Earlier this week, we learned about Mill's idea of utilitarianism and the utilitarian calculus. The concept behind the calculus is that the highest good is always that which causes the greatest amount of good (or the least pain) for the greatest amount of people. Superficially, I can agree with this, as I believe that good, moral acts generally make people happy, while bad, immoral ones lead to discontent. However, as usual, it is not quite so cut-and-dry.
There are myriad instances of seemingly good acts that lead to unhappiness. For example, on the always deeply profound MTV show My Super Sweet 16, oftentimes the teen's parents would gift her with a new car. However, if it was not the exact car that she had wanted, she might throw a fit and begin crying, upset at her parents for what would otherwise be seen as a spectacular gift.
To revisit an example I used in a previous post, suppose that there is a car accident that leaves a victim trapped in the car. A bystander wants to help, and extricates the person. However, the victim had suffered an injury, and being moved caused this injury to augment and paralyze him.
Both of these are situations in which the agent of the action fully intended for his action to result in happiness, or at the very least the prevention of unhappiness. However, due to an unforeseen response or circumstance, the action ended in great discontent. I find this to be completely unfair. In adherence with Kant's theory, I believe that consequences should be separated from the intentions that lie behind them. One can never know with certainty what his actions will result in, and so it is unfair to judge him based upon these results.
However, I do still appreciate the basic idea behind the utilitarian calculus. We should try to instill happiness in those we interact with, not to mention avoid causing them pain. Thus, I think it would be better to incorporate both ideas: a good act is an act whose intent is to cause the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people. Of course, this is basically impossible to determine without telepathy.
I know I have done the unthinkable here in trying to combine ideas of both Kant and Mill, but what do you guys think about my proposition? What are its major faults? Do you have an idea of your own?
I like your proposition. The main problem I have with Kant's theory is that i don't believe it's possible to disregard consequences altogether. For example, Kant seems to focus on the actions themselves when discussing justice (e.g. why murder is wrong in general, why giving charity is good in general), but at some point, the reasons for why an action is wrong is based on consequences. There would be no reference point otherwise. Without at some point taking into account the results, whether consciously or not, no action would ever develop into a "good" or "bad" action. For this reason, I don't believe its blasphemous for you to combine some elements of Mill and Kant in one theory, although I know this was dismissed in class.
ReplyDeleteNice point Henry. For the most part I've only had a basic understanding of each philosopher's writings, so with your statement I see a point I never considered. As you were saying Henry, how can you ever deem something as good or bad without considering the consequences- it's not possible. We always skirted around this in class by saying the wills came from experience, which is the same as consequence in a way. That experience was at some point the result of a consequence being played out, so I don't see how this didn't come up more in discussion.
ReplyDeleteWow, really interesting point. I want to try to weasel around it and say that if you are intending to kill someone, then it is still this intent that makes it bad, because if you fail and they survive, then they weren't really harmed that much. However, that's quite a bit of a stretch. Definitely something to think about!
ReplyDeleteI think that separating the consequences from the intent is a nice idea, but it is impossible to do when combining utilitarianism with Kant's theory. Kant's theory of the good will determines if an action is just based upon the intentions, not the consequences. Utilitarianism is based upon providing the greatest amount of pleasure (or the least amount of pain) to the greatest amount of people. In order to determine what actions will make the most people happy, we must take into consideration the consequences of those actions. As a result, you can't only look at the intentions behind an action when applying the utilitarian calculus to a situation; therefore, the two theories are incompatible.
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