Yes. To a utilitarian, anyway. If you aren’t the judge of how happy you are or will be, then who is?
Well, I, for one, hope that one of these jerks doesn’t land on me when she jumps from that 20-story balcony! That would seem to be a rather
selfish act. In fact, hierarchy notwithstanding, I can envision numerous acts of selfishness that could impair my achievement of my own happiness in a similar way, as a direct result of holding a utilitarian philosophy. Now, you might say, well, people are jumping from balconies every day. I would reply, yes, but not on the magnitude that a universal acceptance of utilitarianism would produce.
This is where John Stuart Mill did interesting work. He claimed that there were different levels of happiness, and that these levels formed a hierarchy. He didn’t plot out these levels, but he did note that people tend to prefer socializing, art, feeling like they’re part of a group, etc. over gaining material wealth, drinking alcohol, or having sex.
Let’s be honest: the odds are that the numbers of rapists, murderers, thieves, abusers, perverts, and other purveyors of off-beat hedonistic desires would dramatically increase, as this philosophy reaches near universal acceptance. To say otherwise is to have your head in the sand, regarding human behavior. Who would want to be a police officer, or a fire fighter, or a hero, under such a world life-style? Those would not be happiness-generating jobs.
Acts of heroism, so greatly admired for their
saintly character, would all but vanish. Why trade my search for happiness for that other person’s? Let the bus run him over.
Given those things, utilitarianism doesn’t seem simplistic at all. Sure, we have some emotions that we classify as whims and impulses, but we do have less flexible underlying emotional convictions that are responsible for our perspective of life in the long run. They can, however, be changed; but often not that much.
I guess not.
For example, I would get pleasure from jumping the next attractive girl I see in public. But it is easy to see that more suffering would be derived from that action (even if we only consider me) due to the hierarchal system. Sure, I want to have pleasure from sex, but then again, I want to remain socially acceptable and feel ethically consistent, and both of these elements I hold in higher regard than sex.
If everyone shared that perspective precisely, you might have a point here. But, as we most assuredly realize, not everyone shares common perspectives. So, here, in my opinion, is where utilitarianism breaks down. There is no way to justify any enforcement of your life-style views on everyone else, and, the gross number of deviations would, beyond a shadow of a doubt, dramatically increase.
I think that it’s not so hard to tell when the happiness derived from an act outweighs the suffering, or vice versa.
That may be true, or, or may not be true, but, that doesn’t mean it will be universally embraced.
Even if emotions are difficult to gauge, it doesn’t mean that it’s the wrong standard to use.
I would not want it to be my standard. Perhaps, as an adjunct to a more rigorous and real standard, OK, but, not as a stand-alone standard.
If you’re following a different ethical system because of that, you’re looking for an easy, irrational way out.
Not so at all. If I had a large piece of property, and, if I really didn’t need all of that property, but, all of that property made me happy, then my aim would be to keep it all intact. But, let’s say that you didn’t have any property and, because of that, your happiness was considerably less than mine, and, that it was thought that your attainment of some of my property would produce more happiness in you than it would produce suffering in me, society could be justified in lopping of a piece of my property and giving it to you.
Even if you can’t see the above happening, you can easily see it happening in a scenario where there are several people like you who don’t have any property. Certainly, lopping off some of my property, that I’ve busted my butt for for years, would clearly make the maximum number of people happy and only one person unhappy. That might just be the cause of me taking up arms. But, I guess, we could confiscate all of the guns owned by people.
If we can’t agree that these instincts can’t eventually take the form of emotions, can we at least agree that there are different, all but established levels of happiness for each person (though not all of those hierarchies are the same)?
This is a restatement of the above problem with the philosophy. There would be 6.45 billion differing philosophies regarding what would make each happiest. It would essentially become mob rule.
Utilitarianism’s slogan is “the greatest happiness for the greatest number” not “the greatest happiness for everyone.” That would be impossible. We should make the decision that will cause the most happiness overall.
As I said, mob rule. There can be no other result.
continued…
) The first chapter is about ethics in small societies, consisting of hundreds or at most thousands of people. The essayist describes a few small African communities, researched by anthropologists, in which their morality was not necessarily rules-based nor believed to be divinely ordered; but their overall ethical approach was informed by the practical need to maintain harmonious relationships within the group. Such communities often believed in gods, but they were conceived as beings who were part of the natural world, who had no special interest in humans.