The limits of utilitarianism (i.e. killing people to save lives)

[zabu of nΩd]

Okay, here's a fun topic in ethics. I often wonder whether utilitarianism (the idea that good is defined by maximising happiness) could ever be truly implemented in society, or even if it should.

Consider that there are X number of people on a waiting list for an organ transplant. Without the respective organs they need, each of these people will die. We could theoretically butcher perfectly healthy people for all of their organs, and save about 5 or 6 lives of those on the waiting list for each person we butcher. Now, if that's not utilitarian, what is?

Obviously there's something which keeps us from resorting to this. I'm not talking about the legal implications, but the principle behind the whole thing. There's something about the way in which we value human life which prevents us from seeing people as expendable. Is this the way it should be, or is it possible that we might someday mature beyond this 'primitive egoism' and accept the notion that sometimes you just have to kill off a few for the greater good? After all, don't we often honor and admire people who sacrifice their own lives to save others?

Let's hear those opinions, guys.

 

[Blowtus]

Great example! I think the question you perhaps miss is 'does butchering 1 person to save the lives of 5, actually equate to greater good overall?' In any simplistic, death fearing, mathematical, short term view of things - yes. It gets a lot more complicated when you look at the broader ranging effects that would occur I think...

The potential donor has kept their body in good health because of genes and upbringing - the 5 have not. By proceeding with the transplants, we would swing the balance away from keeping ourselves healthy and towards relying on others of health - of which there would gradually be lower proportions of as they were butchered for transplants.

I personally feel that a truly accurate utilitarian view will still require some sense of the worth of the individual. Our actions do not occur in isolation - they affect us in ways that are not always clear from the outset. Completely ignoring the individual for the sake of the whole, or the whole for the sake of the individual - seems truly best for neither. Striking the balance would seem the tricky part

I think strong parallels can be drawn with the way individual happiness is found - forever in search of 'long term' happiness / fulfilment, and you can miss out on the short term joys. The reverse is also true, of course. I feel like I should slip in something about 'the middle way' here about now Everything is a balance.

 

[Seditious]

read 'The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas'

 

[derek]

Taking Utilitarianism to the point of absurdity has always been a tactic of its enemies.

 

[Seditious]

Taking Utilitarianism to the point of absurdity has always been a tactic of its enemies.

torturing a handful of Americans to potentially save millions of them from terrorism doesn't sound absurd to me, but it's usually enough to turn people off from Utilitarianism.

Killing babies for stem cells, employing a slave-class of male workers and female sex objects to serve the many, there are lots of sound Utilitarian ideas which sound perfectly reasonable to me, but most people won't accept them (damn Veil of Ignorance), and if you'd say the ones I just suggested are absurd then I can't imagine how much you truly think Utilitarianism is ethical if you wouldn't be willing to so widely and beneficially implement it.

 

[derek]

Well, I'm not. I was only pointing out that using absurd examples to oversimplify utilitarian thought is not wrought with philosophical wizardry.

 

[speed]

torturing a handful of Americans to potentially save millions of them from terrorism doesn't sound absurd to me, but it's usually enough to turn people off from Utilitarianism.

Killing babies for stem cells, employing a slave-class of male workers and female sex objects to serve the many, there are lots of sound Utilitarian ideas which sound perfectly reasonable to me, but most people won't accept them (damn Veil of Ignorance), and if you'd say the ones I just suggested are absurd then I can't imagine how much you truly think Utilitarianism is ethical if you wouldn't be willing to so widely and beneficially implement it.

Can I sign up for a few sex slaves?

How foolish utiliarianism is. Not only is utilitarianism abhorrent (ive filled and created whole threads on this subject), but justifying any of these things, puts one on the proverbial and cliched slippery slope. Whats to stop power from grabbing more power for utilitarian aims--aims and values that change with each age, or with the beliefs of those in control apparatus of power? Is this not what Nazi Germany did, what Imperial America is doing; how about our war on drugs? The sacrifice of a few thousand soldiers, and a few hundred thousand iraqis is a reasonable price to pay for democracy; imprisoning drug users is the price to pay for a safe healthy society; elimating due process and habeas corpus fights terrorism; giving me a ticket for not wearing my safety belt preserves me, loyal tax paying citizen, and reduces the cost to our lovely and cheap hospitals; outlawing smoking because it harms a majority who dont smoke (the 75-80&#37 , is perfectly fine. Utilitarianism can and will be used to justify anyhting.

 

[Blowtus]

Surely the fact that it is misused doesn't automatically mean the concept is bad though? I mean, statistics aren't 'necessarily' the root of all evil, are they?

 

[lad]

Can I sign up for a few sex slaves?

How foolish utiliarianism is. Not only is utilitarianism abhorrent (ive filled and created whole threads on this subject), but justifying any of these things, puts one on the proverbial and cliched slippery slope. Whats to stop power from grabbing more power for utilitarian aims--aims and values that change with each age, or with the beliefs of those in control apparatus of power? Is this not what Nazi Germany did, what Imperial America is doing; how about our war on drugs? The sacrifice of a few thousand soldiers, and a few hundred thousand iraqis is a reasonable price to pay for democracy; imprisoning drug users is the price to pay for a safe healthy society; elimating due process and habeas corpus fights terrorism; giving me a ticket for not wearing my safety belt preserves me, loyal tax paying citizen, and reduces the cost to our lovely and cheap hospitals; outlawing smoking because it harms a majority who dont smoke (the 75-80%) , is perfectly fine. Utilitarianism can and will be used to justify anyhting.

What do you reckon of Peter Singer?

 

[JColtrane]

Well, I'm not. I was only pointing out that using absurd examples to oversimplify utilitarian thought is not wrought with philosophical wizardry.

I don't think he was using absurd examples, or showing examples of its misuse. I think that's just what happens when you push utilitarianism to its logical end, which is something I think you should do with every philosophy. Lots of philosophies sound great when first stated--but push if you push it to its logical end you actually end up seeing what's behind the philosophy itself, and you can agree or disagree without the whole system that has been built up around it. I think this is a good thing because this will eventually come out anyways if you try to live your life according to the philosophy, so it's good to try it out first in thought.
With utilitarianism, I think it's lack of concern about individual ethics, and that's why I refuse to live according to its prinicples.

 

[speed]

What do you reckon of Peter Singer?

Who is Peter Singer, and what ideas does he have on this subject?

 

[speed]

I don't think he was using absurd examples, or showing examples of its misuse. I think that's just what happens when you push utilitarianism to its logical end, which is something I think you should do with every philosophy. Lots of philosophies sound great when first stated--but push if you push it to its logical end you actually end up seeing what's behind the philosophy itself, and you can agree or disagree without the whole system that has been built up around it. I think this is a good thing because this will eventually come out anyways if you try to live your life according to the philosophy, so it's good to try it out first in thought.
With utilitarianism, I think it's lack of concern about individual ethics, and that's why I refuse to live according to its prinicples.

That and its rooted in essentially a problematic economic concept of utility or cost-benefit analysis. Clearly, the Ayn Rand school of idiots (I mean objectivists) and early 20th century classical economics, took utilitarianism, and applied it to individuals--the rational man. But we're discovering this doesnt work either, and leads to problematic ethics and moral choices. Indeed, even John Nash, who won a nobel prize on how such rational individual utility can bring about the most ethical society, now has serious misgivings, and no longer believes in these ideas he won a Nobel Prize for.

 

[derek]

Who is Peter Singer, and what ideas does he have on this subject?

He's mandatory reading for Undergrad Philosophy courses the world over. He's witless, dry and more often than not cold and logically right.

I don't like him.

 

[speed]

He's mandatory reading for Undergrad Philosophy courses the world over. He's witless, dry and more often than not cold and logically right.

I don't like him.

As I am free from academia's influences (besides one aesthetics class, which had no influence), I am totally oblivious to him.

So, just what are his ideas though? Total utilitarianism?

 

[ThePhilosopher]

The following is probably Singer's viewpoint most relevant to this thread. It's not the most well-written summary but I've read the article and its fairly accurate.


From Wikipedia:

"In "Famine, Affluence, and Morality",[8] one of Singer's best-known philosophical essays, he argues that the injustice of some people living in abundance while others starve is morally indefensible. Singer proposes that anyone able to help the poor should donate part of their income to aid poverty and similar efforts. Singer reasons that, when one is already living comfortably, a further purchase to increase comfort will lack the same moral importance as saving another person's life. (One point of contention[attribution needed] is at what point a person may be said to be 'living comfortably' and "Famine, Affluence And Morality" does not set out how to specify this.) Singer himself reports that he donates 25% of his salary to Oxfam and UNICEF[9]. In "Rich and Poor", the version of the aforementioned article that appears in the second edition of Practical Ethics,[10] his main argument is presented as follows: If we can prevent something bad without sacrificing anything of comparable significance, we ought to do it; absolute poverty is bad; there is some poverty we can prevent without sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance; therefore we ought to prevent some absolute poverty."

 

[Scourge of God]

The bigger problem is that utilitarianism almost inevitably defines 'happiness' in material terms - food, leisure, possessions - the whole rotten architecture of Desire. Fuck that.

But I have no problem with the idea of eliminating problem people so everyone else can live better. That's the ethical principle behind all sorts of useful policies from the death penalty to the Holocaust, and it is fundamentally sound.

 

[lad]

He's a Professor in Bioethics who touches on ethical subjects from a "preference utilitarian" and atheistic outlook. Often he tries to distinguish between "persons" and "non-persons", with the latter being certain humans, such as month-old babies (who are without any self-awareness or rationality), or mentally-impaired people, along with other vertebrates and invertebrates; and the former including the majority of adults, and some "higher mammals", like apes, parrots and dolphins. Basically, he believes in varying "qualities of life", and that certain animals have more right to live than others. Interestingly, there's a supposed prejudice of sorts called "speciesism" (I think) that he believes is a fault of humans', and that our ethical concerns should be in all life with sentience rather than just humans.

His views on euthanasia and infanticide in particular are unsuprisingly controversial, but he seems to have quite a following.

 

[Seditious]

From Wikipedia:

"In "Famine, Affluence, and Morality",[8] one of Singer's best-known philosophical essays, he argues that the injustice of some people living in abundance while others starve is morally indefensible. Singer proposes that anyone able to help the poor should donate part of their income to aid poverty and similar efforts. Singer reasons that, when one is already living comfortably, a further purchase to increase comfort will lack the same moral importance as saving another person's life.

lmao they raise us in insecure capitalist nations which generate greed and selfishness, but we're supposed to want to keep these useless dieased breeders overseas alive? What would be really humane would be stopping people in poverty from reproducing, particularly in those African nations where they are hard up enough for resources, and some day there might be few enough that is sustainable without charity.

How about Singer gives me some fuckin money to buy a second pair of pants or a third pair of socks, and then we can talk about bothering to keep all the poor around to suffer long pointless lives, cos his money is just going down the drain with international charity (dude could at least fund drug clinics or new prisons or free healthcare for american citizens, or for a fence across the mexican border... the 'rich' people can't even help our their own societies and they're spending money helping farmers with no farms eat???? fuckin priorities man, if ultilitarianism means keeping everyone alive rather than investing in the lives which will improve many lives (even if just so much as to have one less crackhead on your block) then it's a fucking retarded idea.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

lmao they raise us in insecure capitalist nations which generate greed and selfishness, but we're supposed to want to keep these useless dieased breeders overseas alive? What would be really humane would be stopping people in poverty from reproducing, particularly in those African nations where they are hard up enough for resources, and some day there might be few enough that is sustainable without charity.

How about Singer gives me some fuckin money to buy a second pair of pants or a third pair of socks, and then we can talk about bothering to keep all the poor around to suffer long pointless lives, cos his money is just going down the drain with international charity (dude could at least fund drug clinics or new prisons or free healthcare for american citizens, or for a fence across the mexican border... the 'rich' people can't even help our their own societies and they're spending money helping farmers with no farms eat???? fuckin priorities man, if ultilitarianism means keeping everyone alive rather than investing in the lives which will improve many lives (even if just so much as to have one less crackhead on your block) then it's a fucking retarded idea.

That's pretty much the way I feel about the traditional concept of charity. Why is there so much emphasis on supporting impoverished populations who can't get their act together in the first place? Donating to poor people isn't going to make poor people disappear from the earth. I'd rather donate to scientific research, which has far more potential to alleviate poverty in the long run.

Another thing about the plight of the poor is this: the earth only has a certain amount of resources. If people keep shitting babies left and right, and overcrowding the planet, then no shit we're going to have starvation problems. We do have such a thing as birth control medication these days. I don't see any real excuse for an impoverished couple to have tons of kids whom they know are going to lead lives at least as miserable as theirs. Going off what Seditious said, the truly humane thing to do would be to only have as many children as you can realistically expect to support. Feed yourself first, for god's sake!

I imagine there are some decent counters to my statements here, so if anyone has a good one, feel free to share it. I don't know how well Singer has dealt with any of these objections (if he has at all), but I'd be curious to hear about it.