Dmitry Chernikov’s Blog

The problem with all the approaches to ethics I’ve seen so far is twofold. First, they fail to realize that there are 4 complementary ethical theories, corresponding to the 4 temperaments. Second, they fail to consider each theory in its pure form, undiluted by the other 3 theories, each one at the same time quite inadequate on its own as a complete ethics and yet also essential and correct. Let’s consider therefore pure utilitarianism, the NT Rational theory.

Utilitarianism corresponds to the virtue of prudence, to satisfaction of desires whatever they are, to truth and ethical calculation. The first condition for utilitarianism is disinterested or detached benevolence. The second is impartiality. In deciding what to do, each person is an unbiased spectator, considering everyone’s interests and desires without privileging any particular person including oneself. You dissolve within society, become anonymous, nobody special, a dot on the disk of the totality of society. Yeager discusses “impersonal cooperation,” “the anonymous Great Society,” “common sentiment extending to all mankind.” This is obviously as anti-NF as it gets. And yet it is a crucial component of the full-featured ethical system still to be developed. Therefore, it is wrong, in considering pure utilitarianism, to argue that “[i]ndividuals can and should favor their own interests within the bounds of morality and law”; or that “[i]n intimate groups… the attitude of solidarity and altruism… are more appropriate.” (Ethics as Social Science, 193ff) These NF corrections, sensible as they are, contaminate pure utilitarianism and make it unintelligible.

The NT ethics is social; it prescribes behavior to individuals for the sake of society as a whole. In conjunction with the SJ ethics (which does the reverse) we get rule utilitarianism, a far more robust theory than pure act utilitarianism.

Bob Murphy objects:

The fundamental problem with utilitarianism is this: Despite a succession of ingenious proponents, its advocates have yet to explain why the individual should behave morally. The fact that we are all better off if we all behave morally is utterly true and utterly irrelevant. (Such an argument violates the cherished Austrian precepts of marginalism and individualism.) The truly difficult moral issues resemble the familiar Prisoner’s Dilemma; regardless of everyone else’s behavior, the individual does better by exploiting others. It is true that a society suffering from widespread theft would be intolerable, even from a thief’s point of view, but any individual robbery has very little impact on the overall level of crime.

This objection fails to acknowledge the social focus of utilitarianism. A pure utilitarian has little to say to any individual on why he should not be a thief. But it does recommend a social policy of catching and punishing thieves. According to pure utilitarianism, one would not want exploit others, because he risks being caught and fined or imprisoned. The utilitarian idea is to structure the incentives of the legal system to minimize the total amount of violence people (including the state) inflict on one another. Utilitarianism counsels rewarding and encouraging good deeds and discouraging behavior that harms social cooperation. And that’s it! It thus addresses itself to society and its agent, the state.

But Murphy has another argument up his sleeve.

Moreover, if everyone agreed with Yeager and other utilitarians that it were foolish to sacrifice oneself in these rare instances, an element of doubt would arise in all social interactions. Although pangs of conscience might be a wonderful evolutionary byproduct, it would be in the interest of everyone to steel himself against such “irrational” feelings (while still behaving in accordance with them under normal circumstances). One’s very life might one day depend on it.

Here there is a truth-digging game going on between society and individuals. Individual soldiers will want to hide their cowardice and merely pretend to be willing to sacrifice their lives for the cause (thereby getting paid for doing no work), while society has an incentive to detect their cheating and punish them for it or, at least, refuse to hire them. Utilitarianism addresses itself not to the soldier who is contemplating whether to sacrifice himself for the greater good but to the general choosing the soldiers who, in his estimation, are most likely to follow orders even unto death. It does not say to the soldier: “Sacrifice yourself.” Rather, it says to the general: “Pick self-sacrificing soldiers.” And it is an empirically true statement that people do not always behave selfishly, carefully hiding their egoism until the time comes when they are put to the test, and then to everyone’s consternation they up and do their own thing. Sometimes society wins; other times individuals win unjustly and wickedly at the expense of society. A soldier may indeed be directed to sacrifice himself but not by utilitarianism but by the contract he must have signed with the military before going off to war. He is duty-bound to act as his contract stipulates, including sacrifice himself in certain situations.

Murphy goes on:

Utilitarianism seems to rob the words good and bad of their specifically ethical character. The utilitarian cannot make a distinction between guilt and simple error. The person who robs a bank to achieve happiness has made a mistake in qualitatively the same sense as a person who overcooks a steak.

Once again, we don’t care about whether a thief acted virtuously or not. All that pure utilitarianism commands is that the police try to deter and minimize bank robberies as much as possible consistent with other goals. The rule according to which robberies go unpunished results in an unhappy society, despite the benefits to the robbers. (It is true that it is better to suffer than to inflict suffering. The robber does not realize that he is doing and being evil. But pure utilitarianism takes values as given. This fact is evidence not of our theory’s bankruptcy but merely of its incompleteness.) It follows that we as a society must calibrate the legal system and other methods of apportioning praise and blame so as to promote general happiness. As David Friedman writes, contrasting the economic approach to law with other approaches, “An economist points out that if the punishments for armed robbery and for armed robbery plus murder are the same, the additional punishment for the murder is zero — and asks whether you really want to make it in the interest of the robbers to murder their victims.” (Law’s Order, 8) As to the fate of the robber’s eternal soul utilitarianism is silent, unless never committing a sin is what the divine gift of counsel commands.

Pure utilitarianism teaches people how to attain their goals (which may include the goals of others toward whom they feel benevolent). On the level of the individual utilitarianism collapses into the virtue of prudence-in-act. (Of course, utilitarianism does not lose its character as social even here, because this is merely a limiting case wherein the society consists of a single individual.) On the level of society it also teaches people how to hinder the goals of those whose actions would destroy social cooperation if left unchecked. A utilitarian thus seeks to educate the public about the actual means to their actual ends, enhance their practical wisdom or prudence and their strategic intelligence. Utilitarianism does not consider people to be placeholders of utility; in teaching them the truth it respects people’s autonomy (the source of NT self-respect) and presupposes that they know what they want, though it is aware that prudence can be used for evil ends. In the final analysis utilitarianism attempts to spread the virtue of prudence far and wide.