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BRANDT, Richard. Toward A Credible Form of Utilitarianism PDF
BRANDT, Richard. Toward A Credible Form of Utilitarianism PDF
Richard Brandt
Introduction, H. Gene Blocker
INTRODUCTION
T his paper is an attempt to formulate, in a tolerably precise way, a type of
utilitarian ethical theory which is not open to obvious and catastrophic
objections. It is not my aim especially to advocate the kind of view finally
stated, although I do believe it is more acceptable than any other type of util-
itarianism. . . .
The view to be discussed is a form of “rule-utilitarianism.” This termi-
nology must be explained. I call a utilitarianism “act-utilitarianism” if it
holds that the rightness of an act is fixed by the utility of its consequences, as
compared with those of other acts the agent might perform instead. Act-utili-
tarianism is hence an atomistic theory: the value of the effects of a single act
on the world is decisive for its rightness. “Rule-utilitarianism,” in contrast,
applies to views according to which the rightness of an act is not fixed by its
relative utility, but by conformity with general rules or principles; the utili-
tarian feature of these theories consists in the fact that the correctness of
these rules or principles is fixed in some way by the utility of their general
acceptance. In contrast with the atomism of act-utilitarianism, rule-utilitari-
anism is in a sense an organic theory: the rightness of individual acts can be
ascertained only by assessing a whole social policy. . . .
In recent years, types of rule-utilitarianism have been the object of much
interest. And for good reason. Act-utilitarianism, at least given the assump-
tions about what is valuable which utilitarians commonly make, has implica-
tions which it is difficult to accept. It implies that if you have employed a
boy to mow your lawn and he has finished the job and asks for his pay, you
should pay him what you promised only if you cannot find a better use for
your money. It implies that when you bring home your monthly pay-check
you should use it to support your family and yourself only if it cannot be
used more effectively to supply the needs of others. It implies that if your
father is ill and has no prospect of good in his life, and maintaining him is a
drain on the energy and enjoyments of others, then, if you can end his life
without provoking any public scandal or setting a bad example, it is your
positive duty to take matters into your own hands and bring his life to a
close. A virtue of rule-utilitarianism, in at least some of its forms, is that it
avoids at least some of such objectionable implications.
In the present paper I wish to arrive at a more precise formulation of a
rule-utilitarian type of theory which is different from act-utilitarianism and
Reprinted from Morality and the Language of Conduct edited by Hector-Neri Castañeda and
George Nakhnikian. Copyright © 1963 by Wayne State University Press.
TOWARD A CREDIBLE FORM OF UTILITARIANISM
belongs to the children of the sisters. There are complications, to be sure; but
in general we must say that when an institutional system specifies that
responsibility falls in a certain place, then on the whole and with some
exceptions and qualifications, that is where it really does lie. Any theory
which denies this is mistaken; and if our second theory is to be plausible, it
must be framed so as to imply this. Second, I think we should concede that if
two persons are debating whether some act is right and one of them is able to
show that it infringes on the accepted moral code of the community, the
“burden of proof” passes to the other party. The fact that it is generally
believed that a certain kind of action is wrong is prima facie evidence that it
is wrong; it is up to persons who disagree to show their hand. Third, if a con-
scientious man is deliberating whether he is morally obligated to do a certain
thing which he does not wish to do, I believe he will generally feel he must
do this thing, even if he thinks that a correct moral code would not require
him to, provided he concludes that many or most persons in his community
would conclude otherwise. The reason for this is partly, I think, that a consci-
entious man will take pains to avoid even the appearance of evil; but the rea-
son is also that a conscientious man will wish to make substantial allowances
for the fact that he is an interested party and might have been influenced by
his own preferences in his thinking about his obligations. He will therefore
tend to hold himself to the received code when this is to his disadvantage.
Nevertheless, it is extremely difficult to defend Urmson’s rule interpreted
in this way, even when we hedge it with qualifications, as, for example, Toul-
min did. In the first place, people do not think that anything like this is true;
they think they are assessing particular cases by reference to objectively valid
principles which they happen to know, and not simply, by reference to a com-
munity code. Notice how we do not find it surprising that people with unusual
moral principles, such as the immorality of killing and violence in all circum-
stances, come to distinctive conclusions about their own particular obliga-
tions, by no means drawing their particular moral judgments from the code of
the community. The whole tradition emphasizing the role of conscience in
moral thinking is contrary to the view that socially accepted principles are
crucial for deciding what is right or wrong. In the second place, we frequently
judge ourselves to have moral obligations either when we don’t know what
the community “standards” are, or when we think that in all probability there
is no decided majority one way or the other: for instance, with respect to
sexual behavior, or to declaration, to revenue officers, of articles purchased
abroad or of one’s personal income. Surely we do not think that in such situa-
TOWARD A CREDIBLE FORM OF UTILITARIANISM
tions the proper judgment of particular cases is that they are morally indiffer-
ent? Third, and perhaps most important, we sometimes judge that we have an
obligation when we know that the community thinks we don’t; and we some-
times think an act is right when the community thinks it wrong. For instance,
we may judge that we have an obligation to join in seeking presidential
clemency for a convicted Communist spy whom we regard as having
received an unduly severe sentence because of hysteria at the time of his trial,
although we know quite well that the communal code prescribes no favors for
Communists. Again, we may think it not wrong to work on the Sabbath,
marry a divorced person, perform a medically necessary abortion, or commit
suicide, irrespective of general disapproval in our group. Were these things
ever objectively wrong, in view of being proscribed—even unanimously—by
the community of the agent? . . .
One might argue that the existence of an accepted moral rule is not suf-
ficient to make particular actions wrong or obligatory but is a necessary con-
dition. To say this, however, is to say that men have no obligation to rise
above the commonplace morals of their times. Whereas in fact we do not
think it right for men to be cruel to animals or to slaves in a society which
condones this.
We cannot well say in advance that no thesis like Urmson’s can play an
important part in a defensible theory of morals, if it is interpreted in this first
way. But the difficulties are surely enough to encourage experimenting with
versions of the second interpretation. Let us turn to this.
For a start, we might summarize the gist of Urmson’s proposal, con-
strued in the second way, as follows: “An act is right if and only if it con-
forms with that set of moral rules, the recognition of which would have
significantly desirable consequences.” A somewhat modified version of this
is what I shall be urging. . . .
The whole point of the preceding remarks has been to focus attention on
the point that a rule-utilitarianism like Urmson’s is different from act-utili-
tarianism only when it speaks of something like “recognition of a rule hav-
ing the best consequences” instead of something like “conformity with a
certain rule having the best consequences.” With this in mind, we can see
clearly one of the virtues of Urmson’s proposal, which we interpreted as
being: “An act is right if and only if it conforms with that set of moral rules,
the recognition of which would have the best consequences.”
But, having viewed the difficulties of a view verbally very similar to the
above, we are now alert to the fact that the formulation we have suggested is
TOWARD A CREDIBLE FORM OF UTILITARIANISM
itself open to interpretations that may lead to problems. How may we con-
strue Urmson’s proposal, so that it is both unambiguous and credible? Of
course we do not wish to go to the opposite extreme and take “recognition
of” to mean merely “doffing the hat to” without attempt to practice. But how
shall we take it?
I suggest the following as a second approximation.
First, let us speak of a set of moral rules as being “learnable” if people
of ordinary intelligence are able to learn or absorb its provisions, so as to
believe the moral propositions in question in the ordinary sense of “believe”
for such contexts. Next, let us speak of “the adoption” of a moral code by a
person as meaning “the learning and belief of its provisions (in the above
sense) and conformity of behavior to these to the extent we may expect peo-
ple of ordinary conscientiousness to conform their behavior to rules they
believe are principles about right or obligatory behavior.” Finally, let us,
purely arbitrarily and for the sake of brevity, use the phrase “maximizes
intrinsic value” to mean “would produce at least as much intrinsic good as
would be produced by any relevant alternative action.” With these stipula-
tions, we can now propose, as a somewhat more precise formulation of Urm-
son’s proposal, the following rule-utilitarian thesis: “An act is right if and
only if it conforms with that learnable set of rules, the adoption of which by
everyone would maximize intrinsic value.”
This principle does not at all imply that the rightness or wrongness of an
act is contingent upon the agent’s having thought about all the complex busi-
ness of the identity of a set of ideal moral rules; it asserts, rather, that an act
is right if and only if it conforms to such a set of rules, regardless of what the
agent may think. . . .
An obvious merit of this principle is that it gives expression to at least
part of our practice or procedure in trying to find out what is right or wrong.
For when we are in doubt about such matters, we often try to think out how it
would work in practice to have a moral code which prohibited or permitted
various actions we are considering. We do not, of course, ordinarily do any-
thing as complicated as try to think out the complete ideal moral code; we
are content with considering whether certain specific injunctions relevant to
the problem we are considering might be included in a good and workable
code. Nevertheless, we are prepared to admit that the whole ideal code is rel-
evant. For if someone shows us that a specific injunction which we think
would be an acceptable part of a moral code clearly would not work out in
TOWARD A CREDIBLE FORM OF UTILITARIANISM