Issues
in Ethics
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Fellow: Martin
O’Neill
E-Mail:mponeill@fas.harvard.edu
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My Main MR33 - Issues in Ethics Page | Main Course Website
1 - Egoism, and Plato's GORGIAS | 3 - Utilitarianism I
Handout 2 – What Makes Someone’s Life Go Best?
1. Organizational
• Everyone should now have
signed up for one section presentation during the semester. If you’ve not
yet done so, then do get in touch with me.
• I’ll be handing back
your position papers at the end of section next week.
• The topics for the first
Graded Paper are now available. If you haven’t already got a copy, then
you can get one here.
• The paper is due in my
mailbox in Emerson Hall (2nd Floor) by 5 p.m. on Thursday, October 18th
(two weeks from today’s section).
• Alternatively, you can
just hand your paper to me at the end of section in 2 weeks’ time.
• I’d just like to remind
everyone of the usefulness of reading Prof
James Pryor’s Guide to Writing a Philosophy Paper.
It’s also available via
my website.
• It might be useful to start thinking about which of the essay questions you’d like to answer, but it would probably be wise to hold off starting on your writing until after next week’s lectures and next week’s section. That way, you’ll have more of an idea of where Mill is coming from before you start.
• Naturally, if you have any questions whatsoever about the paper, then don’t hesitate to get in touch: either by e-mail, or by coming to my regular office hours.
2.
Derek Parfit on ‘What Makes Someone’s Life Go Best’
• NB. There is a distinction between what makes someone’s life go best for that person, and what makes a life go best morally. The two are undoubtedly related, but are not identical.
• Parfit’s typology of theories goes something like this:
(1) Hedonistic
Theories: (these take our well-being to
be determined by what makes us happiest)
These divide up according
to one’s account of pleasure, into:
(a) Narrow Hedonism
– which conceives pleasure as a distinctive variety of experience.
(b) Preference-Hedonism
– which conceives of pleasure in terms of people’s desires.
• The Hedonistic Theory
is committed to Experientialism:
that is, the view that nothing can effect the quality of a life except
by affecting the experience of living it.
(2) Desire-Fulfillment
Theories: (these take our life to go best
when our desires are fulfilled, whether or not we know that those desires
have been fulfilled)
These divide up according
to the scope of the desires which we take into consideration, into:
(a) The Unrestricted
Theory – our wellbeing is determined by
the satisfaction of all our desires.
(b) The Success
Theory – our wellbeing is dependent on
the fulfillment of our desires about our own lives.
Both Hedonism and the Desire-Fulfillment Theory are committed to the Subjectivist Principle: that is, the view that each person’s desires are the ultimate standard for assessing his or her life.
Both Preference-Hedonism (1b) and The Success Theory (2b) can be further divided into two types. They can come in Summative versions (where our desires or preferences are merely summed together across our lives (perhaps in accordance with their intensity)) or Global versions, in which our higher-level desires about the general shape of our lives are given special emphasis.
(3) Objective
List Theories: (these take it that certain
things are good or bad for people, regardless of whether those people would
want to have those good things, or avoid those bad things.)
(Which is to say that the
Objective List Theory rejects the Subjectivist Principle.)
Objective List Theories
can be of many different sorts, depending on how we specify the list.
(a) Parfit’s
Suggested List includes moral goodness,
rational activity, the development of our abilities, having children and
being a good parent, knowledge and the awareness of true beauty.
(b) Scanlon’s
Suggested List includes Hedonistic Enjoyments,
the success of our aims (insofar as those aims are rational), friendship,
and the achievement of various forms of excellence.
As Scanlon’s list shows,
Objective List Theories are a wide category, and can encompass elements
from Hedonistic Theories (or Desire-Fulfillment Theories.)
• Where would you place Socrates view on this typology?
• What does Freud’s refusal of painkilling drugs tell us about the Hedonistic Theory? Does it show us that the Hedonistic Theory should be rejected?
• What are the implications of the observation that many states of enjoyment (for examples, the pleasures of competition and success) seem to depend on particular evaluative attitudes? Does this undermine Hedonistic theories by showing that they depend on a further, non-hedonistic standard of value?
• What do Parfit’s examples of the Stranger on the Train and the Addictive Drug tell us about the Desire-Fulfillment Theory? Do they show us that we should reject the theory?
• If we accept a Desire-Fulfillment
Theory, should we accept an Actual Desire-Fulfillment Theory or an Ideal
or Hypothetical Desire-Fulfillment Theory?
• If we accept the former,
what should we do about adaptive preferences or other cases of irrational
desires? If we accept the latter, haven’t we really just adopted a version
of the Objective List?
• Overall, which (if any)
of Views (1)-(3) is most plausible? Why?
3.
Robert Nozick’s Experience Machine
• Nozick’s Experience Machine example is often taken to act as an effective basis for rejecting experientialism, and hence for rejecting Hedonistic Theories of Wellbeing.
• Would you enter the Experience
Machine? Is Nozick correct in thinking that we (a) would not, or (b) should
not enter the machine?
• What is the source of
our aversion to the Experience Machine? Is it rational, and based on the
fact that life in the machine would not, in fact, be a good life? Or is
it just an irrational fear?
4.
Bentham and Mill on the Nature of Wellbeing
• Where does Bentham fit
under Parfit’s typology of different kinds of theories? Are the problems
with comparing and ranking pleasures too great for Bentham’s theory, or
does he have a way of coping with these problems?
• Where does Mill fit in
on Parfit’s typology?
• Is mankind really “under
the governance of two sovereign masters, pleasure and pain?” (Bentham,
I.I)
Are pleasure and pain always
the things that really matter? If other things seem to be important, are
they actually only important because of their effects in terms of pleasures
and pains?
• Is Mill correct when he
says that (p. 279), “It is quite compatible with the principle of utility
to recognize the fact, that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and
more valuable than others.”?
• How convincing is Mill’s
procedure for ranking which pleasures are ‘higher’ and ‘lower’? (pp. 279-280)?
• Is Mill right that “It
is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better
to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.”? In stating this claim,
is Mill staying true to a Hedonistic Theory of Wellbeing, or has he actually
crossed the line to an Objective List account?
5.
Next week: Utilitarianism as an account of Right and Wrong
• For next week, you should
read:
(1) Jeremy Bentham, Introduction
to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, Chs. I-II (Ryan, pp. 65-82).
(2) J. S. Mill, Utilitarianism,
Chs. I-IV (Ryan, pp. 272-314).
• Bentham’s was the first systematic presentation of Utilitarianism, and Bentham can be seen as presenting a very thorough and uncompromising version of that position. Mill, in his book, attempts to provide a more moderate and sympathetic version of the theory. One thing to think about is whether Mill’s revised version of utilitarianism manages to surmount the problems faced by Bentham’s more extreme version.
Some issues to think about when reading Bentham and Mill:
(a) In Ch. II, Mill attempts to deal with problems concerned with the commensurability of pleasures, and with the difference between ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ pleasures, which had been seen as presenting very deep problem’s for Bentham’s theory. How successful is Mill’s approach?
(b) How effective is Mill’s ‘Proof’ of the ‘Principle of Utility’ in Ch. IV?
(c) [W.r.t. Q1 for the First Paper] Think about Mill’s claim (p. 312) that desire cannot be directed towards anything ultimately except pleasure and exemption from pain. Is this claim plausible? What would Feinberg have to say about such a claim?
(d) [W.r.t. Q2 for the First Paper] Think about Mill’s account of higher and lower pleasures, and of which pleasures are more valuable than others. How is Mill’s view similar to, and how is it distinct from, the view expressed by Socrates in the Gorgias?
(e) [W.r.t. Q3 for the First Paper] How would Mill respond to Callicles’s claim that the strong have no reason not to take as much as they can get? How is Mill’s response to this issue related to his ‘proof’ (pp. 307-308), his account of the relation of virtue to happiness (pp. 308-311) and his account of the motivational basis of morality (Ch. III)?
(f) [W.r.t. Q4 for the First Paper] How well does Millian utilitarianism deal with the moral status of telling lies?
(g) Are utilitarians right in thinking that the overall good for society is just a sum of the levels of happiness of each individual within that society? Is aggregate happiness the only moral standard?
(h) What do you think should be the relevant community to consider when making utilitarian considerations? A state? A nation? Humankind? All sentient creatures?
Have a fantastic Columbus Day Weekend! And do get in touch if you have any questions or queries.