What if instead of providing homeless shelters, food, and work programs for all homeless people
around the country, we murdered them and harvested their organs so that we could save the lives
of thousands of hard working people who needed organ transplants?
Haha - just kidding.
But many think that this is what the idea of utilitarianism is all about - doing actions
that have a consequence that will do the most good for the most people – in this case
taking organs from people who do little for their community and giving them to people
who do much for their community.
But it’s not quite as simple as organ stealing as you might think.
Hello everyone.
Thought Monkey here.
Today we’re going to explore the philosophy of utilitarianism - where it comes from, common
misunderstandings, what it’s all about, and the problem with it.
In the mid-18th century the philosopher and statesman Jeremy Bentham was born in England.
This guy was straight up hippie for his time.
He believed in freedom of speech, abolition of slavery, women’s rights, gay rights - I
mean this is stuff that some people don’t even believe in today.
He also founded the idea of utilitarianism - the main principle being that “the right
action is the one that produces the most overall happiness.”
But here’s where the misunderstandings come in.
First we have to define what Bentham and other utilitarian’s consider happiness or pleasure.
Some might think that this means they can watch porn, smoke weed, and eat Oreos all
day.
But that would be wrong.
You see the utilitarianism people have distinguished two types of pleasure.
A higher pleasure - related to our intellect and a lower pleasure - related to our senses.
You see it is not just how much pleasure we receive, but the quality of it as well – kind
of like anything in life.
10 ok cookies might not be as yummy as 1 extremely f*cking delicious cookie.
In utilitarianism the delicious cookie is intellectual pleasure, and is more highly
valued than physical pleasure – the ok cookie.
So if you’re thinking about watching porn, try reading a book about Particle Physics
or Paleomagnetism instead.
At the same time our happiness is not just a selfish individual kind of happiness, but
rather communal.
Everyone’s happiness counts the same and there is no room for prejudice or discrimination
– it is the total amount of happiness that the masses has that counts.
Think of it like this – the action that you do that gives the most amount of people
happiness is the best action you can do – which might mean you actually make sacrifices to
your happiness in order to make others happy.
So to put it into mathematical terms it might look like total amount of happiness in all
people + the right action to get the most amount of people happy = utilitarianism.
But there are problems to this idea.
First, we don’t all agree on what makes us happy.
For one person, it might mean having a loving family, for another it might mean playing
World of Warcraft all day long, and for another it might mean living in a cave somewhere in
India.
The second problem is after miraculously coming up with a consensus as to what happiness is
it’s even harder to figure out what the right action is to arrive at such happiness.
There is a famous thought experiment that goes something like this.
There is a train speeding down the railroad.
There is a switch up ahead.
On one side you have five people tied to the tracks and on the other you have one person
tied down.
You are in a position to switch the track so the train runs over the one person rather
than the five people.
Would you do it?
The utilitarian would perform the action that creates the most amount of happiness and would
switch the track.
One life taken is better than five, right?
But what if that one guy was a philanthropic humanitarian and the other five were just
a**holes?
Well, sh*t then you might have some disagreements.
Could you reform the douchebags to become better people so that they could do more good
than the one guy? Or maybe after this experience the one good guy becomes an a**hole because
he realizes that in spite of his good guyness he still was tied down to a train for some
unknown reason and now wants to start living for himself.
The problem with this is that in real life we use utilitarianism in all kinds of different
fields and do it to meet questionable ends.
For example in the medical field we fund research into many minor problems like athlete’s
foot when instead could use that money to pay for the research of rarer but more serious
diseases.
In the business world we make products in third world countries and pay those people
essentially nothing so that the masses of first world countries can buy cheaper clothes,
chocolate and coffee.
So in this case is the suffering of a few thousand slave – I mean cheap laborers worth
the pleasure of millions of Starbucks drinkers?
Well I guess it depends on who you ask.
Thank you for watching!
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