Well-known objections to utilitarianism Author: Doctor Terence Rajivan Edward (or 0161__Rajivan, if that helps) Act utilitarianism. This summary focuses on act utilitarianism, which says that, out of all the actions available to a person at a given time, the morally right one is the one that produces the most happiness. Any action that produces less is morally wrong. The amount of happiness is the amount of pleasure minus the amount of pain. The objections to this philosophy below are in roughly chronological order. Note that there are responses to these objections, which I have mostly omitted. (A summary presenting little-known objections is available at: https://website2.net/utilitarianism_lobjections.txt) 1. Self-defeating. The best way to achieve happiness is not to try to work out which action will produce the most happiness and then perform that action. (See Bradley 1876: Essay 3). 2. A philosophy for swine. This description is because utilitarianism gives equal or more weight to simple animal pleasures than pleasure from poetry. John Stuart Mill responded to this objection, by distinguishing between higher and lower pleasures. 3. Which produces more? In many cases, it is impossible to determine which action will produce more happiness. 4. Many over one. Utilitarianism allows one to commit injustices to an individual, such as murder them or enslave them, if it produces enough happiness for others. 5. Ignores motives. The action which produces the most happiness is judged to be morally right regardless of motive. A Kantian objection. 6. The repugnant conclusion. Given a small population within which each member is happy, utilitarianism requires that we keep producing more people if it increases the sum of happiness in the world, even if in a very populated world each individual is not that happy. This objection has probably been known since Henry Sidgwick wrote (see 1907: 415-416), but is associated with Derek Parfit. 7. No dilemmas. There are cases where it is natural to experience an unresolvable moral dilemma, but utilitarianism treats these as easy cases by applying its formula. For example, country A promised to protect the independence of country B but leaving country B to fight by itself would result in less deaths. A better moral philosophy would not always provide these easy resolutions and would detect dilemmas. 8. The nearest and dearest objection. Utilitarianism does not allow us to be partial to our nearest and dearest. For example, if there is a fire and you can rescue Mitch, who is your son, or Hitch, who is a stranger to you but produces more happiness in the world than Mitch, you should rescue Hitch. (See Jackson 1991) 9 & 10. No supererogatory actions/too demanding. Some actions are morally good but not required. Philosophers describe these actions as supererogatory. If Alice enters a burning building to save her dog, some would describe this as good but not required. Utilitarianism cannot recognize this distinction. A related objection is that utilitarianism is too demanding. Actions which are good but do not seem to be required it says are required (see Hills 2010). 11. Promise-keeping problem, and other rules. Act utilitarianism has often been thought unable to explain why we should keep a promise, since as soon as something else brings more total happiness, it says we should do that. A reply is reputational damage. 12. The open question argument. Utilitarianism involves a definition of what it is for an action to be good: it produces the most happiness the agent can produce. But G.E. Moore said that any definition of good must fail, because it is always an open question for us whether it is correct, unlike a bachelor is an unmarried man (given our use of "bachelor"). 13. Interpersonal comparisons of utility. An objection to some versions of utilitarianism, made by economists, is that, to implement, these versions require a way of measuring differences of utility, of satisfaction, which we cannot do: one person will get 12 units of satisfaction from a policy, say, another 10 units. This is different from objection 3, because it can allow that we can sometimes still determine which policy produces more satisfaction, even more for a specific individual compared to others. 14. Coordination problems. Utilitarianism does not generate optimal results in situations where the utility of a group is more or less than the sum of individual utilities. (The objection comes from Donald Regan. See: https://www.philosophyetc.net/2010/03/co-operative-utilitarianism.html) 15. The problem of the perfect voyeur. Utilitarianism entails that there is nothing wrong with being a voyeur who does not get caught. I believe this objection emerged in the 1960s. 16. The separateness of persons. This is more metaphysical than the seventh objection. A creature may rationally choose to sacrifice a part of themselves for the good of the whole, for example get a tooth removed. Utilitarianism treats individuals as if they were parts of a whole organism, such that it is acceptable to sacrifice one such individual if it is better for the happiness of the whole social organism. But individuals are separate beings, not parts of a super-organism, and should be treated as such. John Rawls makes this objection (1971: 27). 17. Objection from the original position. Rawls argues that an appropriate method for selecting principles of social justice involves considering which principles would be chosen by self-interested individuals who do not know certain features of themselves, features which would lead them to try to tailor the principles to the peculiarities of their own case – each does not know their age, wealth, sex, and so on. He claims that they would prefer his recommended principles over utilitarian ones (1971: 177), but this has been much debated. 18. Ignores distribution. Utilitarianism ignores how happiness is distributed in the population, but egalitarians favour an equal distribution to more total happiness but very unequally distributed. 19. The integrity objection. This is from Bernard Williams. Many people have projects which they are deeply committed to, such as bringing up a child or writing a novel. For the utilitarian, a person must be prepared to give up on these projects, as soon as it is evident that more happiness for the world would be produced in some other way. But then they cannot have integrity. Integrity requires not being prepared to give up on one's projects so easily (1973: 116). There is a worry the person will find life meaningless, if they must be utilitarian. 20. Utility monsters. Robert Nozick refers to a person who becomes happy very easily, compared to others, as a utility monster. He observes that utilitarianism requires that we give more weight to them (1974: 41). For example, if there are only two people and one is a utility monster, their interests count much more. 21. The experience machine. Utilitarianism supposes that what matters is how people feel from the inside. Nozick challenges this with a thought experiment. If you are given the opportunity to attach yourself to a certain machine and this machine would produce pleasurable experiences for the rest of your life, and you would not realize that these are just the result of being attached to the machine, you would not take the opportunity. He says that it matters to us to do things and not just have experiences of doing them, even if we cannot tell that these experiences are simulations (1974: 43). 22. Utilitarianism justifies colonialism. Some prominent nineteenth century utilitarians supported British colonialism, such as Mill and Sidgwick, which has led to the charge that the philosophy itself justifies colonialism. I am not sure who devised this objection. It is plausible that there is a connection, but note that in 1876 F.H. Bradley suggested that if the people of the South Seas do not have "our morality," they may well be happier without it. References Bradley, F. H. 1876. Ethical Studies. London: Henry. S. King & Co. A selection available at: https://www.holybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/Ethical-Studies-Selected-Essays-by-F.-H.-Bradley.pdf Chapell, Richard Yetter. 2010. Co-operative Utilitarianism. Philosophy, et cetera. At: https://www.philosophyetc.net/2010/03/co-operative-utilitarianism.html Hills, Alison. 2010. Utilitarianism, contractualism and demandingness. Philosophical Quarterly 60 (239):225-242. Jackson, Frank. 1991. Decision-theoretic Consequentialism and the Nearest and Dearest Objection. Ethics 101 (3): 461-482. Mill, John Stuart. 1861. Utilitarianism. Available at: https://www.utilitarianism.com/jsmill-utilitarianism.pdf Moore, G.E. 1903. Principia Ethica. London: Cambridge University Press. Available at: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/53430/53430-h/53430-h.htm Nozick, Robert. 1974. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books. Available at: https://antilogicalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/anarchy-state-utopia.pdf Parfit, Derek. 1984. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Available at: https://eclass.uoa.gr/modules/document/file.php/PHS688/Metaphysics_Bibliography/Parfit%20Reasons%20and%20Persons.pdf Rawls, John. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press. Revised edition, 1999, available at: https://giuseppecapograssi.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/rawls99.pdf Sidgwick, Henry. 1907 (7th edition). The Methods of Ethics. London: Macmillan. Available at: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46743/46743-h/46743-h.htm Smart, J.J.C. and Williams, Bernard. 1973. Utilitarianism: for and against. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Available at: https://www.utilitarianism.com/utilitarianism-for-and-against.pdf Another list Harwood, Sterling. Eleven objections to utilitarianism. Available at: https://www.sweetstudy.com/sites/default/files/qx/15/05/20/04/bookscancenter_4.pdf