Imagine a teacher killing his or her student and then making the claim that this action was not only the morally permissible thing to do in the circumstances, but that acting in any other way would have been immoral. Imagine that the teacher’s defense was that he foresaw that in the future this student, who was extremely gifted and charismatic, would go on to become an influential politician who would promote policies that would lead to millions dying in wars in foreign lands. What if the teacher could somehow prove that his intuition was correct? What should happen to the teacher? Under our current legal system, that teacher should be taken to trial and, convicted and then sentenced to prison for the duration of his life. However, under act-consequentialism and it’s included theory of Utilitarianism, the teacher should be praised for committing an action which carried with it the outcome of the most produced goodness than all other actions available to him. This, as will be explored in this essay, is the basic problem with consequentialist theories, when such an ethical theory is carried to it’s logical conclusion, it opens up to a host of problems and moral conundrums. In order to breath life into this statement, I will show how it plays out in a current debate happening in Utilitarian and anti-utilitarian ethical theorists active in the world today.
William Shaw writes, “consequentialists affirm that the results or consequences of an action determine whether it is right or wrong” (Shaw, 5). Consequentialists do not care about a person’s intentions or desire to good. Like a good business manager they are only concerned with results. One form of consequentialism is utilitarianism. According to Peter Vallentyne, Standard Utilitarianism is “is a paradigm example of maximizing consequentialism” (Vellentyne, 21). Like the opening example though, such a moral theory gets out of hand quickly and leads to what any one short of a psycho path would find to be morally questionable actions taken all in the name of maximizing the good. Utilitarianism also lends itself to people being morally right by accident, since if their self serving decisions outside of their trying to lead to the benefit of others, even if their actions are selfish, under Utilitarianism these would be considered the right actions.
An example from a contemporary moral debate between a Utilitarian ethicist and a non-utilitarian ethicist helps illustrate this. Peter Singer and Andrew Kuper are two philosophers engaged in thought that deal in poverty in our world and what obligations individuals and states have in addressing the issue. Kuper focuses not on what action will bring about the most good, but what given are current state of affairs is the most practical way to go about generating the most good outcomes by actions. Singer, however, takes Utilitarianism to its extreme view and advokates extreme action on the part of people, putting into question the morality of those who do not maximize the goodness that their lives can bring about when assisting in issues such as poverty. Singer clings to a rigid Utilitarian logic while Kuper basically says, “Guys, given where we are in the world, what should we realistically expect of people and what realistically can we help people.”
The fact that a person is physically near to us, so that we have personal contact with him, may make it more likely that we shall assist him, but this does not show that we ought to help him rather than another who happens to be further away. (Singer, 232). Singer realizes that the masses will not take kindly to his extreme view and that they will be inclined to object to spending the majority of their lives helping those in need. So in making his point he qualifies it with several fortifications against what he supposes will be people’s demur. He calls the world a “global village” because in our modern times people can no longer claim that they are unaware of the suffering of the poor, or make the claim that they cannot to reach them. He sees “no possible justification for discriminating on geographical grounds” (Singer, 232). He cites aid organizations that are on the ground and have the ability to deploy relief funds that those far away could direct towards those on the brink of risking mortality because of starvation.
In consequentialism the good is agent-neutral. Singer looks at the world and he sees that people are starving to death because they do not have enough food. He sees that people are dying of curable diseases. Shaw writes that “At least sometimes it will be the case that one outcome is better than another outcome – not better merely from some particular perspective, but simply better, better tout court” (Shaw, 6). Singer says, and very few would disagree, that people starving and dying in the world are intrinsically bad things. A better state of affairs would be for this would be for these people to have enough to eat and proper medicine. Because of the aid organizations in other countries that people have the ability to donate to prevent these people from dying, that people should give the majority of their incomes to this end until this particular international problem is solved. It seems simply enough, but as we will see from Kuper’s critique of it, Singer’s avocation of this theory might not be maximizing the good that another theory could bring about.
Singer sees the world as a very immoral place where the majority of people lead immoral lives and he does not feel that just because of that should he develop a moral theory that makes people feel personally less guilty about what he would term as their immorality. He remains severe in his argument, writing that just because most people according to his theory are consciously making a decision to be immoral that “this can make no real difference to our moral obligations” (Singer, 233). He forwards a story of a pond where a person sees a child drowning while people watch and do nothing to help and sees this as exactly what is happening in the world, that people are drowning and the rest of the world refuses to do anything to help.
His sums up his argument succinctly writing, “if it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything else morally significant, we ought, morally to do it” (Singer, 235). Under Utilitarianism, there is no such thing as charity, only moral obligations and duties and each person must, to be moral must carry out their duties (Shaw). The biggest immorality under Singer’s Utilitarianism is people using their capital to buy things such as new cares and purses instead of using it to save people’s lives. He does have a point. In this current state of world of , it would be hard to argue against Singer without wondering if you were not arguing for the sake of justifying your own lifestyle and materialism.
There is the fact that we live in a consumer based culture that feeds a consumer based economy which serves its own needs while rarely doing much to help those who are destitute and dying through no fault of their own. He gets blunter as he continues, making it abundantly clear that this is not something that is good to do but wrong not to do, but wrong not to do. “We ought to give the money away, and it is wrong not to do so” (Singer, 235). He does not see this giving as charity, but as duty. This has, as Singer says, “radical implications” since we live in both a world of affluence AND destitution.
Singer muses about why so few people are of agreement with his conclusions, which he feels, must be accepted if his premises cannot be shown unsound. But is he consistent with Utilitarianism? Is his perspective maximizing the good or people’s guilt?
Philosopher Andrew Kuper is a contemporary of Singer, also is a moral philosopher, but does not believe Singer’s perspective practical (even though Singer published a work titled Practical Ethics). Kuper and Singer are on the right page about what should be done, it is just that they are both governed by different moral theories. Kuper writes that “Nothing is more politically important to think about, and act upon, than global poverty relief” (Kuper, 155). Though Singer is all about maximizing the good, Kuper is about producing actual results and judging a theory based on those results. The problem in the world with regard to poverty is gigantic. Every day 30,000 children dying daily of starvation and preventable diseases. Kuper touts the standard “industry numbers” on poverty, and shows that there are 1.2 billion people are living on less than one dollar a day and 2.4 billion lack basic sanitation (Kuper, 155). Such stats shows a significant proportion of the earth’s population is impoverished and he understands that such uninspiring statistics can lead to one feeling despair and impotent.
Kuper is a fan Singer’s work, calling his commitment to social activism, “rare among philosophers” (Kuper, 156). But he is not on the same page with his utilitarian approach which he says is “lacking as a theoretical orientation for action” (Kuper, 156). Singer’s looks at the individual, and desires everyone to adopt a “practical code of ethics” which he bases upon utilitarianism. In contrast, Kuper sees the solution as a political. Afterall, if individuals are feeding the hungry, they create life-long dependencies between the haves and the have-nots. Kuper finds individual utilitarian approach of Singer a “dangerous” as it neglects of the responsibility of our structures of government. There are two ways of looking at this disagreement between both philosophers point of view, and it is a classic chicken and egg issue. Does the morality of the state have an effect on the morality of the individual, or does the morality of the individual affect the morality of the state? Singer in his argument thinks that both individual efforts based on practical ethics and massive deployment of aid money from states can happen simultaneously, so he might not disagree with Kuper as much as Kuper disagrees with him.
Singer’s conclusions is that the average American family should be giving around $30,000 in aid money. Such a figure shocks people. Kuper does not argue against Singer’s outcomes, but the practicality of its application. Realistically how many families are realistically going to dramatically increase there given solely based on logical argument? Very few. And that’s the problem.
Singer though, even if his argument is difficult to palate in terms of making lifestyle changes is at least reliable throughout, uses logical terms and remains true to the belief that if his premises are true than the conclusions are true in starkly mathematical terms in the vein of 3 + 3 = 6.
The main disagreement with Singer and Kuper is how to actually make a difference in the world regarding poverty. Under Utlitarianism people have the obligation to help, but real change in the world will happen when people have the intention to help. This is the biggest problem with consequentialist theories, they lack the building up of good intentions and the creation of good consciences in favor of duty. Kuper muses what would happen if Singer spent all of his time saving children instead of lecturing at Princeton? How, under his own ethical theory, did he even have the time to develop his theory of practical ethics when people starving in the world that he could have been helping by working at McDonalds and donating the money to? Under Utilitarianism would not that be the best place for him to have spent his time?
Kuper points out that Singer’s argument “denies that (a) shared citizenship and (b) distance per se make any difference to the nature and extent of our obligations to help others. Though Kuper thinks that Singer denies a system of justice, it is merely that Singer focuses just on the individual. It also denies that obligations rest not just with world citizenship, but also with communities and kin, making distance at least somewhat important. Singer and Kuper both seek the same end, but arrive at it from difference means. Singer’s philosophy is abstract and detached while Kuper wants to know what theory, regardless of logical consistency, is most practical in brining about actual change.
This is my basic beef with consequentialism, it is a moral system that relies on the logic of goodness and forgets to put the basis of compassion within humanity. Real change in the world will not come from the cold duty of consequentialism, but from intentions. It is possible to have done the right thing and have the wrong outcome and not be morally down on oneself for that.
Works Cited:
Kuper, Andrew. Global responsibilities: who must deliver on human rights?. New York: Routledge, 2005. Print.
Singer, Peter. Practical ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Print.
Shaw, “The Consequentialist Perspective.”
Vallentyne, “Against Maximizing Act-Consequentialism.”
