What Do We Owe to Each Other? Part 1: Utilitarianism
If you're either a Philosophy nerd or TV buff, the title of this article may ring a bell. Philosophy nerds, indeed it is eponymous with T.M Scanlon’s book and TV buffs, you’ve got it, it comes from one of my favourite comedies, The Good Place. Sadly though, unlike Chidi from the show, I do not have a 6-part lecture series, each 3 hours or so long to discuss the intricacies of abstract theories, nor am I in any way qualified to do so. No, in this ‘series’ (quoted because I have no idea whether I can procrastinate my degree in the future to write these up) I want to introduce some basic philosophical and ethical concepts.
“Why?” I can already foresee my friends asking as they slowly inch away from my incoherent ramblings and ongoing existential crisis. Well, as I see it, modern medicine and healthcare is an ethical minefield. No doubt in our professional lives we’ll be facing tough decisions, decisions where there may not be a singular right answer, but one where people’s lives can be affected, positively or adversely depending on the choices we make. After all, in healthcare we are in a privileged position to experience the highest points in a stranger’s life and observe their harshest lows, and the things we say and do at that juncture may be a critical turning point. And even if you plan to bog from the health sector (don’t blame you) and decide to see your bank balance rise so high you forget that the minus sign exists (looking at you dentists); in your day to day personal lives, you’ll still be faced with choices that have moral and ethical consequences.
Besides, as much as I do love Epstein lectures, I don’t think they’re always the best at introducing morality and ethical decision making, especially to those not inoculated with complex and abstract philosophy (just one man’s opinion, please don’t fail me).
And with that, if you’re still reading, let’s begin with a nice and simple one: Utilitarianism. I say simple because it can be surmised in one sentence: the right thing to do is the thing that provides greatest amount of happiness to the greatest number of people. And that’s all. Sounds pretty good right? Now of course, it wouldn’t be philosophy if there wasn’t extras like the action that causes the least amount of sadness etc. but that’s the general gist of it. And again, it wouldn’t really be western philosophy if there wasn’t some association with old white men, in this case John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham.
One important tenant of Utilitarianism, is that intent is sort of meaningless. Let’s say my mate does a ‘fun’ run for charity and she raises £400, but me being the big ego, male chauvinist I am, can’t have that. So I decide to run twice as far and earn twice as much for the same chari-ty. Well, in that case, despite my obviously bad intentions to outdo my friend just because of her sex, a Utilitarian would say good job, as I raised more money and therefore made a greater number of people happy. As long as I did a good thing, I am good.
And here I should mention that Utilitarianism is basically a branch of consequentialism, where the intent does not matter, and only the consequence of the action matters. The difference between the two, is that Utilitarianism defines good in relation to happiness while consequentialism leaves good as unspecified.
Another important bit to know is that Utilitarianism is all about the present. The entire theory is about doing the right thing, right now. Stole your mate’s iPhone last week? Not a problem. Murdered your mother yesterday? Don’t care. Betrayed your nation’s international image by withholding vital military aid to one of your allies, Ukraine, unless they provided dirt on your political rival? I mean *ahem* (Please don’t assas-sinate me). That is not to say punishment isn’t looked favourably upon for doing bad things in the past. If punishing you would do the greatest amount good by giving the most people, the greatest amount of happiness, then your sadness or pain at being punished is offset by everyone else’s happiness at having you punished/ not reoffending if the punishment is imprisonment.
It is important to note that Utilitarian theory doesn’t count your happiness as special. It’s equal to everyone else’s. So, if everyone in a room you were in, would be happy if you were branded with a rod that was shaped like Boris Johnson’s penis, then Utilitarian theory dictates that no matter the shame and pain that may cause you, you should do it as long as your pain and embarrassment is offset by everyone else’s happiness.
Now there is variances and subsets to the theory. As you may have noticed by all the examples I’ve been writing, pure utilitarianism (or act Utilitarianism), is pretty rife for abuse which is why there is another subset within the theory, called rule utilitarianism, wherein an individual must act by a set of rules, which if followed, will produce the overall greatest amount of happiness. For example, under rule Utilitarianism, you can’t decide to kill the most annoying person in a room, just because it makes everyone else really happy, as a rule may be “Do Not Kill”, which in general would lead to a greater amount of happiness and good overall than if you were to stab the annoyingness out of the guy.
As with everything in philosophy, there are issues and exceptions, and exceptions to those exceptions and further problems that need to be solved and with each iteration, we delve deeper and further into the abstracted chaos until our mind implodes in on itself and we wait for the sweet release that only death may provide.
So, if you’ve stuck with me up till now, congratulations. You are now well versed in a very brief and introductory version of a concept of philosophy that still makes many an old white dude scratch their head to this day.
Just for fun and because I hate myself and apparently you, the reader, I thought I might include some thought experiments to finish off, where Utilitarian philosophy can be applied and the outcome seen clearly and, as a bonus, both experiments can be used to apply other philo-sophical concepts too.
The first is the famous trolley problem: a tram is running down the tracks and the tracks split into two. On the left there’s five people who are tied down to the tracks, and on the right there’s just one. Because we are living in post Brexit Britain, the brakes, which are usually made in Germany, are non- existent, so you must choose whether to turn the tram right and kill the one person or do nothing and let the tram proceed down the left, killing the five people. There are many variations to this, like what if the single person is a genius holding the key to clean energy or the five people are all part of a gang that steals necklaces from grandmas and so on. But this is the most basic and probably the easiest to apply those Utilitarian principles you’ve just read all about.
The second thought experiment is also quite famous. A brilliant surgeon who obviously went to Barts, is so amazing that they can transplant any organ. Sadly, there are five patients on the ward, each of whom needs a different organ. One day a traveller comes by for a check-up and as it happens is healthy and a perfect match for those five patients. Now if this person were to disappear, nobody would ever know, so, should the surgeon do the operation or not? Again, there are many variants to this, like what if the traveller is a serial killer, or one of the patients is a Nobel Peace Prize winner (for stopping modern slavery, not being elected as the first African American President of the USA, Obama) and so on and so forth.
Please get in touch and let us know what you think and happy philosophising.
