Criticism of Utilitarianism
Critics of utilitarianism claim that this view suffers from a number of problems, one of which is the difficulty of comparing utility among different people. Many of the early utilitarians hoped that happiness could somehow be measured quantitively and compared between people through felicific calculus, although no one has ever managed to construct one in practice.
It has been argued that the happiness of different people is incommensurable, and thus felicific calculus is impossible, not only in practice, but even in principle. Defenders of utilitarianism reply that this problem is faced by anyone who has to choose between two alternative states of affairs where both impose burdens to the people involved. If happiness were incommensurable, the death of a hundred people would be no worse than the death of one.
Utilitarianism has also been criticized for leading to a number of conclusions contrary to 'common sense' morality. For example, if forced to choose between saving one's child or saving two children of strangers, most people will choose to save their own child. However, utilitarianism would support saving the other two instead, since two people have more total potential for future happiness than one. Utilitarian anarchist William Godwin famously observed that if the life of the Archbishop of Cambray is preferable to the life of his chambermaid, the fact that the latter is my mother "would not alter the truth of the proposition". Utilitarians, however, argue that 'common sense' has been used to justify many positions on both sides of controversial issues and varies greatly from individual to individual, making it an unsuitable basis for a 'common' morality.
Daniel Dennett uses the example of Three Mile Island to explore the limits of utilitarianism for guiding decisions.
Was the near-meltdown that occurred at this nuclear power plant a good or a bad thing (according to utilitarianism)?
He points out that its long-term effects on nuclear policy would be considered beneficial by many and might outweigh the negative consequences.
His conclusion is that it is still too early (20 years after the event) for utilitarianism to weigh all the evidence and reach a definite conclusion. Utilitarians believe this is actually a criticism of consequentialism as the 'goodness' or 'badness' of the meltdown depends on the alternative scenario envisaged.
John Rawls rejects utilitarianism, both rule and act, on the basis that it makes rights depend on the good consequences of their recognition, and thus he argues that it is incompatible with liberalism. For example, if slavery or torture is beneficial for the population as a whole, it could theoretically be justified by utilitarianism. He instead argues that political ethics must be drawn from the original position. Utilitarians argue that justification of either slavery or torture would require improbably large benefits to outweigh the direct suffering to the victims and that Rawl's analysis excludes the indirect impact of social acceptance of inhumane policies. (The issue in particular rests on who is included in the evaluation: animal welfare activists may argue that the suffering of farm animals is immoral on utilitarian grounds if including other species in the overall assessment.)
It is noteworthy that most of the criticism espoused are specifically critical of act utilitarianism and that it is possible for a rule utilitarian philosophy to render conclusions that are compatible with the criticism. In fact, John Stuart Mill considered Immanuel Kant a rule utilitarian disguised as a deontological moralist. The reason for his view is that according to Mill, Kant's categorical imperative only makes sense for cases of, say, violence, if we consider the consequences of the action. Thus, Kant states that living selfishly cannot be universalised because we all need someone's help/affection at one time or another. According to Mill, this argument is based on consequences. It can be seen that some forms of rule utilitarianism are therefore potentially compatible with Kantianism and other moral philosophies.
See also: list of utilitarians
Kantianism, the opposite of utilitarianism
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