Consequentialism

Target Source: John Stuart Mill’sUtilitarianism

1806-1873

Mill’s Life and Times(Very Briefly)

What is The Good?

• The Question of Value• Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Value• The Source of Value• Assertions of Brute Fact vs. Conclusions

of Arguments

Pleasure, I.e, Happiness

• The Doctrine of Hedonism• Pyschological vs. Ethical• The Independence of the Two• Mill’s Commitment to them Both

The tangential issue of egoism

• Egoism is also both a psychological andan ethical doctrine

• Psychological egoism is the doctrine thatall one’s actions are purely self regarding

• Ethical egoism is the doctrine that all ofone’s actions ought to be purely selfregarding

Psychological hedonism istypically egoistic

• On the assumption that you can only feelyour pleasures, if pleasure is the only endof action of all action, as a psychologicalfact, then all action will be self regarding

Ethical egoism, though

• Need not be coextensive with ethical hedonism• That is, one can be a non-hedonistic egoist

(though it’s not clear what the value would be)• But, more importantly, one can be a non-

egoistic hedonist• That, as we’ll see, is a fair description of Mill

What Kinds of Pleasure AreThere?

• Distinctions in the Cause• Distinctions in the Quantity• Distinctions in the Quality

Mill’s Answer: Distinction inQuality

• The Fundamental QualititativeDistinction:– Lower– Higher

The Lingering Question

• Are We Really Beyond Distinctions inthe Cause?

• More to Come

If Qualititative’s theDistinction, How are Pleasures

So Distinguished?

Mill’s Test

• The Structure of the Decision: APairwise Comparisin

Questions About the DecisionMatrix

• What are Available Alternatives?

Who’s a Qualified Judge?

• The Central Qualification: Neutrality asBetween the Alternatives

How is Neutrality Guaranteed?

• Ask someone who’s experienced themboth

Will this Yield Mill’s Result?

• Homer vs. Lisa?• Rigging the Procedure?

Ask the Majority?

• Is This Serious?• What Principle Would Have to be

Appealed to to Move to a MajoritarianCondition from a Simple CaseIndeterminate One?

• Quality Detection as a ‘Convergent’Property?

Contentment vs. Happiness

• Socrates Dissatisfied vs. Fool Satisfied• Human Dissatisfied vs. Pig Satisfied• Are these Contrasts Parallel?• Questions of Neutrality Again?

Mill’s Best Response

• A Challenge– Life of a Cat– 10 points off the I.Q.– Essentially, the Pleasure Machine (more on

this later)

So, What are We Supposed toDo About Pleasures?

Attend to The Consequences

• I.e., The Morality of an Action is aFunction of Its Consequences

• Consequentialism as Value Neutral

Mix in the Hedonism With theConsequentialism

• So, What We Are We Morally Obligatedto Do vis-à-vis Consequences forPleasure?

Maximize The Consequencesfor Pleasure

• High Quality Pleasure• Maximizing vs. Satisficing

Maximize in What Sense andFor Whom?

• Total or Average?• For Myself (Egoism)?• For Some Select Group (Elitism)?• For All (Egalitarianism)?

Mill’s Answer On Maximizing

• Maximize the Net Aggregate– Everyone Counts for One and Only One– This makes Mill an egalitarian non-egoist

Problems for Mill

• Typically Counterexamples Directed atVarious Facets of the Picture– Problems with Hedonism– Problems with Consequentialism

(Hedonistic and Otherwise)– Problems with Maximizing

Consequentialism (Hedonistic andOtherwise)

Problems For Hedonism

• Paradox of Hedonism• Pleasure Machine

Problems for Consequentialism

• The General Problem:– The Use of People, I.e., People as Vessels for

Delivery of Value (Whatever It Is)– Christians and Romans; Forced Organ

Donation– Changing Values Has No Affect

Problems With Maximizing

• The General Problem– Delineating the Moral, the Immoral, The

Amoral, and the Supererogatory– Reducing Four Categories to Two– Cheerios vs. Egg McMuffin