Ethics: Utilitarianism

This is probably the biggest thing in ethics.  Enjoy.

Utilitarianism is basically the belief that any action is morally permissible (ok) if and only if it produces as much net happiness as any other available action.  This is an extremely dangerous view, and it can be used in any situation.

Utilitarianism has been around for a pretty long time, but was first introduced in full by a very liberal guy named Jeremy Bentham, who was an advocator of pretty much any kind of right you could think of.  In 1789, he was saying that homosexuality was an A-OK thing.  Good dude.  :)

Let us examine an example.  You're a doctor, and you only have five doses of a very rare, very expensive drug left.  There are six patients who need it.  Here's the dilemma:  One patient needs all five doses, while the other five patients need only one dose.  Doc knows nothing else about these patients.  Now, utilitarianism would have the doctor saving five lives instead of the "needy" sixth patient.  Why?  Saving five lives maximizes happiness.

What is happiness, though?  Up until this point, happiness and unhappiness are the only "currencies" we've been applying to utilitarianism.  But isn't our definition of happiness more like the definition of well-being?

I have another example for you that discusses the problem.

Imagine that Billy the IT guy of a television studio has tripped.  He knocked some very heavy electrical equipment off of a shelf, and it fell on his arm.  This equipment is vital for the broadcast.  In order to save Billy's life, Norman the assistant IT guy has too unplug the equipment to move it.  What should Norman do?

At this point, it is obvious that Norman should unplug the equipment.  Billy's life is more important.  But!  The final of the World Cup is going on, watched by millions of people around the world.  Unplugging the equipment will shut off the broadcast across the board.  Now what should Norman do?

A utilitarian would sigh and say "sucks to be you, Billy," and would let the world be happy, as opposed to poor IT guy.  After all, Norman serves the same purpose as Billy and can easily replace him, and a whole lot of people would be unhappy if Norman saves Billy.

This is because there is a certain dichotomy of happinesses.  Preventing one death (Billy) is all well in good, but if there are two people who'd get severely mutilated, saving Billy is less important that saving the two people.  Likewise, saving three people from minor mutilation is more better than saving Billy.  And so on, until saving an entire planet of people from a big disappointment is better than saving Billy the IT guy.

Why I hate utilitarianism.

But no!  I'm not done yet!  There was another guy called Robert Nozick that imagined a utility monster, who gained ten times more happiness from things than a normal person.  In other words, ten people's happiness is equal to the utility monster.

Lets explore another situation.  Chef Louis is the world's best cook, and he makes a wicked plate of escargot.  Ten people ordered his escargot, but so did Momo the utility monster.  Chef Louis cannot make all eleven servings of escargot at once, so he typically goes with whoever ordered first gets the escargot first.  So the ten people ordered twenty minutes ago, but Momo just walked in and ordered. Momo will be far more happy than the ten people are individually.  Who should Chef Louis serve first?

Now, utilitarianism says that Momo should be served first, because he'll be happier than the ten people.  BUT!  But look at this.  Momo is so used to getting served first, that he'll actually not benefit as much as one of the ten people, who are used to being second to Momo.

That's my lecture on utilitarianism.  Hope you enjoyed.