Leadership and Ethics Lesson 8

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Leadership and EthicsLesson 8

• Utilitarianism
• Morality should be like a science, and its
  judgments should proceed on the basis of logic
  and evidence.
• Jeremy Bentham

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Utilitarianism

• Utility or Greatest Happiness Principle
• Actions are right in proportion to producing
  happiness
• Right actions results in happiness
• Actions are wrong as they tend to produce the
  reverse
• Wrong actions results in pain or unhappiness
• An act is good or bad, right or wrong, depending
  on the consequences it produces
• If consequences are good, the act is good
• If consequences are bad, the act is bad
• One should always act so as to bring about the
  greatest good for the greatest number

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Omelas
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Utilitarian Reasoning

• Positives
• Maximizes greater good (happiness) for greater
  number
• Goal oriented
• Military is about achieving victory (good
  consequence)
• Winning in battle often involves sacrifice
• We are all volunteers and have signed up for this
• Everyone affected gets a vote
• Not a Godless doctrine

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Extreme Measures
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Utilitarian Reasoning

• Negatives
• Hard to measure (quantify) happiness and greater
  good
• Consequences may not be known at decision time
• The ends could justify any (immoral) means
• Individual is sacrificed for the good of the
  whole
• Tyranny of the majority
• Judges the act not the person
• Does not consider intentions or motives

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Dr. Strangelove
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Benthams Hedonistic Utilitarianism

• Simple maximize pleasure and minimize suffering
• Scientific make quantitative measurements and
  apply the principle impartially
• Hedonic calculus summing the seven aspects of a
  painful or pleasurable experience
• Intensity
• Duration
• Certainty
• Nearness
• Fruitfulness
• Purity
• Extent

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Mills Eudaimonistic Utilitarianism

• Defines happiness in terms of certain types of
  higher-order pleasures or satisfactions as well
  as in terms of minimum suffering
• Two types of pleasure
• Lower eating, drinking, resting, sexuality, etc
• Higher intellectuality, creativity,
  spirituality, etc
• Its better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig
  satisfied

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Contemporary Types of Utilitarianism

• Act Utilitarianism An act is right if and only
  if it results in as much good as any available
  alternative
• Rule Utilitarianism An act is right if and only
  if it is required by a rule that is itself a
  member of a set of rules whose acceptance would
  lead to greater utility for society than any
  available alternative
• Levels of rules
• Lowest level set of utility maximizing rules of
  thumb
• Second order set of conflict resolving rules
• Highest level remainder rule of art
  utilitarianism

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Live or Let Die?

• You are a battlefield surgeon
• A wounded soldier has been in a coma for several
  days
• Doctors believe he has brain damage and are not
  certain he will ever recover
• A group of badly wounded soldiers arrive in need
  of immediate help
• They need four different organs to live
• If you take the four organs from the comatose
  soldier, you can save these four people
• What do you do?

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Crimson Tide
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Moral Almanac

• We shouldnt have to derive right and wrong, in
  specific instances each time we face a dilemma,
  directly from the basic rules of morality
• We may not have the time or luxury to do a cost
  or risk benefit analysis
• We have a moral almanac the rules, laws,
  religious teachings, moral traditions and customs
  from the past all of which reflect accumulated
  human wisdom about the kinds of action and
  policies that tend to promote utility

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Takeaways

• Utilitarianism is a consequential theory of
  ethics
• An act is right or wrong depending on the
  consequences
• Principle of Utility (or principle of great
  happiness)
• Actions are right in proportion as they tend to
  promote happiness wrong as they tend to promote
  the reverse of happiness
• The greatest happiness of all of those whose
  interest is in question is the right and proper
  action
• Performs 3 vital functions
• Explains the foundations and offers justification
  for our moral rules, laws, and customs OR
• Exposes the inadequacy of unjust laws or customs
  that do not promote utility and
• Offers us a means for resolving conflicts between
  rules and laws, or deciding cases on which
  traditional moral rules and laws are silent

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Leadership and Ethics

• Next Class
• Applying Utilitarianism Calculus
• Reading assignment
• Leave No One Behind (CSME 3-5)
• Hiroshima The First Use of Nuclear Weapons
  (CSME 59-60)