint against me personally committing a murder, even if my murder prevents five other deaths."