Why is it morally right to help a person in need? Why is it morally wrong to hurt others? More generally, according to which principle should we decide whether a behaviour is moral or not? The answer, according to the philosophical view of utilitarianism, is simple: do whatever maximizes happiness. Agree? Let’s test your intuitions.
Why is it morally right to help a person in need? Why is it morally wrong to hurt others? More generally, according to which principle should we decide whether a behaviour is moral or not? The answer, according to the philosophical view of utilitarianism, is simple: do whatever maximizes happiness. Agree? Let’s test your intuitions.
Photo by Sora Shimazaki
Photo by Sora Shimazaki
Imagine you are the head of your local intelligence agency when you finally catch a dangerous terrorist who has hidden a nuclear bomb somewhere in one of the major cities. You also know that the bomb will go off in two hours, and hence you are aware that your chance of finding it in time is virtually zero. The only way of finding the bomb before it explodes is by questioning the terrorist, although he will be reluctant to tell you (he wants the bomb to explode, after all). But what if you torture him? What if the only way to find the bomb in time is to inflict excruciating pain on him in order to force him to tell you? Would the use of torture be morally permissible in this case?
On the one hand, you might object to the use of torture purely on utilitarian reasons: There is no evidence that it would achieve its goal – it’s unclear if the information obtained through torture is actually accurate. Hence, using torture in such a scenario is wrong because it doesn’t maximize happiness, as the use of torture will not necessarily lead to the saving of people.
On the other hand, you could argue that even if torture is the most effective way to find the bomb, it would still be wrong to use it because it is inherently bad. According to this line of reasoning, it doesn’t matter how many lives will be saved – the positive consequences of using torture in this scenario don’t make torture the right thing to do.
Assuming that through the use of torture the terrorist would actually disclose the correct location of the bomb, would you do it? If your answer is yes, let’s make it a bit harder: Assume that the terrorist will not tell you the location if you use torture on him, but only if you torture his 5-year old daughter. Would you harm an innocent child to save hundreds of thousands of other people?
“Do we want to live in a society in which punishment is just a means to achieve more happiness, or is the reason we punish criminals that they deserve it?”
Now consider a slightly different scenario taken from ancient Rome. In those times, it was fairly common that political dissidents were sentenced to death by throwing them to the lions in the circus. From a utilitarian perspective, this seems like a good thing to do. Sure, the victim suffers tremendous pain, but if you think about the cheering crowd watching the brutal spectacle, total happiness is increased. If thousands of onlookers find enjoyment in this, does this justify violently killing one poor guy by having him eaten alive?
Again, the same two lines of reasoning apply for why this might be morally wrong. First, you might say that this does not actually maximize happiness because all of the onlookers could be equally happy without watching a cruel death, or that more people will worry that they might be the next victim, which decreases overall happiness, and so on. Second, you might object to the Roman circus scenario on grounds that it is inherently evil, irrespective of whether overall happiness is increased.
Admittedly, these examples seem to be quite far from reality, but it’s not hard to see how these considerations are relevant for us as well (not just for intelligence agency executives or Roman emperors). The same considerations also apply when thinking about our justice system: Do we want to live in a society in which punishment is just a means to achieve more happiness, or is the reason we punish criminals that they deserve it? In the former case, criminals are only put behind bars in order to keep them from harming society and deter others from committing similar crimes. In the latter case, it doesn’t matter whether punishing the criminal would prevent him from doing harmful things again, or whether the punishment has any deterrence effect on other criminals. The critical difference is that according to the first (utilitarian) view, punishment is merely a means to an end, while according to the second view punishment is an end in itself.
“in a utilitarian justice system I could think about the kinds of crimes I could commit for which punishment would not lead to more happiness”
The last example also shows how close the two approaches can get. Assume that I am a fraudulent investment banker who steals € 100,000 from the Dutch government. When I notice that the police are looking for me, I take the money and leave for Siberia. From a utilitarian perspective, it wouldn’t really make sense to pursue me: Finding and arresting me will likely cost much more money than I stole. And even if I was caught, who knows whether I would still have the money at that point? In addition, I won’t be able to repeat my crime, since I won’t enter the Netherlands ever again. You might now say that catching me could have a public deterrence effect on other investment bankers, but it’s easy to imagine a scenario in which this is not the case – if, for example, I stole the money from a secret military fund that prevents the trial from becoming public.
The point here is that we can think of a scenario, in which punishment (i.e., the means) does not lead to more happiness (i.e., the end), and so it doesn’t make sense to punish the criminal. Hence, the utilitarian view, in this case, creates a loophole: As a criminal in a utilitarian justice system I could think about the kinds of crimes I could commit for which punishment would not lead to more happiness, and so I won’t be pursued for these crimes. Just like I, as a fraudulent investment banker, can calculate how much money I could steal so that it would not pay off to pursue me.
I have reasons to believe that the only way of closing all the loopholes is to adopt a criminal justice system in which punishment is an end in itself, but this discussion is outside the scope of this article. What do you think about each of these examples? Would you torture the terrorist’s 5-year-old daughter as a means to save more people, or is torturing an innocent child intrinsically a morally wrong act that cannot be justified by greater consequences? Is it right to have someone eaten alive by lions as a means to achieve more happiness in the spectators, or is this inherently evil? Is punishment just a means to an end, or is it an end in itself?
Imagine you are the head of your local intelligence agency when you finally catch a dangerous terrorist who has hidden a nuclear bomb somewhere in one of the major cities. You also know that the bomb will go off in two hours, and hence you are aware that your chance of finding it in time is virtually zero. The only way of finding the bomb before it explodes is by questioning the terrorist, although he will be reluctant to tell you (he wants the bomb to explode, after all). But what if you torture him? What if the only way to find the bomb in time is to inflict excruciating pain on him in order to force him to tell you? Would the use of torture be morally permissible in this case?
On the one hand, you might object to the use of torture purely on utilitarian reasons: There is no evidence that it would achieve its goal – it’s unclear if the information obtained through torture is actually accurate. Hence, using torture in such a scenario is wrong because it doesn’t maximize happiness, as the use of torture will not necessarily lead to the saving of people.
On the other hand, you could argue that even if torture is the most effective way to find the bomb, it would still be wrong to use it because it is inherently bad. According to this line of reasoning, it doesn’t matter how many lives will be saved – the positive consequences of using torture in this scenario don’t make torture the right thing to do.
Assuming that through the use of torture the terrorist would actually disclose the correct location of the bomb, would you do it? If your answer is yes, let’s make it a bit harder: Assume that the terrorist will not tell you the location if you use torture on him, but only if you torture his 5-year old daughter. Would you harm an innocent child to save hundreds of thousands of other people?
“Do we want to live in a society in which punishment is just a means to achieve more happiness, or is the reason we punish criminals that they deserve it?”
Now consider a slightly different scenario taken from ancient Rome. In those times, it was fairly common that political dissidents were sentenced to death by throwing them to the lions in the circus. From a utilitarian perspective, this seems like a good thing to do. Sure, the victim suffers tremendous pain, but if you think about the cheering crowd watching the brutal spectacle, total happiness is increased. If thousands of onlookers find enjoyment in this, does this justify violently killing one poor guy by having him eaten alive?
Again, the same two lines of reasoning apply for why this might be morally wrong. First, you might say that this does not actually maximize happiness because all of the onlookers could be equally happy without watching a cruel death, or that more people will worry that they might be the next victim, which decreases overall happiness, and so on. Second, you might object to the Roman circus scenario on grounds that it is inherently evil, irrespective of whether overall happiness is increased.
Admittedly, these examples seem to be quite far from reality, but it’s not hard to see how these considerations are relevant for us as well (not just for intelligence agency executives or Roman emperors). The same considerations also apply when thinking about our justice system: Do we want to live in a society in which punishment is just a means to achieve more happiness, or is the reason we punish criminals that they deserve it? In the former case, criminals are only put behind bars in order to keep them from harming society and deter others from committing similar crimes. In the latter case, it doesn’t matter whether punishing the criminal would prevent him from doing harmful things again, or whether the punishment has any deterrence effect on other criminals. The critical difference is that according to the first (utilitarian) view, punishment is merely a means to an end, while according to the second view punishment is an end in itself.
“in a utilitarian justice system I could think about the kinds of crimes I could commit for which punishment would not lead to more happiness”
The last example also shows how close the two approaches can get. Assume that I am a fraudulent investment banker who steals € 100,000 from the Dutch government. When I notice that the police are looking for me, I take the money and leave for Siberia. From a utilitarian perspective, it wouldn’t really make sense to pursue me: Finding and arresting me will likely cost much more money than I stole. And even if I was caught, who knows whether I would still have the money at that point? In addition, I won’t be able to repeat my crime, since I won’t enter the Netherlands ever again. You might now say that catching me could have a public deterrence effect on other investment bankers, but it’s easy to imagine a scenario in which this is not the case – if, for example, I stole the money from a secret military fund that prevents the trial from becoming public.
The point here is that we can think of a scenario, in which punishment (i.e., the means) does not lead to more happiness (i.e., the end), and so it doesn’t make sense to punish the criminal. Hence, the utilitarian view, in this case, creates a loophole: As a criminal in a utilitarian justice system I could think about the kinds of crimes I could commit for which punishment would not lead to more happiness, and so I won’t be pursued for these crimes. Just like I, as a fraudulent investment banker, can calculate how much money I could steal so that it would not pay off to pursue me.
I have reasons to believe that the only way of closing all the loopholes is to adopt a criminal justice system in which punishment is an end in itself, but this discussion is outside the scope of this article. What do you think about each of these examples? Would you torture the terrorist’s 5-year-old daughter as a means to save more people, or is torturing an innocent child intrinsically a morally wrong act that cannot be justified by greater consequences? Is it right to have someone eaten alive by lions as a means to achieve more happiness in the spectators, or is this inherently evil? Is punishment just a means to an end, or is it an end in itself?
