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5/4/22, 1:00 AM Launchpad: Introduction to Utilitarianism : UCOR 2910 02 22SQ Ethical Reasoning in Business

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Launchpad: Introduction to Utilitarianism

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5/4/22, 1:00 AM Launchpad: Introduction to Utilitarianism : UCOR 2910 02 22SQ Ethical Reasoning in Business

https://seattleu.instructure.com/courses/1603225/pages/launchpad-introduction-to-utilitarianism 2/5

As we enter into our modern capitalist world and its mechanistic view of nature, we will see that utilitarianism emerges as its natural ethical framework because it also functions in an entirely mechanical and calculating way.

Of course virtue ethics and utilitarianism both use the words "good" and "happiness" in a central way to their ethical reasoning. Some philosophers have even lumped these two theories under the category of "consequentialism" because they consider actions according to their consequences for obtaining happiness. But there are very important differences between these two frameworks -- and they come about from the important historical changes to society and the economy that we've already explored. The key will be to understand their differing senses of the normative form of human nature. My lecture notes comparing and contrasting virtue ethics and utilitarianism (https://seattleu.instructure.com/courses/1603225/files/68034376/download?wrap=1) (https://seattleu.instructure.com/courses/1603225/files/68034376/download? download_frd=1) provides some ways to think about their main differences. But before you begin comparing and contrasting the two frameworks, I want you to dive into the works of Bentham and then Mill. There is a nice simplicity to their ethical reasoning that many have been drawn toward. We will want to first spell out the simple thread, but then ask bigger questions about it, especially whether it is too reductive and not comprehensive enough for understanding our qualitatively complex human nature.

Jeremy Bentham provided the first detailed philosophical account of utilitarianism. Writing during the rise of the English industrial revolution, he wanted to accommodate the commercialization of society with a simple method of ethical calculation no different from determining market values. He measures and calculates pains and pleasures just as an accountant takes up cost-benefit analysis. We want to understand not only his method, but his presuppositions about human nature that led him to develop his ethical reasoning. Some key questions to ask while reading Bentham:

How does he understand human beings and the nature of society (what does he call community)?

Is the human anything more than an individualistic pleasure-seeking machine? is society a whole greater than the sum of its parts?

5/4/22, 1:00 AM Launchpad: Introduction to Utilitarianism : UCOR 2910 02 22SQ Ethical Reasoning in Business

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Or is it nothing more than an aggregate of private individuals competing against each other? What's the difference in such understandings of society, and why would it matter for how we understand ethics? (remember the historical origins of ethics as both an individual and collective endeavor to determine the common good together)

More Key Questions to Ask If happiness is equated solely with physical pleasure and the avoidance of pain, can this account for the rich complexities of our human desires, especially insofar as they are educated and refined into higher forms? Don't we desire more than just physical pleasures? Is it really true that the only evidence for something being desirable is whether people actually desire it? There are many things that people desire that might not be truly good and desirable, just as there are many things good for us that a majority might not happen to actually desire.

Are there certain objects that should attract our desire for their own sake, or is desire nothing other than the subjective feelings and preferences we project onto whatever?

Does the logic here assume that humanity is anything more than an aggregate of individualistically consuming animals?

John Stuart Mill learned from Bentham as his student, and while he accepted the main thrust of Bentham's utilitarianism, he also saw some of its shortcomings and tried to provide more nuanced answers to the questions above. The lecture notes for Bentham (https://seattleu.instructure.com/courses/1603225/files/68034406/download? wrap=1) (https://seattleu.instructure.com/courses/1603225/files/68034406/download? download_frd=1) and the lecture notes for Mill (https://seattleu.instructure.com/courses/1603225/files/68034358/download?wrap=1) (https://seattleu.instructure.com/courses/1603225/files/68034358/download? download_frd=1) break down the argument of both and should help you better understand what is at stake in their arguments. But let me provide some brief key ideas to think about with John Stuart Mill's views.

Key Points for Mill

5/4/22, 1:00 AM Launchpad: Introduction to Utilitarianism : UCOR 2910 02 22SQ Ethical Reasoning in Business

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You will see in Mill's work and in my lecture notes on Mill, that he is not entirely satisfied with the simplistic utilitarian logic and its presupposed view of human nature. Try to follow the ways he begins to press against it as he argues that there are some qualities distinctive to human nature that are higher than others and therefore require a higher level of satisfaction. And especially ask whether he can make such an argument within the original logic of utilitarianism provided by Bentham without transforming it in the direction of virtue ethics.

One key point that we need to reflect on in Mill is his critical application of his ethics to an economic analysis. The more Mill provides a nuanced challenge within utilitarianism the more he is forced to critique business as usual within the capitalist economy of his day. This seems to be especially the case when he articulates a normative sense of human nature more in line with virtue ethics. As we saw last week with Merchant's reading, the modern mechanized view of nature sees humans as essentially egotistical pleasure machines because it is based in a mode of privately owned production organized solely for exchange value and thus private profit. But Mill begins to question this view of humanity, as noted above, claiming we have higher social qualities much like Aristotle. I want you all to reflect on what this means for Mill's analysis of political economy. Like virtue ethics he is concerned that our economic relations of production are producing only worker bees or herd animals rather than realizing our truly human capacities. Try to follow especially his critical view of the capitalist relations of production, what he means by a cooperative restructuring, and why he sees a transformation toward a cooperative structure as necessary for fulfilling humanity.

1. What is dehumanizing about capitalist relations of production? 2. What does he mean by cooperative relations of production? Notice that Mill does

not necessarily endorse certain state-socialist notions of government ownership of production. So under his cooperative principles and structures, who would own society's means of production?

3. And why is this change in ownership a necessary transformation for humanity to ethically flourish?

4. What is his presupposed view of human nature that seems to be driving this critical intervention?

5/4/22, 1:00 AM Launchpad: Introduction to Utilitarianism : UCOR 2910 02 22SQ Ethical Reasoning in Business

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The big question to ask moving forward, which Aristotle already presented, but Mill brings back to the fore against Bentham:

If we believe human nature holds higher rational potentials and social qualities beyond the utilitarian view, then how can we continue to justify the private ownership of society's means of production and its use for private profit, rather than production as more adequately democratized and for the purpose of meeting our real social needs?