Why Acting In The Greater Good Is Unrealistic
The story of Joe Biden and Tara Reade is one of the examples of the many ethical limits of utilitarianism.
A doctor in an emergency room only has five doses left of a very scarce medicine. In an unusual scenario, she's left with six patients who need the drug to survive. One patient is critically ill and requires all five doses of the medicine. The others need a single amount. Should the doctor divide up the drug and let the one patient die? Is saving five lives better than saving one? What if that one patient were you?
You are in a boat. Two people on your left are drowning in a lake. On the right, you see one other person drowning. You are slightly closer to the one person, but you realize saving two lives is better than one. What if that one person is a scientist who is on the verge of discovering the cure for cancer? If he stays alive, he will save millions of people from dying. Indeed saving the one will result in the greatest good. The other two are high school kids who dropped out the day before and were high on methamphetamine. You don't know these details at the moment. Isn't it challenging to know if your actions will generate the greatest good?
A patient who has been in an automobile accident with serious injuries is admitted to a hospital. The patient can be saved if there is an operation. The doctor notices that the patient is an organ donor. Five other people in the hospital need his organs at that very moment. They all will die without his vital organs—the ones he’s chosen to donate. These other patients have been waiting for months for a human like him. He’s the one with the vital organs who, we are assuming, are a match for the ones they need. The doctor must choose to operate and remove the accident victim's organs—killing him so the other five can live. Let's add the puzzle of each person's contribution to society—the organ donor had a low contribution, similar to the kids mentioned in the example above.
Utilitarianism is a moral doctrine that states we should act to produce the greatest possible balance of good over bad for everyone affected by our actions. Actions themselves are morally neutral. It depends on their consequences as to whether they're good or bad. Apart from consideration of such implications, actions are neither blameworthy nor praiseworthy. In other words, utilitarian actions aren't necessarily good or bad but are widely believed to have good or bad consequences.
The question is, how do we know precisely what "good" and "bad" consequences are? Whose opinion of what are "good" effects and what are "bad" results counts most? Failure to give coherent and rational criteria for answering such questions spells decisive defeat for Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism always leads to the arbitrary judgment of consequences, and therefore arbitrary ethics.
Utilitarianism can allow for any action to occur, as long as it generates the greatest good for the greatest number. Even the vilest evil acts can be acceptable if it causes the most good. If you were faced with a situation where the greatest good would come from lying, cheating, stealing, or killing, should you do those particular actions? Does that seem ethical?
If I could cheat on my wife with my female boss without my wife discovering the affair to get a $50,000 raise, wouldn't this action be suitable for my family? There would be a lot less financial stress, and my wife might be able to work part-time. She could finally spend more time with our kids as she desired, and we could save more money for college.
Was dropping the atomic bomb on Japan a good idea since it potentially saved more lives than it lost?
Let us imagine 1 million people who don't want to pay more taxes for social welfare programs. Then imagine there are 50 million people who would benefit from said social programs. A utilitarian would say the action which brings the most people happiness is the right one. What if your taxes were raised to pay for this greater good?
The responses to these scenarios vary depending on one's stance on ethics. For a utilitarian, the answer might be to save the most people or save the person(s) who make the most significant contributions to society.
I first heard about the concept of Utilitarianism a few months ago. Linda Hirshman wrote an op-ed in The New York Times called, "I Believe Tara Reade. I'm Voting for Joe Biden Anyway. The importance of owning an ugly moral choice." It was interesting to me because she discussed a concept that applies to what's going on today with the pandemic.
In the example of Tara Reid, she accused Joe Biden of sexual assault. In the spring of 1993, she said that Mr. Biden cornered her in a deserted hallway of the Capitol complex, pinned her against a wall, reached under her skirt, and penetrated her with his fingers.
This was damaging to the Biden campaign a few months ago. We seemed to have forgotten all about that with everything else happening in 2020. The truth may not ever see the light of day at this point, but there was a lot of pushback from progressives who were determined to defeat Donald Trump. They were willing to do anything, even if it meant sacrificing one of their own, for the greater good.
Linda Hirshman wrote:
So what is the greatest good or the greatest harm? Mr. Biden, and the Democrats he may carry with him into government, are likely to do more good for women and the nation than his competition, the worst president in the history of the Republic. Compared with the good Mr. Biden can do, the cost of dismissing Tara Reade — and, worse, weakening the voices of future survivors — is worth it. And don't call me an amoral realist. Utilitarianism is not a moral abdication; it is a moral stance.
Utilitarianism arose from the Industrial Revolution, a time of terrible economic inequality and abuse. It was intended to make a moral claim for the equality of all creatures who can feel pain and experience pleasure.
Weigh it: Don't a few extra cents for each worker matter more than the marginal dollar for the boss? Weigh it: Won't the good for all the Americans who will benefit from replacing Donald Trump with Joe Biden, including the masses of women who will get some crumbs, count for more than the harm done to the victims of abuse?
Utilitarian morality requires that I turn my face away from the people I propose to sell out: Monica Lewinsky, Tara Reade. This is agonizingly hard for me to do. Pretending not to believe the complainants — which is what is taking place with Ms. Reade — or that they're loose nobodies, which is what much of the media did to Ms. Lewinsky, is just an escape from the hard work of moral analysis.
And it adds to the harm. How is feminism advanced by casting a reasonably credible complainant as a liar? Better to just own up to what you are doing: sacrificing Ms. Reade for the good of the many.
Contemplating the act makes me feel a little like Gloria Steinem circa 1998. I was so sure I'd never do what she did, and I still think saving Mr. Clinton for two years at the cost to Ms. Lewinsky was a terrible move.
Ethical theories do a poor job accounting for what shapes moral judgments. Should feminists throw Tara Reade under the bus for the greater good of our country? What if Tara Reade were you or someone you knew? Is dismissing the 'Tara Reade's of the world morally permissible since it supposedly benefits most people?
According to the greater good theory (Utilitarianism), the more happiness and less suffering that results from our actions, the better the action is. The right action is the one that produces the greatest balance of pleasure over suffering. Any other action is morally wrong. It's supposed to be absolute and all-encompassing. It admits of no exceptions.
Many of us use this type of moral reasoning regularly. When asked to explain why we feel we have a moral duty to perform some action, we often point to the good that will come from the action or the harm it will prevent. Business analysts, legislators, and scientists weigh daily the resulting benefits and harms of policies when deciding, for example, whether to invest resources in a particular public project, whether to approve a new drug, or whether to ban a specific pesticide.
During the height of the mask wars, I kept hearing government officials saying, "Wear a mask, not to protect yourself, wear it to protect others." We were to wear a mask for the "greater good." I immediately found that statement bizarre. How could I protect others from a disease I was tested negative for? Also, why is it my responsibility to protect others?
When a person travels on a commercial airline, the crew's instructions inform us that oxygen masks will drop from above in the event of a loss of cabin pressure. They tell us to put on your mask first, then put a mask on your loved ones after yours is secure. Why do they do this? It's because you can't help your family if you are struggling for oxygen. That makes sense to me.
Few people are entirely motivated by the collective good, and I'd suggest, very few elected officials in government are Utilitarians—given that those who pursue political power do not always have the public's best interests in mind.
The critical distinction between the actions of those in economic power and those in political power is cooperation. The person in political power can coerce, so altruistic actions may be superfluous, and collaboration may be optional. Politicians generally act in the collective interest if that interest coincides with their self-interest—re-election and higher political status.
What I see now from our elected officials, especially the ones in New York, is coercion. Is what they are doing now about the collective good? Is shuttering businesses, with no end game, saving lives or making things worse? Much of New York City is still shuttered. New York state has shut down the economy, demanded people to wear a mask, asked citizens and business owners to suffer because it's allegedly better than letting lots of people die, even though millions more have lost their livelihood. Is that in the greater good? For whom?
Weigh it: Don't a few people getting sick outweigh the enormous societal costs? In many cities, the breakdown of law and order is partially due to the lingering effects of perpetual shutting down of entire industries, people being unemployed, frustrated, and feeling helpless. Weigh it: Won't the good for all the Americans who will benefit from reopening every sector of society count for more than the harm done to the minority of people who have been sick from COVID-19 or even died?
Clayton Craddock is an independent thinker, father of two beautiful children in New York City. He is the drummer of the hit broadway musical Ain't Too Proud. He earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from Howard University's School of Business and is a 25 year veteran of the fast-paced New York City music scene. He has played drums in several hit broadway and off-broadway musicals, including "Tick, tick…BOOM!, Altar Boyz, Memphis The Musical, and Lady Day At Emerson's Bar and Grill. Also, Clayton has worked on: Footloose, Motown, The Color Purple, Rent, Little Shop of Horrors, Evita, Cats, and Avenue Q.
I loathe utilitarianism. To me it’s a justification for abandoning principles for convenience and claiming moral superiority. No one has access to enough information to weigh what is “the greater good” and even that is a definition that varies based on who you ask. That is why principles matter. Acting in a certain way, via a set of principles, no matter what the situation, avoids the “slippery morals” of utilitarians.