Utilitarianism
what we ought to do. ’ This is circular! ‘Ought’ and ‘right’ cannot be connected without justification. If we do allow them to be conne cted then we can allow ourselves to throw the word ‘utility’ in the mix as another synonym, also without justification. If ‘correctness’/’rightness’ are linked to ‘good’ then it implies that depending on the situation, there is a better course of action and a worse course of action. Why ‘ought’ we do the ‘better’ action over the worse one ? B ecause it’s ‘good’? Why ‘ought’ we do anything for that matter? One can consider two types of ‘ought’: ‘ought’ as ameans to an end desire, or ‘ought’ as contrary to what you desire. ‘ You ought to brush your teeth if you want healthy gums. ’ This is ‘ ought ’ because of something you desire. Versus: ‘ You ought to go to war and defend your country. ’ This is not something you desire, this is the commanding ‘ought’, it is the ‘ought’ which states the opinion of a higher authority, commonly ‘god’ but any authority will suffice. The commanding ‘ought’ (which goes against your desires) is more commonly associated with ‘good’. If we question authority, the authority inevitably fail s to provide a reason since it is just expressing the authority’s own opinion. Beyond ‘good’ describing functional success, ‘right’ and ‘correct’ describing something empirically testable, and ‘duty’ & ‘ought’ describing a sneakily presented opinion, there is no connection. They all seem to have a second equivocal meaning, that is, of each other. So, I am going to abandon the word ‘good’ , as it already seems to have been defined in a terribly ambiguous and circular manner with a jumble of other words which together serve no better purpose than to validate one’s own opinions.
The is-ought fallacy
A central semantic problem of naturalistic utilitarianism was originally recognized by David Hume when he proposed the ‘is - ought fallacy’ 9 and then later expanded by G. E. Moore in 1903 with the ‘naturalistic fallacy’ and the ‘fallacy of equivocation’. 10 Both Hume and Moore claimed that moral ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ were undefinable. Theymight seemundefinablewhen ‘duty’, ‘ought’, ‘correctness’ and all sorts of words are mixed up. But by not connecting ‘utility’ to ‘good’ nor ‘duty’ nor ‘authoritative oug ht’ we can escape these fallacies. Instead I present utilitarianism as a descriptive statement that we do desire tomaximize our utility. Benthamand Mill may have claimed we ‘should’ do this or we ‘ought’ to do this (‘ought’ in the authoritative sense) , but I am only claiming we want to do this.
Morality is a mess
Take building a bridge, it might seem that we ought to do it because the bridge is useful, but it hardly seems like amoral action. Unless, say, it was to help a convoy of trucks deliver food to starving children. But why is that any more moral than building a bridge to speed up journey times and reduce congestion? Both produce utility, just one more than the other. This just shows how what we value
9 Hume 1740: 469. 10 The ‘is - ought fallacy’ states that utilitarianism takes a descriptive statement (is) about the world (i.e. humans desire pleasure) and makes a naturalistic statement from it (ought) (i.e. humans should maximize pleasure). Hume points out that one cannot d erive an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’. The ‘naturalistic fallacy’ is very similar, it’s a criticism of the claim that if something is natural (empirically real) it’s therefore ‘good’. The fallacy of equivocation states that desire has two meanings: ‘what is desired’ and ‘what should be desired’ and utilitarianismmixes the two. See Moore 1903: 54.
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