Moral Reasoning
The Problems of Utilitarianism Utilitarianism is both a system of ethics and a method of moral reasoning which many people find attractive. Its appeal lies, in part, in its simplicity. Utilitarianism distills moral decision making into a simple formula, where the “morally correct” decision is essentially guided by the question 'Which option will bring about the best outcome?' This short primer will explain utilitarian reasoning and point out some of its problems, including the way it finds itself in tension with the Moral Law. Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) is generally considered the “father” of utilitarianism, since it was his writings that first gave voice to what became known as the “principle of utility.” All moral decision making, he thought, could be guided by a single principle. The supreme principle of ethics, he argued, required a moral calculation focused on what would tend to bring about the most happiness and avoid the most amount of suffering. Since utilitarian decision making implies there is only one option that would bring about the most happiness, it suggests there is a single option I should choose, which is the “right” action. All others are “wrong.” Therefore, the rightness and wrongness of every act, Bentham would say, depends upon whether or not it promises to bring about the best outcome.
A follower of Bentham, John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), added to the principle the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. The “right” thing to do, Mill claimed, will always create the greatest overall state of happiness, which likewise involves a minimal amount of suffering for the most people. In this way, the utilitarian principle seems to have benevolence, or a concern for all mankind, built into its basic formula. For the utilitarian, this simple principle unlocks the secret of morality.
The main problem with utilitarianism is not so much its concern for the happiness of all people (ie. the common good) or the high regard it places on the consequences of actions. It's clear both have an important role to play in moral reasoning. The main problem occurs when the utilitarian calculus comes in conflict with the Moral Law. Here's an example. The Ten Commandments say that murder, the deliberate killing of an innocent person, is evil and should never be done. Imagine a situation in which a government might think that by killing one, innocent person, a whole nation could be saved. Following the principle of utility, the right thing to do would be to sacrifice one person for the good of the whole, provided this were to bring about the most happiness or best outcome for the most amount of people.
While this example might seem a bit far-fetched, it is the exact line of reasoning Caiaphas used to justify the death of Jesus Christ: “it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed” (John 11:50). Utilitarian reasoning, in this case, would not necessarily consider the murder of Jesus, an innocent man, wrong or evil. Instead, to not kill Christ might in this case seem the wrong thing to do, since to let him live, according to Caiaphas, would result in the destruction of Israel and the misery of tens of thousands of people. It seems that Christ, by the way his own death came about, perhaps teaches us something about the moral danger present in all utilitarian calculations. Caiaphas’s utilitarian justification, rather ironically, provided the moral encouragement needed for man to kill God.
There are obvious problems with this method of reasoning. First, the principle of utility relies entirely on a future prediction of “the most happiness” or “the best outcome” as foreseen by the person making the decision. Caiaphas, in this example, arguably had no way of reliably knowing whether or not Jesus would cause the Romans to destroy Israel, but he did know, because of the natural law, that he was calling for the death of an innocent man. Future suppositions are inherently uncertain, whereas knowing which human acts are evil is, for most people, as St. Paul says, “written on their hearts” (Romans 2:15). The second source of moral error is that the utilitarian principle allows evil to be done so that some greater good might come about. The ends, then, justify the means. According to the principle of utility, murder, then, is not always evil, because the principle says the only measures of right and wrong or good versus evil are the consequences. In contrast, a person using natural law reasoning would say that even if the death of Christ could save Israel from destruction, it would still be wrong. Murder, because it is contrary to the supreme wisdom that is written into the Moral Law of God, is always prohibited.
The main difference between natural law and utilitarian reasoning is that according to the natural law, there are some human acts that are, in and of themselves, always evil, regardless of the good consequences they might seemingly bring about. Because of this tension, many Christian philosophers maintain that utilitarian reasoning is, in itself, not compatible with the Moral Law of God, the law revealed in Holy Scripture and made self-evident through the proper exercise of human reason.