Justice: What's The Right Thing To Do?
(Episode 2)
Questions to consider from Episode 1:
1) Do we have certain fundamental
rights?
2) Does a fair procedure justify any
result?
3) What is the moral work of consent?
Part 01: "PUTTING A PRICE TAG ON
LIFE”
Analysis of Utilitarianism
Bentham’s version of Utilitarianism: the highest principle of morality is to maximize
the general welfare, or the collective happiness or the overall balance of
pleasure over pain. In a phrase: maximize utility.
Reasoning: We’re
all governed by pain and pleasure – our sovereign masters – so any moral system
has to take account of them, by maximizing. This leads to the principle
of the greatest good for the greatest number.
What we should
maximize is happiness, or more precisely, utility. Maximizing utility is a
principle, not only for individuals, but also for communities and legislatures.
1. What is a community (according to Bentham)?
It is the
sum of the individuals who comprise it.
And that’s why in deciding the best
policy, what the law should be, in deciding what just, citizens and
legislatures should asks themselves the question: If we add up all of the
benefits of this policy, and subtract all of the costs, the right thing to do is
the one that maximizes the balance of
happiness over suffering. This is what it means to maximize utility.
Cost-benefit analysis (utility)
It involves placing a (dollar) value on the costs and
benefits of various proposals. Used by companies and governments all the time.
Example: Phillip Morris Study: Excise tax on
smoking in Czech Republic. How does government gain by people smoking and
paying excise tax on cigarettes? Government has net gain on premature deaths
(pension, tax revenues, health care savings, housing costs for elderly).
Example: Ford Pinto case. Cost-benefit analysis of
repairing fuel tank, or not: Would cost more to repair than to pay restitution
to resulting deaths.
Example: Cell phone use
while driving. 2000 die each year as result. However, there is a dollar value
net gain.
2. What are two major criticisms of
Utilitarianism?
1)
Missing value/rights to individual person and families
of those who die. Value of life. Discounts the rights of the minority/individual.
2) Aggregates values and preferences to a
single, uniform measureable value,
i.e., monetary value. No distinction between higher and lower pleasures.
Example: Thorndike study
1930s. Survey of what dollar amount people would accept to do
generally “horrendous” things. Conclusion:
any want or satisfaction that exists can be measured in terms of a monetary
value.
Example. Modification of Rules against overnight male
guests in women’s dormitory. Costs increase if men spend the night.
Compromise: Each woman can have 3 male visitors/week -- but must pay 50 pence per visit to
defray costs.
3.
1) Is it possible to sum up and compare all values using a common measure like money (i.e., Thorndike study 1930s)?
DISCUSS... (good examples for applied ethics)
2) Can we put a monetary value on (human) life? Use examples... (i.e., (life, liability) insurance, the “Ford Pinto case,” cell phone deaths – saving time…)
DISCUSS... (good examples for applied ethics)
4. Can we make a purely quantitative analysis of “happiness”? Compare the utilitarian concept of “happiness” versus that of the Greeks (i.e., eudaimonia)
DISCUSS... (good examples for normative ethics)
5. Should we always give more weight to the happiness of a majority, even if the majority is cruel or ignoble? Is it right that the individual/minority should give up his/her rights in the name of the majority?
DISCUSS... (good examples for normative ethics)
PART TWO: “HOW TO MEASURE PLEASURE”
7. Versus the first argument against Utilitarianism, Sendal asks the following: A terrorism suspect has impending info about terrorist attack, is it permissible to torture him to get the info? Or is there a moral imperative to protect individual human rights against this?
DISCUSS... (good examples for normative/applied ethics)
8.
What is
the “Pleasure Principle” of Bentham? Everybody’s
preferences count – regardless of what people want – regardless of what makes
different people happy. All that matters are the intensity and duration of a
pleasure or pain. So-called
“higher pleasures” or “nobler virtues” are simply those which produce stronger,
longer pleasure. It is a
presumption to judge whose pleasures are higher or better or worthier.
Versus this, Sandel argues about the (“base”) pleasure that many Roman’s
got by going to watch executions and torture of individual Christians in the
Coliseum.
J.S. Mill (b.
1806), a utilitarian philosopher who attempts to “humanize” utilitarianism
against the objections raised by critics of the doctrine, argues that seeking
the greatest good for the greatest number is compatible
with protecting individual rights, and that utilitarianism can
make room for a distinction between higher and lower pleasures. Mill’s idea is that the higher pleasure is
always the pleasure preferred by a “well-informed” and educated, cultivated majority.
Mill’s Test: Two pleasures – to see if pleasure is
higher or lower: if all,
or almost all, who have experienced both, would prefer one over the other.
Sandel’s test:
·
Shakespeare
·
Fear factor
·
Simpsons
9.
Can pleasures be qualitative (higher
“good” vs. lower “bad”), i.e., measured by majority preference? Is “education”
required? (Mill: “It is better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig
satisfied.”)
10. Are just standards, only just because they are favored by the majority?
DISCUSS... (good examples for normative/applied/meta ethics)