WHAT THE HECK IS UTILITARIANISM ?

WHAT THE HECK IS ˜UTILITARIANISM ?

When faced with what appears to be a moral dilemma, we often look to the philosophers who have examined good and evil, the moral and the immoral, in considerable detail through the years . Indeed, as long as there have been thinkers, there have been guiding principles. The concept of ˜utilitarianism is one such principle that is often used as a rationale for behaviour that needs to be justified. We begin our discussion by determining what utilitarianism is and how the concept developed.

The genesis of utilitarian ethics is generally attributed to 18th-century Englishman Jeremy Bentham, but perhaps the best known of the utilitarian ethicists is English philosopher John Stuart Mill who augmented the concept in his book Utilitarianism . In a nutshell , this approach to ethical thinking takes the position that the rightness or wrongness of any action is dependent entirely on the outcomes that derive from it. In other words, neither the intent behind the action nor the fundamental rightness or wrongness of the action is at issue, only the consequences. This is a very pragmatic approach to ethical decision-making. Some kind of rational estimation of the outcome is made and the action is taken to maximize the greatest good (although Mill described it as ˜happiness ) for the greatest number of people. Of course, in most people's minds, this approach often results in the position that the end justifies the means.

Ethics writers Claire Andre and Manuel Velasquez put it this way: ˜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. ^[1] If you consider their further contention that we tend to use this way of ethical rationalization frequently in our daily lives, it seems that perhaps we ought to be looking beyond this principle. Is there, however, anything fundamentally wrong with this way of thinking?

If, in general, you believe that in public relations it is obligatory to tell the truth, could there be times when telling a falsehood might result in a better end for a greater number of people?

Certainly, in times of war, for example, it might be considered in the best interests of the safety of large numbers of people to tell a lie to the media during a press conference.

It seems, then, that the principle might be a useful way to distribute the greatest good to the greatest number, if and only if the decision- makers are able to make an accurate judgement about the potential outcomes and that those outcomes go beyond the self-interest of those making the moral choice.

^[1] Andre, Claire and Velasquez, Manuel [accessed 25 September 2003] Calculating the consequences: the utilitarian approach to ethics, Issues in Ethics , 2 (1), Winter, 1989. http://www.scu.edu/ethics/ publications /iie/v2n1/calculating.html