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Thea Layman

Professor Mark Purcell

Honors 394B

November 13, 2023

Mill’s Utilitarianism and its Effect on Unity

When looking at the current state of our world, it quickly becomes apparent that there are

few things that we humans agree on. As a general rule, it appears that what most of us desire is to

be happy and have the capacity to live out our lives in a way that makes that possible–the issue is

that no one can quite seem to agree on how to do that. People tend to follow their feelings and

gut impulses, increasing polarization and making it increasingly difficult to come to a consensus

on difficult topics. With so many conflicting beliefs and so little agreement on how best to

accomplish the goal of increasing happiness, it’s hard to make progress towards a society that

improves the quality of life for those in it.

Mill’s ethical theory of utilitarianism helps resolve these disputes, stating that “actions

are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the

reverse of happiness,” (Mill, page 7) in other words, the best action is the one that quantifiably

increases happiness and decreases unhappiness for everyone affected by it. This form of ethics

creates a clear guideline that is particularly useful when making decisions that affect a large

number of people as it helps individuals make objective decisions based on how their actions

will impact the collective happiness of those affected and removes personal feelings from the

equation. Furthermore, utilitarianism’s “greatest happiness principle,” when adopted universally

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by the populace, results in everyone working together to fix the same problems in the same way,

making it possible to efficiently increase happiness for everyone. If, as Mill states, “All the grand

sources… of human suffering are in a great degree… conquerable by human care and effort,”

(page 15) utilitarianism provides a universal roadmap for how to accomplish this, through how it

unifies people around the most objectively beneficial action, removing the differing personal

beliefs, which can vary widely from person to person and that can be counter to the greater good.

The dangers of using sentiment in making wide-reaching policies can be seen in the

increasing polarization of politics in the United States, a problem particularly apparent in the

issue of abortion. Abortion is a sensitive subject that creates a lot of strong emotions for many

people. Its protection and prohibition affects a large percentage of the population and has a

massive long-lasting effect on the happiness of women involved and their families. Considering

this, it is even more important that decisions about its ethicality are made based on facts about its

effects and not just personal sentiments. Under utilitarianism, the morality of abortion is decided

entirely based on if it objectively increases or decreases happiness for those involved.

Fortunately, the Turnaway Study by the University of California San Francisco can help us

evaluate that by quantifying the effects of an unwanted pregnancy without access to abortion.

The study was made up of three groups: women who sought an abortion and were turned away

for being over the gestational limit, women were just under that limit and received an abortion,

and women who received first trimester abortions. The results showed that the women who were

unable to get an abortion experienced more long-term negative effects relative to those who were

able to get an abortion, including: increased risk of household poverty, difficulty covering basic

living expenses, lower credit scores, physical violence from partners, life-threatening

complications, chronic health problems, and even death from childbirth (whereas no women died
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from an abortion). Since each of these results can be reasonably correlated with decreased

happiness, it’s clear that for women who wish to have an abortion but are denied one, carrying an

unwanted child to term results in more unhappiness than having an abortion. Therefore,

utilitarianism would determine access to abortion as the ethical policy. Mill also emphasizes how

utilitarianism is inherently linked to legal systems, explaining that using utility, “laws and social

arrangements should place the happiness or…interest of every individual as nearly as possible in

harmony with the interests of the whole,” (Mill, page 17) and as abortions are a necessary means

of reducing unhappiness, utilitarianism would support the right to a legal abortion being codified

in law.

Conversely, Hume, an ethical subjectivist, claimed that “Nothing can be more real, or

concern us more, than our own sentiments of pleasure and uneasiness: and if these be favorable

to virtue, and unfavorable to vice, no more can be requisite to the regulation of our conduct or

behavior,” (Hume, page 302) in short, he believed that an act was moral or virtuous if we got a

positive sentiment from it and was immoral if we felt uneasy about it. If Hume were to be

followed on contentious issues like abortion, abortion could be moral for some and immoral for

others and there would be no way of coming to a consensus about the morality of the act itself.

The consequences of this version of morality don’t just mean that everyone can choose for

themselves, they mean that for moral dilemmas that require intervention of legal systems, there is

the possibility that the differing opinions get in the way of the greater good. Continuing the

example of abortion, since this moral issue is at the same time a legal one, this wouldn’t just

result in the population of women who believe abortion is moral could get one and the

population that believes it isn’t could just refrain from getting one–it could result everyone losing

access to abortion because of a minority of people who believe it should be illegal. Pew Research
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shows that in 2022, 61% of Americans believed that abortion should be legal in all or most cases

while only 37% believed it should be illegal in all or most cases, while a Gallup poll shows even

more support for abortion with 85% of Americans believing that abortion should be legal in

some way. This means that by following their feelings like Hume proposes, a minority of the

population has contributed to the exclusion of access to a life-changing procedure, resolving the

620,327 women each year (“CDCs Abortion Surveillance”, 2022) who would have benefited

from an abortion and are now unable to the lower economic standing, higher risk of abuse, and

increase in serious health problems associated with being forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy

to term. In this case, using feelings like Hume proposes rather than what objectively increases

happiness like Mill suggests has led to a splintering in ideology, at the massive detriment of

hundreds of thousands of women.

Up until now we’ve only discussed abortion’s impact on the women involved, but one of

the main problems that people have with it is how it affects the unborn child. Many following

Hume feel in their gut that it is inherently wrong to end that life before it’s begun and that there

can be no ethical argument otherwise. However, this argument fails to stay afloat when you

break it down. If it was truly about not getting in the way of a theoretical child from living a

theoretical life then you can quickly see that this is impossible to fully implement as there are

infinite possibilities for people that could be born but it's just physically impossible for all of

them to be. So if the argument that it is immoral for this possibility of a child to not be born then

you have to accept that there are infinite possibilities for all of the people who could ever be born

and that–even if this child were to be born–it would mean that other possible children would also

not be born as a result because of how the mother could have infinite combinations of other

children that she is not having because she is currently carrying the first child. In addition, if you
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were to twist the argument of utilitarianism back around to defend the idea that abortion is in fact

not a net positive because it fundamentally kills the child, this is also disproven in two ways.

Firstly, having the child not be born is actually not a net negative of happiness, rather it is a net

zero because of how it doesn’t take away happiness but simply makes it so that the child never

grows up to be someone that can gain or lose happiness. In addition, some would also argue that

the fetus feels pain from being aborted, leading to unhappiness, but this can also be disproved as

many major medical organizations of obstetricians and gynecologist believe that the fetus isn’t

capable of feeling pain until at least 24-25 weeks (Fischer, 2023) and the CDC shows that 93.1%

of abortions are within 13 weeks of gestation, well within the range before they can feel pain.

Secondly, the Turnaway Study also reported that the children born from the women turned away

from getting an abortion were more likely to live under the federal poverty line than the wanted

children born to women after they’d received an abortion and that carrying an unwanted

pregnancy also results in poorer maternal bonding with the children from that pregnancy,

showing that children from unwanted pregnancies force to take to term have a lower net

happiness that children from a wanted pregnancy after their mother was allowed an abortion.

Once again, Mill’s utilitarianism can play an important role by seeing past the emotions that

cloud judgment to the objective reality of what increases happiness and decreases pain for the

greatest number of people.

With our present political climate balancing between two highly polarized ends that are

getting progressively extreme, it’s more important than ever to make decisions based on

objective truths that prioritize the happiness of the general populace instead of following

sentiments that differ so widely, can’t be brought to a consensus, and can result in a net negative

of happiness. Mill’s utilitarianism gives us a clean and simple definition of what makes a deed
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moral–simply what results in the production of the greatest amount of happiness for everyone

affected by it. Since this definition of morality doesn’t depend on personal feelings, it enables

everyone to come to an agreement for what the right course of action is and makes it possible to

effectively implement moral policies that are a better reflection of what is best for the general

public.

Sources

“Abortion Surveillance - United States, 2020.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 23 Nov. 2022,

www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/ss/ss7110a1.htm.

“CDCs Abortion Surveillance System Faqs.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 17 Nov. 2022,

www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/data_stats/abortion.htm.

Fischer, Kristen. “When Can a Fetus Feel Pain in the Womb?” WebMD, WebMD, 3 May 2023,

www.webmd.com/baby/when-can-a-fetus-feel-pain-in-the-womb.

Hume, David. “Book 3. Part 1.” A Treatise of Human Nature, Volume 1, Clarendon Press, 2000.

MILL, JOHN STUART. Utilitarianism. Hackett Publishing Company, 2002.

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“Public Opinion on Abortion.” Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project, Pew

Research Center, 17 May 2022, www.pewresearch.org/religion/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-

abortion/.

“The Harms of Denying a Woman a Wanted Abortion - ANSIRH.” ANSIRH, UCSF,

www.ansirh.org/sites/default/files/publications/files/the_harms_of_denying_a_woman_a_wanted

_abortion_4-16-2020.pdf. Accessed 12 Nov. 2023.

“The Turnaway Study.” ANSIRH, UCSF, 15 Aug. 2022,

www.ansirh.org/research/ongoing/turnaway-study.

“Where Do Americans Stand on Abortion?” Gallup.Com, Gallup, 7 July 2023,

news.gallup.com/poll/321143/americans-stand-abortion.aspx.