Is the abuse of a few justified in the name of saving lives in the majority? My take can be described as utilitarian, which dictates the moral action is one that maximizes utility in terms of pleasure, economic well-being and the lack of suffering. It is natural that people tend to choose the path that offers them a better quality of life, and society as a whole often leans in the same direction. Because individuals tend to pursue what is best for themselves, society often follows since such pursuit generally turns out to be the most idealistic approach. It sounds like a good idea, right?
Jeremy Bentham, one of the most prominent scholars in this theory, suggested there is a way to quantify personal and societal happiness. He took happiness as the measure for utility, “it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.” John Stuart Mill also suggested such idealism could be used to establish liberalism and embrace the implementation of laws and economies on the assumption of what is best—which is ironic in the sense that society creates laws to regulate personal behaviors, gradually limiting what one can pursue. The problem comes when idealism is used to quantify and is implemented in physical terms.
What is so bad about this, you ask? Its intent to benefit the maximum amount of people is certainly done in good faith. However beneficial it may seem, it does not mean this ideal is absent of faults. It is simply impossible to quantify emotional values. Not many people, practically no one actually, will be able to come up with a right answer in determining quantifications of emotions. This value tends to be unpredictable, especially in times of crisis.
According to this idea, it is justified to use nuclear weapons or extremely deadly machinery to end a war in the quickest way possible to minimize the damages and deaths. Or it could work against the moral wrong of ethnic genocide. If the majority of people think it is okay to deport or to massacre certain ethnic minorities, what would be able to stop that if the logic says it is rightful to do so? Society is the collective thoughts of people, however, in extreme cases, individuals instead of people determine the function of society.
Why does this matter? Maximizing benefits should not sacrifice the well-being of others with different values because it fits with the logic. Just because I think an action is the best, it should not be forced upon and used against other people. These people are just as human as I am. The reason why laws exist is to prevent certain abuses of personal selfishness in pursuing what is assumed to be the optimal thing. However, laws are not perfect either, which leads to the question of how people should behave in the context of an imperfect law.
The best thing is to not become the demons of ourselves—to achieve what works the best in certain situations, people should not sacrifice morals and abuse others to the point of losing their moral consciousness. If you allow yourself to be vulnerable to the evils of following what seems to be the optimal course for you, you could commit what is truly wrong and evil. People’s values should not be quantified to some degree because oftentimes too much trust in optimistic belief can result in tragedy. Or it allows the development of totalitarian communism in the name of spreading wealth to most people while sacrificing the rights to be individualistic.
I think postmodern society is still not free of this guilt, because as long as individuals and society pursue what functions best for the most people, there will always come a time where certain systems are implemented when they shouldn’t be. We may still pursue what seems to be right for most people, but we should not abuse the power of the majority to take away the rights of the few. We should consider the most harmonious outcomes possible, not what we are pursue as justification for our own tyranny. It is always better to think of what is right, rather than simply of what is best.
Hae Rin is a freshman majoring in history. What do you think of her take? Is the untilitarian approach morally flawed? Is this only the case in governmental practice? Tell us what you think. Please send all thoughts and comments to opinion@dailycardinal.com
