(no subject)
Utilitarianism, the theory of an action being morally correct when it brings around the greatest amount of utility, has for a long time been criticized for many different reasons. It's founder, Jeremy Bentham, and later on, John Stuart Mill tried many methods to smooth out the problems with this consequentialist theory, but to no avail. Many compelling arguments have been put forward to wrong utilitarianism as it doesn't have any moral absolutes, but I believe this is one of the least convincing arguments against the theory. Morality should not rely on absolute, but common sense and, as Bentham believed, bringing about utility.
According to my views, the most crucial factor that is missing from utilitarianism is that what may bring about happiness and utility to some can cause great pain and misery for others. This also begs the question of how we can compare the pain of few to the happiness of many, and the idea of how we measure happiness altogether.
A famous example that can highlight my point about the happiness of many in relation to the suffering of few, could be the "sadistic prison guards" example in which illustrates the unfairness of utilitarianism in certain situations. It says that if ten sadistic prison guards brutally beat a defenceless prisoner, but the guards get an awful lot of pleasure from the situation, but the one prisoner gets an undue amount of pain and misery, does this make the beating of the prisoner right? Anyone you ask would surely answer no, and intrinsically say it was wrong to hurt someone in this way. But by the principles of utility, this action is deemed to be right. Looking closer at this example, a person who lives by the rules of utilitarianism would, in the theory's defense say that the prisoners misery would surely greatly outweigh the guard's pleasure, but again, this brings about the problem of measuring the pain and pleasure. To try and combat this, Bentham introduced the hedonic calculus to his system as a means of measuring pleasure and, conversely, pain. The hedonic calculus comprises of seven different elements to distinguish how valuable the pain or pleasure is. The seven components of this are: 1) Intensity, 2) Duration, 3) Certainty or uncertainty 4) Nearness or remoteness, 5) Fecundity 6) Purity and 7) Extent. But if, given the famous example above, we try and measure the pleasure of the sadistic guards, we can see that their pleasure may be intense, long-lasting, certain, near and in large amounts. The only thing that is considered wrong regarding their pleasure is that it is not pure. Compare this to the pain of the prisoner who is merely one single man, it makes his distress seem insignificant. In these terms it means that the calculus is by no means a foolproof measurement device. As a means of overcoming this setback, John Stuart Mill, who followed in Bentham's footsteps tried to re-invent utilitarianism by creating higher and lower pleasures, but this completely contradicted Bentham's original idea, in direct conflict with his famous statement "A child's game of pushpin is as good as poetry." It also took away from utilitarianism's core aim, which was to be a poor man's ethic, simple in it's belief and fair in it's distribution of utility. By replacing a quantative assesment of happiness with a qualitative assesment, we can see that simple pleasures are soon disregarded, making an unbalance in the fairness of who has greater happiness. For example; A student is happy playing a schoolyard game, such as football, but then is made to read a classic novel in school which he or she does not enjoy, but the schoolteacher does enjoy. Does this make the schoolteacher as theoretically bad as a sadist, in terms of taking away the happiness of the child? According to Mill, it would make him the better person, morally, because he has given the child a higher pleasure.