Utilitarianism
Subject: Philosophy
Read Chapter 2 "The Greatest Happiness Principle/Utilitarianism" in Justice: What’s the Right Thing To Do? by Michael Sandel.
John Stuart Mill – Utilitarianism
1.Suppose ten thousand innocent civilians live next to a munitions factory in a country at war. If you bomb the factory, all of them will die. If you don’t bomb the factory, it will be used to produce bombs that will be dropped on fifty thousand innocent civilians in another country. What’s the right thing to do?
2.Suppose a man has planted a bomb in New York City, and it will explode in twenty-four hours unless the police are able to find it. Should it be legal for the police to use torture to extract information from the suspected bomber? Should it be legal to torture his innocent friends and family if that is the only way to make the man reveal where the bomb is hidden?
3.Now suppose the man who has planted the bomb will reveal the location only under the threat that an innocent member of his family will be tortured. Should it be legal for the police to torture innocent people if that is truly the only way to discover the location of a large bomb?
Jeremy Bentham – Principle of Utility
Let’s continue the discussion of utilitarianism. According to Jeremy Bentham’s principle of utility, we should always do whatever will produce the greatest amount of happiness. Is that right? Consider the following questions, and ask yourself whether they point to a defect in the doctrine of utilitarianism.
4. Suppose we have $1 million of government money. We can use it to either build a new school for one thousand children or buy one million ice cream cones for one million children. Should we buy the ice cream cones if that would produce the greatest balance of pleasure? Are all pleasures created equal?
Utilitarians think that the right thing to do is whatever produces the greatest amount of happiness. Libertarians disagree. They think that we must never violate anyone’s rights—even if doing so would increase overall happiness.
According to libertarians, the greatest threat to individual rights comes from the government. You should be able to drive without a seat belt if you want. The government has no business giving you a ticket. That’s unacceptably paternalist. And if you want to use drugs or engage in deviant sexual practices, you should be free to do so, provided you don’t violate anyone else’s rights in the process. The government has no business passing moralistic legislation. It shouldn’t tell you how to live your life. Most important, the government should never tax for redistributive purposes.
5. Should there be a minimum wage? What if employers want to pay people $1.25 per hour and some desperately poor people would work for that wage? Is the government being unjust by requiring employers to pay them at least $7.25 per hour?
6. Is it just to tax the rich at a higher rate? Should the government tax Bill Gates and other wealthy people and use the money to pay for public schools, hospitals, roads, parks, fire departments, and police departments, or would doing so be unjust?