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Utilitarian Generalization, Competing Descriptions, and the Behavior of Others

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Bart Gruzalski
Bart Gruzalski*
Affiliation:
Northeastern University
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Extract

According to Utilitarian Generalization (hereafter ‘UG’) an act is right or wrong depending on what would happen if everyone were to do acts of that kind. One chief difficulty in applying UG is to determine which acts share the same relevant properties and are therefore acts of the same kind. In focusing on this problem I first examine the criteria of relevance proposed by Jonathan Harrison and by David Lyons. I show that each of their proposals is inadequate because each allows us to designate as relevant some properties we noncontroversially take to be irrelevant. I next propose a criterion which not only allows us to designate as irrelevant every property that we noncontroversially take to be irrelevant, but which also expresses the underlying causal and generalization features of UG. Since the acid test of any such proposal will be its response to the highly controversial issue of whether the behavior of others is relevant for applications of UG, I turn to this important issue.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 11 , Issue 3 , September 1981 , pp. 487 - 504
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1981

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References

1 The following are some of the most influential who’ have adopted this test of adequacy: Harrison, Jonathan ‘Utilitarianism, Universalization and Our Duty To Be Just,’ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 53 (1952-3). 115-18;Google Scholar Singer, Marcus Generalization in Ethics (New York: Alfred A. Knopf 1961), 71–95;Google Scholar Lyons, David Forms and Limits of Utilitarianism (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1965), 57–61;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Ezorsky, Gertrude ‘A Defense of Rule Utilitarianism Against David Lyons,’ Journal of Philosophy 65 (1968) 534Google Scholar and 543-4. Hereafter I refer to Lyons' work as ‘FL.'

2 Although Lyons would not agree, this and the previous sentence in the text are consistent with (3). whereas some of Lyons’ textual remarks (e.g., FL, 98-9) are not. One only has to imagine a property F such that no individual action produced a utility because it was F, whereas a group of acts produced the utility because each was F. Cases of overdeterminism of a threshhold utility by several Facts, none of which have that utility as a consequence, are the sort of cases I have in mind. See J.H. Sobel, ‘Utilitarianisms: Simple and General,’ Inquiry, 13 (1974) 411-2; and H. Silverstein, ‘Simple and General Utilitarianism,' Philosophical Review, 83 (1974), 348-50. Note that in the next three sentences I am paraphrasing Lyons’ account, FL. 57-8.

3 Harrod, R. ‘Utilitarianism Revised,’ Mind, 45 (1936), 148-9.Google Scholar

4 Two discussions of Lyons’ solution occur in the literature: Gertrude Ezorsky, op. cit. (note 1), and Goldman's, Holly ‘David Lyons on Utilitarian Generalization,’ Philosophical Studies, 26 (1974).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Goldman's modification of Lyons’ criterion permits even further specifications of act descriptions and, for that reason, only enhances the sort of difficulty I am raising with Lyons’ solution. Gertrude Ezorsky, in an attempt to affirm UG as a viable alternative to AU, modified Lyons’ proposal in a way to prevent what she considered to be illegitimate overspecifications. According to Ezorsky, properties relevant for the description of an act for an application of UG satisfy (3) in my text and must not be discriminatory:

A property of an act is discriminatory if, and only if, one or both of the following suppositions is self-contradictory:

(a) All members of the group perform acts exemplifying that property;

(b) All acts of the general kind which is further specified by the property, exemplify the property (539).

‘Being an act of missing lunch’ is not discriminatory in the first way: it is possible that every voter miss lunch. Since it is also possible that every act of voting be an act of missing lunch, the troublesome property is not discriminatory in the second way.

5 Lyons (FL. 91ff) and Brandt, R.B. (‘Towards a Credible Form of Utilitarianism,’ in eds. Castaneda, H-N. and Nahnikian, G. Morality and the Language of Conduct, (Detroit: Wayne State U. P. 1965). 121-2)Google Scholar claim that the behavior of others is relevant, whereas Harrison (199) and Sidgwick, Henry (The Methods of Ethics (Chicago: U. of Chicago Press 1962). 318-9, 485-7)CrossRefGoogle Scholar held that such behavior is sometimes relevant. Both Singer (159-61) and Ezorsky (543-4) argue for this weaker claim.

6 Marcus Singer's formulations of his UG principles look like actual consequence formulations and have been taken as such by Lyons and others of his critics. But in a note on p. 194 of Generalization in Ethics Singer says that he finds the actual consequence interpretation of utilitarianism paradoxical, not supported by the traditional utilitarians (his example is Bentham), and apparently relevant only to ‘Acts of God.’ If Singer was thinking of foreseeable consequence principles, it is unfortunate that he did not formulate his principles in terms of foreseeable consequences. As I show in the text, the behavior of others is not a Justified excuse for escaping a group burden if one is applying foreseeable consequence UG.

7 The utilitarian account of moral obligation is interpreted to include foreseeable consequences by Bentham in Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (first edition, 1789); by Mill in Utilitarianism (first edition, 1863); by Russell, in ‘The Elements of Ethics,’ Philosophical Essays (New York: Simon and Schuster 1966);Google Scholar and by Brandt, in Ethical Theory (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall 1966)Google Scholar and The Theory of the Good and the Right (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1979). For a criticism of the actual consequence interpretation of utilitarianism see Singer's, Marcus ‘Actual Consequence Utilitarianism,’ Mind 86 (1977).Google Scholar

8 I am indebted to W.E. Schlaretzki, Moreland Perkins, Richard Brandt, Holly Goldman, Jerrold Levison, Mike Robins, Marcus Singer, Frank Verges and the editors of the Canadian Journal of Philosophy for many helpful comments.