For my second blog post, I will talk about Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is a family of ethical theories that follows the utility principle. The utility principle states that the best action is the one that serves the greatest number of people. So for utilitarianism, an action is only as good as its utility. If you read my post on Kant, you would know how much these theories differ. While Kantians are concerned with the action, utilitarians are concerned with the consequences. To them it doesn’t matter what the intent behind the action was. Take this example, imagine you are having a get together with all your friends, and you are deciding where you want to go. A few want to go to Starbucks and a few to Dunkin’ Donuts. No one in either group would even consider going to the other. So you as a utilitarian would suggest that you go to a new coffee place. It’s no one’s favorite but everyone can make do and no one is too upset. I think of myself as a rule utilitarian (loosely, it's hard being so selfless), but we’ll get to what that means later.

After reading that you may think that utilitarianism is hedonistic ( which means to seek pleasure and avoid pain). Although unlike many other hedonistic theories, utilitarianism is not egoistic. This means that you shouldn’t only seek your own pleasure but instead the pleasure of everyone. Yes, I know that sounds hard. You probably care about your own pleasure and pain more than other people’s because you can actually feel them. Utilitarians suggest that you take the perspective of an omnipotent and indifferent stranger looking into the situation. Utilitarians agree that your caring about your own pain and pleasure are very important (partly to... not die) but it’s not more important than any other person’s. Utilitarianism also demands that you get your hands dirty sometimes. Image this, you are walking into a forest when you see a man pointing a gun at a group of twenty poor workers. He tells you that he will kill all twenty workers unless you take the gun and kill one of them. If you do, he will spare the other 19. So obviously the theory is telling you to kill one of the workers, which sounds like a tall order. It's not surprising that this thought experiment was actually used against utilitarianism, they argued that no theory should demand you to kill an innocent person.

However, most utilitarians agree that choosing not to help the situation (killing one to save 19) is morally bad. Choosing to not do anything is the same as choosing. By choosing to not kill one poor worker you’re choosing to let twenty other workers die. The defense of utilitarianism in that thought experiment is that the person you kill is already dead. In either situation, that person will die so you shouldn’t think of it as killing one and instead as saving 19. So as you see, this moral theory isn’t always for the faint of heart. I mentioned earlier that I was a rule utilitarian, this is the thought experiment from “CrashCourse” that made me one. Imagine you are a doctor and you have five patients that each need a different organ transplant. Unfortunately, there are no organs available so the patients will die soon. Then you remember that you have a neighbor who has no family, no friends, no career, and is generally just a rude guy. You know no one would miss him, and by some stroke of luck, he’s a match for all five organs. Would you murder your neighbor to save your five patients?

I said no to killing the neighbor while I said yes to the previous thought experiment. Both experiments call for you to kill one to save others, but this one felt different for me. The person I had to kill wasn’t collateral damage. It wasn’t necessarily A or B, I would go out of my way to kill this person who was perfectly healthy. Some utilitarians agree that the correct thing would be to kill your neighbor, but some were...disturbed by this prospect. So, naturally, they made rule utilitarianism. It’s like a mix between being a Kant follower and a utilitarian. You follow general rules that 9/10 times lead to a better outcome. This version is more concerned with the long term than the short term. In the short term, killing your neighbor is a good idea, but in the long run, it’s not. No one wants to live in a world where randomly harvesting your neighbors organs is okay. A common criticism of utilitarianism is that you can justify any number of bad things as long as it somehow serves something greater. And honestly, while I’m thinking about it, doing bad things to serve some other purpose wouldn’t make the people whose purpose is being served happy, and if it did, that’s just weird. The patients he saved by murdering his neighbor are happy they’re alive but they’re probably not happy with how the organs became available.

In conclusion, utilitarianism is a difficult theory to follow. While it seems fair and easy, it can get you into some uncomfortable situations. Just don't go taking any liberties, and leave your neighbor alone.

Thank you for Reading! Next week, I’ll talk about the trolley problem.