124.231 Ethics – Handout 18 Rawls, “Classical Utilitarianism” and Nagel, “Equality” The Utilitarian Principle of Distribution: “Society is rightly ordered, and therefore just, when its major institutions are arranged so as to achieve the greatest net balance of satisfaction summed over all the individuals belonging to it.” (Rawls, p. 348) • Rawls is here describing the utilitarian principle as applied to institutions. But act-utilitarianism would make the same claim about the justice of individual acts. • More generally, a distribution is just whenever it achieves the greatest net balance of satisfaction summed over all the individuals belonging to it, compared to any other distribution we might have brought about. Two “ways of thinking” that might lead naturally to the UPD: (1) Extending to society the principle of choice for individuals: • When we are pursuing our own good, we maximize: we balance present and future gains against present and future losses, and are interested only in the net outcome. • “Just as the well-being of a person is constructed from the series of satisfactions that are experienced at different moments in the course of his life, so in very much the same way the well-being of society is to be constructed from the fulfillment of the systems of desires of the many individuals who belong to it.” (p. 349) • So if we rationally should maximize intrapersonally, presumably because more of a good thing is better than less, why not also conclude we rationally should maximize interpersonally? (2) If we assume that ethical theory must have a teleological structure, it seems almost self-evident that things should be arranged so as to lead to the most good: • Teleological theories define the good independently of the right, and then define the right as whatever maximizes the good. • If, for example, we think the satisfaction of rational desire is the only thing that’s good, it becomes very hard to resist the idea that we ought always to bring about more of it rather than less. Resisting the utilitarian approach: (3) Why think that a principle of choice that is appropriate intrapersonally might not be appropriate interpersonally? • Maximizing depends on the possibility of making utility comparisons, and we might think these are possible intrapersonally but not interpersonally. • We might think we’re justified in imposing costs on someone for the sake of a greater benefit only if the benefit allows us to compensate the loser for the cost – this happens automatically in the intrapersonal case, but not in the interpersonal case. (But this is a very strong principle.) 2• We might think we can make sense of the idea that an action that maximizes the good for some individual (say, by opposing a cost on her now in exchange for a greater benefit to her later) is best overall, because it’s best for her; but when we impose a cost on one person for the sake of a greater benefit to another, it’s better for the second person and worse for the first; there’s no one who experiences the total good, and so it’s unclear how to make sense of the idea that it’s best overall. “Better-than” is meaningful only relative to a person. This approach questions the meaningfulness of saying that one outcome is better than another ‘from the perspective of morality’, as opposed to from some individuals’ perspective. (But it seems like any plausible theory will have to take numbers into account somehow, to explain, for example, our duty to save the many rather than the few…) • Is it always rational to maximize within a life? (4) What worries might we have about a teleological approach to ethics: • he teleological approach assumes that the good can be defined independently of the ight. But is this a good assumption? Tr‐ Take the value of preference satisfaction – we may want to qualify or demote the value of the satisfaction of some preferences, such as sadistic pleasures, and attribute extra value to some others, the so-called “higher pleasures.” But to justify doing so, we may have to appeal to claims about the wrongness of satisfying some pleasures, and the rightness of satisfying others. ‐ We may think it’s good for people to get what they deserve, but this is a good we cannot identify unless we have a prior conception of what’s right. ‐ We may think that it’s good if welfare is distributed more equally, because that treats people more fairly. But if the goodness of an equally distribution is explained by it’s fairness, we again have to have a prior conception of what’s right to identify it. Rawls concludes that because the utilitarian, in deciding how best to distribute goods, treat individuals as mere contributors to an overall good that belongs to no one, and because the utilitarian improperly extends a decision principle that’s appropriate intrapersonally to cover interpersonal decisions, he “does not take seriously the distinction between persons.” • e might worry about Rawls’ argument on two fronts: W‐ Does it correctly identify why utilitarians think it’s right to maximize interpersonally? That is, is it plausible that utilitarians arrive at the conclusion that they ought to maximize interpersonally by extending intrapersonal reasoning to interpersonal cases? Or do they just think that more of a good thing is better? ‐ Rawls’ argument might show why, given that maximization isn’t generally appropriate, it might nonetheless be appropriate within lives (since compensation is possible); but he doesn’t seem to provide an argument for thinking that maximization isn’t generally appropriate. • It’s worth noting a resonance between this worry about utilitarianism and another worry we’ve talked about extensively already: Rawls argues here that utilitarianism does not take seriously the distinction between persons as patients – that is, as people whose welfare is affected by our actions. But Williams and others worried that utilitarianism 3does not take seriously the distinction between persons as agents – in that it fails to recognize the special responsibility I have for my actions, as opposed to the actions of others that I could have prevented. Nagel, “Equality” Nagel compares three conceptions of what is involved in treating people equally: Individual Rights: Every person has an equal right not to be