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Hare's Utilitarianism and the Free-Rider Problem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2010

R. Jo Kornegay
R. Jo Kornegay
Affiliation:
Ryerson University
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Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 43 , Issue 3 , Summer 2004 , pp. 419 - 442
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Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2004

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References

Notes

1 The distinction between maximizing and minimizing situations is drawn by, for example, Lyons, David (Forms and Limits of Utilitarianism [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965], pp. 128–31)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Gruzalski, Bart (“The Defeat of Utilitarian Generalization,” Ethics, 93 [1982]: 29–33).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Hospers, John, Human Conduct (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1961), pp. 311–34; esp. pp. 318–28.Google Scholar

3 Brandt, Richard, “Some Merits of One Form of Rule-Utilitarianism,” in Studies in Utilitarianism, edited by Hearn, Thomas K. Jr. (New York: Meredith Corporation, 1971), pp. 169–99Google Scholar, and revised in Brandt, Richard B., Morality, Utilitarianism, and Rights (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 111–36.Google Scholar

4 Harsanyi, John C., “Morality and the Theory of Rational Behaviour,” in Utilitarianism and Beyond, edited by Sen, Amartya and Williams, Bernard (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 56–59Google Scholar. See also Harsanyi, John C., “Basic Moral Decisions and Alternative Concepts of Rationality,” Social Theory and Practice, 9 (1983): 231–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 For an influential attempt to collapse the act-rule utilitarian distinction, see Lyons, Forms and Limits of Utilitarianism, pp. 62–118.

6 Smart, J. J. C., “An Outline of a System of Utilitarian Ethics,” in Utilitarianism: For and Against, by J. J. C. Smart and Bernard Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), pp. 9–12, 67–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Hare, R. M., Moral Thinking: Its Levels, Method and Point (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), pp. 47–49, 130–35, 138–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Ibid., pp. 135–40, 153–56, 162–64.

9 Various counter-intuitive implications have been alleged against act-utilitarianism [A-U]. Among them, are two similar allegations: (1) A-U judges some acts to be right, which ordinary morality judges to be wrong, e.g., optimific acts of freeriding or of disloyalty, and (2) A-U judges some acts to be morally required, which ordinary morality judges to be supererogatory, e.g., extensive sacrifices by the affluent for the sake of the world's needy. Hare has argued that his bilevel theory avoids both of these implications (Hare, Moral Thinking, pp. 135–39, 198–203). I shall argue that Hare fails in his attempt to avoid the first type of implication, but I want to draw the reader's attention to Tom Carson's elegant paper “Hare on Utilitarianism and Intuitive Morality” (Erkenntnis, 39 [1993]: 305–31; esp., 312–25), in which he contends that Hare fails to avoid the second type of implication. Carson argues that wise, Harean critical thinkers, pace Hare, would endorse a rule requiring affluent individuals to make considerable contributions to famine and other types of relief for remote strangers. Thus, Hare does not successfully defend act-utilitarianism against the intuitive objection of being too demanding.

10 Hare, R. M., “The Argument from Received Opinion,” in Essays on Philosophical Method (London: Macmillan, 1971)Google Scholar. This example was devised by Lyons in Forms and Limits of Utilitarianism (pp. 128–30) and is discussed by Ezorsky, Gertrude in “A Defense of Rule Utilitarianism against David Lyons” (Journal of Philosophy, 65 [1968]: 533–44, esp. 536–37].CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Hare, R. M., “The Argument from Received Opinion,” in Essays on Philosophical Method (London: Macmillan, 1971), pp. 128–29.Google Scholar

12 Hare, R. M., “Ethical Theory and Utilitarianism,” in Contemporary British Philosophy, Vol. 4, edited by Lewis, H. D. (London: Allen and Unwin, 1976)Google Scholar. Reprinted (with revised terminology and references to his more recent work) in R. M. Hare, Essays in Ethical Theory (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), pp. 228–29.

13 Ibid., pp. 214–18, 229. Cf. Hare, Moral Thinking, pp. 144–45.

14 Hare, “The Argument from Received Opinion,” pp. 129–30.

15 Hare, “Ethical Theory and Utilitarianism,” p. 230.

16 For an objection to Hare's conclusion here, see Scanlon, T. M., “Levels of Moral Thinking,” in Hare and Critics: Essays on Moral Thinking, edited by Seanor, Douglas and Fotion, N. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), p. 140. See also Hare's anticipation of Scanlon's problems in Hare, “The Argument from Received Opinion,” p. 133.Google Scholar

17 Hare, “Ethical Theory and Utilitarianism,” pp. 229–30.

18 Cf. Sidgwick's similar insistence that the costs of attempted moral reform, such as disapprobation experienced by the innovator and offence to others, should not be overlooked in utilitarian calculations. See Sidgwick, Henry, The Methods of Ethics, 7th ed. (London: Macmillan, 1907), pp. 480–84.Google Scholar

19 Hare, “The Argument from Received Opinion,” p. 134.

20 Note, however, if one knows the other passengers are all act-utilitarians, one cannot assume that they will all push. Hence, one cannot automatically conclude that one will maximize utility by not pushing. Each passenger will desire that exactly one person not push to secure the optimific outcome and wonder what the others will do. In this case they can easily minimize the uncertainty by devising a procedure to determine who will rest. The chosen person's nonparticipation would not be wrong, according to Hare. Cf. Sumner, Wayne, “Cooperation, Fairness, and Utility,” Journal of Value Inquiry, 5 (1971): 106–19; esp. pp. 112, 116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Hare, “The Argument from Received Opinion,” pp. 127–28, and Hare, Moral Thinking, pp. 142, 145, 159, and 180.

22 Hare, “The Argument from Received Opinion,” pp. 117–18, 124–28.

23 Ibid., pp. 131–33.

24 Hare originally referred to the two levels as “level–1” and “level–2” thinking. In Moral Thinking, he adopted the rather more helpful terms of “intuitive” and “critical” thinking. When the 1976 essay was republished in his 1989 collection, Hare substituted the more recent terms.

25 Hare, “Ethical Theory and Utilitarianism,” p. 222.

26 Ibid., pp. 222–23.

27 Ibid., p. 221.

28 Ibid., pp. 221–22.

29 Hare concedes in “Ethical Theory and Utilitarianism” (p. 224) that this formulation is not quite right. He points out that Smart had to emend his definition. The “rational” act is the act that maximizes the expected benefit, not the act that probably maximizes the benefit (Smart, “An Outline,” pp. 42, 47). For the objection to Smart's original definition, see Braybrooke, David, “The Choice between Utilitarianisms,” American Philosophical Quarterly, 4 (1967): 28–38, esp. p. 35Google Scholar. Indeed, in an earlier work, Hare defined the “morally rational” act as that which “maximimizes expectable utility” (“Principles,” in Essays in Ethical Theory, p. 63; reprinted from Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 73 [1972/73]). However, Hare fails to keep these two concepts sorted out. His use of one in some contexts and of the other in other contexts gives rise to alternative criteria for rule-selection, as will become apparent below.

30 Hare, “Ethical Theory and Utilitarianism,” pp. 224–25.

31 Ibid., p. 223.

32 Hare, Moral Thinking, pp. 44–52.

33 Hare, R. M., “Utilitarianism and the Vicarious Affects,” in Essays in Ethical Theory, p. 239; reprinted from The Philosophy of Nicholas Rescher, edited by Sosa, E. (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1979).Google Scholar

34 Moore, G. E., Principia Ethica (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903), p. 162Google Scholar; Moore's emphasis.

35 Hare, Moral Thinking, p. 47.

36 For a discussion of apparent tension between Hare's emphasis on the need for good intuitive principles because of human frailties and the need for nearer-changelic critical thinking to select those principles, see Frey, R. G., “Act-Utilitarianism, Consequentialism, and Moral Rights,” in Utility and Rights, edited by Frey, R. G. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), pp. 78–79.Google Scholar

37 Hare, Moral Thinking, p. 164.

38 Ibid., p. 38. Taking utility-maximization as the criterion of “right” action, but not as a decision-procedure, can be traced at least as far back as Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics (pp. 405–406, 413, 486–90) and is now a fairly standard strategic move for act-utilitarians. See, for example, Bales, R. E., “Act-Utilitarianism: Account of Right-Making Characteristics or Decision-Making Procedure?” American Philosophical Quarterly, 8 (1971): 257–65Google Scholar, and Griffin, James, “The Distinction between Criterion and Decision Procedure: A Reply to Madison Powers,” Utilitas, 6 (1994): 177–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. pp. 179–80.

39 Hare, Moral Thinking, p. 46.

40 Ibid., p. 159.

41 Hare, “Ethical Theory and Utilitarianism,” p. 223.

42 Hare writes, “[t]he result will be a set of general principles, constantly evolving, but on the whole stable, such that their use in moral education, including self-education, and their consequent acceptance by the society at large, will lead to the nearest possible approximation to the prescriptions of archangelic thinking” (ibid., p. 224).

43 Ibid., pp. 229–30. (Also, see §2.)

44 Hare, Moral Thinking, p. 43. Cf. Hare's similar claim, “Utilitarianism and the Vicarious Affects,” p. 239.

45 Hare, Moral Thinking, p. 137.

46 Ibid., p. 46.

47 Ibid.

48 Hospers, Human Conduct, p. 327; his emphasis. Hospers's assertion echoes the much earlier claims of Harrod that “[t]here are certain acts which when performed on n similar occasions have consequences more than n times as great as those resulting from one performance. And it is in this class of cases that obligations [such as truth-telling] arise. It is in this class of cases that generalizing the act yields a different balance of advantage from the sum of the balances of advantage issuing from each individual act” (Harrod, R. F., “Utilitarianism Revised,” Mind, 45 [1936]: 137–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. p. 148; emphasis in original).

49 Hare, “Ethical Theory and Utilitarianism,” pp. 228–29.

50 Hare, Moral Thinking, p. 156.

51 Ibid., p. 50; my emphasis. Frankena notes Hare's ambiguous use of “acceptanceutility” within Moral Thinking itself. He cites the following as a use which suggests a rule-utilitarian analysis. “[T]he method to be employed is one which will select moral principles … on the score of their acceptance-utility, i.e., on the ground that they are the set of principles whose general acceptance in the society in question will do the best, all told, for the interests of the people of the society considered impartially” (Moral Thinking, p. 156). Frankena also cites three passages (from Moral Thinking, pp. 46, 50, and 62), one of which I last quoted, in which Hare indicates an act–utilitarian approach (W. K. Frankena, “Hare on the Levels of Moral Thinking,” in Hare and Critics, pp. 50–52).

Hare concedes in his reply to Frankena that the term “acceptance-utility” is ambiguous and his use of it misleading. However, he does not admit he used it equivocally (“Comments on Frankena,” in Hare and Critics, p. 226).

52 For instance, Hare writes, “the most likely way of doing the right thing in normal circumstances will be to follow the intuition” (Moral Thinking, p. 137) and “we would be wise to be guided … by a set of well chosen prima facie principles, if we want to achieve those acts even act-utilitarianism (in the person of the archangel) would in full knowledge pronounce to be right” (Moral Thinking, p. 192). See also Hare, Moral Thinking, pp. 46, 147.

Cf. Sher, George's attribution of criterion (ii, b) in his review of Moral Thinking in Nous, 18 (1984): 179–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. pp. 179–80.

53 Hare, R. M., “The Structure of Ethics and Morals” (previously unpublished essay), in Essays on Ethical Theory (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), p. 189Google Scholar; my emphasis.

54 R. M. Hare, “Comments on Harsanyi,” in Hare and Critics, p. 243; his emphasis.

55 Hare, “Comments on Frankena,” p. 227; his emphasis.

56 For the details of Brandt's more nuanced version of rule-utilitarianism, see Brandt, R. B., A Theory of the Good and the Right (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979)Google Scholar. There he gives the relatively formal definition of a “right” action as one permitted by the moral code which a fully rational person would prefer (p. 214). He then argues that the moral code preferred by a fully rational person would maximize global expectable utility in a given society if subscribed to by the vast majority of the adult population (pp. 286–305). See also Brandt, R. B., “Utilitarianism and Moral Rights,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 14 (1984): 1–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar, p. 4. Cf. Brandt's version of how his theory differs from Hare's in Brandt, R. B., “Fairness to Indirect Optimific Theories in Ethics,” Ethics, 98 (1988): 341–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. pp. 347–50.

57 Hare, “Comments on Frankena,” p. 227; his emphasis.

58 Hare, “Ethical Theory and Utilitarianism,” p. 225.

59 Hare, Moral Thinking, p. 192.

60 Hare, “Comments on Frankena,” p. 228.

61 Frankena, “Hare on the Levels of Moral Thinking,” p. 52.

62 Hare, “Comments on Frankena,” p. 228; Hare's emphasis.

63 Here I judge the mace-spraying to constitute murder, rather than a justified intentional killing in defence of a non-aggressing third party, on the grounds that killing would inflict an injury far in excess of that it would prevent.

64 Hare, Moral Thinking, pp. 132–33.

65 Ibid., p. 50.

66 Hare, “Ethical Theory and Utilitarianism,” p. 227.

67 Hare, Moral Thinking, pp. 49–52.

68 Ibid., p. 59, and Hare, “Ethical Theory and Utilitarianism,” p. 223.

69 Hare, “Comments on Scanlon,” in Hare and Critics, p. 265.

70 This reply will not succeed fully insofar as it relies on the accuracy of polls. This poses three problems. First, polls have margins of error. Second, most polls are only said to be accurate nineteen times out of twenty. Hence, a person could be deterred from casting a deciding vote by an inaccurate poll(s). Third, even if the polls on which the citizen relies are accurate on voters' intentions, an unforeseen event can occur which affects voter turnout disproportionately on some sector(s) of the constituency (e.g., a spring ice storm prevents many elderly people from voting) such that what would have been a clear victory becomes the slimmest of defeats.

71 Hare, “Comments on Scanlon,” pp. 265–66; my emphasis.

72 Parfit, Derek, Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), pp. 73–74Google Scholar. See also Griffin, James, Weil-Being (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), pp. 214–15.Google Scholar

73 Hare, Moral Thinking, pp. 47–48.

74 Ibid., p. 48.

75 These cases of accumulative harms and benefits raise the sorites problem and have led philosophers into various debates including whether to accept the marginal or the contributory conception of consequences. I cannot usefully explore these issues here, but refer the interested reader to the large body of literature, e.g., Feinberg, Joel, The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law, Vol. I, Harm to Others (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), pp. 225–32Google Scholar; Kernohan, Andrew, “Individual Acts and Accumulative Consequences,” Philosophical Studies, 97 (2000): 343–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Klosko, George, “Parfit's Moral Arithmetic and the Obligation to Obey the Law,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 20 (1990): 191–213CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons, pp. 75–85; Regan, Donald, Utilitarianism and Cooperation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), pp. 13–14, 59–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Singer, Peter, “Is Act-Utilitarianism Self-Defeating?” Philosophical Review, 81 (1972): 94–104, esp. p. 103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

76 I would like to thank the anonymous referees both for their helpful comments and for their timely review of my manuscript.