Utilitarianism
a good dream to be faced with work on a grey October morning. From a sceptical standpoint, why emphasize what is real if you can’t know that ‘it’ is actually real? Why should we assume that what is real is better? If you were to adamantly claim that what you desired more than anything is to live authentically in the real world, then this would be an end- desire. If this was your end desire, then contrary to Nozick’s claim, utilitarianism would not suggest you plug into Nozick’s machine.
Justice
A criticism proposed by H. J. McCloskey was that utilitarianism would allow for unjust situations:
If framing an innocent man for a crime that would reduce the further riots and pain that looking for the real guilty person would incur, utilitarian theory would suggest that this would be the optimal choice as although an innocent man will suffer, for a greater number of people less pain will be caused, incurring in a calculation of more pleasure overall. 42
When responding to issues of justice, J. J. C. Smart offers a convincing response:
To say that you ought not to do an action A because it would have bad results if everyone (or many people) did action A may be merely to point out that while the action A would otherwise be the optimific one, nevertheless when you take into account that doing A will probably cause other people to do A too, you can see that A is not, on a broad view, really optimific. If this causal influence could be avoided (as may happen in the case of a secret desert island promise) then we would disregard the universalization principle. 43 The case proposed by McCloskey is different since his example asks: what if the opposite of [seeking justice to prevent others doing the action] were true? But the real issue with the case McCloskey presents is that it’s an impossible one. McCloskey has not been specific in his ex ample and instead offered a broad proposition because he is simply unable to be specific. Try to imagine a possible example in which framing someone in the name of stability is the option which will maximize utility? Surely it is always more g88d to punish the guilty party to deter future negative utility? It’s good 44 to test ethical theories in extreme and theoretical situations, but what McCloskey proposes is not a situation. Hence, we are unable to analyse the different possible actions and their utility. 45
‘ The obligation to obey a rule does not, in the opinion of ordinary men, rest on the beneficial consequences of obeying it in a particular case. ’ 46 Surely a rule is an inefficient rule if the consequences of following it are
42 McCloskey 1957. 43 Smart 1956: 345.
44 I say ‘good’ as an expression of my personal opinion. But ‘g88d’ would also fit in the sentence. In maximizing utility we need optimum ethical theories, so we need to test them in extreme situations. Thus testing ethical theories in extreme situations is a means to utilitarianism so ‘g88d’. 45 Note that McCloskey’s criticismwas of restricted utilitarianismwhich is not really utilitarianism. Smart defines two types of utilitarianism as ‘...an extreme utilitarian would apply the universalization principle in the causal form, while a restricted utilitarian would apply it in the hypothetical form.’ Meaning that a restricted utilitarian would disagree with the idea that, if a crime was committed on a desert island where not punishing the criminal could not inspire further crime, we do not need to punish them for the sake of it because there is no reason to do so. Still the criticism still holds of ‘extreme utilitarianism’ (standard utilitarianism). 46 Nowell-Smith 1954.
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