During our class discussions about both Kant and Mill, the issue of consequence has been heavily dissected. However, after talking to Doctor J about how the two perceive the importance of consequences when making decisions, I was interested in applying Kant’s view of consequence to Mill’s Greatest Happiness principle to see if it allowed for moral judgments.
According to Kant’s Categorical Imperative, the Moral Law is to act only in such a way that you can will the maxim of your action as a universal law, and all actions that follow a universal law are deemed moral. Just acts, therefore, are themselves or in their maxims such that the freedom of the will of each can agree with the freedom of the will of everyone, according to the universal law. Kant then establishes his view on the morality of actions. He says that the rightness or wrongness of an action must be based upon its accordance with rational principles. We cannot judge the morality of an action on possible consequences because we cannot know the future. This is where we began to discuss the Anne Frank analogy – what if we lie, but in actuality she escaped in the direction we pointed to? Kant says that because we are incapable of predicting the future or the consequences of our actions, we cannot justify them as right or wrong, or put any kind of moral sentiment upon them.
Mill, on the other hand, incorporates a form of consequentialism into his Greatest Happiness principle. Mill takes Bentham’s original concept of hedonic calculus a step further by incorporating higher and lower pleasures. For Mill’s utilitarian idea of the greatest good, it is necessary to base actions on the sense of consequentialism – will the consequences of our actions yield more pleasure or pain for the most people? In the first Trolley example, we decided the least amount of pain would be caused by flipping the switch and saving the five people instead of the one.
Here is where I start to questions if Mill’s Greatest Happiness principle allows for moral judgments, perhaps because while I realize everyone at some level believes in utilitarianism, as Doctor J said in class, I still think Kant’s point about consequences can be applied to Mill. We cannot, according to Kant, judge the morality of an action from its possible consequences, since we have no way of knowing the future. Therefore, no consequence of our actions is ever certain. Mill would say that doing something that would cause the most pleasure and least pain for people is the best choice. But, since Kant is correct in that we can never be sure of the consequences of our actions, can actions done for the greater good really be labeled as morally right? Even in the sense that it is done for the greater good, can morality be applied to hedonic calculus? I don’t think it can, because even though a person may act with the intention of maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain, the outcome could end up very differently than intended. What if you flip the trolley switch, and then see that the five have already been freed? Morality cannot be applied to Mill’s Greatest Happiness principle because of the uncertainty of the consequences of our actions, despite the best intentions.
I think Mill would respond to Kant that you judge an action to be just based on its consequences, even though you may not be able to predict them. The Trolley example is an extreme but with more localized things like a car runs off a bridge and a child is trapped inside, you dive in and bring them up but in doing so collapse their lung and they die. You are involved in the death but Kant and Mill I think both would say it was just. Kant because your maxim was saving someone else and Mill because your expected consequence was to cause good. Most of Mill's decisions I usually go off of what I would expect the consequences to be and that usually works but I agree Kant is much better because it is a rational foundation that is usually universally applicable
Maybe another sticking point with Mill though is whether what is good for the greatest number of people is itself a morally good action. For example, if Professor J offered to give everyone in the class A's if we agreed upon one person who she would fail, then it might contribute to the greatest happiness of the majority of the class to take her offer, while for the unlucky person it would be completely unjust. For the minority who are left out in the cold by the greatest pleasure principle, I wonder if this idea could possibly be considered fair. They have their own ideas of what brings them happiness that are not worth less than that of the happiness of other individuals, but because their happiness contributes less to the greater happiness of the group, their happiness is consider less valuable. This could also be applied to a case where maybe the majority of the class would find pleasure robbing a store. Our greater pleasure would be weighted more than the pain suffered by the store owner. I guess I'm just not sure on whether for utilitarians a moral and just decision is simply based on what brings the greatest happiness to the majority, or whether it is possible for pursuing what brings the greatest happiness to be immoral and unjust as well.
After reading your post and the comments, I still believe Utilitarianism to be close to a just philosophy. The objections brought up against Utilitarianism are based on many receiving "lower pleasures" while another is brutally mistreated. I think even the strictest Utilitarians would disagree that these objections are truly Utilitarian, for the suffering far outweighs the pleasure brought about. The pleasure derived from all of us immediately getting A's while another failed is so minuscule in comparison to the guilt and worthlessness we would feel that in the end we would actually be suffering. Even if we did ignore the guilt, it would still not be serving the greatest happiness principle, for down the road we would suffer in unforeseen ways.
Ferrell, I also still believe that Utilitarianism is close to a just philosophy, including the idea of higher and lower pleasures. I just don't think there can be morality assigned to the decisions made through "consequentialsim." I agree with Kant's theory that since we cannot possibly know the future, we can't label an action as "right" or "wrong" based on assumed consequences.
I think the case of the lower pleasures is still interesting though. I'm not sure that the suffering does far outweigh the pleasure brought about- people cheat all the time, with the idea that the suffering of others is worth less than their own pleasure in getting the good grade. I think the inverse of this situation is also interesting though. Stephen Crane’s short story “The Monster” is a good example. In the story, a black man save the child of the town doctor from a burning house, but in doing so is horribly burned and disfigured. The Doctor decides to save his life out of a feeling of duty to him for saving the life of his daughter, despite the warnings of his neighbors that the man will look so terrifying that he would probably prefer to be dead. When the man recovers, the entire town is driven crazy by his appearance and by the changes in his personality that occurred due to his injuries. The burned man’s fiancée runs away from him, his family disowns him, a host family who volunteer to take care of him reject him, and the doctors friends begin to threaten that unless the doctor kills gets rid of the man they will find a new doctor, and in the end fulfill this promise by moving out of his neighborhood. According to Mill, honoring the contributions of the burned man, respecting his personhood despite his injuries, choosing not to discriminate against him for purely base reasons would all be higher goods, which the doctor recognizes and stands up for. On the other hand, the people in his city suffer fear and pain at the sight of the burned man to the extent that they feel compelled to move from the city, which causes more pain to the many despite the higher good pursued by the very few. In this case, the situation is flipped so that the minority’s perception of “higher good” causes pain to everyone else, which raises questions again about the justice of high and low goods and the good of the many versus the good of the few, especially when one person considers their higher good to be more important than all the lower goods felt by a huge majority.
This is the class blog for the Fall 2009 session of PHIL 150: Social and Political Philosophy at Rhodes College. The theme of this course is "Justice."
I think Mill would respond to Kant that you judge an action to be just based on its consequences, even though you may not be able to predict them. The Trolley example is an extreme but with more localized things like a car runs off a bridge and a child is trapped inside, you dive in and bring them up but in doing so collapse their lung and they die. You are involved in the death but Kant and Mill I think both would say it was just. Kant because your maxim was saving someone else and Mill because your expected consequence was to cause good. Most of Mill's decisions I usually go off of what I would expect the consequences to be and that usually works but I agree Kant is much better because it is a rational foundation that is usually universally applicable
ReplyDeleteMaybe another sticking point with Mill though is whether what is good for the greatest number of people is itself a morally good action. For example, if Professor J offered to give everyone in the class A's if we agreed upon one person who she would fail, then it might contribute to the greatest happiness of the majority of the class to take her offer, while for the unlucky person it would be completely unjust. For the minority who are left out in the cold by the greatest pleasure principle, I wonder if this idea could possibly be considered fair. They have their own ideas of what brings them happiness that are not worth less than that of the happiness of other individuals, but because their happiness contributes less to the greater happiness of the group, their happiness is consider less valuable. This could also be applied to a case where maybe the majority of the class would find pleasure robbing a store. Our greater pleasure would be weighted more than the pain suffered by the store owner. I guess I'm just not sure on whether for utilitarians a moral and just decision is simply based on what brings the greatest happiness to the majority, or whether it is possible for pursuing what brings the greatest happiness to be immoral and unjust as well.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your post and the comments, I still believe Utilitarianism to be close to a just philosophy. The objections brought up against Utilitarianism are based on many receiving "lower pleasures" while another is brutally mistreated. I think even the strictest Utilitarians would disagree that these objections are truly Utilitarian, for the suffering far outweighs the pleasure brought about. The pleasure derived from all of us immediately getting A's while another failed is so minuscule in comparison to the guilt and worthlessness we would feel that in the end we would actually be suffering. Even if we did ignore the guilt, it would still not be serving the greatest happiness principle, for down the road we would suffer in unforeseen ways.
ReplyDeleteFerrell, I also still believe that Utilitarianism is close to a just philosophy, including the idea of higher and lower pleasures. I just don't think there can be morality assigned to the decisions made through "consequentialsim." I agree with Kant's theory that since we cannot possibly know the future, we can't label an action as "right" or "wrong" based on assumed consequences.
ReplyDeleteI think the case of the lower pleasures is still interesting though. I'm not sure that the suffering does far outweigh the pleasure brought about- people cheat all the time, with the idea that the suffering of others is worth less than their own pleasure in getting the good grade.
ReplyDeleteI think the inverse of this situation is also interesting though. Stephen Crane’s short story “The Monster” is a good example. In the story, a black man save the child of the town doctor from a burning house, but in doing so is horribly burned and disfigured. The Doctor decides to save his life out of a feeling of duty to him for saving the life of his daughter, despite the warnings of his neighbors that the man will look so terrifying that he would probably prefer to be dead. When the man recovers, the entire town is driven crazy by his appearance and by the changes in his personality that occurred due to his injuries. The burned man’s fiancée runs away from him, his family disowns him, a host family who volunteer to take care of him reject him, and the doctors friends begin to threaten that unless the doctor kills gets rid of the man they will find a new doctor, and in the end fulfill this promise by moving out of his neighborhood. According to Mill, honoring the contributions of the burned man, respecting his personhood despite his injuries, choosing not to discriminate against him for purely base reasons would all be higher goods, which the doctor recognizes and stands up for. On the other hand, the people in his city suffer fear and pain at the sight of the burned man to the extent that they feel compelled to move from the city, which causes more pain to the many despite the higher good pursued by the very few. In this case, the situation is flipped so that the minority’s perception of “higher good” causes pain to everyone else, which raises questions again about the justice of high and low goods and the good of the many versus the good of the few, especially when one person considers their higher good to be more important than all the lower goods felt by a huge majority.