Dear Friends,
It seems to me, the philosophy of utilitarianism is a slippery slope. Many well intentioned people have espoused the utilitarian philosophy with tragic results. Utilitarianism, like Bentham and John Stuart Mill’s seem to have an empirical basis, but in fact are based entirely on subjective opinion. That such a huge mistake is made in defining them is astounding. Some of the worst atrocities ever committed by men upon mankind have been justified under a utilitarian philosophy. Even today utilitarianism under girds the thinking of many philosophers. The weakness of utilitarianism needs to be pointed out else our society is susceptible to evils from all directions.
Utilitarianism is thought to be a form of morality based on logic, and is often summed up with the trite saying, that which brings the greatest good to the greatest number. The pleasure, or happiness, (depending on the philosopher), is quantified and compared to the suffering it will bring about. In this, it appears to be based on a cost benefit analysis, when in fact it has no such basis. Mill tried to put a counterpoint to the strict utilitarianism of Bentham with his notion of the quality of pleasure. Quality being a metric of the goodness of a pleasure, torture my be pleasurable to the sadist but is of a lower quality than say, philosophy. In my mind quality falls very short because it depends on who is doing the measuring.
I am a bit of a utilitarian myself. I do agree that there should be some form of cost benefit put on an action, philosophy, economic or governing system. Where I fall away from the utilitarian ethos, is that I believe in an overarching morality, that of Human Heartedness. The theory of human heartedness comes from Confucius. He meant it to be tangentially defined as the Golden Rule but it goes further. If an action is not human hearted it is not good no matter the “quality.” Furthermore quality is subjective to the measurer not an objective measure. The sadist may believe his pleasure outweighs the pain of the victim but only a demon could believe torture is human hearted.
My favorite philosopher, Mo Ti, had a strictly empirical utilitarian philosophy. Mo Ti was far more empirical in his philosophy then Bentham or Mill. To sum up one of Mo Ti’s arguments… if we weigh the damage to the carts, the weapons, armor, infrastructure, crops, and the loss of productive capacity of those killed or handicapped in war, against the uncertain gain of winning, it is obvious that the cost far outweighs the benefit… This is far more empirical than any of the arguments I have heard made by Mill. Unfortunately the very caring philosophy of Mo Ti was followed, logically, by the cruel philosophy of Shang Yang, who’s philosophy visited suffering on the entire Middle Kingdom, during the Chin dynasty.
Another reason naked utilitarianism is so profoundly dangerous is that it is based on pure logic. The Ancient Chinese philosopher, Kung-Sun Lung, who argued in dialectic that a White Horse is not a Horse, was not actually saying a white horse is not a horse, but that logic and language are deficient, ad absurdum. In Kant’s, Critique of Pure Reason, he used a different argument to come to the similar conclusion… that pure logic is inadequate to come to any real understanding, because it can go so far afield from actual reality.
In modern times we see the results of utilitarianism in the suffering socialism has wrought on mankind. The communist, socialist and progressive all argue in utilitarian terms. The example, from each according to his ability to each according to his need, is a nakedly utilitarian statement. It assumes that most will benefit if the goods of society are forcibly, equally distributed. Pleasant sounding rhetoric but history shows the foolishness of that notion. Over one hundred million human beings murdered to enforce it to date. Clearly not at all human hearted.
Utilitarianism has value but falls short of a truly human hearted philosophy. It lacks the moral foundation of the golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you… the foundation of human heartedness, and Christianity by the way. Utilitarianism lacks the basis of empirically measurable reality like William James philosophy of Pragmatism, and being based upon pure logic, it can go very far away from the good into evil. That history shows us utilitarianism philosophies have been the font of so much human suffering is a sure sign it is wanting. That is why I say, utilitarianism is a slippery slope… to despotism.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
