How convincing is utilitarianism?

Intro:
- Utilitarianism is the ethical theory that aims to tell us how to live our lives. It is trying to solve the
problem of not knowing how to make moral decisions. It answers this in the form of Act, Rule,
and Preference Utilitarianism.
- This essay will aim to show that all forms of utilitarianism prove that it is an untenable moral
theory.

P1: Prima facie strengths (Bentham)

- Act Util (practiced by Bentham), provides a clear way of making moral decisions- consider the
consequences of different actions and choose the action that brings about the most happiness.
- Seems good bc it says that no one person’s happiness is more important than anyone else’s
- Makes decision making easy, and shows that the only thing that matters is happiness. It is also
strong bc of the hedonic calculus, which allows us to empirically calculate amounts of pleasure,
and solves moral issues by empirical investigation
- Explain hedonic calculus: takes into account factors like fecundity and duration to quantify
happiness. Total amount of happiness produced is the sum of all pleasures produced, minus the
sum of all pains produced.

P2: Counter to Bentham’s Util - No more rights + peeping Tom

- Consequentialist nature of Bentham’s Util. means that nothing is intrinsically wrong and so rights
can potentially be violated
- A right that can be violated is effectively no rights at all
- To secure the unconditional status of rights, a Kantian deontological framework is necessary. This
is essential to ensure a stable world of equality, security and protection.
- In addition to this, the problem of the peeping Tom renders Act Util. a wholly unsuitable theory
- There are acts that can produce net pleasure which nevertheless are still morally wrong. For
instance, if the peeping Tom’s victim is unaware of his gaze, she remains unhurt by it and he
experiences great pleasure. Thus, according to Bentham’s calculus, the act isn’t wrong. Yet this
act constitutes a total violation of her privacy.
- Not only does Bentham’s theory permit morally wrong actions, it positively condones them. It
would be wrong for the peeping Tom not to spy on his victims. Bentham’s Util. is not merely
weak, it is itself immoral.
- Kant would be able to avoid this problem, but Bentham can’t.

P3: Offers an alternative to Bentham’s Util - Mill

- Mill’s qualitative hedonistic utilitarianism says that Bentham is flawed because he hasn’t
understood the deeper feelings of human nature - “Pushpin is as good as poetry”
- Bentham’s utilitarianism degrades humans by misunderstanding what humans take pleasure in -
not only low pleasures.
- Valuing only pleasure is a doctrine worthy of swine. Humans are able to experience pleasures of
deep personal relationships, and art, and pigs aren’t. Thus, it is a genuine problem for Bentham
that he reduces us to just pigs. This ignores much of our sophisticated human nature.
- It's better to be a dissatisfied human than a satisfied pig
 - In response: Mill rejects the view that pleasures and pains are all equally valuable =.
- He says there are lower and higher pleasures with different levels of value, and higher pleasures
are more important to human happiness.

P4: “ToM” objection destroys both Mill and Bentham’s utilitarianism.

- “Tryranny of the majority”:
Murderer falsely accused example: There’s been a murder, would make crowd happy to see
someone punished. Police frame someone. Crowd is just as happy, as they are unaware.
Collective happiness of 10,000 ppl is more likely to outweigh innocent man’s pain at being
falsely imprisoned. Hence, ToM.
- More pleasure than pain in this example, so more happiness is produced by persecuting the man
than not. Seems wrong- opposes our intuitive feelings.
- All forms of AU would have to say that this is morally right. Thus, it looks like AU is not always
right to maximise utility in regards to the consequence of a singular act.

P5: Rule Utilitarianism avoids this + prima facie strengths

- Rule Utilitarianism says that actions are right when they follow a rule that maximises happiness
overall - even when the action doesn’t maximise happiness in that particular situation
- RU evades this problem (ToM). They can say that there is a rule to not falsely imprison innocent
men
- Although in this specific instance punishing the innocent man leads to greater happiness, as a
general rule it would lead to more unhappiness.
- If we apply a general rule “falsely imprison innocent people to make the majority happy”, this
would eventually contradict itself.
- This is because if people were to be imprisoned with increasing frequency, this would lead to a
feeling of paranoia for the residents of the town. Everyone would be worried that they would be
falsely imprisoned, that they would lose faith in the justice system.
- With RU, the ToM objection is void.

P6: Problems with RU- Nozick’s experience machine

- BUT RU faces other problems.
- The machine is a thought experiment that would ask us to imagine a machine that we could be
“plugged” into.
- This machine will provide us with the experience of a very happy life -it would maximise
pleasure and minimise pain. If we plug in we won’t know that we are in the machine and will
believe that it is reality.
- Nozick argues that most of us wouldn’t plug in as we value being in contact with reality, even if it
means less pleasure and more pain. Therefore, pleasure can’t be the only thing of value.
- According to Act Utilitarianism, everyone should enter the machine (all that matters is
maximising pleasure), but it seems morally wrong to ignore a person’s preferences and force them
to enter the machine.
- This illustrates a problem with Bentham and Mill’s hedonism as we realise that there are more
important things in life than simple pleasures
- RU says that we should establish a rule that says that ‘we should enter the machine’ in order to
 maximise overall utility.
- Both of these theories disregard the need to be in touch with reality.

P7: Preference Util. seems to evade this problem

- Non-hedonistic utilitarianism (PU) says that we should respect people’s preferences, and aim to
maximise them rather than general utility
- If someone died and left all of their money to charity in their will, PU says that we should aim to
respect those preferences and carry out their wishes.
- AU and RU would say that we should disregard that dead person’s wishes (as they can’t
experience utility or pleasure anymore), and instead spend their money in whatever way that
would maximise our utility instead.
- Applied to Nozick’s experience machine, PU says that we shouldn’t force anyone / be forced into
the machine against our will to maximise utility. We should rather respect our preference to stay
in touch with reality and not plug in. Thus, maximising people’s preferences

P8: Problem for PU

- Happiness and satisfying preference isn't always morally good. A child abuser’s happiness is
morally bad, and so is following his preferences. Thus, there must be some other standard than
happiness for what’s morally right.
- HOW DO I EXPAND THIS?! PLEASE!!!!

Conclusion: Thus, untenable moral theory.

How convincing is Aristotelian virtue ethics?

Intro:
- Virtue ethics seeks to answer the fundamental question: what constitutes a good life for human beings?
- Virtue ethics is a philosophy developed by Aristotle which uses key principles such as Eudaimonia, the
function argument and virtues and vices in order to judge the morality of an action.
- This essay will argue that Virtue ethics is not convincing as an account of what makes an account morally
right.

Paragraph 1: Prima facie strengths of Virtue ethics - vagueness

- Flexibility allows followers to interpret the moral theory in any way they want and to apply it to their
regular lives in a way which they view as fitting.
- Virtue ethics avoids the rigidity and inflexibility of Utilitarianism and Kantian ethics because it doesn’t
only rely on one principle.
- The principles of virtues and vices and Eudaimonia and the function argument compound to create a
diverse moral theory which can be applied to practical issues and help us decide how we should act.
- Some would also say that although virtue ethics cannot give us an easy and instant answer due to its vague
nature, this is not a weakness. This would be because these answers, allegedly, do not exist.
 - This provides some cushioning for Aristotelian ethics as it claims that Virtue ethics can still be
action-guiding and provide a steady moral compass for those who follow it.

Paragraph 2: Issue 1 - Doesn’t give enough guidance about how to act (too vague)
- However, a fundamental prerequisite of any theory is that it offers clear guidance for moral action. A theory
that generates confusion, uncertainty and vagueness is one that will impede rather than aid our moral
decision making. Thus - self-defeating
- Fails to give us any help with the practicalities of how we should behave. Util. provides the principle of
maximising happiness, and Kant gives categorical imperative, but doctrine of the mean doesn’t function in
the same way.
- ‘Too much’ and ‘too little’ aren’t quantities on a scale. This gives us no actual help, as anything could be in
the mean if the circumstances are right.
- Doesn’t help the lost and bewildered.

Paragraph 3: Counter - Aristotle didn’t intend to be helpful this way & Response to counter
- Aristotle didn’t intend for the doctrine of the mean to be helpful in this way
- We must have practical wisdom in order to find out what is right to do
- Life is complicated, and we must develop PW in order to act virtuously in many complicated situations that
arise
- Just bc virtue ethics doesn’t provide a specific course of action doesn’t mean that it provides no guidance
whatsoever
Response to counter:
- Practical wisdom doesn’t provide any guidance about what to do either. What do you do if you don’t have
PW?
- We need to possess practical wisdom to know what constitutes too much and too little
- Practical wisdom requires virtue - this is circular. Aristotle’s theory provides no guidance to anyone who
isn’t already virtuous.
- Doesn’t issue practical guidance for those who are morally fallible (all of us)

Paragraph 4: Issue 3 - The relationship between the good for the individual and moral good
- The good for individual is eudaimonia (includes elements beyond morality e.g. honour and wealth)
- We need to make a distinction between a good life for individuals (eudaimonia), and a morally good life
- Imagine a nurse who spends her life saving lives, and lives in some remote country abroad. She doesn’t
enjoy it, and she only does it because she thinks that it is needed. She dies from a virus that she caught
while working abroad, young and stressed.
- She clearly lived a morally good life, as she did nothing but help others, but she also clearly didn’t achieve
eudaimonia. This indicates a difference between what is morally good and Eudaimonia.
- Therefore, VE is not convincing as an account of what makes an action morally right.

Paragraph 5: Counter - Aristotle wasn’t trying to answer what a morally good life is & Response to counter
- Aristotle wasn’t trying to answer the narrow question of what a morally good life is. He was concerned
with good life in general.
- Aristotle would argue that achieving Eudaimonia does involve some level of commitment to others
- Thus, the altruism demonstrated by the nurse is part of eudaimonia.
Response to counter:
- BUT, Aristotle has still only just proved that this is a part of Eudaimonia. It isn’t the only part.
- Thus, the misalignment between Eudaimonia and moral good is still a successful attack on Aristotelian
virtue ethics.
Paragraph 6: Convincing because of strengths it has over Util. and Kantian ethics

- Aristotle’s Virtue ethics avoid the rigidity of Utilitarianism and Kantian ethics due to the fact that it does
not generate counter-intuitive reasoning.
- In Utilitarianism, the issue of the “Peeping Tom” lies in that, due to the fact that nobody witnessed Tom
peeping, nothing bad has really happened. However, Virtue ethics protect our privacy and support our
ideals by deeming this action intrinsically wrong.
- If we use the example of a murderer at the door, Kantian ethics would tell us to expose our families to the
murderer so as to not tell any lies. Aristotelian Virtue ethics evade this problem by saying that the vice of
cowardice displayed by giving up so easily would be morally wrong. Thus, protecting our families and
showing that Virtue ethics are much more applicable and useful in everyday situations.

Paragraph 7: Virtue ethics can’t morally evaluate the actions of institutions.

- However, Utilitarianism can help with making political decisions that affect millions of people, however
Aristotelian Virtue ethics are unsuccessful in achieving this
- For example, when we look at different types of criminal punishment which are not administered by one
single person, but rather caused by the actions of many people, we can see that it is impossible to evaluate
the act of punishment as it is not performed by an individual.
- In Virtue ethics there are two key principles- the principle of Eudaimonia and Virtues/Vices. Since there is
no individual performing the act, we cannot judge their morality/ the morality of the action by the Virtues
and Vices displayed by the individual, as there isn’t one.
- We cannot apply virtues such as honesty to a system or institution, and thus, Virtue ethics fails to morally
evaluate the actions of a state or institution. Furthermore, a state cannot achieve eudaimonia.
- Therefore, Virtue ethics is not a convincing account as an account of what makes an action morally right.