Utalitarian and Ethical Interaction

When I first read Han-Fei-Zi and Mozi I missed the utilitarian aspect of their
philosophy, I rather regarded the first as a form of technocrat fascism and the second a
form of new-age tinged communism. This last week when I reread Mozi and read for the
first time Han-Fei-Zi I was unpleasantly surprised by the dry utilitarian aspect of their
philosophy. Still I would argue that presenting those two figures as utilitarian misses their
thought process the heart of their teaching and only captures the ends of their vision.

Ethics and utilitarian thinking are both category terms for a vast field of behaviors,
practices and modes of life. The two can interact well or provide an antithesis for each
other, adding “the law” into the mix doesn’t alter the latter interactions.
Usually ethics are a sure way into beneficial conduct. They provide a safe path to
contemplate an accepted notion of a good behavior and reward their perceiver with social
approval. In a case of helping a classmate to prepare for a test we have such a case. A
more difficult proposition may be found in a case of risking one’s life to save a stranger.
Here we have a case where self benefit and benefit to other conflict, contrasted with the
first example where the two go together rather smoothly. Still considering the alternative
in the second, life-saving situation, shows that an idle response, surprisingly, also entails
a negative outcome for the one risking his life. His conscience may bother him for years
to come or he might lose faith in his own strength and courage to act in the world. Such
presentations of textbook examples shows that presenting complex problems using only
external notions such as ethical and utilitarian thinking misses important realities about
life’s complexity. This is also the dynamism which is needed to judge every situation
according to its unique circumstance.
To return to our original debate the gap between ‘the laws’ and their ‘morally tinged
rational’ is often debatable. I’ll prove my case using more hypothetical scenarios. Many
world religions turned orthodoxy suffer from the ills of preserving customs for custom’s
sake. The fault is in not realizing social, technological and cultural changes which require
us to modify old rules turned traditions (or visa versa). Even though an actual moral need
was once the prerequisite of many a modern law, much of those ethical guidelines lost
their relevancy through the course of history. This is evident in history’s many persons
who reformulated tradition and reinvigorated it by doing so, Zhu-xi and Wang-Yang-
Ming being prime examples from Chinese history. On a more specific level one can point
out traditions in Chinese medicine where health supplements and dishes are prepared
from exotic animals, those in turn are hunted by poachers despite their ‘officially
protected’ status. It’s only another example where the law and perceived ethical conduct
clash, this time with the law standing on the enlightened, progressive camp. Once again
reality is ever more dynamic than mere questions of ‘which is better, an ethical or
utilitarian approach?’.