Studies Of Problems Of Prejudice And Self-interest In Utilitarianism

Facing the problems of prejudice and self-interest which challenge utilitarianism, utilitarians claimed an impartial viewpoint of moral judgement. This dissertation explained why impartiality is necessary, and some other conclusions which deduced from this quest of impartiality. The critique of prejudices are not only critiques of ideologies, but also inevitably run into a discussion of the relation between self-interest instinct and utilitarianism. This dissertation also investigates the place of social utility of self-interest, and tries to solve its contradiction with the principle of equal consideration of interests among all persons.In chapter one, I will introduce the greatest happiness principle and its antithesis: asceticism. Utilitarianism is the critique of ascetic prejudice. Bentham claimed that in most cases morals in our ordinary life agree with utilitarianism, including the moral behaviors of the ascetics. Asceticism is the misuse of utilitarianism. The true difference between utilitarianism and asceticism is that utilitarians believe that there is only one life-world, they refuse to calculate the pains and pleasures of afterlife. Utilitarianism is a form of secularism. Furthermore, utilitarianism only care for the future and presence, it refuses to acknowledge the authority of the past.George Moore criticised utilitarianism as’naturalistic fallacy’, but it was him, rather than Bentham, misunderstood Hume. Hume also claimed that all value judgements are related to’pleasure’and’pain’. Utilitarianism still embodies a form of metaphysics, namely the’equal consideration of interests’, though it is the simplest form among all moral philosophies. Therefore Utilitarianism is not amoralism.In this Chapter I will also clarify two limits of utilitarianism. The first one is, utilitarianism is not conservatism, because the critique of religious and all other traditional prejudices is a inalienable part of it, though utilitarianism also rejects the idea that all traditions are intrinsically undesirable, because a prejudice against tradition is just as bad as a prejudice supports it. The second one is, utilitarianism is not materialism. It does not assume that all pleasures and pains can be reduced into physical sensitivity.In the second chapter, I will mainly discuss the’equal consideration of interests’. This utilitarian interpretation of’equality’agrees with the greatest pleasure principle because it forbids any action which sacrifices greater pleasure of one person for the lesser pleasure of another, and it is incompatible with various ideological abuses of the concept of’equality’, utilitarians treat different people differently only because of the limit of our present political institution and the expectable human behavior out of self-interest. Utilitarianism does not erase the self-interest behavior, it uses a set of law to adjust the self-interest behavior of different persons and make them not contradictory with each other. Hare’s preference utilitarianism differs from classical utilitarianism in term of that it believes that every one knows his interest best, but classical utilitarianism believes it not. Therefore preference utilitarianism is the liberal version of utilitarianism, while classical utilitarianism does not take side between paternalism and liberalism.Chapter three mainly discusses the contemporary critique of utilitarianism of Rawls and Williams, which shed lights to new reflections of the moral practices of utilitarianism. First, Williams’s critique of utilitarianism forbids us to adopt a short-sighted calculation of the immediate utility of people while also proved that the absolutely impartial’point of view of the universe’of Sidgwick is impossible. utilitarians must be neither narrow-minded nor dissatisfied with the natural limits of our human faculty. One must admit that the power of reason is not omnipotent, while still try his best to use one’s reason to increase pleasures and reduce pains. Korsgaard compared utilitarianism and Kantian moral philosophy, he concluded that utilitarianism requires people to shoulder limitless responsibility for his or her actions, while Kantian moral philosophy set a certain limit of our moral duty, which is, from the utilitarian point of view, a prejudice to cover our moral weakness. Williams also criticised utilitarianism that it can not strictly forbid any behavior, this critique agrees with Rawls’s idea that utilitarianism can not criticise slavery.The answer to Rawls’s critique of utilitarianism that this moral philosophy can not criticise any behavior, including slavery, is:by demonstrating slavery must be established on prejudice, utilitarianism can criticise slavery by dissolving its ideological foundation. Furthermore, utilitarians accept that just as Rawls pointed out, utilitarianism is a kind of perfectionism. However, This perfectionism does not assume perfection is a state of affair which can be achieved by the power of humanity, but a perfectionism which encourages humanity to improve itself in a limitless quest. Utilitarianism does not see morals as justifications and comforts of human psychological instincts, but the strength of conquering prejudices created by these psychological illusions when they are contradictory to greater happiness. Rawls also suggested that the greatest difference between utilitarianism and his theory of justice is that utilitarianism sees the idea of’right’and all moral rules as useful or harmful illusions, while theories of justice see them as true basis of our morality. On the issue of our multicultural reality, John Gray pointed out that utilitarianism can indeed keep an impartial viewpoint, not between different contradictory prejudices, but by dissolving every prejudice. Therefore though the utilitarian solution of cultural relativism in our multicultural reality is theoretically possible, it faces great difficulty in the practice of our contemporary cultural context.The fourth chapter deals with the question by what means utilitarianism could overcome the problems brought by’prejudice’and’self-interest’, utilitarians acknowledge a certain set of rules not for the lack of information which will discourage us to measure the utility of possible actions and encourage following a set of rules. The so called’rule-utilitarianism’can be reduced to act-utilitarianism without ’enough’ information, and should not contradict act utilitarianism. Furthermore, because self-interest motivation is the most stable motivation of human nature, and self-interest behavior is the most predictable behavior, we can use a set of laws to conduct the self-interest behavior for universal good. However, utilitarianism does not claim that to obey the law is always moral, and the judgement of’legitimate’is independent from the judgement of’good’. Therefore, political institutions and the laws are artifices invented for a utilitarian calculation of the economics of happiness of the whole society.In this chapter I will also draw a distinction between the comparability and homogeneity of values. Utilitarianism only claims that all values are comparable, and does not assume that they are homogeneous. Since every one lives in a limited life-world, utilitarianism does not expect us to judge everything’s value impartially with a consistent quantified standard. As long as we are making choices between different values, we should admit that these values are comparable, no matter whether they are homogeneous or not. Utilitarianism is a theory of all values and should not limit itself within the narrow sphere of market, and it does not assume all values could be mathematically measured by the quantity of currency, because this ambition requires the’point of view of the universe’, which is far beyond our faculty of reason.