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Consequentialism and utilitarianism
- In consequentialism, the moral value of an action lies in the consequences or results it produces.
- The range of consequences that factor into a moral evaluation determines the form of consequentialism. If one seeks only to maximize good for oneself, then one is an
egoist .
Utilitarians , on the other hand, try to maximize the good for all of those who are affected by the action.
- Utilitarianism is based on a
principle of utility : Choose that action or policy that maximizes utility, that is, brings about the
greatest good for the greatest number .
- Utility is maximized by producing the greatest quantity of good things in conjunction with the smallest quantity of bad things. So
hedonists seek to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. Other utilitarians seek to maximize things of
intrinsic value (happiness, truth, beauty, friendship, knowledge) while minimizing things of negative value.
Individual preference utilitarians seek to produce conditions where the maximum number of people can satisfy their preferences while minimizing conditions that frustrate the satisfaction of these individual preferences.
- A utilitarian-based decision requires going through several steps: (1) Determine the likely results of your action; (2)Determine the magnitude and range of these results by looking at how severe the impact are and how many people would be affected; (3) Sort these results into positive (goods/values/preferences/benefits) and negative (bads/lack of value/frustrated preferences/harms) categories; (4) Do this for all the available alternatives; (5)Determine which maximizes positives and minimizes negatives, i.e., determine which is utility maximizing.
Utilitarianism and decision making
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Determine the likely results of your action.
- Estimate the magnitude and range of these results.
Magnitude is the severity of the impact. Does it lead to catastrophic harms? Uncertain but potentially great benefits? Are the impacts negligible in terms of their severity?
Range focuses on the numbers of groups and individuals who feel the action's impacts. Are the impacts distributed over many people and groups or just a few? Considering the range and magnitude helps to identify the most important consequences and to set aside those least important.
- Sort out the likely results with significant magnitudes and ranges into positive and negative categories. Positive consequences includes goods, values, preferences, and benefits. They also extended to rights protected or promoted. Negative consequences include bads, disvalues, frustrated preferences, and harms.
- Repeat steps one through three for several courses of action. Come up with a rough calculation of positive and negative results factoring in the magnitude and range of these.
- Determine which solution maximizes positive results and minimizes negative results. This will give you the utility-maximizing solution
Calculating utility using markets (based on sagoff (1986)
- Your neighborhood has a vacant lot. After several years of disuse, different local special interest groups contend over how it should be used.
- A nation-wide department store chain wants to build a large store on this lot. The store would be surrounded by a parking lot. This would provide you and your neighbors with cheap goods. It would provide employment but would also seriously undermine some of the more traditional stores in your area.
- A local environmental group has petitioned the state to set aside this area as a nature preserve or park. It could serve as a buffer that would help contain pollution from the city. It would also provide recreation opportunities for you and your neighbors.
- Preference utilitarianism would create hypothetical markets to measure the value of these different use options. The utility maximizing solution would turn the land over to the most highly valued use.
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Willingness to pay : One way to find out how intensely you and your neighbors value turning the land over to recreation and park use would be to survey you all on whether and by how much would you be willing to have your taxes raised to buy this land and set it aside for park recreation use. If this willingness to pay higher taxes expressed by you and your neighbors exceeds the price the department store chain is willing to pay, then this would indicate that your preferences are more intense and utility would be maximized by satisfying them.
- But many object to the use of willingness to pay as a measure of preference intensity. Willingness to pay, they claim, is limited by ability to pay and while the national store chain may prefer it less, they may have more disposable income. A better measure of how the community values this land and the uses it may be put to, is to assume they own it and then ask how much they would be willing to accept from those who want to purchase it and use it to build a department store.
Willingness to sell is less dependent on disposable income and therefore a better measure of how a commodity or utility is valued.
- Which measure do you think best records utility, willingness to pay or willingness to sell? Why?
- Could hypothetical markets be used to determine how much you value keeping your personal information private? Can we convert privacy to intellectual property and then calculate its value in terms of willingness to pay or willingness to sell? Or is privacy a distinct right whose value is intrinsic and cannot be subjected to actual or hypothetical markets?
Source:
OpenStax, Engineering ethics modules for ethics across the curriculum. OpenStax CNX. Oct 08, 2012 Download for free at http://legacy.cnx.org/content/col10552/1.3
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