Kantian Ethics and Utilitarianism AQA A-Level Philosophy

• aims to promote happiness

• happiness/pleasure is the supreme ethical value

• an act is right if it delivers more pleasure than pain

Happiness= pleasure minus pain

• it’s like a cost benefit analysis of happiness

• calculates more utile action

• utility= action that causes the pleasure, beneficial to people

• maximising utility= carrying out the actions that cause the maximum pleasure for the maximum people

• maximum pleasure for the maximum people

• used in calculus by weighing up the amount of pleasure and pain is produced by an action and select the action that is the most utile

1. pleasure+freedom from pain are the only things desirable as ends

2. a life of pleasures is a life of pigs

• incorrect as a life of pleasures gives more value to higher pleasures

3. we can only give more value to higher pleasures if they’re more permanent, healthy, higher quality etc.

4. higher pleasures are preferred by people who experience both higher and lower pleasures

5. human’s natural dignity leads them to prefer higher pleasures

6. better to have a capacity for higher pleasures and be unsatisfied than only capacity for lower pleasures and be satisfied

• the only proof of something being desirable is if it is desired

• happiness is desired

• happiness is therefore desirable

• if an individuals happiness is desirable then the general happiness is desirable

• therefore, happiness is the only thing desired for its own sake

• consequently, an action is right if it maximises happiness for the greatest number of people

• from desired to desirable

  • only evidence that something is visible is if it can be seen

  • only evidence that something is desirable is if it is desired

  • each person desires their own happiness

  • therefore, each persons happiness is desirable (implied by 2,3)

• Preference= each action that I take should maximise the fulfilment of people’s preferences

  • avoids pleasure drug problems because it’s not the people’s preference

  • avoids social engineering problems

  • clearly identifies people’s preferences

  • differs to classical utilitarianism because it allows “morally wrong” actions to be taken, such as lying, because it’s the preference of the public to know the truth

Hedonism=

moral theory that claims for each individual, pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain is the right thing to do, they ought to seek it

Psychological Hedonism=

descriptive theory of human motivation, claiming that the aims of an individual’s action are to avoid pain and seek pleasure

• if everyone followed the rules I follow, it should maximise the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people

• squareabout example:

  • everyone doesn’t know how to use a squareabout, so they make their own decision on how to use it

  • if every roundabout is replaced by a squareabout, no rule would be in place to prevent people from crashing

  • contrasts to how there are rules for roundabouts where there are very few indicents as a result

Weak rule utilitarian

• argues we should make exceptions to rules in maximising utility

  • argues we should break the rule to not lie to avoid the axe murderer murdering our mother

Strong rule utilitarian

• argues we should follow the rules in every counter intuitive case, actions follow rules, which gives them moral worth

  • they would not lie to the axe murderer

• P1- actions are morally right/wrong depending on their consequences, so an action is right if it maximises good consequences

• P2- the only thing that’s good is happiness/pleasure, or the absence of pain

  • C1- an action is right if it maximises the amount of happiness

• P3- nobody’s happiness counts more than anyone else’s

  • C2- an action is right if it maximises the amount of happiness for the greatest number of people

• two senses of desirable

• is-ought gap from desired to desirable

• naturalistic fallacy with desirability

• fallacy of composition

• hypothetical machine that would give you any desired experience

• brain would be stimulated in such a way that every desired experience would seem real

• you do not physically do these actions, you are in a tank

• others may also enter the same machines so you do not have to serve them

do you enter?

Challenges utilitarianism because:

• humans desire to physically carry out actions, not just experience doing them

• people who plug in are committing a form of suicide, because there is nothing left except for pleasure, our time and experience is no longer meaningful

• P1- if happiness is the only good (only thing that is good for it’s own sake) then act or rule utilitarianism is true

• P2- if happiness is the only good (all other goods are only good because of happiness) then people wouldn’t have reason to go into the machine

• P3- people do not have reason to get in the machine

• C1- therefore happiness is not the only good

• C2- therefore utilitarianism is not true

• greatest happiness for the greatest number of people

• applies even if it affects other people, as long as they’re not the majority

• implies that the majority has power over the minority if the majorities pleasure is greater

• leads to exploitation of minorities, since the pleasure of the majority is favoured

• this can affect the politics of race, gender, sexuality, bodily autonomy, rights, slavery etc.

• Criticism 1: It is impossible to compare pleasures on the same scale.

  • can you compare curing cancer to eating chocolate cake?

• Criticism 2: is quantity of pleasure the only factor, does the quality of pleasure matter more, how long the pleasure lasts?

  • does the pleasure of eating chocolate cake equate to the same quality of pleasure as curing cancer?

• Criticism 3: the moral quality of an action depends on the motive, it could be carried out maliciously.

  • something that causes pleasure could have poor intentions behind it, ie. donating to a charity to avoid scandal publicity vs donating because of goodness

  • psychological hedonism is false, not everyone is motivated by happiness because of self-sacrifice

• utilitarianism expects us to put aside our personal feelings and desire to do anything otherwise

  • if a person is negatively impacted psychologically by doing an action, then it is relevant

• our personal feelings are only one point of data in the calculation

• humans are partial to their own values, and cannot be expected to put their values and feelings aside for the maximum happiness

  • Mill tries to respond saying people aren’t able to help the majority so we should try to in our own lives

  • is a now outdated argument because we now have charities

  • Peter singer argued experiments of children growing up without families didn’t work well, so perhaps the happiness we gain from family is worth the partiality

• utilitarianism requires that we treat our own motives as abstract and external

• yielding happiness values to be calculated amongst others

• doesn’t respect the fact that your actions are your own and express the values you hold

• therefore, utilitarianism doesn’t understand or respect integrity

• No longer hedonism, not lead by the maximum happiness for the most people, lead by the quality of happiness for the most people

• Utilitarianism loses it’s simplicity because there are now tiers of quality in play

• Cultural snobbery

• maximising general happiness leads to highly morally counter-intuitive results, actions that seem clearly wrong

• strong rule utilitarianism does not account for the counter intuitive cases

• rule utilitarianism is challenged by the counter intuitive cases where following a rule seems wrong

• weak rule utilitarianism collapses into act utilitarianism, because exceptions are made in favour of maximum utility

• bad and crazy preferences

  • to prefer to die over something trivial

  • god’s own drug addict

• preferences from a distance

• weighing up preferences

  • is the preference of protestors you could join worth more than the preference of a terminally ill friend?

• utilitarianism claims that an action is right if it leads to the greatest happiness

• it therefore doesn’t recognise the moral value of our intentions in acting as we do

  • ‘it is the thought that counts’

• intention behind an action makes a big difference to how we respond to their action

  • hurting someone on purpose rather than by accident should be as important as the consequence of them getting hurt

• a good will is one which has the right intention when performing moral actions

• the only good thing that is good without qualification is a good will

• talent, intelligence, wit, etc. are not good in nature because the intent behind them depends on character

  • ie, the coolness of a villain is more dangerous than if they were outwardly malicious

• things that create happiness are not good because they can result in pride, arrogance, etc.

• P1- everything in nature is perfectly adapted to its function

• C1- human reason must also then be perfectly adapted to its function

• P2- the function of human reason cannot be to produce happiness since instinct would be better for that purpose

• P3- using reason to achieve happiness is bound to fail

• C2- the purpose of reason is to create a will that is good in itself

• we should do things for duty’s sake, for the sake of good will regardless of our personal feelings or desires

• To have a duty is to be required to act in a certain way out of respect for (moral) law

a) in accordance= carrying out an action which is what duty requires of you, but with ulterior motives aside from dutiful motivation

• to do your duty as a shopkeeper by lowering prices, but to gain more customers

b) out of duty= acting out of the motivation to carry out your duty

• to carry out your duty as a shopkeeper by lowering prices for fairness between customers

(imperative=command)

• IF……THEN statements

  • IF I intend/will x THEN I should perform action y

• statements about what we intend/will to happen

• not desiring/wanting is not the same as willing it

  • ie. I may want a cookie tomorrow, but I don’t will it

Kant argues that willing the ends entails willing the means, this is an analytic truth, that someone who wills the ends, wills the means

A principal of action

**“**Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law”

moral duties are not hypothetical, they are what ought to be done and aren’t a means to an end

• good will is the only thing that can be considered an unqualified good

• good will is one that acts FROM DUTY

• to have duty is to be required to act in a certain way, respecting the moral law

• moral law is discovered by whether the action can or cannot be universalised

• (tests whether you can rationally will that everyone does what you want to do, or if there’s a contradiction)

contradiction in conception:

• the situation in which everyone acted on that maxim is somehow self-contradictory

  • eg, theft

  • maxim of “I will steal when I want to”

  • leads to the destruction of private property

  • if there is no private property, there is nothing to steal, and is therefore self-contradictory

Actions which follow from contradictions in conception generally involve negative actions and are called PERFECT DUTIES

contradiction in will:

• we cannot rationally will a situation in which it would be impossible for us to achieve our ends

• in doing so is to cease to will the necessary means to one’s ends, which is effectively to cease to will any ends at all

• this contradicts the very act of willing

  • eg, refusal to help

  • everyone has some actions that depend on the help of others that they will (intend to accomplish)

  • acting on the maxim to “never help others” is willing that you’ll be unable to achieve your goals

  • goes against your nature as a rational agent

Actions which follow from contradictions in the will generally involve positive actions and are called IMPERFECT DUTIES

Universalisable maxim:

• an action that you carry out, and everyone else is also able to carry out, it becomes universal law

Non-universalisable maxim:

• action that can be carried out by yourself, but if everyone carried out said action, it would be contradictory

“Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end”**

Treating people as ends is wrong, as in:

• involving you in an action that you do not (in principle) have a chance to consent to

• Kant only forbids treating someone as an end

In daily life, we have to treat people as means to an end since either side profits:

• ie. asking a shop assistant for a product.

1. implication of respect involved in the 1st formulation

2. each human has a way of making their own moral laws

• Imperfect duties are moral obligations that are not always binding

• do not have a specific action attached to them

• duties that we should strive to fulfil, but are not required to do so in every circumstance

• eg. improving oneself, and promoting the common good

• perfect duties are moral obligations

• must always be followed, without exception

• these duties are considered to be universal and apply to all individuals in all situations

• eg, duty to not lie, the duty to not harm others, and the duty to keep promises

• The moral law is experienced through the moral sense of conscience.

• The moral law is internal, intrinsic to us,  not given from outside

• The moral law is a rational will, impartial and universal

• The moral law is the basic structure of reason

• The moral law is the source of human freedom and autonomy

• The test of the moral law is universalizability

• We are the source of the moral law

• two duties which could not both be done would clash

• problem for Kantian ethics because he claims that our reason can figure out what our actual objective duty is

• this shows Kantian ethics flawed because if the duties clash and one cannot be done, then it can’t be our duty

• since the duty was obtained using the categorical imperative, it is a product of Kant’s ethical theory, and is not duty

• clashing duties cannot be our duty and thus if Kant’s method of universalisibility and treating people as ends produces maxims that clash, then his method doesn’t actually discover our duty

Eg, the soldier whose duty is to fight at war for his country, but also must look after his sick mother.

Both cannot be done but are universalisable, neither involve treating people as a means and are in turn his duty, so they clash.

• if we think there are clashing duties, we are haven’t used our reason properly

• there is only one way of fulfilling perfect duties and multiple ways to fulfil imperfect duties

• we have a perfect duty to tell the truth, the only other way is to avoid lying

• in the case of the soldier, there are multiple ways in which these duties could be fulfilled

• pay for someone else to look after your sick family member, or help the country’s war effort while remaining at home

• it is possible to fulfil both duties because they are imperfect

Not all non-universalisable maxims are immoral

• eg, a rich person wants to donate money to charity

  • seems to be a good thing but not everyone can donate a lot of money to charity

Not all universalisable maxims are distinctly moral

• eg,  if someone decided they wanted to steal

  • they edited their maxim from ‘I can steal’ to ‘someone with 6 letters in their name can steal’

  • maxim could be universalised because only a minority of people could still steal

  • so the concept of private property would still be in place and only be undermined by a few people

• is duty the only thing of moral value?

value of other motives- care:

• feminist critique of both Kantianism and Utilitarianism

• emphasis  both  systems  place  on  reasoning  from  an  abstract,  neutral  viewpoint

• highlights the adoption  of  a  dispassionate  approach  in  how  we  assess  our  concern  for  different  humans,  represents  'male'  patterns  of  ethical  thought

• it claims that women pay more attention to the  subjectivity  of  situations,  and  on  care  and  concern  for  others

  • eg, it is a more female trait to lie about holding a Jewish refugee during ww2 in Germany

Kant responds, saying you’re your own rational agent and responsible for your decisions, and lying to prevent a Nazi from killing them is to act as though you were responsible for the consequences of the Nazi’s action- you cannot control responses/consequences

It can be argued that we are responsible for other’s actions:

• Kant pictures a human being as a rational agent who responsible only for what they do

• overlooks the social influences and constructs

• we have a deep connection to others and therefore feel responsible

• we can control consequences to a degree, so shouldn’t we be responsible for them?

• Bernard Williams claims it is inhuman and ethically wrong to suggest that moral judgement should be free from emotion

• Kantian ethics therefore recommends it is therefore immoral

  • eg, giving money to charity because you feel empathy for suffering people seems like a moral act, but Kantian ethics deems it as immoral

Objection-

• Kant argues that something is either right or wrong regardless of how a person may feel about it

• believing it is morally good to give money to charity out of empathy is still committing to the claim that the goodness of the act consists in their feelings of empathy

  • the deservedness of the receiver is not dependent on the empathy of the donator

  • therefore Kant argues the goodness of their act isn’t dependent on their feelings, and acting out of feelings is failing to act morally

Counter-

• Arguably impossible in practice

• we can’t act without any influence of emotion

• Kant’s ethics bay be good in abstract theory, but won’t work in practice given the fact that we are emotional beings

• This is argued by Hume

Phillippa Foot:

• argues morality is a system of hypothetical imperatives instead of categorical

  • hypothetical imperatives are dependent on the ends chosen

  • if you want Y, you should do X

  • categorical imperatives are duties regardless of our ends, etc.

• Kant’s ethics depends on the claim that reason can discover the categorical imperative

  • concludes that it’s only rational to act on maxims that you can rationally will everyone to act on

  • irrational to act on non-universalizable maxims

• Foot argues Kant is wrong about what makes an action rational

  • that action is only irrational when:

  • ‘a man acts in such a way which undermines his own ends’

  • it’s therefore rational for one to act in a way they do not intend others to, so long as they don’t undermine their own ends

  • ie. we have chosen our own ends (hypothetical imperatives)

Kant’s theory fails because a fundamental premise of the theory fails – that morality is based on a categorical imperative

Kant’s defence-

• reason tells us that we are rational agents and other humans are rational agents too

• we are all equal

• if reason tells us we are all equal in that we all have reason, then how could non-universalizable maxims be made consistent with reason?

• doing what everyone cannot do to be rational, I would have to think there is something special about me and my ends

• no rational basis for thinking that

• arguably Kant is right that there is this link between reason and the categorical imperative and therefore, arguably his account of rationality is correct