Jonathon D. Jones
Utilitarianism Expanded
Utilitarianism is a system in which
the “good” is defined as maximizing utility, or doing the greatest good for the
greatest number. In this paper, I argue
that this moral system is incomplete – that the “good” as defined by
utilitarianism is just the extreme end of a moral scale. I will build a brief conception of that
scale, and show how this is a more satisfying moral system, including its
ability to account for supererogatory actions.
This is not an idea to replace utilitarianism, but rather to expand it.
In a normal utilitarian system,
there are only two types of actions: moral and immoral. Moral actions are those that maximize
utility, immoral actions are those that do not.
If an agent is not doing everything she can to promote the greatest good
for the greatest number, she is not acting morally.
This is a useful distinction to
draw, for it tells us that we are required at all times to promote
utility. But is it the only useful distinction? Let’s take two immoral actions. The first is
not donating five dollars to charity, and instead going to a movie. The second is murdering a few million people. Clearly (at least according to
utilitarianism), these are both immoral actions. But is that all that can be said? Should these actions really be in the same
moral category?
I think the answer is almost
certainly “no”. I mean, in the first,
you’re certainly not doing all that you can to promote the good – but in the
second, you’ve done something very, very wrong.
Our moral condemnation should be much worse for the latter than the
formal. But in a utilitarian system,
there are no such distinctions.
As such, I think the utilitarian
system needs to be expanded to create distinctions among the “immoral” actions. Our first line needs to be drawn between the
morally vile and the morally insignificant.
In the former category will go torturing babies – in the latter will go
not sending thank-you notes. Morally
vile actions are those that cause a great deal of harm – morally insignificant
actions do almost nothing either way. At
worst, a slight amount of harm has occurred; at best, a bit of good.
Both of these should be distinguished
from what I would call morally decent actions.
These are actions such as donating only half of your fortune to
charity. You could donate more, but
you’d rather keep some for your own selfish enjoyment. So you haven’t maximized utility, but you
have done some significant amount of good.
Now, it’s still the case that the
action an agent should take at any given time is the one that maximizes
utility. The distinctions made do not
change the morally correct action to take.
What it does change, though, is when it is appropriate to morally
condemn an action, and when we can relatively praise it. In case it isn’t obvious, the morally vile
actions are worthy of condemnation. The
morally decent are worthy of our reserved praise (we obviously wouldn’t want to
fully praise them, as we would with truly moral actions, but they are at least
deserving of some praise).
One of the criticisms of
utilitarianism is that it doesn’t seem to allow for the possibility of
supererogatory actions – actions which go above and beyond the call of
duty. A normal utilitarian system has no
room for supererogation. After all,
doing the most good you possibly can is already your moral duty – there is no
possibly way for you to go beyond it.
Our normal propensity to think that there are supererogatory actions is
simply mistaken.
This could very well be the case,
but it isn’t particularly satisfying. A
bit of a definition change, however, can allow us to label some actions as
supererogatory. Instead of these actions
being above and beyond the call of duty, let us say that they are above and
beyond our moral expectations. If this
is our new definition, we can easily account for actions like this.
What are our moral
expectations? None but the most radical
optimist could possibly expect that the average person will actually act
morally (according to our utilitarian definition of moral). In fact, it takes quite an optimist to think
that anyone will actually act this
way. Only hard cynics will expect from
their fellows morally vile actions. The
true expectations that we tend to hold are somewhere in the middle. Depending on your relative levels of optimism
and pessimism, your moral expectations are probably that people will act, for
the most part, morally insignificantly.
Optimists will expect positive insignificance (just causing a bit of
good) and pessimists will expect negative insignificance (just causing a bit of
harm).
It’s easy to see what types of
actions will become supererogatory, then – the morally decent actions. Note that I haven’t drawn the line between
insignificance and decency anywhere specific on the scale. This being the case, that line could
reasonably be drawn at exactly that place where we think someone is acting
better than we could have reasonably expected them to. This is about as close to supererogation as
we can really come in a utilitarian system.
What other use does this scale have,
aside from assigning names to types of moral actions? The most straightforward is that it allows us
to react appropriately to the actions of others. For instance, many people believe that
immoral actions should be punished. If
we take the definition for “immoral” that normal utilitarianism gives us, then
we should punish everyone (for no one is really being moral). This is obviously ridiculous. However, if we only punished those who had
committed morally vile actions, then the punishment seems much more fair and
plausible.
As well, praise and reward are part
of many people’s conceptions of morality – agents should be praised/rewarded
for doing morally good things. But if
“morally good” is defined as something no one ever does (the normal utilitarian
definition), then no one is ever deserving of praise or reward. This, again, is clearly unsatisfactory. If, however, we take moral decency as our
standard for praise and reward, then it seems to work out nicely. People that donate 75% of their fortune
deserve some praise, I believe.
Another problem with normal
utilitarianism is that it is simply too hard.
It requires a lot out of us. For
those of us who are not models of self-sacrifice and hard work, we know we
simply will never attain a status of “moral”.
This being the case, I think it is more than likely that many would just
give up – if there’s really no chance of them being moral, then why should they
bother trying? My expanded
utilitarianism gives them a reason. For,
even if an agent is never able to become fully moral, she can at least be
morally decent. She can still be
deserving of praise. This is a fully
attainable goal, which I think is an important thing to have in any moral
system.
I have shown how utilitarianism can
be expanded and put on a scale that makes for a more satisfactory moral
system. I have shown how doing so
effectively eliminates some of the problems of normal utilitarianism. I have also shown how it can be used to give
us a way to rate actions other than simply as moral or immoral, and why these
other distinctions matter. Finally, I’ve
given a reason to even attempt to follow the orders of the utilitarian moral
system. Hopefully, this will allow utilitarianism
to become a more plausible moral theory.