24.00: Problems of Philosophy Prof. Sally Haslanger November 26. 2001 Utilitarianism Last time we considered three questions one might ask an ethical theory to answer i)Which acts are right and which are wrong? Which acts ought we to perform(understanding the"ought as a moral ii)What makes a particular action right or wrong? What is it about the action that determines its moral status? 111) How do we know what is right and wrong? There are a variety of strategies for answering(iii). One might hold e. g. that moral truths are revealed by god and encoded in holy texts; or that humans have a special moral faculty(something like conscience)that gives us access to moral truth; or that we can deduce moral principles from the structure of rationality; or even(with cultural relativists) that we come to know what is right and wrong simply by learning the moral code of our culture. Mill(and other Utilitarians use another strategy. They begin by asking what, if anything, is good in and of itself, something that is not merely instrumentally good--as a means to some other good--but is good per se. We answer this question by looking at the structure of human desire, what it is that(well-informed) people ultimately aim for in action. The idea is that once we understand what this good is, the right act is the one that promotes the maximum amount of it So what is the ultimate good? One can imagine several contenders: pleasure, satisfaction of desires, happiness. Pleasure in this context is meant to be just a kind of sensation; for instance, the way it feels to have your back scratched when it's itchy, the pleasure of warming up on a cold day, the pleasures of food and drink, or of being told you,ve just won the lottery, and so on Feelings like these are certainly good, but one could have a lot of pleasures and very little pain in life without your life being all that it could be. E.g, you may have various unsatisfied desires the desire say to play a musical instrument, or speak a second language, or climb a mountain, or to devote your life to a cause. So maybe a better answer is: satisfaction ofyour desires. (Of course it's not just any old desires were talking about, but the desires you really identify with, the ones endorsed by your deeper self.) Even satisfaction of"deep" desires isn't a completely satisfactory answer though, because there are lots of things that do or would make life valuable and worthwhile that don't correspond to any definite desires of yours. Perhaps you dont have the psychological insight to realize how good life would be for you if you, say, liked yourself better, or took more chances, or had greater enthusiasm for certain activities. How do we determine what constitutes human happiness if it isn,'t just a matter of satisfying our actual desires? Mill proposes the"higher pleasure test""Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure. "(698) Happiness in Mill,'s sense is supposed to take in all aspects of a persons well-being, whether or not they are pleasures and whether or not they answer to the agent's desires. The happy person is someone who is thriving, whose life is full of deep satisfactions who has what enables us to be our best as human beings Suppose that happiness/well-being in this sense is good in itself. It would seem then that the more happiness the better--if it is good for me to be happy, it,'s even better if I'm happy and others are too, and then it seems that if happiness is really what's important, then in order to promote the good we ought simply to aim to bring about the greatest amount of happiness. Our own happiness is a fine thing, but it,'s no more valuable than someone else's happiness--it's the total amount24.00: Problems of Philosophy Prof. Sally Haslanger November 26, 2001 Utilitarianism Last time we considered three questions one might ask an ethical theory to answer: i) Which acts are right and which are wrong? Which acts ought we to perform (understanding the "ought" as a moral "ought")? ii) What makes a particular action right or wrong? What is it about the action that determines its moral status? iii) How do we know what is right and wrong? There are a variety of strategies for answering (iii). One might hold e.g., that moral truths are revealed by God and encoded in holy texts; or that humans have a special moral faculty (something like conscience) that gives us access to moral truth; or that we can deduce moral principles from the structure of rationality; or even (with cultural relativists) that we come to know what is right and wrong simply by learning the moral code of our culture. Mill (and other Utilitarians) use another strategy. They begin by asking what, if anything, is good in and of itself, something that is not merely instrumentally good--as a means to some other good--but is good per se. We answer this question by looking at the structure of human desire, what it is that (well-informed) people ultimately aim for in action. The idea is that once we understand what this good is, the right act is the one that promotes the maximum amount of it. So what is the ultimate good? One can imagine several contenders: pleasure, satisfaction of desires, happiness. Pleasure in this context is meant to be just a kind of sensation; for instance, the way it feels to have your back scratched when it's itchy, the pleasure of warming up on a cold day, the pleasures of food and drink, or of being told you've just won the lottery, and so on. Feelings like these are certainly good, but one could have a lot of pleasures and very little pain in life without your life being all that it could be. E.g., you may have various unsatisfied desires: the desire say to play a musical instrument, or speak a second language, or climb a mountain, or to devote your life to a cause. So maybe a better answer is: satisfaction of your desires. (Of course it's not just any old desires we're talking about, but the desires you really identify with, the ones endorsed by your deeper self.) Even satisfaction of "deep" desires isn't a completely satisfactory answer though, because there are lots of things that do or would make life valuable and worthwhile that don't correspond to any definite desires of yours. Perhaps you don't have the psychological insight to realize how good life would be for you if you, say, liked yourself better, or took more chances, or had greater enthusiasm for certain activities. How do we determine what constitutes human happiness if it isn't just a matter of satisfying our actual desires? Mill proposes the "higher pleasure test": "Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure." (698) Happiness in Mill's sense is supposed to take in all aspects of a person's well-being, whether or not they are pleasures and whether or not they answer to the agent's desires. The happy person is someone who is thriving, whose life is full of deep satisfactions, who has what enables us to be our best as human beings. Suppose that happiness/well-being in this sense is good in itself. It would seem then that the more happiness the better--if it is good for me to be happy, it's even better if I'm happy and others are too; and then it seems that if happiness is really what's important, then in order to promote the good we ought simply to aim to bring about the greatest amount of happiness. Our own happiness is a fine thing, but it's no more valuable than someone else's happiness--it's the total amount