Is utilitarianism too high of a standard?
Today in class we discussed the objection to utilitarianism which states that it is too high a standard for the population. The objectors believe that people will not always base their decisions on the common good of society, which Mill actually agrees with. He says that we hardly ever have to make decisions based on morality anyway, and when we do have to, even if we do not perform an action just because it is moral, but it still increases overall happiness, it is acceptable. He also responds to the argument by saying that it is a problem with all of morality, and not just utilitarianism. Mill uses this excuse repetatively and I think hurts his argument. To me, by saying this, he is admitting that utilitarianism has the same problems as the rest of all moral theories, so why should we follow it? His job is to persuade us to see that utilitarianism is the most logical morality to follow, but he is not doing his job right. He is supposed to sell it, but instead, he is saying “You have a choice of all of these products, and honestly, mine isn’t much better than the rest of them, but you should still pick mine because I said so.” At the start of reading Mill I thought he was a pretty smart guy but I’m starting to believe that he doesn’t do such a great job of supporting his arguments.
Victoria said,
June 6, 2007 at 9:20 pm
I agree with you about Mill not supporting his arguments, becasue one of the readings we did the other day he also didn’t show any evidence or anything. Also I really didnt understand this topic today and reading this help me understand it alittle better.
Boone B. Gorges said,
June 7, 2007 at 6:23 am
You’re not the only one in the class who has this opinion of Mill’s “problem for every moral theory tactic”. I agree that he employs it a lot, but I’m not so sure that it’s as bad as many of you think that it is. Look at it this way. Mill is trying to answer objections to utiltiarianism, objections that come from, logically enough, other moral theorists. These objectors have their own wares to peddle, so to speak–they have their own theories about the nature of morality, theories that are contrary to and incompatible with utiltiarianism. If Mill can show that the objection applies to everyone’s theory equally, then it sort of makes the objection a moot point. If every theory has a problem, that is, you’re not going to use the existence of this problem to decide which theory to believe in. The harder thing to accept about this strategy of Mill’s is that it implies the existence of problems that apply to all moral theories, problems that might be intractable. It’d be nice to think that the ideal moral theory will be completely logical and intuitive, but if Mill’s right about the universal applicability of these objections, then even the best moral theory will be far from perfect. This might be a fact that we simply have to accept.
ndianapal1 said,
June 7, 2007 at 7:02 am
i agree with what you have said, and you have actually explained it in a great way: simple and easy to understand, because even though i helped to present the argument, i was thoroughly confused in the end and you just helped me clear it up for myself, thanks. I also agree with your idea that Mill could not ” sell his idea” i think that someone who tries to hard to sell something, but does not have a great reason why people should try it has no customers to begin with. I liked Utlitarianism and thought it was fairly simple with Mill being the right guy to explain it, but when he can hardly talk his way out of a wet paper bag, it doesn’t hold out much hope that people will understand his points.
jasonmu said,
June 7, 2007 at 9:43 am
I actually thought that it was one of the better arguments that Mill posed because he actually included a wider population of people who do good deeds and he expanded on possibilities why they do these good acts. He did support Utalitiarianism by stating that the action of the people contribute to the overall good of society. Maybe i interpreted the information wrong. Correct me if im wrong.