Reading for this class
Great Political Theories,
Section IV: Utilitarianism, pp. 105-129
Homo economicus
The Capitalist Manifesto, or Foundations of materialistic human culture
PH1104 / J.Good / Spring 2019 UCONN
A. Key concepts
From Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776)
1. The source of wealth is the system of division of labor. E.g. the new textile mills appearing in England.
Rooted in the “propensity in human nature to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another.” (108)
All human relationships are a form of exchange.
2. Humans are fundamentally selfish, and to be rational just means to follow your self-interest. It is our economic dependence on each other that ties society together. Selfishness is good.
3. Markets, where people come together to barter and trade, function perfectly when “left to follow their natural course.” Gaps between supply and demand are caused by interference with markets.
Markets are godly - omniscient, self-regulating, moral.
4. Economic growth is a natural tendency in human individuals to be frugal - to save a surplus value of what is produced in order to invest in the future. The purpose of the economy is to grow.
The goal is growth of capital.
5. International trade should be free - based on principle of the comparative advantage.
6. Governments wishing to become wealthy should do nothing to interfere with markets beyond protecting the liberty (property rights and freedom of trade) of individuals. In this way, an “invisible hand” will lead to the most optimal distribution of goods. “Without any intervention of law, the private interests and passions of men naturally lead them to divide and distribute the stock of every society, among all the different employments carried on in it, as nearly as possible in the proportion which is most agreeable to the interest of the whole society.” (117)
Questions
Is human society really composed of selfish individuals who only associate with others in order to exchange?
Is England’s wealth in the 1780s really based simply on division of labor and machine labor?
Are markets truly infallible?
Is material growth the sole purpose of economies?
From Jeremy Bentham’s Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1781)
7.“By the principle of utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question... I say of every action whatsoever; and therefore not only of every action of a private individual, but of every measure of government.” (117) The purpose of every act is to maximize utility
8. Happiness = the greatest pleasure overall - a hedonistic view of human beings
Utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory of normativity. When a theory holds that the only thing relevant to determining whether or not an action is right are the consequences produced by that action, the account is consequentialist.
9. Hedonistic Theory of Happiness: Pleasure is the only value we choose for its own sake. Pleasure can be quantified, hence made subject to scientific analysis. What is pleasure? A sensation that can be measured.
Using a matrix along the following 7 parameters or dimensions
1. intensity 2. duration 3. certainty or uncertainty 4. propinquity or remoteness 5. fecundity 6. purity 7. extent
From J. S. MIll’s Essay on Utilitarianism (1861)
10. Not all pleasures are equal (125-6)
11. Utilitarianism as not egoistic. requires strict impartiality (128)
12. Selfishness makes people miserable. Education for public spiritedness required. Mill the socialist? (128)
B. Two key progressive implications from Utilitarian thinking
13. Wealth should be redistributed downwards: Due to “diminishing marginal utility” – one unit of utility will mean more to those who are disadvantaged, making it far more likely that the best distribution of goods will be roughly equal.
14. The moral significance of non-human-animals: “The Principle of Utility implies that anThe French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may come one day to be recognized, that the number of legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum, are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate.” Bentham, Principles of Morals, p. 283.
C. Ethical Questions raised by Utilitarian thinking
15. What about the value of that we (conventional morality) places on Special Relationships?
Utilitarianism demands that we maximize good impartially considered. Thus, I should give a present not necessarily to my own child, but rather to the person who would be made most happy by the gift…. This seems highly counterintuitive. It is part of my role as parent that I show special consideration to my children. And surely the role of parent is not incompatible with morality.
16. Should we always keep our promises? If so, why? If not, why not?
J. J. C. Smart on Desert Island Promises: “I have promised a dying man on a desert island, from which subsequently I alone am rescued, to give his hoard of gold to the South Australian Jockey Club. On my return I give it to the Royal Adelaide Hospital, which, we may suppose, badly needs it for a new x-ray machine. Could anybody deny that I had done rightly without being open to the charge of heartlessness? (Remember that the promise was known only to me, and so my action will not in this case weaken the general confidence in the social institution of promising.)
17. Can we harm some to maximize pleasure for the greatest number?
From John Rawls, A Theory of Justice: “The striking feature of the utilitarian view of justice is that it does not matter, except indirectly, how this sum of satisfactions is distributed among individuals any more than it matters, except indirectly, how one man distributes his satisfactions over time…“Thus there is no reason in principle why the greater gains of some should not compensate for the lesser losses of others; or more importantly, why the violation of the liberty of a few might not be made right by the greater good shared by many.”
18. Does utilitarianism dehumanize us?
The Problem of considering the value of everyone/everything merely as a means to maximizing utility.
It seems that the utilitarian is also committed to viewing these close relationships, including friendship as well as love, as having only instrumental value. Thus, friendship can only be justified on the basis of producing pleasure – but this seems quite incompatible with how we are supposed to regard our friends and the friendships that we have. We value our friends, not simply the pleasure that they produce; and, indeed, it is conceivable that a friendship might well be valuable.
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