utilitarianism pros and cons essay

Utilitarianism Advantages and Disadvantages

Utilitarianism is a branch of moral philosophy that promotes the idea that the means applied can be justified by the results obtained. The proponents of this theory believe that traditional moral values and codes are futile as they do not contribute to the improvement of human existence. Thus, they claim that moral actions make sense only if they result in the increased amount of amenities (Barrow 13).

The paper at hand is going to investigate the controversy provoked by utilitarian philosophy juxtaposing its advantages and shortcomings. It will attempt to prove that despite being based on common sense, this theory has a considerable flaw at a deeper level as it ignores viewpoint and feelings of the outer party experiencing the results of the action performed within the framework of utilitarianism. The comparative analysis of the two approached exemplified by works of E. Kant and J.S. Mill as well as real-life examples will also be provided.

Pros of Utilitarianism

The commonly accepted advantages of utilitarianism include (Mulgan 23-24):

• Comprehensible principles and clear guidelines for behavior. Basically, utilitarianism states that every action has a consequence, which is more significant than the action itself. This implies that the value of morality and ethics can be easily evaluated by the effect that they produce: e.g. following utilitarian principles, no driver will drink at the wheel as it can result in injury or death.
• Emphasis on benefits obtained. Utilitarianism states that an action can be called ‘good’ only if the agent can benefit from it. Therefore, it disclaims actions that may cause unhappiness.
• An attempt to create an ideal society. Since the theory encourages people to think of the consequences of all their actions, its ultimate objective is to create a society in which no one would suffer from errors of others.
• The potential to become a uniting theory. Most philosophies do not treat people equally, which means that the rules applicable to one strata of the community are not applicable to any other. Unlike them, utilitarianism asserts that morality affects everyone in the same way, which gives it a potential to unite contradicting philosophic branches.

Cons of Utilitarianism

Despite its evident advantages, utilitarianism has considerable shortcomings (Kliemt 86-90):

• It does not into account negative consequences. Utilitarian philosophy speaks of actions as good or bad analyzing them only from the perspective of the agent. However, it is clear that the satisfaction of a person is often achieved at the expense of someone else’s happiness: e.g. if you get a job, it means that other applicants have been turned away.
• It is subjective and oversimplified. No one can identify where the borderline between the good and the evil can be drawn as no action can be totally bad. Thus, the theory oversimplifies morality.
• It is time-consuming and practically unattainable. Considering the consequences of every action requires a lot of time and effort. Even so, predictions may fail to come true as emergency situations often cannot be forecasted.

Kant vs. Mill: Evaluation of Ethical Views

In order to provide a deeper insight into the theory of utilitarianism, it should be contrasted with the opposing theory – Kantianism. For this purpose, the central ideas of E. Kant and J.S. Mill will be juxtaposed in order to highlight flaws of utilitarian philosophy.

The major objections to Mill’s approach include the following ones (Bentham and Stuart Mill 10-34):

• It promotes negative responsibility. Mill states that an individual is responsible for actions that he/she could have done but failed to do, including prevention of other people’s actions that led to unhappiness.
• It is too much demanding. According to Mill, you need to give up your personal interests completely in order to be able to perform a moral action, which could contribute to the general good.
• It deprives people of their autonomy. Moral responsibility is viewed out of the sphere of personal perception and evaluation. It means that the agent should not consider his/her own moral values and prioritize the action that would lead to the maximum increase of happiness. On the other hand, there are no standard moral rules that can assist in this choice.
• It excludes the possibility of an error of judgment. Mill does not take into consideration that an individual is sometimes unable to decide what can bring him/her real pleasure and satisfaction. He states that it is important to differentiate between noble and basic pleasures but fails to provide guidelines to further actions that would exclude potential mistakes of choice. Therefore, it is unclear how to estimate the level of satisfaction in advance and choose the best possible option to achieve it.
• It puts morals above feelings. Mill asserts that if you can commit an action that will save people’s lives, it is your moral obligation to do it. However, he does not take into account the circumstances involved. For instance, if you can stop a terroristic attack by inflicting physical tortures to the terrorist’s child, you do this for the happiness of other people, which is hardly imaginable in real life where feeling often win over obligations.
• It neglects the possibility of conflicting needs. There is a possibility of a situation that would involve contradicting morals and place the agent in a dilemma. For example, if you are in a hurry to be on time for an important appointment and accidentally meet a person who is in a great need for help, you will have to decide which moral obligation to choose. The theory is so detached from reality that it fails to provide solution to such cases as both moral options increase someone’s happiness despite being mutually exclusive.

These arguments can be provided in favor of Kant’s point of view on morality (Kant et al. 35-49):

• It is rational, objective, and impartial. Kant stresses the importance of consistence and objectiveness of moral choices. For him, there exist absolutes that must not be violated under any possible conditions, which implies that exceptions to the rules are impossible. This approach makes people equal in terms of their personal duties.
• It emphasized the inner value of an individual. According to Kant, every human being is a unique creation with inherent dignity and worth. Thus, he does not consider morality to be an obligation or a burden – on the contrary, it is regarded as a virtue that is indispensible to being human.
• It provides a moral justification of human rights. Kant states that having responsibilities implies receiving respective rights that should be confirmed by legislation. Therefore, having intrinsic value means being enabled to exercise certain freedoms.
• It excludes relativism. Controversial cases are impossible within the given framework as the same moral rights are applicable for every society and individual. It facilitates moral choices by providing universal guidance.
• It gives autonomy to develop your personal moral frameworks. If you do not go against basic moral rules (e.g. lying, breaking promises, etc.), you are free to apply any methods that can increase your happiness as long as your leading principle is reason.
• It does not hang the blame on a person for making the wrong choice. Kant states that we cannot be perfectly sure of the effects of our choices, which means that even the best intentions can lead to deplorable consequences. Thus, a person cannot be accused of making the wrong choice as long as he/she was guided by moral principles.

If we compare the two theories, it becomes self-evident that Kant’s philosophy is much more practical and realistic whereas utilitarianism is utopian and detached from real-life situations. Its major flaw is the narrow perspective that it takes to address highly complex issues requiring multi-level analysis that involves much deeper consideration.

Analysis of Real-Life Cases

The world history and the present-day politics can provide a lot of instances of utilitarianism. In most cases, they are connected with ambiguous situations that spark public outcry. Among the most demonstrative, the following examples can be provided (Hayry 28-42):

Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

As we know from history, atomic bombs were dropped on these two Japanese cities killing practically all people living in them and making the survivors suffer from slow agony. The situation may seem quite unambiguous for a layman as no morals can justify homicide of thousands of the civilian population. Most people believe that this action was completely futile and was committed exclusively for the sake of killing. Yet, it should be taken into consideration that the Japanese were actively developing their own atomic bomb. Therefore, if the USA had refrained from this action, it could have led to deaths of many more people as Japan was striving to obtain dominion over the whole world. As we can see, utilitarianism is capable of providing justification even for actions that seem totally inhumane.

As we know from the experience of the United States, slavery took a lot of human lives and brought about suffering, violation of human dignity, discrimination, and other atrocities. However, utilitarian morality claims that this could be justified as long as it provided economic benefits to the rest of the population since it was much more profitable than wage labor.

Taxation system

The system of income tax collection can also be cited among the examples of utilitarianism. It relies on the following principle: the more you earn, the more you pay to the state and vice versa. It turns out that such a system does not bring any extra finances into the economy as the same amount is simply distributed unequally among tax-payers. Neither does it create any financial deficit. From the most logical point of view, it would be fair to make all citizens pay the same amount of income tax. Yet, utilitarian principles require that the good of the nation prevails over individual profit, which means that the rich have to contribute to well-being of the poor.

Pros and Cons of Utilitarianism: Conclusion

Although being seemingly clear, utilitarian philosophy has a lot of vague aspects that make it inconsistent and unconvincing. The two basic concepts – happiness and consequences – are rather controversial and relativistic. The of idea of placing moral values outside the agent for the sake of utility does not prove to be effective in all real-life situations, which means that the theory is applicable only in a very limited number of cases. Owing to its flaws, it does not stand comparison with more objective and well-developed frameworks.

Works Cited

Barrow, Robin. Utilitarianism: A Contemporary Statement . Routledge, 2015.

Bentham, Jeremy, and John Stuart Mill. Utilitarianism and Other Essays . Penguin, 2007.

Hayry, Matti. Liberal Utilitarianism and Applied Ethics . Routledge, 2013.

Kant, Immanuel, Allen W. Wood, and Jerome B. Schneewind. Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals . Yale University Press, 2006.

Kliemt, Hartmut. “Rawls’s Critique of Utilitarianism.” John Rawls, A Theory of Justice , vol. 3, no. 1, 2013, pp. 79-94.

Mulgan, Tim. Understanding Utilitarianism . Routledge, 2014.

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31 Utilitarianism: Strengths & Weaknesses

Noah Levin ( B.M. Wooldridge) Introduction to Ethics (Levin et al.) https://human.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Philosophy/Book_Introduction_to_Ethics_(Levin_et_al.)

Utilitarianism: Strengths & Weaknesses B.M. Wooldridge

Consequentialism is a general moral theory that tells us that, in any given situation, we should perform those actions that lead to better overall consequences. There are generally two branches of Consequentialism: Hedonism, which tells us that the consequences we should pursue should be ‘pleasurable’ consequences, and Utilitarianism, which tells us that the consequences we should pursue should be ‘happy’ consequences.  John Stuart Mill, one of the foremost Utilitarian moral theorists, sums up Utilitarianism as follows: “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.” 80

Any account of Utilitarianism will have two central tenets. First, Utilitarians are focused on states of affairs, which means that Utilitarianism is concerned with the result, or consequences, of one’s actions, and disregards other features like one’s motives or reasons for acting. One might have good motives or reasons for performing a certain action, but an action is only considered morally good for a Utilitarian if it maximizes the consequences, or happiness, of a given situation. Secondly, Utilitarians emphasize that agents are to be neutral in making their decisions. What this means is that under Utilitarianism, everyone counts for the same, and nobody counts for more than anybody else. Friends, family members, significant others, and anyone else important to you counts just the same as a complete stranger when making a moral decision.

On the face of it, this seems like a sensible moral theory. Like any other theory, Utilitarianism has its advantages and disadvantages. In this paper, I will argue that the disadvantages of Utilitarianism far outweigh the advantages. More specifically, I will argue that, despite its initial appeal, there are serious problems with Utilitarianism that render it a problematic moral theory. In what follows, I will consider a thought experiment from Bernard Williams to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of Utilitarianism, followed by a discussion of why Utilitarianism is a problematic moral theory.

To begin, consider the case of George. George has recently completed his PhD in Chemistry, and, like any other PhD candidate, finds it extremely difficult to land a job after completing his degree. George has a family, and his wife works hard to support them. While she is supportive of George, his difficulty finding a job puts a serious strain on their relationship. An older chemist who knows George tells George that he can get him a job in a laboratory. The laboratory pursues research into chemical and biological warfare. George, however, is opposed to chemical and biological warfare, and he therefore cannot accept the job. However, if George refuses the job, it will go to a colleague of George’s who does not have any reservations about chemical and biological warfare. Indeed, if this colleague takes the job, he will pursue the research with great zeal. For what it’s worth, George’s wife is not against chemical and biological warfare. Should George take the job? 81

It seems that a Utilitarian would inform us that George should take the job, for doing so will lead to better overall consequences than turning down the job. In taking the job, George will not perform the research with great enthusiasm. Williams is not clear on whether George will actively sabotage the research, but it can be reasonably assumed that if George takes the job, he will perform his duties in such a way that will minimize the impact that chemical and biological research will have on developing weapons for war. While George will not directly be saving anyone, his work will indirectly lead to the saving of thousands of lives. Indeed, simply taking the job will ensure that someone who has great enthusiasm for chemical and biological warfare does not get the job. So even if George does not directly or indirectly save anyone while performing his duties, he will already have maximized the consequences by preventing someone who would do great harm from getting the job.

This thought experiment is useful in considering the strengths and weaknesses of Utilitarianism. Let us first begin with the strengths of the theory. Perhaps the biggest strength of Utilitarianism is that it is, at least prima facie, easier to reach a conclusion under this theory than other theories. That is, Utilitarianism provides us with a clear path for determining which action in a given situation will be the correct one: it is that action that will increase utility. This is in contrast to other moral theories, such as Deontology, which do not always provide a clear answer. Deontology, for example, focuses on the motives or reasons one has for acting, and it can be difficult sometimes to ascertain what one’s motives and/or reasons are. Even if one explicitly outlines their motives or reasons, it is not always the case that this is truthful. The consequences of an action, however, do provide us with a clear criterion for what counts as a morally good action. If one’s action leads to good, or happy, consequences, then that action is morally permissible. Thus, Utilitarianism is a theory that can easily help us reach decisions.

Relating this to the case of George, George’s actions can be judged on whether they will lead to better consequences. In this case, his action will lead to good consequences, albeit indirectly. In accepting the job, George prevents someone else who might indirectly harm others by promoting chemical and biological warfare from getting the job. Consider, for a moment, if we judged this action not on the consequences, but rather on the reasons or motives for acting. Suppose George accepts the job because he is motivated to end chemical and biological warfare, or that his reason for taking the job is to help support his family. While these reasons might be noble ones, we cannot be clear on whether these are actually the motives/reasons that George has. Motives and reasons, in other words, are not as clearly accessible as the consequences of an action.

Another strength of Utilitarianism is its emphasis on neutrality. When making a decision, one is to take a ‘God’s eye’ view of things, and consider everyone equally. This emphasis on neutrality makes Utilitarianism an impartial moral theory, meaning it considers everyone’s status and interests as equal. Relating this to the case of George, we see that George needs to assess the situation from a neutral perspective. He should not favour his or his family’s interests as opposed to the interests of others who might be impacted by chemical and biological warfare. Even if his wife and family were against chemical and biological warfare, and even considering that George himself is against chemical and biological warfare, he needs to put these interests and considerations aside and make the decision that is best for everyone involved.

While Utilitarianism does have its strengths as a theory, it also has some very serious weaknesses, and in the remainder of this paper I will outline of these weaknesses and argue why I think they make Utilitarianism a problematic moral theory.

We can begin by considering the point about neutrality. While Utilitarians will count this as a strength of their theory, it can also be considered a weakness of the theory. In considering everyone equally, Utilitarianism devalues the importance of personal relationships. In some cases, following Utilitarianism will force us to disregard those who are close to us. Suppose, for instance, that George’s wife and children, like George, were also against chemical and biological warfare. Utilitarianism will tell us that George should disregard their interests and feelings and perform that action that will increase the consequences. But this seems to be impersonal. The interests, feelings, and desires of George’s family should matter more than the interests, feelings, and desires of complete strangers, simply because these people are closer to George. Each of us has special relations to individuals that we work hard to develop, and that, in many cases, help us become better people. To disregard the interests, feelings, and desires of these individuals seems to be wrong.

I should also point out here that while Utilitarians will  consider  everyone equally, this does not mean that they will  treat  everyone equally. Consider another example from Williams. Suppose that there is a racial minority in a society. This minority does not harm anyone else in the society, nor does it do anything particularly good either. However, the other citizens, who make up the majority, have prejudices against this minority, and consider its presence very disagreeable, and proposals are put forward to remove this minority. 82  Williams is not clear on what would be involved in ‘removing’ the minority. The removal of the minority need not involve murder, although it could. It might involve, for example, removing them from society by forcing them to leave the society.

It seems that a Utilitarian would be forced to accept that eliminating this minority would increase the happiness for the majority of people, and would therefore be a moral action. But this seems wrong, mainly because removing the minority from society would involve what many people take to be morally evil actions, which is another problem with Utilitarianism. In some cases, Utilitarianism might sanction morally evil actions in order to achieve morally desirable consequences. Removing the minority might involve genocide or mass deportations, both of which seem morally problematic. Killing people simply because they are of a certain race or ethnicity, and/or removing them from a society without just cause, are severe moral violations that any reasonable person could not sanction. The idea here is this: sometimes, in working to achieve the greatest overall consequences, individuals will be forced to do bad things, and these bad things, even if they increase happiness, are still bad. And it is a failing of Utilitarianism that it does not recognize the moral value of labeling these as morally bad actions.

At this point a Utilitarian will surely have something to say. A Utilitarian might respond to the above points as follows. All of the critiques I have offered are focused only on the short-term consequences, and not the long-term consequences. When we focus on the long-term consequences of the above cases, the Utilitarian answer will change. For example, if George takes the job, this might lead to good consequences in the immediate future. But in the long run, it might lead to bad consequences. It might, for example, cause a serious strain on his marriage, and make George unhappy, which will in turn affect his relationships with others. In the racial minority case, while removing the minority might lead to better consequences in the short term, it will lead to worse consequences in the long term. It will, for example, weaken the trust among members of a community, and destabilize the social relations of individuals within that community. In response to this, a Utilitarian might adopt a rule, the general following of which will lead to better long-term consequences. In so doing, a Utilitarian switches the focus from a version of Utilitarianism that is focused on acts, to one that is focused on rules.

This response from a Utilitarian fails, in that it invites more questions than what it does answers. Mainly, just how far into the future should we look when considering the consequences of our actions? Utilitarians do not provide a clear answer to this question. Saying that we should focus on the long-term consequences of an action when the implications of the short-term consequences are troubling seems to be problematic. And, moreover, should we really follow a rule when, in the moment, we can perform an act that will increase the happiness of others? Adopting rule-utilitarianism as a way to respond to these objections seems not only ad-hoc, but also inconsistent with the Utilitarian maxim of increasing the consequences.

Overall, the theory of Utilitarianism, while perhaps initially appealing, seems to have some serious flaws. While the theory of Utilitarianism might help us more easily reach moral conclusions than what other theories do, and while it emphasizes the neutrality of moral agents, it does nonetheless have a tendency to alienate us from those we are closest to, and might require us to perform actions that, under other moral theories, are considered morally problematic. It is for these reasons that Utilitarianism is a problematic moral theory.

Utilitarianism: Strengths & Weaknesses Copyright © 2020 by Noah Levin ( B.M. Wooldridge) Introduction to Ethics (Levin et al.) https://human.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Philosophy/Book_Introduction_to_Ethics_(Levin_et_al.) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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10 Utilitarianism Examples (Plus Pros and Cons)

The core idea of utilitarianism is that we ought to act in a way that maximizes happiness for the greatest number. So, the morally right action is, according to utilitarians, the action that produces the most good.

Examples of utilitarianism include effective altruism, bulldozing someone’s home for a highway, and redistribution of excess money from the rich to the poor.

It is an ethical theory developed to determine what we morally ought to do. It is a variety of consequentialism . That is, utilitarianism takes the consequences that action produces as the only relevant factor to determining whether that action is or isn’t morally permissible.

Utilitarianism Definition

Utilitarianism is the view that one ought to promote maximal well-being, welfare, or utility. The theory evaluates the moral rightness of actions, rules, policies, motives, virtues, social institutions, etc. in terms of what delivers the most good to the most people.

According to MacAskill, Meissner, and Chappell (2022), all utilitarian theories share four defining characteristics:

• Consequentialism: The view that one ought to act in a way that promotes good outcomes.
• Welfarism: The view that only the welfare or well-being of individuals determines the value of an outcome.
• Impartiality: The view that the identity of individuals is irrelevant to the moral value of an outcome. The interests of all individuals hold equal moral weight.
• Aggregationism: The view that the value of the world is the sum of the values of its parts. The parts are experiences, lives, societies, and so on.

Any theory that denies any of the elements above is not utilitarian. For example, a non-consequentialist might hold that actions can be inherently right or wrong regardless of the outcomes they produce.

Utilitarian Case study: Jeremy Bentham

A key feature of utilitarianism has always been its focus on practical action. Jeremy Bentham was one person who highlighted this in his writing.

He advocated for the rights of animals when there were no laws protecting animals from cruelty. He advocated for improving the conditions of prisoners and the poor.

Utilitarians advocated for broadening suffrage to extend it to women. They advocated for women’s rights more generally. Bentham advocated for homosexual rights. In these and many other areas, utilitarians supported policies that are today part of common sense (Lazari-Radek & Singer, 2017).

Other important contributors to utilitarianism include John Stuart Mill (1871), Henry Sidgwick (1874), Richard M. Hare (1993), and Peter Singer (Lazari-Radek & Singer, 2017).

Utilitarianism Examples

• Redistributing money to the poor : Wealth and income have a diminishing marginal utility. The more wealth you have, the less well-being you get from additional money. It is, therefore, a utilitarian choice of a government to redistribute money to the poor who need it more than the rich do (MacAskill & Meissner, 2022).
• Effective altruism : Effective altruism is a research field that aims to identify the world’s most vital problems and tries to find the most effective solutions to them. This is a philosophy and social movement endorsed by many utilitarians, most notably Peter Singer and William MacAskill. Not all effective altruists are utilitarians, but many utilitarians find this movement especially appealing.
• Global health and development : This is a particularly important area for utilitarians because it has a great track record of improving overall well-being. Donating to organizations that give people access to better healthcare is one of the most important causes for utilitarians.
• Farm animal welfare : For utilitarians, animals matter and humans are the cause of a large amount of their unnecessary suffering. There are ways to reduce the suffering of farmed animals. These include campaigns to make large retailers cut caged eggs out of their supply chains, donating money to animal charities, reducing meat consumption, improving the quality of animal shelters or farms, and so on.
• Reducing existential risks : The value of our actions, according to utilitarians, depends largely on how those actions will affect the future in the long run. Existential threats such as a nuclear war, a global pandemic, extreme climate change, and so on are, therefore, of pressing concern for utilitarians.
• Career choices : Many utilitarians emphasize the importance of choosing a career path that allows you to do the most overall good in the long run. This doesn’t involve much of a personal sacrifice, since the job you find satisfying is very often the one that allows you to help the largest number of people.
• Outreach : Promoting utilitarian ideas is itself considered by many utilitarians to be a morally good action. This is because promoting utilitarian ideas is likely to increase the overall well-being of individuals. The people you inspire will do several times as much good as you could have done alone.
• Women’s suffrage: Philosopher Jeremy Bentham argued for women’s suffrage from a universalist perspective. By increasing women’s rights, benefits are distributed to a greater number of people and therefore it suits a utilitarian ethic.
• Bulldoze a house to build a highway: If a house stands in the way of a highway being built, a utilitarian perspective may argue that the house should be bulldozed. More benefit to more people will come from one person losing their house in return for millions of people getting faster access to work every day. This is called the ‘rights objection’ to utilitarianism.
• Organ transplant hypothesis: There is a hospital with five people requiring transplants – a heart, a kidney, a foot, a liver, and bone marrow. The greatest good for the most people could theoretically justify killing one person so their organs can be donated to save five people.

Pros of Utilitarianism

• Simplicity : The core of utilitarianism is easy to understand and apply. The fundamental question of ethics is: “What should I do?” Utilitarianism gives a very straightforward answer: The right thing to do is to bring about the greatest possible net increase in the surplus of happiness over suffering. This short answer gives everything one might need, at least in principle, to analyze what one ought to do in any possible situation (Lazari-Radek & Singer, 2017, p. xix).
• Intuitiveness : It is impossible to prove all claims within a given theory. As Ludwig Wittgenstein pointed out, “at the foundation of well-founded belief lies belief that is not founded” (Wittgenstein, 1969, p. 33). Intuitiveness is, therefore, a vital aspect of any moral theory. The axiomatic parts of any ethical theory must be intuitive for the theory to be successful or convincing. Acting to promote the greatest good for the greatest number intuitively seems like an aim worth pursuing. This is because almost everyone agrees that happiness is good and suffering is bad.
• Practicality : Utilitarian theory is immediately practical. The historical record shows that the causes utilitarians advocated for, such as universal suffrage, animal rights, gay rights, global health, and so on have become more and more important for the world. Utilitarianism seems to be effective because it can be easily applied.
• Impartiality : The moral atrocities of the past were often sanctioned by the dominant societal norms of the time. A theory that is impartial and expands the moral circle as much as possible is, therefore, more appealing to us today. Utilitarianism, because of its commitment to giving equal weight to the interests of every individual, is impartial (Chappell & Meissner, 2022).

Cons of Utilitarianism

There are many objections to utilitarianism. Most of these are based on the idea that utilitarianism often leads to counterintuitive claims and conclusions about action (MacAskill et al., 2022).

The following list is incomplete, but it covers the most common objections raised against utilitarianism:

• The alienation objection claims that utilitarianism is cold and impersonal, thereby alienating us from the particular people and projects that truly matter to us.
• The demandingness objection claims that utilitarianism is too demanding because it requires excessive self-sacrifice.
• The equality objection claims that utilitarianism ignores, or doesn’t give enough value to equality and distributive justice .
• The mere means objection claims that utilitarianism treats people merely as means to the greater good. This objection is particularly popular with the followers of Kant (Kant, 1785/1993, p. 36).
• The rights objection charges utilitarianism with being overly permissive, claiming that utilitarianism might allow infringing upon the rights of others to maximize overall well-being.
• The separateness of persons objection claims that utilitarianism neglects the boundaries between individuals to maximize overall well-being.
• The special obligations objection holds that utilitarianism is too impartial and does not account for the special obligations we have to our friends or family members.

Utilitarianism is one of the most widespread and intuitive approaches to ethics. It gives straightforward answers and actionable advice to those who subscribe to it.

Like any moral theory, it has many arguments for and against it. It was first fully articulated in the nineteenth century and is still an important and controversial ethical theory.

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MacAskill, W. and Meissner, D. (2022). Acting on Utilitarianism. In R.Y. Chappell, D. Meissner, and W. MacAskill (eds.), An Introduction to Utilitarianism . https://www.utilitarianism.net/acting-on-utilitarianism , accessed 11/18/2022.

MacAskill, W., Meissner, D., and Chappell, R.Y. (2022). Introduction to Utilitarianism. In R.Y. Chappell, D. Meissner, and W. MacAskill (eds.), An Introduction to Utilitarianism . https://www.utilitarianism.net/introduction-to-utilitarianism , accessed 11/18/2022.

MacAskill, W., Meissner, D., and Chappell, R.Y. (2022). Objections to Utilitarianism and Responses. In R.Y. Chappell, D. Meissner, and W. MacAskill (eds.), An Introduction to Utilitarianism . https://www.utilitarianism.net/objections-to-utilitarianism , accessed 11/18/2022.

Mill, J. S. (1871). Utilitarianism . Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer.

Sidgwick, H. (1874). The Methods of Ethics . Macmillan.

Wittgenstein, L. (1969). On Certainty . Basil Blackwell.

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15 Utilitarianism Advantages and Disadvantages

The standardized definition of Utilitarianism is that actions are defined as being “right” or “correct” based on the ability it has to promote happiness. Something is then considered “wrong” if it creates the opposite reaction. This structure means that the ends often justify the means when seeking to create a specific result. That means if an action results in bringing happiness more than any other available alternative, then that is the acceptable choice to make.

There are three specific premises for Utilitarianism which must go under review when determining the correctness of any action taken.

• Actions are considered right only if the outcome of the decision maximizes whatever is classified as being good over what would be considered bad.
• Happiness is the only good outcome that is possible in this structure.
• If an action does not maximize happiness in some way, then it may be the incorrect choice to make – even if it is considered the moral choice.

Based on these premises, Utilitarianism suggests that happiness is always good for the individual. If you have an opportunity to increase this emotion, then you should do so because it is a core human desire. That means when each member of a group or organization is happy, then so will the entirety of that team.

The suggestion is simple: by focusing on happiness first, we will all be collectively better as a society because our focus is on how to improve ourselves. This theory does run into some practical concerns upon implementation, which is why a look at its advantages and disadvantages is so important.

List of the Advantages of Utilitarianism

1. It is a universal concept that all of us can understand. The goal of reducing personal harm while increasing happiness is something that every person pursues at some point in their life. We don’t want to live in misery all of the time, even if pessimism is the star of every thought that we have. By creating a society which places more value on actions that bring happiness, we could create a place where there is more common ground to be found. It is a principle that applies to every culture, which means it would be possible to take one more step closer to a borderless world.

2. You don’t need to practice a religion to benefit from this process. Utilitarianism is a secular process which can incorporate religious elements if that is what makes you happy. This practice is not trying to find salvation for your soul. It won’t dictate specific beliefs about God to ensure your inclusion. When your focus is on what makes you happy before anything else, then your spirituality is something that you can personally direct at all times. You get to pursue what has meaning in your life.

3. Utilitarianism follows democratic principles. The fastest and fairest way to make decisions on a nationwide scale is to balance the differing interest of people through a majority vote. When there is a majority present for a vote, then the outcome is considered the “right” course of action to take. If there is not, then the measure under consideration is “wrong.” That doesn’t mean you need to agree with the outcome, but it does suggest that you must accept it.

After creating a platform which suggested that the Republicans would repeal and replace the healthcare systems put into place by the previous administration, Senator John McCain stopped his party’s top legislative priority with a “no” vote. His action created the distinction between right and wrong through the principles of Utilitarianism.

4. It uses an objective process to decide what is right or wrong. When we make a choice, then there is always a consequence for our actions. The outcome might bring something positive, something negative, or a mixture of the two. It is through these measurements that Utilitarianism seeks to define morality. By recognizing the outcomes that bring happiness more often, we can all work toward an independent and objective way to determine what is right and wrong on a personal level.

Once we make this decision through the data we collect about ourselves, it becomes possible to join with others who come to similar conclusions. Although this process would likely change the way we think about building communities around the world, it could also help to prevent the potential free-for-all of subjectivity that would likely happen if everyone was suddenly permitted to do their own thing.

5. This process is one that is very easy to use. We learn very quickly in our childhood about the things that we believe are right or wrong. You only touch a hot burner on the stove once, right? When we begin to compare the positive effects of our actions with the negative ones, then we can make logical choices about what our next actions will be. Even though someone with an outlier moral code might make different choices, the vast majority of people would look for ways to improve happiness that are simple, straightforward, and inclusive.

We know this advantage is possible because the principles of Utilitarianism always direct individuals toward the greatest good possible. If you cannot achieve success without bring harm to others, is that really the best outcome? There will always be extreme examples where this process does not work adequately, but it does create a lot of opportunity when applied to the finer details of life’s experiences.

6. Utilitarianism works with our natural intuition. Although Utilitarianism sometimes struggles when approaching the issue of harm from an emotional perspective, it does work well with our natural intuition to not harm the people that we care about each day. The average person does not go walking downtown with a baseball bat, striking people with it because they think it is a fun activity. Part of the human condition is to go about life without creating physical harm to others, partially because such a decision could also create harm in our lives too. We must evaluate all potential consequences when looking at how the ends justify the means, creating more of a logical approach to each decision than some people might realize on their first approach to this theory.

7. It bases everything on the concept of happiness. Let’s face it: who doesn’t want to be happy in life? Many of the choices that we make each day are a reflection of our desire to experience this emotion. We go to work because it allows us to have the life that we want. You are choosing to stay in a relationship with your significant other because being with that person makes you happier and better than if you were to be alone. Because there is a given intrinsic value to this emotional state, pursuing activities and choices which encourage it to be present at its maximum levels can make for a better life and society.

List of the Disadvantages of Utilitarianism

1. Society does not solely focus on happiness when making choices. Utilitarianism suggests that the only item of intrinsic worth is happiness, but there are also other commodities that are worth considering. Having life is something that provides value to people. Being free to make your own choices has a certain worth that shouldn’t be ignored. When love is in the picture, the relationships that cause this emotional reaction are also present.

When we look at Utilitarianism, all of these other “goods” take a secondary value to happiness. You might love your spouse, but if they make you unhappy one day for any reason, then the moral outcome is to correct that situation by the fastest, easiest means possible. That could mean divorce, separation, or worse instead of taking the time to hammer out your issues. Over 70% of people who describe their marriage as being unhappy will have a different perspective in five years or less.

2. The ends never really justify the means when considering happiness. Sydney Elizabeth was only eight years old when she tragically passed away because of complications from an E. coli infection. A 3-year-old girl was the recipient of her heart, which is something that Sydney’s parents will always treasure. She is remembered as being a caring, vibrant soul who never settled for anything less than being the best.

Under the teachings of Utilitarianism, the just outcome would be to kill healthy people to distribute their organs to those who are waiting on the transplant list. That’s because the good of the many (as defined by happiness) always outweighs the good of the few.

3. Outcomes are unpredictable when dealing with the future. Utilitarianism wants people to look into the future, and then predict today what will bring them a maximum level of happiness today. Because nothing beyond the present moment is guaranteed, there is no feasible way to implement the concepts of this theory. You are always working from an assumption.

We all know that the person we were 10 years ago is very different than the individual you are today. George (we changed his name) is a prime example of this. In 2009, he was working full-time as a vocational supervisor for people with development disabilities. He owned a house with his wife, played basketball at church once per week, and sang in a band with a regular weekend gig.

Now George lives in a different community, has four kids, works full-time from home, and is a martial arts coach. Trying to base ethical choices on what his future became based on his life 10 years ago would have been impossible. The same is true for the next decade as well.

4. Happiness is something that is subjective. It is impossible to assign a specific value to the amount of happiness that something provides you at any given time. Every activity that you decide to try will always bring a high level of joy if you love your first experience with it. Each time you repeat that activity, the amount of happiness you have could be less.

Imagine that you are playing a video game like Overwatch right now. When you win your match, then you feel happy. If you lose, then you might feel frustrated. Utilitarianism says that the moment you stop experiencing happiness is the time when you must shift gears. Does it make sense to abandon everything you do the instant that happiness is no longer maximized?

Even being intimate with your significant other can have varying levels of satisfaction. Knowing what will make you happy at any given moment is impossible to predict. That means Utilitarianism provides immeasurable outcomes.

5. It forces you to rely on everyone else following the same moral code. If you abandon the idea of rules, regulations, and laws in society to pursue happiness, then you are forced to rely on the choices that others make to not bring harm into your life. A lot of people will say that they believe humans are inherently good, but the reality is that most people will choose to do something against their moral character if they believe that they can get away with that choice.

74% of men say that they would cheat on their significant other if they knew for certain that they could get away with the activity. 68% of women say that they would willingly have an affair as well. When there is the absence of a deterrent for any activity, then people are more likely to make the choice to pursue it. That is why Utilitarianism might bring happiness to some, but it causes a lot of harm in its wake.

6. Utilitarianism doesn’t focus on the act itself to form judgments. The one disadvantage that Utilitarianism cannot escape is that it focuses on the outcome of a choice instead of the act itself. There is no moral judgment on the actual actions that a person chooses to take. The only consequences occur if the outcome that happens does not maximize happiness in some way. According to research data published by Psychology Today from work in 2014, 75% of the participants said that if they had ever raped someone, their answer was a firm “no.”

When they were asked if they had ever held someone down to coerce them into having sex, the answers were different. This outcome is just a small taste of what life under Utilitarianism would be like. If the actions of a person result in a maximum amount of happiness, then it doesn’t matter if other people think it is wrong. It is still a moral choice to pursue.

7. You cannot measure happiness in tangible ways. Have you ever tried to make the bell ring on a high striker game at an arcade, midway, or fair? When you strike the plate with a hammer, then what you see is a puck rising high enough to ring a bell at the top of the device. This outcome indicates that your strength’s measurement is strong enough to be successful.

When we try to measure happiness, there isn’t a definitive measurement that can be used because your emotional reactions are different in every situation. Sonja Lyubomirsky and Heidi Lepper developed an assessment in 1999 that can help some people make an overall judgment about how happy they are in the present moment, but even this tool is based upon the creator’s criteria for it. That is why Utilitarianism struggles to succeed. It may offer a valid proposition, but there is no way to measure it accurately using current systems.

8. It would allow the majority of society to always dictate outcomes. The reason why we vote in elections is because the politicians or ideas that are on the ballot will either pass or fail based on what the majority wants. We use this system for voting because the information it provides represents what the will of the people happen to be. If history has taught us anything, it is that when people are in a majority, then they will use their force to control the will of the minority in ways that are not always ethical or moral. It wasn’t that long ago when women couldn’t vote, marrying someone of a different skin color was illegal, and you could be stoned to death for adultery in many countries.

Utilitarianism would allow the majority to have tyranny over all aspects of society. If most people felt like pedophilia was acceptable and normal, then it would justify any laws or regulations that would permit that behavior – even though there is a clear moral wrongness about such a choice.

Conclusion of the Utilitarianism Advantages and Disadvantages

Utilitarianism will ultimately fail because it confuses what is popular in the present for what is morally right. What we have learned throughout history is that there are some choices that are always morally wrong, no matter how many ways you try to spin the idea.

Can you imagine a world where the Holocaust would be considered a morally correct decision? Or living in a nation that not only celebrated the murdering spree of Ted Bundy, but encouraged others to participate in such activities as they saw fit?

The advantages and disadvantages of Utilitarianism prove that happiness cannot be the only part of the foundation upon which we make decisions. There are times in life when the correct decision is the one which only you are willing to make. Humanity would lose its integrity if it decided to follow this way of life, even if there are some notable benefits to consider. It is clear that any strengths are clearly outweighed by the weaknesses of this theory.

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Ethics is an important area of philosophy that deals with the principles of right and wrong. It can help us to understand our own values and determine how to act in various situations. Three of the most common ethical theories are virtue ethics, utilitarianism, and deontology. These theories each have their own approach to determining what is right and wrong and provide guidance for making ethical decisions. Virtue ethics focuses on building good character traits , such as integrity and compassion, as the basis for making ethical decisions.

Utilitarianism looks at the consequences of an action to determine if it is right or wrong. Deontology looks at the intentions behind an action and whether it follows a moral law. In this article, we will explore the three main ethical theories – virtue ethics, utilitarianism, and deontology – in more detail. We will look at their similarities and differences, how they are applied in practice, and how they can help us make more informed ethical decisions. The first theory is Virtue Ethics . This theory focuses on the character traits of an individual as the basis of moral decisions.

This means that an action should be judged not by its intention, but by its results. Finally, deontology is a non-consequentialist ethical theory which states that there are certain moral obligations that people have regardless of their consequences. According to this theory, an action is only considered morally right if it follows certain moral rules or duties. It is important to note that these ethical theories are not mutually exclusive. In many cases, it can be difficult to determine which theory is the most applicable to a given situation. For example, when deciding whether or not to donate money to a charity, a person may consider both utilitarianism and deontology.

Utilitarianism might suggest that donating the money will bring more happiness to the greatest number of people, while deontology could suggest that donating money is a moral obligation regardless of its consequences. To illustrate how these theories can be applied in different scenarios, consider a situation in which a person must decide whether or not to lie. Using virtue ethics, the decision should be based on whether or not lying goes against the individual’s moral character. Utilitarianism might suggest that lying would produce the greatest amount of pleasure or happiness for everyone involved. Finally, deontology might suggest that lying would go against a moral obligation or duty. It is important to remember that these ethical theories are not rigid rules which must be followed in every situation.

Virtue Ethics

It is important to understand these virtues and strive to embody them in order to make moral decisions. An individual's character is seen as the key factor in making ethical decisions. In addition, Virtue Ethics acknowledges that each person is unique, and that there is no one-size-fits-all answer when it comes to determining what is ethical. Virtue Ethics can be applied in various scenarios.

For example, when faced with a difficult decision, an individual can use their understanding of what makes up a good character to inform their choices. This could involve considering whether or not a course of action would lead to a more virtuous character, or if it would have a negative impact on their character. Virtue Ethics also emphasizes the importance of considering the consequences of one's actions, as well as the motivations behind them. Ultimately, Virtue Ethics encourages individuals to strive for moral excellence by developing their character and understanding of the virtues that make up good character.

It can be used to justify decisions that may be seen as counterintuitive or unpopular, as long as they bring about the greatest benefit for the greatest number of people. For example, utilitarianism may be used to justify certain government policies, such as raising taxes in order to fund social welfare programs or increasing safety regulations in order to reduce the risk of accidents or injuries. Similarly, it can be used to make decisions about how resources should be allocated, such as deciding which medical treatments should be funded or which areas of research should be prioritized. Utilitarianism can also be applied in everyday life.

This means that the morality of an action should be judged solely on whether it conforms to ethical codes and principles, not on the consequences it produces. This theory is important in making ethical decisions because it provides a clear set of moral principles that can be used to guide decision-making. By adhering to these principles, individuals can ensure that their decisions are in line with their moral values and responsibilities. For example, if one is considering whether or not to lie, a deontologist would evaluate the action based on whether it violates an ethical principle such as 'do not lie'.

Deontology can also be applied in various scenarios. For example, if an individual is considering whether to participate in a particular activity that could potentially harm another person, they would evaluate their decision based on whether it violated a moral principle such as 'do not hurt others'. Similarly, if an individual is considering whether or not to donate money to a charity, they would evaluate their decision based on whether it violated a moral principle such as 'do not neglect those in need'. Overall, deontology is an important ethical theory in making decisions because it provides a clear set of moral principles that can be used to guide decision-making.

The purpose of this article was to explain three major ethical theories – virtue ethics , utilitarianism , and deontology – and how they can be applied in various scenarios. It is important to remember that these theories are not rigid rules which must be followed in every situation but can help individuals make more informed decisions. Each theory provides a unique perspective on ethical decision-making, and understanding their differences and similarities can help people navigate complex ethical issues.

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PHIL103: Moral and Political Philosophy

Course Introduction

• Time: 50 hours
• College Credit Recommended ($25 Proctor Fee) -->
• Free Certificate

Topics range from the value of human life to the moral standing of the free market, the notion of fundamental human rights, equality of opportunity, and the conditions for a moral community. You will study a number of important moral and political philosophers, including Plato, Aristotle, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Immanuel Kant, Jean-Paul Sartre, Friedrich Nietzsche, and John Rawls.

This course will also examine contemporary thinkers such as Alasdair MacIntyre, Martin Luther King, Jr., and others, as well as news articles and primary source texts regarding important legal decisions. By the end of the course, you will have gained a detailed understanding of the philosophical issues involved in many contemporary debates in the public sphere, as well as a refined sense of your own moral and political positions and intuitions.

Course Syllabus

First, read the course syllabus. Then, enroll in the course by clicking "Enroll me". Click Unit 1 to read its introduction and learning outcomes. You will then see the learning materials and instructions on how to use them.

Unit 1: Murder, Morality, and the Value of Human Life

Everyone, whether they realize it or not, has some beliefs about the differences between right and wrong, or good and bad. We use these beliefs to guide our behavior, judge the behavior of others, and decide on laws and punishments in our society. Sometimes, however, situations arise that force us to call our moral beliefs into question and to debate the truth about moral behavior with our peers. It is usually the really difficult cases, in which the right thing to do is difficult to decide, and cases which divide people against one another in their opinions, that bring the differences in our moral intuitions into focus and force us to clarify our moral principles.

In this unit, we will investigate some notoriously difficult and divisive moral dilemmas involving justice, rights, and the value of human life. We will explore the moral theory of utilitarianism in depth, considering whether it can help us determine the right thing to do and how to produce a just society. Finally, this unit will introduce two ethical theories in contrast to utilitarianism: deontology and natural law.

Completing this unit should take you approximately 7 hours.

Unit 2: Rights, the State, and the Free Market

So far, we have predominantly considered theories of just action that base their criteria for justice on an action's consequences. Utilitarianism, as we have seen, provides a convincing justification for many of our moral intuitions, but even its more refined versions, such as the theory advanced by John Stuart Mill, start to seem unsatisfying once we realize that they reduce moral decisions to detached, rational calculations. If we want a completely adequate theory of just action, we may need to consider an alternative approach to justice and morality. Consequently, this course will continue to examine some other approaches to ethical questions which are not grounded in the consequences of an action. One such approach is represented by libertarianism, which argues that morality and justice are rooted in the natural rights of individual human beings. Consequences matter, of course, but they are always secondary to considerations of natural rights. Libertarianism centers on the relationship between individual freedom and the laws of the state. In this unit, we will look at arguments on both sides of this question. Plato, in the dialogue known as the Crito, gives arguments that claim the individual does not have a right to defy his or her government. In contrast, contemporary proponents of libertarianism like Milton Friedman and Robert Nozick uphold individual rights and liberties. John Locke argues that the contract we have with our government can always be rescinded. Locke’s arguments have been influential in the shaping of modern western democracies, in general, and the United States in particular.

Completing this unit should take you approximately 15 hours.

Unit 3: Morality, Markets, and Immanuel Kant

John Locke and the libertarian philosophers he inspired held that justice and morality are a matter of respecting the fundamental rights that all individuals hold in common – life, liberty, and property (including the property of one's self). Libertarians such as Milton Friedman argue these principles are incompatible with the government placing restrictions on the free market. But what happens when the market itself brings our rights into conflict with one another? In this unit, we examine several case studies in which individual rights are disputed, and we consider whether these cases provide sufficient reason to doubt the libertarian position.

Are individual rights enough to determine how to answer moral questions and how to propose a just society? Perhaps we need a more substantive philosophical approach to answer some of our moral and political questions. This is the position of Immanuel Kant, who suggests that we have certain moral obligations because we are human beings with moral reasoning capabilities. These capabilities lead to certain duties which we need to consider. We call Kant’s philosophy deontological, which means it is rooted in duty.

Completing this unit should take you approximately 10 hours.

Unit 4: John Rawls' Theory of Justice

In the 1970s, John Rawls put forward what is widely considered to be the most important contemporary theory of justice. Rawls' theory is an update of the traditional social contract approach, but its starting point, rather than the natural rights of individuals, is the deceptively simple idea of fairness. Who would disagree with the proposal that a just society should be a fair one?

As we shall see in this unit, Rawls' theory is both convincing and controversial. We will begin with Thomas Hobbes, one of the most well-known proponents of social contract theory in the history of philosophy. For Hobbes, life before the social contract, or life before government, is "nasty, brutish, and short". Hobbes makes this claim, because he finds that human nature itself tends towards selfishness and cruel treatment of others, especially without a contract with a government that keeps the peace and punishes those who break contracts.

Rawls has a somewhat more positive view of human nature: he is an advocate of political liberalism, and his political philosophy conflicts with many popular contemporary ideas and ideologies. Therefore, we will be looking at issues of equality in society and the questions of whether certain social goods - such as income, education, and opportunity - should be redistributed in order to ensure fairness.

Completing this unit should take you approximately 9 hours.

Unit 5: Ethics and Politics of Virtue

Prior to any of the theories we have considered so far, most accounts of what it is for a person to be moral, or for a society to be just, centered on some conception of virtue. The most famous proponent of virtue as the basis for living a good human life and creating a good state is Aristotle. Although recently, Alasdair MacIntyre and a growing number of moral and political theorists have been returning to the concept of virtue as an antidote to what they interpret as an over-emphasis on individual rights and freedoms and a neglect of community and tradition in political thought since the Enlightenment. But can we as a society come to agree about what living virtuously means?

In this unit, we will examine Aristotle's theory of a society organized on the basis of virtue, as well as some modern communitarian extensions of his general line of thought. We will contrast Aristotle's notion of virtue with the existentialist concepts of will to power (as in Friedrich Nietszche) and radical freedom and radical responsibility (as in Jean-Paul Sartre). We will see how these theories bear on certain controversial topics of our day. Upon completing this course you will be able to consider these type of difficult controversies with a much richer and more informed perspective.

Study Guide

This study guide will help you get ready for the final exam. It discusses the key topics in each unit, walks through the learning outcomes, and lists important vocabulary. It is not meant to replace the course materials!

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• Famine, Affluence, and Morality
• Utilitarianism: Simply Explained

Study Guide: Peter Singer's 'Famine, Affluence, and Morality'

Introduction.

Peter Singer ’s ‘ Famine, Affluence, and Morality ’ 1 is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential texts in applied ethics. This study guide explains Singer’s central argument, explores possible objections, and clarifies common misunderstandings.

The Argument

Singer argues that most of us in affluent societies are making a terrible moral mistake. When we look at distant suffering—such as results from global poverty, famine, or disease—we tend to think that helping is morally optional , or what philosophers call “ supererogatory ”. Even if we could very easily give more to effective charities to help, doing so seems “above and beyond the call of duty”. It would be generous to give more, we think, but hardly required . We assume it’s perfectly fine to spend our money on expensive clothes, travel, entertainment, or other luxuries instead. But Singer argues that this assumption is mistaken. Instead, he argues, it is seriously morally wrong to live high while others die. 2

Singer’s argument for this conclusion is straightforward, resting largely on a key moral principle that we will call Singer’s rescue principle . The argument may be summarized as follows: 3

P1. Suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, or medical care are very bad. P2. We can prevent such suffering and death by donating to effective charities (in place of consumer purchases). P3. Many of our consumer purchases are morally insignificant: we could give them up without thereby sacrificing anything morally significant. P4. The rescue principle: If it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything morally significant, we ought, morally, to do it. 4 Therefore, C. We ought, morally, to donate to effective charities rather than making morally insignificant consumer purchases. 5

Note that, although Singer is a utilitarian, this argument does not rely on utilitarianism as a premise. P1 - P4 are all claims that non-utilitarians (and even non-consequentialists) could accept.

This is a really striking argument. The four premises each seem perfectly plausible. The conclusion logically follows. Yet the conclusion is radically at odds with how almost all of us live our lives. Every time we purchase something unnecessary, Singer’s argument implies that we not only could , but also should , do better. When you think about how this would apply to your own life, it could well turn out that the majority of the purchases you make in your everyday life would be considered morally wrong. Most of us could probably live significantly more frugally without sacrificing anything morally significant, and use the savings to relieve suffering or even prevent several untimely deaths. According to Singer’s argument, that is then precisely what we are morally required to do. 6 (Note that similar arguments could also apply to one’s choice of career . 7 )

Could such a radical conclusion really be true? You are probably already thinking of ways to dismiss it. But it’s not enough to simply reject the conclusion. To reject it, you must show one (or more) of the premises to be false.

Assessing the Premises

Premise 1: badness.

The first premise claims that suffering and death are very bad . That is hard to deny. Any plausible ethical theory—whether utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics, etc.—will agree that, all else being equal, suffering and death are bad, 8 especially suffering that is extreme, involuntary, and uncompensated.

Premise 2: Preventability

The second premise is similarly secure: We can prevent suffering and death by donating to effective charities . Some “aid skeptics” are critical of foreign aid programs. This might suggest that we just do not know whether a given charity actually does any good. Some charitable interventions, on closer examination, even turn out to be counterproductive . However, while many charities have little impact, the most effective charities do a remarkable amount of good. Fortunately, finding effective charities is easy by consulting reputable sources such as GiveWell ’s in-depth charity evaluations. Even prominent aid skeptics do not deny that GiveWell’s top-rated charities are genuinely effective . So there is no real question that well-targeted donations can be expected to prevent a lot of suffering and death. (Of course, the argument will not apply to anyone who lacks the resources to be able to make any such donations. It’s exclusively directed at those of us who do, at least sometimes, make unnecessary purchases.)

Premise 3: Insignificant Sacrifice

The third premise claims that we could give up many of our consumer purchases “without thereby sacrificing anything morally significant.” Could one reasonably deny this? One could insist that all interests are morally significant in the sense that they count for something , so you always have at least some reason to make any consumer purchase that would bring you the slightest bit of extra happiness. But of course Singer does not mean to deny this. His use of “significant” here is not meant to distinguish interests from non-interests (that count for literally zero), but rather to distinguish especially weighty or important interests from relatively trivial ones. And it cannot plausibly be denied that some of our consumer purchases are relatively trivial, or not especially important to our lives.

It’s an interesting question precisely how to distinguish significant interests from comparatively trivial ones. The two extremes seem intuitively clear enough: luxury goods like designer clothes seem fairly unimportant, while providing a good life for one’s own child is obviously of genuine importance. In intermediate cases where it’s unclear whether an interest qualifies as deeply “morally significant”, it will be similarly unclear whether Singer’s argument requires us to be willing to sacrifice that interest in order to prevent grave harm. 9 But it’s important to note that an argument can be sound and practically important even if it is sometimes unclear how to apply it.

Premise 4: Singer’s Rescue Principle

Finally, we come to Singer’s rescue principle: If it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything morally significant, we ought, morally, to do it. If we are to reject the argument’s conclusion, we must reject this premise. But can you really believe that it’s morally okay to just sit back and watch something terrible happen, when you could easily (without sacrificing anything important) prevent it?

Some may claim that our only duty is to do no harm . 10 On this view, it would be wrong to steal from the global poor, and it would be generous to help them, but we have no obligation to help in any way—it’s never wrong to simply mind one’s own business. This minimal view of morality (as limited to the duty not to harm others) meshes nicely with common views about charity. But it turns out to be unacceptable when we consider a broader range of cases, as Singer brings out with his famous Drowning Child thought experiment.

The Drowning Child

Singer writes:

If I am walking past a shallow pond and see a child drowning in it, I ought to wade in and pull the child out. This will mean getting my clothes muddy, but this is insignificant, while the death of the child would presumably be a very bad thing. 11

In a case like this, when you can easily prevent something very bad (like a child’s death), it seems clear that doing so is not only morally praiseworthy, but morally required . That remains true even if saving the child comes at a cost to yourself, as long as the cost is insignificant in comparison to the value of the child’s life. Since the cost of ruining your clothes (even an expensive suit that costs several thousand dollars to replace) is insignificant compared to the child’s life, you ought to wade into the pond to save the child.

What does the minimal “do no harm” view of morality imply about the right way to act in the thought experiment? Well, it’s not your fault that the child is drowning; you did not push them in. If you were to walk by and let the child drown, you would not be causing any additional harm—they would be just as badly off if you were not there in the first place. So the minimal view implies that it would be morally fine for you to just walk by (or even sit and eat some popcorn while watching the child drown). But that strikes most people as obscenely immoral. So the minimalist’s response to Singer’s rescue principle fails.

If applied consistently, Singer’s principle has radical implications in the real world. He writes:

We are all in that situation of the person passing the shallow pond: we can all save lives of people, both children and adults, who would otherwise die, and we can do so at a very small cost to us: the cost of a new… shirt or a night out at a restaurant or concert, can mean the difference between life and death to more than one person somewhere in the world. 12

If you accept that saving the drowning child is morally required, even at the cost of ruining your expensive suit, then morality may equally require you to donate an equivalent amount of money to save a child’s life via other means. And you can save a child’s life, just by donating a few thousand dollars to GiveWell’s top charities . (Or you can save a quality-adjusted life year by donating $100 or so.) If you would not think it okay to let a child drown when you have the ability to prevent it, moral consistency requires that you likewise refuse to let children die unnecessarily from poverty or preventable disease.

Aside from helping to address objections to Singer’s rescue principle, the Drowning Child thought experiment clarifies which of our interests are sufficiently “insignificant” that we may be called to sacrifice them to prevent grave harm to others. For example, someone might initially think that wearing designer clothes is a vital part of their identity, but if pressed on whether they would sooner watch a child drown than give up this expensive lifestyle, they might change their mind. 13

Not everyone accepts Singer’s radical conclusion about our moral obligations to donate to those in need. Yet, Singer’s conclusion is difficult to avoid since the standard objections no longer seem plausible when applied to corresponding variations of the pond case. 14 For example:

(1) You may believe charitable donations are uncertain to help. Would that remove the moral requirement to donate? But suppose you are similarly uncertain about whether the child in the pond is truly drowning (maybe they are just playing a game). Even so, mere uncertainty does not justify doing nothing. So long as the chance that your actions would help is sufficiently high (relative to the costs or any associated risks from attempting aid), you may still be required to wade in and offer assistance, just in case. Similarly, uncertainty about the impacts of your donations does not justify keeping the money to yourself, as long as the expected value of your donations is sufficiently high (relative to the costs).

(2) What if other , wealthier people could give more instead? Surely, they are under an even greater moral obligation to give, since doing so is less of a sacrifice for them. But suppose that other people stand around the pond, watching the child drown but refusing to help. They ought to help, so ideally your help would not be needed. But given that they are not helping, so your help is needed, it sure seems like it would still be wrong for you to do nothing and let the child drown. Likewise, it would be wrong not to save others’ lives by donating, even if there are more affluent people who could help but refuse to do so. (The bystander effect suggests that waiting for others to help first could easily result in no-one helping at all.)

(3) What about geographical proximity as a factor? Does it make a moral difference that the drowning child is right in front of you whereas the beneficiaries of your donations are far away ? Imagine that the pond with the drowning child was actually located far away from you, say, in another country, and you could rescue the child’s life by simply pressing a button. Surely, you would be required to press the button, even if you had to pay some money to do so. What matters morally is your ability to prevent the child from dying at a low cost to yourself, so that is what you should do—regardless of how far away the child is. Many moral theories (including utilitarianism) explicitly deny that geographical proximity is inherently morally relevant . 15

(4) Or, perhaps you think it’s enough to do your “fair share”: to just give as much as would be needed if everyone else did the same (perhaps 5% of one’s income). But suppose that after saving one child from drowning, you notice three other drowning children. Two bystanders are just watching the children drown, though you are relieved that one other adult is on track to save two of the remaining three children. Would it be okay to watch the last child drown on the grounds that you have already done the “share” (saving one out of four) that would have sufficed if everyone had done likewise? Or should you step up and do the share that is required to actually save all the children given what others are—and are not—doing?

It is unfair when some do not do their share. It’s unfairly demanding on us to have to do more than our ideal share would have been. But it would be even more unfair on the child to just let them drown. Losing their life would be a far greater burden than the extra cost to us of helping more. So, while some unfairness is inevitable when some do not do their share, concern to minimize unfairness should still lead us to step up and do more when needed.

None of these responses seems successful in establishing a morally important difference between the Drowning Child thought experiment and charitable giving. But considerations of salience, repeatability, or emergency may prove more significant. We address these in the next three sections.

Although geographical distance by itself does not seem to make a moral difference, it may make a psychological difference to us by affecting the salience of the different needs at stake. The visible suffering of a child right before our eyes has a very different emotional impact than merely abstract knowledge of distant suffering. This difference in emotional impact plausibly explains why most of us would be so much more strongly motivated to save the drowning child than to relieve distant suffering by donating to charity. But what is the moral significance of this difference in psychological salience?

Plausibly, greater salience can help bring to our attention genuine reasons to act that are there regardless, but that we might otherwise mistakenly neglect. After all, it’s not as though a suffering child suddenly becomes objectively more important once they enter our visual field. But we certainly become more aware of them (and how vital it is to help them). If this is right, it seems there is just as much moral reason to help those in need who are far away; we just tend not to notice this so much, and so we (understandably) make the moral mistake of failing to do as much as is objectively warranted in order to aid them. 16

On this analysis, the difference in salience does not affect the strength of our moral reasons—it’s just as important to save a distant child as it is to save one right before our eyes. But it does make an important difference to how we should evaluate the failure to act. Intuitively, failing to save the child from drowning would be morally monstrous , whereas failing to donate does not reflect so badly on you, even if it’s a serious moral mistake. We can explain this difference in terms of one’s quality of will . One is blameworthy to the extent that one acts from malicious motivations, or acts in a way that reveals an egregious lack of concern for others. To neglect more salient suffering reveals a greater lack of altruistic concern, even holding fixed the magnitude of the suffering in each case. So it is more blameworthy. As Chappell & Yetter-Chappell put it: “A child drowning before our eyes shocks us out of complacency, activating whatever altruistic concern we may have, whereas the constant suffering of the global poor is easier to ignore, meaning that inaction does not necessarily imply [such] an egregious lack of concern.” 17

We can thus accommodate the intuition that failing to donate to effective charities is not as blameworthy as watching a child drown (since only the latter reveals an extreme lack of altruistic concern), without this providing any reason to deny that aid in either case may be equally morally important .

Repeatability

A notable difference between the two cases is that it’s very rare to come across drowning children, whereas the needs of the global poor are constant and unrelenting. The significance of this fact is that a policy of helping those nearby in need of direct rescue would not be expected to prove especially costly. But a policy of helping anyone in the world in desperate need of aid would soon take over your life. A better analogy would then seem to be a limitless line of ponds containing drowning children. And when we consider such a case, it may no longer seem so wrong to at least sometimes take a break, and thereby let a child drown. 18

Of course, to save as many lives as possible over the long term, it would likely be optimal to take strategic breaks for self-care. At a minimum, you need to eat and sleep. But you may also save more lives in the long run if you take care to avoid burnout, taking extra breaks to spend time with friends and pursue hobbies that help you to de-stress. If so, taking such strategic breaks is morally justified by Singer’s principles. (There is no virtue in being counter-productively self-sacrificial in one’s altruism.) So this is not yet a counterexample to Singer’s view.

Still, this optimal route is highly demanding since it involves significant personal sacrifice. Suppose that in order to save the most lives you had to forsake your plans to become a parent, and cut down time spent with friends and hobbies to the bare minimum required to maintain your sanity and productivity. That is a big ask, and one that involves the loss of many morally significant goods in life. If Singer’s principle required us to pursue this optimal route, it might not seem so plausible after all.

But does it require this? Unlike maximizing utilitarianism , P4 only asks us to give up things that are not morally significant. Since the above sacrifices are clearly morally significant, it seems that they would be excluded from the list of P4’s possible demands. 19

One difficulty is that it’s not immediately clear how to apply the rescue principle to cases of repeated actions. Consider: giving up any one second of life might seem trivial. But repeated enough times, you would eventually give up your entire life , which is certainly significant. This suggests that repeatedly making an insignificant sacrifice might add up to an extremely significant sacrifice. To apply the rescue principle sensibly, then, it’s not enough to ask whether the immediate sacrifice in isolation is morally significant. We must further ask whether it’s part of a pattern that, in context, adds up to a morally significant sacrifice. If interpreted in this way, Singer’s rescue principle would seem to allow broad leeway for reserving substantial time and resources to pursue the personal projects that are most important to us. 20

Still, the conclusion of Singer’s argument remains strikingly revisionary. Even if we may reserve the majority of our spare time and resources for personal projects, we are still required to do much more for others than almost any of us actually do. Even when we need not entirely give up some expensive (or time-intensive) pastime, we may be morally required to economize—if by doing so we could (perhaps over several years) save many lives without significant lifetime loss to our own well-being . Many hobbies plausibly exhibit diminishing marginal utility: the more time and money we plow into them, the less additional value we gain from further investment. In such cases, we may be able to cut our personal investment by, say, half while still retaining most of the well-being we gain from the hobby. And of course many of us also spend time and money on entirely frivolous things that, on reflection, do not significantly contribute to our lives at all. If we reflect carefully and honestly, most of us would likely find significant opportunities to do more to help others, without needing to sacrifice anything truly important. If Singer’s rescue principle is right—and it seems hard to deny—then we really ought to pursue these opportunities.

Emergencies

The last major challenge to Singer’s argument comes from the idea that special ethical norms apply in emergency cases that cannot be broadly generalized. The drowning child scenario is a paradigmatic emergency. So perhaps common sense could be restored by combining a minimal view of our everyday obligations with ambitious positive obligations to assist in cases of emergency?

The difficulty for this view is to provide it with a principled basis. Why should emergency deaths be treated as inherently more important than equally preventable deaths from ongoing causes?

Sterri and Moen propose to explain this in terms of an “informal-insurance model”. 21 Their basic idea is that emergency ethics can be understood as a mutually-beneficial agreement among all in the moral community to informally insure each other against rare, unexpected risks of grave harm. That is, we undertake to help others in emergency situations, on the understanding that they would do the same for us. Since emergencies are rare, the comfortably-off can agree to participate in such a scheme without expecting to be bled dry by all the world’s needs. And since emergency situations can befall anyone, it’s in their enlightened self-interest to do so. We are all better off informally insuring each other against disaster in this way, than if we all were left to fend for ourselves.

This line of argument faces two significant problems, common to efforts to ground ethics in enlightened self-interest. Firstly, the underlying logic of mutual benefit excludes from the moral community not just the global poor but also others (including infants, non-human animals, future generations, and the severely disabled) who are not in a position to reciprocate. But surely you still ought to rescue a drowning paraplegic, for example, even if he could not do the same for you.

The second problem is that even when the informal insurance model gets the right result (requiring that you help), it does so for the wrong reasons. It implies that you should help for the sake of playing your part in a co-operative scheme of mutual benefit , which does not seem remotely the right reason to save a child from drowning.

To see this, imagine extending the logic of the informal insurance model to a society that includes water-phobic robots who just want to collect paperclips but occasionally drop them in puddles. In order to secure the assistance of the robots in helping to free us from getting our feet caught on railroad tracks (or other non-water-related emergencies), we might reciprocate by rescuing their lost paperclips from puddles. If the informal insurance account of emergency ethics were correct, then your moral reason to save a drowning child would be of exactly the same kind as your reason to “save” a paperclip from a puddle in the imagined scenario. But this is clearly wrong. We have moral reasons to save lives and avert great harms for the sake of the affected individuals. These moral reasons are distinct from (and more important than) our reasons to participate in mutual-benefit schemes.

Singer identifies a logical tension in our ordinary moral thought. We tend not to think much about our power to prevent great suffering (and even save lives). Even when this fact is brought to our attention, we tend to assume that it’s morally okay for us not to act on it, or to do very little. Helping would be generous, we think, but not required.

However, Singer’s rescue principle seems undeniable: if we can easily prevent something very bad—that is, without giving up anything morally significant—it sure seems that we ought to do so. And the Drowning Child scenario verifies this principle: we would not think it okay to just watch a child drown when you could easily save them at no risk to yourself. Differences in salience may explain why we find it easier to ignore more distant suffering; but it would also seem to suggest that we are morally mistaken to do so.

Considering repeatability means that we need to take our overall patterns of response into account: sacrifices that are small in isolation may add up to extreme sacrifices that are more than Singer’s principle would require. But even so, there are likely to be many changes we could make to our lives in order to help others more, without overall causing any significant loss to our own well-being. If Singer is right, we are morally required to make these changes. It’s no less important than saving a child who is drowning right before our eyes.

Discussion Questions

• Many effective altruists now believe that you can do more good through pursuing a high-impact career than by donating (even generously) while working at a less impactful job. How does that affect your view of Singer’s argument? Could you be morally required to consider a career change? Should someone in a high-impact career be expected to donate to charity in addition?
• This study guide focuses on the more moderate version of Singer’s rescue principle. But he also defends a stronger version, according to which we are morally required to prevent bad things from happening whenever we can do so without sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance. How much difference do you see between these two versions of the principle? Do you think the stronger principle is correct?
• What would a scalar utilitarian think of Singer’s principles? If there is no such thing as obligation, just better and worse actions, how would that affect Singer’s argument? Would saving lives become any less important or worthwhile if it was no longer “obligatory” in addition? What do you think is added by saying that an act is (not only good but also) “obligatory”?
• Imagine that you are going to donate money to an effective charity—enough to save two lives. But along the way, you see a child drowning in a pond. There is no time to set aside the cash in your pockets: if you jump in, the money will be destroyed, so you will be unable to make the donation after all. Should you still save the drowning child? Why / why not?
• We tend to just think about the money or resources that people already have. But suppose that you could easily earn more , say by working overtime (or shifting to a more lucrative job). Might it be wrong not to earn more money (in order to then donate more)? How would you apply Singer’s principles to this case?
• Would it be wrong for you to tell them about Singer’s argument?
• If so, would that mean that Singer’s conclusion is false , and they are not obliged to donate more after all? Or could a moral claim be true even if it was not always a good idea to tell people about it?

Your professor will explain their general expectations, or what they are looking for in a good philosophy paper. You can find other helpful general guidelines online . If writing on Singer’s ‘Famine, Affluence, and Morality’ in particular, you should take care to avoid the following common pitfalls:

• Do not get hung up on empirical disputes, such as those surrounding aid skepticism. The interesting philosophical question is whether Singer’s moral principles are correct. So just suppose we are in a position where we could help others. The fundamental philosophical question here is: How much could morality, in principle, require us to give up in order to help others? Aid skepticism does not answer this question, but merely dodges it. (Further, as MacAskill emphasizes: “There are thousands of pressing problems that call out for our attention and that we could make significant inroads on with our resources.” Global health charities are far from the only way that our money could be productively used to help others.)
• Do not get distracted by the sociological question of whether we could hope to convince most of society to act on Singer’s recommendations. The question is what we, as individuals, ought to do . It’s not about what we can convince others of. That would, again, be to dodge the fundamental moral question.
• Although Singer is a utilitarian, his argument in this paper does not rely on utilitarianism as a premise. Look again at the premises. These are all claims that even non-utilitarians could (and arguably should) accept. Alternatively, if you think that non-utilitarians ought to reject one or more of these premises, your essay should offer an argument to this effect.
• If you are having trouble coming up with an original “take” on the argument, it can often be helpful to read published responses until you find one that you disagree with. (You might start with our suggestions for further reading, below.) You can then write about why you disagree, diagnosing where you think the other author’s argument or objection goes wrong. Or, if you disagree with Singer’s original argument, you could explain why, while also showing how you think others’ defenses of his argument (as found, for example, in this very study guide) go wrong.

Good luck! And remember to cite your sources.

How to Cite This Page

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Resources and Further Reading

• Peter Singer (1972). Famine, Affluence, and Morality . Philosophy and Public Affairs , 1(3): 229–243.
• Peter Singer (2019). The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty , 2nd ed. The Life You Can Save, Bainbridge Island, WA and Sydney, available free at <www.thelifeyoucansave.org>.
• Richard Y. Chappell & Helen Yetter-Chappell (2016). Virtue and Salience . Australasian Journal of Philosophy , 94(3): 449–463.
• Andrew T. Forcehimes & Luke Semrau (2019). Beneficence: Does Agglomeration Matter? Journal of Applied Philosophy 36 (1): 17-33.
• Frances Kamm (1999). Famine Ethics: The Problem of Distance in Morality and Singer’s Ethical Theory, in Singer and His Critics , ed. Dale Jamieson, Oxford: Blackwell: 174–203.
• William MacAskill (2019). Aid Scepticism and Effective Altruism . Journal of Practical Ethics , 7(1): 49–60.
• Richard Miller (2004). Beneficence, Duty and Distance . Philosophy and Public Affairs , 32(4): 357–383.
• Theron Pummer (2023). The Rules of Rescue: Cost, Distance, and Effective Altruism . Oxford University Press.
• William Sin (2010). Trivial Sacrifices, Great Demands . Journal of Moral Philosophy 7 (1): 3-15.
• Michael Slote (2007). Famine, Affluence, and Virtue, in Working Virtue: Virtue Ethics and Contemporary Moral Problems , ed. Rebecca L. Walker and Philip J. Ivanhoe, Oxford: Clarendon Press: 279–296.
• Aksel Braanen Sterri & Ole Martin Moen (2021). The ethics of emergencies . Philosophical Studies, 178 (8): 2621–2634.
• Jordan Arthur Thomson (2021). Relief from Rescue . Philosophical Studies 179 (4): 1221-1239.
• Travis Timmerman (2015). Sometimes there is nothing wrong with letting a child drown . Analysis , 75(2): 204–212.
• Peter Unger (1996). Living High and Letting Die: Our Illusion of Innocence . Oxford University Press.

Singer, P. (1972). Famine, Affluence, and Morality . Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (3): 229-243.  ↩︎

See also Unger, P. (1996). Living High and Letting Die: Our Illusion of Innocence . Oxford University Press.  ↩︎

P1 and P4 are quoted (with minor edits for clarity) from p. 231 of the text. P2, P3, and C are our own extrapolations.  ↩︎

Singer advocates a stricter version of the rescue principle, where we are required to sacrifice even some genuinely morally significant things, so long as they are not comparably significant to the harms thereby prevented. We focus here on the less demanding version of the rescue principle since (as Singer notes) it’s sufficient for practical purposes, while being more difficult to reject. But the stronger version is also plausible, and is entailed by utilitarianism (while also being compatible with other moral theories).  ↩︎

Note that this conclusion leaves open that there may be some third option that you ought to do that is even better than donating to effective charities. It’s just making the contrastive normative claim that, between the two specified options , you ought to donate rather than make morally insignificant consumer purchases.  ↩︎

Unless, again, there is some other option that would do even more good, in which case we may be required to do that instead!  ↩︎

The career-focused version of Singer’s argument might look like this (with P1 unchanged):

P2*: We can prevent suffering and death by working in an impactful job rather than spending our time on a career that does not help others.

P3*: We can work in an impactful job without significant uncompensated sacrifice.

P4*: If it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without significant uncompensated sacrifice, we ought, morally, to do it.

C*: We ought, morally, to work in an impactful job rather than spend our time on a career that does not help others.

Note that P3 and P4 are worded in terms of significant uncompensated sacrifice, because one’s career choice is a major life decision that is likely to involve significant tradeoffs. If one passes up becoming an artist (say), there may be something morally significant about that loss, even if one is overall happier with an alternate career. If you receive benefits commensurate with what you sacrificed, we can say that your sacrifice was compensated and so not costly to you, all things considered.  ↩︎

Someone sufficiently desperate to escape the argument might reject the first premise by claiming that overpopulation is such a problem that we should not seek to save lives after all (because lives saved add to overpopulation, thus increasing overall suffering). But there are a number of reasons why this is badly misguided. First, this claim is a myth: empirically, saving lives in poor countries does not lead to overpopulation. See: Melinda Gates (2014). Saving Lives Does Not Lead to Overpopulation . The Breakthrough Institute ; Hans Rosling. Will saving poor children lead to overpopulation? Gapminder Foundation .

Second, someone who really believed this claim would also need to advocate for shutting down hospitals, letting serial killers go free, etc. Few would be willing to consistently hold the view that there is no point to saving innocent lives. Letting people die unnecessarily seems an atrocious way to attempt to counteract overpopulation.

Third, there are obviously better alternatives, such as empowering women in ways that predictably lower birth rates. Examples of this include global family planning charities or girls’ education. See Singer, P. (1972). Famine, Affluence, and Morality . Philosophy and Public Affairs , 1(3): 229–243, p. 240.

Finally, note that it’s increasingly disputed whether we should be more concerned about overpopulation or underpopulation; and that none of these concerns touch on the importance of reducing suffering, which increases the quality rather than quantity of life.  ↩︎

Though, as we’ll see below, the drowning child scenario might help to illuminate the boundaries of morality’s demands here.  ↩︎

Or, even more minimally, to simply not violate anyone’s rights . Either way, philosophers call this a negative duty—a duty to not do a certain action—in contrast to positive duties to do a certain action.  ↩︎

Singer, P. (1972). Famine, Affluence, and Morality . Philosophy and Public Affairs , 1(3): 229–243, p. 231.  ↩︎

Singer, P. (1997). The Drowning Child and the Expanding Circle . New Internationalist . ( archive )  ↩︎

Of course, the relevant question is not the psychological one of what someone would be willing to choose, but the moral one of what choice is truly justifiable. But it’s often by thinking through such a choice from the inside that we form our moral beliefs about which choices are morally permissible.  ↩︎

See also Chapter 3: Common Objections to Giving, in Singer, P. (2019). The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty , 2nd ed. The Life You Can Save, Bainbridge Island, WA and Sydney, available free at <www.thelifeyoucansave.org>.  ↩︎

Though for a competing view, see Kamm, F.M. (1999). Famine Ethics: The Problem of Distance in Morality and Singer’s Ethical Theory, in Singer and His Critics , ed. Dale Jamieson. Oxford: Blackwell: 174–203.  ↩︎

Though for a competing view, which takes normal empathetic responses to determine what is right, see Slote, M. (2007). Famine, Affluence, and Virtue, in Working Virtue: Virtue Ethics and Contemporary Moral Problems , ed. Rebecca L. Walker and Philip J. Ivanhoe, Oxford: Clarendon Press: 279–296.  ↩︎

Chappell, R.Y. & Yetter-Chappell, H. (2016). Virtue and Salience . Australasian Journal of Philosophy , 94(3): 449–463, p.453.  ↩︎

Timmerman, T. (2015). Sometimes there is nothing wrong with letting a child drown . Analysis , 75(2): 204–212.  ↩︎

Notably, Singer’s stricter comparable sacrifice principle might require those sacrifices, if none of the personal losses were comparable in significance to the extra lives saved. Singer himself endorses the utilitarian thought that we ought (in principle) to give to the point of marginal utility , where the cost to us of giving any more would equal or outweigh the gain to others. But non-utilitarians might, of course, take a different view of what counts as being of comparable moral significance. And the weaker rescue principle (P4) that our main text focuses on is certainly less demanding.  ↩︎

This interpretation brings Singer’s rescue principle much closer to Miller’s Principle of Sympathy , according to which: “One’s underlying disposition to respond to neediness as such ought to be sufficiently demanding that giving which would express greater underlying concern would impose a significant risk of worsening one’s life, if one fulfilled all further responsibilities; and it need not be any more demanding than this.”

Miller, R. (2004). Beneficence, Duty and Distance . Philosophy and Public Affairs , 32(4): 357–383, p.359.  ↩︎

Sterri, A.B. & Moen, O.M. (2021). The ethics of emergencies . Philosophical Studies, 178 (8): 2621–2634.  ↩︎

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4.1: Utilitarianism- Pros and Cons (B.M. Wooldridge)

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Consequentialism is a general moral theory that tells us that, in any given situation, we should perform those actions that lead to better overall consequences. There are generally two branches of Consequentialism: Hedonism, which tells us that the consequences we should pursue should be ‘pleasurable’ consequences, and Utilitarianism, which tells us that the consequences we should pursue should be ‘happy’ consequences. The focus of this paper will be on Utilitarianism, as this is undoubtedly the most popular form of consequentialist theories. John Stuart Mill, one of the foremost Utilitarian moral theorists, sums up Utilitarianism as follows: “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.”

Any account of Utilitarianism will have two central tenets. First, Utilitarians are focused on states of affairs, which means that Utilitarianism is concerned with the result, or consequences, of one’s actions, and disregards other features like one’s motives or reasons for acting. One might have good motives or reasons for performing a certain action, but an action is only considered morally good for a Utilitarian if it maximizes the consequences, or happiness, of a given situation. Secondly, Utilitarians emphasize that agents are to be neutral in making their decisions. What this means is that under Utilitarianism, everyone counts for the same, and nobody counts for more than anybody else. Friends, family members, significant others, and anyone else important to you counts just the same as a complete stranger when making a moral decision.

On the face of it, this seems like a sensible moral theory. Like any other theory, Utilitarianism has its advantages and disadvantages. In this paper, I will argue that the disadvantages of Utilitarianism far outweigh the advantages. More specifically, I will argue that, despite its initial appeal, there are serious problems with Utilitarianism that render it a problematic moral theory. In what follows, I will consider a thought experiment from Bernard Williams to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of Utilitarianism, followed by a discussion of why Utilitarianism is a problematic moral theory.

To begin, consider the case of George. George has recently completed his PhD in Chemistry, and, like any other PhD candidate, finds it extremely difficult to land a job after completing his degree. George has a family, and his wife works hard to support them. While she is supportive of George, his difficulty finding a job puts a serious strain on their relationship. An older chemist who knows George tells George that he can get him a job in a laboratory. The laboratory pursues research into chemical and biological warfare. George, however, is opposed to chemical and biological warfare, and he therefore cannot accept the job. However, if George refuses the job, it will go to a colleague of George’s who does not have any reservations about chemical and biological warfare. Indeed, if this colleague takes the job, he will pursue the research with great zeal. For what it’s worth, George’s wife is not against chemical and biological warfare. Should George take the job?

It seems that a Utilitarian would inform us that George should take the job, for doing so will lead to better overall consequences than turning down the job. In taking the job, George will not perform the research with great enthusiasm. Williams is not clear on whether George will actively sabotage the research, but it can be reasonably assumed that if George takes the job, he will perform his duties in such a way that will minimize the impact that chemical and biological research will have on developing weapons for war. While George will not directly be saving anyone, his work will indirectly lead to the saving of thousands of lives. Indeed, simply taking the job will ensure that someone who has great enthusiasm for chemical and biological warfare does not get the job. So even if George does not directly or indirectly save anyone while performing his duties, he will already have maximized the consequences by preventing someone who would do great harm from getting the job.

This thought experiment is useful in considering the strengths and weaknesses of Utilitarianism. Let us first begin with the strengths of the theory. Perhaps the biggest strength of Utilitarianism is that it is, at least prima facie, easier to reach a conclusion under this theory than other theories. That is, Utilitarianism provides us with a clear path for determining which action in a given situation will be the correct one: it is that action that will increase utility. This is in contrast to other moral theories, such as Deontology, which do not always provide a clear answer. Deontology, for example, focuses on the motives or reasons one has for acting, and it can be difficult sometimes to ascertain what one’s motives and/or reasons are. Even if one explicitly outlines their motives or reasons, it is not always the case that this is truthful. The consequences of an action, however, do provide us with a clear criterion for what counts as a morally good action. If one’s action leads to good, or happy, consequences, then that action is morally permissible. Thus, Utilitarianism is a theory that can easily help us reach decisions.

Relating this to the case of George, George’s actions can be judged on whether they will lead to better consequences. In this case, his action will lead to good consequences, albeit indirectly. In accepting the job, George prevents someone else who might indirectly harm others by promoting chemical and biological warfare from getting the job. Consider, for a moment, if we judged this action not on the consequences, but rather on the reasons or motives for acting. Suppose George accepts the job because he is motivated to end chemical and biological warfare, or that his reason for taking the job is to help support his family. While these reasons might be noble ones, we cannot be clear on whether these are actually the motives/reasons that George has. Motives and reasons, in other words, are not as clearly accessible as the consequences of an action.

Another strength of Utilitarianism is its emphasis on neutrality. When making a decision, one is to take a ‘God’s eye’ view of things, and consider everyone equally. This emphasis on neutrality makes Utilitarianism an impartial moral theory, meaning it considers everyone’s status and interests as equal. Relating this to the case of George, we see that George needs to assess the situation from a neutral perspective. He should not favour his or his family’s interests as opposed to the interests of others who might be impacted by chemical and biological warfare. Even if his wife and family were against chemical and biological warfare, and even considering that George himself is against chemical and biological warfare, he needs to put these interests and considerations aside and make the decision that is best for everyone involved.

While Utilitarianism does have its strengths as a theory, it also has some very serious weaknesses, and in the remainder of this paper I will outline of these weaknesses and argue why I think they make Utilitarianism a problematic moral theory.

We can begin by considering the point about neutrality. While Utilitarians will count this as a strength of their theory, it can also be considered a weakness of the theory. In considering everyone equally, Utilitarianism devalues the importance of personal relationships. In some cases, following Utilitarianism will force us to disregard those who are close to us. Suppose, for instance, that George’s wife and children, like George, were also against chemical and biological warfare. Utilitarianism will tell us that George should disregard their interests and feelings and perform that action that will increase the consequences. But this seems to be impersonal. The interests, feelings, and desires of George’s family should matter more than the interests, feelings, and desires of complete strangers, simply because these people are closer to George. Each of us has special relations to individuals that we work hard to develop, and that, in many cases, help us become better people. To disregard the interests, feelings, and desires of these individuals seems to be wrong.

I should also point out here that while Utilitarians will consider everyone equally, this does not mean that they will treat everyone equally. Consider another example from Williams. Suppose that there is a racial minority in a society. This minority does not harm anyone else in the society, nor does it do anything particularly good either. However, the other citizens, who make up the majority, have prejudices against this minority, and consider its presence very disagreeable, and proposals are put forward to remove this minority. Williams is not clear on what would be involved in ‘removing’ the minority. The removal of the minority need not involve murder, although it could. It might involve, for example, removing them from society by forcing them to leave the society.

It seems that a Utilitarian would be forced to accept that eliminating this minority would increase the happiness for the majority of people, and would therefore be a moral action. But this seems wrong, mainly because removing the minority from society would involve what many people take to be morally evil actions, which is another problem with Utilitarianism. In some cases, Utilitarianism might sanction morally evil actions in order to achieve morally desirable consequences. Removing the minority might involve genocide or mass deportations, both of which seem morally problematic. Killing people simply because they are of a certain race or ethnicity, and/or removing them from a society without just cause, are severe moral violations that any reasonable person could not sanction. The idea here is this: sometimes, in working to achieve the greatest overall consequences, individuals will be forced to do bad things, and these bad things, even if they increase happiness, are still bad. And it is a failing of Utilitarianism that it does not recognize the moral value of labeling these as morally bad actions.

At this point a Utilitarian will surely have something to say. A Utilitarian might respond to the above points as follows. All of the critiques I have offered are focused only on the short-term consequences, and not the long-term consequences. When we focus on the long-term consequences of the above cases, the Utilitarian answer will change. For example, if George takes the job, this might lead to good consequences in the immediate future. But in the long run, it might lead to bad consequences. It might, for example, cause a serious strain on his marriage, and make George unhappy, which will in turn affect his relationships with others. In the racial minority case, while removing the minority might lead to better consequences in the short term, it will lead to worse consequences in the long term. It will, for example, weaken the trust among members of a community, and destabilize the social relations of individuals within that community. In response to this, a Utilitarian might adopt a rule, the general following of which will lead to better long-term consequences. In so doing, a Utilitarian switches the focus from a version of Utilitarianism that is focused on acts, to one that is focused on rules.

This response from a Utilitarian fails, in that it invites more questions than what it does answers. Mainly, just how far into the future should we look when considering the consequences of our actions? Utilitarians do not provide a clear answer to this question. Saying that we should focus on the long-term consequences of an action when the implications of the short-term consequences are troubling seems to be problematic. And, moreover, should we really follow a rule when, in the moment, we can perform an act that will increase the happiness of others? Adopting rule-utilitarianism as a way to respond to these objections seems not only ad-hoc, but also inconsistent with the Utilitarian maxim of increasing the consequences.

Overall, the theory of Utilitarianism, while perhaps initially appealing, seems to have some serious flaws. While the theory of Utilitarianism might help us more easily reach moral conclusions than what other theories do, and while it emphasizes the neutrality of moral agents, it does nonetheless have a tendency to alienate us from those we are closest to, and might require us to perform actions that, under other moral theories, are considered morally problematic. It is for these reasons that Utilitarianism is a problematic moral theory.

• Calculating Consequences: The Utilitarian Approach
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Calculating Consequences:The Utilitarian Approach to Ethics

Imagine that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency gets wind of a plot to set off a dirty bomb in a major American city. Agents capture a suspect who, they believe, has information about where the bomb is planted. Is it permissible for them to torture the suspect into revealing the bomb's whereabouts? Can the dignity of one individual be violated in order to save many others?

Greatest Balance of Goods Over Harms If you answered yes, you were probably using a form of moral reasoning called "utilitarianism." Stripped down to its essentials, utilitarianism is a moral principle that holds that the morally right course of action in any situation is the one that produces the greatest balance of benefits over harms for everyone affected. So long as a course of action produces maximum benefits for everyone, utilitarianism does not care whether the benefits are produced by lies, manipulation, or coercion.

Many of us use this type of moral reasoning frequently in our daily decisions. When asked to explain why we feel we have a moral duty to perform some action, we often point to the good that will come from the action or the harm it will prevent. Business analysts, legislators, and scientists weigh daily the resulting benefits and harms of policies when deciding, for example, whether to invest resources in a certain public project, whether to approve a new drug, or whether to ban a certain pesticide.

Utilitarianism offers a relatively straightforward method for deciding the morally right course of action for any particular situation we may find ourselves in. To discover what we ought to do in any situation, we first identify the various courses of action that we could perform. Second, we determine all of the foreseeable benefits and harms that would result from each course of action for everyone affected by the action. And third, we choose the course of action that provides the greatest benefits after the costs have been taken into account.

The principle of utilitarianism can be traced to the writings of Jeremy Bentham, who lived in England during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Bentham, a legal reformer, sought an objective basis that would provide a publicly acceptable norm for determining what kinds of laws England should enact. He believed that the most promising way of reaching such an agreement was to choose that policy that would bring about the greatest net benefits to society once the harms had been taken into account. His motto, a familiar one now, was "the greatest good for the greatest number."

Over the years, the principle of utilitarianism has been expanded and refined so that today there are many variations of the principle. For example, Bentham defined benefits and harms in terms of pleasure and pain. John Stuart Mill, a great 19th century utilitarian figure, spoke of benefits and harms not in terms of pleasure and pain alone but in terms of the quality or intensity of such pleasure and pain. Today utilitarians often describe benefits and harms in terms of the satisfaction of personal preferences or in purely economic terms of monetary benefits over monetary costs.

Utilitarians also differ in their views about the kind of question we ought to ask ourselves when making an ethical decision. Some utilitarians maintain that in making an ethical decision, we must ask ourselves: "What effect will my doing this act in this situation have on the general balance of good over evil?" If lying would produce the best consequences in a particular situation, we ought to lie. Others, known as rule utilitarians, claim that we must choose that act that conforms to the general rule that would have the best consequences. In other words, we must ask ourselves: "What effect would everyone's doing this kind of action have on the general balance of good over evil?" So, for example, the rule "to always tell the truth" in general promotes the good of everyone and therefore should always be followed, even if in a certain situation lying would produce the best consequences. Despite such differences among utilitarians, however, most hold to the general principle that morality must depend on balancing the beneficial and harmful consequences of our conduct.

Problems With Utilitarianism While utilitarianism is currently a very popular ethical theory, there are some difficulties in relying on it as a sole method for moral decision-making. First, the utilitarian calculation requires that we assign values to the benefits and harms resulting from our actions and compare them with the benefits and harms that might result from other actions. But it's often difficult, if not impossible, to measure and compare the values of certain benefits and costs. How do we go about assigning a value to life or to art? And how do we go about comparing the value of money with, for example, the value of life, the value of time, or the value of human dignity? Moreover, can we ever be really certain about all of the consequences of our actions? Our ability to measure and to predict the benefits and harms resulting from a course of action or a moral rule is dubious, to say the least.

Perhaps the greatest difficulty with utilitarianism is that it fails to take into account considerations of justice. We can imagine instances where a certain course of action would produce great benefits for society, but they would be clearly unjust. During the apartheid regime in South Africa in the last century, South African whites, for example, sometimes claimed that all South Africans—including blacks—were better off under white rule. These whites claimed that in those African nations that have traded a whites-only government for a black or mixed one, social conditions have rapidly deteriorated. Civil wars, economic decline, famine, and unrest, they predicted, will be the result of allowing the black majority of South Africa to run the government. If such a prediction were true—and the end of apartheid has shown that the prediction was false—then the white government of South Africa would have been morally justified by utilitarianism, in spite of its injustice.

If our moral decisions are to take into account considerations of justice, then apparently utilitarianism cannot be the sole principle guiding our decisions. It can, however, play a role in these decisions. The principle of utilitarianism invites us to consider the immediate and the less immediate consequences of our actions. Given its insistence on summing the benefits and harms of all people, utilitarianism asks us to look beyond self-interest to consider impartially the interests of all persons affected by our actions. As John Stuart Mill once wrote:

The happiness which forms the utilitarian standard of what is right in conduct, is not...(one's) own happiness, but that of all concerned. As between his own happiness and that of others, utilitarianism requires him to be as strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator.

In an era today that some have characterized as "the age of self-interest," utilitarianism is a powerful reminder that morality calls us to look beyond the self to the good of all.

The views expressed do not necessarily represent the position of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. We welcome your comments, suggestions, or alternative points of view.

This article appeared originally in Issues in Ethics V2 N1 (Winter 1989)

13 Advantages and Disadvantages of Utilitarianism Theory

Utilitarianism is a doctrine which suggests that actions are correct if they are useful or to the benefit of a majority of the population. Determining the morality or ethics of every decision relies upon the resulting outcome instead of any other factor involved. That means what is the definition of “the ends justifying the means” in any situation.

There are three fundamental principles that utilitarianism follows to create an ethical structure for society.

• Actions are right and only right if the consequences of them maximize whatever is good or anything that is “bad.” • The only thing that is good in society is happiness. • Actions are only correct if they can maximize pleasure for the majority of everyone.

When we look at this definition of utilitarianism, there are some assumptions that must be made. We must believe that happiness is good for an individual in the first place. There must also be a desire within the society to pursue what would be considered something that creates that reaction. By doing so, the idea is that suffering could be reduced because we are all working together to create a world that is mutually happy.

These are the critical utilitarianism pros and cons to review when looking at the definition of this theory.

List of the Pros of Utilitarianism

1. We get to focus on happiness as a society. The reason why utilitarianism is a popular theory is due to the fact that it puts happiness as the central reason for our existence. When we look at societies around the world today, it is clear that people are not experiencing this emotion. People tend to feel happier when they have access to more financial resources.

They also tend to experience this more often when there are fewer worries about future employment.

In a world where utilitarianism is the primary emphasis of each action, we could reduce unemployment rates and improve household incomes because we would be looking at the effects instead of the process for the results.

2. It teaches us that harming other people is wrong. Anyone can define a personal moral definition and then argue for it with the rest of their community. What utilitarianism teaches is that our definition of morality and ethics comes from a community-based perspective instead of an individual outlook. There may be choices that make us happy as an individual, but if it doesn’t help others, then this theory says that it is an incorrect choice. It shows us that harming others for the sake of our personal benefit is not a helpful approach.

3. Utilitarianism is an easy theory to implement. There is only one process to focus upon when implementing a society that functions from the foundation of utilitarianism: happiness. All we need to do to make this theory work is to get together in a majority group, and then work to determine what the positive or negative effects of each choice would be. This decision-making process is something that we all do from our first days of childhood. Incorporating it into group theory is the natural step forward.

4. It is a secular system that focuses on humanity. One of the most significant struggles humanity faces when looking at life from a societal perspective is our vision of spirituality. According to various estimates, there are roughly 4,200 different religions being practiced in our world right now. Trying to pin down what someone considers a spiritual belief and what another person would think to be a scientific fact can be challenging. When we place the focus of each moral decision based on happiness alone, then we eliminate the inconsistencies which occur when focusing on a supernatural deity from an individual perspective.

5. Utilitarianism seeks to create the highest good. Although in a perfect world, we would want to see everyone have equal happiness and opportunities, there is enough of a difference within our various sub-groups that can make this impossible to achieve. That’s why utilitarianism focuses on the majority as a group for happiness instead of everyone. When we are pursuing the ideas that bring a maximum level of joy into our lives, then we are limiting the potential for harm to occur in our families, communities, and overall culture.

6. It focuses on the democratic process for forward movement. In the typical democracy, the passage of legislation or the election of a representative occurs when there is a 50% plus one vote majority. We use this structure because it is seen as being the fairest solution to balance the differing interests that everyone has for their lives. All modern governing structures which feature democratic principles use this philosophy.

That means we are already using the principles of this theory to create happiness in our lives. Now we just need to take the next step forward to apply it outside of government.

7. We get to focus on an objective, universal solution. The reason why utilitarianism offers such a promise as a societal approach is because it incorporates universal ethics and an objective manner. We can accurately measure the positive and negative consequences of each action we decide to take as a group. It is a process which also allows us to create an independent way of determining what is right and wrong from a moral or ethical perspective. These principles apply across the board in all human societies.

List of the Cons of Utilitarianism

1. We do not consider any other element besides happiness. Utilitarianism only focuses on majority happiness as a way to determine ethics and morality. It is essential that we remember there are other items of value to consider when looking at the overall experience of what it means to be human.

Love is something which offers tremendous value, but it also can cause extraordinary heartbreak. We eat foods like kale because we know that it is a healthier choice then eating Twinkies every day even if we preferred to do the latter because it makes us feel better.

There are decisions that we make every day that look at a long-term perspective rather than how we feel in the moment. Utilitarianism has some benefits, but it also ignores a lot of our life experiences.

2. It creates an unrealistic perspective for society. Imagine the scenario: there are eight people right now who would benefit from having your organs. When looking at the principles of utilitarianism, the balance of happiness over harm supports the idea of putting you to death to improve the satisfaction of everyone else. Why?

Because you are not in that majority.

If there are eight other people and you to make nine, the chances are that everyone else will vote to save themselves as a group at the expense of your life. That is why the ends can never justify the means. It makes it too easy for the majority of people in a society to create harm using the balancing principle. The happiness of the minority must also come into consideration.

3. Utilitarianism can be unpredictable. When was the last time you were able to predict the future accurately? There are times when we can take an educated guess as to what is going to happen, but it is very rare to receive a premonition about a future event that actually comes true. That means it is incorrect to bass ethical choices about what may or may not happen tomorrow. We must focus on what happens now, in this moment, to determine what path we can pursue to create an improved society. If we are only looking at potential, then there is the possibility that we could achieve nothing.

4. It also relies on people making consistent decisions. If there is one thing that humans are good at doing, it is changing their mind. You cannot trust anyone to ask for the greater good if the majority decides to get rid of all of the other structures which support societal health and wellness. The average person will act selfishly whenever they are faced with a difficult decision, no matter what their upbringing or spirituality happens to be.

Why do people follow religions in the first place? The goal of “being saved” isn’t to initially help anyone else find some level of eternal salvation. It is to create a life insurance policy for an unpredictable future because that is what offers comfort to the soul. This process would happen immediately if society shifted to utilitarianism.

5. Utilitarianism relies on multiple definitions of happiness. Every person has a different definition of happiness. Although we can find common ground on specific things, it is virtually impossible to see two people with cloned perspectives about the world today. Humans are complex beings. What makes one person happy can make another individual feel bored or out of touch with their life. That means we are faced with two choices: we could either find common ground within our experiences to compromise on a definition of happiness or only allow the description of the majority to exist.

6. It creates the potential for the majority to rule through tyranny. People who self-identify as being an evangelical in the United States do not support the idea of same-gender marriage at a level of 67%. Although younger evangelicals support the idea as a majority at 53%, the significant population of older adults skews the overall percentages. Now imagine that laws were being created based on the concept of utilitarianism in this population group. If you identified as an LGBTQIA+ individual in this society, you would be unable to get married. There would be nothing you could do about it either until enough people were swayed to come over to your position.

Just because the majority of a population believes something is right does not make it the ethical choice. That thought process kept women from voting for centuries, permitted slavery to exist, allows for child trafficking and exploitation still today, and many more activities that harm others in some way. That is why happiness cannot be permitted to be the foundation of societal pursuits. Sometimes the correct choice is not the popular choice.

The pros and cons of utilitarianism show us that there is a time and place where these principles offer a potential benefit to society. The issue here is that the advantages cannot balance out the likelihood of harm that would exist at the end of the day. It does not take into account how people in a minority position factor into that society. They are either forced to pretend to be happy or allow themselves to be exploited for the “greater good.”

Utilitarianism: Pros and Cons

B.M. Wooldridge

Click to print this chapter: Utilitarianism Pros and Cons

Consequentialism is a general moral theory that tells us that, in any given situation, we should perform those actions that lead to better overall consequences. There are generally two branches of Consequentialism:

• Hedonism, which tells us that the consequences we should pursue should be ‘pleasurable’ consequences, and
• Utilitarianism, which tells us that the consequences we should pursue should be ‘happy’ consequences.

The focus of this paper will be on Utilitarianism, as this is undoubtedly the most popular form of consequentialist theories. John Stuart Mill, one of the foremost Utilitarian moral theorists, sums up Utilitarianism as follows: “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.” [1]

Any account of Utilitarianism will have two central tenets. First, Utilitarians are focused on states of affairs, which means that Utilitarianism is concerned with the result, or consequences, of one’s actions, and disregards other features like one’s motives or reasons for acting. One might have good motives or reasons for performing a certain action, but an action is only considered morally good for a Utilitarian if it maximizes the consequences, or happiness, of a given situation. Secondly, Utilitarians emphasize that agents are to be neutral in making their decisions. What this means is that under Utilitarianism, everyone counts for the same, and nobody counts for more than anybody else. Friends, family members, significant others, and anyone else important to you counts just the same as a complete stranger when making a moral decision.

On the face of it, this seems like a sensible moral theory. Like any other theory, Utilitarianism has its advantages and disadvantages. In this paper, I will argue that the disadvantages of Utilitarianism far outweigh the advantages. More specifically, I will argue that, despite its initial appeal, there are serious problems with Utilitarianism that render it a problematic moral theory. In what follows, I will consider a thought experiment from Bernard Williams to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of Utilitarianism, followed by a discussion of why Utilitarianism is a problematic moral theory.

To begin, consider the case of George. George has recently completed his PhD in Chemistry, and, like any other PhD candidate, finds it extremely difficult to land a job after completing his degree. George has a family, and his wife works hard to support them. While she is supportive of George, his difficulty finding a job puts a serious strain on their relationship. An older chemist who knows George tells George that he can get him a job in a laboratory. The laboratory pursues research into chemical and biological warfare. George, however, is opposed to chemical and biological warfare, and he therefore cannot accept the job. However, if George refuses the job, it will go to a colleague of George’s who does not have any reservations about chemical and biological warfare. Indeed, if this colleague takes the job, he will pursue the research with great zeal. For what it’s worth, George’s wife is not against chemical and biological warfare. Should George take the job? [2]

It seems that a Utilitarian would inform us that George should take the job, for doing so will lead to better overall consequences than turning down the job. In taking the job, George will not perform the research with great enthusiasm. Williams is not clear on whether George will actively sabotage the research, but it can be reasonably assumed that if George takes the job, he will perform his duties in such a way that will minimize the impact that chemical and biological research will have on developing weapons for war. While George will not directly be saving anyone, his work will indirectly lead to the saving of thousands of lives. Indeed, simply taking the job will ensure that someone who has great enthusiasm for chemical and biological warfare does not get the job. So even if George does not directly or indirectly save anyone while performing his duties, he will already have maximized the consequences by preventing someone who would do great harm from getting the job.

This thought experiment is useful in considering the strengths and weaknesses of Utilitarianism. Let us first begin with the strengths of the theory. Perhaps the biggest strength of Utilitarianism is that it is, at least prima facie, easier to reach a conclusion under this theory than other theories. That is, Utilitarianism provides us with a clear path for determining which action in a given situation will be the correct one: it is that action that will increase utility. This is in contrast to other moral theories, such as Deontology, which do not always provide a clear answer. Deontology, for example, focuses on the motives or reasons one has for acting, and it can be difficult sometimes to ascertain what one’s motives and/or reasons are. Even if one explicitly outlines their motives or reasons, it is not always the case that this is truthful. The consequences of an action, however, do provide us with a clear criterion for what counts as a morally good action. If one’s action leads to good, or happy, consequences, then that action is morally permissible. Thus, Utilitarianism is a theory that can easily help us reach decisions.

Relating this to the case of George, George’s actions can be judged on whether they will lead to better consequences. In this case, his action will lead to good consequences, albeit indirectly. In accepting the job, George prevents someone else who might indirectly harm others by promoting chemical and biological warfare from getting the job. Consider, for a moment, if we judged this action not on the consequences, but rather on the reasons or motives for acting. Suppose George accepts the job because he is motivated to end chemical and biological warfare, or that his reason for taking the job is to help support his family. While these reasons might be noble ones, we cannot be clear on whether these are actually the motives/reasons that George has. Motives and reasons, in other words, are not as clearly accessible as the consequences of an action.

Another strength of Utilitarianism is its emphasis on neutrality. When making a decision, one is to take a ‘God’s eye’ view of things, and consider everyone equally. This emphasis on neutrality makes Utilitarianism an impartial moral theory, meaning it considers everyone’s status and interests as equal. Relating this to the case of George, we see that George needs to assess the situation from a neutral perspective. He should not favour his or his family’s interests as opposed to the interests of others who might be impacted by chemical and biological warfare. Even if his wife and family were against chemical and biological warfare, and even considering that George himself is against chemical and biological warfare, he needs to put these interests and considerations aside and make the decision that is best for everyone involved.

While Utilitarianism does have its strengths as a theory, it also has some very serious weaknesses, and in the remainder of this paper I will outline of these weaknesses and argue why I think they make Utilitarianism a problematic moral theory.

We can begin by considering the point about neutrality. While Utilitarians will count this as a strength of their theory, it can also be considered a weakness of the theory. In considering everyone equally, Utilitarianism devalues the importance of personal relationships. In some cases, following Utilitarianism will force us to disregard those who are close to us. Suppose, for instance, that George’s wife and children, like George, were also against chemical and biological warfare. Utilitarianism will tell us that George should disregard their interests and feelings and perform that action that will increase the consequences. But this seems to be impersonal. The interests, feelings, and desires of George’s family should matter more than the interests, feelings, and desires of complete strangers, simply because these people are closer to George. Each of us has special relations to individuals that we work hard to develop, and that, in many cases, help us become better people. To disregard the interests, feelings, and desires of these individuals seems to be wrong.

I should also point out here that while Utilitarians will consider everyone equally, this does not mean that they will treat everyone equally. Consider another example from Williams. Suppose that there is a racial minority in a society. This minority does not harm anyone else in the society, nor does it do anything particularly good either. However, the other citizens, who make up the majority, have prejudices against this minority, and consider its presence very disagreeable, and proposals are put forward to remove this minority. [3] Williams is not clear on what would be involved in ‘removing’ the minority. The removal of the minority need not involve murder, although it could. It might involve, for example, removing them from society by forcing them to leave the society.

It seems that a Utilitarian would be forced to accept that eliminating this minority would increase the happiness for the majority of people, and would therefore be a moral action. But this seems wrong, mainly because removing the minority from society would involve what many people take to be morally evil actions, which is another problem with Utilitarianism. In some cases, Utilitarianism might sanction morally evil actions in order to achieve morally desirable consequences. Removing the minority might involve genocide or mass deportations, both of which seem morally problematic. Killing people simply because they are of a certain race or ethnicity, and/or removing them from a society without just cause, are severe moral violations that any reasonable person could not sanction. The idea here is this: sometimes, in working to achieve the greatest overall consequences, individuals will be forced to do bad things, and these bad things, even if they increase happiness, are still bad. And it is a failing of Utilitarianism that it does not recognize the moral value of labeling these as morally bad actions.

At this point a Utilitarian will surely have something to say. A Utilitarian might respond to the above points as follows. All of the critiques I have offered are focused only on the short-term consequences, and not the long-term consequences. When we focus on the long-term consequences of the above cases, the Utilitarian answer will change. For example, if George takes the job, this might lead to good consequences in the immediate future. But in the long run, it might lead to bad consequences. It might, for example, cause a serious strain on his marriage, and make George unhappy, which will in turn affect his relationships with others. In the racial minority case, while removing the minority might lead to better consequences in the short term, it will lead to worse consequences in the long term. It will, for example, weaken the trust among members of a community, and destabilize the social relations of individuals within that community. In response to this, a Utilitarian might adopt a rule, the general following of which will lead to better long-term consequences. In so doing, a Utilitarian switches the focus from a version of Utilitarianism that is focused on acts, to one that is focused on rules.

This response from a Utilitarian fails, in that it invites more questions than what it does answers. Mainly, just how far into the future should we look when considering the consequences of our actions? Utilitarians do not provide a clear answer to this question. Saying that we should focus on the long-term consequences of an action when the implications of the short-term consequences are troubling seems to be problematic. And, moreover, should we really follow a rule when, in the moment, we can perform an act that will increase the happiness of others? Adopting rule-utilitarianism as a way to respond to these objections seems not only ad-hoc, but also inconsistent with the Utilitarian maxim of increasing the consequences.

Overall, the theory of Utilitarianism, while perhaps initially appealing, seems to have some serious flaws. While the theory of Utilitarianism might help us more easily reach moral conclusions than what other theories do, and while it emphasizes the neutrality of moral agents, it does nonetheless have a tendency to alienate us from those we are closest to, and might require us to perform actions that, under other moral theories, are considered morally problematic. It is for these reasons that Utilitarianism is a problematic moral theory.

For Refection & Discussion

• What are the benefits of Utilitarianism? Are these benefits enough to convince you that it is the correct moral theory we should follow?
• What are the drawbacks of Utilitarianism? Are these benefits enough to convince you that it is an incorrect moral theory we should follow?
• If more happiness is produced by not following Utilitarianism, is that what we should do? What does this say about the theory?

Citation & Use

This chapter was written by Brandon Wooldridge, PhD Candidate, McMaster University. Email: [email protected]. This work released under a CC-BY license.

• John Stuart Mill, “Utilitarianism,” In Moral Philosophy: A Reader, Fourth Edition, Ed. Louis Pojam & Peter Tramel (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2009), 158. ↵
• Bernard Williams, “A Critique of Utiliarianism,” in Utilitarianism: For and Against, J.J.C. Smart & Bernard Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 98. ↵
• Williams, “A Critique of Utiliarianism,” 105. ↵

Utilitarianism: Pros and Cons Copyright © 2024 by B.M. Wooldridge is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Act Utilitarianism and Virtue Ethics: Pros and Cons Essay

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Introduction

Advantages of act utilitarianism and virtue ethics, disadvantages of act-utilitarianism and virtue ethics, better theory and combining the two theories.

Moral theories help people systemize and codify their judgments about conduct or behavior standards. Act utilitarianism and virtue ethics are moral theories that justify and help reflect on the ethical decisions made. Virtue ethics is normative ethics concerned with the goodness of a person acting. Meanwhile, act utilitarianism is descriptive ethics stating if the action is suitable and beneficial to the majority. Act utilitarianism is better than virtue ethics since it has the majority in mind. The two theories’ strengths can be combined to enhance act utilitarianism’s weaknesses.

Act utilitarianism and virtue ethics demonstrate varying and similar advantages over other moral ethics. The act-utilitarianism is objective since it solves each moral problem without generating moral dilemmas (Ecoffet & Lehman, 2021). The theory is impartial and does not distinguish between individuals. Furthermore, the approach has a simple formulation with circumstantial flexibility having a critical implication for the animals’ moral treatment (Killoren & Streiffer, 2020). Act utilitarianism, therefore, focuses on the action’s consequences, unlike virtue ethics.

Virtue ethics presents several advantages that can strengthen act utilitarianism. The theory helps us understand the “ideal” of impartiality in responding to people’s doubts. The theory also centralizes what constitutes a good human life (Gardiner, 2018). Furthermore, unlike Kantian ethics, virtue ethics offers a natural and appealing moral motivation source (Gardiner, 2018). Therefore, the theory enables people to maintain personal and interpersonal connections to better their lives.

Act utilitarianism and virtue ethics have several weaknesses due to their varying approaches. Act-utilitarianism critics say it gives wrong answers to moral questions permitting what people know as morally wrong (Killoren & Streiffer, 2020). Unlike virtue ethics, the theory focuses on the majority giving an unrealistic perspective of society. Furthermore, the approach provides a potential for a tyrannical rule by the majority. On the other hand, Virtue ethics does not provide sufficient guidance on what should be done in certain situations (Gardiner, 2018). The theory is incomplete: it does not explain when particular virtues apply under challenging conditions and what should be done when virtues present conflicting actions. The two theories’ strengths and weaknesses can complement each other.

In my view, the act-utilitarianism is better than virtue ethics. Act-utilitarianism, unlike virtue ethics, has the majority in mind demonstrating the democratic nature of society. Act utilitarianism gives specific answers to specific moral problems avoiding moral dilemmas. In contrast, virtue ethics fails to provide directions on which specific virtue to apply when in a difficult situation. Furthermore, virtue ethics does not offer explicit suggestions if the virtues present conflicting actions. Therefore, act utilitarianism is better than virtue ethics since it is clear, concise, and focuses on the majority.

Virtue ethics’ strengths can be utilized to enhance the act-utilitarianism theory. Although act utilitarianism is impartial, it does not explain “ideal” impartiality. The virtue ethics “idea” impartiality explanation can help in the act-utilitarianism. Unlike the act-utilitarianism, which only focuses on actions, virtual ethics focuses on the different levels of goodness. Therefore, virtue ethics can be utilized in weighing options before making a utilitarian decision. Therefore, act utilitarianism and virtue ethics can be used to complement each other.

Moral ethics are significant when making decisions and weighing the impact of such decisions. Act utilitarianism is a descriptive norm, while virtue ethics is normative ethics. Act utilitarianism has various advantages, like being objective and impartial. Virtue ethics explains what constitutes a good human life. The two theories demonstrate various disadvantages that each other’s strengths can complement. Act utilitarianism is better than virtue ethics since it is democratic and impartial. Virtue ethics can help when making utilitarian decisions since it can help understand the extent of happiness. Combining act utilitarianism and virtue ethics gives an adequate theory to lead to informed and ‘morally’ good decisions.

Ecoffet, A., & Lehman, J. (2021). Reinforcement Learning Under Moral Uncertainty . Web.

Gardiner, S. M. (2018). Introduction: Virtue ethics, here and now. In S. Gardiner (Ed.), Virtue Ethics, Old and New (pp. 1-8). Cornell University Press.

Killoren, D., & Streiffer, R. (2020). Utilitarianism about animals and the moral significance of use. Philosophical Studies , 177(4), 1043-1063.

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Utilitarianism: Pros and Cons

Antoine James September 29, 2010 Justice & Legal Theory Utilitarianism: Pros and Cons Random House Dictionary defines utilitarianism as “the ethical doctrine that virtue is based on utility, and that conduct should be directed toward promoting the greatest happiness of the greatest number of persons. The father of utilitarianism, Jeremy Beneath believed that all human beings are motivated by minimizing pain and maximizing pleasure; therefore morality and justice should be determined on those same grounds. Utilitarianism teaches that maximizing pleasure, and minimizing pain can answer any moral question. This way of looking at justice has its high points where it works well, and its nadirs where the theory falls apart. Ill explore both sides below. On the surface, the basic theory behind utilitarianism seems very attractive. If all decisions are based on doing the greatest amount of good for the most people- isn’t that justice? Even Captain Kirk on Star Trek told Mr.. Spook that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Most of the time this is correct.

Environmental laws may lower the profits of an oil refinery, but the greater good is the clean air that the citizens that live around the refinery get o enjoy and the lower amount of pollution in the air for the general public. There are many examples of policy decisions, laws, and moral decisions that follow the same principle; doing the greatest amount of good for the most people. In many situations this philosophy is appropriate and effective in prognosticative. However, there are also situations where the utilitarian point of view is not the best way to settle a moral question. The major downside to utilitarianism is its lack of respect for individual rights. Sandal’s Throwing Christians to the Lions example sums up the individual rights criticism; while throwing a “small” number of Christians to be eaten by lions for the happiness of the crowd (and arguably could be extended ohјaridly) may be maximizing utility, it ignores the major moral question regarding “should we be killing in this fashion? ” That leads to the next major criticism of utilitarianism- the theory doesn’t prioritize pleasures and pains, therefore it doesn’t prioritize moral questions.

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The Dudley and Stephens cannibalism case shows some moral decisions are more complicated than simply doing the greatest good for the most people. It is hard to argue that killing and eating the sickly minor on board so they could live was the morally “right’ thing to do. John Stuart Mill tried to address the two main criticisms of utilitarianism in his theories. Mill’s central principle is that people should be free to do anything that does not harm anyone else. Mill was a strong believer in individual rights, and tried to reconcile his views with utilitarianism. Ender Mill’s view, utility must be used in the, “larger sense, grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progressive being. ” His argument is that if e use utility to judge actions in the long run, and not on a case-by-case basis, he avoids some of the criticisms of utility Aryanism regarding individual rights. While Mill injects his strong views on individual rights into his theories of utilitarianism, it still may fall short in certain situations. If the majority is great enough, the utility balance may reach the point where the happiness created by restricting minority views outweighs the freedom of the minority.

I believe minority rights are still threatened by using utility to judge conduct or actions. The utilitarian method of balancing pleasure and pain, and maximizing pleasure for the most people is a theory that makes sense and promotes justice. Basic public policy decisions and policies benefit from this way Of thinking; in my opinion utilitarianism is most appropriate in this community sense. It is less appropriate when it is being applied to moral decisions between individuals and how people behave toward each other. In these cases I believe other theories of solving moral questions should be explored to promote justice.

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