NOTE: Written for an introductory Philosophy course, this post serves to further typify cultural and religious rhetoric for this blog, as it not-so-indirectly addresses the popular worldview of moral relativism. It is a response to John Stuart Mill's famous work, "Utilitarianism."
John Stuart Mill, in his apologia for “Utilitarianism,” argues that the eponymous philosophy is not hedonistic, cold, or atheistic, but rather inherently moral. Upon careful examination of a central utilitarian belief, however, we see that quite the opposite is true. Utilitarianism is incapable of serving as the grounding for a moral society because it both relies on and promotes moral relativism.
We see this most clearly in the example of the “drowning man.” He struggles to stay afloat, quite unsuccessfully, in some body of water. A passerby sees him and feels genuine compassion for his situation and concern for his life; the passerby jumps in and affects a rescue. Clearly, this person would be lauded by both the man rescued and by society. But suppose the same passerby, or another individual, saves him merely for the purpose of achieving acclaim. We might sneer at his or her selfishness, but the drowning man would probably still be overjoyed with his new lease on life. It is for this reason that the core premise of utilitarianism makes no distinction between the first instance of rescue and the second. According to Mill, actions are morally right if they “increase happiness,” and wrong if they “decrease happiness” (Mill 77). There is no consideration of motivations, only of ends.
There are at least two fundamental flaws in this line of reasoning. The first, and the most glaringly obvious, is that “happiness” is an entirely subjective concept, at least from a secular perspective. Mill avoids supplying his readers with a concrete definition of what constitutes an increase or a decrease in happiness, other than stating that an increase in happiness will be accompanied by a corresponding decrease in “pain” (which is an equally nebulous term) (Mill 77). It is possible that he trusts individuals throughout society to recognize such increases or decreases as they occur, but “you’ll know it when you see it” hardly furnishes much clarification. In fact, by leaving the discernment of “happiness” to the individual, he effectively highlights the reliance of utilitarian belief on moral relativism, which is arguably its most damaging weakness. Every individual, from the selfish to the masochistically selfless, will have his or her own conception of what happiness entails, and believe that conception to be correct as it applies to their own lives. There can be no universal standard for happiness as a result; it is not quantifiable. Therefore, since utilitarianism labels happiness the universal standard for distinguishing between right and wrong, then within this doctrine there can simply be no standard for right and wrong, either.
Granted, Mill would answer this argument with something like the following: utilitarianism strives not to uphold individual happiness, but the happiness of society as a whole (which is commonly cited as “the greater good”) (Mill 80). It is a valiant attempt to escape an acknowledgment of reliance on individual discernment, but it fails. It is here that we see utilitarianism’s second flaw; it relies on the assumption that finite man is capable of having knowledge of the greater good that is independent of his own conceptions of happiness. One might argue, of course, that individual beliefs are reconciled to form a more perfect whole in representative governments like our own. Surely a Congress must be better able to decide on what constitutes the greater good than the individual. True, citizens tend to be happier with governments that are made of up groups of people who check each other’s power. But within these groups, there are still individuals, and these individuals still know and act upon their own personal definition of the nature of happiness. Likewise, public opinion can be distilled into a series of issues, but these issues are borne of all shades of belief regarding what an increase of happiness should look like. All public policies and opinions, in the citizenry or in the government, are based to some extent on individual definitions of happiness and pain. The “greater good” cannot, therefore, be readily distinguished from the good of the single person. Even a group can never truly standardize or perfect its understanding of the greater good. In the end, true societal happiness is just as relative as individual happiness; it will mean different things at different times and to different Congressional sessions. There can be no standard for happiness on either plane, and so happiness alone continues to be inadequate as a standard for morality on any level of societal structure.
Works Cited:
Mill, John Stuart. “Selections from Utilitarianism.” The Elements of Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Print.
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