upsurge of interest in Bentham's 'Principle of Utility' in 1950s changes arc of '60s activism?


Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)

Utilitarianism is the idea that the only intrinsically good outcome in the universe is happiness, broadly defined, and that the only intrinsically bad outcome is suffering, broadly defined, and that one should act to best improve the future package of experiences, for all sentient beings.

And for something which is merely a theory of philosophy, the 'Principle of Utility' was surprisingly influential in the late 1700s and first couple of decades of the 1800s.

So, let's suppose there had been a upsurge of interest in the 1950s. Might it give '60s radicals another big, meaty theory in addition to Marxism, and another way to critique government and big corporations? And might it make it harder for energetic young people to find groups like the Weathermen Underground and the Symbionese Liberation Army hip and cool?

And thus change whole arc of 1960s and early '70s activism, radicalism, and counter-culture?
 
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"Extreme and Restricted Utilitarianism," J.J.C. Smart, The Philosophical Quarterly, Oct. 1956.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2216786

" . . . I wish to repudiate at the outset that milk and water approach which describes itself sometimes as 'investigating what is implicit in the common moral consciousness ' and sometimes as 'investigating how people ordinarily talk about morality.' We have only to read the newspaper correspondence about capital punishment or about what should be done with Formosa to realise that the common moral consciousness is in part made up of superstitious elements, of morally bad elements, and of logically confused elements. I address myself to good hearted and benevolent people and so I hope that if we rid ourselves of the logical confusion the superstitious and morally bad elements will largely fall away. . . "
This is great stuff! :)

Unfortunately, the rest of the article isn't as good and the author rather slips back into academic writing where he's trying to ever more precisely define his theory.

But what if other thinkers and activists had ran with this, to sweep away superstitions, to give specific examples of how to move forward with social activism, perhaps even to build positive example onto positive example? I think potentially this could have become a major strain in 1960s thought.

And when I took ethics taught by the philosophy department back in the mid '80s, seemingly the entire textbook was a contrast and compare between Utilitarian ethics and Kantian ethics, although the professor did try to add more interest to the course.
 
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The interesting part, utilitarianism justifies a hell of a lot less than might appear at first blush,

include the war actions of Western powers, especially aerial bombing.
 
But utilitarianism is a method, not a coherent ideology, which has limited its appeal as a practical guide for action.

True. And, on an activist level, you can pretty much get the same results from following utilitarianism as you do from following Marxism. "The pain caused by the napalming of Vietnamese children outweighs the pleasure derived from maintaining the western capitalist lifestyle via war" would be about the same inducement to antiwar activism as could be gotten from reading Franz Fanon.

Though, in some limited cases, utilitarianism's emphasis on pleasure vs. pain did have a pivotal impact on legitimizing certain previously marginalized issues. There is no real Christian or Marxist argument for animal-rights(by which I don't mean environmentalism), since animals are neither created in God's image, nor members of an economic class. But when the Benthamite Peter Singer pointed out "But they still feel PAIN!", it provided ample philosophical galvinization for the animal-rights movement.
 
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True. And, on an activist level, you can pretty much get the same results from following utilitarianism as you do from following Marxism. "The pain caused by the napalming of Vietnamese children outweighs the pleasure derived from maintaining the western capitalist lifestyle via war" would be about the same inducement to antiwar activism as could be gotten from reading Franz Fanon.

Though, in some limited cases, utilitarianism's emphasis on pleasure vs. pain did have a pivotal impact on legitimizing certain previously marginalized issues. There is no real Christian or Marxist argument for animal-rights(by which I don't mean environmentalism), since animals are neither created in God's image, nor members of an economic class. But when the Benthamite Peter Singer pointed out "But they still feel PAIN!", it provided ample philosophical galvinization for the animal-rights movement.
Although of course one might say that the Felicific Calculus of a people not being subjected to communism outweighs napalm attacks. Utilitarianism is so malleable that treating it as a system that will yield specific results is misleading.
 
Although of course one might say that the Felicific Calculus of a people not being subjected to communism outweighs napalm attacks. Utilitarianism is so malleable that treating it as a system that will yield specific results is misleading.

That's a valid counterpoint, especially in a case(like so many) where the long-term outcome of a given course of action can't be fully known. Will a unified Vietnam turn out to be like Stalinist Russia in 1934, or like Titoist Yugolsavia in 1968?

But assuming that you think you have an idea that a unified Communist Vietnam will be(splitting the difference here) something like Brezhnev's Russia circa 1968, and furthermore that an independent, western-allied South Vietnam would not exactly be a human-rights paradise anyway, then you could probably make a reasonable calculation that preventing stagnation-on-the-south-China-sea wasn't worth the number of innocent lives lost through executing the war.

And, if I'm reading the OP correctly, he's not neccessarily assuming that Benthamism is being properly applied by the activists, just that it is a conscious inspiration, as Marxism was IOTL, and what the results of that would be.
 
Geo Dude wrote:

And might it make it harder for energetic young people to find groups like the Weathermen Underground and the Symbionese Liberation Army hip and cool?

I don't think the New Left groups lose much of their appeal in the event of a Benthamite ascension. Marxism still provides you with an overarching theory of history, which appeals to latent or residual religious tendencies(as exhibited by the deification of certain Marxist leaders, from Stalin all the way down to local sectarian bosses), and gives you some assurance that the violent or at least disruptive acts that you're carrying out today will soon bear fruit in the form of a new utopia. You don't get quite the same thing from utilitarianism.
 
. . . outweighs . . .

. . . outweighs . . .
And we might even take it a step further. For the theory of utilitarianism doesn't merely tell us to do any ol' action which produces more happiness than suffering,

Rather the theory is much more demanding in asking that we pick the one action which best improves the balance of happiness over suffering. Meaning, among other things we probably should make a much more determined effort to move past war and to move toward economic development.
 
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Philip

Donor
There is no real Christian or Marxist argument for animal-rights(by which I don't mean environmentalism), since animals are neither created in God's image, nor members of an economic class.

Not sure that is accurate. The Catholic Church, for example, makes moral statements on the treatment of animals under the idea that animals belong to God and humans are commanded to be shepherds of creation. It does not place animals at the same level as humans, but to the is no argument for animal rights is uninformed.
 


Perhaps the best book on ethics in the English language is Causing Death and Saving Lives (1977) by Jonathan Glover, at least it is in my opinion. And written from a largely utilitarian perspective.

But what if someone had published something like this twenty years earlier in the late 1950s?
 
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. . . The Catholic Church, for example, makes moral statements on the treatment of animals under the idea that animals belong to God and humans are commanded to be shepherds of creation. It does not place animals at the same level as humans, . . .
And there might be a way to square this circle!

Okay, so Catholics in particular have talked about being good shepherds for generations, and probably with some positive effect, as well as other Christians of all stripes although perhaps to a lesser extent. And there were earlier animal rights / animal welfare movements, such as establishing the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals around ? 1900.

But Peter Singer's essay "Animal Liberation" in the April 5, 1973, issue of The New York Review of Books did jump-start the modern animal rights movement.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1973/04/05/animal-liberation/

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Two other ways utilitarianism might contribute to public movements:

1) From the perspective of the 1960s, people do feel for soldiers both sides, but mainly just for wars from way back when like the First World War. And it might really help to have a here-and-now theory saying it's good and proper to sympathize for soldiers from both sides. And if that's too much a challenge, at least try to sympathize for the families. It's a little bit like the Bruce Lee idea, my enemy, myself.

2) A number of '60s radicals played the macho card and basically claimed they were more macho than the police and the entire system. For example, at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, although the police may have been 70% responsible, some of the activists certainly did their 30%. Some guy gave a speech and said, if there's going to be blood, let it not just be from our side. And the members in the violent groups certainly liked to posture that they were more macho than the police.

Now, the ideas of civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance redefined courage in some ways. If there was a second theory also redefining courage, perhaps playing off the first redefine and also the conventional views, that could have been a very big deal.
 
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Not sure that is accurate. The Catholic Church, for example, makes moral statements on the treatment of animals under the idea that animals belong to God and humans are commanded to be shepherds of creation. It does not place animals at the same level as humans, but to the is no argument for animal rights is uninformed.

Well, that's why I specified "created in God's image". I am not overly familiar with recent Catholic teaching on animals, but I would imagine, as you say, that it treats them as part of God's creation, but on a lower level than man, and hence in need of a modicum of protection. That's a bit different than saying that humans and animals have an equal right to protection from pain.
 
nestle_groundbreaking_boycott_saves_millions...-300x291.jpg


https://www.corporateaccountability...aking-boycott-saves-millions-of-infant-lives/

This is the anti-Nestle campaign which started in 1977.

We as human beings focus seemingly focus almost exclusively just on fairness. Utilitarianism is one of the theories which adds a whole new dimension by asking by simply, where can we do the most good?
 

Parfit's 1984 book included an amazing passage. There was a newspaper article which talked about the good news that the percentage of teen mothers had gone down, very standard fare. Then a man wrote to the paper and said, Hey, hey, my mom was a teenage mother, and I've had a pretty good life! Parfit goes on to conclude that the man would have waived his rights in order to exist.

And this is one of the things which gradually moved me from the standard position of being in favor of a smaller position to embracing a big population.

Oh, I started out probably like most of us believing that the 'population explosive' was a big problem, that fortunately the nice methods of education for girls and woman and social security worked the best, but they might not be enough, that we might need to move to the Chinese one-baby policy even with the lag time such an authoritarian policy would realistically require to get rolling, etc, etc.

But what if the person I love has her number spot between 7 and 8 billion so to speak? What if I myself?

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(a lot of the rest of the book is long and draw out, over academic, sorry but it is)

(kind of a shame practical activists—or just better, quicker writers!—didn't embrace and run with the theory of utilitarianism)
 
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and if you want something really cutting edge regarding abstract ethics over the last thirty years or so, Parfit initially talked about the "repugnant conclusion" or the "absurd conclusion."

basically is it better to have a relatively small population almost like certain Star Trek planets where people have lives of music, art, meaningful work, exploration, friendship, etc., or rather a very large population where people's lives are barely worth living but the total happiness might be quite a bit greater?

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/repugnant-conclusion/
(so abstract, the hypotheticals at times venture far afield into counter-factuals, but as always . . . your mileage may vary!)
 
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Please think of something like a local max in multi-dimensional hyperspace!


Meaning, in my view, it's not likely to be either of Parfit's crappy end points. It's likely to be something artfully in the middle. And there might be a number of different pretty good middles. :)

For example, an economist wrote a book entitled something like Messy, in which he argued that this is far more productive and resilient than a really organized system.
* Messy: How to Be Creative and Resilient in a Tidy-Minded World by Tim Harford
 
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"Parfit's 1984 book included an amazing passage. There was a newspaper article which talked about the good news that the percentage of teen mothers had gone down, very standard fare. Then a man wrote to the paper and said, Hey, hey, my mom was a teenage mother, and I've had a pretty good life! Parfit goes on to conclude that the man would have waived his rights in order to exist." I am reminded of the episode of Continuum where Liber8 tries to eliminate Keira by killing her grandmother. Keira saves her grandmother who is single and pregnant. She tells Keira that she is leaning towards having an abortion. Keira does not like that idea.
 
Just for the record, as a guy, I would not want to try to tell a woman or teenage girl what she should do regarding a pregnancy.

My family was crappy and dysfunctional in a number of ways, although now in my 50s it's somewhat better. And a crappy, dysfunctional family is only one of the possible challenges a pregnant woman might face.

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The point of some of my above posts regarding population is that I think most people probably think it's way too late, that the population's already way too large. Whereas some of the above thinking is saying, no, it's not too late. Not by a long shot.
 
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youtube: Hans Rosling's 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes - The Joy of Stats - BBC Four

Hans is this Swedish dude who waxes on the optimistic side. I like him! And he presents a case that the world's done pretty well between 1810 and 2010. :)
 
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