Catholic Utilitarianism?

[Georgeoflyyda]

Okay, so I am a philosophy major, which mean’s I get to think for a major, which I love already. I was talking with my Professor about Kantism and Utilitarianism, and he described Utilitarianism as thus: Essentially, whatever provides the most pleasure is what is the most morally correct. Now the question was: well, what about hurting one person for the many. He answered that if there were 3 people, dying and each needed an organ transplant, and there is one homeless man who could be sacrificed for the three, the answer to this dilemma is that in fact, the emotional trauma of watching a man die would make it clear that no, killing the man wouldn’t be moral, basically he argued that such immoral events would, in fact, hurt many people beyond the four involved. Now assuming that’s all true, that we are not conditioned to look at murder as wrong and thus why we react badly to it mentally, that we can’t become indifferent to it, is that at all compatible with Catholicism? I’m all in favor of ignoring Utilitarianism and staying with what the Church says, but just in theory, are they opposites, I know Pope Francis has condemned Utilitarianism but doesn’t he oppose the Hedonism? Hedonism is selfish, what my Professor described hardly seemed selfish or unfair to the homeless man. Personally, what I am thinking right now, it’s a secular re-hash of Christian Ethics, and if it is true, all it goes to show is the Church is as always, right.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, Divine Doctor and Saint of Students, pray for me and all Catholic Students.

 

[TheAtheist]

Personally, what I am thinking right now, it’s a secular re-hash of Christian Ethics, and if it is true, all it goes to show is the Church is as always, right.

I think, at least in your proposed trajectory of ethical notions, you might want to re-evaluate and take a look at the ancient Hellenistic school known as Epicureanism.

I’d argue that “hedonism” can either take on a very personalist form of ethics (Epicureanism) or it can be extrapolated to a society or community (Utilitarianism).

Hedonism itself has gone through some rather tortuous re-definitions as time has gone on. In modern english, hedonism seems to imply something like a sybaritic young twenty-something indulging in every possible sensation.

Hedonia as defined by Epicurus was something a little bit different. There was always a cause for moderation, because he recognized that excessive pursuit of pleasure would in fact cause pain and thereby become a self-defeating exercise.

Now assuming that’s all true, that we are not conditioned to look at murder as wrong and thus why we react badly to it mentally,

Might I suggest a rather good book that runs outside of your academic focus?

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41Bu29eZsZL.SY344_BO1,204,203,200.jpg"]https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41Bu29eZsZL.SY344_BO1,204,203,200.jpg

And a bit of a blurb for you:

The good news is that most soldiers are loath to kill. But armies have developed sophisticated ways of overcoming this instinctive aversion. And contemporary civilian society, particularly the media, replicates the army’s conditioning techniques, and, according to Lt. Col. Dave Grossman’s thesis, is responsible for our rising rate of murder among the young.

Upon its initial publication, ON KILLING was hailed as a landmark study of the techniques the military uses to overcome the powerful reluctance to kill, of how killing affects soldiers, and of the societal implications of escalating violence. Now, Grossman has updated this classic work to include information on 21st-century military conflicts, recent trends in crime, suicide bombings, school shootings, and more. The result is a work certain to be relevant and important for decades to come.

I should point out that there is a kind of contention regarding the nature of conflict. Grossman’s analysis seems quite sound…for Modern warfare.

But when you turn back the clock far enough when one couldn’t pull a trigger, when a person had to be up close and personal to end an opponents life, and that failure in that endeavor would usually result in the sacking/destruction of the Polis or Community you belonged to…

Well, ancient man may have had a much different relationship with conflict and killing than modern man.

Good luck to you in your studies.

 

[Rhubarb]

You’re almost there.

Utilitarianism, in broad strokes, says that the truth value of moral statements depends upon “utilitarian calculus” of some kind. This calculation depends on the philosopher. Bentham said good was pleasure and evil was pain. So you could do a pleasure-vs-pain calculation and see what is the good/bad/right/wrong thing to do.

Some philosophers have nixed pleasure/pain. They use happiness/unhappiness. Or… thriving/stagnating. Or… desire/dislike.

And then it gets more and more complicated as people try to qualify the theory to make it give more intuitive answers to thought problems. If you want to see a classic example of why a lot of people think utilitarianism doesn’t work, look up “the trolley problem” by Phillipa Foot. I’m pretty sure that will illustrate the Catholic objection to utilitarianism.

 

[inocente]

Now assuming that’s all true, that we are not conditioned to look at murder as wrong and thus why we react badly to it mentally, that we can’t become indifferent to it, is that at all compatible with Catholicism? I’m all in favor of ignoring Utilitarianism and staying with what the Church says, but just in theory, are they opposites, I know Pope Francis has condemned Utilitarianism but doesn’t he oppose the Hedonism?

There are three broad classes of systems of ethics. Utilitarianism is in the consequentialist class, that is, the morality depends only on the consequences of an act.

It permits any act, unlike the other two classes, duty ethics and virtue ethics. In duty ethics the morality depends on obligations, and in virtue ethics on building good character. For instance, in Matthew 5:21-48 Jesus lists some obligations and adds a virtue to each.

 

[e_c]

There’s a very broad class of normative ethics called consequentialism, which includes everything being spoken of. Check out the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy on the matter, it will break it down for you.

And no, the Church is not on board with any of it.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Okay, so I am a philosophy major, which mean’s I get to think for a major, which I love already. I was talking with my Professor about Kantism and Utilitarianism, and he described Utilitarianism as thus: Essentially, whatever provides the most pleasure is what is the most morally correct. Now the question was: well, what about hurting one person for the many. He answered that if there were 3 people, dying and each needed an organ transplant, and there is one homeless man who could be sacrificed for the three, the answer to this dilemma is that in fact, the emotional trauma of watching a man die would make it clear that no, killing the man wouldn’t be moral, basically he argued that such immoral events would, in fact, hurt many people beyond the four involved. Now assuming that’s all true, that we are not conditioned to look at murder as wrong and thus why we react badly to it mentally, that we can’t become indifferent to it, is that at all compatible with Catholicism? I’m all in favor of ignoring Utilitarianism and staying with what the Church says, but just in theory, are they opposites, I know Pope Francis has condemned Utilitarianism but doesn’t he oppose the Hedonism? Hedonism is selfish, what my Professor described hardly seemed selfish or unfair to the homeless man. Personally, what I am thinking right now, it’s a secular re-hash of Christian Ethics, and if it is true, all it goes to show is the Church is as always, right.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, Divine Doctor and Saint of Students, pray for me and all Catholic Students.

Starting out a career in philosophy is a daunting effort. Good luck with it. Modern philosophy since Descartes is a mish-mash of confusion, and sorting out the truth is every man’s and woman’s herculean effort.

The safe bet is to go with the Church’s guidance and not be seduced by all the confusion.

That said, the overriding cause of confusion, as Benedict XVI so aptly pointed out, is the dictatorship of relativism, which infests most of modern philosophy, but especially ethics.

I’ve never known but one atheist philosopher, Ayn Rand, who espoused objectivism in morality. In this she found herself uncomfortably allied with Catholic thought.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Here is a brief article on the Catholic view of Utilitarianism in the Catholic Encyclopedia.

newadvent.org/cathen/15241c.htm

 

[Beryllos]

…
Might I suggest a rather good book that runs outside of your academic focus?

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41Bu29eZsZL.SY344_BO1,204,203,200.jpg"]https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41Bu29eZsZL.SY344_BO1,204,203,200.jpg

Thanks for the book recommendation. I’ve got it from the public library and I’m about halfway through it. For me the book reveals much that I had not expected about the psychological toll of war. A real eye-opener.