defend the indefensible: utilitarianism

i think it's similar to the way we approach "fairness" where institutions are concerned. i don't insist that individuals be fair and equitable in all their actions (it'd be nice), but i am willing to demand that of institutions, especially public institutions.

Yeah, on reflection there's obviously no problem with holding people and institutions to different standards. Just like we might expect and understand strong negative feelings to the perpetrator from the victim of a crime, but demand completely unemotional and impartial judgement from our justice system.

I also often find that utilitarianism is used to justify the most "fair" outcomes that don't affect me, e.g. benevolent Davos types who pronounce that it's ok to increase poverty in the US if you're reducing it by more net in India, and meanwhile they will keep their luxurious lifestyles either way.

maybe we can boost their altruism with a mind virus?

Bernard Williams was weirdly hung up on this idea that utilitarians are committed to the view that certain kinds of emotional suffering are "irrational" and so, I guess, illegitimate. This has always seemed exactly wrong to me. Utilitarianism would condemn telling someone who is suffering deep post-traumatic regret over having made a horrible but ethically optimal decision to just "not give it a second thought", since that would probably just make them feel worse. Maybe that regret is irrational in some sense, but so what? Lots of emotions have little or nothing to do with rationality, but they exist, and they affect our lives, so from a utilitarian point of view, they count. They have to.

I think this gets at part of what attracts me to utilitarianism: it's a compassionate theory. It says that everyone's pleasure and everyone's pain counts, no matter who the person is or where their feelings come from. No other consideration, be it justice or fairness or rationality, matters more than the lived experiences of sentient beings. Granted, this cuts both way. It means that a serial killers' feelings have as much intrinsic significance as mine or yours. But it also means that any poor, marginalized person's suffering has as much intrinsic significance as that of the most powerful, influential person in the world. I think the implications of this are progressive.

I also think utilitarianism handles Williams's concerns about giving priority to close relationships pretty easily. I'll explain if someone is interested.

It's true that the rhetoric of the theory can be put to awful use, but that's true of every kind of moral justification. Consider again appeals to justice, fairness, and rationality.

It's also true that utilitarianism is tough to apply in practice. I think this is the most pressing type of objection to it. I have some thoughts about this, too.

First, it may be that the purpose of normative theory is more descriptive than pragmatically prescriptive. So utilitarianism would tell you what it is that makes actions right and wrong--and there is a prescriptive element to that--but not how to adjust your behavior to match. And faulting utilitarianism for this would be like faulting a physicists' explanation of a boxer's left hook for not teaching you how to throw one. That's a different task.

Second, this is a problem all normative theories face.

Third, by utilitarianism's own lights, any strategy that is most conducive to utility is the right one, even if it's is a mixed strategy that doesn't always involve consciously concerning yourself with utility. The best utilitarian agent may be one who, for example, prioritizes close relations without a second thought. In which case the best utilitarian approach to life would be to try to develop this quality, so that it becomes habitual. I don't think this is very far off from common-sense ideas about building character.

That all sounds perfectly reasonable, yet I have my doubts. Firstly it's not clear that utilitarianism is coherent enough even to work as a rule of thumb - what kind of utility are we aiming for? Greatest good for greatest number (or net happiness increase or whatever) - the first is circular and the second leads to obvious and fundamental objections.

Like what?

speaking to the radical compassion angle, I think bentham's famous quote about animals demonstrates that quite nicely: "The question is not, "Can they reason?" nor, "Can they talk?" but "Can they suffer"

I think this is important because its reverses talk about rights based on the ability to reason with a more radical form of compassion based on shared vulnerability.

and, further, it implies that a shared *vulnerability* grants access a community rather than some presumed positive characteristic (race or class or even species, say)

Yes! I think Bentham was right on about that.

Bernard Williams was weirdly hung up on this idea that utilitarians are committed to the view that certain kinds of emotional suffering are "irrational" and so, I guess, illegitimate. This has always seemed exactly wrong to me. Utilitarianism would condemn telling someone who is suffering deep post-traumatic regret over having made a horrible but ethically optimal decision to just "not give it a second thought", since that would probably just make them feel worse. Maybe that regret is irrational in some sense, but so what? Lots of emotions have little or nothing to do with rationality, but they exist, and they affect our lives, so from a utilitarian point of view, they count. They have to.

i think the idea is not that they're committed to a view that certain kinds of emotional suffering are irrational, but that the combination of (a) the principle of utility, (b) some degree of uncertainty/ignorance about what exactly it is human nature / in an individual's nature to feel given such-and-such circumstances, actions, histories, etc., and (c) a project of radically revising behaviors and institutions in order to mitigate suffering and promote the realization of the principle of utility in life, leaves room for certain questionable attitudes about the legitimacy (not immediately, but in the longer view) of a whole range of feelings as they currently happen to be experienced.

obvious and fundamental objections to happiness as the measure of utility: happiness is not the measure of a good life, a world in which everyone is deliriously happy as a result of enforced drug intake is not a good world.

doubtless this is one of those obvious objections to which there is an obvious rejoinder...

I also think utilitarianism handles Williams's concerns about giving priority to close relationships pretty easily. I'll explain if someone is interested.

i'm all ears.

I don't know about that. I just revisited the quote posted upthread:

<i>So what will typical advocates of the morality system have to say to me afterwards about my dreadful sense of regret? If they are—as perhaps they had better not be—totally consistent and totally honest with me, <b>what they will have to say is simply “Don't give it a second thought; you did what morality required, so your deep anguish about it is irrational.”</b> And that, surely, cannot be the right thing for anyone to say. My anguish is not irrational but entirely justified.</i>

To me, that doesn't read like Williams is saying that utilitarians are leaving room for questionable attitudes about the legitimacy of those feelings in the long run. He doesn't mention the long run. It reads like he's saying that utilitarians are committed to that view that those feelings are irrational and illegitimate today. Hence the discussion of what a committed, consistent utilitarian would "have to" say to a real suffering person now.

That being said, if that is his point, I concede that it isn't straightforwardly inaccurate. It's just insubstantial instead. Saying that utilitarianism might leave room for questionable attitudes in the long run isn't very damning. Until he says something about why utilitarianism doesn't just leave room for but actually produces or makes likely those attitudes, and why they are not just questionable but wrong, other than "surely this can't be right", it gets a big shrug from me.

Maybe those arguments are elsewhere in his work, I don't know. I've only read "A Critique of Utilitarianism". I don't remember them being in there.

I forgot to click the convert HTML to BBcode button }:^|

a world in which everyone is deliriously happy as a result of enforced drug intake is not a good world.

Sure it is. It'll never happen, though, and we all know that. I think resistance to this idea comes from tacit knowledge about how, in the real world, rigidly enforced social engineering leads to horrible outcomes, and drugs only make people deliriously happy on a temporary basis, with a crash often lurking on the other side. But a world in which, by stipulation, the ordinary rules don't apply and the whole scheme works out perfectly? Sign me up. That's utopia.

I think one way utilitarianism can endorse prioritizing your nearest and dearest is by noting that (a) forming and maintaining close personal bonds seems to be integral to the well-being of most people (b) this is not likely to change and (c) these bonds can't be maintained unless people prioritize them a lot of the time, which seems to come naturally anyway.

Williams is hung up on motivation, though. He finds it disturbing that a man, in saving his wife's life, would be motivated by something other than the fact that she is his wife. I have two responses to this.

One is to repeat my comments about utilitarian character-building from upthread. If it's most conducive to utility to develop a habit of prioritizing your wife without considering utility at the time of decision, then you should do this, on utilitarian grounds.

The second is to say that I just don't share Williams's discomfort with the idea being motivated by the thought that "it was his wife and . . . in situations of this kind it is permissible to save one's wife." It doesn't seem like a psychologically plausible in-the-moment motivation, but otherwise, I have no problem with the admission that there are some possible situations in which saving a loved one would not be the best decision.

I also want to note that close social bonds have to be part of utility calculations. When considering the foreseeable outcomes of a decision, you have to work with the information and feelings you have. You, the decision-maker, also count. If it would break your heart to save a stranger rather than your own wife, that counts. If you know for certain that many people depend on your wife, but know nothing about the stranger you could save instead, that's relevant. In other words, considering utility and prioritizing your loved ones are not mutually exclusive.

I'd go so far as to say that utilitarianism, properly construed, demands that individual agents give extra consideration to people about whom they have more knowledge, and with whom their lives are more intertwined.

Sign me up. That's utopia.

ok we have different value systems. why should yours trump mine?

as for it being ok to favour your family, it seems to me that to follow this route leads to the unravelling of utilitarianism. if we have to take account of regret, and favouring ones nearest and dearest, then surely we have to take account of all other thick ethical concepts in use in our normal everyday unsystematised morality. maybe sometimes people like to be selfish, or sometimes contrary and prefer someone else's lesser happiness to their greater, and to remove this right would lead to a decrease in happiness. if utilitarianism ends up having to track every single facet of our messy, often paradoxical everyday morality then it ain't really much of a system any more.

i'm getting what i said from my sense of his diagnosis of utilitarianism's shortcomings in 'ethics and the limits of philosophy' (this is from ch. 10):

In this respect, utilitarianism is a marginal member of the
morality system. It has a strong tradition of thinking that blame
and other social reactions should be allocated in a way that will be
socially useful, and while this might lead to their being directed to
the voluntary, equally it might not. This follows consistently from
applying the utilitarian criterion to all actions, including the social
actions of expressing blame and so forth. The same principle can be
extended to unexpressed blame and critical thoughts; indeed, at
another level, a utilitarian might well ask whether the most useful
policy might not be to forget that the point of blame, on utilitarian
grounds, was usefulness. These maneuvers do seem to receive a
check when it comes to self-reproach and the sense of moral obliga-
tion. Utilitarians are often immensely conscientious people, who
work for humanity and give up meat for the sake of the animals.
They think this is what they morally ought to do and feel guilty if
they do not live up to their own standards. They do not, and
perhaps could not, ask: How useful is it that I think and feel like
this? It is because of such motivations, and not only because of
logical features, that utilitarianism in most versions is a kind of
morality, if a marginal one.

i take it that williams calls the anguish in his example (from your quote) 'entirely justified' on the basis of some kind of thicker ethical concept taken from the existing ethical life which it is utilitarianism's claim to theorize and correct/perfect by making utility the basic principle of judgments about actions and reactions.

and i take it that he says a committed utilitarian would deem that anguish irrational because a committed utilitarian's attitude toward eliminable suffering brought about by justified actions would be that it would be rational to eliminate it, and irrational not to. and though the utilitarian might concede that it might be for the better in general that people's characters be such that they happen to experience such feelings of anguish, even when they issue from morally justified actions, the utilitarian would also have to think that in principle it would be better if people's characters were such that they felt anguish only in accordance with what was morally justified, since otherwise it would cause them undue suffering.

I think a system that failed to take account of the thick ethical concepts in use in our normal everyday unsystematized morality would be seriously deficient. Utilitarianism doesn't necessarily endorse those concepts, though. It just acknowledges that they affect people's lives in ways that matter. Utility is still the only thing of intrinsic value.

maybe sometimes people like to be selfish, or sometimes contrary and prefer someone else's lesser happiness to their greater, and to remove this right would lead to a decrease in happiness.

I don't see the problem. Maybe sometimes a little selfishness is OK. Isn't this common sense? One of the most common criticisms of utilitarianism is that it seems to demand constant altruistic self-sacrifice. You've hit on the fact that my interpretation of it doesn't seem to lead to this conclusion. I think that's a good thing!

and though the utilitarian might concede that it might be for the better in general that people's characters be such that they happen to experience such feelings of anguish, even when they issue from morally justified actions, the utilitarian would also have to think that in principle it would be better if people's characters were such that they felt anguish only in accordance with what was morally justified, since otherwise it would cause them undue suffering.

I swear I'm not trying to be flippant or obtuse, but again, I don't see the problem! Nor do I think the part I bolded is any kind of concession.

I'm a bit lost - what should a utilitarian actually say to the captain who saved as many crew as he could by letting the others drown?

That could be complicated by specific details, but it's the right sort of thing to do.

I think a system that failed to take account of the thick ethical concepts in use in our normal everyday unsystematized morality would be seriously deficient. Utilitarianism doesn't necessarily endorse those concepts, though. It just acknowledges that they affect people's lives in ways that matter. Utility is still the only thing of intrinsic value.

i think the issue is how it can have a stance toward those concepts which is both principled and pre-theoretically, ethically acceptable, given that it acknowledges only utility as being of intrinsic value and only the principle of utility as the basic principle of action and judgment.

If a utilitarian allows their common moral sense to outweigh their utility function, are they really a utilitarian?

Or alternately, if we admit that to live by the principle of utility 100% of the time is impossible or even undesirable, then what is the point of adopting the principle in the first place?

I should note that Peter Singer seems to think that leading a perfectly utilitarian life is not only possible but is in fact the Right Thing To Do, so it's not like that is a crazy stance nobody reasonable would support. (Though I think Peter Singer is kind of crazy.)

Also at least other moral theories have the good grace to more or less fess up to their dependency on God for authority. The utilitarian idea seems to be that since, definitionally, a world where utility is k+ε is better than a world where utility is k, therefore we must all necessarily act in such a way where we choose the former world over the latter.

But that therefore doesn't convince me. I might be misrepresenting the game here, but if I am, I'd like to know how it actually goes.

I don't see the problem. Maybe sometimes a little selfishness is OK. Isn't this common sense? One of the most common criticisms of utilitarianism is that it seems to demand constant altruistic self-sacrifice. You've hit on the fact that my interpretation of it doesn't seem to lead to this conclusion. I think that's a good thing!

But your interpretation doesn't give us any idea of how to live! I see the logic of it - "one should act to increase overall happiness except where the systematic adoption of such a way of acting would decrease overall happiness" I guess - but I think such a system is at best unworkable (how would you know which of our messy moral behaviours to keep and which to discard?) and at worst completely empty.

Or as Silby puts it: If a utilitarian allows their common moral sense to outweigh their utility function, are they really a utilitarian? - surely a proper utilitarian should be working towards a world in which no-one wants to be selfish, rather than contradictorily trying to shoehorn selfishness into their theory?

This is why institution utilitarianism does make sense, because it can be completely systematically calculating and impartial.

And I still find your idea of a blissed out utopia unpalatable. There would e.g. be no room for Shakespeare - how could you make sense of tragedy in a world where everyone is 100% happy all the time? And if such happiness isn't my goal, why should I be a utilitarian?

What's better than happiness, though? Or to put it another way, if all suffering was removed, what would the loss be that outweighed the gain?

(I would suggest 'the ability to go from worse to better' and even 'the ability to learn')

As paths towards happiness

Utilitarianism is first and foremost a theory about what makes things morally good/bad/right/wrong. Anyone who accepts a utilitarian position on that question is a utilitarian, regardless of how they actually conduct themselves as a moral agent. A person can fail to live up to their theoretical commitments, as we all know.

Most utilitarians do want to live up to their commitments though. There's a common caricature of how this is supposed to work, which is that it involves pausing to make impersonal utility calculations before every decision.

I don't think this caricature is accurate, though. I think a committed utilitarian can recognize that thinking carefully about the foreseeable consequences of actions is not always the right approach from a utilitarian perspective. There isn't always time for it, and even when there is, it can be hurtful to treat people in your life in this detached sort of way. I think a utilitarian can respond to this predicament by seeking to develop qualities of character that would be conducive to utility in these situations. Like a reflexive tendency toward compassion, for example.

This doesn't make someone any less of a utilitarian, since it's done for utilitarian reasons, in accordance with utilitarian theoretical commitments. I don't think this person is "living by the utility principle" any less for taking this approach. I also don't think they're allowing their moral sense to "outweigh their utility function". And I think taking this approach is highly desirable.

i think the issue is how it can have a stance toward those [thick ethical] concepts which is both principled and pre-theoretically, ethically acceptable

It can't. Every normative theory revises pre-theoretical judgments to some extent. That's a big part of what makes them interesting. And they probably need to, or else contradict themselves.

The utilitarian idea seems to be that since, definitionally, a world where utility is k+ε is better than a world where utility is k, therefore we must all necessarily act in such a way where we choose the former world over the latter.

But that therefore doesn't convince me. I might be misrepresenting the game here, but if I am, I'd like to know how it actually goes.

I think you are misinterpreting the game. All that follows from that premise is that utility is one thing of moral value.

But your interpretation doesn't give us any idea of how to live!

I don't think that's true. It doesn't give you a decision procedure for every situation, but it shouldn't. Life is too complicated for that. It does, however, give you a specific idea of what you should be aiming for. And this does, arguably, have some radical consequences. Singer is famous for some of these--about the use of animal products, about euthanasia, and about giving to charity, for example.

I also think focusing on utility offers a valuable, clarifying perspective on lots of issues. Take discussions about rape jokes, for example. Feminists tend to make utilitarian-type arguments on this subject, pointing out that rape jokes promote real emotional and physical harm. The arguments from the other side, however, tend to be about how unjust it is to expect comedians to be considerate, how this would infringe on their rights and on the very nature of the art form, and so on. I think utilitarianism helps you to see that, aside from often being confused or disingenuous, these arguments invoke considerations that are of no intrinsic standing. Which in turn helps you to see that the pro-rape-humor camp is just looking to rhetorically justify its enjoyment of hurting people.

surely a proper utilitarian should be working towards a world in which no-one wants to be selfish, rather than contradictorily trying to shoehorn selfishness into their theory?

I think a utilitarian can work towards a world in which no one wants to be selfish while acknowledging that selfish desires exist and need to be taken into account. Can you explain why you think this is contradictory?

Sorry if I missed someone's point, it's hard to keep all the objections straight.

What's better than happiness, though? Or to put it another way, if all suffering was removed, what would the loss be that outweighed the gain?

what if there were no suffering, no learning, no art, no beauty, no love, no friendship, no music, no science, no knowledge...

Again, in service of what though?

Are those things only valuable insofar as they produce happiness? Would a full of zombie-like humans 100% blissed out through having their pleasure centres directly stimulated be just as good as one full of humans leading happy, loving, enriched, artistic, enlightened lives?

Ah sure it depends on yr perspective i guess, we're all different and you cant please everyone!

but what if you could...

xxp i think the broad (and empirically supported) consensus of what happiness is includes emotions like excitement, curiosity, and passionate interpersonal connectedness. there's so much sci fi that warns us about a progression towards a completely opiated existence, but the objection being raised therein isn't actually that happiness isn't the most important thing worth pursuing: it's rather that an opiated existence wouldn't really make people happy in the long run, because it doesn't allow for those aforementioned emotions. if on some level that's a semantic distinction between "narrow-minded" and "broad-minded" happiness, it also has tangible consequences when people come to elide the two. like when people focus on their distrust of the opiated, shallow, short term kind of happiness--the kind ledge is talking about--they often throw out the broader definition with it, rationalized by other pursuits--esp. "ambition," careerist, artistic, or otherwise--that research suggests are not very important for a long term kind of happiness.

most objections to utilitarianism follow the same line of analysis: "utilitarianism is so macro-minded that it leads to horrible things being done to a group of people just because that group of people is relatively small." but you don't have to object to those situations from a non-utilitarian framework! that situation probably represents a false economy in the conclusion reached by utilitarian reasoning--one that doesn't account for people's values of freedom and non-intervention. "the most good for the most people" seems p innocuous to me, but the more difficult, nuanced, important work is figuring out what "good" actually means.

admittedly i haven't read through this thread completely, so sorry if i'm strawmanning (or repeating an argument that's already been made)!

http://blog.givewell.org/2013/11/26/change-in-against-malaria-foundation-recommendation-status-room-for-more-funding-related/

love when utilitarians refer to 'humans' (in the comments)

http://www.vox.com/2015/4/24/8457895/givewell-open-philanthropy-charity

I realize it might be a bit contradictory that I think Peter Singer is just horribly wrong and Nick Bostrom is enjoyable but Peter Singer clearly believes his own dumb conclusions whereas Nick Bostrom could plausibly just be fooling around. Though given Bostrom's involvement with the lesswrong crew that's maybe doubtful.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/06/what-is-the-greatest-good/395768/?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=email

EA is like catnip for technocratic current-moment thinkpiecers

http://bostonreview.net/world/emily-clough-effective-altruism-ngos

Broadening the scope of what effective altruists deem the “best available evidence” is a good start. But from a consequentialist standpoint, it is not enough for effective altruists to simply tweak their approach to RCT design. They must contend with the fact that the state remains the primary provider of basic social welfare for most poor citizens in most poor countries, and that pumping money into a parallel set of providers—even good ones—without a plan for reaching the coverage or scale of a state may do serious harm to the poor who are left in the state system.

The politics of state service provision for the poor is a messy business. The simplest thing for far-away philanthropists is to simply sidestep politics and fund programs that appear, on the surface, to be positioned outside the political arena. But it is clear that this neat separation between civil society and the state is a fiction. If the movement is to meet its own consequentialist standards, its leaders and philosophers must make room for the state and for the politics of service provision among its calculations for identifying recipients for its aid.

christianity for managers

― j., Friday, August 2, 2013 2:55 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

marry me

I slept on that tbh

recently finally read a couple things on moral antirealism; turns out I'm probably a moral error theorist

They must contend with the fact that the state remains the primary provider of basic social welfare for most poor citizens in most poor countries

is this is true? i was under the impression that states in poor countries were uh poor and didn't have much $ for social welfare programs

J-PAL are doing god's work imo

RCTs only capture a narrow view of impact. While they are good at measuring the proximate effects of a program on its immediate target subjects, RCTs are bad at detecting any unintended effects of a program, especially those effects that fall outside the population or timeframe that the organization or researchers had in mind. For example, an RCT might determine whether a bed net distribution program lowered the incidence of malaria among its target population. But it would be less likely to capture whether the program unintentionally demobilized political pressures on the government to build a more effective malaria eradication program, one that would ultimately affect more people.

this reads as grossly cynical to me. are the "political pressures" it is demobilizing people dying from malaria?

http://www.vox.com/2015/8/10/9124145/effective-altruism-global-ai

I identify as an effective altruist: I think it's important to do good with your life, and doing as much good as possible is a noble goal. I even think AI risk is a real challenge worth addressing. But speaking as a white male nerd on the autism spectrum, effective altruism can't just be for white male nerds on the autism spectrum. Declaring that global poverty is a "rounding error" and everyone really ought to be doing computer science research is a great way to ensure that the movement remains dangerously homogenous and, ultimately, irrelevant.

lol i peeped a facebook comment today from a onetime student of mine who went on to move in elite academic circles and became an EA mover/shaker, and it did the exact same thing - downplayed every single potential catastrophic threat to human existence EXCEPT POSSIBLY THE HOSTILE AI

these dorks and their ~rationality~ smh

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/2015-06-16/plunder-africa?cid=soc-tw-rdr

For those who insist that foreign aid to Africa compensates for the role that rich countries, big businesses, and international organizations play in plundering the continent’s resource wealth, Burgis has a ready rejoinder. “In 2010,” he writes, “fuel and mineral exports from Africa were worth $333 billion, more than seven times the value of the aid that went in the opposite direction.” And African countries generally receive only a small fraction of the value that their extractive industries produce, at least relative to the sums that states in other parts of the world earn from their resources. As Burgis reveals, that is because multilateral financial institutions, led by the World Bank and its International Finance Corporation (IFC), often put intense pressure on African countries to accept tiny royalties on the sales of their natural resources, warning them that otherwise, they will be labeled as “resource nationalists” and shunned by foreign investors. “The result,” Burgis writes, “is like an inverted auction, in which poor countries compete to sell the family silver at the lowest price.”

Man, I keep saying I need to get a foreign affairs subscription.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/08/peter-singer-charity-effective-altruism/

Rather than asking how individual consumers can guarantee the basic sustenance of millions of people, we should be questioning an economic system that only halts misery and starvation if it is profitable. Rather than solely creating an individualized “culture of giving,” we should be challenging capitalism’s institutionalized taking.

oh god... don't give money to poor people, abolish capitalism! is almost self parody

silbipsism

That’s where I believe everyone exists except me

Anyway first response hall of fame itt

I am still a utilitarian

Philpapers (though that was 2009) has

Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics?
Other 301 / 931 (32.3%)
Accept or lean toward: deontology 241 / 931 (25.9%)
Accept or lean toward: consequentialism 220 / 931 (23.6%)
Accept or lean toward: virtue ethics 169 / 931 (18.2%)

https://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl

I'm a consequentialist but not a utilitarian.

well I'm a moral sceptic really but inasmuch as we still can should be excellent to each other, consequentialism is the only game in town.

I reject ethical rationalism after Hume