Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? #2
This is the second part to the Harvard justice course, “Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?”, and to catch everyone up to speed, go check out the first part, here! This is a course where I’m pushing out of my comfort zone and engaging with the lecture itself.
Act Utilitarianism
In the last post we were discussing the 2 arguments of how people’s moral views, and we briefly touched upon the idea of act utilitarianism by the English philosopher, Jeremy Bentham. Act utilitarianism is the idea that a human’s sovereign masters are pain and pleasures, hence when considering any moral dilemmas or problems, we should always consider what will maximize pleasures over pain, hence the “utility” of an action. Naturally, this argument was criticized due to Bentham’s willingness to ignore the minority and do something that pleases the majority, ignoring the rights of the weaker end; and questions about how seriously the cost and benefit of an action or decision sprung up because often times large corporations use the cost-benefit method to weight up if a decision was to be made. Here’s an example where this method went completely south: the Ford company used to have a collection of cars called the Ford Pinto, where it would become particularly dangerous, with lives lost due to the fragile fuel tank at the end of a Ford Pinto being triggered and then exploding. The Ford Motor Company, released a cost-benefit analysis (in court due to legal actions taken) to weigh up if it was worth it to install a special shield to protect the fuel. It went a little bit like this: $137 million to install the parts in all the cars to protect the fuel tank, and $49.5 million gained in total to prevent the 180 deaths (worth $200k), 180 injuries (worth $67k) and 2000 cars broken (worth $700); Hence, it was not worth it to install the shield, as the cost to install was much greater than the benefit of renovating these safer cars.
Unsurprisingly, the jurors were left speechless and the Ford company received a huge fine. At first, it took me a few moments to realize what the Ford company had just done, and my jaw instantly dropped onto the ground. It was in some way amusing, that a board of directors from the Ford Company had sat together in a conference room, and decided that they would totally win the court case if they had put the worth of the lives lost and injured to be $200 thousand and $67 thousand. Unbelievable.
A student in the lecture hall said it best, that the Ford company had made the mistake of even putting a dollar value on human lives, disregarding the psychological sufferings for those families. I mean, it could have been a dad sitting in that Ford Pinto, going to work and making a living for his whole family, there’s the financial loss for the grieving families, too. The way I interpreted this cost-benefit analysis was the fact that, in a scenario where I showed up with the $200 thousand, would I have been able to buy and own the life of that person? In that case, Elon Musk is able to buy a few hundred thousand lives. Another student, when asked how much the life of a human would be, if $200 thousand was too little. He agreed with the fact that there should be a dollar value put somewhere. How much? He’s not sure.
Actually, I’d happily challenge his idea of putting a price tag on the deaths and injuries prevented; Firstly, if he were to put himself in the shoes of those customers who own this Ford Pinto, and he was one of the lives saved because of the upgrade, how much, would he say, his life costs? Secondly, if we were to put a price tag, what would it be? Ford could absolutely make up any number for the deaths and injuries prevented, for the outcome to be that the benefit would always be less than what it’d cost to upgrade the parts, because upgrading the parts on all the cars are expensive and if the benefit outweighs the cost, this operation must be carried out.
A rule utilitarian would agree that for the greater good, for example, for the Ford company to not lose business and shut down due to the costs, which, in that case, would affect up to thousands of employees and their dependents, these “sacrifices” and rare occasions of accidents has to be exempted. A classic example of act utilitarianism, in which I disagree with, even though act utilitarianism is more of a categorical argument. Nothing is 50/50, and life is unfair, and there is going to be suffering; But the cost-benefit method, putting a dollar value on a human life, something we can argue we haven’t even grasped upon, could not possibly be the sole way corporations like Ford, make decisions with. When I discuss the idea of rule utilitarianism with my friends, they’d all strongly disagree; and the most often times I hear the reason as “because it’s not fair to the minorities.”, but let’s be real: There is nothing that is fair in this world, it’d all be rainbows and sunshine if everyone had the same, equal, quote and quote “value”. Also, how do you define “value”? Is it one’s legacy? One’s work? Or is it one’s authority in this world?
Rule Utilitarianism
The core of Bentham’s idea of utilitarianism is that we should always seek what will bring out the most pleasure instead of pain, however, are the pleasures being chosen to bring out the most happiness for the greatest number every single time, always the most sensible choice? John Stewart Mill, the English philosopher think not, he wanted to address the objections to act utilitarianism as it ignores the minority and recognizes the majority as the higher value. We all love some funny, light-hearted TV shows with a bag of snacks on the side, it is going to be pleasurable, and brings out the most happiness out of us, but is it really the most sacred actions? After that bag of snacks and 10 hours of binge-watching Netflix, we’d feel guilty, that we’ve been so lazy and have achieved absolutely nothing. This is Bentham’s point: that humans have the capability of recognizing the difference between a higher pleasure, and a lower pleasure, for example, we’d feel productive about ourselves after reading an inspiring book, right? He believes that this distinction can be made through experiencing both lower and higher pleasures; Humans will naturally gravitate towards the higher pleasures, always.
“It Is Better To Be A Human Being Dissatisfied Than A Pig Satisfied.”
First and foremost, ouch, what an insult to a poor pig, and secondly, Mill writes that there should be a set of rules set in order for humans to always act out of the desire to seek for higher pleasures. In contrary to this, there are 2 questions that immediately popped into my head: Who sets these rules, and who defines the higher and lower pleasures?
To start with, the so-called lower pleasures that most humans can identify with, are actually the same actions that makes humans the happiest, releasing the most dopamine for the human body, like watching a show and enjoying a cheat meal. I think it is necessary for humans to have those times when they seek lower pleasures, yet still strike a balance with the higher pleasures. Question: if you were found stranded on a desert island in the middle of nowhere, what would you do? Be left forever with bags of snacks and a TV, or be left with books and paintings to admire? It can be seen that if the TV shows grants me the most happiness, that’d be the higher pleasure, but I’m sure most would agree the books would be seen as more sacred and worthy.
It’s the interesting thing about humans, our heart tells us to indulge in the snacks, but our brain recognizes which one is the higher pleasure and what we’re supposed to be doing. I personally don’t think this argument by J.S. Mill succeeds, because there are just so many questions to be answered and lots of room for adaption in a variety of scenarios, but all comments are welcomed and encouraged! This concludes the second part of the series, and I look forward to discussing further topics with everyone :)
Thanks for reading and see you all in a bit
-Winnie 29/08/2022
